Pottery ready 2670BC, what next?

[Harovan]

Discuss. I vote for Bronze Working, if we're not able to trade it from VC within the next 4 turns.

[DeepO]

I have the same idea (but I stated it in the turn 24 thread already). Plus, trading it against the wheel would not be good IMO, if so we need some more. Spears are relatively cheap to research.

Other options: (yeah I know I'm repeating myself): if going for the GLs alphabet, if going for Monarchy Mysticism. Other techs don't have any appeal it seems. And this only when we can get BW from Vox.

DeepO

[Dominae]

If Voxians are not interested in tech trading, Bronze Working may be a necessity. This would be a great waste, so we need to be a lot more convincing diplomatically. If they're still receptive but do not want to trade right now, I suggest Alphabet or Mysticism, both of which we need and they will be more than happy to trade for when the time is right.

Assuming they researched Iron Working first, what would their next priority be?


Dominae

[Harovan]

I don't think that it's a waste, I still think that we should try to get Iron Working soon. If they decide to fight a war with Immortals and approach over the Spinebreaker mountains, we won't even be able to attack them with War Chariots. Some Swordsman backing would be good.

[nbarclay]

One possibility I find extremely tempting is to try to set up a trade agreement in advance so we can research Alphabet and agree to trade The Wheel for Bronze Working and then Alphabet for Iron Working. If I remember right, the total tech costs on each side of the double trade would balance (I don't have the editor in front of me), and we'd be the ones trading away the higher-value tech first so they wouldn't have to invest a lot of trust. (And if they're going to double-cross us at the first opportunity, I'd rather the first opportunity be a relatively small one.) Of course that assumes they aren't already researching Alphabet or The Wheel.

Nathan

[DeepO]

Could it be possible that they have IW already? I'm not sure, but I thought that IW was rather expensive, we only have researched the wheel so far which is not that expensive... my gutt tells me they're close to discovering it, but haven't done so already

DeepO

[DeepO]

Besides, don't forget we are on high commerce land, they might not be so lucky.

DeepO

[alva]

BW = 3
alphabet = 5
wheel = 4
IW = 6
Myst = 4
horse = 5

[DeepO]

Alva, and pottery? would that be another 3? If so, I'm even more certain that they either researched IW last turn, or are at the brink of discovering it, depending on whether they have good commerce as well, or not. (and of course started on it immediately, not researching ceremonial burial themselves)

DeepO

[alva]

Pottery = 2 !!

[DeepO]

Hmmm... so with the same commerce, they could research it in 3 turns (4 turns for us, but we settled one turn later). I doubt they do better, which means they don't have IW yet.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

Don't forget we lost just a little time on research due to having our two extra warriors. On the other hand, we now have a clear advantage with our capital at size 3 and theirs at size 1.

If we want to propose an arrangement where we research Alphabet and trade them The Wheel for Bronze Working and then Alphabet for Iron Working, we need to hurry up before they get started on one of those techs (if they haven't already). Although we'd probably want assurances that they won't broker our techs to others before we'd make such a deal at this point.

Nathan

[alva]

Although we'd probably want assurances that they won't broker our techs to others before we'd make such a deal at this point.

That is a very important remark...!!!

The quostion, HOW ?

[Shiber]

Perhaps we've made a mistake when we suggested that neither side scouts into the other side's territory any further. If they continue to scout south, all they'll find is us, while if we continue to scout north/west we'll find Vox, and possibly another civ as well.

[nbarclay]

Right now, we've just proposed stopping further exploration in each other's areas for the duration of the negotiations. If, during the negotiations, we find out that Vox has other neighbors, I think the next step is to try to arrange things so that they don't intrude farther into our territory and we travel only where necessary to meet Vox's other neighbors (probably with one of their warriors escorting ours to verify that we go only where they want us to toward that end). Similarly, if they refuse to tell us their contact situation, we should insist on being allowed to investigate for ourselves but offer to accept some direction, and an escort if they desire, so we can find out for ourselves without intruding in sensitive areas. Either an exchange of minimaps or our giving them a minimap in exchange for passage through their part of the world might be appropriate as part of the arrangements made.

Nathan