[BTS] Placing Great Scientist on caravel and bulbing at sea. Why?

cdcuase

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Oct 26, 2005
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Was watching LainCiv4Deity's play and he did something I had never seen before. He placed two Great Scientists on two different caravels and then waited until they were out at sea to bulb Astronomy. You can see him do it at 26:55 of this video.

Can someone explain why he did that rather than bulb on land?
 
It doesn't appear that Lain explained the logic there, but my guess is he planned on using them for possibly scouting AI lands to meet other AIs faster. The idea being that at the point he started sending the GSs out to sea he had met no one, and he needed several tech trades in order to be able to bulb Astro. The more AIs he meets the better his trade options are, but luckily Mao provided everything he needed in 2 turns.

His goal is to get Astro asap. Hypothetically, the first AI or two he meets may not have all he needs in trade, or may not be willing to trade certain things initially.
 
Ah, thanks, that makes sense. So basically he could have put any other unit on those caravels, meet the new civs, do all those trades and still be able to do the same Astronomy bulb? For a moment I thought the actual location of the GS affected the bulbing cost (kind of like how the Great Merchants location affects how much gold one gets for a trade mission).
 
Yeah, any unit, but on Deity hammers are so precious that he basically had free scouts there to put on the boats. It had nothing to do with the bulb cost. Actually his bulb output was actually lower due to his low population. Actually first time I've seen a case where 2 GS did not outright finish Astro. Lain should not have whipped so much right before the bulbs, if I remember correctly..but he did not have many cities for pop anyway.
 
So basically he could have put any other unit on those caravels
Caravels carry only great people, missionaries and scouts. :) Most of the time you have GS:s available that don't have any particular job (well, before bulbing astro) so they tend to go onto caravels, which might be useful or it might not.
 
Far be it for me to criticize Lain’s Civ4 choices… but (!) I shudder at the thought of a bad dice roll when the Caravel meets an AI Galley. Bye-bye, Great Scientist.

And if Great Scientists are visible to barbarians, exploring with them seems even more risky.

Why isn't this a terrible idea??
 
Far be it for me to criticize Lain’s Civ4 choices… but (!) I shudder at the thought of a bad dice roll when the Caravel meets an AI Galley. Bye-bye, Great Scientist.

Do you mean a barb galley? Pretty easy to avoid those. Don't enter coastal tiles without movement points to spare.

And if Great Scientists are visible to barbarians, exploring with them seems even more risky.

Why isn't this a terrible idea??

If you move only in other civs culture and keep in cities you will be fine. You are not going to explore wild territory with GSs.
 
Okay.... :undecide:

I tend to swap maps (or an old tech for a map) when I meet overseas AI - but then, I'm on Emperor/Immortal and Deity is a different animal. And I'd consider it worth 15 :hammers: to build a Scout before putting a 1000+ :science: GS at risk (however small), but again, I'm not on Deity...
 
It's common in isolation games.

Starting with hunting, the starting scout gets assigned this task.
If not starting with hunting, I do try to remember (and get the opportunity to) build a scout before I reach compass, but that doesn't allways happen.
Failing that, I do try to find time to build a explorer (40H).

If not that, the scientists get to jump into the boats. It's just that they don't have anything useful to do at all.
You reach a coast of Asoka, and you unload the GSci there and next turn your wander inland and find Boudica, next turn you wander even further and meet Churchil.
I do take care and only move 1 movement (or 1.5 movements on roads) with the GSci though, should be 100% safe (Unless suprised by a barb horsearcher inside AI culture...?)

I much prefer to have a scout/explorer on the AIs continent though as they stick around. The scientists go up in smoke when they do their thing, and I want to keep watchful eyes on what the AIs are doing after that too.
 
I'd say it's impossible to die (with your GS) if you just move it wisely.
 
Was watching LainCiv4Deity's play and he did something I had never seen before. He placed two Great Scientists on two different caravels and then waited until they were out at sea to bulb Astronomy. You can see him do it at 26:55 of this video.

Can someone explain why he did that rather than bulb on land?
Outstanding question. Thought of it myself just 10 minutes before posting. Lymond, krikav and sampsa explain the reason(s) although using GSs as interior explorers seems so radical my first instinct is to agree with 6K Man's objection. But as he says in his second post, "Deity is a different animal." Indeed.
 
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Yeah, every little bit counts. Save some :hammers: for not building an otherwise useless scout/explorer (you can trade for maps soon anyway), but maybe even more than that, save unit upkeep, which kicks in way earlier on deity. Also, there is absolutely zero risk involved. Don't move your caravels to the coast, where barb galleys might attack them. Land your GS:s inside AI culture.
 
Why not use a spy to explore the "other" continent? Advantage is that you don't have to worry about not getting an OB or barbs. (Disadvantage is that they might get discovered and disappear.)
 
@Lennier Compared to the GSci it costs 40H.
And compared to a scout/explorer, they don't stick around and worse yet is that getting that spy discovered could cause a nasty diplo hit.

Main reason is that you very seldom have alphabet by the time you send away your caravels though, that you usually trade for afterwards.
The exception that breaks that rule is when you go for a early optics bulb, then you obviously have alphabet as it's a pre-req. :)
 
Spies are IMO horrible scouts because they get caught, that's 40 :hammers: down the drain and they only have 1 movement. Another reason is that you usually don't have alpha in isolation. You can always get OB by gifting a small amount of gold (Toku), unless you both are running a religion.
 
Not to hit the idea from all sides, but there's also the question of what to do with the spy long term assuming it doesn't get caught. You're not going to generate enough :espionage: in that time to steal a tech most likely, anything affordable isn't worth the hammer investment/diplo penalty risk, and keeping it around for a revolt when you invade later is very unlikely to work.
 
Well, I guess this is why I'm just an Emperor player.
 
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