Commitee of Strategic Planning

[Lacero]

I thought the point of getting caravels first was to find the other continent and swap techs like madmen, probably getting guilds etc. at about the same time except having a better idea of whats going on?

[binTravkin]

Well, the point in Caravels indeed is:
1.Meeting others
2.Getting the circumvent +1 bonus

And I wasn't saying we should drop the route altogether, but also consider the route which we can take by cooperating with GS. They are by no means exclusive.
The chance someone from the other continent will be selling us Guilds is pretty slim. We're first at Machinery, so we're currently the only ones being able to do so and this ain't going to change for the next 40 or so turns. In fact I think we could have both Optics and Guilds before anyone else has Machinery.

In any case I think the Optics plan should be done first if we're all positive about it, but meanwhile have GS research Feudalism.

[Maniac]

I kinda like going for one-time boni after Code of Laws. Meaning Philosophy or Theology (religions!) or even better the Great Artist from Music.

[binTravkin]

Well, we have one religion already and could be having another with CoL.
I don't really see a reason why we would need more than one.

Music is quite an expensive tech and the Artist is then cashed for Theology. Neither of those techs give real and immediate benefits to us.

[Kataphraktoi]

Monastery's whoop universitys for science, extra religion also means more happiness and possibly more shrines. Also denies them to other civs. I usually do what maniac said but i dont have 2+2 reasons, either.

[binTravkin]

Well, we can get happiness easier than with religion, more shrines - we ain't producing a lot of prophet points so having one shrine will be quite good.
Monasteries are nice but not worth investing a bunch of beakers just to have them as each of them gives only +10%.

Starting to trade with Sara/Mercs or getting Mercantilism+Banks seems more reasonable as both will give us more benefits.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Well, we have one religion already and could be having another with CoL.
I don't really see a reason why we would need more than one.

See Kataphraktoi's post.

Music is quite an expensive tech and the Artist is then cashed for Theology. Neither of those techs give real and immediate benefits to us.

I disagree.

Originally posted by binTravkin
Well, we can get happiness easier than with religion

How?
Besides, it's rare/impossible to have more happiness than you can ever use.

Starting to trade with Sara/Mercs or getting Mercantilism+Banks seems more reasonable as both will give us more benefits.

I see the value in exploration and meeting other civs. However we haven't even sailed around our own continent with a galley yet. The benefits from caravels would be much less immediate than a great artist and/or religions. There's still lots of exploration we can do with galleys.

Likewise to me it seems Banking and Mercantilism are expensive techs which don't have real and immediate benefits. Besides to exploit our extra trade routes as much as possible we should try to sign open borders with as many civs as possible. Which speaks in favour of exploration, but against mercantilism.

[Kataphraktoi]

I was thinking mercantalism would be best used for going on the warpath later with the free engineer in every city.
Ive never actually used mercantalism as foreign trade ussualy accounts for a 10 to 20% slider increase for me.

[binTravkin]

See Kataphraktoi's post.

Already answered. I don't seem to get the use of being able to build one extra monastery in maybe half of our cities.

I disagree.

Ok, name benefits from Music or Theology.
Saying 'religion' is saying nothing as religion on its own doesn't give us anything. We cannot build endless temples and monasteries, that's just too expensive.

How?

Silver +2 with forge
Gems +2 with forge
Ivory +1 (+2 with market)
Total +5(+6) of yet unclaimed happiness

with Calendar
Silk: +1 - +2 (market)
Dye: +1 - +2 (theatre)
Incense +1 - +2 (cathedral)

with Monarchy
Wine +1 - +2 (market)

with Optics
Whale +1 - +2 (market) <--- Optics can actually give us more happiness than a religion while also providing other benefits!

Besides, it's rare/impossible to have more happiness than you can ever use.

It's no problem to. Just have health shortages and happiness becomes twice less useful.

However we haven't even sailed around our own continent with a galley yet.

It takes ages to do with galley anyway.

The benefits from caravels would be much less immediate than a great artist and/or religions.

Immediate benefits from music/religion?

There's still lots of exploration we can do with galleys.

Yes by the time we finish it with Galleys, others are going to arrive in Galleons. Remember, Optics also gives +1 sight range at sea.

Likewise to me it seems Banking and Mercantilism are expensive techs which don't have real and immediate benefits.

That's one tech.
And it's cheap for the age at 1001b.
And Banks are very useful if you want to spread big.
Besides that tech path opens up Gunpowder, Chemistry (with Engineering) and Steel, which are excellent techs to have early (Chemistry gives frigates and grenadiers, Steel - cannons, ironclads and drydocks) and not that much expensive by the time we get there.

Besides to exploit our extra trade routes as much as possible we should try to sign open borders with as many civs as possible. Which speaks in favour of exploration, but against mercantilism.

To that I agree, mercantilism was just a suggestion because if we don't get more than +3 commerce from foreign trade routes compared to domestic, then mercantilism is better. Currently it seems this wouldn't change for the next 50 turns or so. If we don't do caravels it will not change for much longer as GS doesn't seem like opening routes and even if they do, for a quite long while they will be unable to rival benefits from Mercantilism.

[Kataphraktoi]

Monastary and temple is too expensive but we can make banks?

[binTravkin]

If you ask me whether I pay twice (120h bank vs 60 monastery) for getting 5times the bonus, the choice is obvious.
We don't need temples - we can have +10 raw happiness by just having the improvement and tech (Monastery, Calendar, Optics, all needed techs. That's way cheaper than bothering building temples.
Now, if we were really out of options and needed hapiness, then by all means, we should build temples, but as I see it we will more often be building aqueducts than temples, just because happiness resources are quite abundant in our new big territory.

[Impaler[WrG]]

BT makes a good argument, happiness resources are strong in the captured territory, combined with representation and our first religion I see no need to pursue any other happiness sources for some time.

Merchantilism also looks appealing, pre-Astronomy it may be a good choice for us, and if the other continent is openly hostile and won't open borders with us its will likely be our econ civic of choice all game. And consider the fact they those Philosophical civs will have a strong incentive to use Merchantilism themselves even if they aren't hostile.

Completing the current push to CoL and grabbing a second religion will be a great move even if we completely ignore the new religion and it remains a one city fringe cult. The courthouses justify the tech on their own and the denial angle is just icing.

We seem to have three core planning lines emerging

Optics line
Banking line
Steel line

All have appeal and we will probably do all of them, its just a matter of prioritizing.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Ok, name benefits from Music or Theology.

Name the immediate short-term benefits of ANY tech besides Code of Laws. IMO after Code of Laws there isn't any tech we really need right now. So we might as well get two techs for the price of one, and deny other civs a free great artist and religions (and make free religion civic better later on).

We don't need temples - we can have +10 raw happiness by just having the improvement and tech

In my (limited) experience that's often not enough.

It takes ages to do with galley anyway.

It also takes ages with caravel. Btw, are we sure we need caravels to reach the other continent. Couldn't that bit of land to our west be the other continent?

That's one tech.
And it's cheap for the age at 1001b.

2500 beakers - the useless Guilds tech is required.

If you ask me whether I pay twice (120h bank vs 60 monastery) for getting 5times the bonus, the choice is obvious.

Banks cost 200 hammers - meaning they're only better than monasteries at a science rate of 50% or lower. Sure, now we need money. But considering we're Financial, will we still be running 50% science 2500 beakers from now?
Sure, banks may be cool, but not worth specially b-lining to.

[Kataphraktoi]

If you ask me whether I pay twice (120h bank vs 60 monastery) for getting 5times the bonus, the choice is obvious.

I might agree with this if only financial kept its 2x bank building speed Banks are nice but not something to beeline for.

Going mercantalist would be at odds with the optics beeline, i also doubt the other civs will be using it. They have a trade advantage over our continent ATM





I dont see what the problem is. This is opportunity calling.

[binTravkin]

First, proponents of Music should go check here

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=155513

And see that in order to pop Theology we need also Drama, so it's not as simple as grabbing single tech.

Optics line
Banking line
Steel line

I'd rephrase it as:
- CS
- Calendar
- Optics line
- Baking/Gunpowder/Steel line (they're quite the same)
- Music

Name the immediate short-term benefits of ANY tech besides Code of Laws. IMO after Code of Laws there isn't any tech we really need right now. So we might as well get two techs for the price of one, and deny other civs a free great artist and religions (and make free religion civic better later on).

CS - Bureaucracy
Calendar - plantation (yes, it's pretty immediate)
Optics - +1 sight range
Engineering - +1movement on road
Banking - mercantilism (by current values mercantilism is better than decentralization)
Gunpowder - units
Chemistry - frigate
Steel - cannon, ironclad

Certainly, there are options which gives us more both short and long term benefits than an extra religion (because that's the only real thing we can get from Music).
Actually the only immediate benefit from Music is denial (or two if we get Theology too).

n my (limited) experience that's often not enough.

It will be useless if our health is insufficient. Ideally we want our health to be just one point less than happiness.
We currently can hook up more health in:
wheat: +2 (in process)
deer: +1
clam: +1
banana: +1 (needs Calendar)
Which is +5 total compared to +10 raw from happiness resources (currently our health and happiness are equal).
Now, if we had Compass, which is part of Optics route, we'd have extra +2 from sea resources and Grocer, which is part of Guilds+ move could add another +1, but that's it.
We need both research and meet other civs and trade to keep our health up to happiness, not the other way.

It also takes ages with caravel. Btw, are we sure we need caravels to reach the other continent. Couldn't that bit of land to our west be the other continent?

Caravel has +1 movement, with Optics it has +1 sight range and the fact it can go straight from point A to point B sums up for it being 2-3 times faster (galleys must follow coastline) in travel and 3+ times better explorer than galley.

2500 beakers - the useless Guilds tech is required.

1700 actually. Giving a good military unit plus a useful building in high commerce cities plus opening up good techs doesn't really amount to uselessness for me.

Banks cost 200 hammers - meaning they're only better than monasteries at a science rate of 50% or lower.

They're better than monasteries at 40% economy rate or more. I don't think they cost that much and even if they do, it's little problem for us with +50% hammers for buildings and heavy whipping.

But considering we're Financial, will we still be running 50% science 2500 beakers from now?

This is funny. Why people keep repeating that we should be running anything else than 50/50?
Is there any objective reason why commerce maths are different in cIV and SMAC in this regard?
I see none.
50/50 is the most effective allocation just because you have use of economy improvements that way and can grow.
Using 70+/30- all the time is just shooting your leg by slowing expansion.

Sure, banks may be cool, but not worth specially b-lining to.

Agreed, banks alone are not a reason to do a lot of teching, but:
- mercantilism, which is by far is much more useful to us than decentralisation by simple maths
- gunpowder
- ability to go even further to frigates, cannons and drydock

are quite enough.

Going mercantalist would be at odds with the optics beeline, i also doubt the other civs will be using it. They have a trade advantage over our continent ATM

Don't see how.
We are not likely to get more than +3g per city, which is +21g currently, from trading for quite a time now and might only be getting that in late game, when it should already be +6 per city.
Where do I get those figures? 1 extra specialist per city is 3 beakers minimum and 1h minimum.
If we have a library in that city, that's 6 beakers, market - we can have 3 beakers + 3 gold, forge - we can have 3 beakers and 2 hammers.

If we assume we have ~16 cities by the time we get to mercantilism (and we should have something like that), we'd gain an immediate 48 to 96 beakers and 32 to 0 hammers. More beakers and less hammers if scientists are used.
I'll look into trade figures a bit later but I hardly see us getting that much raw commerce from trade routes.

I agree, this is opportunity, but let's be reasonable and weigh costs against benefits.

Also, bear in mind, going for Banking/Gunpowder is likely to be later than most other b-lines unless GS is researching Feudalism now.

If there are any other arguments backed by facts, let's bring them up, I want to make a poll on this over weekend.