Alright, let's see if I can get some grips on the situation. First and foremost, our goal is to send India to space, as fast as possible. We should identify the strategy which brings this about the fastest, and go for that. All other issues should then be settled with the chosen strategy in mind.
The questions that we need answers to right here and now are what to do with Tadpole, what to do with Spain and Ostrich, and what to do with the prisoners. Also we want an answer to the Wonder situation (which I won't try to answer here), what to do with the GA, and the question of infrastructure vs unit production.
The Goldfish Strategy
Summary: We leave India on their island until we've (nearly) researched all SS techs.
Overview:
This strategy means that we need to rush as fast as we can up the late MT, getting all techs required to build a spaceship. This means 39 required techs (including Chemistry at 3 turns left), which at constant 4-turn research means 155 turns. This would be modified by any help we'd get from the Ottomans (4-8 turns subtracted), and any optional techs that we care to research (MT, Economics, Nationalism, Sanitation, Communism), but again subtracting what other civs might research for us.
Ideally we want India to own the Great Library on the turn we research Robotics as the last SS tech. In this strategy they will have been only just released, and from here on we assume that they will conquer the rest of our fully developed southern core. The towns they capture will be small (pop 1), but with some rail-roaded irrigated tiles plus the Pyramids, they should grow fairly fast with healthy Indian citizens to populate these towns and moderate the Viking influence. The towns will hold a fair number of improvements, presumably around half the improvements will survive capture.
Thoughts:
If we choose to go for this strategy, there is no need to keep all civs around. The Ottos should clearly be kept until the start of the MT to help with research. On the other hand, Spain would also be good to have around, both for the gpt deals they could bring us, and for their ability to research optional techs. The others are of no consequence and could be taken out right away. We could keep the Ottos in SingSing to make sure they never meet Spain, but on the other hand there are no pressing needs to keep them apart with this scenario - India won't need the benefit of brokering contacts.
Since we won't give up the southern core until late, there is also no pressing need to set up a core on Tadpole. The only reason for it at all is that the lands there have much more potential than our current southern core, but on the other hand it will take some time to improve it. In any case we could wait with the switch until we're ready for it.
Since we will want to leave Spain in, whole and healthy, priority should be given to infrastructure. The GA could be saved for much later in order to maintain 4-turn research, or spent right away for infrastructure build-up.
Issues:
The big questions with this scenario are, how fast could India grow their new core to the point where they can start building SS parts? And is it at all feasible to give them towns, considering those towns will include Viking citizens? Even at size 1, if that single Viking citizen is unhappy the town won't ever grow to contain any Indian citizens to moderate that.
The Kindergarten Strategy
Summary:We let India out of the bowl much earlier than the end of the MT, but we keep them backwards, either by keeping the GLib for ourselves or by not letting anyone else (who knows India) learn any techs.
Overview:
This strategy differs from the previous one by the time when we release India from their bowl. As CF suggested, instead of waiting until we have all the required techs, we can actually let India out earlier as long as they still don't get Education. In particular this means we cannot let them both hold the GLib and know someone who knows Education at the same time.
We still need to research full speed to Robotics and Synthetic Fibers, so we must have the second core on Tadpole up and running before letting India out.
Thoughts:
If we go for this strategy, it means either the Ottos have to go, or we can't let Gandhi have the GLib. The former means we lose at least 4 turns of research, while the latter means we'll have a lot of fighting near Grad. If we let Gandhi have the GLib early, we also need to take out Spain fast. If we want any use from Spain we'd need to gift them up, but then they'd meet India and Gandhi would get Education.
We also need the Tadpole core, since India would be getting our old one before we're done with it. We need units to take out Spain before Astro, and to perform the coupes-de-grace.
Issues:
The question here is really whether it's a better scenario than the previous one. The drawbacks are obvious - India gets a core with less buildings, no research help from Ottos or Spain, more fighting to do. Also it's a risktaking, since a larger India might research faster than 40 turns.
The Merry Tech-Chase Strategy
Summary:We let India out of the bowl some time after 750 AD, and let them trade/extort/research their way through the IA and MT to gain the remaining SS techs.
Overview:
This is the strategy that I've been proposing all along. We let India out as soon as the core is ready, i.e. fully railed and with factories and other improvements. This gives India time to build up the core again after the conquering, before they need to start on the SS parts. To get to the SS techs, they need to do some research, trading or possibly even extortion to get up the ladder. For this we need all other civs alive, to lower the cost of the techs down to 1/8 of their original price.
We still need to research everything up to Robotics and SF, and we need a second core on Tadpole.
Thoughts:
If we go for this strategy, we need everyone alive. It would also be great if we could keep the two continents from meeting, although we would have to weigh the benefit of getting research and gpt help from Spain against the trading advantage that we want to give to India after we let them out.
The idea here is to give India time to build up the improvements that are lost on capture
before they need to start on the SS parts. Ideally they could still keep up with us in tech and get to the SS techs only slightly later than if they rode the elevator all the way, but this time with all the scrap like libraries and unis already built and not taking time from Apollo and the SS parts.
Issues:
The one question that stands out is whether it's feasible that India could keep up in tech. There is also room for moving the date of release back and forth some - we could let them out near the beginning of the MT, or nearer the mid of the IA.
Summary:
These are the three options I can see that are available to us. I'm still leaning towards the latter, since I think there are several tricks we could employ to keep India up to tech parity without too much hassle. It would give India the chance to build up before they need to start the spaceship. I can see how this can be risky though, clearly we can't trust the AI to do what we want...
It would be nice if we could have some calculations for how long it would take for India to build up their core after release if we choose the Goldfish strategy vs the Tech-Chase strategy. Also we could use a calculation of tech costs vs probable research rate of India with their larger core.
Comments please!
EDIT: Write a post for two hours, and then I post one minute after zyxy!
ike->pike. San Ansmurkzio: market->MI. HotB: barracks->horse. Atlanta: rax->spear
btw! ) we have some room to spare, in southern tadpole, and on ostrich. Of course, this will also take time, and we need to prevent contact between the Mongol-Ottoman-Carthage group and the America-Spain-Celt group.
