How should I play England?

[Bamboocha]

Sounds like a good plan, but what about I just take the rationalism opener, then civil society (from freedom) and then finish rationalism? It'll make my specialist consume only half of the normal food, making my cities grow faster. If I combine that with the statue of liberty (which I can rush, I'll generate a great engineer soon), my specialists will also generate production, making filling all of my great person slots a viable idea. Does that sound like a sound plan? My food output will suffer only slightly, but my gold, production, culture and science output will increase and I have a use for every great person. GE's rush wonders (or build manufacturies), GM build customs houses increasing my gold output (= more RA's), GS are saved for the last bulb rush and GA's will be used for golden ages (which give me more production and gold).

I don't have any coal within my borders so I'll have to trade. If I trade coal for 30 turns, build/buy factories and stop getting coal after they're constructed, will those factories cease to exist?

EDIT: Another question that just popped up is this: in what order should I finish the rationalism policies?

 

[Barth]

Okay, let's say I'll completely forget about going for a diplomatic victory and dedicate myself to science, what should I do from here? What policies should I take? Is it worth taking out the two civs that are stronger in tech to increase my chances of winning? Is there something else I can do to speed my science up?

EDIT: What about specialists (I have the freedom opener) and RA's, what should I do with those?

You're far enough into the tech tree that you're somewhat limited in terms of manipulating tech medians, so just sign a bunch of RA's and make sure you queue up the ones you need (beeline for Electricity first to open up some high value techs, the rest will take care of itself from there). Take off all specialists except for scientists and make sure to fill in all science specialists in every city. You're close to producing a GE in London, try to keep that from happening.

Build Public Schools in every city and then fill in those scientist slots as well. Then you should probably focus on culture buildings - at your current rate it'll take about 90 turns to reach Scientific Revolution. Try to get that down closer to 60 with culture buildings, allying cultural CS's and artist specialists (but be careful not to spawn a great artist).

The only policies you need to worry about are the left side of Rationalism. Your aim should be to finish the game before you are able to pick up any other policies.

Right now you're 20 techs away from getting everything you need for a science victory. Your goal should be to sign 2 waves of RA's and finish them in about 60 turns and launch the SS soon after that. You'll have 2 techs from Scientific Revolution, 1 from Oxford (stop building it now and save it for later), and 5-6 GS's, leaving you with 11-12 to get from hard teching and RA's.

If you want to fight a war you can either take out Darius, or you can target Hiawatha. He's one of the two civs ahead of you in science (not that you need to worry about this, you'll zoom past him with your RA's and GS's) and he also has the PT somewhere which would help ensure that your techs come in quickly enough.

 

[Barth]

Sounds like a good plan, but what about I just take the rationalism opener, then civil society (from freedom) and then finish rationalism? It'll make my specialist consume only half of the normal food, making my cities grow faster. If I combine that with the statue of liberty (which I can rush, I'll generate a great engineer soon), my specialists will also generate production, making filling all of my great person slots a viable idea. Does that sound like a sound plan? My food output will suffer only slightly, but my gold, production, culture and science output will increase and I have a use for every great person. GE's rush wonders (or build manufacturies), GM build customs houses increasing my gold output (= more RA's), GS are saved for the last bulb rush and GA's will be used for golden ages (which give me more production and gold).

EDIT: Another question that just popped up is this: in what order should I finish the rationalism policies?

No, like I said in the post above you don't want to take any policies other than the left side of Rationalism. It will already take you a long time to finish those, doing anything but a beeline for Scientific Revolution will slow you down considerably. And forget about non-scientist specialists or great people, again they'll only slow you down. Go full steam ahead on science, followed by culture. Once you've done all you can for science and culture then focus on improving production, but only in your 4 main cities - London, York, Hastings, and Nottingham. Your other 3 cities are fairly useless outside of their ability to produce GS's. Gold is the very last thing you need to worry about at this point. More is always better of course, but you have more than enough to sign RA's and ally a cultural CS or two.

I don't have any coal within my borders so I'll have to trade. If I trade coal for 30 turns, build/buy factories and stop getting coal after they're constructed, will those factories cease to exist?

Nope, those factories will continue working just fine. Doing exactly what you describe is a great idea to get the production up in your 4 core cities (which are the ones that will be producing the SS parts).

 

[Bamboocha]

Thanks a lot Barth, I'll follow your advice except for one thing:
I'll still pop Londons GE to rush the statue of liberty: it'll make my science specialists more useful (as it allows them to provide much needed production). Save for that I'll do exactly as you advised: only use science specialists, bribe me some cultural CS and finish the left side of rationalism.

 

[Barth]

You are of course free to do whatever you like, but why do you want SoL so badly? You don't need the production.

Edit: If anything you could pop a GE and use it on the Apollo Program (that's possible right? It's only the Utopia Project that can't be rushed?).

 

[The Pilgrim]

Gold is the very last thing you need to worry about at this point. More is always better of course, but you have more than enough to sign RA's and ally a cultural CS or two.

Well, he also needs money (although not a huge amount due to the Big Ben and commerce policies) to rush buy spaceship factories.

And yeah, of course, Electricity is the top priority. For aluminum and opening higher value techs for better median. That's worth pointing out once again. Good catch.

You are of course free to do whatever you like, but why do you want SoL so badly? You don't need the production.

Edit: If anything you could pop a GE and use it on the Apollo Program (that's possible right? It's only the Utopia Project that can't be rushed?).

I don't have access to save right now, but SoL isn't such a bad idea, I think. IIRC, there is no way to prevent from GE to be born. He's too close. But he won't 'cover' the whole wonder anyway. Still some turns of hard building will be necessary.

And nope, you cannot rush neither Apollo nor Utopia. They both are projects, not wonders. Only the UN can be rushed.

BTW, Bamboocha, you do have Ironworks, do you?

 

[Bamboocha]

I've just finished a science victory. As you all predicted, rushing the last 4 techs (with scientific revolution and two GS) and speeding up my research through RA's in general (I once got three techs in one turn) really helped, that final rush might have made the difference because when I started building the spaceship parts both Hiawatha and Alexander finished the Apollo program.

I've learned a lot from this campaign: I've learned that I can't just mess around and expect everything to fall in its place, I have to decide on a victory condition in the first few turns, or perhaps even before starting the game at all. I've also learned that I know too little on how to effectively use specialists and great people, so I'll have to learn about that in time.

Thanks again for all your help .