Tech Discussion

[regoarrarr]

It seemed like we had a bunch of people suggesting 0% on philo, so while I was logged in I changed from Drama->Philo. Still plenty of time to change it back if we need to.

And at our current (sustainable!) rates, Nationalism is like 19 turns and Gunpowder another 12.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

regarding Taj: Of course it will be worthwhile in the long run; however, it will delay the medium-term Operation Bloodbath, if I read this right. I'm undecided if this will be worth it overall, as against humans we might need every unit we can build to overcome Imperio, and I would hate it if the missing hammers from Taj will make the difference between us conquering Imperio quickly enough (for example before Templars decide to side with them, or before Imperio can muster enough defenses) and getting stuck while advancing on their cities.

If our current plan is to attack after the time Taj has paid back hammer-wise already anyway, then I'm all for it. If building Taj means it will delay or slow down Operation Bloodbath, I need still to be convinced to vote for it.

-Kylearan

[sunrise089]

@Kylearan - My reading of T-Hawk's post was that we would be in the black hammer wise (when factoring in the golden age at least) before we attack.

[T-hawk]

Yes. Taj pays back to hammer positive (assuming one turn saved of anarchy) by around turn 5-6 of the Golden Age. And we probably won't get to Gunpowder until the GA is done.

[ruff_hi]

If we are looking at the Taj and thinking about the The Mausoleum of Maussollos (450 hammers, no doubler), does it make sense to change off our The Colossus (250 H, double with copper) plan and put the MoM in its place?

[sooooo]

I'm not interested in the Mauseleum. Too expensive. Colossus makes sense since it is so cheap if you have copper.

[Sullla]

Ruff, not only is it way too late to make that swap (we already have some significant whip overflow going into Colossus), it would take ages to turn out the Mausoleum at Mellow. Without the resource doubler, it just isn't happening there.

Much as I'd like to build the Mausoleum, I don't see how we can fit it into our plans. Taj and Colossus are already pulling a lot of shields away from our Bloodbath plans as it is. I favor both of those wonders, just cannot see how to get a third wonder in as well.

[T-hawk]

We do have the Mausoleum doubler, it's marble. But I agree, it's just one bridge too far. Mausoleum's payoff is roughly 30 hammer tiles x 4 turns = 120 hammers per Golden Age. It costs 450 / 2.25 = 200 base hammers. Maus will not save any more anarchy.

It does pay off to hammer positive after the second Golden Age. So we should build Mausoleum only if we know we will get Taj, but by then we have to just build Taj itself and can't delay it for the Maus.

[T-hawk]

Here is some math to compare the Academy versus Philosophy lightbulb. (Golden Age is nonoptimal at the moment because we don't have any pending anarchy to save.)

Our sustainable science rate is just under 60%, let's call it that.

Pink Dot is currently producing only 15 commerce: 6 from trade routes, 1 from city center, 1 from river hill, 4 from two river cottages, 2 from one river hamlet. In the near future, this is likely to grow by about 10, from a dyes plantation (5), maturing the two cottages to hamlets (2), and adding one or two more river cottages (2-4).

So at 60% science, this is 9 base beakers now, and 15 base beakers in the near future. (The library is immaterial here.) So the Academy at Pink adds only 4.5 beakers per turn now and 7.5 in the near future. Yes, this is a lot weaker than we were estimating! A second Academy is almost always considerably inferior to the first at the capital.

At 60%, we currently produce 142 beakers empire-wide. Philosophy's cost in base beakers (assuming Drama somehow) is 1144 final cost / 1.4 for two prereqs / 1.1 for devaluation = 742. This is 5.25 turns to research. Nationalism then takes 15 turns. During these 20 turns, the Academy at Pink produces an upper bound of 7.5 x 20 = 150 beakers. This makes up for only one turn of Philo research.

Lightbulbing Philosophy, compared to an Academy at Pink, arrives at Nationalism four turns later. The Academy takes a long time to make up the difference - a baseline of 100 turns total (80 turns beyond Nationalism.) And the lightbulb arrives at Gunpowder three turns sooner; the Academy will make up about one more turn of research by then.

I'm in favor of the lightbulb.

[sunrise089]

What will the scientist bulb if we hold it and self-research Philo?

[Dreylin]

Can't remember if we have Compass, but if so: Optics. If not: Paper.

Education trumps Optics if we have Paper.


edit: this may be why Pal researched Optics once they had Compass....

[Swiss Pauli]

I still think we should make a final attempt with PAL before we decide for the lightbulb. Another problem with our longer term strategy is that Nationalism means no Bureaucracy, so although the short-term benefits of Academy at Pink are smaller, we need to be less reliant on A1 if we're not going to grind to a halt during Operation Bloodbath.

[Zeviz]

I still prefer an Academy, because it will be better in the long run, and not much worse in medium run. (Delaying start of drafting by 3 turns doesn't sound that bad, considering that we have a lot of other things to produce in the mean time.)

[mostly-harmless]

We should update T-Hawks calculation with a reduced beaker rate due to missing international trade routes. This scenario seems more likely. Thats 33gpt (before multipliers) less!!! We can assume that the state of war will be active a while, so lightbulbing should be even more ahead of academy.

mh

[T-hawk]

Suppose Pink loses its 3-commerce international and intercontinental trade routes, to be replaced by 1-commerce domestic routes. The cost per turn is 4 commerce = 2.4 base beakers = 1.2 academy beakers. That's a 16% loss on the 7.5 beaker number, so the Academy payback horizon is extended by 16%, from 100 turns to 116 turns.

For the folks that say "think long term" on the academy -- that long term is ONE HUNDRED turns from now. This advantage will not be realized until the mid industrial age! Lightbulbing remains ahead until roughly T230. We will have other chances for a Pink Dot academy before then, too.

Put another way: suppose we use GS #5 or so for an academy in Pink on roughly T180. We've passed up 7.5 x 50 = 375 beakers of opportunity on the academies in the meantime. The lightbulb pays well more than 375 beakers, right now.