20-02-2003 23:27									#91
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Switching techs mid stream would waste beakers.

We should not switch our reserching mid stream when a goody hut gives us a tech we aren't, wait to discover that tech first.

	20-02-2003 23:59									#92
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quote: Originally posted by joncnunn Switching techs mid stream would waste beakers. We should not switch our reserching mid stream when a goody hut gives us a tech we aren't, wait to discover that tech first.

That's correct. If you switch the research goal midway, you lose all the beakers accumulated so far.

	21-02-2003 01:09									#93
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In light of the consulate decision to reserach BW at full speed:

We should reserach IW next at a speed to be determinated by the state of our economy when BW is discovered.

This will have the following advantages:

1. We will know where the Iron quicker for city placement.

2. Some human civs may be relucant to sell IW given that it allows Swordsmen (and in the case it gets to Persia : Immortals)

3. If we have a non-Scientific neighbor, chances are we will be able to trade techs for a win-win.

	21-02-2003 01:44									#94
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quote: Originally posted by BigFurryMonster I think the value of granaries depends mostly on the amount of land you're going to settle without running into other civs. The more land, the more valuable the granary is.

No (edit: your conclusion is correct, but not based on your premise)! Even if you're only going to be building 7 or so cities, a Granary gets you there faster. And, more importantly, a Granary allows faster Workers. That's amazing in and of itself, but remember that we're also Industrious...


Dominae

	21-02-2003 01:49									#95
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Why Iron Working?

1. There is plenty of time to find and hook up Iron in the Ancient age. Seeing the ore deposits within the first twenty turns is really not that essential. There is the off chance that we're relatively far from a deposit, but there's not much we can do about that until thirty turns in anyway (at least).

2. Do we need Swordsmen that badly? If we really want to make sure we have a military tech, we should get The Wheel first.


Dominae

	21-02-2003 01:55									#96
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quote: Originally posted by Master Zen I can vouch for your thoughts on the Numidian! And you are right. We (well, "you guys", I'm kinda new to the IDG ) did choose Carthage for something.

Thank you man. Anyway, I didn't vote for Carthage, but somebody should have their reasons for doing so?
I guess those who voted Carthage should have to accept an early GA. (it's one of the reasons why I voted Japan, one of the bigtime killers!)

quote: Originally posted by Master Zen Also, Carthage's advantages aren't only in its UU. It's Ind/Com is a combination that I like and that we can definitely use to our benefit.

That's right! A fine combination for getting an upper hand in many aspects... e.g. marketplaces, production benefits, etc.
- One good reason why people voted for it, I guess?
And the UU is good for killing neighbours in the start before we get horses, iron, etc. So with this choice, we can still win!

	21-02-2003 02:06									#97
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By tech whoring IW, we should be able to get 2 or 3 other techs in exchange. Perhaps more if we are on the contienant with more players and have the contacts by then.

quote: Originally posted by Dominae Why Iron Working? 1. There is plenty of time to find and hook up Iron in the Ancient age. Seeing the ore deposits within the first twenty turns is really not that essential. There is the off chance that we're relatively far from a deposit, but there's not much we can do about that until thirty turns in anyway (at least). 2. Do we need Swordsmen that badly? If we really want to make sure we have a military tech, we should get The Wheel first. Dominae

	21-02-2003 02:50									#98
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The opportunity for tech whoring Writing is far better because: 1) we're one of few Commercial civs (Indians, and?), 2) Writing is worth more than Iron Working, 3) most teams will beeline for a military tech (Iron Working or Horseback Riding) for safety. Concerning the last point, since we already have safety in terms of Bronze Working (Mercs), we can go one step of everyone else and get something no one is going to even consider researching early.


Dominae

	21-02-2003 03:08									#99
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A good idea Dominae.
In the beginning I think we should stick to trade techs one-for-one, or buy/sell them for the small gold sums. (same sums both ways) .

Certain techs in which we used long time to discover, should be sold for a higher price, though. We should try to avoid being a very difficult trading partner and accept fair enough offers.
Otherwise they will have a thorn in our side.

	21-02-2003 03:19									#100
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certain techs like iron Working and Writing are key to the ancient age. I believe they are worth more. Unless there are other circumstances, they should not be traded one for one. And giving teams like Persia IW is not a great idea if they are adjacent to your civ. But that's usually not an issue. They will research it themselves if they have to.

Other techs like Pottery, masonry, ceremonial burial can be traded one for one. Those are tier one techs anyways.

As for Iron Working I say wait and see who are neighbors are- if we have any. Too soon to tell if we need this.

	21-02-2003 03:26									#101
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We should never accept Pottery for Masonry one for one. Pottery costs half as much to research as Masonry does. We can propose anything we want, but I'm reluctant to support any trade that gives our opponents a Beaker-advantage.

Iron Working may be a key tech, but not for us. We're Carthage! Plus, I'm against going for an early war. We can get ahead economically if we get other teams to buy Writing, Map Making, etc. from us...


Dominae

	21-02-2003 04:05									#102
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quote: Originally posted by joncnunn The only civs likely to beat us to Iron Working are those that start the game with Bronze Working and those next to a freiendly neighbor that trades it to them.

Which is quite enough to get it distributed long before we ever finish researching it.

In the PTW DG, 2 civs researched iron working (Lux and Vox). Within 4 turns of Lux finishing IW, GoW, Vox, RP all got it by trade, and ND found it in a goody hut. Researching the tech will waste our beakers...

	21-02-2003 04:06									#103
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quote: Originally posted by joncnunn By tech whoring IW, we should be able to get 2 or 3 other techs in exchange. Perhaps more if we are on the contienant with more players and have the contacts by then.

Someone else will finish it and whore it off long before we'll finish researching it.

	21-02-2003 04:53									#104
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Please check out my analysis in the Turn 1 thread for why we should switch to Pottery next turn...(that is, if you're at all interested!).


Dominae

	21-02-2003 05:00									#105
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Yes!! Go Pottery!!

	21-02-2003 06:18									#106
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I'm cool with pottery

There's a chance a neighbour might have it from the start though...we might be able to get it thru trade.

	21-02-2003 07:16									#107
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bah! I'm against researching pottery.

	21-02-2003 07:54									#108
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Dissident, did you see my analysis in the 'Turn 1' thread? I think it speaks for itself. Notice that I used no tricks here, just ran the game through, making slightly different decisions each time. Getting Pottery first was definitely the best scenario.


Dominae

	21-02-2003 08:07									#109
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Dissident, do you have any specific experience or analysis to back up your opposition to researching Pottery? Early granaries can be very powerful things, as Dominae's experiments showed, and with three grasslands with shield and a fur forest we can chop and mine to boost our growth, our capital is a good candidate for one. If we want to focus on settlers, we can simply crank them out. If production is more important to us, we can wait until Apolyton approaches size 5 to build settlers, using some of the extra population the granary gives us for extra long-term production instead of for extra settlers. Either way, a the granary will far more than pay for itself.

Also note that with all the jungle around, we may find ourselves needing to produce large numbers of workers just to have decent cities close enough to our capital that corruption won't be ridiculous. That would make an early granary or two even more critical.

Nathan

	21-02-2003 08:21									#110
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yes I just read the analysis. We have things spread out into many threads. I had my reasons. I just figured we could pick up pottery from a hut. Perhaps I'm too much of a gambler .

Anyways Pottery sounds good. Too bad we didn't do it this turn. I really didn't think it would make that much of a difference.

	21-02-2003 09:02									#111
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I'm starting to think we might do well to leave things on Bronze Working until we pop the hut. If we get Pottery from the hut (and Pottery is probably the tech we'd get if we get a tech and aren't researching it), we can continue on with Bronze Working and be in a position to then research either Writing or Iron Working on a 40-turn basis. If we don't get Pottery from the hut, we could switch to Pottery then and still get our granary at a resaonable time. If we do that, we might want to suspend our research in the meantime and stockpile a bit of gold to use later for granary/unit expenses and/or trading with other civs.

Nathan

	21-02-2003 09:13									#112
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Staying on Bronze Working is just bad, the timing of things goes all off and we get a bad start.

I'm not 100% sure, but putting Science to zero until we pop the Hut should not affect our early production plans at all. Still, 12 Beakers is not nothing, considering we expect to lag in research already compared to the other teams.

But note that 1) in my tests I often got Ceremonial Burial when reserach Bronze Working, and 2) the chances of getting a tech are just that, chances/probability, and we're multiplying this by the chance we'll get the one tech we want. We're gambling again. Might as well just go for the sure thing.

Personally I would go Pottery, Writing, Bronze Working, but that's taking things a little further than most around here are willing to.


Dominae

	21-02-2003 09:40									#113
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Here's an idea for how to maybe leverage our civ traits to make up for having very little in our terrain that's good for cashflow: Pottery, Mathematics, Bronze Working if we can't trade for it by then, and then Currency. Only a commercial/industrious civ can go for Mathematics right off the bat, and France is probably more likely to target Writing. And Currency is a relatively expensive tech which should fetch a high trade value, but on a 40-turn pace, it doesn't take any longer than anything else.

Nathan

	21-02-2003 09:47									#114
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Nice idea, Nathan. Something that focused depends heavily on the geo-political situation, however. If we can ensure a relatively safe early-game, we'll do well researching Currency and Construction while others get the military techs.

There is one downside, however: the journey to get out of Despotism is out of our control. I consider this to be extremely important.


Dominae

	21-02-2003 10:03									#115
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By the time we get Pottery, we'll probably have at least a little bit clearer picture of what our land mass looks like. If we haven't met anyone at that point, Writing would be a safer choice in case we're stuck on a land mass by ourselves. If we have met someone by then, we can talk to them and see what kind of arrangements make sense.

But given our mediocre starting position, unless there are some really nice tiles just over the horizon, we'll have to find something somewhere along the way to give us an advantage or we're in some serious trouble.

Nathan

	21-02-2003 12:58									#116
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I just wanted to point out one thing (and ask Dominae, if he considered that possibility). I believe that the only reason to switch to Pottery immediately would be if we plan to finish a granary in our capital within the first 17+10 turns (if I am not mistaken, we will need 17 turns to research BW, if not switching now, then 10 more to research Pottery). Correct me, if I am wrong, but that is highly unlikely, isn't it? If we go for 4-5 warriors first and a settler or granary afterwards, we would not be finishing the granary before we got Pottery as the second tech anyway, right?

And if we want to start a granary prebuild early, we can use a placeholder - like Pyramids or whatever else is costly enough.

Leaving the research at Bronze Working now, we would waste no beakers, we'd leave the possibility of getting Pottery from the hut open, while not preventing ourselves from going for a very early granary. Is that right or am I missing something?

	21-02-2003 18:44									#117
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vondrack, you're right that the decision to research Pottery relies on the assumption that a Granary will come very early.

But this is the right thing to do. There is no point in getting a Settler out befor a Granary, if the Granary plan can catch up in Settlers the very next time around. Furthermore, the Granary plan does not put us behind very militarily, since a city that gets a Granary will be popping Warriors out in 2 turns.

I'll try to post a more thorough explanation later on today, in case anyone is interested.


Dominae

	21-02-2003 18:56									#118
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Everybody, please, see the BFM's Analysis of the Interior" and comment there. BFM did several tests.

Thanks.

	21-02-2003 21:11									#119
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There are numeours Industrious civs in this game that have downsized the value of Masonry.

I wouldn't be surprized if Arabia asks for Masonary + some cash for Pottery from the first civ they discover.

quote: Originally posted by Dominae We should never accept Pottery for Masonry one for one. Pottery costs half as much to research as Masonry does. We can propose anything we want, but I'm reluctant to support any trade that gives our opponents a Beaker-advantage. Iron Working may be a key tech, but not for us. We're Carthage! Plus, I'm against going for an early war. We can get ahead economically if we get other teams to buy Writing, Map Making, etc. from us... Dominae

	21-02-2003 21:15									#120
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Just about the worst reserach pattern would be 3 first level techs in a row.

The 2nd such tech we discover would have little trade value.

The 3rd such tech would have no trade value.