Trade away the farm for Writing?

[Togas]

from the Turn 4 Results:

Big question : Would we be willing to trade all our treasury, gpt AND contact to Egypt for Writing from Spain?? We -might- be able to find a slightly better (and I emphasize the -slight- part of that....) deal, but it will still be most of the gold and def Egypt's email

It's now clear that the team is on an island. It's also clear that Spain and Egypt do not have contact with each other.

Writing allows for contact trades, but more importantly, it allows us to build galleys once Mapmaking is discovered. It is clearly a very valuable tech.

But to obtain Writing now, is it worth it to give Spain all our gold, some GPT, and contact with Egypt?

Please debate this.

--Togas

[GodKing]

Gut instinct - no. Wait til we research a tech to trade.

[Rhothaerill]

My gut instinct last night was to sell the farm and go full bore for MM, but I am kind of rethinking that (I was tired when I posted in the other thread ). I don't mind giving up the gold, but the lone contact is precious this early in the game. If we can keep the two contacts away from each other, then we can hope they take different research paths and we play the two off each other in trading.

So my revised view is to wait a little while to see what else develops.

[Makahlua]

In that case, what should be the next research target? Head down the lower path to Monarchy?

[Rhothaerill]

Do we have mysticism yet? (sorry, I can't remember ). If so, then shooting for polytheism is often good trade bait since it's not a tech that the AI generally pursues right away.

If we do wait, we'll just have to make sure we have good trade bait when writing is cheaper and MM comes around. We can set up a really nice core on this island, but we have to be able to get off of it soon.

[Makahlua]

Yes we got it from a hut (yay for expansionist!)

[Vander]

How likely is it that Spain and Egypt will get contact soon?

[Makahlua]

I have to asume since they don't know each other (or anyone else) that they may be on seperate isles of their own. Isabella's had writing for a bit, so imagine she is probably heading for mapmaking, so say in another 30 turns or so (giving time to finish research, build and sail over)

So not immediately, but we should have a good shot at trading that contact for mapmaking, and maybe beating 'bella to any other new civs *crosses fingers*

[Panzer32]

sell the farm. We have no assurances that they won't contact each other and let this opertunity to slip by us. The quicker we get an explorer/exploring unit on the mainland the better.

[G'Kar]

How much gold do we have?

[MrWhereItsAt]

I doubt this will be worth it.

BTW - where are the Egyptians? Are they the tiny edge of a culture radius we can see West of our Northernmost lands? Or is that someone else, tantalisingly close?

[BigFree]

We can only keep contact from eachother until shortly after one of them has Map Making, then they will contact each other without us. I say wait a bit, then do the trade soon after either of them gets MM.

[ormuzd]

how will we know they have it if we don;t have the writing? (silly question but I want to know).

[joncnunn]

My instinct is to wait at least until either of the following occurs:

1. We finish researching current tech.

2. Both civs have Writing.

[Makahlua]

We just finished Bronze Working; I'm leaning toward Polytheism/Monarchy for the next 2 techs we research (and saving that $$ to buy map making from 'bella)