1874 Science Poll, Part II

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Here's the followup poll, as promised. Since Computers are a virtually unanimous choice for the next tech, we should consider what to research after that. That's Question 1.

Question 2 concerns the timing/placement of SETI.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Re: last option - should read "Don't build SETI"

******* unintentional smilies

[SCG]

I think i overvoted - I want rocketry next, but if we have to go off-tech, i want refrigeration or genetic engineering as the fallback.

Maybe i was distracted by the plantain i usually bypass those at the grocery store

[cavebear]

Looks like it will be a race between the science people and the happiness people...

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by cavebear
Looks like it will be a race between the science people and the happiness people...

I figured as much - I wanted to put this poll in, in case we got MP>Computers in the next session. There are a few good choices now, rather than one obvious one.

Happiness=Growth, or alternatively, lower luxuries, which could mean an accelerated science rate and we get to the final techs faster than we would have by going for them directly.

On the other hand, there's no point getting Genetic Engineering/Refrigeration unless we:

1) Build CfC, obviously
2) Commit to celebrations for a few turns
3) Allot the engineers needed to produce farmland
4) Allot some production to Supermarkets

If we do all that, I can see getting 1 tech/2 turns in the endgame from city beaker production - along with more cash per turn, and better Freight bonuses when we deliver freight.

Conditions 1,2,3, and 4 are outside the scope of the Science Ministry's authority, of course, so I wanted to solicit some discussion as to whether those would be forthcoming... otherwise we might as well ignore Refrig/GE.

[CannonFodder]

Anything which helps get to space flight

[SCG]

reguarding where to build Seti - perhaps we could get both well defended and a late city.
Hydeyville is one of the last cities founded in the Mr Rushmore era of honoring past presidents and cabinet members, and is on a forest. It is on the coast of an inland sea , which is only accessible by a polar straight half-way to the chinese (who are much more likely to be concerned with Freeport during times of war). And other than cities in the war-torn regions of the world, only Rabbitton and High Tower come before Hydeyville in turn processing order

If we want early warning, we could build a city on the straight, or even just a fortress, staffed by non riflemen and a spy on the yellow dot (gets a whale if we build a city).

[Ben Kenobi]

I voted for Nuclear Fission simply because the computer goes on 'supercheat' mode once you research rocketry in an effort to catch up. This halves the costs of all scientific discovery for the AI.

Pennywise, and pound foolish. We will gain some extra science the turn that SETI is built, but if we have to pay extra money to defend a new city, this has to be accounted as well. I don't want to lose this city, and thus lose all the benefits accrued by having SETI in that one small city.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

It looks as if there's a dead heat between the proponents of building SETI in an older city (defensible), and those who want it in a newer city so as to maximize the science benefit for the build year.

It seems to me there should be a good compromise - a city on the home continent that's fairly new, but still defensible. Even a city halfway down the city list would be good, as the older cities produce a lot more science, anyway. (i.e. Missing out on the last 10-15 cities on our city list (that turn) won't cost us that much science, as they tend to be smaller cities with fewer arrows/science improvements)