Lego FA thread 1

[Rhothaerill]

Beta can you possibly get together with Lego and discuss with them the potential deal with GS and waiting for chemistry as well as the strategic options I laid out. I'd especially like to have their input on my idea of once they finish the techs necessary to advance an age they gift them to us and we get our free tech and gift that back to them (and possibly them only, unless we get medicine)

[Beta]

Will do.

[Beta]

Sent to vondrack of Lego...

Greetings vondrack. We at Vox have reached a point where we need to sit back and think about where we go from here. To this end, Rhoth prepared the following essay, which we thought we should share with you. We would like to get together in a chat with representatives from Lego to talk some of this thorugh, as our fates would seem to be clearly inter-twined.

The one development since this has been prepared is that we have an offer from GS for Chemistry at a future date (plus luxuries) in exchange for Democracy when we finish it. You can add that to the hopper for discussion.

So - can you let us know when you and/or others might be available to chat. From our end - it would clearly be Rhoth and myself. And maybe Wittlich if we can twist his arm. conmcb is also on Vox now, but given his other activities, he has not been too active.

I am away from Friday thorugh Sunday - so the earliest for me would be Monday evening.

Let us know.

Cheers! ...Beta.

Strategic Directions from 530ad on. .....by Rhothaerill

I agree with Beta that it is time we figure out how we want to proceed with our future planning.

Currently we have a research engine that is beginning to ramp up quite nicely. We can't compete with the larger civs, but we can work on the more obscure techs (read...unnecessary for age advancement). On the military front, we're pathetically backward. But at the same time we have our big brother (Lego) protecting us.

I think we really need to get together with Lego in chat or through a series of PMs and discuss with them our future policy because a lot of it will depend on them.

Possible Future Policy Plan A) - We completely eschew military needs in favor of building research and commerce improvements, as well as aqueducts. With this policy we will be able to become a stronger research partner for giving Lego the techs we research, as well as being able to shop our techs around to the other teams for concessions much like we've done with printing press and soon democracy. This strategy will depend greatly on Lego as we will have to rely on them solely for our defense as our current military would get run over quickly.

Possible Future Policy Plan B) - After our current round of building marketplaces we begin building up a force of horsemen (by freezing our road on the iron) that can eventually be upgraded to knights and cavalry and provide us an excellent defense force against invasion by other civs. This would, of necessity, require a lot of gold for upgrades and necessitate that we ramp our research engine back down. I believe it's either 100 or 120 gold per upgrade from horse to cavalry (can't check
right now). This would provide us a more secure military and make us less vulnerable to an invasion of our shores designed to hurt Lego through us, as well as giving us the ability to send forces if they are invaded. However we wouldn't be as good a research partner for Lego.

Possible Future Policy Plan C) - A hybrid of the above in which we ramp our research as much as possible until we discover democracy and then try to build up our military through the use of horseman upgrades. This has the benefit of the fact that there won't be too many techs that we can research quicker than anyone else once democracy is finished. The only tech that the other nations likely won't prioritize is free artistry until we get into the nationalism branch of extra techs.

That brings up another point that we need to discuss with Lego. We will get metallurgy and hopefully another nice tech or two for democracy trades. If Lego can get us the remaining ones as soon as possible then we will start the next age...where as the only scientific civ we will have a free tech to share with Lego! If it's Steam Power or Nationalism we might also see about keeping it to ourselves and Lego for a while.

Okay, of the above plans I'm kind of leaning toward Plan A with getting our economic engine going as fast as we can. There are a bunch of industrial age optional techs that aren't often prioritized by human players that we could shoot for and trade around. Once we get a bank up and running in New Voice then it's commerce boosters will be finished and we can start building a small mobile military with that city alone.

Thoughts?

[Rhothaerill]

Thanks Beta. Monday evening would be the absolute earliest I'd be able to chat as well since I'm gone this entire weekend as well.

[Beta]

Initial response from vondrack:

Hi, Beta!

Thanks for the message. I fully agree we should get together and talk
about the future, both near and not-so-near (I am just starting this
on the global scale in Lego, too). I will post your email in our forum
and start a discussion with other Legos immediately. Should not take
long to sort our needs and ideas out - a chat sometime next week
sounds just fine, though I believe Monday would be too soon.

Very quickly, without giving it the proper time it needs: you trading
Chemistry for Democracy with GS sounds ok to me, even though we would
be able to deliver the tech to you for free any time on or after Turn
186 (700AD), which is when our NDA with GoW runs out. But we would be
pushing it too far this way, I think, as that is just about when the
last mandatory medieval tech is to be discovered by us. So - go ahead
and strike the deal with GS. It further strenghtens your image as an
agent acting less than totally in concert with us. I only welcome it.

As for your next research goal. Quite frankly, I believe that after
finishing Democracy, it would be best to shut your research down until
we deliver everything needed for the era transition. Should only be
like 2-3 turns at most (as we should finish the last medieval tech in
11 turns from now). Once you jump into the industrial era, we will
have to adapt to whatever tech you get for free. There are multiple
paths possible, with some of them apparently more research-heavy than
others. Some of them (getting Medicine, e.g.) allow or even favour you
focusing on military for a bit, slowing down the research. Others
(like getting Nationalism) would allow for you to keep researching
like mad (you'd do Medicine, we'd do Steam Power & Electricity). But I
agree we should at least dicuss our options in advance.

BTW - you can have saltpeter any time, just ask for it. We do have an
extra source for you.

Will get back to you as soon as I hear from my fellow Legos,

Cheers,
vondrak

[Wittlich]

As for your next research goal. Quite frankly, I believe that after finishing Democracy, it would be best to shut your research down until we deliver everything needed for the era transition. Should only be like 2-3 turns at most (as we should finish the last medieval tech in 11 turns from now). Once you jump into the industrial era, we will have to adapt to whatever tech you get for free.

I, for one, agree with Von's advice full-heartedly ... besides, once we have Democracy and setting the reasearch slider to "0," we can rack up some gold for our national treasury - and make up for the gold loss per-turn we sacrificed while studying Democacy in the first place.

[Beta]

Here is a reply from vondrak that addresses both the question of the comments in the save game thread, and a partial response to our earlier inquiry.

Hi, Bruce!

> btw - what were the comments in the save game thread in reference
> to? Has GS attacked??? Or is it a wonder build thing? ...Bruce

Wonder build thing.

We finished Magellan's Voyage and triggered our GA. It was like
shuttle taking off. Not sure if anyone can imagine how many shields
and arrows we are generating now... it's truly impressive. It's almost
hard to believe we've managed to pull it exactly the way we planned.
And the plans were insane - almost every single city had a separate
plan with worker jobs, precise build schedules, growth plans...

Also - regarding our chat. We are getting very close to finalizing our
plans for the next 10-15 turns. We are currently waiting for the final
GoW's approval of a trade that should net us Military Tradition. If it
goes through (and it should, soon, as MZ agreed to the deal yesterday
in chat), the research plan will be as follows:

Turn 179 / 630AD: Physics finished, sending it to you
starting Theory of Gravity
Turn 180 / 640AD: researching Theory of Gravity
Turn 181 / 650AD: researching Theory of Gravity
Turn 182 / 660AD: researching Theory of Gravity
Turn 183 / 670AD: Theory of Gravity finished
starting Magnetism
Turn 184 / 680AD: researching Magnetism
Turn 185 / 690AD: researching Magnetism
Turn 186 / 700AD: researching Magnetism
Turn 187 / 710AD: Magnetism finished
sending Magnetism & Theory of Gravity to you
either halting the research
or gambling a bit, starting Steam Power immediately

So... assuming you are able to trade for Metallurgy by 710AD, you
should advance to the industrial era in 720AD (Turn 188). You get your
free tech, send it back to us - and then we stop and rethink the
plans.

Military-wise: after discussing this a bit in our forum, it seems we
would prefer you focusing on research and infrastructure, neglecting
your attack forces in favour of defenders and artillery. The reason is
that we believe we'll have attackers enough to drive off any invaders
setting their feet on the Voxtavia soil, especially after we connect
our empires with a railroad (even if we are attacked on Legos at the
same time). OTOH - even a sizable LEF force would need few turns to
defeat invaders. You would need strong enough defenses to hold until
we remove the threat. Weakening the invaders with artillery hidden and
well protected in your cities would also be very helpful, lowering the
casualties.

So: defenders, artillery, and railroads ASAP.

And one more thing: we believe it would be a good idea to extend our
own naval screens (consisting of caravels) with your own vessels, so
that it's impossible for any invaders to slip through unnoticed. To
this effect, we will probably send you Navigation next turn (it did
not occur to me you would need it, ) and kindly request that
you build or use a couple of your caravels for patrol duties along
both your East and West coasts. I will send you a picture illustrating
our own screens.

Well, that's it. It's not meant to sub for the chat, which I would
still like to hold. Just that prior to finalizing our current deal
with GoW (Military Tradition), it would be just a lot of ifs and
maybes.

Just BTW, if it's not secret, what's your current research output and
at what percentage? How fast you can research at 100% (provided you
get extra gold to allow deficit spending)?

Cheers,
Radek

[Rhothaerill]

I have not sent anything to Lego yet, but I am fine with sending them the info if everyone else is okay too.

Raw data:

- At 100% science we generate 164 beakers per turn with -38gpt loss.

- At 70% science we generate 117 beakers per turn with -5gpt loss.

- At 0% science we generate 76gpt. Keep in mind though that we will have 6 marketplaces and a bank within the next 12 turns that will add about 44gpt to that total.

Those numbers will rise as our empire grows more, but not a lot and not very quickly. It will take a while to build the next wave of commerce improvements (banks, universities) though rails would help a little (an extra two shields for most of the cities, more for others).

[Beta]

I am Ok sending this info as well. Unless anybody objects in the next short while, I will send a note off to vondrack.

Thanks for the info Rhoth!

[Jon Miller]

I don't think we should build defenders much

defenders are only needed for stacks or to protect against sea invasion (and I don't think anyone can do a marine attack right now, and we will before others can)

this will especially be true once we get railroads

Jon Miller

[Wittlich]

I too, am Ok with sharing our national info with Lego.

[Beta]

Received rom vondrack as part of an e-mail. The remainder dealt with a pbem game.

And regarding PtW - hopefully, GoW will stand in their word (signed
trade agreement, I mean) and deliver Military Tradition to us in 2-3
turns. We shall finish Theory of Gravity in 670AD and Magnetism 4
turns later - immediately sending both techs to you, so you may start
planning your New Era Party.

I guess that we have sorted out most of our internal issues and would
now be ready to organize a chat. Try setting an exact day/hour... The
only period which is not very cool for me is about 00-06 GMT. I will
see who else might be interested in attending (the member base is sort
of stable, most people comment in the forum, but they seldom accompany
me to chats).

[Rhothaerill]

Heh, the best time for me on weekdays would be 0300-0700 GMT (which is about 7pm to 11pm on the west coast here). You may have to chat without me Beta unless it happens on the weekend.

[Beta]

I suggest we shoot for a weekend. I think both of us - at a minimum - should be there.

[Rhothaerill]

Obviously the chat has not happened. Have we received any word about their preference for a picket line? We don't want to wander too close to their border so we need to know what the southernmost point would be.

BTW, if you want to go ahead and talk to them, we will be preparing a road that connects to their existing road near Invoice in preparation for railroading around our cities so that there will be a clear lane for them to get around all our cities in case of an attack against us.