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  • Industrial Era: how do we handle it?

    With Mediavel Era ending in 2 turns for us, we should pause and ponder a bit about how we approach the next age.

    First, the tech chart (blue numbers denote beaker costs):



    Second, let's make a brief summary of known facts:

    a) GS entered the industrial ages on Turn 181 - their lead on us is thus about 6 turns (as we will enter the next era on Turn 187).
    b) GoW entered the industrial ages on Turn 184 - their lead on us is thus about 3 turns

    c) there are only three great wonders in the Industrial Era: Universal Suffrage (800S, reduces WW in all cities), Theory of Evolution (600S, grants two free techs), and Hoover Dam (800S, free hydro plant in every city).

    d) we have no wonder prebuild worth mentioning

    e) we still need to build the 600S Sistine Chapel

    f) Vox is currently able to generate ~160bpt, at ~-40gpt

    g) GA aside, our economy is miles ahead of others in terms of shield production and quickly improving in terms of gold/beaker production (just look at all those banks and universities we are building)


    Now, considering all this, let me state few things I consider a given or highly probably:

    A) unless GS has some sort of a surprise for us, they are beelining for ToE and Hoover - unless they screwed something big time, they will get both of them, because they started the whole thing well ahead of everybody else.

    B) GoW is most likely prebuilding a wonder in Imperial City. Thanks to all those wines, they can easily get close to 30spt there.

    C) The faster the technology race progresses, the better for us (as we will be the ones to benefit most - thanks to our great shield production, we will be able to benefit most from the new techs - actually building the improvements and units rather than just being able to build them).

    D) Unless we badly neglect our military or fall behind in the military research, we shall not be swept away by an invasion from outside. With FIFTY cavalries ready to counter any attacks right now and RRs coming in just few turns, Fortress Legoland is a dream to come true very soon.


    Let me propose a general strategy for the Industrial Era, with a few concrete ideas for the early part of it:

    Military:
    I. Make sure we never fall behind in military research.
    II. Maintain a strong standing army of the most recent units.
    III. Railroad Legos as fast as possible.

    Research:
    IV. Research as fast as possible, to make others depending on techs purchased from us as much as possible.
    IV. Focus on never getting behind in military techs.

    Diplomacy:
    VI. Keep the world divided - let's do our best to keep everybody else pretty much at the same level overall (so that none of them is too eager to fully trust the other two).
    VII. Trade techs very easily, so that others are unable to fully utilize them.

    Wonders:
    VIII. Waive ALL three industrial great wonders, focus on getting the Sistine Chapel & grabbing the early Modern Era wonders (UN, SETI, Internet).

    I hope everybody will comment on these proposals (mind you - they are proposals ONLY! meant to incite a healthy debate). Let me start with one part of this strategy that may be surprising: waiving ALL the industrial wonders. Huh?

    Why? Well... aside from everything else... I do not really believe we still have a shot at them, especially if we are to build the Sistine Chapel at the same time. Plus, I think we will serve our purpose better by letting others grab them (see Proposal VI. - keep the world divided).

    Firs, let's rehash the wonder stuff again:

    Sistine Chapel - 3 unhappy citizens less in every city with a cathedral. Likely, these 3 citizens generate ~5spt/~10gpt per city. Multiply that by at least 20 cities and 100 turns. That is a lot of shields and arrows. Plus, all cities with cathedrals and colosseums will be able to grow to pop 20 (means to work all their tiles) with just dyes and luxury slider at 10% - that is, even if we are targetted by a luxury embargo.

    Universal Suffrage - lowers the WW in all cities. Now, I know this might be a cute wonder to grab, just in case we need to wage a prolonged defensive war... but frankly, if we get into WW-related troubles, we will be in much bigger troubles anyway (IIRC, WW comes mostly from losing units and cities, having enemy units in your territory and yours in theirs etc. - things we do not believe will be likely to happen, unless we're in real deep **** anyway). As our long-term strategy is to avoid wars as much as possible, I do not think these 800S would be well spent.

    Hoover Dam - this one is real big. A free hydro plant in every city - for us, it'd be 27*240-800=5440S for free, assuming factories everywhere. As much as I'd love to have it, GS has much better chances to get it. Unless we get the tech GS started to research after going industrial for free from Vox, I do not see how we could catch up with GS - due to the 4-turn research limit, we can't gain more than 1-2t per every tech on them. Fortunately, GS will not be able to compete with our economy in terms of shield production even if they get Hoover Dam.

    Theory of Evolution - only good to grab Hoover Dam safely. You spend ~11000 beakers on research & 600S on the wonder to get ~9000 beakers for free and the ability to spend 800S on Hoover Dam. This is usually a rather good deal - but I think that in this game, we will be able to make the "loss" up by our more potent economy, on condition it's GS getting the ToE+Hoover combo.

    So, considering all this, I believe it would be best to let or even help (by providing them with Industrialization) GoW build Universal Suffrage (suits their warmonger trait nicely), and let GS build ToE+Hoover. We could use this to our great advantage: we might try striking a deal with GS, waiving the ToE+Hoover combo in their favour to allow trading techs with them - we do the middle part of the tree, they do the lower part. We'd ensure we get all the crucial military techs in time w/o having to rely on anyone else (like we recently had to rely on GoW with Military Tradition), preventing "windows of opportunity" for others to strike at us with superior forces.

    I believe that if we decide to go this way, it would be best to approach GS before Voxes get their industrial tech - as GS would still fear us getting "their" tech, catching up, and actually outbuilding them to ToE (and automatically to Hoover, then, too - they do not know if and what kind of prebuilds we might have). If we wait for the Voxian tech and get a "wrong" one, they will know we are out of luck - and the likelihood of them striking a deal with us would be lower.

    Eagerly looking forward to your comments...

  • #2
    I would prefer to wait to see what Vox gets. The thing is, both Medicine and Steam Power are needed to get to Scientific Method and then to Electronics, there's a 67% chance Vox will get a tech that would be useful to us in the race to ToE (though SP would of course be more useful). So we might still have a chance at ToE+Hoovers; for if Vox nails that 67% chance, we'd only need to catch up by about 3 turns, and we have some gold saved up for deficit research when necessary.

    So, I would propose we a) ask Vox to hold the save for a while, b) hold the save some ourselves while we negotiate a deal with GS, should Vox get Nationalism. If they get something else, I think we should try for ToE. Worse comes to worse, we turn the ToE build in to either Sistine's or Universal Suffrage. (Universal Suffrage may not be useful for us, but I would love to deny it to others.)

    Comment


    • #3
      Well, frankly... I can see a major problem with this. During the peace negotiations at the end of the Stormian War, one of the principal conditions GS asked for in exchange for a reasonable peace (that was later signed) was that the Voxian free tech would be available to GS, too - for a fair price (I distinctly remember Sir Ralph voicing this concern very loudly in the key chat with GS - and me promising it would not be a problem). I cannot see how we (Vox) could deny a crucial tech GS would need without acting dishonestly - actually breaking our word, albeit not a written one. I myself would consider perfectly justified if GS built the Sistine Chapel then (and that could happen, since if we beat them to the 600S ToE, they would most likely be just few turns from finishing another 600S wonder themselves).

      Because of this, the chances are only 33% that the free Vox tech might actually help us against GS - they would have to get the tech GS started researching after going industrial. Then there would be nothing to trade - or, the trade would level the ground only (helping us, of course - but that would be no foul play).

      As I've made it clear on several occasions that honoring or breaking one's word is actually a matter of the "right price", I will also rephrase: getting ToE/Hoover at the expense of losing Sistine and/or enraging GS would not be a good deal, IMHO.


      However, the techs are actually only half of our problem. Prebuilds are the other half. Let's have a look:

      Should we try the ToE/Hoover combo, we would have to build two 600S wonders in a short, preferrably the very same time: Sistine (600S) & ToE (600S). Whoever gets ToE, gets Hoover Dam, as nobody will risk wasting 8+ turns of full speed research to get to Electronics the hard way.

      Our three best cities shield-wise are Karina (up to 38spt, 66S in bank as of the coming turn), Legopolis (up to 36spt, 33S in bank), and Jackson (up to 34spt, 64S in bank). For the sake of simplicity, I am going to assume their shield output constant across the next ~20t - we could more or less maintain the GA level by RRing their radii ASAP.

      Karina: 600S = 66 + 15*38 (15t to build Sistine or ToE)
      Jackson: 600S = 64 + 16*34 (16t to build Sistine or ToE)
      Legopolis: 600S = 33 + 16*36 (16t to build Sistine or ToE)

      Means we would use Karina & Jackson, as they would do with just the palace and Sistine Chapel as the builds (Legopolis can't use the palace prebuild) without adding a single turn to the whole schedule.

      So, this would likely be our "ToE/Hoover" plan:

      1) Karina changes to Sistine immediately and finishes it in 15t.
      2) Jackson changes to palace immediately and finishes ToE in 16t (2+4*4=18t if we get no useful tech from Vox and have to wait for the tech to be able to finish the wonder).
      3) Red Bricks start the Hoover Dam now - use a 400S wonder as an interim build (15*27=405S), then palace, finishing the Hoover build in ~30t from now (I'd consider Red Bricks safe for the Hoover build - if we do get ToE, nobody would probably bother researching Atomic Theory & Electronics anyway, especially as Red Bricks cannot be investigated - it's not in the maps).

      So... it all boils down to the crucial question: do we believe GS will need more than 16t to finish ToE?

      ...to be continued

      Comment


      • #4
        OK, now... which GS cities could build ToE in less than 16t? Obviously, it must be a pop 11-12 city... GS have 12 cities like that (eliminating those that do not qualify, ordering them roughly according to how "dangerous" they are):

        Eye of Storm - 168g to investigate
        Arashi - 168g to investigate
        Monsoon - 162g to investigate
        Blizzard - 148g to investigate

        Dissidentville - corruption likely at the level of Forkmouth (unless GS built their FP there), 154g to investigate
        Bolderberg - shield output low, 176g to investigate
        Olibanum Gale - shield output low, 168g to investigate
        Tornado - shield output low, 166g to investigate
        Typhoon - shield output low, 164g to investigate
        Sufa - shield output low, 156g to investigate

        Tempest - finished a wonder last turn
        Hurricane - finished a wonder 2t ago

        Means, we could get a reasonably good idea about what the GS chances are by spending ~650g, which is less than 2 turns of our current cash surplus. Knowing what Eye, Arashi, Monsoon, and Blizzard are building would help us big time in deciding whether to go for ToE or not...

        Do we want to spend the money?

        Comment


        • #5
          Chatting with Kloreep last night (after I posted the two posts above), he made good points worth repeating here, I believe:

          a) we should assume nothing less than a perfectly timed prebuild from GS - means as soon as they discover Scientific Method, they switch a palace prebuild (can be in several fine cities of theirs) to ToE and finish it 1t later. This effectively means we are out of luck with ToE (and consequently, Hoover), as we can't build 600S anywhere in less than 15t, while GS will likely need no more than 14t to discover Scientific Method (and finish ToE).

          b) aside from going for ToE/Hoover and going for no industrial wonder at all, there is also the possibility of waiving ToE (and Hoover), but trying to grab Universal Suffrage - granted, not a wonder we'd absolutely need to win this game... but it would make our intervening in wars easier, as WW would be less of a problem for us, even if we fired the first shot. And vice versa - others would have the same thing tougher, especially against us.

          In order to grab US, we'd have to outbuild GoW first to Sistine (to deny them a cascade wonder), then to US. To be honest, I kinda like the idea...

          Using the data from previous posts...

          We'd be able to build Sistine in Karina in 15t. Skipping the bank & uni there would hurt (the city is on a river and generates lots of arrows), but oh well... Once we'd build Sistine in Karina, GoW would lose their prebuild - with no palace prebuild available in Imperial City, they'd either have to waste the shields, or switch to Universal Suffrage. In order to switch to US, they'd need Industrialization by then - which might be, IMHO, possible, if they beelined for it... their GNP is between 450-500gpt - high enough to get to Ind in 15t, even if not researching at 100%.

          We could get to Ind in 2+4+4=10t maximum, assuming we do not get Steam Power, but risk a bit, starting our Steam Power research without waiting for the Voxian free tech. Means we could use Legopolis to build US, as (10+1)*36=396 (few 400S prebuilds available), finishing it in 23t there (11*36+12*34=804), assuming we would railroad all mined tiles within the Legopolis radius as a top priority task.

          Using Jackson for the US build could get us there 1 turn faster. With 66S in bank as of the coming turn & 34spt max shield output... 66+11*34=440S (11 turns because that's the earliest we'd be able to switch to US there - see the paragraph on our research), which means we'd have to use the palace prebuild there, unable to veil our Sistine build in Karina. RRing everything in the most sensible way (RR everything, mine one irrigated grass, use one mined desert instead of an irrigated one), we would only drop to 33spt after our GA end. That's 66+11*34+11*33=803S.

          So, either of these 2 conditions would have to be true:

          1) GoW is unable to gather 800S in any of their cities within 22t.

          2) GoW is unable to research Industrialization within 15t from the coming turn (having to waste their prebuild shields after we finish the Sistine, because of having no 400S+ thing to switch to in Imperial City - this, however, assumes it's I.C. they are prebuilding the wonder in, which is not 100% granted, even if highly probable).


          ad 1):

          Imperial City - pop 12, 4 wine (2-food) and 2 regular hills (6*3=18spt), 4 bonus grasslands (4*2=8spt), 1 game forest (2spt) and 1 grassland (1spt) - except the game forest, everything mined. That's 18+8+2+1+1=30spt. Close to our best cities during the GA. Could have been prebuilding a wonder since 580AD (built a settler on that turn), which was Turn 174 (up to ~300 in bank). 160g to investigate.

          Trafalgar - pop 10, 4 regular hills (4*3=12spt), cattle (2spt), 4 bonus grasses (4*2=8spt), 1 regular grass (1spt). That's 12+2+8+1+1=24spt. Could have been prebuilding a wonder since Turn 162 (that's how far back I've checked), even if not at ~20spt all the time. 130g to investigate.

          The Hill - pop 10, lack of high food tiles... max 5 hills (5*3=15spt), 1 mined bonus grass (2spt), 1 irrigated grass (0spt), 3 mined grasses (3spt). That's 15+2+3+1=21spt. Could have been prebuilding a wonder since Turn 162 (that's how far back I've checked), even if not at ~20spt all the time. 136g to investigate.

          I do not see any other cities to worry about... and quite frankly, I would bet everything on Imperial City. GoW would have to be insane to go for more than one wonder - and I.C. is by far their best wonder building city. Investigating I.C. would quite likely give us the answer we need.


          ad 2):

          I consider it perfectly within GoW's reach to research Steam Power and Industrialization in 15 turns or less (it is 2*2880=5760 beakers, not considering the discount they get after GS & us discover Steam Power - besides, GoW could agree to waive ToE in favour of GS and buy Steam Power from them).


          Conclusion:

          I would suggest we spend 160g to investigate Imperial City this coming turn. Should we find out I.C. is building a wonder, but cannot gather 800S wonder faster than a city of ours, I say - let's go for it, adjusting Karina and Jackson accordingly (though - we'd have to prepare for pissing Gow mightly off).

          If not, I would go for the originally proposed idea - no industrial wonders, focus on tech-racing ahead as fast as possible, doing max research ourselves and trading techs for techs as much as possible, making the early modern era wonders our priority and long-term goal.

          Comment


          • #6
            Why don't we go for it anyway, without necessarily investigating IC... Or ask around and see if anyone else has investigated IC recently...

            Some good Maths there V!

            If I'm not mistaken, and forgive me if I am.. If we start 3 wonders/prebuilds ... Sistine/TOE/Hoover ... we should be effectively guaranteed 1 of them, most likely Sistine. With the other 2 we should be able to get some sort of wonder, even if GS manage TOE and Hoover? Thats got to be worth the risk surely....
            Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses

            Comment


            • #7
              Actually no, scratch that idea, we can probably take it as read that they are most likely halfway through building a wonder, possibly sistines, meaning they have about 13(?) turns left? What else are they going to build there....
              Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses

              Comment


              • #8
                I also wouldn't be convinced that GS have an advanced prebuild... I just don't see them planning 3/4 wonders at the same time counting the recently finished ones.

                I say we build full speed towards as many as we can
                Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by redstar1
                  If I'm not mistaken, and forgive me if I am.. If we start 3 wonders/prebuilds ... Sistine/TOE/Hoover ... we should be effectively guaranteed 1 of them, most likely Sistine. With the other 2 we should be able to get some sort of wonder, even if GS manage TOE and Hoover? Thats got to be worth the risk surely....
                  Well, if it was only the shields at stake, it would be worth the risk, that's for sure. But we would be risking much more than that, most importantly thousands of beakers.

                  In order to have a shot at ToE/Hoover, we'd have to beeline for Scientific Method full speed - that's Steam Power (2880 beakers), Electricity (3360 beakers), Medicine (2400 beakers), and Scientific Method (2400 beakers). Even if we get one of those for free from Vox, it's still well over 8000 beakers (and 12 turns of time). If we fail to get ToE, we will have effectively wasted most of those 8000 beakers (as the techs will be available for cheap once ToE is built)... while we could easily get Industrialization, Corporation, and Steel in the same time, for almost the same price - being then able to trade for the techs we'd "ignore".

                  If GS beat us to ToE (and I consider that very likely - just look at how nicely they had the Copernicus and Newton's lined up), we'd not only waste a major deal of the beakers spent on the research up to that point, but we'd fall even further behind tech-wise, with GS getting Atomic Theory & Electronics - we'd have nothing to offer in exchange. GS could then merrily jump back to Industrialization, having a healthy lead of two very expensive techs on us (Atomic Theory is 4800 beakers, Electronics is 4320 beakers).

                  Factor in even more potential beakers and gold lost in Karina and Jackson, as we would have to skip banks and unis in both cities. Our economy is strong, but this would be a major blow even for such a strong economy - many thousands of beakers/gold. Considering the 4-turn research limit, we might never be able to recover our loss... getting stuck in a position like the one we're in right now - our economy is gushing cash, but we are still behind in techs, unable to catch up quickly.

                  Now consider GoW and later on, even ND. GoW is quite capable of researching at a reasonable pace, which they have proven by researching Chemistry, Metallurgy, and Military Tradition. They will not just sit there and wait until we duke it out with GS regarding ToE. They will research at least Industrialization & Corporation in the mean time. We could only hope GoW would trade the techs with us and not with GS (and remember - GS will have more to offer than us, due to the free ToE techs, plus they will look for ways to hinder us).

                  To make the long story short: I very seriously fear us falling way behind in research, if GS beat us to ToE. We'd effectively give others a golden chance to get to Infantry, Artillery, and especially Tanks many turns before us. With a set limit on how fast one can research, we might easily be left behind for the whole age, if not longer.

                  And why? Just because of getting a wonder that is much less than crucial for us? Our economy will be stronger shield-wise than that of GS even if they get Hoover. They have too few shields to start with. You cannot really use Hoovers to balance having only half the land tiles...

                  And obviously... if we decide to not risk in this way, then it would make no sense to even start prebuilds for ToE and Hoover... better build those banks and unis instead.

                  As for the Universal Suffrage thing... we'd have to delay banks and unis in Karina & Jackson for at least 15 turns. Their combined raw commerce is ~(50+73)/1,5=82gpt at the moment (libs and markets add 50% to the base commerce, thus /1,5 to calculate the base commerce). No matter how you look at it, that's ~15*82=1230 gold less than if we build the banks and unis ASAP.

                  Now, if we confirm we can build US faster than GoW in I.C., you can consider these 1230 gold part of the US/Sistine cost, which would be acceptable. But if we find out we are out of luck, we can easily strike a deal with GoW, assure them of our support for their US build, making it much less likely they even start thinking about grabbing Sistine, and use our almost fully developed Red Bricks to build Sistine with no unnecessary stress and hurry.

                  I see it a bit like paying an insurance - you pay 160g and you get a reasonable guarantee that you are not going to throw 1230g out the window (that's about 13%).

                  Thinking about all this, let me rephrase the philosophy behind the approach I proposed in the first post (I did not realize it was the crux of the whole plan, but putting together all these lengthy posts makes it clearer to me). We're so strong that we'd have to screw something up big time to lose this game. Nobody has a chance to bite us before we get our RR backbone in place (our cavalry hordes would easily repel anything at this moment). Once the RRs are there, invasions will be next to impossible... unless, that is, others get to much better units - infantry, artillery, and especially tanks - ahead of us (even few turns can make a huge difference, since we can lose few key cities during that "window"). If we ensure it's us getting to those units first, we are perfectly safe. Any invasion would be doomed to fail.

                  Going for ToE/Hoover looks like a huge risk to me. One that we do not need to take at all. We can certainly win this game if GS get Hoover, no doubt about that. OTOH, we could get into serious troubles if losing the bet.

                  Should we choose a research path ignoring wonders, strictly focused on maintaining military tech superiority and a permanent tech lead (at least in a chosen branch), then we are risking nothing. I believe that we do not need to take risks at this moment. We are miles ahead of others. They will have to take risks to catch up.

                  This situation actually reminds me of the moment we were deciding to join GoW & ND against GS & RP. Sure, the result was not "ideal" for us - all of them making mincemeat of each other would have been better. But we would have had no control over that, while we did have quite some control over achieving the goal we eventually chose.

                  I believe it's very similar now. Yeah, I know... getting Hoover would be such a sweet cherry. But the stakes would be very high. If we lost the race... OTOH, if we planned for leaving Hoover to GS, we'd be in full control of things.

                  We'd do Steam Power (or buy it from GS, either for gold or a future tech like Industrialization, guaranteeing ToE and Hoover to them). We'd research Industrialization in 4t, getting into the driver's seat - Corporation, Refining (oil, anyone?), Steel, Combustion. We trade Corporation & Steel for Electricity & Scientific Method. Voxes do Medicine and Sanitation in the meantime. Etc. etc. Unlikely we would be to get stuck...

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    One consideration for NOT going for Hoover is the "target" factor. We already have the big industrial lead over the others. If we were to get Hoovers, we would, without doubt, be the sure shot for victory left undisturbed. At that point, the others would have no choice but to band against us or hand us the game. By not getting Hoover, we fly ever-so-slightly under the radar, and let GS take the focus without most of the benefit. Just a thought.
                    I make movies. Come check 'em out.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      That's a pretty good point, too. As much as trying to "fly under the radar" sounds quite ridiculous when speaking about us now (especially knowing what we know), it is still a factor to consider. The longer we keep others hesitating whether it's really such a good idea to gang up and attack us, the better...

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        OK, after investigating Arashi, Eye of the Storm, and Imperial City, we are now much wiser.

                        a) GoW is going to build a nice wonder in Imperial City. It will either be the Sistine (which we do not want) or US (as they do not have the research capacity to get to SciMeth fast enough to build ToE there). We better strike a deal guaranteeing US to GoW in order to indirectly make our Sistine build safer. I'd suggest offering them either Industrialization for gold (they do not have much gold ATM, though) or some future tech, or arranging a deal that would see them doing Industrialization and trading it to us for something else. Either way, we'd include a no-US clause. I will try to find out what the options are today evening.

                        b) GS would beat us to ToE - if everything went our way, they would beat us because of the playing order, finishing the wonder on the same turn we'd be finishing it. If Vox get Nationalism (which is very likely, as we are playing PtW 1.29f), it would few turns. IMHO, trying to go for ToE/Hoover is totally foolish. Because of that I suggest to approach GS and try arranging a deal with them, offering to trade techs from the middle part of the tree for techs from the lower part of the tree - making it possible by guaranteeing ToE/Hoover to them (and we would ASK for a guarantee that they are going for the combo full speed, so that no Bobians get Hoover).

                        We would start with Steam Power immediately (not waiting for the Voxian free tech), doing the first turn of our research as slowly as possible without losing the chance to do the tech in four turns (kinda reversing the normal procedure, where we save the gold on the last turn of the research). This way, if Vox get something else than Steam Power, we lose not a single turn of research - and if Vox, by some miracle, get Steam Power, we lose as little gold as possible.

                        After Steam Power, it would depend on what tech deals we would be able to prearrange. If GoW agreed to get Industrialization from us, we'd go for Industrialization. Or we could do Electricity on our own. It would all depend.

                        Either way... I will try to have a word with Master Zen tonight. I will make it clear it's no official offer yet, but an idea we consider.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          We definitely need to do some dealing. I'll wait to make any comments until you get some feedback from the other teams.

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