Just go for cuirs or detour for eco?

[Pengu]

Well, it's hard to ask these kinds of questions as they are situational for each game but...

In my game(Imm) it's 1120 AD and as Korea is doing ok with 10 cities.
I am just a couple of turns from lib. I did create some enemies right of the bat by attacking 2 AI's, Joao and Izzy, one for worker steal and one for blocking a marble site.
Since I couldn't take them out(took one city from Izzy) they will hate me for the rest of the game. As they were both buddist I went with the hindu block of Sury, Peter and Monty. Mehmet as the last participant went buddist. After I made peace with Izzy Monty dowed poor Izzy and took one more city. Then Sury dowed her and finally Mehmet. I dowed her in the end and took her last city as she never vassaled.
Sure enough Joao attacked me forcing me to build an army to deflect his attack. Mehmet did attack Peter and beat him up pretty badly taking 3 cities earlier in the game.
With Izzy's capitol he is a monster sitting at 13 cities. Only comfort is that he is more or less the lone buddist left(well Joao will not have anything to do with the end game) and not the most advanced civ right now. Peter somehow with 3 cities left is teching well and hasn't peacevassaled to anyone.
Monty is teching really well for being Monty and Sury(who dowed med early on just before he could get to pleased) is the most advanced.

So to my problem...
I have nat and edu right now as monopoly, but doesn't know if Sury are teching them.
Sure has engineering, guilds, banking, paper. I would think he is more powerful with 12 cities and higher score.

So do I gamble and tech/trade for guilds and banking so I could get eco 1st hoping that Sury won't get edu before that. I could use the gold as I have none.

Or do I just skip all of that, quickly lib MT, trade for Gunp. with Peter and pump out cuirs as quickly as I can?

 

[MegaLurker]

I'd not get distracted. Focus is what makes wars successful.

 

[Izuul]

Lib MT first and if the opportunity is still there, try for Econ later to help upgrade HA/Phants to Cuirs. Your Cuir attack date is the most important thing here.

Also, the AI loves to tech econ for the free GM so if get Lib and Sury gets Edu you can assume he will tech Econ next.

 

[strijder20]

For some reason I thought the OP meant Ecology by eco.
Yes, public transportations are good for dealing with unhealth, but not worth a detour...

 

[Pengu]

Bah, I wasn't really rdy as I had not got stables in my cities yet.
So I took economics and went for rifling upgrading my cuirs before attacking.
It delayed my attack though.
Took out Joao easy enough as I wanted his mids.
Then it went less good. Mehmet was plotting and it peter who was the target.
I did not want him to vassal to Mehmet So I got Monty in on Mehmet and dowed Mehemt myself. Noone was close to anything so I thought I had time.
I took a few cities from him including his cap. He had some grenadiers but his main stack was in russian land. But boy was I surprised when he came to take his cap back.
He had at least 30 grenadiers+trebs+some janissaiers in one stack and another with 5 phants and 5 grenadiers in another. And by then I had already killed 20-30 units.
And even after attacking with my entire stack of cavs(around 25) I had to flee as all my units were injured and he had still 25-30 units left. So I lost all 3 cities I had taken and that bastard belined rifling quick as ****. I wiped out his stack when it came for me, but now he has rifles, it's 1500 AD and I might look at Sury or Monty as they don't have it.
Well, I do got Peter as a vassal as well so I have 2 vassals and am in the top in tech.
But boy did Mehmet have a ton of units

 

[Pengu]

Eh, well at 1600 AD Mehmet capped
Just threw 50 cavs at his cities and with him having lost over 50 units no big stack was left to defend.
Only Monty and Sury left and they are behind in tech...

But maybe cuirs would had been faster.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Congratulations, it sounds like the game is in the bag. I rarely aim for economics, as it is so liked by the AI. Although, the great merchant is nice and can help upgrade a bunch of units. I wouldn't delay any military tech because of lack of stables either. I am learning lately it is hard to do anything, especially war, without committing everything to it--even if I have to whip all my cities to nothing just to win.