As our nation starts out on it's path toward Fanatica's destined victory, we must decide what would be the best way technologically for us to follow. There are many options before us, and each must be examined carefully.

Some discussion has already taken place at the Ministry of Trade and Technology. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1483335#post1483335)

Please, post your own ideas of how you believe we should start off.

For good measure, I'll make the first proposal: Bronze Working should be our first tech. No matter when strategy we decide to following, BW will be a good starting point. BW is a good cheap tech, and Spearmen will be good for early defense. Plus, it sets us forward on the path toward Iron, which is important for the military.

It looks like we will be going for a Cultural Victory. If so, I recommend Ceremonial Burial as the first tech we research.

To help you determining the path I have taken a picture, made by Chieftess, which shows the tech cost.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Ancient_techs.JPG

Personally I think pottery will be useful.

I think we should go for Bronze working, then straight to litterature. We should be able to acquire ceremonial burial from somebody else. The Great Library is the most culture intensive wonder in Civ 3.

We, the French, are in a unique position. We are the ONLY civs to start out with Alphabet and Masonry. Alpha and Masonry lead to Mathematics, a tech which costs 8 and we have the opertunity to research FIRST THING. Do math. Trade for what we need with other civs. Don't do a 2 or 3 cost starting tech. Take an 8 that we alone can research. Viva La Math!

Now that I think about it, SaaM is right. We should go for math. The price of this tech will compensated for its, hmm, quite unuseful nature (catapults are realy bad).

An 8 Tech, that only we can research, that will still only take a maximum of 40 turns (how long would 2 2s and a 3 take?) - sounds too good to miss. If 40 turns is the best we can do we might have quite a bit of money for trading as well! I'm not sure how the free techs from goodie huts work - is a 2 value tech any more likely to get than an 8? Spearmen would be nice, particularly if our random barbarians come up raging! - we should be able to trade for that though shouldn't we?

@Furiey- The research time for Math would be the same as that as for, say, Bronze. We will expand as the AI expands, so we will remain on level for tech time. (Plus, we can trade it for Writing later and head to Lit/GL)

@Stuck - That's what I thought - why research a 2 value tech in 40 turns when you can research an 8 value tech in the same time! Great trading opportunities!

Math is defiantly the way to go, we would only waste time researching Bronze Working. It can be easily acquired in trade, and I can guarentee that we will NEVER beable to research Iron Working before the AI's. We need to research something we can get first, and trade it off. Otherwise we will fall behind, and quickly to. Tell me, why research Iron Working, when we can research mathematics, trade for Iron Working, Writing, Ceremonial Burial, The Wheel, Horseback Riding, etc.?

Granaries are very important to initial growth and I would like to suggest we go for that tech (pottery) first at maximum (90%) science rate.

Donsig, once again, as I have said before. Pottery is a tradeable tech which other civs will start with. We have this opertunity to get a tech no one else can start to get, Math, right away. We should take this opertunity and run with it.

SaaM, who ducks and waits for a famed Donsig rebuttle

Technology-wise, what advantage does the AI have on Monarch level play? Are we sure that Math will be unattainable by other Tribes?

Originally posted by Stuck_As_a_Mac
We, the French, are in a unique position. We are the ONLY civs to start out with Alphabet and Masonry. Alpha and Masonry lead to Mathematics, a tech which costs 8 and we have the opertunity to research FIRST THING. Do math. Trade for what we need with other civs. Don't do a 2 or 3 cost starting tech. Take an 8 that we alone can research. Viva La Math!

eh, well thats what I said millions of times before...

I go for MATH.

Originally posted by Stuck_As_a_Mac
Donsig, once again, as I have said before. Pottery is a tradeable tech which other civs will start with. We have this opertunity to get a tech no one else can start to get, Math, right away. We should take this opertunity and run with it.

SaaM, who ducks and waits for a famed Donsig rebuttle

It's tradeable but we don't know yet how long it will take to find someone to trade with! Of course alot depends of what our starting position looks like but getting pottery in around 15 turns combined with a granary pre-build in our capital could give us a good advantage in pumping out settlers and getting our core cities up and running. There are other techs to trade for and going for math or another expensive tech after getting pottery would still accomplish what we'd get by going straight for math.

Originally posted by donsig


It's tradeable but we don't know yet how long it will take to find someone to trade with! Of course alot depends of what our starting position looks like but getting pottery in around 15 turns combined with a granary pre-build in our capital could give us a good advantage in pumping out settlers and getting our core cities up and running. There are other techs to trade for and going for math or another expensive tech after getting pottery would still accomplish what we'd get by going straight for math.

No, It wouldn't. The 40 turns it'll take to research pottery is 40 turns longer we have to wait to acquire mathematics & currency. The whole point of researching them would be to trade them off, and we can't do that unless we get them first. I would have thought anyone knew that.

Going for pottery would be a waste of our time. It is a rather inexpensive technology, and can easily be acquired through trade.We can not trade pottery off for another tech, remember that the AI's trade techs off quickly, we have to match the research of 5-6 AI's. Once gets something, all the others will have it to.

Also, there is always the lit/GL tatic.

We can set our goal immediantly towards lit, research Writing and lit pretty quickly (already having alphabet is a good bonus). Normally I can acquire Writing and trade it off and head straight for lit.

Also, most of the times the AI research's Map Making & Code of Laws before lit.

Originally posted by Strider

No, It wouldn't. The 40 turns it'll take to research pottery is 40 turns longer we have to wait to acquire mathematics & currency. The whole point of researching them would be to trade them off, and we can't do that unless we get them first. I would have thought anyone knew that.

Going for pottery would be a waste of our time. It is a rather inexpensive technology, and can easily be acquired through trade.We can not trade pottery off for another tech, remember that the AI's trade techs off quickly, we have to match the research of 5-6 AI's. Once gets something, all the others will have it to.

Strider, my good man, I suggested we research pottery at 90% science which would take (at most) twenty turns, not forty. The French are comercial and industrious (are they not?) and the extra commerce combined with some intelligent road building would get us pottery before 3000BC. Combining that with a granary pre-build we can get our core cities built and researching in the fastest way possible. I do not consider that goal a waste of our time. Also, the AI civs cannot trade with civs they haven't met any more than we can. We would still have math before anyone else in any event.

We dont need a Granary just yet, remember, most of us are going for a warrior attack early on. Its very good to get it, but better to get it in trading. We can get it in five ways; One, an expansionist civ; Two, a non-expansionist civ that knows an exp. civ and traded; Three, a non-exp. civ that found a goodie hut; Four, a non-exp. that researchs it for us; Five, OUR OWN GOODIE HUTS. Those are five ways we can get our hands on Pottery before 40 turns without researching it. Its a cheap tech, so with the minimum research on Math we would be able to buy it easily.

About Lit/GL. Good Idea, but we should still go with Math, build our capitol, use Pyramids as prebuild, trade math to a person who has writing then go 100% on Liturature and switch from Prebuild. We would be sure to get it first.

My idea, which I sent to Octavian in my PM for the T&T Deputy position is as follows:

We research mathematics, as we are the ONLY civ that can do so, giving us an expensive tech. Then, with two of the most expensive first level techs and an expensive second level tech, we are in a good trading position. There, we can trade for what we need for, while setting down the science slider. This will put us in a position where we can trade for or buy any techs we need, therefore reducing the need for research. Techs we should try to obtain are Writing and Literature, as a Great Library could put us at a huge advantage in the tech race, and if we haven't picked up any first level techs, we can pick them up then. I would also advise going for Currency at some point. The importance of Bronze and Iron Working depends on what kind of strategy we are going for, offensive or peaceful. I would say Bronze Working is important anyways, as a Spearman is a huge legup from the Warrior in terms of defense. Lastly, we can probably count on at least one tech from the peaceful barbarian tribes (the huts).

Wrong, the commercial bonus will have no effect this early in the game. On average a commercial civs has about 14% less corruption, which is nice, but I doubt our first couple of cities will have any corruption. The commercial trait is useless that the start of the game.

Now at the start of the game, we will be making about 2gpt. Turn science down to 20% and make it three. Four is we are by a river. If we crank science up all the way to 100% we will still be only putting around 5 or 6 gpt into a technology that costs 268. (40 turns, still, 44 if there was no resctriction).

If we go max the research time will end up being less than 40 turns, because growth and then a 2nd city will double or triple the beakers per turn along the way. Having put some beakers in, we can lower it to build up cash if necessary.

If we start out on min research, then we go "into the hole" every turn on beakers, and can't raise it later to catch up. We'll build up a nice little pile of gold, but may not have an immediate use for it. Starting out min research with 40 turns is an irreversible decision, and one we need to be sure about.

For Math, we should not go on maximum research. Minimum is the best becuase it gives us a chance to gain money. Just like I said eirlier in the Military Department I think.

Our nex city as said by Dave will increase our research by a little only though. We should use the second city to raise our income and increase our coffers. Money rules. Anytime.

For the french, I favor researching Math, for the tradeability later, and then jumping on the Writing / Lit path for the Great Library

I have no clue why we chose France and now want a 20k victory. Can someone tell me? If we wanted a 20k victory then why didn't we take Egypt, THE PERFECT CIV. But noo, we choose France and now we want the peaceful Cultural Victory...

Originally posted by Fier Canadien
Now that I think about it, SaaM is right. We should go for math. The price of this tech will compensated for its, hmm, quite unuseful nature (catapults are realy bad).

Catapults can be upgraded to Cannons and Artillery in later ages. But the best part about getting Mathematics is that we can trade it for Iron Working. After that, we should research Literature and build the Great Library.

Personally I would be inclined to go for writing first and then mathematics. This would hopefully allow us to trade writing around before all our neighbouring civs make contact with each other, which I have often found extremely advantageous from a tech trading point of view, regularly using this to come out of the first round of trading ahead of my neighbours in terms of both techs and gold.

Researching writing should hopefully not prevent us from acquiring mathematics before our rivals either, since in my experience the AI often neglects that tech in favour of pursuing a beeline to mapmaking, horseback-riding or republic - which would leave us to clean up in tech trading once again.

Originally posted by amirsan
We dont need a Granary just yet, remember, most of us are going for a warrior attack early on. Its very good to get it, but better to get it in trading. We can get it in five ways; One, an expansionist civ; Two, a non-expansionist civ that knows an exp. civ and traded; Three, a non-exp. civ that found a goodie hut; Four, a non-exp. that researchs it for us; Five, OUR OWN GOODIE HUTS. Those are five ways we can get our hands on Pottery before 40 turns without researching it. Its a cheap tech, so with the minimum research on Math we would be able to buy it easily.

About Lit/GL. Good Idea, but we should still go with Math, build our capitol, use Pyramids as prebuild, trade math to a person who has writing then go 100% on Liturature and switch from Prebuild. We would be sure to get it first.


yes skarkey, just as I said. :D

If we are truely set on going for a 20k culture victory then building poweful cultural wonders like the GLib in our capital may not be such a great idea. I suspect we would be better off building it in one of our other core cities, preferably one which has been founded with long-term production capability in mind, in order to benefit from being able to use palace pre-builds for cultural wonders later in the game. This would also leave us free to use our capital to produce settlers and allow us to expand our empire and thus our defensive capabilities at the same time as wonder building.

*brushes the dust off*
ok, ok... you brought me in kicking and screaming. :p (looks at eyrei, Ginger_Ale, and bclg)

You've got WHEAT and a FLOODPLAIN tile.
Wheat on Floodplain + Floodplain = Setter/Worker factory. (+5 fpt surplus). 2 turn growth with a granary. Move the worker to wheat, irragate, then road. Move to the next floodplain, and ditto the move. All in the meanwhile, you can research pottery. The workers are industrious, so you'll have irragation a turn sooner, and grow just a bit quicker, giving you an edge. Do this, and you can get pottery quickly. There's also a couple of bonus grassland tiles, AND hills! This is a production city. Build the granary. There's another reason - floodplains and jungle *can* cause disease, so it's best to get your settlers out quickly.

BTW, I remember that tech cost screenshot. ;)

Also, for culture, you'll need MANY cities. You aren't religous or scientific, so *DON'T* go for those techs first. The 20 turns you spend on building a temple could be better spent on workers for infrastructure, and settlers. You won't get the culture wonders quickly. You'll need to expand, even using a tight build at first (there *IS* jungle, remember). You'll want granaries -- maybe even the pyramids, to help you expand.

Also remember this: You're going for culture. After growth (the most important key factor), you're gonna need to shoot for the highest culture improvements for the lowest cost (wonders and improvements included). You may need the early war to get a good far away FP site, netting you a wide area to grow and build culture.

IMHO, ICS is great for culture, but margainally exploitive. :)

Looks around Warily

i think we should get pottery early its just one of them techs, however it defeats me as to why if were France were going for a cultural victory.

Did you all her Chieftess say we will need granaries? The smart move is to get pottery on max science rate then go for the tradeable tech at minimum research rate.

What I would like to know if approximately how many turns it would take to research Pottery on maximum rate?

Originally posted by naervod
What I would like to know if approximately how many turns it would take to research Pottery on maximum rate?

That'll depend on a few things:

1) Are we building where our settler is now?
2) Will we use our worker to pop that hut?
3) Will we give priority to building roads in the right places?

My best estimate is that we would have pottery by 3000BC at the latest (20 turns), but could probably have it by 3150BC (17 turns). I haven't looked at the specifics of our starting position though.

Originally posted by donsig
Did you all her Chieftess say we will need granaries? The smart move is to get pottery on max science rate then go for the tradeable tech at minimum research rate.

Hey, I don't listen to CT to begin with, don't plan to now ;).

Sense we do have floodplain, this is even a less reason to build granery. Tell me this, the majority of us were planning not to research pottery when we were thinking that we'd have maybe a grassland or plains start. Now that we have even more food then we orginally thought, why change our thinking now?

We do not need graneries to expand fast. Sure, we get them and expand alittle faster, but with the floodplain tile we could finish one settler and start immediantly on another one, an finish that one with little wasting of growth. Exactly, I'm more afraid of growing faster then we can produce settlers and that we might have to build a temple to help with happiness.

Edit: Give me acouple of seconds, I'll do the math real quick and see if I'm right.

Ok, that Flood Plain with wheat is 3 food. Irrigate it an it's four, the other Flood Plain will be 3 food irrigated also. 7 food is plenty to make a settler factory.

from the defense ministry thread (as such i wrote it with anattitude of wanting early war):


a good idea would probably be to go right to iron working, as the 20 K city can work on the collosus, while we find iron. we can then go for the wheel, mainly to provide horse location, and then ceremonial burial to keep the infastructure people happy, we can then convince them to go after horseback riding, math, or map making, map making would work well for all(harbors, great light, galleys)

hey hey hey people! I got it.

Ok, we have to relax. Pottery is not needed as early as donsig and Chieftess stated. We should still continue Math becuase...

I have a strategy for the best settler factory ever made. And it is simple. All it needs is for the capitol to be at Population 5. We will start the settler at Population 5 with it going to take 4 turns and then carry on to population 6 at 2 turns to finish in the last two turns just as Pop six turns 7, putting us back at Pop 5 for the same rotation.

How to do this? Easy, build a couple warriors around three for intesive exploring. Check F10 to see the nations in the game (if its allowed) to see our chances at trading Pottery. Find a neigbor with Pottery or goodie huts while having a prebuild with Barracks. If somehow we do not find a neighbor with the barracks almost finished, switch to Settler. Continue to get as high up the population and find yourself starting a settler on the beggining of population 5. I dont know the actual calculation but I have done this many times before.

Again... RESEARCHING POTTERY IS A WASTE OF TIME. We have the oppertunity to get a valuable tech first and we have two of the most expensive level one techs. We can get it easily. Pop goodie huts, we will get it first. With three warriors exploring we can get this.

I also agree with Chieftess that instead of Ceremonial burial we need ALOT OF CITIES. No need for a fast Temple, not even wonders (though it would help) but we need about 50-100 cities with atleast one temple at one time or another. Its all about milking the culture and money (for rushing more temples and Libraries). If I am not mistaken a Temple and Library is 5 cpt every turn.

In twenty turns researching Pottery we will lose our monopoly on Math. Believe me.

If you read the strategies (I'm sounding like a broken record again...), you'll see that the key ingredient is a granary. It halves the time for growth. Read the "Deity Settlers" by Bamspeedy. Read any other settler strategy. They all pretty much include granaries.

If we were on a pangaea, then yes, maybe math might be good to trade to as many civs as possible, but we're on continents. So, there may only be 2-4 other civs early on. We're also on floodplains. If we ever suffer disease, the granary helps to recover lost population quicker. We're on floodplains, which aren't very productive to begin with. A granary will get us those shields QUICKER.

...why... do I even try? :-p

Well, I'm amazed. Here I am agreeing with Strider. :eek: I haven't checked the amount of food we wil get at first, but I do know we will have a lot more food at size two, which means we will get to size 3 very quickly. There is no need to build a granary now. True, we will be at risk of disease until we discover Sanitation, but at the begining of this game we should come back from our losses from disease very quickly. What we need to do, IMHO is not worry about using the worker for anything other than exploration right now (Strider hasn't said this diclaimer). We will be producing Settlers so fast, we will be better off knowing what the surrounding map looks like rather than irrigating or mining. Then after the worker has done some exploring, bring him back to work. Anyway, what I'm saying is Pottery is not the way to go here. Math or writing may be the best way to start our Science project this game, but I wouln't bet we will be the first ones to Mathematics. ;)

There are alot of good points here, but I am still leaning to math. Again, we are the only civ that can get that right off the bat. I would never waste such a juicy opporitunity.

I agree granaries have value, but in such a food heavily starting location it isn't fundamental. Besides, Pottery is easily obtainable through trades. Just get a tech we already have a headstart on, for instance maths.

I have a strong opinion on this: go for the techs that reveal tactical resources! So that we now where to colonize.
Priorities should thus be:
Bronze Working
Iron Working
The Wheel

And than Writing (for libraries) and then go for The Republic.

Well, the AI usually goes for Bronze, IW and Ceremonial Burial first, and Warrior Code, The Wheel, since they're "Unit Techs".

Originally posted by Chieftess
If you read the strategies (I'm sounding like a broken record again...), you'll see that the key ingredient is a granary. It halves the time for growth. Read the "Deity Settlers" by Bamspeedy. Read any other settler strategy. They all pretty much include granaries.

i'm not sure we will have enough production to do the bamspeedy-settler-in-4 turns-strategy. to do that, we need 5food/turn AND a combined production of 30 shields in 4 turns WITHOUT getting a pop of 7.

with a granary, we can get a circulation of 1 settler in 6
without, 1 in 8 is more likely

i say we go for an early #2, mabye an early #3 too, before we place a granary to get a faster settler output in #1. then we can use #2 and #3 to increase our expansion rate. hence, go mathematics and try to trade for pottery.

Thanks for that donsig.

I feel that Pottery should be on our list of technologies to research, however, it does not need to be very high up. Mathematics is essential because it gives us a monopoly on a fairly expensive tech. We can easily get Pottery through trading once we have Math, as we will have that tech and the two most expensive first tier techs. I hypothesize that we will be able to get two techs from trading (at least) I would say we should try and pick up Writing and Pottery from trade (alternatives: Bronze Working, Ceremonial Burial). Whatever we do, Mathematics is necessary. Our path for research/obtaining techs should go something like:
-Math
-Writing*
-Literature
-Pottery*
-Bronze Working
-Ceremonial Burial
-Iron Working

A * means we should try to obtain those techs from trading first.

Writing from trading? It's:

-Bronze Working
-Ceremonial Burial
-Iron Working

That we should obtain from trading. Writing should be a priority. If we let the AI get writing first, they'll most likely get TO Lit first (remember, Monarchy gives the AI a slight edge).

I have no clue why we chose France and now want a 20k victory.

Is that true that the aim is for 20K culture? If so, then building the Pyramids and Great Library is a must to atleast be assured a victory. (Sistine, JS Bach, and Shakespeare's being other major wonders).

I agree with Chieftess. If our goal is to get the Great Library, and it should be if we want a cultural victory, then we need to learn writing and lit first. We can get Iron and Bronze from trading... mathmatics...

Now as for pottery. My personal play style is to rarely use granaries. I know the advantages they bring. However in our current starting location, I don't think population growth is going to be much of a problem... in fact, a bit of the problem the other way with a wheat and a floodplain compared to no ceromonial burial or any luxuries nearby.

Those were just some quick suggestions, now that I think about it more, Bronze Working and Ceremonial Burial are good to get through trading, although personally I don't want to spend too much time researching Pottery.

Well I wont continue repeating myself so why dont we just make a poll?

We can get whatever others have from Math. We should get priority Pottery from Trade. We will be able to trade it. WHY WASTE 20 TURNS? Math is good on any land type. Becuase it leads to Currency. It is even BETTER on Continents or Archipelago becuase when you find people one by one which probably dont know each other Math and Currency can be a POWERFUL tool.

Also, whats better than having a settler factory with top production, and commerce? What is better? If I remember, sinse I did read all of Bamspeedy's strategies, he had his settler factory at like population 4 and 3 or something. Why not 5 and 6?

@Chieftess, yeah, we will post a poll I think for which victory, unless it was done, I dont know....
@Naervod, I like your research order. :goodjob:

POTTERY CAN BE GAINED THROUGH TRADING.

When I play on Emperor or Diety, the strategy I used that I learned from the best (playing in SG's) is to keep your research are 0% or minimum on a second level tech and gain money to trade first level techs. All we need to do is pop huts (we have one right next to us) and explore for other nations.

Link to science rate discussion. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74315)

All very interesting ideas. :)

I'll read over them, and have a poll up sometime tomorrow. Feel free to make poll suggestions to make my life easier. ;)

Originally posted by Octavian X
All very interesting ideas. :)

I'll read over them, and have a poll up sometime tomorrow. Feel free to make poll suggestions to make my life easier. ;)

Well, the standard on posting instructions says that the cutoff is an hour before the chat, which is starting pretty much right now.