combustion before I even know what oil is?

[Dis]

Highly unusual if you ask me. I usually don't beeline like I just did last game. But I got combustion before scientific method. As you can see, I still have issues with the tech tree.

[Cort Haus]

I expect you just lack the industrial quantities of oil needed to build stuff with your discovery.

[Blaupanzer]

It does seem that scientific method should be a prereq to combustion since you can't build a well if you can't see the oil. However, most of us are bright enough to catch on to the fact that combustion is not doing us much good without that earlier tech. My recommendation would be to plan your advances properly to avoid this conundrum.

[Common Sensei]

This happens to me more often than not if I end up with a decent number of religions in my science city. I try to squeeze every last drop out of the monasteries' research bonus before getting Scientific Method.

[Blaupanzer]

The price, of course, is oil working technology with no oil. Iceland has this in RL. Scientific method is a turning point of sorts. It obsoletes a wonder as well, perhaps the GL. Not sure.

[Dis]

Yeah I hate obsoleting wonders, but sometimes the tech is too important. Such as chemistry. That is needed for railroads and factories (and everything else in the modern age). But I nearly always build the Parthenon. It's one of the few early wonders I can get. It's damn near impossible to get the Pyramids (though I got them last game), and it is impossible to get the great wall. I have yet to get it.

[Nikolai]

Does combustion implicate the use of oil? Can't you theoretically use some other substance?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Dis
Yeah I hate obsoleting wonders

I hate using "obsolete" as a verb

[Ecthy]

I hate people discussing semantics in the on-topic section.

[zeace]

Whale blubber was a common combustible for a long time before petroleum became popular. I suppose you could develop a combustion engine that ran on blubber. There's also lots of places in the world that have "tar pits" which are actually small amounts of oil at the surface. Neither tar pits or whales could produce enough oil to keep a battalion of tanks rolling though, so you need to find the sub-terranean oil.

I like to think that Sci Meth teaches us how to find oil that is buried under the ground, and Combustion teaches us how to build the well. You need both.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Does combustion implicate the use of oil? Can't you theoretically use some other substance?

I might ask the same thing. Steam-powered ships, maybe? (They don't actually come in with the "steam power" advance.) Then, at risk of being off-topic, I pose another conundrum: you actually pick up hammers for oil before combustion (if you get SM first) and for uranium mines, before fission. What are they using it for, do you suppose? Lubricant maybe, in the case of oil; but Uranium? What, glow-in-dark paper weights?

[Jaybe]

Glow-in-the-dark paperweights that slowly KILL you! Probably what leads to the research of fission.

[Prussia]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Glow-in-the-dark paperweights that slowly KILL you! Probably what leads to the research of fission.

The radiation is what makes them glow in the dark.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Does combustion implicate the use of oil? Can't you theoretically use some other substance?

The same thing I think, too.
They just use anothr substance instead of oil,
which can be used for small combustion engines in the lab,
but for some reason isn´t good for use in larger combustion engines
that really could power a tank or destroyer.


IMHO it´s similar to the situation we have at the moment with fusion reactors.
We can build research reactors to study fusion,
but we still lack the necessary tech to build reactors for long term use,
that could really be used to replace existing power plants

[Strudo]

Originally posted by Dis
It's damn near impossible to get the Pyramids (though I got them last game), and it is impossible to get the great wall. I have yet to get it.

I only just got Warlords the other day and in my first game I got both the Pyramids and the Great Wall. Must have done something right, cos I think I got all but about 1 of the earlier wonders. Of course I proceeded to get stomped on by Saladin