GL revisited

[zeit]

Oh, can anyone explain a rather green Civ player (that would be me...) how we get so many techs from the GL?

and sorry again for my ignorance.

[Shiber]

Dominae, don't forget that some civs may pursue other branches than the Monotheism one during the early middle ages before they research Education and stop our GL. Some may want knights before taking the route to Democracy.
Also, I haven't checked, but there has to be at least one scientific civ in this game. If they get Feudalism or Engineering, they will trade it to other civs and we'll get it as well, through our GL.
All that adds even more to the profitability of the GL.

[Shiber]

Zeit: IIRC, with the Great Library, we get every tech discovered by at least three other known civs for free.

[DeepO]

Zeit: in order to get to the GL, we need literature. after that, we don't need to research or trade any tech (we could, of course, as certain techs are better to have fast, like MM), and this effect will last until 2 teams discover education, and we get that one for free as last tech.

So, I counted in the tree all required techs between literature and education, which is 11. Note that that doesn't include any optional tech, so republic and monarchy aren't included, while you can be sure teams will research these before education. Also, this assumes that in the middle age, all teams will beeline straight for education, not researching engineering or feudalism. Again, this seems awkward.

More realistically, I suspect we will gain at least 14 techs from the GL, meaning the 2 gov techs, and at least feudalism. Knights will most likely be something we want to research ourselves, together with the South road after invention.

over 3000 gold gain including trading techs away... I consider that the strongest argument yet

Shiber: there are 3 scientific teams, I think: Vox, Lux, and GoW. But don't they all get monotheism?

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Shiber
Zeit: IIRC, with the Great Library, we get every tech discovered by at least three other known civs for free.

AFAIK, that should be at least 2 other teams, not 3.

DeepO

[Arrian]

Yep, 2 others.

-Arrian

[Shiber]

Originally posted by DeepO
AFAIK, that should be at least 2 other teams, not 3.

I checked, and you're right. Thanks for the correction.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Dominae
By my count, we get 10 useful techs from the GL:

Warrior Code
Mysticism
Polytheism
Mathematics
Currency
Contstruction
Monotheism
Theology
Education

Edit: Forgot Horseback Riding, which is required.

I've cut out the entire Writing branch, as we'll need it all to give us a reasonable shot at the GL in the first place.

From the above list we can cut out Warrior Code and Mysticism, as they're so cheap we should be able to get them for essentially free in trades once we get contacts.

So we're left with 8 techs. That's still pretty good, and will net give a nice sump (edit: that the abbreviation for "lump sum"...) of gold. Now we have to decide if its good enough to warrant all the risk.


Dominae

Damn... only now saw your post. I'm going to recheck, as I was fairly certain on the 11 techs...

Nope.. thought so. Dominae, you missed a few:

Warrior Code
HBR
Mysticism
Polytheism
Mathematics
Currency
Contstruction
Code of laws
Philosophy
(Map Making)
Monotheism
Theology
Education

Map Making may be a tech on the path to education, but as we need it in order to have contacts, we can delete that from the list. But that's not bad: I said we had 11 techs we couldn't get outside the GL, in this I already calculated a loss for MM and for mysticism (as Vox will have it before that time). Officially, there are 13 techs.

So, add to that the 2 gov techs, and at least engineering or feudalism, and you get to 14 techs... I don't know the exact costs of those, but I think that over those 14 techs, a cost of 17 on average is about right... leading to 14*17*24 = 5712 beakers if we research ourselves. 2000 gold is a very conservative estimate on the gain.

DeepO

[Dominae]

DeepO, you misread my original post. Unless you're planning to get the GL outside of the Republic, we're going to need Code of Laws, Philosophy and Map Making (and the The Republic).

Adding Engineering and Feudalism is not realistic. 90% of the time the Scientific civs get Monotheism. We can count on the tech leaders to beeline for Education just to put a stop our GL benefits.

Warrior Code and Mysticism are inconsequential. By the time we meet everyone else, we'll be able to trade for those for a pittance.

So, although I admit the GL is beneficial, it's not quite as good as you make it out to be (in this game).


Dominae

[Arrian]

Ok, so that's the benifit side of the analysis. How about the cost side of the analysis?

What will going full-out for the Great Library cost us in terms of expansion, and the fruits of that expansion? If we build our next several cities asap, as opposed to having a 12-turn+ delay (6 workers, at 2 turns per, right?), how much does that cost us up-front in lost shields and commerce? Even if we agree to a border treaty with Vox, our cities will still be built later in the game, and thus we will lose time getting them set up (our basic infrastructure). Further, the loss of Hurricane for anything but GL building sets us back for defense.

It's difficult as all hell to quantify, unless we're willing to game out both scenarios.

Then add in the risk side. Nathan seems confident we can get either the Pyramids or GL, or at the very least the other GL (lighthouse). I'm not so sure, and plus I don't see the Lighthouse as particularly useful in this game.

Problem with the Pyramids: GA. GA's are nice. GA's in despotism aren't as nice. GA's in despotism with incomplete REXing suck.

If we go for the GL, our backups are (to me) problematic, and furthermore we have to essentially trust Vox 100% - because we will be too weak militarily to fend off an attack and not be crippled.

Plus, don't you think the civ that builds the GL paints a big, red bullseye on themselves?

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

The situation would look a lot better from a defense perspective if Vox would be willing to contribute a couple workers to the effort. That would make the effect on the two civs' REXing fairly equal. Without that, the danger would be a lot greater.

I'm pretty sure I can get Cyclone to give us two workers, a warrior (just because the city would need something to do while growing to settler pump size), and a settler over the next 30 turns and a settler every four turns thereafter. That would help bring down the REXing delay a little, although we'd still be set back some.

Arrian, good point about the "bullseye" aspect. We'd be at a significantly higher risk of having someone regard an invasion of our continent as worth the trouble.

[Arrian]

Well, I see no harm in raising the idea with Vox - so long as it is abundantly clear that we are just looking at this possibility, among many others. If they agree to throw in 2 workers... well, I think that would make them stupid. But let's see.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

May I throw in this: Lux has just contacted us. They said, that there is water between both continents. So, whatever would attack us, has to be shipped. This makes the situation some safer.

Again, regarding the GL effort: The GL is, of course, a very precious wonder. However, as was the situation till yesterday, the price we were going to pay was too big. But if the matters of defense and continued expansion will be addressed, I think I can support it too. We should have at least 2 cities with barracks, producing units, and EotS should be able to produce one or two more settlers, before Hurricane steals all the shields and Cyclone may get in action.

Regarding bullseye: The above information helps a lot in this matter. If the units have to be shipped, the galleys can be attacked. If we maintain a small fleet of veteran galleys, we might be able to attack the enemy ships and sink them together with the units on them. At least the risk of losses will be much greater for our enemy than for us.

[Arrian]

True. I just threw it out there (I was also thinking of the Voxian temptation to doublecross us).

By the way, Nathan, check your PMs.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Oh, and re: Lux's note. Yeah, sure fellas, we COULD do that, but our pain-in-the-ass neighbors blocked our scouts! [/rant]

That still irks me.

-Arrian