New player question: what's with the AI?

[Robber Baron]

Originally posted by bjsiders
My options are Engineering and Theology for research. I'm tempted to go for Theology and then get Education so my scientific Koreans can start pumping out the Universities. On the other hand, Engineering is the path to my UU and I haven't had a GA yet. Decisions, decisions.

If you're playing the Koreans, your UU is the hwacha, which does not trigger a golden age, I'm afraid. For this civ you can only geta GA via wonders.
If you are in position to compete with the AI's in research, I'd go for education, to get as much of a headstart on university learning as possible.
The other benefit for theology is Sistine's Chapel -- one of the most powerful wonders in the game.
Education, btw, can also be a valuable tech to broker, if the AI's aren't there yet.

[joncnunn]

I'm not sure if PTW changed things, but in my experence with Civ III Classic, the AI never considers it's current GPT from a tech trade when deciding who to pounce.
And in addition, the AI never considers that it's about to declare war when accepting a GPT deal for a tech.

(I'm even gotten a tech competely for free, by simply paying a pure GPT for tech when the AI had a stack of units inside my territory and then told them to get out, resulting in war and my entire debt wiped out.)