Want to win - no Robotics

[Lord Silvi]

Very clever
I wasn`t aware that you can get that far when you leave a tech out!
Well done.

[phoenixcager]

I used to do something like that, but the AIs always caught up and researched it first in the end

In fact I used to try it for all the techs that could cause a mass obsolesence of wonders.

Now I just wait a while and research the tech when I feel the time is right.

[Solver]

Want to win - no Robotics

I though how nice would it be not to research Robotics, while I have Londons Exchnage. And now I'm playing a game, where I tried it. The results are very good at the moment. In year 1852 I went into the Diamond age, and about 30 years later built the Wormhole Sensor. At the same time, just for fun and more cities, I let mu Fusion Tanks fight enemy Musketeers and Marines.
When I will research all the techs, and have no choice but to research Robotics, I will set my science percentage to 0, so that I don't discover Robotics.
I have tons of city improvements in my cities, and that's all for free for me.
Yes, the War Walker is nice, but I'd better use Fusion Tanks instead of it. You can get most important technologies without naving to rsearch Robotics, so it's surely not worth researching. Of course, your enemies can research it, and thus make your London Exchange useless, so it's neccessary to win before it happens. Either build the Alien Project or conquer them, it will be fantastic. As if you have improvements, even an average city is very important for research. And I have lots of cities producing Infrastrcture, so that with my PW set to 0, I get lots of PW and improve the field for my cities or create Space Cities.
Anyone else tried this in practice and used for a long time?

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Solver]

Or, perhaps, research Robotics, but only when you have no choice left. Then research some of the remaining tevhs, and then go to sleep, when you have researched everything. You won't need any science then.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Solver]

I finsihed the game with this strategy used. I didn't get Robotics at all (went for future techs instead). It ended in year 2030, when I finally finished the Alien Project. I dunno why, but I sent the Wormhole Probe out a long time after I build the WSesnsor. Probably because I wanted to get more fun. Alien Project failed 3 times but it has to be finished once, and so I did.
The total rating for this game was 218%, but this can yet be improved, I think.
So, as a conlucsion, now I'm sure it's very good to skip Robotics. It's tough to libe whith maintenance, but it's much more harder if it's enemy who got the London Exchange.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Gregurabi]

It's almost impossible to skip a tech forever. If you set your research percentage to 0, you'll still get some research done if you have Academies or other science improvements in your cities, or if you have Edison's Lab.

Diverting efforts to worthless future techs may help, though. I've never tried to skip Robotics before (my normal playing style depends heavily on War Walkers).

In a challenge game I tried once, I wanted to forego all the technologies that could obsolete the Warrior -- I wanted to see how far I could get building nothing but Warriors (and boats to carry them). After a while, I ended up in a situation where I had to research Bureaucracy (which gives Diplomats which make the Warriors obsolete). And setting tech to 0 didn't help because I had Academies, and I didn't want to destroy them all.

(I ended up amending my rules as I went along. At first I build only Warriors, and did OK. But then I had to build Pikemen, and I did even better. Then I had to build Machine Gunners... but by then it was just silly.)

I was quite pleased, though, at how well I was able to do with stacks of Warriors in the early and mid games. Hordes of Warriors attacking a walled city make for a very bloody battle, but with large enough numbers you will eventually win.

The real weakness of this strategy wasn't the low power of the Warriors -- it was the unhappiness caused by all my dead troops. Since I lost so many Warriors, the citizens became very unhappy, and I had some trouble keeping order. (Until Pikemen, anyway....)

(This is one of the reasons why I like that other game... you know, the one where you make your own units, and you can turn on the option so that your units never go obsolete unless you explicitly tell them to do so.... Unfortunately, it doesn't have stacked combat or variable unit upkeep, so the horde-of-warriors approach doesn't work in that game.)

[MOBIUS]

Interesting,

I'm in a game (Demos) where I've held off from researching Robotics for the longest time - I finally needed the Security Monitor etc because of my high pollution output...

My reason for holding off was greater because I also had the Galileo Telescope and Gutenberg Bible - these combined to make my best 'Science City' produce almost 2000 science a turn!!! Obviously I didn't want to give that up!!!

Earlier in the game, myself and another player (Sophanthro) collaborated in science to forge ahead of the pack - he had Labyrinthe and I had Chichen Itza and Stonehenge...

We ended up being able to exhaust all the other Techs before reaching Age of Reason in much the same manner you've mentioned with Robotics...

Heh, are no ideas original anymore...!?