BOTM 52 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

[neilmeister]

Diplo, 1710. I can't believe I won, as this map was tough!

Didn't build a single wonder, other than the UN, or get close to winning the Lib race. Kudos to those that did!

I went a very different path to Yamps. Conquered Liz, I DoWed her 3 times before she was finished off, but I did most of the heavy lifting in the BC's.
Almost conquered Willem, but his - just discovered and Deity magically upgraded - Rifle's were more than a match for my Cataphracts. So I accepted his capitulation. At this stage I had 40% of the land, and 50% of the population.

After that, I was technologically backward. Only hope was for Diplo, so I bulbed my way through Physics/Electricity and luckily had 2 GE's ready to go to build the UN.

Hammy loved me, as long as he stayed in Beauro (had to bribe him back into it a few times) and even Willem ended up liking me (despite -6 'you DoWed us' and -4 'you DoWed our friends').

Buit UN on that little barb island, but both Mehmed and Monty (who both Hammy and I were at war with) refused to take it. Hammy was clear #2, after me, so just had to wait until Monty/Mehmed learnt astro and conquered it. Won easily the first vote after this event, in 1710.

Final situation:

Spoiler :

 

[pixiejmcc]

Buit UN on that little barb island, but both Mehmed and Monty (who both Hammy and I were at war with) refused to take it. Hammy was clear #2, after me, so just had to wait until Monty/Mehmed learnt astro and conquered it. Won easily the first vote after this event, in 1710.

Giving the UN away to skew the votes in your favour. Nice thinking

 

[PattonTwo]

Giving the UN away to skew the votes in your favour. Nice thinking

Yes indeed. Great game Neil and well done in the BCs vs Liz.

 

[PattonTwo]

Another question if I may for those who built or conquered 5-6 cities in the BCs...

I replayed the game to focus on getting more cities up faster plus enough units to keep Liz form DOW on me (no idea how you all actually pulled off an axe rush). However my civic costs were so high and my tech rate was even slower.

As a result I missed out on building TGL and by the time I etched aesthetics only one civ still needed it. I stopped playing at that point because the game was lost. My question...how did you manage to keep your tech rate high enough to get aesthetics before the AI?

 

[Yamps]

Another question if I may for those who built or conquered 5-6 cities in the BCs...

I replayed the game to focus on getting more cities up faster plus enough units to keep Liz form DOW on me (no idea how you all actually pulled off an axe rush). However my civic costs were so high and my tech rate was even slower.

As a result I missed out on building TGL and by the time I etched aesthetics only one civ still needed it. I stopped playing at that point because the game was lost. My question...how did you manage to keep your tech rate high enough to get aesthetics before the AI?

More units doesn't help at all to prevent a DoW, zero percent benefit. You were unlucky with Liz there and you can't do much about it. Relations matter, was she Cautious or Annoyed? If Pleased she won't dow at all and on Cautious there is a low chance. The best thing to do in such situation imo is to try to hold until she is willing to speak and then to gift some city for peace.

EDIT: should have checked the spreadsheet... There is a chance for Liz to Dow on Pleased and there's a fair chance on Cautious too. Still, best to ignore that altogether imo. It may happen and will ruin your game if it happens, but you'll ruin your game even more if you try to defend. Or maybe it won't if you're one of those really skillful players, maybe it will just ruin your chances for a competitive result compared to other players.

You were faster with Aesthetics in your original game than me (600 BC compared to 305 BC) and you got the GLib in 305 BC compared to my 110 BC. I did get 8 cities peacefully though in the BCs compared to your 4.

I wouldn't worry much, that's just the way it goes. Luck is a huge factor on this level, small differences have a big impact.

@Neil

Nice trick with the UN. I have a question regarding that, maybe somebody could tell, is there a chance that the AI would raze the UN city? In general, do they raze cities having wonders?

 

[neilmeister]

I only built 4 cities, so my tech rate was reasonable.
City 2 was Horse/Fish with instant trade route, City 3 was positioned to get Ivory/Corn/Gold. City 4 got sheep (and then Iron).

I built Library in Horse/Fish as soon as I could, then hired 2 scientists at pop 4 (had to borrow corn from the cap). Also built Lib in the cap before my third settler. I kept research slider at 0% after Writing, until I had enough to almost get Alpha at 100%.

Early alpha was key, as it got me everything else I needed. BW, Pottery, Hunting, Fishing and IW.

Once I had these it was obvious that Liz didn't have any metal, so early conquest was possible, and the war planning began. I went for Construction as soon as I could. I whipped liberally, to get Granary and Barracks everywhere. As the cities recovered, they mostly built Research. This was very important, as all hammers from chops are stored when you do this, and it meant Construction 10 turns earlier than otherwise.

When I finished Construction, I had a 4 warriors, 1 chariot, 1 spear, 1 axe and 2-3 swords. To have any more than this would have cost too much money.

Most cities built the first Cat in 1 turn, due to the stored chop hammers, then it was a whip-fest.
A few turns later I had 10 cats plus 3 more swords (and some rather unhappy cities).

Luckily, Willem and Hammy traded Gems & Dye to me for my completely unused health resources, so I could continue whipping for quite some time.

I started CoL immediately after Construction (with help from trades) and researched it at almost 100% purely from conquest gold. Whipped courthouses everywhere as soon as I could. The captured Calendar resources helped ease the unhappiness from all the whipping.

 

[nocho]

I normally don't have the stomach for deity, but I gave this a shot.

It went surprisingly well for a reasonably long time, but then the whole thing came crashing down, abandoned in 1310 AD.

I kind of "over-expanded" with 5 cities without going pottery/writing asap, so had a rough time early on with my finances. Eventually came out of that hole, trying to squeeze the last dime out of every turn. Liz encroached me from the east and Willem from the north west. My lucky break came when the hindu Willem (big pals with hindu Babylon) declared on jewish Liz around 1000BC. I saw my chance there and joined the hindu fold and dogpiled Liz. Managed to get 4 cities from her including London, taking peace for some techs when she had only 1 city left, which I took after the 10 turns of peace expired. Meanwhile Willem had also taken 3 or 4 of her cities.

So shortly after 1AD I had a 10 city empire which I was rather happy with, given this is deity. However, Willem grew into a monster with 16 or 17 cities. In the years to 1000 AD I managed to settle another 2 cities on the northeastern peninsula. Somehow ignored cataphracts, which retrospectively was a blunder. Instead I managed my way to MT, despite getting beaten just to lib by Babylon, who ran away in tech. Was a bit unlucky on various occasions just getting beaten to other techs which I hoped to use in trade to catch up technology-wise. Dropped in and out of hindu a couple of times to be able to trade something with Isa, until I was supposedly too advanced to her liking. All the while Babylon and Willem are between pleased and friendly with me. Anyway, get to MT and start mass-whipping cuirs. Meanwhile Willem got red-fisted. He can DoW at pleased IIRC, so did fear him, as I was 0.2 power with him and after whipping 30 cuirs only managed to get up to 0.3... However, he was also my only natural target. In the end he DoWed me at a moment where he didn't have any SoD of note in the area. So the beginning of the war went very well. I managed to get all Willem's former English posessions as well as two barb cities he had captured on the NE peninsula (size 16 cities by now), so there I was all happy with my 17 cities, followed by Willem with 12, while all other AIs had about 10-11 cities, except for the poor Ottomans with only 5.

That's when Willem's SoD arrived. I had time to get basically all my units in Antioch, which was the city closest to the front and also my HE city (in the north at wheat/banana/marble). Made a stand with about 40 units tucked in the city, which was my complete army. About 25-30 cuirs and the rest muskets and some medieval stuff. At this point hoping that Willem would talk, so as to get peace. It wasn't to be. His uberSoD had appeared, which leisurely removed the city defenses and then he attacked, obliterating my total army. After (!) the attack I counted 80+ Dutch units, basically of the same quality as mine (cuirs+medieval junk). Basically defeated by sheer numbers. So at this point I still had 16 cities, but also an army of exactly 16 units, which were my city garrisons. Brave axes and spears and such. Willem still won't talk, so I'm totally toast. I any case, cities are also badly whipped, so there's really not much of chance to recover, hence I abandoned. Still a fun game though.

 

[Sleepless]

Deity can be so cruel sometimes..

I've semi abandoned the game in 1851 with 24 cities. Mehmed as a vassal and both Wil and Liz dead.

Short summary of my woes I settled in place noticed the lack of commerce around. I did manage to settle the corn/ivory aiming for my 3rd city for the gold but Liz just beat me to it.

I ended up with 6 cities and for a while thought about trying for a peaceful 6 city cultural attempt but was beaten to music by 1 turn (wasn't our 3 neighbours) and not by much to Sistines. End of thoughts for a cultural attempt.

So onto the idea of cuirassier's. Managed to be first to Lib took Nat and built the Taj. Probably highpoint though did build GLib and Parth as well.

I was just about in a position to start my first war against Liz when Monte dropped a stack on a hill near the fish in the West. He had been in WHEEOH ever since we met so must have decided to attack me when we first met. I was able to cope with his 2 landings but it cost me a few units and more importantly delayed my planned attack on Liz so ended up starting my war with Liz about 15 turns later. I managed to take most of her cities adjacent to me but because of the delay I ended up facing rifles.

Due to my poor tech trading I was dropping well behing in tech and was planning on trying for a UN win with one of the AI building the UN and me having the biggest pop. Farmed most of my lands and finally overtook Ham as No1 in pop. 2 turns later he vassaled Monte bumping his pop way past me again.

Noticing Mehmed was quite weak I sent a large stack of tanks to visit him took one of his cities then made a big mistake. I should have wiped him out but instead took him as a vassal after taking one city and gifting it back.

This left me about 2% behind Hammy. So next target was Lizzy. I built a city on a 1 tile island with the idea of rushbuying an airport and filling it with bombers to help with a quick amphibious strike to get me more pop. During this time though Hammy went from pleased (shared religion) to free religion and dropped to cautious with me meaning it was unlikely for me to get his votes without using spies to change civics. So still had a chance but he then went into WHEEOH and I could be the only target and with tanks/bombers against ma/stealth etc I resigned..

 

[donsig]

I expanded too fast and had to shut down research before I discovered writing. Made many axemen and eliminated England. Kept London and York (which was the holy city for Confucianism. Bought writing from the Dutch but my gold was running out so I attacked them. Razed one city but missed the second by a hair. I think the last defender had 0.1 hp left. At that point I was discouraged (both my warlords were disbanded by the strikes) so I made peace by giving up one city. Attacked the Dutch again when my funds ran low and they took the main part of my empire leaving me England. Since I was down to four cities I could tech again. Got up to about 1300 AD or so and the Dutch finished me off.

 

[Bebekija]

First Deity game ever, and I was doing quite fine, sailing to a ~1700-1750AD cultural victory, when Elizabeth declared and conquered 4 of my 5 remaining cities in 3 turns.

This is really frustrating !

The thing is I totally saw this coming and I tried hard to avoid it but it didn't change anything :
- in the early game, I was behind in tech so I couldn't bribe anyone on her while she was isolated in Judaism
- as soon as she got Liberalism, she switched to her favorite civic (Free religion),and so did Willem, so no way to influence diplo with religion
- by the time she attacked me, I had a -3 diplo modifier because of border pressure (of course there's border pressure, she settled 3 cities right in my face and I'm going for culture....)
- since I figured that having her Cautious to me would inevitably mean war, I even gifted her one of my "Temple cities" to bring her to Pleased. Like Yamps (see above), I thought that this would be enough to avoid a DOW, but no... a few turns later, she goes WHEOOHRN, and I'm the target.
- Oh I forgot that I managed to have a defensive pact with Hammy but he canceled it by attacking Monty 2 turns before Elizabeth went WHEOOHRN....

So I guess my point here is usually one learns more in defeats than in victories, but here I feel like I didn't learn anything (except that tech pace and maintenance in Deity is insane) !!!
So I need some advice from experienced Deity players, and especially those who are used to cultural victories.
How are you supposed to avoid war when going for a cultural win, when you have nothing to put in the diplo game?

 

[Mylene]

@Nocho dun try defending cities with Curis, when facing an overwhelming force
Their strength is attacking and moving back into safety (if possible), always wait until he makes a bad move into open terrain. Cities do not matter much at this point, only taking out SoDs.
In your cultural terrain, you can take out his siege by flank, move back for recover, then hopefully destroying his remains.

 

[nocho]

@Nocho dun try defending cities with Curis, when facing an overwhelming force
Their strength is attacking and moving back into safety (if possible), always wait until he makes a bad move into open terrain. Cities do not matter much at this point, only taking out SoDs.
In your cultural terrain, you can take out his siege by flank, move back for recover, then hopefully destroying his remains.

Yeah, I realized at the time that the defense was probably in vain, but I wasn't really psychologically prepared to give up a key city for vague hopes of a successful scorched earth tactic... Of course in retrospect it would have been better to try that way, although given the overall aggressiveness of Willem in my game I doubt if I ever would have been able to break him before he'd break me. If I can dig up a previous save I might give it a try.

 

[shakabrade]

Lost to barbs. Managed to get gold city. Lost 3 battles which were in my favor, one of them was my fortified warrior on copper hill who was also protecting 2 workers who just connected copper. So I had only one ace up my sleeve. Ragequit.
I didn't like epic game speed anyway.

World seemed like a much better place some 30 minutes ago.

 

[Xcalibrator]

First ever non-neutered Deity win. (DS, if you did neuter this game, don't tell me. ). Domination 1851, with our continent, the small barb continent, and the 1-tile island for a very slight margin over the 64% threshold. Too drained to give a decent report now--took about 50 hours, I think, war pretty much all the way. First Liz in 3 (?) stages, Willem, and then Hammy, with lots and lots of artillery, infantry, and anti-tanks vs his planes, tanks, and marines. Clearly I should never play again, to savor this moment forever.

---------[ Edit ]-----------------------------------
Some numbers:

• 11 Great Generals (5 settled in Thess, my HE/IW city), 4 Great Spies (3 used for Infiltration missions vs Liz), 3 Sci's, 2 Pro's, 2 Mer's (for trade expeditions).
• Over 500 AI units killed, including 82 Inf, 36 SAMinf, 79 tanks, 49 arty, 26 planes
• I built 43 spies, 24 anti-tanks, 32 Inf, 13 cataphracts, 10 cavs, 105 arty, etc. Quite a few other units were upgraded.
• Stole 8 (maybe more) techs from Liz: Chem, Printing, Repl Parts, Rifling (on 4th attempt after failures at 97%, 78%, 78%!), Steam Power, Railroad, SciMeth, Physics. Stole Divine Right from Hammy for fun much later. Not counting Wm (who I killed), I was the first to get Artillery, which was immediately stolen by Hammy.

As described in my 1 AD report, I had 9 cities, 3 of them founded, 2 captured from barbs, and 4 captured in two wars from Liz. The Ottomans were already dead. My teching was far behind that of the others who managed to win this game. I only got Construction in 175 AD and waged a 3rd war vs Liz 415-775 AD, taking 4 more cities before she vassaled to Hammy with 1 city (oxford) left on the jungly peninsula. I was quite lucky to get 3 Great Spies for infiltration missions against Oxford, and also against a city I captured from Wm (who captured it from Hammy) and then gifted to Liz; she soon gifted it back to her master.

In 1150, Wm attacked Hammy/Liz and I joined against Wm in 1180, capturing two cities he'd captured from the barbs on the jungly peninsula. Wm managed to take 2 cities from Hammy but mostly parked a big stack next to another city and very slowly bombarded its defenses with a single treb. Idiot. They made peace in 1315 but I kept at it until 1390, capturing 8 more cities. Wm got Rifling in 1350, making things very hard for me, so I took peace, Paper, Music, and some gold from him. Soon after I got a Great Spy and stole quite a few techs from Liz, but Rifling eluded me--failure at 97% odds! It took several turns to get more spies in place, and then both of them failed at 78%!! I needed to finish Wm off before he got any stronger so I DoW'd without Rifling in 1500. The next turn he got Artillery. With only 3 or 4 cities left his production of artillery was slow, however, and I managed to take Amsterdam (Pyramids, MoM, etc.) and finally stole Rifling from Liz in 1550, then Steam Power in 1555, and Railroad in 1580. Wm was dead in 1585.

Meanwhile, Monte had DoW'd Hammy/Liz in 1565. He added me to the list in 1670, when I was the first (well, 2nd after the deceased Wm) to get Artillery. Hammy stole it from me that turn but I did trade it to Isa for a couple techs; Monte later extorted it from me while I was at war with Hammy. In 1740 I revolted to Nat'lism and started drafting and whipping like a maniac. 1752 I DoW'd Hammy/Liz and finished off the wench in 1754. By 1764 Hammy was throwing tanks and bombers against my Mguns, infantry, and anti-tanks, but in 1772 I took a 3rd city from him and was finally 1st in score! By now it was impossible to steal any useful techs from anybody (too many espi pts needed) and my tech rate was nothing great so I figured I couldn't afford to take 10 turns of peace, even if Hammy gave me good stuff; he'd get some new killer tech and turn the tide against me, so I just kept grinding away. I had nothing to challenge him at sea so it was all land war. In my favor, I had 3 times as many cities and a lot more happiness resources--WW must have been killing him. I finally captured his last city in 1843.

Meanwhile, Isa had elected herself UN SecGen (beating me by about 1 vote) and the no-nukes resolution had passed, so at least I didn't need to worry about getting nuked. She and Monte were back at war and too distracted to bother me. With the sea lanes safe after Hammy's demise, I quickly captured and razed the two barb cities on the small continent and founded 2 new ones whose BFCs covered the whole island. Hammy's last city came out of revolt a couple turns later and I was just over the Dom threshold. (DS must be getting soft. I was afraid I'd have to take some land from Monte, but that 1-tile island was 1 tile more than required--I settled it just to be sure.) Isa was working on a culture win for a long time but I think Monte must have briefly captured one of her proto-Legendary cities, so she went for Space, and had several components finished--probably at least 20 turns away from launching, though. She would have been deadly if we'd ever gotten into a war: mobile artillery, mobile SAM, mech inf, missiles... Monte "only" had gunships, paratroopers, and jet fighters.

Thanks for the game, DS, I had a blast! Well leavened with constant fear.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory. Result: 1580AD cultural victory.

This was a hard map, as commerce and happiness were scarce in the beginning.
I could have gotten a much better result had I got a 4th religion. Building cathedrals is easybissy if you are Spiritual and can stop nurturing GAs for a 5 turns whipping period.

I was very unlucky with my _Moai city, it popped a Great Prophet at 13% chances. When you are Spiritual you only want to get GA after the 2 or 3 initial GPs. I could have shaved 10 turns if it had been a GA.

Even though my research capacity was bad, I kept afloat thanks to:
- Aesthetics
- Philo bulbing
- Compass (I had gone for Music first to get Sisitine's, so this allowed me to trade for CoL, none the less!).

Late NE: 610AD.
Having lost the Liberalism race 300AD, I went for Natio to get TajMah and Hermitage. Then I chose to go for Democracy, it should have been MilTrad, as it would have gotten much better trades. Oh well, at least it allowed Representation for some post Liberalism research.

This was the first time I had problems maintaining 100% culture slider in a Deity game, not sure why.

1000AD Stats: 9 cities, 93 pop, 8 workers, 13 units (1Mace), 3 strategic resources, 6 luxury resources, 9 health resources, 5 great persons, 4 world wonders, 3 national wonders, food/production/commerce=235-58-988, 290 sustainable beakers per turn, 456 useful culture per turn, 156 great person points per turn, 500 gold. 3 religions. 9/9 cottages used, 39 Techs: Const,PP, no Educ, no Guilds. 0 civs killed. 17 hours played. 26rel*city, 24temples, 6cath

I blundered my diplo in the end and Monty got his hands full for me, but he was too slow to set his army up.

Key data:
Won 1580AD. Multipliers 4.5-3.5-3.5, bombs 0-7-8, cpt 1000-450-375. 2GS Acad and bulbed, GPro for GAge, 15 GA bombed, total 18GP.

 

[jesusin]

Recommendations for those who feel they can't win a Deity game?
Hmmm... Two big things come to mind immediately:

- Get your Settlers out quickly, you want to get your fair share of good territory before it is all gone.
- Study and compare your tech trading and the tech trading of those who won the game.

 

[jesusin]

First Deity game ever, and I was doing quite fine, sailing to a ~1700-1750AD cultural victory, when Elizabeth declared and conquered 4 of my 5 remaining cities in 3 turns.

This is really frustrating !

The thing is I totally saw this coming and I tried hard to avoid it but it didn't change anything :
- in the early game, I was behind in tech so I couldn't bribe anyone on her while she was isolated in Judaism
- as soon as she got Liberalism, she switched to her favorite civic (Free religion),and so did Willem, so no way to influence diplo with religion
- by the time she attacked me, I had a -3 diplo modifier because of border pressure (of course there's border pressure, she settled 3 cities right in my face and I'm going for culture....)
- since I figured that having her Cautious to me would inevitably mean war, I even gifted her one of my "Temple cities" to bring her to Pleased. Like Yamps (see above), I thought that this would be enough to avoid a DOW, but no... a few turns later, she goes WHEOOHRN, and I'm the target.
- Oh I forgot that I managed to have a defensive pact with Hammy but he canceled it by attacking Monty 2 turns before Elizabeth went WHEOOHRN....

So I guess my point here is usually one learns more in defeats than in victories, but here I feel like I didn't learn anything (except that tech pace and maintenance in Deity is insane) !!!
So I need some advice from experienced Deity players, and especially those who are used to cultural victories.
How are you supposed to avoid war when going for a cultural win, when you have nothing to put in the diplo game?

Sorry about that. I feel your pain.

As you say the best way is to manage things diplomatically. But when you have nothing to offer, it is certainly hard.

The best idea I can offer when diplo has failed and you have been dowed is to use Nationalism. You'd be surprised how long you can stay in the game with drafting and upgrading. Auxiliary cities in the borders, abandoning them when the time is ripe, sacrificial workers, etc help a lot. Sacrificing a catapult from time to time usually makes them stop to heal. Remember, you don't need to win the war, you are just buying time. Also you need not to have bombed or settled your GAs, so even in the terrible event that you lose an intended-to-be-Legendary city, you can reassign all those cultural bombs to the next best city.

Finally, Representation, either through Pyramids or through Democracy (Constitution?) trade, is a big shelter, as you keep advancing in tech and that allows you to draft better units in case of need.

I hope that helps. I'm willing to hear a different advice to your questions. Sharing difficulties and solutions in this community is a big thing!

 

[Bebekija]

Thanks for your answers.

Indeed, I probably should have fought to the bitter end. Though it probably wouldn't have made a big difference since Liz declared around 1550AD so there were still a lot of turns to go.
To be honest, I tried so hard to avoid war on the diplo level that when I saw Liz in war mode I kind of gave up on the game, so I didn't put much effort in preparing my defences. But I did switch to Nationalism, cause of course that was the only viable option.

Actually one thing in your report caught my eye, it's the switching from Liberalism to Nationalism.
In my game, I knew while I was researching Education that I would lose Liberalism, but I stayed on this course cause I thought Free Speech was priority 1.
Do you think I should have switched to Nationalism right away? How easy is it to trade for Lib usually?

 

[Yamps]

Thanks for your answers.

How easy is it to trade for Lib usually?

It's like getting Monarchy or Alphabet, they will trade it around.

 

[jesusin]

Actually one thing in your report caught my eye, it's the switching from Liberalism to Nationalism.
In my game, I knew while I was researching Education that I would lose Liberalism, but I stayed on this course cause I thought Free Speech was priority 1.
Do you think I should have switched to Nationalism right away? How easy is it to trade for Lib usually?

I was much farther behind in techs than that.

Just to illustrate the real situation and to serve as example to those who renounced to founding some good cities just because "that would put my slider bellow xx%":
I put the research slider to 0% 1500BC, doing +5gpt. Built 3 Libraries and put 6 scientists to work around 1000BC. Kept on acquiring cities. Aesth was traded for all the small techs, including Sailing, which kept me afloat (+6gpt due to sailing).
By 300BC the first AI had Currency, allowing me to trade resources for money, that was good cause I had 8 cities to support. I got Drama and traded for Alpha, IW and coins. Then bulbed Philo and traded it for Currency and Calendar. Having Currency, my economy was healthy and my cities were starting to develop and contribute.





After Music I went for Compass to get CoL in trades. Reseached CS myself while Liberalism was gone. It was then that I went for Natio, trading it for Paper (not for Liberalism!). Then I chose to research Constitution, that was a blunder. I wanted to trade for Education, but I should have chosen Military Tradition for that, all AIs has Constitution when I got it. At least it improved my research muscle through Representation.



Answering your question: Yes, I think you should have gone for Natio. In a Deity game you shouldn't research things all AIs already have, but research something else and then trade for your desired tech. This way you double the number of techs you are getting.