Scientific Research Goals

[Sparrowhawk]

There have been a number of ideas posted as to what research goals our civ should have, but up until now we have been grateful for whatever the hut gods would provide us with. That soon will change, as Invention cannot be far off. Therefore, this poll (and I hope it does not waste anyone's time ) is to establish what our first short term goal shall be (after invention, which is required for all of the options listed). Our science rate is too slow to allow us to not have longer term goals, and we must choose carefully, the children of tomorrow depend upon our decision today.

Explosives - so that we may more quickly build roads between our cities, roads to our enemies, mines for our cities, and irrigate from the vast water to our cities
Prerequisites that we still need before explosives: Invention, Gunpowder, Metalurgy

Tactics - to provide our Military with the might to trounce our enemies, both with Calvary, and their attack strength, and Alpine Troops, with their mobility on all kinds of terrain (even this god forsaken planet we have been placed upon).
Prerequisites that we still need before Tactics:
Invention, Gunpowder, Metallurgy, Leadership, Democracy, Conscription

Fundamentalism - to eliminate the happiness problems we are currently experiencing, to eliminate the need to provide production support to our armies, to eliminate the corruption and waste, to increase our tax base, and unfortunately to decrease our already horid Science Rate
Prerequisites that we still need before Fundamentalism:
Invention, Democracy, Conscription

Railroad - to allow our units to move quickly between our cities and fend off attacks from our neighbours, to allow our offensive units to more quickly get to the front lines and aid in the destruction of our enemies
Prerequisites that we still need before Railroad:
Invention, Physics, Steam Engine

Though these are the technologies suggested in the last poll, there may be others that will be suggested, please post them here, and post your reasons, for the consideration of all the people of the Apolytonian Imperium.

Respectively submitted,
/me Science Minister

[Ben Kenobi]

With a map this large, explosives get my vote.

We need to stitch an empire, not isolated citystates. With roads, we can concentrate the vast might of athe Apolytonian Imperium.

My second choice would be gunpowder, on the road to Fundamentalism.



Edit:

We need gunpowder to get Explosives in the first place.

[Hydey]

@ obi

They all seen so far away

The minister of war longs for the day when engineers build railways for shipping our howies to the front

[-Jrabbit]

RR can also be traded/gifted to the AIs, encouraging them to build roads for our military. But engineers to build it should come first (which also delays Darwin's for our enemies).

In order, we need Explosives, RR, and Fundy. A celebrating fundy with science at zero can be a trading machine, bringing us the military techs faster than our current (pathetic) rate.

[Hydey]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
. A celebrating fundy with science at zero can be a trading machine

I will enjoy seeing this without the building of camels

[CannonFodder]

I say explosives then railroad. The map is so huge that our biggest disadvantage is the speed of our units.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Well, Explosives at least. It would give excess unhappy pop something very useful to do, and the key to happiness for the unhappy unemployed is of course to force them to work on improvement projects!

[cavebear]

Well, *that* has me totally confused!

[MrWhereItsAt]

Good. The poor AI will have even less idea what I'm talking about. Misdirection before the invasion - that will work

[Ben Kenobi]

I will enjoy seeing this without the building of camels

Tithes will help. We may not be able to get the science bonuses from the caravans, but we can still crank out taxes from a large number of cities coating the map.

[Hydey]

I will still enjoy seeing it

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Fundy all the way.

As it stands, our cities can't grow without happiness from wonders (which we can't build), camels (which we can't harness), or improvements (which we can't afford).

Once we have fundy, we can crank out enough diplomats to steal all the techs we could possibly want.

A large part of our free unit support in Monarchy is being wasted on martial law units. Fundy will free up a lot of shields.

Finally All the other techs will be a LOT more useful once we're in Fundy. Examples:

Explosives will be better in Fundy because we have free unit support for LOTS of engineers, and we will be able to better provide the food because more workers will be working food producing tiles, and not doing elvis impressions to keep the peace.

Tactics will be better in Fundy because we can build 8 Cavalry/Alpines per city with no unit support cost.

Railroad will be better in Fundy because we will be able to provide the engineers/settlers to be build a huge RR network, faster.

Fundy will be better in Fundy because we'll be able to build a lot of cheap Fundamentalist units. Remember, not one of our cities is producing even 10 shields! Unit costs will be lower, and we can rushbuy easier with the 20-shield Fundamentalist as a building block.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

After typing all that, I posted my vote and saw that I had vigorously lobbied when the issue was already decided, the other way.

I feel like a California Democrat (or a B.C. Tory).

[cavebear]

Yet, I still hate being a Fundy government. Maybe it is idealogical. I'd rather go to Communism (even though I don't like that idealogically, either). In practical game terms, Communism is the way for us to go in this game.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yet, I still hate being a Fundy government. Maybe it is idealogical.

Cavebear:

That's funny. I don't have any ideological problems with a Fundamentalist government. Maybe it's just those corrupt notions of political liberalism causing you to doubt our destiny.