Area 25 : Tech Plans - Project lain

[Aggie]

I like the current plan and would then urge a push toward gun powder. Rememeber we will soon have to deal with the greeks so we will need knights. Though I still forsee afairly peaceful period between wars.
Aggie

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Apocalypse

If we don't get Calv first then it is probably because we decided to focus on infastruction. Focusing on infastructure would mean we have money. That means we would probably just be able to buy Calv.

Understood, and I agree in general, but do have two thoughts:

First, what if only one civ has Calvery, and that civ decides to declare war on us (basically what I propose we do to someone else)? Any thoughts on what would happen in that case?

Second, how much would it cost to buy? Sometimes the AI can be really nasty about not giving you the one tech you need, or making you pay a ton for it... any chance that we'll get caught being unable to buy it, no matter how much money we have?

Just trying to hash out our options and the affects of them...

On an unrelated note, does anyone not agree that we should at least go for Gunpowder?

-- adaMada

[Apocalypse]

That makes 2/3 supporting Project lain and 3/3 supporting a rush to Gunpowder.

[MrWhereItsAt]

I hate not being on at least a military tech par with most other civs, so I would go for the rush to Gunpowder. If we got there early, we would be in a better position to ensure we had the Salpeter we need - we are in the smelly brown stuff if we can't get it.

Currently, if we wanted to stop conquering and develop, I see two techs as vital: Monotheism (for the Cathedrals - we'll have unhappiness when we try to grow very far) and Monarchy, so that we can grow at a reasonable pace.

Thus I like the current plan, including swapping for/buying whatever we can get that isn't too crippling a deal, with the aim to hit Gunpowder as soon after as we can. If we keep our focus on wars, however, we may need to circumvent Mono and boulder on towards Military Tradition.

I guess we will be in a better position to decide our long-term strategy once Paris becomes "Here It Is"....

El Presidente
MrWIA

[Donal Graeme]

As Minister of the Economy I would like to offer my advice on the situation at hand.

I believe that a rush straight for cavalry would be an ill suited adventure. It would take us forever to get there, considering it will be a while before we can actually research techs in less than 20 or so turns. I am apprehensive about researching Gunpowder as well, though. Last I checked, we didn't have any land that would appear well suited for saltpeter, except near America. So the odds of us getting it except through a war to finish off America are very low. Knights offer us a much quicker, and more versatile unit for now. Considering that we intend to launch wars, and not be the victims of some other power, a defensive unit like Musketman may not be necessary. My personal preference is a rush toward Astronomy. On the way we will research stuff that will make ppl happy, as well as increase our research. This would be good. Plus, we would be able to get Banking fairly quickly, which would help increase our GPT. There is a point for rushing for either Democracy or Military Tradition: the AI tends to ignore them. Hence we should be able to trade them away for other techs with the advantage on our side. Democracy would be harder to research however, as it requires Banking, which would neccessitate us getting Education on the way. The real question is this:
Do we want to continue using trades as our primary means of getting techs, or do we intend to research them ourselves? If we research ourselves, go for Democracy, if we want to trade, go for Military Tradition. If we go for military tradition, we can trade for all the techs the AI gets, but if we want to research, then we go for Democracy, as the AI will help us out in getting to Banking.

Edit: I like the idea of getting Banking, as the increased GPT helps us when it comes to trades of all kinds.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by adaMada
First, what if only one civ has Calvery, and that civ decides to declare war on us (basically what I propose we do to someone else)? Any thoughts on what would happen in that case?

We would probably realize what was happening and adjust military and research plans accordingy so we would be rushing for Military Tradition. It is hard to see that far ahead though, which is why I don't like plans 6 techs a head and MT is 9 techs away if we go through with Project lain.

Originally posted by adaMada
Second, how much would it cost to buy? Sometimes the AI can be really nasty about not giving you the one tech you need, or making you pay a ton for it... any chance that we'll get caught being unable to buy it, no matter how much money we have?

I have no idea how much it would cost. If a few Civs have it we might get it (relatively) cheap. If we are focusing on infastructure we'll probably have Banking or something like that to trade off to help lower the cost.

Originally posted by adaMada
Just trying to hash out our options and the affects of them...

That's good. It is the point of this thread.

Originally posted by adaMada
On an unrelated note, does anyone not agree that we should at least go for Gunpowder?

Not at the moment it seems.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt Thus I like the current plan, including swapping for/buying whatever we can get that isn't too crippling a deal, with the aim to hit Gunpowder as soon after as we can. If we keep our focus on wars, however, we may need to circumvent Mono and boulder on towards Military Tradition.

We shouldn't need to circumvernt Mono because we aren't going to research it, just buy it sometime before we are done with Feudalism.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by adaMada
Second, how much would it cost to buy? Sometimes the AI can be really nasty about not giving you the one tech you need, or making you pay a ton for it... any chance that we'll get caught being unable to buy it, no matter how much money we have?
-- adaMada

We can always try to steal the technology using an embassy.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Donal Graeme
As Minister of the Economy I would like to offer my advice on the situation at hand.

Thank you.

Originally posted by Donal Graeme
I Considering that we intend to launch wars, and not be the victims of some other power, a defensive unit like Musketman may not be necessary.

Germany and Persia might be knocking on our doorstep. We may need something to defend our cities.

Originally posted by Donal Graeme
My personal preference is a rush toward Astronomy. On the way we will research stuff that will make ppl happy, as well as increase our research. This would be good. Plus, we would be able to get Banking fairly quickly, which would help increase our GPT. There is a point for rushing for either Democracy or Military Tradition: the AI tends to ignore them. Hence we should be able to trade them away for other techs with the advantage on our side. Democracy would be harder to research however, as it requires Banking, which would neccessitate us getting Education on the way.

A rush to Astronomy would need at least the Mono part of Project lain to be completed. Here is the "C" plan, to be named later.
1. Theology
2. Education
3. Astronomy

You see, a rush towards Astronomy would require Education anyway so we can go for a rush towards Democracy after an Astronomy rush:
1. Banking
2. Printing Press
3. Democracy

Originally posted by Donal Graeme
The real question is this:
Do we want to continue using trades as our primary means of getting techs, or do we intend to research them ourselves? If we research ourselves, go for Democracy, if we want to trade, go for Military Tradition. If we go for military tradition, we can trade for all the techs the AI gets, but if we want to research, then we go for Democracy, as the AI will help us out in getting to Banking.

Either way a lot of trading is important. The Science budget should go up drastically after the wars though, allowing these rushes to be possible.

[Apocalypse]

BTW, I hope at least everyone supports the rushing idea. I feel that is the best way to research techs as we can just buy the others. Through rushing we will also always have a tech to sell once we research it.

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
BTW, I hope at least everyone supports the rushing idea. I feel that is the best way to research techs as we can just buy the others. Through rushing we will also always have a tech to sell once we research it.

I agree with the rushing idea, but wouldn't always agree with the selling part -- part of the point of rushing is to be the first civ to a given goal, and if that goal gives you a decisive advantage over the other civs, it really shouldn't be sold without a great deal of thought...

Besides that, though, rushing is clearly the way to go -- rushing one line of the map, and techwhoring the rest.

-- adaMada

[GodKing]

I would like to see us aim for these, in this order:

Invention - Leo's Place is a cost saver we will dearly want if we continue tech whoring

Monarchy - I most of my games, the AI wants a fortune for any government until near the beginning of the industrial age, so purchacing is usually very expensive. There are just too many bonusus to skip this however.

Monotheism - cathedrals are a must for us religious banana worshipers, particularly when we want large cities.

Trade for all that we can, however the sooner we have them, the sooner we can take advantage of their benifits. Thanks.

[Shiber]

You people are dreaming. We have to go through a building period before we can research new technologies ourselves! At the moment we make lousy GPT and don't have a single library.
If you ask me, we should start building after we finish with the French and aim towards gunpowder so we can guard our borders while we concentrate on cathedrals, marketplaces and libraries. Only then will we be able to research techs faster.

EDIT: Sorry, didn't mean to sound patronizing. I hope I didn't insult anyone.

[Sheik]

Shiber I think you are right. Gunpowder should be a major priority.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by adaMada
I agree with the rushing idea, but wouldn't always agree with the selling part -- part of the point of rushing is to be the first civ to a given goal, and if that goal gives you a decisive advantage over the other civs, it really shouldn't be sold without a great deal of thought...

We might need to sell some techs. You see, with putting resources toward science we won't have as much money. We may not be able to buy all the techs we want without selling the techs we research ourselves.

Originally posted by GodKing
I would like to see us aim for these, in this order:

Invention - Leo's Place is a cost saver we will dearly want if we continue tech whoring

Monarchy - I most of my games, the AI wants a fortune for any government until near the beginning of the industrial age, so purchacing is usually very expensive. There are just too many bonusus to skip this however.

Monotheism - cathedrals are a must for us religious banana worshipers, particularly when we want large cities.

Trade for all that we can, however the sooner we have them, the sooner we can take advantage of their benifits.

1. I think if we are going to go for Invention we might as well go for Gunpowder.

2. We may end up needing to research Monarchy after Project lain. I'm like to see if it goes down after that.

3. Hopefully we can buy Monotheism so we can speed along Project lain.

Originally posted by Shiber
You people are dreaming. We have to go through a building period before we can research new technologies ourselves! At the moment we make lousy GPT and don't have a single library.
If you ask me, we should start building after we finish with the French and aim towards gunpowder so we can guard our borders while we concentrate on cathedrals, marketplaces and libraries. Only then will we be able to research techs faster.

By the time Project lain is completed, we will probably have more infastructure built up and possibly a new government. This should allow us to research fast enough to get a lead in techs. Also, since having a tech partially researched can lower the cost, then well will save more money.