Mysticism and the early religious techs

[nate46]

I think there's no reason whatsoever to tech mysticism unless you're going for oracle or stonehenge.

Stonehenge is pretty good if you're playing emperor or lower... on immortal you have to build it before your 2nd city to have a decent chance of getting so not really worth it. and GL ever getting it on Diety. But on emperor its nice for the free culture.

Oracle -- Lots of people love this wonder but i only go for it when i have gold or gems.

 

[odin1981]

At monarch you can slingslot with Oracle CS with a gold/gems start...

In general though, those GP could have been Gscientist and you could have bulbed philo and gotten a caste system/philosophy golden age either with a random Great Priest or the artist from Music.

Bulbing theology and col is kinda inefficient, especially at lower difficulty.

Why? For there age it is usually a 20-30 research turn investment (at least on epic speed) for theology. And CoL is usually a 30-40 turner. If you have 2-3 gp farms not just a lone science one it is good to do. Generally though for me at least granted I am still newb and I know it but if you get oracle/hedge on your prophet/merchant town it isn't that hard to grab first two gp as prophets because for me at least from what I have seen so far is the science town really lags early in gp production up until you get a eng constructed GLibrary to finally get it producing GPP decently.

Since both of those techs aren't the best to grab with straight up research due to better military or eco techs at the time to get both for free plus access to (granted not purely free due to gpp needed) a win condition (ap palace) plus CoL which is just plain good due to courthouses for maintenece + spy points that early.

In addition to a early theology bulb catapults you to medieval so (I might be wrong here thinking about civ 1 and it no longer applies) all earlier research gets cheaper the higher up in ages you go?

Also if you have multiple gp farms it makes certain breakpoints which are kinda thresholds of access for people easier to attain. I saw a guide here for point thresholds and for the speed I play at the 1500 gpp threshold is where it kicks in. On epic the next level is 7500 and if you only have a lone farm that just sucks to get to if you are not philosphical or are industrious and grabbed a parthenon or are augustus cause rome is broke as .... ! But up to the 1500 spp level it is fairly easy to get because generally the gpp up to that point is a few hundred to next level.

That being said generally if you plan out 2-3 gp farms the spy/eng one is kinda slow to get going and naturally becomes the slower grower while the prophet/merchant one is pretty good early and tapers off the later the ages go but it naturally switches to the slow one that lags as you get eng plus 2-3 eng wonders. The science one is normally for me the quickest once you get the great lib infusion due to 5-8 science guys going.

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Because a Gscientist can bulb philo which is a lot more expensive, thus saving you more beakers. Theology just isn't worthwhile, whereas CoL is simply not that expensive compared to the amount of beakers scientist bulbs give you.

The rest of your post I don't really follow, your games seem to be so different from mine that I honestly don't know what your assumptions are most of the time.