I play Persia last 2-3 days, and I'm wondering about the proper tech order for a Domination victory when you play with XBs. These are my issues
1. I do Liberty, 3 cities, get 7 archers 1-2 immortals and get 1 capital. (Basically I get luxury techs, Philosophy, then into Construction as I wait for Representation. I push around t.77-80)
2. After the initial push, I go straight to Machinery and try to steal Theology/Education from other allies.
3. Most of the time, I notice my Universities come online about t. 120-30 or so. Then I go to Dynamite.
4. Around t. 175-180 I get Dynamite. Upgrade my cannons and then push.
However, by the time I get a couple cities, if I don't have a big tech lead over my opponent (or worse if he's ahead of me) we get to t.215 or so and my opponent (if he has been teching well) get bombers. Now my army of artilleries and cavalries and rifles dont do anything vs bombers, they just clean them up. If I sue for peace and wait for my own bombers/AA guns, that means around 20-30 turns of preperation. By the time I'm finally done with him the game will most likely get to late turns for a DomV.
So my question is, what is the proper order? I searched for it in forums and there's the thread below, but I'm still confused.
1.Should I go Education-Machinery and hope to conq just 1 opponent with XBs (so that I can get a faster Dynamite/Bombers) and then go Dynamite?
2. Should I go Education-Scientific Theory and then Dynamite? My personal experience has led me to believe this leads to a push timing around earliest of t.200. I kind of feel this is late, however I'm not sure if I can get to Flight/Ballistics faster this way, if so I'll consider it.
3. Or is Philosophy-Machinery-Dynamite still better? I felt like this left me too much behind in tech (Although I was only 5 techs behind of Assyria, he got to flight before me so that wasnt good I guess)
4. Is there a better way to deal with GWBs regardsless of your tech order and AA guns, where the situation is your ground army is faring pretty well but your opponent has 6-12 GWBs?
Thanks for answers.