Best way to bulb/bee-line engineering in an EE game?

[Wilhelmus]

Suppose you start near stone, and want to play the Espionage focussed economy, building the great walls, and early castles (for +25% and +1).

Does anyone know of a fast beeline that allows for the lightbulbing of engineering, and picks up code of laws (for courthouses) OR priesthood (ziggurats) along the way?

 

[Refar]

Tech to Courthosue/Ziggurat yourself, steal Engineering.

The AI will often tech Engineering fairly fast, so it's not too long to wait.

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As to bulbing it... A GE will bulb Eng. at high priority - You need Machinery+Construction (prereq) + IW (to prevent the guy from bulbing IW)... Bulbing it with the GS might be hard, as it's quite low in priority there...

 

[Wilhelmus]

Tech to Courthosue/Ziggurat yourself, steal Engineering.

The AI will often tech Engineering fairly fast, so it's not too long to wait.

I actually want this tech before the AI has it, to maximize the duration of castles. I then hope the and +25% will pay off with interest.
The other features of engineering are a nice bonus, of course.

Which way to courthouses is the best? Usually the religious path is faster, but by taking the economical route you get better techs. Maths is a prerequisite anyway, so I suppose non Sumer Civs should follow the latter.

 

[Silence101]

Consider maybe building the Oracle as well and taking CoL and lightbulbing Engineering? Though getting both the Oracle and the Great Wall might be a challenge... might have to sacrifice some early expansion to pull that off.

 

[madscientist]

I am not sure but I believe a GE will bulb it.

To unlock engineering I believe you need machinery, another GE bulbable tech. SO you want to get the oracle to bulb metal casting and tech machinery. You would also need to tech CoL.

So the biggest problem I see is that you get the Great Wall which gets you GS points, oracle gets you GPs, run an engineer specialist from the forge and perhaps build the pyramids (you got stone right?). Pray you pop a GE.

I am not sure of this but a possibility.

Now, my question. Is this really worth it?

 

[Refar]

I am not sure but I believe a GE will bulb it.

To unlock engineering I believe you need machinery, another GE bulbable tech. SO you want to get the oracle to bulb metal casting and tech machinery. You would also need to tech CoL.

So the biggest problem I see is that you get the Great Wall which gets you GS points, oracle gets you GPs, run an engineer specialist from the forge and perhaps build the pyramids (you got stone right?). Pray you pop a GE.

I am not sure of this but a possibility.

Now, my question. Is this really worth it?

Yes this was my point. GE are a bit hard to get - just one slot from forge, and the Mids as only early wonder with GE points...

Also if popping/using 2 early engineers to bulb Engineering, you loose 2 early scotland yards... Each a +100% modifier...

 

[Scaphism]

Madscientist has it. GE's will bulb Machinery then Engineering, but GEs arrive slowly and are precious.

If you have stone and grab the Great Wall, try grabbing the Pyramids once you have expanded. Don't worry about pollution.
If you get a spy bomb a tech leader and steal techs, or settle him for the EPs and Representation bonus.
If you get a GE you can bulb him if you really want. It's definitely the fastest way to get to engineering the question is whether it's worth doing.

As for the path to get courthouses - I would definitely vote for the Math/Alphabet route (unless you are Sumeria). Math and Alphabet are seminal techs and are required for the path you're already headed down. The religious techs are not.
You're reqiured to get Math/Construction before Engineering, Alphabet will let you build research and spies to take advantage of your EPs. You will also need Alphabet to tech trade so you don't fall too far behind as you beeline.


I honestly don't know if it's worth it - Espionage is not an area I've explored much or mastered to any degree, and Engineering/Castles have never been gamebreaking in my experience.

The tools you pick up along the way however - Forges, Windmills/Watermills, Catapaults, are definitely worthwhile.

I'd prioritize the trade route from Currency before Castles. If you have Stone Walls and Castles aren't too expensive to start with - being protective saves you maybe 2 turns when it would normally take 4 or so. Your early research is going to limit you much more than the 1/2 cost on walls and castles from protective. And unfortunately your early research is much more dependant on your location than anything else.

You're basically praying for a start that has stone, good research (gold?) enough forests to chop the wall and enough food to work good production tiles while also having enough room to expand easily. That sounds like a desert with forests and good land. If you get that it'd be hard to screw up.

Thinking about it a little more, Qin of China probably wouldn't be bad for this. You have Industrious to have a good shot at the early wonders with or without stone, he's protective (which you seem to want) and China's rather strong UU is along the beeline path.

Frankly I'd be more tempted to run over people with the Cho-ku-nu if I got them quickly than I would be to work the Espionage angle, but it's something different you can try and cho-ku-nu are excellent defenders and stack punishers if you want to play a deterrance game rather than an aggressive one.

 

[Wilhelmus]

Refar, Silence, Madscientist, and Scaphism, thanks for the suggestions.

Last night I started a standard Epic Monarch Terra game with Qin to try this out. I am surrounded by four AIs, which I considder good, To the east is Mansa Musa, To the southeast Joao, To the southwest Saladin, and to the northwest Shaka.

Summary: Played till 1200. Engineering at 500 AD, stole many big beaker techs. Got DoW-ed by Shaka, got 2 of his cities and made peace. First to Optics. Full story below.

Spoiler :

I had stone close to the capital, and founded a city next to it. Here I built the great wall, while in the capital, I built the pyramids, after another settler was done. I stole some workers from Mansa Musa and Joao, and pillaged some of their improvements with a woodsman II warrior.

I teched first to mathematics, taking only masonry and bronze working ( discovered copper) from the lower half of the tech tree. After maths, I chopped two forests to finish the pyramids, after the great wall was completed for some turns in 2nd city.

To get the Engineer, I continued with Aqueduct > Hanging gardens in the capital. Meanwhile I had made peace with Mansa and Joao, and founded another city. Two Barbarian cities were build closeby, on good spots, and I took them with Axemen.

Now I had alphabet, and was starting stealing, and trading techs. I traded away only techs that most AIs had, keeping my monopoly techs to myself. Mansa cut of the direct (neutral) route to Joao, but fortunately, Joao took a Barbarian city to my southwest, between me and Saladin.

I teched further by researching currency and code of laws, founding Confusianism. However, I've adopted Mansa Musa's Buddhism for long, sine it spread in most of my cities, and also Shaka and Joao are Buddhist. I was first to get Metal Casting, and built the Colossus in the capital, which took only 9 epic turns with copper.

I got Iron Working + by trade for mathematics with Saladin (no Iron discovered in my lands), when all other AIs had maths already. Saladin is very low on the scores, so I try to keep him competitive, even if he's Hindu, I am not affraid of war with any of my Buddhist brethren, since I have the Great Wall, walls in my cities, and soon castles, and yes, even the Chicken Itza (for small chance on Confucian shrine).

I stole most of the religious techs now. while researching machinery. I could steal construction from Shaka, but all my spies are caught the moment they enter Zululand. So after I had machinery, I had to trade for construction. The great engineer that I got in the capital was saved to bulb ~1600/2100 beakers of Engineering, five turns left to research it in ~500AD.

I built castles and in all my eight cities, I had also courthouses in all. Now I set my espionage to 80% for a while, directing the EPs towards Joao, Mansa, Shaka, and Saladin. 2:2:1:1. I was just stealing techs clockwise, while researching calendar (built maussoleum) and then the Optics path.

Shaka wanted my head on the Impi stick, so he declared war. I defeated his stack of horse archers, swordsmen, impis, and axemen at the loss of one axeman. The I razed one of his cities, and took another one, not to upset him for razing more cities, in the hope of returning it after his capitulation. But he didn't want to capitulate so far. War weariness started, and that citiy became hard to defend, so I made peace. I will continue the Zulu campaign later, when I get more macemen (stole civil service from Joao), and Theology from Mansa Musa.

I'm now the 2nd in ranking, researching paper for University of Sankore, aiming for being the first to liberalism. My first caravel has entered the ocean, looking for new lands, and worlds end. AIs still all lack Compas, so I might have a chance for a strong colonial empire. Shaka and Saladin are weak, and I hope to vassalize them later on. Mansa Musa is third in the rankings, he was behind for a long time from my early war, and is just now equal techwise with the top AIs. Joao is in the number one spot. I bet he has the largest empire, given his traits. Further to the east is Kublai Khan, And to the south is Hammurabi.

I didn't play very different from any normal game, just kept the Engineer to bulb Engineering. If surrounded by some good teching AIs, and when you have access to stone, and a specialized economy, the accelerated Engineering is a possibility for an advantage.