its possible to beat the elves in the race for FOL, all you need is to research mysticism first rather than hunting (have a civ that starts with ancient chants) and then build elder council, sage specialist and +5 research
eventually you will get a great sage (probably researching WoF then) use it to build academy and you research gets boosted even more. RoK more or less the same.
Yes, I think it IS possible, but very improbable.
Think about how many times you beat the AI elves to FOL or the AI dwarves to ROK. I cannot remember doing it in all the games I have played. It is especially frustrating when you don't know your ai competition (I let the computer randomly assign) and you try for one of those religions only to get beat out by the elves or dwarves.
Having said that, I just had an interesting experience.
I had incredible goodie hut luck playing the Kuriotates.
I hit the following three techs in order: Hunting, Tracking, and Animal Mastery.
The elves still beat me to FOL (had to get Ancient Chants and Mysticism), but I had Rangers very early. Orthus spawned near my civ and found a Ranger waiting for him. Easiest I have ever gotten the axe.
I wish this story had a happy ending.
Unfortunately, after the elves got FOL and the dwarves got ROK, I saw the message that Kandros Fir got the Core of the Subtle.
Say what? I thought that was taken out of .21?
Well, it was, but stupid me forgot to remove the identical shortcut off my desktop and I was playing another .20 game. Grrrrrr
