Commerce Discussion: Jumping into the Middle Ages (730 B.C.)

Octavian X

Octavian X

is not a pipe.
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With war with India on the horizon, a very interesting tech deal has caught my attention. For one tech, we could be a mere eight turns from the middle ages.

In exchange for Construction, a tech with which we enjoy a monopoly, the Maya will trade us Polytheism, Code of Laws, Horseback Riding, and 95g. No other comprable deals exist.

To make it to the Middle Ages, we'd only need Currency, which will be complete in eight turns at the current tech rate.

On a side note, we could also purchase a worker and 2g from Spain, in exchange for Philosophy. Not a good deal, but one to consider.
 
Actually I like the Spanish deal better. Philosophy is not a monopoly, and a free worker is always nice :) . Besides, this will potentially slow down Spain.

Is construction still a monopoly? I'll have a look at the save tonight. The three techs from the Maya are not, and therefore less valuable. For example, HBR should cost next to nothing now. Moreover, we don't need any of these techs right now.

I would prefer to use construction to buy the aliances to get some distant wars going :mischief: . If we can get tech or gold on the side, then that's always nice, of course :D
 
I like both of these deals. If we can be the first tothe middle ages we can use AA techs to forment wars while starting a minimum run on Engineering.

Definately do the Spain deal. A free worker for an older tech is definately worth it.
 
I too like both deals. We'll only need currency, and since it's being researched so quickly, we'll enter the middle ages sooner rather than later! :D
 
its always a good thing to get to the middle ages first, and a free worker will slow down Spain. go with both deals.
 
I had a look at the save (with mapstat) last night. Here is a pic for your
pleasure:

trades730bc.png


China and Spain have Construction, and so I think we should use it now.
There are quite some decent trades around, I'll list a few for the benefit of
the discussion:

  • India has 76 gold; we can sell them Philosophy and/or Mapmaking for it.
  • Maya have 95 gold. We could sell them Construction for CoL + all their
    gold + whatever other tech we can get.
  • The Spanish worker trade of Octavian.

If we did not get Poly from Maya, then we can get it from France, Byzantines,
Spain, Persia or China for construction and/or CoL. We can obtain HBR from
anyone. I would also use tech to start some wars. (We need some embassies for
this.) I don't know what alliances will cost, but I think the following should be possible:

  • if needed, CoL or Construction to France for Poly + gold.
  • declare on France, sell Construction to Persia for MA vs France.
  • declare on Maya, sell CoL and/or Construction to Byzantines for MA vs Maya.
  • declare on Spain, sell Poly to Portugal for MA vs Spain.
  • Poly to Netherlands for their treasury of 169 (!) gold.
  • (perhaps) sell Poly or CoL to Hittites for HBR + their 34 gold.

Result: we will be tech leader. We will have nearly all gold. Everyone will be at war. The only problem is that Persia will be too strong for any one opponent, and that we don't have enough tech to buy them into 2 wars. OTOH, leaving them alone is no good option either. We can swap Spain and France if that looks better.

If we don't trade Poly to Netherlands, then China probably will, for peace. Better if we get the cash :), and rob China of a bargaining chip :D
 
We need to avoid helping Persia and Byzantines with getting to the Middle Ages as long as possible. If they do arrive and their free tech is Feudalism, then we need to try to get them at war with Netherlands at least until the iron is disconnected.

Strange as it might sound, we need to consider attempting to keep most in the AA till operaions commence against the Dutch, even at the cost of not being the tech leader. I'd really like to hear more comment on this from a wider range of people before continuing.
 
Dave, you will make a fine External Consul one day ;)

Tech rate must be killed. Only way to do it is to sign MA's. Need embassies to sign MA's, need gold to build embassies... current R&T consul insists on defecit research rate. :( Only other way to do it is to give away tech, which in itself fuels the AI to AI tech rate as per zyxy :( :( <shrugs shoulders, slopes off to the bar>
 
Dave,

Sorry, I can't make the range of people any wider :( .

I agree there is some risk to this strategy, but it is the only way to slow down the research rate, and I feel we should do this while we still have the chance. There will not be a better time in the near future, as we are getting closer and closer to the danger we want to avoid (i.e. feudalism).
It is unlikely that Persia doesn't know China or Spain, because they seem to share borders. So Persia *will* get Construction fairly soon. Byzantium may be more isolated, and could perhaps be kept backward.

An alternative is to wait 8 turns, then we can declare on Persia and get alliances against her. This has the high risk that our trade position will become worse.

@madbax: some of the gold for embassies can be generated through trades with India, Maya and/or Netherlands, but I agree that our treasury is too small for embassies + upgrades.
 
If there is an official poll that states that we will do minimum science, I'll edit my future instructions. Remember, Octavian has final say on slider settings, not I.
 
The quicker we enter the middle ages, the quicker the Dutch do and the quicker those Swiss Mercenaries appear to thwart our designs on the Dutch territory. We must slow the tech pace, not race towards the middle ages at breakneck speed. Please drop that science slider!
 
zyxy said:
@madbax: some of the gold for embassies can be generated through trades with India, Maya and/or Netherlands....
Click to expand...

yeah....but... that means giving tech to the AI. But I do understand that with the slider set to defecit research then trading tech is mandatory. I just don't like it, and frankly I find it difficult to understand why people insist on spending every spare penny on tech. 6 cities with the lowest land area of any civ and not a single library at emperor level.

Hands up anyone who can tell me how likely we are to outresearch the AI :rolleyes:

Anyone heard of opportunity cost?
 
RegentMan said:
If there is an official poll that states that we will do minimum science, I'll edit my future instructions. Remember, Octavian has final say on slider settings, not I.
Click to expand...

I don't want to be picky, or start an argument but...... :D

If it's not your job to set the slider then don't put slider settings in the TCIT.
If it is your job to set the slider then you should post the poll.

I see you started a discussion thread. Thanks for that. :goodjob:
It does need sorting out since we are only 30 turns from Republic and we need the war out of the way, 3 markets and half a dozen libraries build by then. Could be tricky. :mischief:
 
Definitely trade Philo to Spain for the worker & gold. In another thread I suggest we trade Philosophy to India for all of their gold (to help fund our war agains them!).

Re trading construction: I'm not tempted by the techs. We'll be able to get them soon enough, and there's no prize - quite the opposite, really - for reaching the Middle Ages quickly. Because we've been running a deficit in order to rush pell-mell towards Currency, we do need gold so we'll be able to upgrade our troops. I'd be tempted by the short term gains of trading construction for gold, but it's this kind of short term thinking that has gotten us into the budget mess we currently face.

I'd pass on trading Construction for the time being.
 
Not getting to the Middle Ages allows us to slow the tech pace and possibly keep the Dutch away from Swiss Mercenaries.

What does advancing to the Middle Ages get us?
 
Knights. Big knights with which to pulverize the Dutch. :D

Anyway, so far as I can tell, after currency we'll be jumping right into researching Republic. Since that will take a long time (as we'll likely go at it with a minimum rate or a scientist), we're best off taking the most oppertune trade at the current time, which, as stated above is: Maya will trade us Polytheism, Code of Laws, Horseback Riding, and 95g in exchange for Construction.
 
Knights. Big Knights which will die on Swiss Mercenaries.

A Sword (3) has better odds of defeating a Spear (2) than a Knight (4) has of defeating a Swiss Merc (4). OK, a Knight against a Spear would be even better, but by the time we have Knights the Dutch will have Swiss Mercs, and we need to get the war over with by then.
 
Quite right. Not to mention that knights cost 70 shields, and the swiss.... 30?
[sarcasm] Oh, we'll be able to build one or so every gazillion turns, especially without money...[/sarcasm]

re construction: I would immediately agree to hold back on trading if we can keep the other AI's from trading it. But how likely is that? It is *not* a monopoly anymore. Persia will probably extort it, the dutch may get it in a peace deal, and in the current TCIT there is an instruction to trade it to the Maya :confused:

re research speed: It would be really nice if we could try to settle on one strategy instead of two or three conflicting ones at the same time...
 
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