What Shall We Tech Next? - Turn 53

[Sommerswerd]

These are our choices when Monotheism Finishes...

Keep in Mind the following when voting:
1. We have told Sirius that we would tech towards Monarchy and eventually get Monarchy

2. Preisthood is an optional Prerequisite for Monarchy that will reduce the turns it takes to tech Monarchy

3. Sirius is teching Mathematics and plans to tech Currency next

4. CDZ is rumored to be teching Iron Working but CDZ is not a member of the alliance yet.

5. Mavericks have Metal Casting and we will probably meet Mavericks next turn.

Philosophy 40 Turns 1196
Preisthood 3 Turns 89
Monarchy 15 Turns 448
Theology 25 Turns 747
Aesthetics 13 Turns 448
Mathematics 11 Turns 373
Currency 17 Turns 598
Archery 3 Turns 89
Horseback Riding 11 Turns 373
Iron Working 9 Turns 299
Metal Casting 19Turns 672

[Loev]

Let us be a good ally and tech priesthood. How many beakers will monarchy drop after we tech priesthood?

[SilentConfusion]

Originally Posted by Loev

Let us be a good ally and tech priesthood. How many beakers will monarchy drop after we tech priesthood?

Here's how beaker modifiers work:

We have 29 commerce right now. At 100% research, this means 29 are turned into beakers. Everyone gets 1 free beaker so long as they have a city, so we have 30 base beakers. Now our beaker output has two modifiers: the Prerequisite Modifier and the Known Civs with Tech (KCwT) Modifier. The Prerequisite Modifier is 1.2 so long as you have the minimum requirements for a technology. Let's use Priesthood as an example. Having either Meditation or Polytheism is enough to tech Priesthood, so if we have either Meditation or Polytheism (but not both) our Prerequisite Modifier is 1.2. For every extra optional prerequisite 0.2 is added to the 1.2 modifier. In this case the minimum requirement for Priesthood is Med or Poly, so having both is an extra prerequisite, so the Prerequisite Modifier is 1.4. The other modifier, the KCwT Modifier, is 1 + (0.3 * Number of Known Civs with Tech) / Total Number of Civs that Started Game. We started the game with 6 civs. Right now both Mavs and Merlot know Priesthood. When we start teching Priesthood (assuming we've met Mavs by then) will be 1 + (0.3 * 2) / 6, which equals 1.1.

To calculate our beaker output we take the base beakers and multiply it by the KCwT Modifier, then we round this number down to the nearest integer, then we multiply this number by the Prerequisite Modifier, and finally we round down to the nearest integer once again.

In the Priesthood example (FLOOR means round down to nearest integer):

Beaker Output: FLOOR(FLOOR(30 * 1.1) * 1.4) = FLOOR(33 * 1.4) = FLOOR(46.2) = 46

This means for 30 base beakers we get 46. In two turns we'll have 92 beakers, more than enough for Priesthood, from only 60 base beakers. So Priesthood costs us 58 base beakers.

Results:

Teching Monarchy without Priesthood (at 30 base beakers per turn) would take 13 turns and cost 374 base beakers. Teching Monarchy with Priesthood (at 30 base beakers per turn) would take 11 turns and cost 320 base beakers. This is a savings 54 base beakers. Compare this with the cost of Priesthood (60 base beakers). We save almost as much as the cost of Priesthood by having it. It will also give us a bonus when researching Currency and Code of Laws.

My conclusion: Having Priesthood will more than pay for itself in the discounts it gives to other techs that we will need.