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[choxorn]

Like I said: The Vikings are really weak, and they have Saltpeter. Having Saltpeter would be pretty helpful. We can easily fight them long enough to grab their Saltpeter source, and should probably do so.

 

[Lanzelot]

Wait, was there a way to make Oasenstadt get 3-turn Knights done? I couldn't see how to give it enough production to do that, at least before the GA.

Yes, tjs282 and myself have been discussing it a bit before his turnset:

• Re-assign MM of a few cities for maximum production. This includes Kolossusstadt to get Copernicus done faster, and also Oasenstadt, which I'll try to get to 20spt. We can then decide, whether 2-turn maces or 3-turn Knights are better. (Depends on whether we can afford the 40g shortrush every three turns.)

Obviously taking any production-capacity away from O'stadt and W'haven is not ideal, but they would 'only' lose 1 tile each, for -2SPT and -1SPT, respectively. And much as I do like the idea of giving O'stadt 20SPT (and presumably short-rushing a Settler for 40g before the second IBT production?) for 3T-Knights 18SPT would still allow us to build MM-free 4T-Knights there instead (albeit with 2s overrun).

As far as I remember from when I had the save open, we can bring K'stadt to 8spt without interfering with Hamburg and O'stadt too much, and that would finish Copernicus in 38 turns from now.

If that is not fast enough, we could take some more shields from O'stadt on every first turn of a 3-turn Knight cycle and then pay like 48g instead of 40 for the "settler-shortrush". O'stadt would still be producing 3-turn Knights (albeit at a slightly higher price) and the extra shields would perhaps bring Copernicus down to 35 turns. Of course the involved micro-management may not be to everyone's liking... The likelihood that someone forgets to re-arrange the tiles at some point, is quite high... And it would probably lead to a 4-turn Knight with lots of shield-overrun once in a while and/or losing 1-2 turns on Copernicus...

And tjs282 mentioned it again in his hand-over notes

Handover notes
City assignments:

• O'stadt, München, Catan, and W'haven will finish building Knights, Mace and Pike on IBT (and E'stadt builds Mace in 2T).
• O'stadt still on 20SPT, -1FPT: will soon need food surplus again, but after current vKnight is finished, can still build at least two more 3T-Knights first:
  • T1: short-rush 30s unit for 40g, then switch production to Knight before IBT
  • T2+3: Build as normal

What he means is: after the first turn, O'Stadt has 20 shields in the shield-box (or 18, if we run out of food and need to use a food tile on the first turn). Then you switch to settler, rush it for 40 gold (or 48) and switch back to Knight. The shield-box now has 30s and the remaining 40s can be produced in the following two turns without any overrun.

Ok, now we have GA and O'Stadt will produce Newton's University followed by an ordinary University, so the above doesn't matter anymore.

The Vikings are probably toast indeed, and a Knight on a hill can easily survive an archer attack, so I guess it is ok to go a bit "archer hunting"...

Does everybody agree to switch K'Stadt and Wilhelmshaven to University now?

MrRandomGuy, don't be so timid... Our forces are strong enough to kick the Vikings off this planet now... A handful of units will finish over the next 1-2 turns, and with the stack properly managed, the rest of the Viking war should be a walk in the park now. Don't stop before you storm the Düppeler Schanzen...!
(The "Storm of the Düppeler Schanzen" was the decisive battle of the German - Danish war of 1864, after which the Danish Army was pushed back to the north tip of Jütland.)

 

[choxorn]

I guess I must have missed that thing on the 3-turn Knights... my bad...

 

[Lanzelot]

MrRandom, it's your turn...

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Going to start playing a little later today. I'm off today so I've got the whole day to play...right after I go to bed cause it's nearly 4 am

 

[MrRandomGuy]

0 - 770 AD

IBT

TOG researched. Magnetism set to research in 4 turns.

3 - 800 AD

Our forces assault Reykjavik. 3 defending spears are killed with no losses on our side.

IBT

An archer tries for a redlined knight. The knight kills it and it's promoted to elite.

Forbidden Palace is built. Production set for library.

4 - 810 AD

Reykjavik is captured with no losses on our side and a further gain of 4 slaves. Production set for worker with the plan to cash rush workers until 1 population.

IBT

An archer kills one of our knights in Reykjavik. A berserk kills a medieval infantry but is redlined.

Magnetism researched. Metallurgy set to be discovered in 4 turns.

5 - 820 AD

Stavanger is captured with the loss of 1 medieval infantry. Worker set for production with the cash rush plan.

IBT

That redlined berserk tries to kill another medieval infantry. Of course it loses and our infantry is promoted to elite.

Domestic adviser says we lost our supply of furs. A quick search through diplomacy shows that Japan has furs. They only want iron in exchange, something I'm glad to agree with.

6 - 830 AD

IBT

Mongols and Japan end the ROP agreement.

8 - 850 AD

IBT

Metallurgy researched. Research set for steam power in 6 turns.

England builds Leo's workshop.

9 - 860 AD

Stockholm is captured with no losses on our side.

Molde is captured with no losses.

Both cities are set for worker with the plan to cash rush to 1 population.

IBT

Two of our cities are unhappy with us and have revolted.

Handoff Notes

For some reason my Civ assist tool is having technical difficulties. It resulted in not seeing those two cities were about to revolt. I did my own intervention on those cities, but you still may want to look at them to see if there's anything that can be done better.

Steam power is going to be researched soon with the ability to make rails. Make lots and lots and lots of workers so that we can get our core railed quickly. The Viking war will be won soon, so continued production of units will become less necessary.

We also need more libraries and universities.

Make sure to wait for our knights to heal before sending them out to attack the Vikings. Also remember to keep them in one stack instead of randomly strung around.

 

[Lanzelot]

Ahem, what happened to the plan to build Newton's University in Oasenstadt?! It should be finished by now! And what the heck is the Bank doing in Kolossusstadt??

See here:

The usual comments...:

• We don't need any banks in a research game. Especially as we get half-priced universities. So Kolossusstadt should switch to university now (multiply the effect of Colossus + Copernicus + GA!), Wilhelmshaven as well, and Oasenstadt can prebuild for Newton. (Could already have done that earlier, but I didn't pay attention...) Hamburg can also make good use of a university. (We can research the last remaining middle age techs in 4 turns each, but in the industrial age tech prices more than double, and also our GA is going to end eventually. By that time our complete core ought to have universities.)

Unis (instead of Banks) in Kolossusstadt and Wilhelmshaven and Newton in Oasenstadt could already mean Steam in 4 instead of 6...

 

[choxorn]

You really need to put more information in your turnset than that, dude, even if you just have a turn where you say "I moved units towards city x." Like, be more detailed in what happened in combat and say what got built on the IBT, at the very least.

And you for sure should have mentioned what our IA free tech was (From looking at the Save, it's Nationalism)

Some other things:

-It's great that London and Richmond are down to size 1, but why didn't you start growing them again? I mean, I understand Richmond- it only has 1 tile with more than 1 fpt in its radius anyway, so it's not like we can gain much of anything by growing it more, But why not use our slaves to build some irrigation in the area so we can set up specialist farms there? We'll get more out of them that way than if we leave them at size 1. Hell, according to CrpMapStat, London has a pretty low flip chance now (Richmond is still a bit high, though)

-The specialists in Weizenheim and Fischberg are more than what is necessary to calm them down. And... really? An entertainer? Why use one when a taxman will suffice?

-And why in Sid Meier's name are there entertainers in Stockholm and Konigsberg? They serve literally no purpose!

-The Viking War seems to have been handled well, so good job on that. I'm liking that our military is at a decent size now.

On the next set:

-For the Viking War, we obviously should grab Birka so we can get its Saltpeter. I'd also recommend taking Karasjok, then seeing what they'll offer for peace. If we can knock them down to one city, that would probably be nice.
-We absolutely should build Newton's Uni, in either Kolossusstadt or Oasenstadt.


I believe this currently shows the turn order?

MrRandomGuy <--Just Played
CommandoBob <--Up
Lanzelot <-- On Deck
tjs
choxorn

 

[Lanzelot]

Kolossusstadt does not have enough shields to get Newton quickly. So let's do it in Oasenstadt.
If we had started on Newton 10 turns ago, as I advised, it would already be finished next turn or so. And provide a great multiplyer for the increased Golden Age income. Same goes for the Universities in Kolussusstadt and Wilhelmshaven, which could already have been up and running 5 turns ago. Banks are completely wasted in a science game. BTW: why are we running only 80% science? Guys, this is supposed to be a research game... I was hoping that with the boost from the GA and some speedy Universities we could do 4 turn research in the industrial age, not 6-turn research. Alpha Centauri is waiting...! But no, we build Banks...

 

[choxorn]

Banks are helpful if we can run a higher science rate with our increased gold...

 

[Lanzelot]

Banks are helpful if we can run a higher science rate with our increased gold...

I don't understand?! If we run a higher science rate, Banks are not helpful at all, because 50% of zero remains zero. I repeat: in a science game, Banks are completely useless. Usually you run your science rate as high as the luxury situation allows, and let the AI pay for your deficit. Tax rate is non-zero only in the last turn of a tech, and for this one turn it is not worth investing 160s into a Bank, at least not, when we could have gotten a University for 100s.
(Perhaps the situation is different in lower difficulty levels, where 4-turn research can be reached with less than 100% research. But not on Emperor and above.)

And even if you insist on Banks: just look at our current rates: we have 80% science and 20% tax, so it is quite logical that "University first and Bank later" would have yielded 4 times as much "return on investment". It doesn't make any sense to build a Bank, if the town does not yet have a University.

But anyway: I think I now found out, what went wrong here: at the end of your turnset, you started Banks in 2 cities. I pointed out that we should rather build Universities twice (posts #438 and #442) and also mentioned Newton's University. MrRandomGuy apparently didn't read my comments and also did not post an action plan like we wanted to do in this game. When discussing the action plan, we would have noticed the mistake and could have corrected it in time. I mean, exactly for that reason we had established the procedure of posting an action plan and getting some team input before starting the turnset. But he started playing right away, and now we have the damage. 160s wasted on a building the best we can do with is sell again right away to avoid paying the maintenance... And that in our best research city that has already the Colossus and Copernicus.

Ok, but enough crying over spilled milk... Let's look forward again. ComandoBob, are you ready for action? Looks like the Vikings are now ready for some final mopping up...

 

[tjs282]

OK, I'm/we're back, and now caught up with the latest news on this game.

Bad luck on your wars, Chox -- but at least you got the GA going on schedule. I did wonder if/when those silly Eenglish K'niggits would show up -- I didn't see any fast units during my turnset, but it seemed most unlikely that Liz hadn't built any of them. Looks like you took the brunt...

As to why I was building Pikes and Maces rather than Knights in some of the Barracks, that's mainly because (as I think I might have mentioned once or twice already!), I don't much enjoy MM, so to avoid it I usually just try to match my unit-builds to available SPT as closely as possible with minimal (preferably zero) overrun (OK, I'm lazy!). I might do a little tile-tweaking at the beginning or end of a build to get the SPT just right, but that's about all. And during wartime I want units built ASAP, so a city producing 5-6 SPT, will generally be set to build a 30s-unit in 5-6T rather than a 40s-unit in 6-7T (or a 70s-unit in 12-14T!). Under that regime, in my games only a city with +12SPT (ideally 14SPT) would be set to build Knights.

Also, taking advantage of tricks like short-rushing and the magic SPT-on-Pop-growth are not yet ingrained CivIII habits for me -- this SG is actually the first time I've ever deliberately used them. (And now Lanzelot is going to tell me that I have to learn these tricks -- and use them religiously -- if I ever want to win at Demigod or higher...)

tjs282 (or someone else?!) already built workers at 18 shields a piece

When I read that, I went I was pretty sure I hadn't, but not 100% so I went and double-checked my turnlog. And I was right, I built 5 Workers out of K'stadt during my turnset. So I plead not guilty, yer'Onour. The Worker factory would have been completely screwed by the extra GA production though.

And now, CommandoBob -- go push the Vikings into the sea!

Spoiler :

In other news, having successfully knocked the Indians and Egyptians off our medium-sized continent by the late Middle Age, I just lost my Standard Continents Byzantine Monarch Random Opponents Space Race to the Hittites, who'd singlehandedly (and singlemindedly) killed everyone else, and owned the rest of the world (including nearly all the Modern StratRes) To cheer myself up, I'm now going to try for a 'kill everyone' game as the Chinese on what looks to be an extremely resource-rich (modded?) Continents map (downloaded from Theov's post in this thread). Already swung a Republic slingshot, and the English are going to die...

 

[tjs282]

Since we are now in the IndAge, I think we need to discuss what we're going to aim for here (or Lanzelot needs to tell us! ).

I know this is a Science game, but when we come to build the Spaceship components, we are going to need high production as well. And that's going to mean pollution, which we can ill afford with our core cities spaced so close and thus utterly dependent on being able to use all 12 of their assigned tiles continuously.

Sooo... to solve both those problems, I think we need to aim to build Hoover. And that being agreed, I would suggest also going for ToE because (if we have already acquired Electricity through trading), ToE gives us a free jump to Electronics via Atomic Theory. If we have a Palace(?)-prebuilding in a high-shield city (e.g. Königsberg or München, which -- with Factories and rails through all their mHills -- should be kicking out at least 40-50 SPT), we can complete Hoover within at most 5-10T of getting Electronics (so we don't need to waste shields on building Powerplants).

So my vote would be to get Steam and Industrialisation, then beeline for SciTheory. In my games so far, the AICivs always seem to prefer going along the 'Industrial/Military branch' of the tech-tree (Steel, Refining, etc.) in this Age -- and given that the Mongols are looking set to kill everyone on their continent, this seems even more likely in the current game. So hopefully we'll be able to trade for those techs with our monopolies on the 'Science/Wonder-branch' techs.

Another point that I need clarified is regarding our Pop12 core cities. Assuming we have access to Coal when we get Steam (seems likely, since we have so many Hills/Jungle/Grass tiles), we are going to be building rails. But if we rail every worked tile in our core, this will mean we end up with a food surplus in some of those Pop12 cities (especially those with iGrass and iFloods subsidising their high-shield tiles), whether we want it or not.

So is the plan to use that surplus to spin out Settlers for science-farms, or build Hospitals just in those cities (and turn excess civizens into Scientists there as well), or just not rail the high-food tiles, or rail everything then rearrange the terrain improvements, or what?

 

[choxorn]

We can alleviate the pollution problem to some extent by having a fair amount of workers dedicated to cleaning it up.

As to Wonders, trying to build the ToE is a no-brainer, especially a science game, but really in any game- 2 free techs at this stage is well worth the cost of building it, and unlike a lot of other wonders, you can't get the benefit by letting the AI build it for you.

Hoover Dam is generally also a good idea- free Hydro Plants in every city on a continent is amazing, even if those plants will generally only be terribly useful in a dozen or so cities- the Dam only costs a bit more than 3 times as much as a single plant, it provides them all for free when all kinds of power plants have 3 gpt upkeep, and it provides them in lots of cities that couldn't ordinarily build one.

To sum up: Yes, I'm absolutely in favor of building both ToE and Hoover.

 

[tjs282]

We can alleviate the pollution problem to some extent by having a fair amount of workers dedicated to cleaning it up.

True, but our high-shield core cities are going to be putting out a lot of industrial pollution, and since even flatland (i.e. primarily food-rich) tiles need multiple (6? 12?) base-worker-turns to clear pollution damage -- and the clearance time is doubled if we're relying on slave-labour -- we may end up needing literally dozens of them (if not hundreds, depending on how bad it gets) to keep it under control, especially if we want it cleared fast (which we will, because cities with polluted tiles may well be running negative FPT due to the tight placement -- although the pollution would also tend to negate the predicted food surpluses I mentioned earlier...).

Not to mention that while they're busy sweeping up the dirt, those Workers will not be available to irrigate/rail the terrain around our science farms (or repair sea/air bombardment damage if someone -- probably the Mongols -- DoWs us). And frankly, MM-ing dozens of Workers per turn just to clean up those ugly orange blotches is not my idea of fun (but automating them with 'Shift-D' is a no-no in SGs, right?).

So I'd rather just build Hoover's, and minimise the 'industrial pollution' probability at source, rather than waste playtime running round wiping up the spillages...

 

[Lanzelot]

You got everything already covered quite well. Steam Power is with no doubt the most powerful, and MrRandomGuy already started on it, good. Industrialization for factories and Scientific Method for Theory of Evolution are also top priorities. Let me add a third one: Replaceable Parts. The doubled worker speed is huge!

Using the free techs from ToE for getting Hoover's Dam is also very strong. We could even start two pre-builds, one for 600s and one for 800s, so that the Hoover Dam can be finsihed right in the same turn where we reach Scientific Method...

In a recent Spaceship succession game we did the following: we delayed ToE right until the end of the Industrial Age, so that it would complete in the same turn as our last industrial tech. We then took two very expensive modern age techs as our freebies: Computer and Miniaturization. And we had another prebuild for 1000s finishing on the same turn, which we then switched to the Internet. So we got the huge science boost from the Internet right on the first turn of the modern age! (And managed to finish the remaining techs in 4 turns.)

However, that game was only Monarch and we were able to keep the AIs backward by draining all their cash for some out-dated techs. I don't think we can pull this trick off in an Emperor game: the AI would probably finish ToE, before we are able to research the last IA tech...
So taking the Hoover Dam is probably the better choice here.

choxorn is right: pollution will not be a big problem in this game. Just consider the following. Pollution is caused by 4 factors:

1. If a city becomes a metropolis (size 13 and up), the population causes pollution.
2. Factories
3. Coal Plants
4. Manufacturing Plants

In my experience, pollution only becomes a pain in the neck, if 3 of these factors coincide. E.g. in a recent game I had metropolises at size 16-22 with factories and coal plants and they polluted like 2-3 tiles per turn.
In our game, however, we won't have time for researching Sanitation, so all cities stay at size 12, we won't have Coal Plants because of Hoover Dam and I never build Manufacturing Plants, because they come so late in the tech tree, that they would not even finish before the space ship launches... (Robotics is the most expensive tech in the game and therefore gets researched last. At that point of time all space ship parts are either already built or the prebuild is already collecting shields, so wouldn't be able to benefit from a Manufactoring Plant anyway.)

So out of the 4 points, only factories will be causing pollution, and that is so neglectible, that it doesn't really matter. Probably in the range of 1 polluted tile every 5 turns or so.

In the industrial age the AI has three very strong research preferences: Nationalism, Communism and Industrialization. (In that order, I think.) In any case, they are just crazy for Nationalism, so as we got that as our freebie, I recommend to gift it to everyone (except England of course... ) Once we get Steam Power, we gift that to the stronger AIs as well. Then we have a slight chance that while we do Electricity, Replaceble Parts, Medicine and Scientific Method, two of the stronger AIs will do the unavoidable Communism and then Industrialization. (Once we see Communism available somewhere, we should try and trade for it and then gift it around as well, so that no other AI wastes any more beakers into it...)

It is quite unlucky that we lost Korea, but with a bit of planning, we might still get the AI to do Industrialization and another one of the upper branch techs for us. On Emperor the AI is not that bad...

And to answer your question of what to do with the "excess food" once we have rails on our food tiles: we turn it into shields! For every irrigated tile that gets a rail, we can change another irrigation into mine - for an additional two shields!
Example: currently a grassland tile provides 3 food, 0 shields. If we have two of them, we rail both and build a mine on one of them. This changes the tiles from "3.0 + 3.0" to "4.0 + 2.2" ==> Food output remains the same, but we get an additional 2 shields.

So the order of worker tasks in the core should be something like this:

• If we haven't grown all core towns to size 12 by then (and don't have enough workers for joining, which I think will be the case, because rails are now more important), we rail the irrigated tiles of the small cities, so they can finally reach their target size quickly. (Three rails usually bring every city to +5 food and a new citizen every 4 turns.)
• Then rail the mined plains and grasslands. (In the cities that can make good use of the extra production.)
• Then rail the irrigated plains, floodplains and grasslands of the big cities (and mine half of these tiles)
• Then rail the hills.
• And finally the mountains.

(I think this task list shows you, why Replaceable Parts is so important... ) Of course this list may need to be modified according to strategic needs, e.g we should also strive for getting a connected rail link from our core to the British front to improve our war effort, once the war is restarted.

 

[Lanzelot]

PS: I just realize, that I forgot a couple of other factors that cause pollution...

• Offshore Platform
• Iron Works
• Commercial Dock
• Airport
• Research Lab

However, the chances that we get iron and coal within the BFC of a good core city are quite small and we don't need any Airports or Offshore Platforms. And we will have only a limited number of Commercial Docks (Hamburg, Kolossusstadt and Wilhelmshaven will benefit from it quite well, but that's about it), so that will be neglectable, and while we will have a big number of Research Labs (courtesy of the Internet), the pollution caused by these is only minimal. (Not comparable to the one caused by factories, coal plants and manufactoring plants.)

There is also a different option, which may be even better, if we are not able to use the ToE trick to get the Internet on the first turn of the modern age: we could forgoe the Internet altogether and manually build 10-15 Labs in those core cities where they are worthwhile. This has the following advantage: we get Research Labs at half price (100s). So we can easily time a prebuild in all our core cities to finish concurrently with the completion of Computers. (With a bit of luck we get it as our freebie.) Interturn we switch them all to Labs and then right after the first tech of the modern age we have a 50% increase in research output. On the other hand, if we go for the Internet, we'll have to research Miniaturization first, so depending on how good our research capacity at that time is, we would need an extra 5-7 turns before we get the benefit of Labs!

 

[choxorn]

Hey, is CommandoBob anywhere to be found? His turn's up now...

 

[tjs282]

Using the free techs from ToE for getting Hoover's Dam is also very strong. We could even start two pre-builds, one for 600s and one for 800s, so that the Hoover Dam can be finsihed right in the same turn where we reach Scientific Method...

Since we skipped all the optional MidAge techs (many of which allow building SWs/GWs), what could we use as the second prebuild? Now we've completed our FP, AFAIK we don't have any available SW/GW to pour prebuild shields into, and the AI doesn't like trading GW-techs (or at least, charges a premium price for them), especially if the GW hasn't yet been built. So how are we going to get hold of another 'prebuild' tech? How cheap/easy would it be to get e.g. MilTrad=MilAcad from someone (or have we got it already)?

choxorn is right: pollution will not be a big problem in this game
*snip*
... only factories will be causing pollution, and that is so neglectible, that it doesn't really matter. Probably in the range of 1 polluted tile every 5 turns or so.

OK then

Then we have a slight chance that while we do Electricity, Replaceble Parts, Medicine and Scientific Method

In that order? Doesn't that leave SciMeth rather late to complete ToE, especially if our research will not be as fast as you'd intended/hoped? And don't we want to get Industry sooner than that, so we can build factories in our Hill-towns, and then (pre)build ToE and Hoovers as quickly as possible?

...two of the stronger AIs will do the unavoidable Communism and then Industrialization. (Once we see Communism available somewhere, we should try and trade for it and then gift it around as well, so that no other AI wastes any more beakers into it...)

When you talk about the stronger AIs... if I'm following things right, Korea's dead, China's nearly dead, and Japan is too small and underdeveloped to do any useful research for us (although they can sell us Furs for our obsolete techs)... So how is India doing? By process of elimination, they and the Mongols should be the two strongest AIs left on the other continent (with England third in the world -- but not for much longer! )

And when you talk about 'gifting' techs, do you mean 'accept whatever they'll offer for it'? Seems a shame to just give away techs for nothing if we can get a trifle or two in return -- such as Industry and MilTrad (see above). We're not trying to win a popularity contest here...

And to answer your question of what to do with the "excess food" once we have rails on our food tiles: we turn it into shields! For every irrigated tile that gets a rail, we can change another irrigation into mine - for an additional two shields! Example: currently a grassland tile provides 3 food, 0 shields. If we have two of them, we rail both and build a mine on one of them. This changes the tiles from "3.0 + 3.0" to "4.0 + 2.2" ==> Food output remains the same, but we get an additional 2 shields.

Or 3 shields if one of those 2 tiles is a BGrass (or 4 shields if they both are )... OK then, that makes sense.

So the order of worker tasks in the core should be something like this:

1. If we haven't grown all core towns to size 12 by then (and don't have enough workers for joining, which I think will be the case, because rails are now more important), we rail the irrigated tiles of the small cities, so they can finally reach their target size quickly. (Three rails usually bring every city to +5 food and a new citizen every 4 turns.)
2. Then rail the mined plains and grasslands. (In the cities that can make good use of the extra production.)
3. Then rail the irrigated plains, floodplains and grasslands of the big cities (and mine half of these tiles)
4. Then rail the hills.
5. And finally the mountains.

I think this is important enough to be highlighted as part of our long-term strategy.

Also, given that we will be starting our 'clear-the-continent' war against the English soon, how does everyone feel about using the 'Rail to city' Worker-automation at least to build our initial rail network?

In my solo games, once I've got SteamPower, as soon as my Workers complete their currently assigned terrain-improvement tasks (including roading their tile, if that hasn't been done yet), I start them auto-railing to the nearest city, then towards one/ some/ all of the nearest adjacent (core) cities (depending on available stack size). When they reach their intended destination they'll stop for further orders, and can then be reassigned either to rail-building (until all my cities have at least one rail connection to all the rest) or can immediately be moved (back) to whichever cities still need additional terrain improvements.

 

[choxorn]

I generally don't like to automate workers, and it's especially annoying in an SG to have units move around from another player's turn when you weren't expecting them to.

On techs: Electricity and Medicine are both requirements for Scientific Method anyway, and Replaceable Parts (and Industrialization) so useful that they're probably a priority over Scientific Method, at least if we have enough of a tech lead- which we do (our three most advanced opponents (Mongolia, India, England) have yet to research Physics, so we're up 4 techs on all of them).

Speaking of that tech lead, for that reason I'm not in favor of gifting our "friends" anything- if any of them were scientific I'd consider helping them out and hoping they do research for us, but none of them are, and like tjs said, most of them are too small to do research fast enough to help us anyway. China and the Vikings (should we elect not to completely annihilate them) are obvious nos, Japan's also pretty small and we'd have to basically gift them forward a whole age, even India's not that big. England's decent sized but obviously we don't want to help them, and Mongolia's big enough to do research but also big enough to be scary.

It's not worth it to squander our tech lead just to hope that the AI will speed up our research by a few turns. If they'll give us decent prices for our late-MA/early-IA techs in trade, sure, but I don't think we should give them away. Our tech lead is an advantage, we might as well use that advantage.