Research Strategy

Edit: oops, was looking at the wrong forum. Will ask a moderator to move it to the citizens forum... Sorry about cluttering things up...

OK, time for one last Science discussion prior to end of term 2...

There are several potential strategies we could follow for the Middle Ages. The choice of a strategy will drive the first few techs that get researched in this New Age.

One approach is to head for Gunpowder, to discover if we have saltpeter, and if not who does, so we can then decide whether to buy it or take it by force. Along the way, the opportunity to build Sun Tzu's and Leonardo's come up. With our glorious, non-upgradable legions comprising the bulk of the military, this may not be a good choice.

Another route is to get Chivalry quickly, to build Knights which will later be upgraded to cavalry. This can be a powerful way to go when aiming for domination, especially if there are horsemen to upgrade and gold to do the upgrades. Our desired goal appears to be spaceship, which would lean towards skipping all non-required tech other than Democracy, and we can never upgrade to Knights, they would have to be built from scratch.

The other main possibility is to aim for Education. This path gets us the "required" pre-reqs for Democracy, stops the AI who owns the Great Library from getting free tech, and allows us to build universities for the science boost (and culture). Early education and lots of library / university combos leads to a fast tech rate, a must when the objective is spaceship. It has the side benefit of opening up Sistine Chapel as the route to happieness.

I think Education is the route to go, and we should go straight there without pausing to research Republic ourselves.

OK, d........thread is moved.

Actually, I am warming up to the "beeline for Democracy" idea, as it means we won't have to research Republic. This means that once we get Currency, we can enter the Middle Ages with no looking back.

Due to the size of our nation, I would like to head for Democracy via Theology so that we may build the Sistine Chapel. Of course, we will have to make the extra investment for Cathedrals but this should be well worth it.

For those wanting more blood in our future(by pursuing a more military tech path), I would once again like to point out that we have the equivalent of Musketmen in our Legions and will enjoy that benefit for quite some time. If we fiercely defend the small patch of land that separates us from Egypt and raise an adequate navy, we should be able to stave off aggressors without going on the offense for useless land.

As I posted in Peri's "Monarchy?" thread, I also agree that Education should be our first objective. I do not think we should waste time on Chivalry or Military Tradition. I also think that it would be better to bring the lower portion of the tech tree up to Gunpowder before heading to Democracy, with the exception of Music Theory so that we might buildJS Bach's Cathedral.

I also agree with DZ about our Legionaries being equal to Pikemen and damn near as good as Musketmen.