08-02-2004 18:12									#1
	Industrial Research with GoW Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

With part one of the GoW tech deal safely seen through to conclusion, we have a platform to consider shared industrial research - something Aggie urged us to consider and plan for.

Getting GoW to research Medicine while we did Steam-Electricity was never a likely option. What do GoW want Medicine for unless they want to help us to the ToE?

Industrialisation has to be the tech.

1. GoW would want it.
2. It doesn't immediately telegraph our plans.
3. We might want to get in a factory or two sooner rather than later.
4. Possible Uni Suff prebuild for Hoover.

There are a number of storylines that spring to mind. but in essence we research Steam, give it to GoW, and they do Industrialisation while we do Electricity then Medicine.

If we hit the IA in 7 turns (maybe six), GoW will have Mil Trad and either we let them research ToG while we do Steam, or we trade ToG for cash, which they could save waiting for Steam.

Beyond that, we might not want to go unless we're very snug with GoW. Never having researched Amphibious Warfare, or built a Marine, I was alarmed both by the 12 attack-rating, and the lack of techs needed from the lower branches.

So if GoW did Corporation and traded that to us for Electricity, they'd only need Replaceable Parts, Refining, Steel, Combustion, Mass Production and Amphibious Warfare. Six techs, maybe five if someone researched Steel for them.

	08-02-2004 19:40									#2
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However, GoW may consider Nationalism to be a priority. I doubt they facy their chances of dashing instead for Rep Parts without a lot more of Bob.

In fact, Nationalism is a certain priority for them over Industrialisation. Maybe they could do it after the expensive Nationalism, unless they want Espionage for spies - which could become an element in this game.

	08-02-2004 19:44									#3
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sounds interesting.

I'm wondering when GoW will betray us and break our NDA's, its only a matter of time as the game is winding down.

What are our research goals, assuming we get ToE and take through electronics? Then RP for the rubber locations. What then? Maybe we should consider getting sanitation to boost city size and defense (Does the city size defense come into play against marines?)



I think once we know someone has the tech before marines, we should possibly come up with a diplomatic paper stating in effect that we would destroy any ship that sailed within a certain distance of our coastline. I think we could use a screenshot and either divide the sea in half from GS to Bob, or push our sea border out to where trans couldnt' hit from. Obviously the weakpoint is RP and whatever city they renamed from Wittlich city.

The good thing is IMHO, that lego is the only one with nav, and we can spread a deeper defensive frigate/ironclad net east.

	08-02-2004 19:50									#4
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus However, GoW may consider Nationalism to be a priority. I doubt they facy their chances of dashing instead for Rep Parts without a lot more of Bob. In fact, Nationalism is a certain priority for them over Industrialisation. Maybe they could do it after the expensive Nationalism, unless they want Espionage for spies - which could become an element in this game.

I think you're right. rifles are pretty necessary for them. I wouldn't feel safe with just muskets around.



Hey, here's an off topic thought. Maybe we could upgrade a galley and send the caravel out east to see if LEgo has a picket line of ships. I'd be really curious to see if they have a sea wall up. I think we could do it without being seen, as long as we turn back if we run across another ship.


Also we will get privateers soon, I think we should build some to scout coastlines again. If nothing else, it will make the game interesting (of course we might just build a few and wait until other civs have the tech.)

	08-02-2004 21:36									#5
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel Hey, here's an off topic thought. Maybe we could upgrade a galley and send the caravel out east to see if LEgo has a picket line of ships. I'd be really curious to see if they have a sea wall up. I think we could do it without being seen, as long as we turn back if we run across another ship. Also we will get privateers soon, I think we should build some to scout coastlines again. If nothing else, it will make the game interesting (of course we might just build a few and wait until other civs have the tech.)

Two galleys are (belatedly) coming south to explore the darkness. Maybe we should say to RP that we want to take our galleys exploring (maybe upgrading to Galleons first), so build mkts instead please. There might be an Australia btw us and Lego. Lego might already have found it

	08-02-2004 21:40									#6
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel I think once we know someone has the tech before marines, we should possibly come up with a diplomatic paper stating in effect that we would destroy any ship that sailed within a certain distance of our coastline.

We need a badass navy to back this up.

	08-02-2004 22:04									#7
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I am not so sure about Privateers. They are rater weak and will not fool anyone. I don't see any reason why we can't have a few ships out in ocean tiles in plain sight. We could even alert Lego to their coming to avoid any misunderstandings.

	08-02-2004 22:11									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus We need a badass navy to back this up.

yes we will

but how else we will possibly defend against marines? I think we can only hope to survive by catching them on the open seas. Regardless of our current relations with GoW, I have no doubt that if they can attack us, they will.

I honestly can't remember the PTW ship upgrade path. Do frigates upgrade to anything? We could start by having a couple dedicated sea power cities now (if bank and uni is finished) building frigates (who if nothing else can take up a sea lane or bombard a target)

How do you see this all CH? What I see is if someone wants to make a dedicated attack on one of our cities with marines, it will fall. The good thing is, we can move all the eastern units to the western threatened cities, using a line of ocean pickets to guard against lego. I would expect a series of transports along the coast, all but one set empty, to force us to divide our defenders equally.

	08-02-2004 22:14									#9
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I am not so sure about Privateers. They are rater weak and will not fool anyone. I don't see any reason why we can't have a few ships out in ocean tiles in plain sight. We could even alert Lego to their coming to avoid any misunderstandings.

they are weak but....

I expect that there is no sea travel now to pick on anyway.

and if everyone (nearly) could build privateers we could deny they were ours. Granted, we are really the only ones besides lego that can afford to spend production on such things.

mainly use them for scouting missions, give us updated info on lego's coast and sea wall.

If we tell lego that we are sending galleons over now, they might say the same thing in 30 turns (aka marines). I dont think we should set that precedent.

	08-02-2004 23:14									#10
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I think we should have at least 60-70 turns before Marines. We don't need to defend every city every turn as long as we have a good system of pickets - probably 2 deep, maybe 3 deep in places - which could be frigate (galleon rather for us - no SP), then ironclad, then destroyer. None of these upgrade to each other. The only ship upgrade we could do is maybe our 5 galleys to Galleons.

idea :

We could upgrade the two galleys heading south and put some knights in - or maybe build a settler. If we find a little blob of land out there, it could have a strategic resource on it.

	08-02-2004 23:20									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus I think we should have at least 60-70 turns before Marines. We don't need to defend every city every turn as long as we have a good system of pickets - probably 2 deep, maybe 3 deep in places - which could be frigate (galleon rather for us - no SP), then ironclad, then destroyer. None of these upgrade to each other. The only ship upgrade we could do is maybe our 5 galleys to Galleons. idea : We could upgrade the two galleys heading south and put some knights in - or maybe build a settler. If we find a little blob of land out there, it could have a strategic resource on it.

have we accounted for all the saltpeter in the world? there should be 6 deposits. Assuming lego has all of their hooked up...might be some lurking around someplace.

	09-02-2004 00:47									#12
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Frigates do not upgrade in PTW IIRC.
I would not send a galleon to scout, but rather a frigate. That is not going to be an issue for anyone and if they send out one, It won't matter. It is transports that no one wants to see out and about.

	09-02-2004 00:55									#13
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Frigates do not upgrade in PTW IIRC. I would not send a galleon to scout, but rather a frigate. That is not going to be an issue for anyone and if they send out one, It won't matter. It is transports that no one wants to see out and about.

we don't have saltpeter, so no frigates I forgot about that until CH reminded me.

	09-02-2004 20:33									#14
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quote: If we hit the IA in 7 turns (maybe six), GoW will have Mil Trad and either we let them research ToG while we do Steam, or we trade ToG for cash, which they could save waiting for Steam.

Sounds good in theory, but I see a major pitfall:

With MT, another war might break out. If it does, research proposals will take a back seat to victory in war - meaning GoW's research might get turned off.

So let's approach this one step at a time.

Let's see if we can get GoW to do medicine. Who knows? Maybe they want it.

We *could* do medicine ourselves and have them do SP.

Some of this depends on the timing. Do we know exactly when they will be prepared to start researching on Industrial Age tech? Hmm, I should go check the log...

-Arrian

	09-02-2004 21:10									#15
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Arrian, I estimate they'll have Mil Trad around the same time we get ToG. One civ had Metallurgy last turn, I haven't checked the previous turn or two. They also have to raise another 200g for us.

Don't you think Nationalism is going to be high priority for them, though? Even mentioning Medicine to them would telegraph our plans, and GoW won't need the lower branches except for Electricity for Rep Parts and eventually Mass Prod.

I'm wondering, then, about us researching Industrialisation after Steam. We are about 8 turns ahead of the original budget, and we may also shave a turn off each estimate for the Ind techs.

I'll check the Smith's thread where I logged the plans.

	09-02-2004 21:56									#16
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I'm not all that concerned with telegraphing our tech plans. They should be pretty obvious. After all, doesn't everyone want ToE?

Speaking of which, did we decide to do a ToE prebuild without a factory, or with one?

* Arrian goes to look at the Smith thread...

	09-02-2004 22:12									#17
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i wonder if anyone is going for smith's anytime soon

we could always go for econ immediately after steam.


There might be some benefit to detouring slightly, if only to slow the advent of marines. Ideally we would stay at least one turn ahead of the nearest competitor and manage to time our wonder builds accordingly.

	09-02-2004 22:40									#18
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I am writing this extemporaneously, so it may be full of holes.
I agree with Arrian that we need not lose sleep about revealing our plans. It makes sense to be cautious and not give them away, but they are smart enough to see what our options are.

So we do not have any plans to get MT anytime soon do we? I mean we do not have saltpetter.

Last edited by vmxa1 on 09-02-2004 at 23:42

	09-02-2004 23:15									#19
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No, no plans for MT.

	09-02-2004 23:21									#20
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Sleepy, I assume the "Sistine" in Legopolis is actually a Smith prebuild. They have exclusive rights to the Sistine, and they have Bach + 7 luxuries right now. In other words, no rush on completing the Sistine. They won't really get much use out of it until they have hospitals.

Ok, I looked at the other thread and...

Tempest is currently either 38 or 18 turns away from finishing at ToE prebuild. The first is a tad too long (and will likely drop by a turn or two if we have coal and can boost production via rails), and the second is too short. The first, however, allows completion of Newton.

Newton is nothing compared to ToE. Therefore, unless we have another city that can do a ToE prebuild in ~25 turns, we should forget Newton's in Tempest and start reducing Tempests' shield count, as Cort suggested.

-Arrian

	09-02-2004 23:47									#21
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The reason I asked about the MT, is all the talk about upgrading to Calvs and joining sides. I guess that was on the premise that someone would want to give us MT and saltpetter to aid them.

Is that really a possiblity? I would think that would be an act of desperation.

	09-02-2004 23:48									#22
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yeah, that was the assumption. Our knights won't do much good, so if they really want us in,they would have to give us both. Unlikely

	10-02-2004 00:15									#23
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Arashi finishes a bank in 5 turns. It has 19 spt, could get 20. Possible ToE?

	10-02-2004 01:52									#24
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Ah, thanks for that tidbit. 19spt, 5 turns until Bank. How many shields does it have built up now (76?)?

If it starts after the Bank, it needs 37 turns to get to 600 shields (most likely a couple less, due to RRing). Call it 35. Too many, if we expect Sci Method in 26-32 turns.

So we would probably want to switch it right now. If I'm right and it does have 76 shields built up now, then it would need 28 turns to get past 600, again likely less due to RRing. That sounds pretty damn good, Cort.

-Arrian

	10-02-2004 02:36									#25
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re: Arashi, turn 174

quote: Originally posted by Arrian 19spt, 5 turns until Bank. How many shields does it have built up now (76?)? If it starts after the Bank, it needs 37 turns to get to 600 shields (most likely a couple less, due to RRing). Call it 35. Too many, if we expect Sci Method in 26-32 turns. So we would probably want to switch it right now. If I'm right and it does have 76 shields built up now, then it would need 28 turns to get past 600, again likely less due to RRing. -Arrian

The Uni finished in Arashi on T170, so yes, 76s in the can.

So with no tech trades, and no Industrialisation, Arashi is currently on the right trajectory to build ToE.

er, we need this on the other thread

	11-02-2004 19:30									#26
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In terms of the IA things are likely to get very interesting with new game issues coming into play.
Things can also take an even more dirty twist, yes I think it is possible for the game to be played in a way that is even more dirty than it has been played so far. .


- First off there's mobilization, which is pretty much a production GA. Also it is of course possible to set non-mill builds then mobilize to build them before getting peace when the builds have to be changed. I suppose we have our on/off switch.... Perhaps we should get some sort of discourse going with the other teams concerning mobilizing and exploits of.
Also it's likely that one or more teams, probably GoW, could mobilize then just stay mobilized for the rest of the game, giving them a big production advantage, infact GoW may be getting all their domestic builds done now while they can before going all out for Armageddon. If we saw everyone else mobilizing with amphibious warfare approaching I doubt we could afford not to do the same.

- There is also the issue of espionage, a spy seeing some elses millitary forces is extremely valuable, someone will probably steal the Lego map at some point also. I don't understand espionage too well myself, is it easier to plant a spy if you're the only one with espionage? GoW would likely be the ones to benefit most from having an intel agency first, so perhaps that's what they're building in Imperial.

- Stealing tech, like espionage but doesn't require a spy, unless you're at war, in the IA it becomes cheaper to steal a tech rather than research it (at least I'm pretty sure it does ) then when you consider the possibility of selling it to the other nations aswell doing any research at all may not be worth it. I can remember reading a report from one game where 2 players were in a space race, one of them made a ToE/hoover beeline while the other went for espionage and horded money. The turn the first guy build ToE the other one stole all the techs off him, which was not only cheaper than the reseach but also left him enough gold to sabotage his hoover pre-build and build it himself.

- Infinite attack range on land using railroads. Even if you attack someone who hasn't got RR set up, it is possible to build them as you go. Taking all but a few of someones cities in one turn becomes very realistic.

All in all things will at least be interesting.

	11-02-2004 19:47									#27
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I agree about a discussion about mobilization.

Will it be considered an exploit to mobilize for a while, then declare war and peace on the same turn with an ally?

Is there any way to tell via embassy if someone is mobilized, I can't remember how the shields are displayed.

I don't htink having espionage influences spy rate, I think only communism does.

	11-02-2004 20:23									#28
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OPD, I've been worried about Espionage since I read your observations on this feature in MP somewhere - over at MZO, I think.

It throws a mighty and depressing spanner into our plans for tech-power.

	11-02-2004 20:37									#29
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Does espionage work differently in MP - aside from the obvious fact that other teams get to chose whether to declare war over an incident or not (or to take other sanctions).

Realistically, I'm not sure that we have long term potential for tech power. Lego has already overtaken our output, and ND will as well if left to their own devices. We can get temporary tech power by getting ToE to get Hoover, but before too long after that we are going to keep up only by taking advantage of tech depreciation or espionage. OTOH we can keep up via that, and start gearing our cities towards massive industrial output for spaceship parts production with the benefit of hoover (which will hopefully let us get enough military alongside infrastructure to defend ourselves).

As far as needing several monster production cities for the spaceship goes (if the game goes that way), what potential do we have for reducing the number of inland cities (or drastically shriking the size of some of them) to get some size 20 cities going to compete in late game production races? I know it is throwing away a lot of development, but in some situations a few mega cities trumps a greater number of lesser cities none of which can reach top-tier output. (plus fewer manufacturing plants and nuclear plants to build).

	11-02-2004 21:19									#30
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quote: Originally posted by vulture Does espionage work differently in MP - aside from the obvious fact that other teams get to chose whether to declare war over an incident or not (or to take other sanctions).

The main difference is that there is no pop up telling you when someone steals or fails to steal a tech from you.

If you were take the example of ToG the tech cost is 68 and it will cost us about 1600 beakers to research unless I'm mistaken. We could wait for Lego to reseach it and steal it from them for about 1900 gold, I can't remember how effective a tech steal is, I think it's 2/3's of the time if done safely but I'm not sure.
On the other hand if you were to consider nationalism, steam power or industrialization at a tech cost of 120, would probably cost us about 3000 beakers to research, I think the cost of tech stealing may go up in the IA but I don't think it'll be as high as 3000 gold. Then consider that Atomic theory is a cost 200 tech which means around 4500 beakers to research....
Although the real danger would be teams pooling gold to steal.

Of course this is not really that different to other teams simply paying one team to do the research (which would also be discounted if someone else would already know it) although stealing simply offers a more immediate way to do it. The idea that ToE would guarentee you hoovers is unlikely as is the possibility of getting a serious tech lead over the other teams(assuming the other teams are aware of the stealing opportunities that is)