If we did change our research, what we would try to learn next? For example, would we want to try to get Republic for ourselves (and then trade it) or learn something we might get a monopoly on? I think getting Republic or Code of Laws would work, so we can trade it. We need to research advanced techs to trade for lower-level techs.
Sounds good to me, mostly because I try to get Republic as quick as possible. However, since that is what I did at lower levels, I am not so sure it is the best thing to do now. My habits say go for Republic; my intellect says I need to look before I leap.
Do we need two barracks when we have three, soon to be, five cities? I think we need a couple Barracks so we get better units, and we get enough archers to plan an attack on the Vikings.
We need a barracks, I agree. But where are our threats from? At the moment, just barbarians are attacking us. We can pick our fights, sometimes, with the barbarians, and with archers, even regular archers, we can deal with them. The greatest future threat that we know of are the Vikings and right now they are focused on England. Just for now, I think we need a Barracks close to Viking-land. I do not think we need two Barracks at the present time.
How many archers would be enough to attack the Vikings? And what do we know of their military, except that they are very aggressive?
At what point do we begin to focus on building buildings? After we have reached the limit of expansion. I think building Granaries, Barracks, and maybe Temples should be it.
When do we reach that limit? When we have a certain number of cities? Our first war?
I agree with the idea, but how do we know when we are there?
Something that almost always confuses me: should our workers work together or separately this early in the game? I separated the workers because I read on the Forum that in the long-term they can work more tiles than stacked.
I am not sure when to focus on long term worker allocation. It has to be balanced with which tiles we can use in the near future. If I were to guess, I would guess that up until 10 AD or so we will need to make sure our workers improve tiles that can actually be used by our citizens. This is something I need to work on.
Long term question: How are we going to deal with the Vikings and the English? Gold pieces or pointy-stick? I think we need to attack the Vikings before they attack us. They are one of the most aggressive civs, so you know they're coming after us. By that time, our culture should be big enough to hold off the English.
I agree that we need to pay attention to the Vikings and at least find a way to neutralize them. Later, we may want to dominate or even eliminate them.
Two things come to mind very quickly on the Vikings. One, we have no hard intelligence on the Vikings; we do not know how many cities they have or where the cities are located. They may have only two cities and the English just one, while we have three, heading to five. Second, we need a plan. And we cannot plan without intelligence.
For now, I would focus on keeping England alive and at war with the Vikings. The longer they fight, the better off we are. While they attack each other, we build cities towards them. We explore the land and find where their cities are located. We build up our military with archers and any fast units we can make. When the time is right (and I do not know when this would be) we attack the Vikings and try to eliminate them. We declare war properly (no ROP rape or sailing ships in their waters). And we try to get them to a manageable level; that is down to one or two cities, if not totally wiped off the face of the planet. Since we are trying to go to Alpha Centauri we may not want to eliminate them, I do not know.
Once the Vikings are manageable we would focus on England and set her straight about the honor and glory of Spain. We would not let her forget that at one time she refused to allow a Spaniard to ascend to the throne of England (Phillip II, husband of Mary I, who was half-sister to Elizabeth I).
Remember
this is discussion. Nothing has been agreed upon. Let us talk, plan and do.
