Tech theft?

[-Jrabbit]

Shall we adopt a policy of using Diplomats for tech theft in order to upgrade the flow of sciences to our civ? Obviously, this would impact build orders in our border cities...

Depending on the techs available, this could either aid or impede our drive toward Democracy.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Depends on what we can get. To get to Conscription, yes. To get to Fundy even, yes. Beyond that circumstances change (more money, hopefully). But the key is to only steal where we know there is a chance of getting one of the key techs we want. If we have the option of getting Sanitation or Amphibious Warfare - no.

[cavebear]

We definately want to try to steal anything that we are researching. And we might want to be prepared to steal our way out of a situation where we are only offerred old or useless techs to research.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, steal unless the civs start to get useless technologies. At this point, we have so many useful techs that this should not really be a concern.

Another benefit of Democracy is that one civ could build the Statue of Liberty, which we can capture ourselves.

[atawa]

30 shields for a tech is mighty cheap.

Steal everything we can

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I've been in and out of this forum so I can't say I'm totally up to speed. Do we have embassies yet? If not, I think we should hold off stealing tech. If we have an embassy and we know what they have to steal, then yes.

But there's no point in attempting a theft hoping for Demo or Gunpowder and coming up with something useless (when the desired techs aren't even possessed by the other Civ). Or worse, finding nothing and leaving a diplomat exposed to retaliation.

[-Jrabbit]

So what's the BFD? Just send 2 dips...

[Hydey]

or 4 dips

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
So what's the BFD? Just send 2 dips...

Absolutely, find out what they have first via an embassy. And make sure we can reach enough cities to steal the tech we want (if they have 4 techs, we need 4 cities within reach).