The Enlightened Thread

[delmar]

Originally posted by vondrack
Well, that depends on what you can offer. Map Making for Wheel would be a great deal anyone would happily accept

MapMaking is worth more than the Wheel and Iron Working together, purely from the cost point of view (12 versus 4+6). And if we are not under the threat of an attack, and especially if we are on our own continent, then other considerations (like how quickly we can research it) are not that relevant, IMHO.

Excellent points otherwise.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by delmar
Vondrack: couldn't find minimaps (pointer would be appreciated), except the RP one, from which I can't see squat.

GoW in the North, RPers south of them (cyan), GS to the right. ND supposed to be east of GoW & N of RPers, LI presumably further east of ND. Whereabouts of Voxes unknown.

[delmar]

Well, I guess from this mini map it is pretty clear that Conan should go straight to the East. If your assumptions are right, then the Voxes are most likely to be there. Only question is: are they separated from us by water?

[Sharpe]

Sharpe, I apologize for using rhetorical "questions" sometimes... if it looks like I am trying to make an idiot of you, it's just my inability to put it right.

Don't worry Radek, if I thought you were trying to make an idiot out of me I would let you know As it is we are just having a lively debate - and as I have said before, if that debate results in more discussion and a decision which most agree with - so much the better.

I am concerned though that there is more talk of delaying these techs even further - Map making then Literature - that would be a tremendous error - would put us 25-30 turns away from beginning to research those techs if we don't trade for them.

Admittedly I didn't see your latest report about last turn - if Conan has discovered the SE coastline , it surely does indicate that we are alone - and that has both its good and bad points. Map making should be strongly considered. However, we should give consideration to the other techs as well.

We are operating in the dark here somewhat - we talk about great and poor locations for cities when we don't even know where two key resources are located (and if they are even on our continent - unlikely though that may be).

PS wonder if we should stop using our own words against each other

[delmar]

Originally posted by Sharpe
I am concerned though that there is more talk of delaying these techs even further - Map making then Literature - that would be a tremendous error - would put us 25-30 turns away from beginning to research those techs if we don't trade for them.

We should clarify why we (you ) feel that these resources are so important. I personally don't think that the extra commerce/shield provided by horses/iron is a huge advantage.

I would start researching Iron Working and The Wheel only if there was a threat that someone else can claim those resources before we do. If we confirm that we are alone on our continent, then researching Map Making clearly won't put us in danger of losing those resources as anyone wanting to settle on our continent will have to research Map Making as well (and they probably won't go there straigth so we can finish it before they can, plus we are here already while they have to build a galley, explore, build a settler, ship the settler here -- why would they do that in the first place is also beyond me, unless their island is really small, etc, etc).

If we meet someone on our land, I agree that we should immediately trade for or (if that fails) research IW and the Wheel.

If we confirm that we are alone, then I simply wouldn't bother researching those techs at all, until we meet someone who has Map Making already. At that point, we should again try to tread for IW/Wheel, or if that fails then start researching them immediately after we finished the current tech (ie. even then I don't think we should be in a great hurry).

This is already somewhat outside of the scope of research but I would try to make sure that we actually have a settler by the time we research either of these resource techs, so that we can really claim any resource as quick as possible.

Edit: Finally, without trying to play down the importance of horses/iron, let me also point out that having the Mercenary as a UU and focusing on a peaceful playing style greatly reduces the impact of (potentially) not having access to these resources. On the defensive side, we will be perfectly fine without either of them, as the next best defender is the Musketman which requires saltpeter not iron. On the offensive side, horses wouldn't be bad for their retreat capability, but archers/longbowmen are not that much worse either. I would be worried about only the cavalry (horses) and railroads (iron). Those are on the other hand far away and if we have a reasonably sized empire by then, then we will be able to trade some other resources (coal seems to be a safe guess, looking at that jungle) for the missing ones.

[Kloreep]

Looking at this argument, I think we need to decide if we shoot for the Great Library. If we do, the value of some techs goes down even further, as we will presumably get them through the GL for free later. I'll post a poll.

[Sharpe]

Thought this thread needed bumping up.

For informational purposes these are the base costs for the remaining Ancient Times technologies (they may be cheaper if others have already researched them of course):

Available techs:

Map Making 120
Literature 100
Code of Laws 100
Iron Working 60
The Wheel 40
Mysticism 40
Mathematics 80
Philosophy 60

Not currently available techs:

Horseback Riding 50
Polytheism 120
Currency 160
Republic 280
Monarchy 240
Construction 200

Base amount of beakers needed for government techs:

Monarchy 60+120+240 = 420
Republic 100+60+280 = 440

Reminder of the remaining techs needed to reach Middle Ages:
Iron Working
Construction
Mathematics
Currency
Philosophy
Code of Laws
Map Making
The Wheel
Mysticism
Polytheism

Reminder of the techs not needed to reach next age:
Horseback Riding
Literature
Monarchy
Republic

[Tiberius]

Wow, I didn't realize that Republic is only a bit more expensive than Monarchy!

Maybe we should go for Republic, after all.

[Kloreep]

Yes, I'm leaning toward Republic too; especially since CoL is actually useful, unlike the other techs on the way to governments (IMO, the Oracle is worthless).

BTW, I think Horseback Riding is also required for era advancement.

[Sharpe]

Re: Horseback riding not being required for age advancement

That was straight from the Civ 3 original manual - whether that is right or not I don't know

[vondrack]

With the discovery of Map Making taking in 9 turns max, I believe it is time to start discussing our next research goal. It is highly unlikely that anything of strategic importance could happen in those 9 turns that would have a major impact on our future research decision.

Spiffor, will you take care of it, please?

[Tiberius]

Well, we might want to build the GL, don't we?
Sooo ... literacy ?

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Tiberius
Well, we might want to build the GL, don't we?
Sooo ... literacy ?

I am getting more and more undecided about this... We have learned RPers are currently researching Literature, quite possibly intending to try building the GLib... OTOH, nobody but GoW is researching Map Making...

Now, as things shape out, the world geography is quite different from what we thought. The other two landmasses are very close together (separated by a single tile strait only). The crowded landmass does not extend too far into their East (our West), so it is rather likely there will be no easy naval way to reach it from our Northwesternmost tip... this might make it very difficult to make contacts, suicidal galleys sent towards GoW/ND remaining our only option. And as we now know that ALL the other teams made contact, we are in serious trouble, unless we get into the tech-exchange loop ASAP.

Let's see what our options are (our current research output is 19 bpt, likely to gradually grow to something like 25 bpt, perhaps even more):

Iron Working (144 beakers) would make it easier to select which city sites in the far South to grab first. However, as it is going to take quite some time before we get there, I can't see how we would benefit from learning IW right now (sorry, Sharpe... )

Mathematics (192 beakers) is for the moment out of question, I believe - we have no need for catapults and the possibility to continue with the Currency later does not seem all that great to me (ATM... will change later on).

Philosophy (144 beakers) is a prerequisite for Republic... its importance thus depending on whether we opt to beeline for it or not.

Code of Laws (240 beakers) is like Philosophy, but in addition allows to build Courthouses (at the cost of 80 shields).

Republic (672 beakers) is not an immediate option, but our long term goal, I believe. The question is, how high on our list of priorities switching to Republic is... the total beaker costs of The Republic (including the prerequisites) is 1056. Considering our current and estimated future output, it sounds likely we would be able to get there in something like 50 turns (from now). That roughly coincides with the completion of our wonder in Jackson, IIRC. It seems pretty tempting to me to time our switch to Republic to that time... possibly building a swarm of settlers just before starting the revolution, making it less painful to go through the wasted turns of anarchy... not sure about this, just pondering aloud...

Literature (240 beakers) allows to build the GLib and Libraries. Currently researched by RPers.

Horseback Riding (120 beakers) allows Horsemen to be built, but is inferior even to Iron Working, IMHO. Does not reveal any new resources, just gives us a unit we do not urgently need. To be postponed for later, I believe.

Polytheism (288 beakers) is out of question, IMO, as we do not consider switching to Monarchy ever.

Now, there is one more thing to consider... once we make contacts, we will need something to trade for the techs we will be lacking. We will not want to give out our maps, ever. We will have some decent money from our barbarians and no contacts to trade. As money are unlikely to save the day for us, I believe we will have to rely on some exclusive techs, not spread among the others. This somehow favours the techs from the Writing branch of the tech-tree... everything else will likely be already common.

Thus, I believe that our real choices are:

Literature
Philosophy
Code of Laws

Despite viable possibilities of switching to Republic early, I would probably go for Literature (funny how long it took me to say the same thing as you, Tibi, isn't it? )

My reasons would be best illustrated by the two basic scenarios that may happen:

1) we fail to make any contacts before completing the wonder in Jackson and be thus forced to go for GLh to come out of our isolation. It will then be ok to have Literature, both because of being able to try a late shot at GLib and because of trades (I do not expect RPers to trade it around too much, wishing to keep a good chance of building the GLib for themselves). It would also be fine to have some pre-Republic tech for trade in this case.

2) we do get over the sea with a suicide galley before completing the Jackson wonder, thus being able to go for the GLib, catching up simply by making contacts.

Yep, my current choice would be Literature.

[redstar1]

Without knowing for sure what other civs are doing I think we should be playing the game our own way. If we are going to go for republic then I think we should get Philosophy out of the way now and maybe wait for literature to become cheaper.

[ZargonX]

I am still in favor of going for Literature. I think the GLib should still be a priority for us, regardless of what the RPers are doing. I think that in a wonder race, we have a strong possibility of beating them, especially if they become involved in their continental conflict. If we don't have the GLib, and get shut out of tech trading for some reason (people think we're too big, etc...), we're in deep trouble. Might as well try to cover all our bases.