The Network Node

[DeathByTheSword]

will i LOVE civI and civII and i LIKE civIII

[Maniac]

Ah. Then it is ok. I won't smash your head.

[Method]

i'm sorry we don't allow people who like civ3 in our party

now take your civ3 disk and throw it out the window . if you don't want it to go to waste, give it away like i did, or better yet, sell it.

[DeathByTheSword]

it isnt that bad

[Kassiopeia]

I managed to get rid of my copy of Civ3. Even got 20 euros in exchange.

Social Psych -> Rec Commons -> D of SE happy

[DeathByTheSword]

*this is looking way ahead) but after that we need network nodes so we need Information Networks tech as the 3rd one ...???

[Method]

i never thought of selling it at the time. i just wanted it gone

? no!

social psych->Secrets and Ethical Calculus->Democracy->everyone happy

[Pandemoniak]

Originally posted by TKG
i'm sorry we don't allow people who like civ3 in our party

now take your civ3 disk and throw it out the window . if you don't want it to go to waste, give it away like i did, or better yet, sell it.

I pirated SMAC and bought it (two times acvtually, since I broke my first copy) because it was immoral to play such a game without paying the conceptors, while I pirated CivIII and erased it three days after...

[Zakharov VII]

Originally posted by TKG

social psych->Secrets and Ethical Calculus->Democracy->everyone happy

Everyone happy? Not quite.

First of all, IIRC, unless we pop a pod with a tech or somehow meet someone and trade techs, Social Psych shouldn't be an option after Ecology (but maybe I shouldn't tell you that, because if everyone votes Social Psych and I'm the only one to vote Industrial Base, my vote will win it second place and we'll have to choose it when Social Psych isn't an option . Maybe not, since that wouldn't be very nice ). EDIT: Anyways, Industrial Base isn't an option either, but still, as soon as possible, we should get it for Economics!!

Second, I still don't like this Secrets thing at all. We're north of the Freshwater Sea, and there's no Energy Resource near us. Whatever happened to deciding on Secrets based on our landing site? We don't have a very good energy start (IIRC, it was late last night when I looked at our 20 or so squares).

Third, while I like the concept of Democracy, I still don't like this Ethical Calculus thing at all. Democracy will slow us down since we lose the start minerals at a base.
The Growth benefit won't help us, as we'll have plenty of time to go from size 1 - size 2 before Colony Pods are built, and if not, we can make something to make some director or another happy (like Scouts, which I really don't like). We shouldn't get to size 3 early on, except at our Secret Project base(s), but they should have nice enough resources nearby for growth/production, or else they wouldn't be our Secret Project base(s) .
The Efficiency penalty will barely help early on, unless somehow we decide to go Planned. But that really, really shouldn't happen when Free Market is so easy to handle during our expansion era!! Once again, the growth of Planned is pointless, and who needs 10% cheaper facilities/units when you can be making 50-100% more cash and researching nearly twice as fast on Free Market?
Even if the Growth and Efficiency would help us slightly, think about what we give up. We give up about 5 turns of turn advantage (as new bases will probably be using a 2-1-? square, plus the base's 1, taking them 5 turns to recover the 10 minerals) with those minerals. IIRC, Vel's example of the greatness of turn advantage starts with a 5 turn, 10 mineral advantage. He was demonstrating the benefits of hurrying, but this time, rather than spending 25 EC's on each new base as Vel was suggesting, we're only losing a pointless Growth bonus and a couple of energy each turn we lose due to some inefficiency (which, itself isn't signifigant - Vel's example would spend 25 EC's at every base, so as long as we can found a base on average every 10 or so years (we'd be in trouble if we approached this average!), we get the better deal without Democracy).

Thus why we shouldn't go for Secrets and Democracy; there are times for Democracy, but only when we are a well-established faction, and when we have the power to fight to preserve our Democracy. What good would the Democratic ideals do for our people if applying them too early led to an angry Yang, with us too weak from crippling Support to defend against him? Democracy is ideal, I'll admit, and letting our people have it early would be wonderful, but that freedom would not be any confort when we're sitting around in someone's Punishment Sphere.

Free Market loses us no turn advantage, while gaining it through more frequent hurrying and faster technology discovery! The "damage" caused to Planet is not even noticable in our early years, with such weak industry. While we will be unable to Police our cities, what good are Police when we keep our settlements small and happy? Our second technology, therefore, should be Industrial Base, so we can get Industrial Economics and Free Market next.

Z

[Method]

Originally posted by Zakharov VII
Second, I still don't like this Secrets thing at all. We're north of the Freshwater Sea, and there's no Energy Resource near us. Whatever happened to deciding on Secrets based on our landing site? We don't have a very good energy start (IIRC, it was late last night when I looked at our 20 or so squares).

i have no intention of researching secrets. but of course, i don't decide that, and neither do you. we just have to wait for what the polls tell us.

and so what if i want ethical calculus? maybe i want creches. but again, it is the polls that will ultimatly decide what we research. social psych is actually my choice because we need rec commons to grow to size 3 (5 with HGP and talent bonus). who knows after that, what the polls will say. we might go to ethical calculus or head straight on to industrial automation. you just have to hope that people read what you have written, and hope they make an educated guess based on that.

but you're doing the same thing that people are ripping archaic for. you can't just treat this as an SP game, Z7, you have to RP a bit, because that's most of the fun.

[Zakharov VII]

Hmm, it wasn't letting me on Apolyton for awhile, anyways, I realized I made an error .

Social Psych isn't offered as the second tech, but then again, neither is Industrial Base . We have a choice of Doctrine: Mobility, Information Networks, and Applied Physics...

(OOC)EDIT (yes, I'm editting this post, since you editted yours ): It's a weird sort of thing, this RP thing...I tried to throw together an explanation in the last part of my latest arguments, which does reflect my character - we can't have a Democracy till we have the might to defend it! PM me or something if you have some ideas/suggestions on the compromise between "logical" arguments and RP arguments, this is rather off-topic(/OOC)

Z

[Method]

my god! you're right!

I just ran 2 playtests (and it seems so did Z7) and it seems that after researching centauri ecology, the only techs available are mobility, applied physics, and info networks.

EDIT: i didn't use the turn, but rather i made my own PK game, so it's not playing ahead

[AdamTG02]

About Democracy and efficiency...

Based on my simulations, it is fruitless to up the science rate as the Peacekeepers... unless we increase the initial Efficiency. At +1 Efficiency and 70% Research I was able to research the next tech 2 turns quicker (13 vs. 15). This was with an empire of four mid-sized (~3 pop) bases.

Since (in my experience anyway) research is much more useful early on than energy credits, this might be just what we would need to make that Industrial Auto beeline two decades before any of the other factions. (That figure is an estimate, nothing more, as I haven't played on beelines, so am not really sure what to expect from them.)
Alternately, Democracy makes feasible the mineral bonus of Planned, which would be invaluable in snagging an early Secret Project or two.

If Applied Physics, Doctrine: Mobility, and Information Networks are the only options after CentEco, that leaves us with a tough choice: Mobility for early exploration and maybe a few extra pods, as Commissioner Crisler recommends, or Networks to cash in the early artifacts? In my mind, if we're to be serious contenders for Secrets, and later the IndAuto beeline, Network Nodes are more important than rovers. We'll be getting a good deal of artifacts just with scout patrols, if my experience is any indication.

Just a few passing thoughts.

[Method]

Originally posted by AdamTG02
If Applied Physics, Doctrine: Mobility, and Information Networks are the only options after CentEco, that leaves us with a tough choice: Mobility for early exploration and maybe a few extra pods, as Commissioner Crisler recommends, or Networks to cash in the early artifacts? In my mind, if we're to be serious contenders for Secrets, and later the IndAuto beeline, Network Nodes are more important than rovers. We'll be getting a good deal of artifacts just with scout patrols, if my experience is any indication.

there's no chance we get secrets. information networks is important not only for cashing in artifacts, but it's also on the way to planetary economics (VW, planned) and automation.

[AdamTG02]

One more test: It can be done

Once more, a test has proved that it is possible to get Secrets. Once again, it depended on a significant amount of luck, but combined with the earlier test, it proves decisively in my mind that getting Secrets first is within the realm of reasonable possibility and not dependent on fluke.

I used in this test MrWhereItsAt's provisional build queue, scout patrol/colony pod/scout patrol/formers. This might appear to lose the advantage of placing formers early, but actually it was decisive in getting Secrets early, because in this game the tech depended not on alien artifacts but on trading techs with a neighbor.

I researched Centauri Ecology first, and placed my second base in an area that had been farmed and solared by two pods. Building two scout patrols in eaxch base before formers, I had a significant corps of explorers, and was able to explore enough of the map to place four bases by 2030 despite the fact that three or four of the eventual base sites I planned to use needed fungus removal or leveling before they were usable.

The real breakthrough, though, came after I had researched CentEco and InfoNets, when one of my scouts exploring east-southwest found Deirdre. She initially wanted 50 of my hard-earned energy credits for something called a Planetary Ecological Code, so I told her to go do whatever it is she does naked in the trees. But after I moved my Disciplined scout patrol into position to attack Gaia's Landing, she seemed much more reasonable, trading Ethical Calculus (which gave me Democracy) and Social Psych (which I was currently researching) for Biogenetics and Info Networks, and signing Blood Truce, Treaty, and Pact in quick succession. I immediately got to choose a new tech to research -- and to my pleasure, Secrets was on the list. I immediately switched research to that -- due to my accumulated psychology research, it would have been completed in five turns; Democracy and upping the research rate boosted that to four turns. The upshot is that I got Secrets before 2035 (I didn't record the exact turn, but it was in the range 2030-2034).
Now, if my experience is any indication, we can expect to encounter another faction before Secrets are discovered at least half the time. If we assume they are willing to trade only 50% of the times we encounter them (accounting for the fact that it very well may be Yang to start with, or Zakharov who we almost certainly cannot trust with Biogenetics), then that still gives a 25% chance to effectively double our research. With this in mind, and the fact that my recent simulation didn't even turn up any artifacts to cash in, I think Secrets is a viable possibility. It may not be the most probabe outcome, but it's a viable outcome.

Once again, this is only my 2 cents.