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Puppeteer
Emperor
I recall a few. I thought of this one, but it doesn't really go that far, but after 25 turns or so the situation is vastly improved: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/very-difficult-game.527265/
Here's another one where OP thought they were in a poor position, but I won the game by conquest 41 turns later: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/new-to-civ.488959/ (turn logs are in attachments)
(Funny the ones I recall are where *I* took over
)
Here's another one where OP thought they were in a poor position, but I won the game by conquest 41 turns later: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/new-to-civ.488959/ (turn logs are in attachments)
(Funny the ones I recall are where *I* took over
)
Puppeteer
Emperor
You're welcome! Hey, the SAV is attached to the Zerksees thread. (Well, mine, too.) I don't recall that one; instead of reading I may try it out for myself. It looks like the original game was PTW. Some of the game mechanics (corruption especially) will be different running under Conquests, but that empire is small enough it shouldn't drastically affect the player's existing empire.
Edit: Wow, the only victory condition enabled is conquest. I guess that's both good and bad news. I have to kill the world, but at least nobody else can win without wiping me out first. Still doing an initial assessment. The leader Germany is at least two techs into the IA while we're less than halfway through MA.
Edit: Wow, the only victory condition enabled is conquest. I guess that's both good and bad news. I have to kill the world, but at least nobody else can win without wiping me out first. Still doing an initial assessment. The leader Germany is at least two techs into the IA while we're less than halfway through MA.
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Puppeteer
Emperor
Geez, I'm on the verge of forgetting the game and just reading the thread. This game doesn't even look fun. Literally every non-capital city is a flip risk, and all the neighbors are in the IA. I have no clue what this player was doing for 174 turns. Judging by city names and fog of war...not much. It doesn't even look like they've lost cities to neighbors. It's not like they've been building wonders, either...or at least never beating the competition to one.
On the other hand, this is regent difficulty. And I just got an idea for some tech boost (trade Saltpeter for Chemistry maybe since I don't need muskets...heck I can trade away the horses, too), and really if I could just make it to military tradition I'd have a chance of doing a little damage. And the land is horribly underdeveloped...maybe I could use tech trade savvy along with brokering with the other lagging civs while I improve the land and see if any cities flip while doing that....
Ok, I haven't evaluated my production capability yet, but I'm starting to see a path: nuthin' but Samurai, beeline for Mil Tradition, trade broker my way into the IA, and hope for no flips. Maybe build temples if needed to defend against cascading flips if they do start to happen. And maybe some map trading if I can do it on the cheap because there is under 1/4 of the world map revealed, and much of it via city investigation, apparently.
Puppeteer
Emperor
Ok... thank Ainwood for CivAssist II! It doesn't work like it used to (on Win10), but I can still manually load a save which really helps here.
Culture flipping is disabled in this save, so flips aren't a worry! Also no scientific leaders...not that it directly helps me, but the leaders won't get more boosts. Not having to worry about culture flips is a HUGE relief in this position!
So yeah... still going through the initial evaluation, but the path forward seems to be clear:
Edit 2: Oh, this looks to be accelerated production. I'm not used to that, so not sure how to factor it into plans, but since I want to stockpile military and throw them at enemies, it probably works in my favor.
Edit 3: Judging by the worker improvements, I'm assuming all workers are automated. I haven't made a move yet, but I think I'm going to cancel all worker actions and take control of them immediately, even if turns are wasted. Yeah, I think I'm going to take a crack at this. I'm almost ready to start making drastic changes. Oh, and it looks like the player has been building infrastructure the whole game, so I think I'm about to sell a crapload of buildings.
Edit 4: There's a courthouse in the capital. Thought you ought to know.
I could go on and on about evidence of previous builds, but that probably sums it all up.
Culture flipping is disabled in this save, so flips aren't a worry! Also no scientific leaders...not that it directly helps me, but the leaders won't get more boosts. Not having to worry about culture flips is a HUGE relief in this position!
So yeah... still going through the initial evaluation, but the path forward seems to be clear:
- Be a clever human tech broker
- Improve and optimize the
coretiny empire - Stockpile Samurai and then Cavalry
- YOLO wars
Edit 2: Oh, this looks to be accelerated production. I'm not used to that, so not sure how to factor it into plans, but since I want to stockpile military and throw them at enemies, it probably works in my favor.
Edit 3: Judging by the worker improvements, I'm assuming all workers are automated. I haven't made a move yet, but I think I'm going to cancel all worker actions and take control of them immediately, even if turns are wasted. Yeah, I think I'm going to take a crack at this. I'm almost ready to start making drastic changes. Oh, and it looks like the player has been building infrastructure the whole game, so I think I'm about to sell a crapload of buildings.
Edit 4: There's a courthouse in the capital. Thought you ought to know.
I could go on and on about evidence of previous builds, but that probably sums it all up.
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Puppeteer
Emperor
Ok, I started with tech trades. I traded away my only horses and saltpeter and gained 5 techs!!!
Next I'll see if I can get any more territory maps or gold with my improved WM. I could even try for tech, but Mongols weren't having any of my WM for Metallurgy offer.
And then I'll actually start selling buildings and moving or disbanding units. Actually I may do that first as it will give me more gold and gpt to see if I can wheedle another tech out of someone.
Spoiler Pre-play analysis :
Spoiler Trades :
Next I'll see if I can get any more territory maps or gold with my improved WM. I could even try for tech, but Mongols weren't having any of my WM for Metallurgy offer.
And then I'll actually start selling buildings and moving or disbanding units. Actually I may do that first as it will give me more gold and gpt to see if I can wheedle another tech out of someone.
I am fine with lots of disabled things, but you have to leave flips on. Higher levels, that can put some pressure on the human player.
Edit:
AP I only play it on scenario's Firaxis made maps. They are a big boon to AI on some of the Napoleon maps, where you are constantly at war. They do not otherwise manage the production well.
Edit:
AP I only play it on scenario's Firaxis made maps. They are a big boon to AI on some of the Napoleon maps, where you are constantly at war. They do not otherwise manage the production well.
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"Edit: I'll also have to consider Monarchy. I normally would stick with Republic, but I think some of the wars may be rough in Republic. And Japan is religious, so switching would only be a couple of turns. I don't think commerce wins me this game.
Edit 2: Oh, this looks to be accelerated production. I'm not used to that, so not sure how to factor it into plans, but since I want to stockpile military and throw them at enemies, it probably works in my favor.
Edit 3: Judging by the worker improvements, I'm assuming all workers are automated. I haven't made a move yet, but I think I'm going to cancel all worker actions and take control of them immediately, even if turns are wasted. Yeah, I think I'm going to take a crack at this. I'm almost ready to start making drastic changes. Oh, and it looks like the player has been building infrastructure the whole game, so I think I'm about to sell a crapload of buildings.
Edit 4: There's a courthouse in the capital. Thought you ought to know. I could go on and on about evidence of previous builds, but that probably sums it all up."
Sounds like every game I ever helped a player on.
Edit 2: Oh, this looks to be accelerated production. I'm not used to that, so not sure how to factor it into plans, but since I want to stockpile military and throw them at enemies, it probably works in my favor.
Edit 3: Judging by the worker improvements, I'm assuming all workers are automated. I haven't made a move yet, but I think I'm going to cancel all worker actions and take control of them immediately, even if turns are wasted. Yeah, I think I'm going to take a crack at this. I'm almost ready to start making drastic changes. Oh, and it looks like the player has been building infrastructure the whole game, so I think I'm about to sell a crapload of buildings.
Edit 4: There's a courthouse in the capital. Thought you ought to know.
I could go on and on about evidence of previous builds, but that probably sums it all up."Sounds like every game I ever helped a player on.
Puppeteer
Emperor
Yeah, I always play with flips on, even though it can be annoying.
So I'm only 9 turns into the game, but I've gained 12 techs!
I had to trade away all my resources to do it, though. So I just got Military Tradition, but I have 11 more turns before my horses and saltpeter come back to me. I even traded my iron, so I'm having to choose between explorers, longbowmen (to later disband for 5 shields), spearmen (to upgrade later), or wealth.
The neighbors all have riflemen in their cities. I see lots of knights running around, but no cavs yet.
I'm at tech parity or close enough for my purposes with the other three middle age civs, so I'm going to have to self research (or pointy stick) my way into catching up with the others.
The workers were automated, so of course almost everything is irrigated.
Germany DoW'ed on France and is dogpiling others onto them. Yay, but Egypt is about to use my tiny empire as a through-way.
I'm still a Republic, and I haven't sold all the buildings yet. It looked like since I already had temples, cathedrals, and colosseums in most cities that it might be more expensive to sell them and use the lux slider. But now that I reached my main target (MT) and not all cities have all the happy buildings I'm going to try selling them all and using the lux slider. I did free up a bunch of unit maintenance by disbanding tons of useless units, but now I'm building more, and quickly.
I'm not quite sure what I want to do with the next 11 turns. Wealth seems to really suck extra hard with AP, even with Economics, and each unit costs 2gpt and builds quickly. I don't think I can hold my own against any neighbor with just pikes, longbowmen, spears, and the handful of Samurai I have. I certainly can't take new territory yet. I suppose I could just stop or slow research to afford the new units until I can disband them towards cavs. I may have to do that; there's no new offensive unit between cavs and the leaders, so I can eventually catch up via pointy stick. Although that will take a while as I doubt I can demand anything for peace for a while.
Oh, that's what I can do: revolt to Monarchy while I'm waiting for my resources to come back. I'll probably need it in the early wars.
So I'm only 9 turns into the game, but I've gained 12 techs!
I had to trade away all my resources to do it, though. So I just got Military Tradition, but I have 11 more turns before my horses and saltpeter come back to me. I even traded my iron, so I'm having to choose between explorers, longbowmen (to later disband for 5 shields), spearmen (to upgrade later), or wealth.The neighbors all have riflemen in their cities. I see lots of knights running around, but no cavs yet.
I'm at tech parity or close enough for my purposes with the other three middle age civs, so I'm going to have to self research (or pointy stick) my way into catching up with the others.
The workers were automated, so of course almost everything is irrigated.
Germany DoW'ed on France and is dogpiling others onto them. Yay, but Egypt is about to use my tiny empire as a through-way.
I'm still a Republic, and I haven't sold all the buildings yet. It looked like since I already had temples, cathedrals, and colosseums in most cities that it might be more expensive to sell them and use the lux slider. But now that I reached my main target (MT) and not all cities have all the happy buildings I'm going to try selling them all and using the lux slider. I did free up a bunch of unit maintenance by disbanding tons of useless units, but now I'm building more, and quickly.
I'm not quite sure what I want to do with the next 11 turns. Wealth seems to really suck extra hard with AP, even with Economics, and each unit costs 2gpt and builds quickly. I don't think I can hold my own against any neighbor with just pikes, longbowmen, spears, and the handful of Samurai I have. I certainly can't take new territory yet. I suppose I could just stop or slow research to afford the new units until I can disband them towards cavs. I may have to do that; there's no new offensive unit between cavs and the leaders, so I can eventually catch up via pointy stick. Although that will take a while as I doubt I can demand anything for peace for a while.
Oh, that's what I can do: revolt to Monarchy while I'm waiting for my resources to come back. I'll probably need it in the early wars.
Spoiler Turn log :
I have reviewed scores of Regent and Monarch games and the themes are always the same. Weak expansion, lack of workers, works mismanaged. Poor build choices and on and on. The good news is you can save low level games, unless they let it get to nukes. The AI will have them and you won't. Most of the time I look at the capitol and it will have many tiles totally unimproved, even well into the middle ages. Well have fun, elbow grease is all you need.
It is very late, so I should not be posting. Sure way to make mistakes. Just a quick peek at the save. Yup std Regent issues.
I see Tokyo building a granary, though it is size 8. Unless it is a worker pump to be, why do it now?
Maybe he should have switch a few builds to sami, especially the musketmen.
Typical Regent style, making a market in a size 3 (Izumo) that is not growing and he had no lux.
Did not found on turn 1, not sure where he started or why he moved. Maybe not next to river.
Dam Nagasaki was not founded till 350AD. It is 4 tiles from capitol. I see, Osaka was 1750BC, so he
crammed in Nagasaki. Not in favor of stunting my starting core. OCP is fine, if you have lots of space and
are able to pump out settlers and workers. Otherwise you end up with 10 towns and someone else has 25. That is
not suppose to happen on Regent.
Starting land is lacking lux and bonus food. Well, that ivory should not have gotten away, it is near the capitol.
74 gold for mostly units that could neither defend nor kill. AI's have knights and soon cavs. May have been better of to not spend the shields and not pay the maint.
I grant him that he needs some trash to not invite an attack, but he got one anyway as he is paying for peace.
Did not look in the towns, did see many clowns though.
I see Tokyo building a granary, though it is size 8. Unless it is a worker pump to be, why do it now?
Maybe he should have switch a few builds to sami, especially the musketmen.
Typical Regent style, making a market in a size 3 (Izumo) that is not growing and he had no lux.
Did not found on turn 1, not sure where he started or why he moved. Maybe not next to river.
Dam Nagasaki was not founded till 350AD. It is 4 tiles from capitol. I see, Osaka was 1750BC, so he
crammed in Nagasaki. Not in favor of stunting my starting core. OCP is fine, if you have lots of space and
are able to pump out settlers and workers. Otherwise you end up with 10 towns and someone else has 25. That is
not suppose to happen on Regent.
Starting land is lacking lux and bonus food. Well, that ivory should not have gotten away, it is near the capitol.
74 gold for mostly units that could neither defend nor kill. AI's have knights and soon cavs. May have been better of to not spend the shields and not pay the maint.
I grant him that he needs some trash to not invite an attack, but he got one anyway as he is paying for peace.
Did not look in the towns, did see many clowns though.
Puppeteer
Emperor
Heh, yeah. I got a few hours sleep, but not enough. I belatedly realized that I traded with Russia and gave them the ability to build Siphai (edit 2: oh, Cossacks not Siphai...ok not quite as scary). But I don't think I had any other choice as they and Arabia were the only ones without horses, and I needed Chemistry to get a tech from Arabia to start the broker chain.
Germany in addition to being the tech and power leader has many knights in sight. When I sent Explorers into neighboring civs I saw China had lots of wandering riders and such. Russia seems to have far fewer wandering units, and given captured units, the player has warred with Russia before.
I'm not sure I can survive even on Regent if Germany attacks me. I'd definitely lose a city or two. Not sure if I can make headway into China, either. Russia perhaps, but how many Siphai are they building these first 20 turns? I suppose I could use cannons, but artillery use really bores me.
On the other hand, what's there to lose? I have to get the world fighting each other and grab some new land.
I'm toying with the idea of starting over and recording it for YouTube, but I'm not sure I want the bother.
I'm also in doubt as to whether I want to continue the game. I think I may go read what Zerksees did; I have the WM now and understand the situation, and I know my general plan, so I don' think there's really anything in the game to spoil now. And then I'll figure out if I want to continue. Well, maybe coal locations would be spoiled, but I can pretty decently guess where coal might be. There's a jungle to the S, and Germany has two cities with American names among the jungle, so coal is probably there somewhere.
Rubber locations might also be spoiled, but if the AI start making infantry before I start gaining territory and turning them against each other...well that would be bad. So I don't think spoiling rubber sites would really impact my play.
Ok, I'm going to read what/how Zerksees did. I presume he did better than me, but on the other hand I got 12 techs in 9 turns which is pretty good.
Edit: Zerksees was facing infantry, radar towers and even tanks far earlier than I expected! But he bought his way up the tech tree, whereas I used my resources immediately and was able to broker my way up with the other three MA civs without doling out much money. I wonder if the enemies are farther ahead than I thought or if zerksees unwittingly financed a research frenzy amongst the tech leaders? I don't see Hoover Dam or even ToE under construction. There aren't really any telltale wonders between Universal Suffrage and Replaceable Parts, so maybe they're farther along in that tree than I can see. He also went ICS which I don't plan to do. Now I'm kind of interested to see if I can make a dent in enemies before they get to RP and tanks.
Germany in addition to being the tech and power leader has many knights in sight. When I sent Explorers into neighboring civs I saw China had lots of wandering riders and such. Russia seems to have far fewer wandering units, and given captured units, the player has warred with Russia before.
I'm not sure I can survive even on Regent if Germany attacks me. I'd definitely lose a city or two. Not sure if I can make headway into China, either. Russia perhaps, but how many Siphai are they building these first 20 turns? I suppose I could use cannons, but artillery use really bores me.
On the other hand, what's there to lose? I have to get the world fighting each other and grab some new land.
I'm toying with the idea of starting over and recording it for YouTube, but I'm not sure I want the bother.
I'm also in doubt as to whether I want to continue the game. I think I may go read what Zerksees did; I have the WM now and understand the situation, and I know my general plan, so I don' think there's really anything in the game to spoil now. And then I'll figure out if I want to continue. Well, maybe coal locations would be spoiled, but I can pretty decently guess where coal might be. There's a jungle to the S, and Germany has two cities with American names among the jungle, so coal is probably there somewhere.
Rubber locations might also be spoiled, but if the AI start making infantry before I start gaining territory and turning them against each other...well that would be bad. So I don't think spoiling rubber sites would really impact my play.
Ok, I'm going to read what/how Zerksees did. I presume he did better than me, but on the other hand I got 12 techs in 9 turns which is pretty good.
Edit:
Zerksees was facing infantry, radar towers and even tanks far earlier than I expected! But he bought his way up the tech tree, whereas I used my resources immediately and was able to broker my way up with the other three MA civs without doling out much money. I wonder if the enemies are farther ahead than I thought or if zerksees unwittingly financed a research frenzy amongst the tech leaders? I don't see Hoover Dam or even ToE under construction. There aren't really any telltale wonders between Universal Suffrage and Replaceable Parts, so maybe they're farther along in that tree than I can see. He also went ICS which I don't plan to do. Now I'm kind of interested to see if I can make a dent in enemies before they get to RP and tanks.
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Puppeteer
Emperor
Oh, right! My faulty memory again. Thanks! Cossacks (blitz attacks) are much less scary to me than Siphai (8 attack power).
I read through zerksees' victory. I think I want to play some more to see how different the tech leaders advance with my method. ("My method" is probably unfair; there is 16 years' more general knowledge since he played this out, and pretty much everything I learned was from reading here and Apolyton.) But I have no patience for late-game sloggy warfare, so as civs get into the late IA I'll probably lose interest.
But I hope to have an idea if I can make progress by throwing Cavalry at Russia and later China and/or Germany, and perhaps some more tech brokering and fomenting war between AI civs.
I'm surprised at how long it took zerksees to take Rostov and even much later Dortmund. My aim will be to push borders out, so when I get my resources back I'll be concentrating more on cavs and workers than settlers. Rostov is currently my first target of expansion.
iirc PTW saves into C3C do not have the c3c functions. SoZ, Knights Templar and such. No SGL I suspect. Armies are not as strong.
Edit:
Don't forget that Monarchy offers MP to give some happy faces and free unit support based on size of towns.
Edit:
Don't forget that Monarchy offers MP to give some happy faces and free unit support based on size of towns.
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Puppeteer
Emperor
It's absolutely a great way to improve your game skills. You learn new things if for no other reason than having a much different starting point than you would find yourself in. And you have other players' examples to compare to.
I can't find a strategy guide, but I'm sure they're out there. They typically focus on "zero research", min research or strategically-chosen research from the very beginning. But the principles work here.
(TL;DR: You have to find a civ close enough to you in advancements that needs a tech you might be able to acquire, over and over again. Try to get at least two techs for every tech you acquire. Focus on required techs, especially those which are prerequisites to two others. Look at leader head pics and wonder builds in progress to gauge how far ahead the others are.)
In assessing the situation you look at wonder builds in progress to get an idea of how far ahead your opponents are. (And of course which age each civ is in which is evident by their leaderhead photo or game assistant.) In this case, Germany is building the only Industrial Age wonder, and it's two techs into the IA.
AI are pretty wonder-happy, so it's reasonable to assume Germany may be the only one quite that far. That's a minimum of two techs into the IA, but Germany is a scientific civ and therefore got a free tech once they got into the IA, so there's an okay chance most of the IA civs are just barely into the IA. However it may also be that they have even more techs that don't enable wonders.
Coal and rubber are IA resources that can indicate where they are on the tech tree in IA, too. If you wanted, you could spend for embassies and/or investigate capitals and see their trade resources (and units defending). But I didn't think I needed to, and I wanted all my money for catching up in tech.
But I did see China I think had some rails built, so I know they're at least that far and have coal.
Anyway, there are three techs in the MA still which are the ones I'd have a shot at finding a tech they don't have, and Arabia in fact lacks Chemistry but has Theology, and I have neither. So that's where to start pulling the thread: acquire Chemistry, use it to get Theology from Arabia, then see if there is another thread to pull.
Before I did that, though, I noted Egypt was working on Smith's, so they clearly had Economics, but neither Arabs nor Mongols had any wonders in progress, so they presumably weren't as far along, so there was hope to find more threads to pull.
The human play can do something an AI would *never* do: trade away their last of a resource. I could also buy tech relatively cheaply, but that just gives the AI which is already ahead the ability to crank up their research faster, and they can all trade with each other so that's not a great way to catch up. Note that zerksees bought even the last Modern Age techs, so he never actually "caught up" in research. I'm actually hoping to be at parity with the leaders by mid or late IA if it's not already too late.
Anyway, Russia had no horses, England had no Saltpeter, and Arabia lacked all three resources. I intended to keep my iron to stockpile Samurai, but I wouldn't have started with Arabia anyway. I want to get Chemistry then use that to get Theology, a "two fer"...effectively getting two techs for one resource.
...oops...or that was the original plan, but as I read my notes, I actually got Theology from Russia first . Did I goof? That would have sucked if Arabs didn't have Education and beyond. And then I got Chemistry and Education from England with the Saltpeter. Again, would have sucked if Arabs weren't past that.
But they were, so I got both Banking and Astronomy from them for Chemistry, paying out the most money, but those two techs opened up access to a bunch of others, and Arabia was clearly a bottom feeder civ like me.
So I'm not sure if I had a good indicator the Arabs were that far up the tree or if I goofed up and lucked out.
Anyway, at that point I saw that none of my MA peers had Physics, and both Arabs and Egypt lacked Metallurgy. (Well of course Arabs did as Chemistry is a prereq for it.) I'm mostly ignoring the optional techs at this point as I want Military Tradition for cavs, and I want to get the mandatory techs to get into the IA.
I planned to self-research Metallurgy a few turns and hope to trade it to Egypt or Arabia, and maybe they'd have Physics by then.
But Arabs turned up with Metallurgy the very next turn. (Probably with the money I was giving them...damn!) I just realized they had to have traded for it as they lacked the prereq until I traded it to them the previous turn.
So Egypt was my only trade partner left for Metallurgy, and I didn't want to wait because they might acquire it before I do, so I used my Iron to get Metallurgy from Arabia, and I threw in the world map and a bunch of optional techs (untradeable since everyone has them) because he had nothing else to offer in that trade.
That put me on the path to being able to self-research Military Tradition which was my primary target since once the original deals end I'll have my horses and saltpeter back to build cavs.
I don't think there is a better offensive unit between cavalry and tanks, so it's YOLO war time. Coercing the world into war slows down research, and catching up quickly isn't as critical, and it's not impossible I'd be able to demand a tech for peace if I survive long enough.
So I'll still definitely be looking for tech-for-tech trade opportunities, and if I conquer more resources I'll trade away any extra or unneeded, but I don't expect to trade away my only iron, salt, or horse resources anymore as I have to keep making military.
On the other hand, I really need to get into the IA, so I might do something crazy if it looks like I may lose my chance to barter my way into the IA like I almost did when Egypt was the only civ (besides me) without Metallurgy.
Edit: In retrospect, the last two trades were probably bad deals. I didn't get two good techs for one. I got Metallurgy a few turns early and a bunch of optional techs that don't really help, and then I gave England Metallurgy for Economics, a mostly useless tech. If I had waited and watched, I might have still been able to get Metallurgy but also Physics. Otherwise I would have had Mil Trad 6-8 turns later than I did and maybe still have iron. But I did get a world map, and that was sorely needed.
Edit 2: Yeah, I'm pretty sure I goofed up big-time by trading for Theology first. I just lucked out. It should have been acquiring Chemistry first and then trading it to Arabia for Theology and probably WM. But maybe it worked out for the better since Chemistry is worth so much more than Theology.
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