avoiding fishing for better bulbing

what are peoples' opinions on holding off on fishing for better bulbing options?



the reason that i'm curious is that i'm in a position to trade mansa math for alphabet and fishing (but no money) anyway, is it worth it? most early great people tend to be scientists, and if you skip fishing, it allows the great scientists to bulb:

Aesthetics (BTS)
Metal Casting
Gunpowder
Engineering
Machinery
Gunpowder
and
Liberalism


so what are the better gambits that i haven't tried yet?

and before anybody points it out, bulbs are also going to favor paper, education, philosophy and astronomy, et al.

Aesthetics is pretty cheap; I'd only bulb it as a move of last resort (if your economy is absolutely wrecked and you simply can't research it on your own). Otherwise I'd save the GS and bulb something more expensive later instead.
Calendar requires Sailing.
Metal Casting is also cheap, and high-priority for the AI, so I'd try to trade for it instead of bulbing it generally.
Engineering just isn't worth bulbing. It's not that great of a tech, and the AIs always beeline it and trade it cheaply anyways.
Liberalism, it's often easier to avoid later techs than Fishing. For example, don't get Machinery, and you'll be able to bulb Lib. after getting Compass and Calendar (and Education); you can usually trade for Compass and Calendar without actually wasting any time teching those, so it doesn't slow you down at all.

Bulbing Machinery is a fairly common play if you want early xbows. Problem with using a GS for it is that you have to get a whole bunch of other techs first (Mathematics, Alphabet, Aesthetics), so it's not always the fastest way to bulb Machinery.

Bulbing Gunpowder is an interesting thought. I could definitely see that being of use if you were Ethiopia and going for fast Oromos. Oracle and bulb down the Guilds line, as if you were going for fast-knights, then carry it one step further to bulb gunpowder. If you're not Ethiopia or Ottoman, though, I'm not sure how useful it would be. Muskets (without drafting) are weaker than knights + spies, and it takes one more tech to get there. Maybe as part of an epic game-long Steel beeline...?

Generally if you have planned to bulb something from the start.

If I'm rushing knights or xbows I'll skip fishing to bulb machinery. I almost never bulb engineering but you can if you're going that route.

If you don't yet know what tech path your going to take then I wouldn't hold out on fishing.

For rushing to knights don't you need a way to come up with a merchant?

For a merchant to bulb guilds you need col so getting one isn't too hard for the bulb, opening up the guild bulb is harder

Habitus said:

For a merchant to bulb guilds you need col so getting one isn't too hard for the bulb, opening up the guild bulb is harder

Click to expand...

Yes and no. It's very easy to get 1-2 gsci early on (depending if you feel you can pull a 3rd in time and therefore make an academy) and if you don't have fishing, bulb machinery. However, getting CoL means either self research or trade, then revolt, then run merchants. This is IMO consistently slower than just using 2nd or 3rd guy on engineering (trebs, pikes available) so the knights really need to make up for it...not to mention merchant doesn't exactly bulb 100% of guilds.

On the bright side, caste + guilds workshops have the same efficiency as mines. Even so a longbow behind walls with 25% fortify will defend at 12 str unpromoted, meaning you still need siege help too (which would slow knights down) or take a lot of trades that favor the AI BEFORE bonuses (notable exception I can think of is cataphracts of course).

All told, you can probably get BC's knights if the trade opportunities are there but can you produce enough of them to matter before the AI starts fielding some units that at least make war too costly?

I guess you could do some stack-splitting pre-bombardment micro...but is that really markedly worse than trebs, which are easier to bulb to reach?

I agree that machinery + engineering is a better bulb strat, to bulb guilds you avoid maths iirc which stops combining the two, or means teching/trading for too many techs to make it viable. Yeah the fact you need more pop than your ever likely to have to fully bulb guilds hurts it as a strat too. Hence why the xbow+trebs slow techs guilds and uses it to help finish off near end. In one of the Major I remember someone attaching GG to siege to give the extra movement to keep up with knights and only using those to bombard. Generating the first few GG would be hard but once you get it going the siege helps alot. I think they used spies to revolt then attacked to make the early GGs. Was a interesting read, I'll have to check which it was (only in last 5 or 6)

^ GG siege bombards at most 8% off wall cities and 4% off castle cities. No way you get that many .

TheMeInTeam said:

For rushing to knights don't you need a way to come up with a merchant?

Click to expand...

No, If I rush knights I just bulb machinery and that is it. A GM is useful if you want to upgrade but I wouldn't bulb with it because you get less beakers.

If I rush knights I usually go oracle -> CoL

I skip both meditation and fishing so I can bulb machinery with a GS and I don't bulb Philo or any other junk.

^So you tech or trade for feudalism if possible and self tech guilds. That's way longer than the engineering path, what is approximately your attack date?

@TMIT, i think the GG siege Habitus is talking about is used for collateral, if they win consistently i can see advantage here. Spies revolt the cities before attacking.

Dirk1302 said:

^So you tech or trade for feudalism if possible and self tech guilds. That's way longer than the engineering path, what is approximately your attack date?

Click to expand...

All things being average I can attack with knights at 1 AD. You can't do this with all starts though. This works well with a cottage start.

Maybe I'll make a vid trying for the quickest possible knight rush. Although my Justinian deity game a while back was pretty early, I think it was like 200 BC.

^I'd like to see that one. Man there are a lot of vids on your page but i can't find the Justinian one. Do you have to link to that vid?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5odlSIso0M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-KTO4K7MJE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISkpOxU0zH8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qtl8L-gLgE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlzlE8SJJMs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CLTy3riemE

There you go Dirk Luckly as his info has Justinian in it a search on his vids pulls them up quickly

TheMeInTeam said:

^ GG siege bombards at most 8% off wall cities and 4% off castle cities. No way you get that many .

Click to expand...

Can't remember how many he had or how he used them, I'll have a look thru the last few Majors for the post once I've finished cooking my supper

Thx Habitus, i did a search on Justinian but didn't seem to find it. Turns out i did find it was but wrong footed by the likeness of Joao in the video header .

I almost was as well

bcool was the person who used GG siege, he only had 2 and used them to bombard as Knights have good odds vs flatland longbows even with abit of culture left. Was only a Emperor game thou, but was Medium and Small with Lincoln so Astromony was needed to finish the game.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=430697 - Major 94

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10724427&postcount=88 - bcool's post on what he did

Not sure if it would work on Deity but a Pangrea Immortal game would probably work. Since the need for Astro + having Fishing from America probably slowed the possible ways to get Construction + Guilds

I just did a new knight rush vid on immortal with Gilgamesh.

It isn't very spectacular but I did attack with knights at 1 AD. I didn't use oracle either ( although It would have made for an earlier attack date ).

It should be uploaded later today.

^I watched the cataphract rush and the knight rush, good stuff .