Sorry, I should have been more clear about my goal. Yes, I'm going for an X-Bow rush, but more than that, I want to have Logistics by the time Machinery comes around. (Logistics first because the XP for one more promotion is trivial with two attacks)
X-Bows just aren't good enough without Range, IMHO. Otherwise you're better off doing an Artillery rush. (unless you have certain UUs... like Shaka, Genghis, etc.)
Highly promoted X-Bows are good enough until at least turn 150, which should be all you need to secure the game w/ the help of spies -> Autocracy...
So, the goal is to have Machinery early and archers early enough to accumulate mad XP. This is the only reason I consider opening Honor. +50% XP shaves 1/3 the time off the time it takes to get Logistics. The limiting factor is usually *opportunities for XP*, and 100 XP (to Logistics) takes a looong time:
Melee Attack: 5 XP (Irrelevant)
Melee Defense: 4 XP (Irrelevant)
Ranged Attack: 2 XP
Ranged Defense: 2 XP
Built in a City with a Barracks: 15 XP
Built in a City with an Armory: 15 XP (Irrelevant)
You can do the math on this one. Unless you're letting your archers get hit by melee units, it takes 50 turns of offense to hit Logistics. Even in the best-case scenario, where if you're not attacking, you're healing with a medic when you're damaged, you're only getting 1 XP/turn on average. (Unless you're Genghis... sigh. He makes this strategy stupidly effective)
Realistically, it takes over 100 turns without Military Tradition to hit Logistics. If you wait until you have barracks, it shaves off 15 turns on average, but it delays getting your archers out by too long. I might try justanotherturn's suggestion of having the archers ready to build when I build barracks, and getting them all at once with overflow for 15 XP, but still, there's no way you finish them all by turn 15, which you'd need to, to compete with having 4 archers out with Military Tradition. (See my math above)
Anyway, it's hard to imagine doing this *without* beelining Military Tradition. I can get my archers out by turn 33 (average... first one comes sooner, and I buy one) and then by turn 100 they have Logistics. But this requires some serious funny business to make up for not staying within Tradition or Liberty...
kb27787:
Ironworks/Workshops would delay this too long. IMHO.
Deau:
I dunno, IDF takes too long to get rolling unless you have a crazy faith start. On Deity you're lucky to get the pantheon you need. But even if you get it, a typical *good* start w/ shrine yields 5 faith/turn in the capital. Even if you build shrine first thing, you'll still probably only get that pantheon on turn 25 at the earliest, probably turn 35. Assume we're not the first religion, so 45 turns to get a prophet. Now we probably have a second city by then, second shrine and maybe some more faith-generating tiles, so let's say we're at 9fpt, so another 22 turns to get a missionary. Add ten turns to spread twice, and we're at turn 100.
I'm pretty sure Machinery is achievable by turn 100, so I think IDF comes too late to *rely on*, BUT, I do agree that it could make the strategy more likely to succeed. Shooting for IDF could help if you somehow *don't* have Machinery by turn 100 due to bad luck with TR or whatever. However, I'm very tempted with this build to go for a culture pantheon to aid my Honor-crippled culture/turn.
Otherwise, Deau, I tend to agree with you. I think 2 TR (3 at Engineering) beats Libraries/Philosophy if you can get it. You can make it more of a sure thing by going Liberty and pushing your first city close (but not too close) to an AI you don't think will DoW you.
I tried this a bunch last night to work on the details. Lots of thoughts from that:
In my most successful attempt I had 20 beakers from trade routes. (3 of mine, 2 of his)
Considering that TR give gold instead of having maintenance costs like libraries, I think there's a strong argument for skipping libraries altogether until you hit Machinery. Here's why. My most successful attempt at this so far went like this:
Machinery at t110, Steal Philosophy, Steal Civil Service. Steal Education at t130.
Spies are incredibly effective at stealing from high beaker tall civs. The civs with the most beakers tend to have gone for Education or at least Philosophy. So, all of a sudden I'm building NC and universities at turn 130 despite beelining Machinery.
I've played with Liberty, Tradition and Honor for this opener, and so far, a mixture of Liberty and Honor has been the most successful, but I'm still far from making this work as well as I'd like. On my best attempt, I had CBs with Range and Logistics and was bullying Rammy, when all of a sudden out of the fog of war come Naresuan's elephants a few turns before I got my X-Bow upgrades. They all got pwned before I could blink. :-(
Random thoughts from my attempts so far:
* You can't *rely on* having enough close neighbors to perma-war an AI AND also have a friend for multiple TR.
One solution is to Perma-war a CS instead. You can still farm workers and this is much safer and more reliable for getting XP for your archers/CBs. You have to let the city regenerate a bit though, because you get no XP when it's at zero health. This is generally ok because you need time to heal. The downside though is that they don't spawn very many units, so you're getting far from optimal XP. Attacking 2 CS would fix this but ruin your reputation. Even staying in perma-war with one will cause you problems...
The other solution is to open Liberty and get a second city out ASAP near a friendly neighbor. Now you have one neighbor you perma-Dow and one you trade with. The problem with this, of course, is that I want pillage-healing and Military Tradition, and 4 archers out fast, which means I don't have time to take Collective Rule or hard-build a settler.
* Medics are awesome. Your first (and only warrior) should get the Medic promotion. It makes healing in the field equivalent to healing inside your borders.
* Pyramids + Citizenship: Bring your workers and if necessary, improve every tile in tier 2. Between the Medic and pillage-healing, you can just sit there absorbing damage (getting XP) every turn even when the city is at zero health. Between the fortification bonus and the multiple targets, the city will struggle to punch through, and when it does, pillage!
So far, I've had no trouble getting Pyramids with this policy order: Military Tradition -> Citizenship. I'm pillage healing by turn 60 or so, I have 2 stolen workers, 3 free ones, and my gpt is barely kept alive by my TR and AI trades.
This is a work in progress, but I really think that this can be wildly successful, despite the inevitable stall at ~t150, because you can rely on Autocracy spies to help you catch up.
I'm still working on ironing out the kinks, and haven't given up going back to full Liberty. But, at some point, it doesn't matter that full Liberty is better in almost all respects. The limiting factor is XP for my archers. This is why I keep going back to Honor. Because with full Liberty my X-Bows get bogged down until roughly turn 130. It's better to have CBs with Range than X-Bows.
to rush or upgrade them?"
needle early. I'm a bit skeptical that it's going to outperform Tradition in the long run. OTOH, if you decide to really push the trade route avenue for 
before you can see any benefit from it. If you land a Natural Wonder or a Desert, maybe. If not, good luck.
