Turn 168 : 530 AD

[asleepathewheel]

one positive thing is that they obviously not trading to get tthese techs with lego.

maybe lego figures that they are better off pocketing the money when the techs are 20% or whatever off.

[vmxa1]

Great. I am not sure what they are up to, but I doubt they will stiff us at this time. Maybe it is a ploy to get us comfortable for a later trick.

They have to get upgrades done before they will want to do anything funny.

Maybe we are their best chance to stay up with the tech race, if they are not dealing with Lego. They may not being sharing research with either ND or Lego. This would be smart as those are the only ones in a position to attack them any time soon.

[DeepO]

Only remark from me (I'm drunk): can we trade our techs to Vox or ND?

DeepO

[notyoueither]

Two things.

I note that the cost of Democracy has dropped from the inverted value to normal 100%. Is this evidence of the bug, or has Vox got Democracy?

Also, we have no fast movers in the north who can check on the RP portion of the sea wall. Could we do some shuffling? I'm not sure I am being paranoid when every team in the game has proven to be out to get us. RP has been nice lately, but let's not assume too much.

[notyoueither]

... and then I note the galley net all around the area of concern. Nevermind, sort of.

[Cort Haus]

Yes, the galleys can check the wall, and the Knights are being shuffled northward.

[Cort Haus]

Played turn accepting Chemistry.

Start Physics at 80% for 4 turns, -73gpt, 673g

[DeepO]

Maybe keep a couple of knights in the South, just in case...

As to the timing of Physics: that 20% on the slider, is that on tax? GoW is going to see our research capabilities, and given that nobody knows our true research capacity, maybe its best to try to conceal it a bit... at least as much as possible... if we have 20% lux, I wouldn't mind on doing Physics in 5 turns, just to fool them a little, especially if we anticipate the cost going down as Lego gets it (if they aren't going for econ first)

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Actually it may be that Lego is doing the Metallurgy-Mil Trad branch, and is not doing Physics or Economics. Lego have Navigation, which may be for military reasons (watching the oceans) or may be for Magellans - in which case we may lose our bid for that wonder, but BB still has 14 turns of Bank.

If they're building Magellan for thair GA they might not bother with Economics. If it all kicks off over there, I doubt wonders will be anyone's priority.

I'm wondering now, with 2 less techs to research, whether our Newton prebuild in Tempest could become our ToE prebuild. Then we start Newton in Hurricane after Copernicus. Who else is going to spend 400 shields for marginal tech gain as the era of Cavalry arrives? I reckon we might get a clean shot at it in Hurricane if the Tempest wonder is changed.

[DeepO]

Something else we might want to consider: Would GoW be interested in a medicine for steam swap? We do steam (that is the costlier tech, right?), they research medicine, and we swap... Lego will not be able to follow that, even if ND are doing the same... and GoW can't keep up with us anyway.

We then could time our ToE prebuild even better... could even have a Hover prebuidl going. As to risk losing one of the science wonders: I don't mind that much, if we get one, we should be happy. And if it is in Hurricane, we should consider ourselves double lucky. But I'm pretty sure Lego will be going for both of the Science wonders as well.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

The 20% is tax. I went for 4-turn because we might need to get Magnetism before ToG now for the Metallurgy-Magnetism trade with GoW, and we don't want the Tempest prebuild to get over 400s before ToG. Also, I reckon Lego are not researching Physics, so we won't get a devaluation by holding back to let them to get it first.

GoW might be assuming that we'll do Magnetism after Physics, but thinking about it, they won't be held up by having to wait for Magnetism as they can be doing ToG. Also, Magnets break our Lighthouse, so we've got a good reason to to it after ToG.

If these two tech trades do go through ok, maybe GoW could research Medicine to trade for our Steam. That is, if they're still alive by then...

The trades with GoW have a 20-turn NDA on the techs. Once we have Physics we could see if ND have anything to offer for it. I don't think we want to be trading useful tech to Vox if Lego don't have it. I think we worked out a plan for AATW to sound-out Vox (who've not long discovered PP, so they can't have Demo yet).

[Cort Haus]

I'll try and project ETA of Sci Meth in two scenarios - one where we trade for Metallugy, and another where we trade for Medicine too.

[Cort Haus]

The original estimates were recorded here .

In fact, here's the text. The turn at the time was T62. We're now on T68 :

The following model makes all sorts of assumptions, but we have to start somewhere.

We know Banking will take us 3 turns.
Chem will take us 6 turns at current rates, but will fall to 5 as GoW/ND will surely get it before us.
By the time we finish Chemistry we will have another ~ 40 Scpt from Uni's in EotS and Arashi, and three post-aqua boom towns.
Physics needs 1536, and 310 Scpt can do that in 5 turns.
ToG needs 1632, needing 6 turns

So 19 turns to ToG and Newton -which times well with a 20-turn build in Tempest starting next turn if we want that.
If we get Copernicus and Newton at this time, that's another 50 Scpt and more aquas coming in, totalling say 380 Scpt.
This leaves Magnetism (1632) in 5 turns and Metallurgy (If we have to research) it in four turns, hitting the modern era in 29 turns with 380 scpt.

Steam (2880) could then be completed in 8 turns, Electricity (3360) in 9 turns, Medicine (2400) in 7 turns and Scientific Method in 7 turns.
Total (without Industrialisation (2880 in 8 turns)) = 8 + 9 + 7 + 7 = 31 turns.

So by these calculations, with no trading or devaluations except Chemistry and Metallurgy, we can get Scientific Method in 60 turns from now, (adding another 8 turns if we want Industrialisation on the way) and 23 turns from discovering Steam.

[Cort Haus]

What's changed is that now, T182, we only have 3 techs to research to reach the next era. We can do Physics in 4 turns, burning some money (-76gpt, total ~ 300g) at 80% sci, but we can do Magnetism & ToG in 5 turns each at 70% @-30gpt ~ 300g and still have 100g plus 300g from GoW on the Physics deal.

So, 14 turns till the Industrial Era. 8 turns less that the original estimate

Add the 31 turns to Sci Meth from the above model is 45 turns.
If we allocate Tempest's mines to the shield-starved OG and WW, and put it on a Palace prebuild it drops to 43 turns.

So, slowing Tempest right down could see it as a ToE prebuild, with 85s on the board.

However, if we go ahead and suceed in putting Newton in there in 15 turns, that leaves 30 turns at 21spt = 630 shields. Very nice, and no need for rails.

If we were to trade for a modern tech, or if Lego build Copernicus before us, then Tempest could be the prebuild for ToE, otherwise Tempest starts it after Newton.

[Cort Haus]

The Hoover prebuild is a lot more tricky. We only have one large shield-store, but EotS could build into the GLib up to 400 shields, needing another 400 for the Hoov. If we got Industrialisation from somewhere there might be the Uni Suff available fro the Hoov.