Tech Discussion

[regoarrarr]

So, since we seem to be heading to Monarchy and aiming to trade up to Priesthood with the Templars, I am assuming that once we get IW in 6 turns, we will be running all cash?

I'm assuming given the glacial pace of the game that it will take a few turns to work all that out, not to mention at least 3 turns to make the trades due to in-game mechanics.

Also we have even more of an incentive to do binary science given that we will be investing in a library at least in the capital here in 10 or so turns.

With cheap libraries, colosseums & theaters (access to dyes in our case as well) the upper tech branch looks very juicy for creative civs like ours.

We don't have cheap libraries, right? I thought Creative is theaters and cols, and organized is lighthouses and courthouses

[sunrise089]

BtS Creative has the library bonus.

[regoarrarr]

Ah ok - I was going off of

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/reference/leader_picker_bts.html

[Sullla]

Yeah, Creative gets cheap libraries in second expansion (it's a BAD change, and one I don't like, but what can you do?)

Organized also gets cheap FACTORIES too, in another bad change. Our trait combo gets six different cheap buildings!

Uh, I think I'm taking this thread off-topic. Assuming we can trade for some religious techs with Templars, how many turns of min science would we need to bank ahead of time to research Monarchy? I know the numbers will change, but maybe we can get a rough idea (?) Monarchy costs ~500 beakers, if I remember correctly, and we'd likely have one pre-req for the 20% discount.

[regoarrarr]

Okay, based on the ratio of listed beakers to in-game beakers for IW (200/286), Monarch should cost 429 beakers (300*1.3*1.1 I believe)

Assumptions:
1. We end IW with 6 gold in the bank and 17 beakers overflow (that's as best as I can tell from our rates posted in the turnplayers thread)
2. At 0%, we make 16 gold and 1 beaker
3. At 100%, we make 23 raw beakers and 28 true beakers and cost 7 gold.

So, 414 beakers to go.

That will require 15 turns (420 beakers). I'm going to assume that through growth, cottage maturity and libraries we can shave 2 turns off of this.

13 turns of 100% science will cost us 91 gold. Given our 6 gold in the bank, we need to run 0% science to get 85 gold, which is 6 turns.

So, 6 turns of 0%, followed by 13 turns of 100% = 19 turns total.

So, let's say we were able to trade our way to Monotheism AND Priesthood (both pre-reqs of Monarchy). That would take our true beakers from 28 (24*1.2) to 33 (24 * 1.4), as far as I could tell.

That would make 13 turns, or 11 turns if we can shave some turns off, which in turn would only require 5 turns of gold.

So, getting both pre-reqs would shave about 3 turns off the time to research Monarchy.

We may need to check this in WB because I'm not sure if you get the 40% discount in this case since you HAVE to have one of the two and I think you only get the 20% for OPTIONAL pre-reqs.

[regoarrarr]

Okay. I agree with Zeviz that we should go Myst - Poly - Masonry - Mono - Priesthood - Monarchy.

We should be aiming to trade for as many of those first 5 techs as we can.

As far as I can tell from the C&D department:

Templars have: Ag, Myst, Poly, Masonry, AH, Mono, Mining, Wheel, BW, Pottery, Hunting, Archery
Imperio have: Myst, Mining, BW, Ag, AH, Wheel, Hunting, Meditation, Priesthood, Pottery, IW, Fishing, Writing, Archery

We have:
Mining, BW, IW, Fishing, Sailing, Pottery, Ag, Wheel, AH, Hunting, Archery

We can get from Templars: Myst (50), Poly (100), Masonry (80), Mono (120)
We can give Templars: IW (200), Fishing (40), Sailing (100)

We can get from Imperio: Myst (50), Meditation (80), Priesthood (60)
We can give Imperio: Fishing (40), Sailing (100)

==========================
We need to start working on emails proposing some trades. How about we continue research on Masonry. In 3 turns we should have Alphabet, right?

I tried working on various trades but couldn't figure out the best combination and it's making my head hurt Anyone else want to try?

I am going to assume that by T+7 we are able to lay our hands on Monotheism and Priesthood. Our library is 2 chops, so I'm going to assume we complete it on T+5.

Masonry will be 114 beakers and I'm assuming we have about 10 now (can't see for sure).

T0: 62 gold, 10/114 Masonry
T+1: 83 gold, 11/114
T2: 94 gold, 12/114
T3: 115 gold, 13/114
T4: 136 gold, 14/114
T5: switch to max commerce in the capital (gain 5 commerce AFAI can tell from working the cottages, from 21-26 (State of the Empire shows 20 but I'm assuming it's 21 now due to the Imperio trade route), plus 25% or 6 from the library). Switch to 100% science which will be 41 raw beakers * 1.4 (pre-reqs) = 57 * 1.05 (1 civ knows it) = 59 bpt, -9 gpt, 127 gold, 73/114
T6: 116 gold, Masonry done, 18/429 towards Monarchy.
T7: down to only 57 bpt (though I know it's ludicrous to project this far out since we'll have city growth, cottage maturation etc. - just go with it!!). We're assuming we will have at least one of the pre-reqs for Monarchy by now. 107 gold, 75/429
T8,9,10,11,12: 62 gold, 360/429
T13: 53 gold, 417/429
T14: 44 gold, Monarchy discovered

So, that's a rough estimate - 14 turns. We're listed with 44 gold left at the end, but I think we'll actually be closer to even since we'll be founding a new city before then. So I think that it is reasonable to keep research off till 5 turns from now (T85 I belive), then swap to 100% with our new library. It's taken 23 turns for PAL to research Alphabet, so given that CoL is more expensive weighed by the fact that their civ is bigger and more improved now, I think it's likely that they'll finish about the same time.

[Sullla]

Wow, nice estimations! We can look back at this thread and see how close they were later. A rough estimate of ~15 turns is good to have in mind.

I'm a little bit less convinced that we can manage to trade for Mysticism, Polytheism, and Priesthood though. It will take a little longer if we have to research some or all of these techs ourselves.

[mostly-harmless]

Also Templars know IW by now.
So we can only give away Fishing & Sailing to our neighbors.
Worth a shot, especially since we have nothing to loose by proposing it.

mh

[regoarrarr]

Does anyone have any opinions on if there is any downside to proposing something now, to get the ball rolling?

Do we not want to let other civs know we're about to trade for Alphabet?

If there is no downside then Zeviz - can you get something off to Templars and Imperio?

Thoughts from others as to the exact trades to offer?

[Zeviz]

We can offer Templars Fishing+Sailing for Myst+Poly, and offer Fishing+Sailing for Meditation+Priesthood to Imperio.

We can say that we are about to aquire Alphabet, so it's good to start this discussion now.

[regoarrarr]

I wish we could get (part of?) Mono instead of med.

But maybe that's not possible. So add another 3 turns on to research that

[sunrise089]

I echo Zevis. If Templars balk at the 10 beaker difference we can either agree to give them a credit or some gold later, or we can make the claim Poly is less valuable once its religion is gone.

[mostly-harmless]

Doing the C&D update I stumbled upon the fact that Imperio already knows Fishing.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Concerning the trades with Imperio and Templars, I think it'll be much easier to wait one more turn for Alpha and then (re)consider our proposals.

As an aside, because No Tech Brokering is active the other civs will know what we've traded in.

[mostly-harmless]

Agree with Swiss here, lets wait another turn.

mh