Which techs next?

[arginine]

We will get Biogenics in ~5 turns. With the HGP, we won't have to worry about drones in size 1 bases. Then, which techs shall we go for?

We can go for Environ. Economics for restriction lifting and tree farms. We can go prog psych, then adaptive econ for the PEG. We can go for the clean reactor. We can also go doc: mob, then doc: flex for ships. I'm sure there's some others I have not brought up as well...

I want to place my vote for ships next, because the sooner we meet the other factions, the sooner we can infiltrate and plan, the sooner we can get trade (or steal) tech, and the sooner we get profitable trade routes. Considering that the unversity is the tech leader, there is definately tech to gain. I can see 2 bases making a cheap, standard ship each by 2140. We can thus forego researching the low level techs (lasers, human psych, and ethic calc, maybe prog psych.) as surely a faction will have them.

I am personally for stealing tech from the uni. or the peace if we are unable to trade for techs the other humans would want or find useless.

[Mead]

Re: Which techs next?

Originally posted by arginine
We will get Biogenics in ~5 turns. With the HGP, we won't have to worry about drones in size 1 bases. Then, which techs shall we go for?

We can go for Environ. Economics for restriction lifting and tree farms. We can go prog psych, then adaptive econ for the PEG. We can go for the clean reactor. We can also go doc: mob, then doc: flex for ships. I'm sure there's some others I have not brought up as well...

I would love to have the restrictions raised and get tree farms, plus PEG is a SP that is just ideal for us, ... but

I want to place my vote for ships next, because the sooner we meet the other factions, the sooner we can infiltrate and plan, the sooner we can get trade (or steal) tech, and the sooner we get profitable trade routes. Considering that the unversity is the tech leader, there is definately tech to gain. I can see 2 bases making a cheap, standard ship each by 2140. We can thus forego researching the low level techs (lasers, human psych, and ethic calc, maybe prog psych.) as surely a faction will have them.

I am personally for stealing tech from the uni. or the peace if we are unable to trade for techs the other humans would want or find useless.

I agree that we need to get a lot of probe foils out there to meet, greet (infiltrate), and acquire a lot of tech out there.

Once we get the tech for probe ships (or foils) then we should carry on with the bee lines to restriction lifting and PEG.


Mead


PS
I don't want to be successful in getting the restrictions raised and building the PEG only to lose the game to an opponent because we didn't infiltrate or get good military techs.

[AndiD]

I agree, Doc:Mob and Doc:Flex should be next.

[-SafaN-]

Probe foils are our next goal, then i would vote for plasma armor. It gives us a better chanche if hive our spartans decides we are an easy target.
Energy restrictions is okay, but i'd like to put the infrastructure first before restrictions: with all those forrest its not that important.

restrictions lifted is not useful without bases

CGO SafaN

[AndiD]

I can confirm that from the minigame. I had Ecological Engineering for quite a while but just recently finished my first mine (on Mt. Planet). While we are expanding horizontally all our formers do will be roads & forest with the odd farm or sensor array in between.

After Doc:Flex it could be SocPsych and EthCalc because Democracy helps tremendously when expanding, especially with the PTS. The Dem support hit is acceptable when having three workers per base.

Things like Applied Physics, Progenitor Psych, maybe even EthCalc (did so in the minigame) could be acquired from the AI (Lal, Zak in our case) and shouldn't be researched by ourselves.

HEC vs. Adaptive Economics vs. SotHB is a tough choice though. If you aren't attacked, HEC was a waste, if you are attacked the PEG does not really help you not becoming toast...

[jtsisyoda]

The PEG is very flexible for peace or war. It helps to rush defenders and fund probe counterattacks.

Prog Psych and Adap Econ for PEG are what I'm liking right now. After that, Mob and Flex... we can buy many more probes after PEG.

[AndiD]

What counts with foils is the time they are underway. The earlier we can launch one the earlier we will get contact to Lal or Zak. Therefore I'd still vote for Mob and Flex next. (Remember our earlier discussion about early Flex?)
RFR would build a probe foil ASAP and then join the crawler building frenzy...

More than one probe foil isn't really needed in that stage of game, the first faction we met (except the Hive...) counts. If Lal and Zak share the same landmass they most probably have met each other and therefore each other's comm frequency.

Since our expansion will come to a halt until we get the HGP, we will experience a slight "slope" in tech (our tech rate depends mostly on base square energy) so it's a kind of either-or decision Flex vs. AdapEcon.

One of the big problems I see with early AdapEcon is that 800 minerals worth of SPs (HGP, PTS, PEG) will halt our further expansion significantly and therefore lead to more tech slope.

Flex could allow us for trading EthCalc for example for smooth expansion under PTS or getting those "crappy" techs like ApplPhys, ProgPsych, SocPsych without need to research ourselves.

[arginine]

Yes, with doct: flex, we can meet the comps, and then get those lesser importance techs from them. And of course to get those trade routes, and can infiltrate sooner. I am thinking of a quick war with the Univeristy, during which we probe and then tech bribe them into peace. Alternatively, we can meet the angels, and pay them to do our dirty work with the university while remaining clean ourselves. Heck, being in a pseudo war with the Angels while the angels have a pseudo war with the University could be good for relations

[jtsisyoda]

You guys have a good point about getting Prog Psych, App Phys, etc. from the AI if we get Flex first. There are different ways to approach tech progression... grab whatever techs will be useful, or ignore everything but beeline techs. Trading with the AI can bog you down if you really need something in particular ASAP. OTOH, getting a tech without spending any lab points (via trade) is a great bargain. It hinders the other factions from doing it, too, which I think somebody else mentioned already.

Ok, I'm leaning toward Flex, too.

[TheLoneAmigo]

I say Flex.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Ok it looks like Flex will be next and we will make at least 2 navel units for exploration soon after.

Then Trade for Progenitor Pych and imediatly research Coperative Economics for the PEG, THEN trade for all thouse other tecs so that we dont slow down out tec untill after we get PEG. For us the PEG will pay for itself in less then 10 turns so get it ASAP!

Lets make shure this will all work out properly with the Minute Mirage Mod3 Tec Picker, we dont want any suprises.

[#endgame]

Flex.

[AndiD]

Mob, Flex is no problem, says the chart.

After that it is Doc:Init, ProgPsych, Applied Physics to choose from. Not too easy to decide IMO:

Doc:Init - nice for a gamble, since we could hope for trading both other techs. However, if we begin researching something and get it via trade, we may switch over so something else without penalty and we don't really need Cruisers now.

ProgPsych - towards the PEG, makes very well sense in that early stage. We would build crawlers->PEG instead of rectanks and build the rectanks afterwards with the cash from the PEG. Also allows Field Modulation (Res3-Armor: strong, but also expensive).

AppPhys - Lasers and towards Non-linear math and HEC, if Yang comes calling.
Apart from that I'd rate the probabilty that Lal and/or Zak will have researched Applied Physics in that early stage higher than ProgPsych so by researching ProgPsych and trading AppPhys we could get both.

My choice therefore would be ProgPsych.

[#endgame]

I agree with ProgPsych after flex as well, which would give us the chance to rush 3-res defenders (expensive, but could be handy when yang gets cranky).

And PEG is always good.

[jtsisyoda]

We had a couple votes for Prog Psych after Flex, which sounds good to me. In about five years, 2140 or so, we'll need to make a final decision. Any other suggestions for techs after Flex?