best path to gunpowder?

[Keilah]

I remember a while back I had the idea to rush my way to drafted muskets with SB in a multiplayer game. Worked pretty well. I remember that I did it with loads of bulbing but I forget the exact path, and when I look now I can't seem to get it straight. Being a MP game we were set to no tech trading.

So, best way to self-tech gunpowder via bulbs with a little slow-teching? And get nationalism while we're at it?

 

[Keilah]

haha, so judging by the 130 views and zero responses, it isn't the easiest thing to reach quickly?

 

[GGracchus]

No, the easiest thing to reach quickly are your starting techs, followed by hunting

Theoretically, a gunpowder bulb could be achieved. You need education, AH, Machinery, IW, while avoiding construction and feudalism. You will also need a GE for the actual bulb.
Using a GS, you could get masonry, monarchy(through med-priesthood, not polytheism as that unlocks literature), math, aesthetics, alpha, feudalism, education, and then bulb gunpowder, but no fishing or CoL or BW for you. It's not the most practical bulb.

 

[Dr.Null]

- Steal Guilds (AIs love that crap)
- Bulb (some of) Education
- Self-tech Gunpowder
- (Self-tech Chemistry, win Liberalism, take Steel)

 

[GKey]

Good question. I was trying to do something with French UU and result wasn't very optimistic. If you go to Gunpowder through Guilds, it will be same as in knight rush. One of AbsoluteZero's videos on youtube shows example of beeline knights, using GS bulbs while avoiding fishing. Still - musket is 9 str unit and he comes some 10 turns later then 10 str knight. Been gunpowder unit and ignoring walls does not make him good enough. Nationalism for drafting - another 10-15 turns (you can keep Great Artist from music to bulb Nationalism though). Did not work well for me.

Or may be nationalism from liberalism and self tech gunpowder. Might be slower then through guilds.

 

[vicawoo]

I've never figured out a good way to get the musketeer.

I remember reading some magic the gathering designer interview, where they want to design cards that seemed overpowered in the right situations, but because of circumstances those situations don't really occur. The musketeer so far seems a perfect example of that archetype.

Again, we want to make cards people get excited about, and "dangerous" and "exciting" are very closely related. The desire to make a card that seems to break all the rules but ends up being merely "good" as opposed to "broken" is a noble one

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/148&dcmp=ilc-mtgrss#75028

 

[coanda]

If you want Nationalism and Gunpowder, your best approach is to ignore the Guilds line. Play it like a standard Liberalism race. The exact techs you get early will vary a lot depending on the game, but they tend to end with sitting in Caste System with a GP farm running tons of scientists to get GS to bulb towards Lib. Paper, Education, Philosophy, and Liberalism itself are all fairly natural bulbs for GS. Pick Nationalism as your Lib. tech, self-tech Gunpowder (steal Guilds first if possible to get a discount), and start drafting.

Of course, if you don't win Lib. (a definite threat in MP), your drafted muskets are significantly delayed.

 

[Keilah]

after a bit of poking around i'm guessing the best options are:
-pyramids -> feudalism via GE (avoid pottery) -> machinery via GS -> self-tech guilds (ugh, is there a better way?), Gunpowder via GS, -> ???? to get Nationalism = mids + 1 GE + 2 GS + ???

-Oracle CoL -> Philo via GS, Theo via GPro, CS via GPro, Paper via GS, Edu vs GSx2, Liberalism via GS to take Nationalism, Gunpowder via GS (you'll have to avoid pottery this entire time) = Oracle + 2 GPro + 6 GS

-Same as above but self-tech CS instead of using 2 GPro for theo -> CS = Oracle + 6 GS (avoid GPro from Oracle somehow)

 

[strijder20]

Open Worldbuilder, select yourself, check gunpowder, close worldbuilder.

In my last game, I beelined for drafted janissaries - I had to self-tech everything. Janissaries are good enough to be worth beelining for, but aside from musketeers and oromos, gunpowder is not really worth beelining for, as bulbing would ban many useful techs, as described above.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

after a bit of poking around i'm guessing the best options are:
-pyramids -> feudalism via GE (avoid pottery) -> machinery via GS -> self-tech guilds (ugh, is there a better way?), Gunpowder via GS, -> ???? to get Nationalism = mids + 1 GE + 2 GS + ???

-Oracle CoL -> Philo via GS, Theo via GPro, CS via GPro, Paper via GS, Edu vs GSx2, Liberalism via GS to take Nationalism, Gunpowder via GS (you'll have to avoid pottery this entire time) = Oracle + 2 GPro + 6 GS

-Same as above but self-tech CS instead of using 2 GPro for theo -> CS = Oracle + 6 GS (avoid GPro from Oracle somehow)

At some point avoiding granaries/tile improvements/expansions is actually going to slow you down.

What if you just bulbed philosophy, paper, education, and liberalism? You now can take gunpowder, or take nationhood and selt-tech gunpowder.

Unlike these esoteric bulb paths, you don't rely on wonders (without ind!) or waiting an eternity to get the right GP from said wonder, and every single bulb is easily attainable by a great scientist. As you're PHI, it's doable to put up 4-5 GS by the late BC/early AD. That leaves the hardest thing for you to self-tech as civil service (though I suppose you could skip it and go theo but then nationhood becomes more tricky ), along with some filler techs like math, currency, etc which you can probably reach via trade.

 

[z0wb13]

i found a way to do it that looks like it works on paper:

0. you start with agriculture and the wheel.
1. research mysticism (and build stonehenge)
2. research meditation
3. research priesthood (and build the oracle)
4. research writing
5. research polytheism

Spoiler :

spoiler alert, if you can manage to build the oracle, try to take alphabet.

6. research masonry
7. research monotheism
8. bulb theology with prophet

Spoiler :

by this point, you will need to have popped a great prophet to bulb theology. notice that you MUST avoid fishing AND mining for this to work, although i think you can still take pottery and animal husbandry.

9. research alphabet
10. research maths
11. research aesthetics
12. bulb paper with scientist
13. bulb education with scientist
14. bulb gunpowder with scientist

Spoiler :

so that's how you go from zero to gunpowder with 4 bulbs and slow research. but i went one further, and will show you how to reach nationalism through liberalism:

15. bulb code of laws with great prophet
16. bulb philosophy with great scientist
17. bulb civil service with great prophet
18. bulb liberalism with great scientist
19. take nationalism

 

[Keilah]

What if you just bulbed philosophy, paper, education, and liberalism? You now can take gunpowder, or take nationhood and selt-tech gunpowder.

Yeah that's more or less what I said with "-Same as above but self-tech CS instead of using 2 GPro for theo -> CS = Oracle + 6 GS (avoid GPro from Oracle somehow) "

it sounds like you suggest self-teching CoL or trading for it somehow, which I actually disagree with because fast CoL = fast Philo = fast pacifism. You also suggest self-teching gunpowder instead of bulbing it which may be better thanks to allowing cottages & granaries.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah that's more or less what I said with "-Same as above but self-tech CS instead of using 2 GPro for theo -> CS = Oracle + 6 GS (avoid GPro from Oracle somehow) "

it sounds like you suggest self-teching CoL or trading for it somehow, which I actually disagree with because fast CoL = fast Philo = fast pacifism. You also suggest self-teching gunpowder instead of bulbing it which may be better thanks to allowing cottages & granaries.

The only way you can realistically get CoL faster is via oracle. If you're willing to rely on that, hitting that with oracle and then going into the bulb path could work nicely enough. Civil service oracles are really unreliable on difficulties where this matters.

 

[Keilah]

oh yah lol, i didn't mean to oracle Civil Service, I meant Oracle the CoL which is no problem up to immortal for sure, dunno about deity.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Lots of people have asked this, so I made a vid of 125 AD gunpowder. Problem is muskets still suck and cuis are just a small distance away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq91SR4FoOo

 

[pi-r8]

Lots of people have asked this, so I made a vid of 125 AD gunpowder. Problem is muskets still suck and cuis are just a small distance away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq91SR4FoOo

Well done. But like you said, super early muskets aren't anything special. They need nationalism, and a good city base, so you can draft them. What if you also get early nationalism? And maybe use unrestricted leaders so you can play as France with a philo leader. Then don't bother bombarding the defenses, just use catapults to do collateral.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Well done. But like you said, super early muskets aren't anything special. They need nationalism, and a good city base, so you can draft them. What if you also get early nationalism? And maybe use unrestricted leaders so you can play as France with a philo leader. Then don't bother bombarding the defenses, just use catapults to do collateral.

If you go to nationalism that's an even stronger case to simply skip muskets and go for cuirassiers.

But if I were to guess how much longer it would have taken me in that game I would say.... maybe 300 - 400 AD.

Would have had to bulb philo ( maybe would have self teched paper in that case ) then bulb part of lib and picked nationalism. Then 1 more bulb for gunpowder. Would not have used that last GS for a GA in that case so would have had to do a 2 turn civic switch.

Drafting muskets is much better certainly, but still you're going to lose quite a few unless you have siege, and you can do just as well, perhaps better with a combo of maces / xbows / trebs / pikes. And you can draft maces too.

Maybe the real question should be "how quick can I get to nationalism", since it's a pretty powerful tech which you could easily get to pre 1 AD with the right planning. But then again, if I had nationalism I'd have trouble justifying not going for cuirassiers instead.

 

[civvver]

At some point avoiding granaries/tile improvements/expansions is actually going to slow you down.

What if you just bulbed philosophy, paper, education, and liberalism? You now can take gunpowder, or take nationhood and selt-tech gunpowder.

Unlike these esoteric bulb paths, you don't rely on wonders (without ind!) or waiting an eternity to get the right GP from said wonder, and every single bulb is easily attainable by a great scientist. As you're PHI, it's doable to put up 4-5 GS by the late BC/early AD. That leaves the hardest thing for you to self-tech as civil service (though I suppose you could skip it and go theo but then nationhood becomes more tricky ), along with some filler techs like math, currency, etc which you can probably reach via trade.

I agree, if you want nationalism and gunpowder you might as well just research to liberalism as a pretty typical game. Gunpowder is a bottom path tech and nationalism is a top path tech so to beeline both is not practical if not impossible.

 

[squall78]

Lots of people have asked this, so I made a vid of 125 AD gunpowder. Problem is muskets still suck and cuis are just a small distance away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq91SR4FoOo

just saw this video. damn thats depressing.

 

[pi-r8]

If you go to nationalism that's an even stronger case to simply skip muskets and go for cuirassiers.

The advantage for muskets over cuirassiers is that they're draftable, while Cuirassiers are not. I suppose a combo of muskets + cuirassiers could also work- slave the Cuirs while drafting the muskets. If you can completely conquer an AI civ, then you can start drafting muskets out of their cities too, and get a chain reaction going.