Beelining towards Astronomy?!

[Laurwin]

Let's say you lucked out with your land. Let's say your glorious 4 city tradition empire, contains 3 mountain-adjacent cities together with mt.kilimanjaro.

Would you purpusefully beeline astronomy for observatory, at cost of "not-beelining" any other alternative. Such as military, or even to the education line? (I suppose education would make more sense, at first though, for the university specialist slots definitely)

 

[budweiser]

The answer is yes! I might even Oxford it.

 

[chazzycat]

you need education for astronomy anyways

but yes

 

[Cromagnus]

Depends on your victory condition. Sub-t200 Domination? Not worth it. Anything else? Probably worth it, however Acoustics is less tech investment, which may be a 20 turn difference in opening Rationalism. Also, for a cultural victory, Acoustics first is probably wise...

I usually don't Oxford Astronomy because I don't usually have enough money to rush-buy universities AND observatories at once, and Astronomy is a fairly cheap tech... so, by the time I research Astronomy I have money saved up to rush-buy observatories, and therefore, I haven't lost any beakers, and I get more benefit out of Oxford. If you have really high production, then Oxford bulb Astronomy to kick out those observatories... maybe. But I'd rather bulb Plastics, or Radio, or Dynamite, etc. etc.... a really expensive tech.

 

[Memoryjar]

Depend of my culture per turn. Rationalism is most important for me. So, if I can have Ratio and Astronomy, wonderful. But if I need to go to Acoustics to prevent a policy in another tree than Ratio, I go to Acoustics.
Around T130-140, my cities, except capital, don't have enough production for building Observatories in less then 10 turns. So, no ratio boost + around 10 turns to have fruits from observatories make me miss PP + PT and other renaissance wonders.
Free 10 % and early secularism seems to be better than quick Observatory in long term. If not, please contradict me.

Like Cromagnus, I build Oxford for Radio, Plastics, Satellites, Internet, Globalization, Artillery.

 

[redwings1340]

+50% science in a city is a nice building to have. If you can build it in 3/4 cities, it's definitely worth doing.

Otherwise, if you're costal on non-pangea, then astronomy is also an amazing tech to get quickly. Pangea without mountains it's basically skippable until much later.

 

[joncnunn]

I normally stop my beline at Education and catch up on some bypassed techs. Also, since I'm interested in the world congress, I'll discover Printing Press first and then Astronomy.

OP start would make it worthwhile to proceed to Astronomy immediately; but it's a small percentage of my games in which even one of my cities is next to a mountain.

 

[cpm4001]

I'd certainly beeline Astronomy under those circumstances; too good an opportunity to pass up!

 

[GhostSalsa]

I usually enter Renaissance on Astronomy, it's nice to beat the AI to discovering all civs. The benefits are huge, really - especially if you went wide and need more buyers for your lux monopoly. Yet, do they beat earlier adoption of Rationalism? Haha nope. But I like to delay Rationalism to force myself to leverage other mid-game SPs and features, so later Ren entry is essentially "no cost" for me.

 

[ElliotS]

I play a England about 75% of the time, so I beeline it by proxy of beelining SotL. Well, except for Bronze Working and occasionally construction.

 

[Calouste]

I normally stop my beline at Education and catch up on some bypassed techs. Also, since I'm interested in the world congress, I'll discover Printing Press first and then Astronomy.

OP start would make it worthwhile to proceed to Astronomy immediately; but it's a small percentage of my games in which even one of my cities is next to a mountain.

If you are on Continents and you're interested in the World Congress, you have to go Astronomy first, then Printing Press. No use discovering Printing Press first when you can't contact all the civs.

 

[Asklepios]

I tend to get Astronomy quite late, but in the circumstance you describe, I think it'd be too tempting to pass up.

Obviously situation / victory goal / context applies and modifies this, of course.