Discussion: The Beginnings of Research

[Strider]

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).

 

[DaveShack]

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.

 

[amirsan]

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.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

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

 

[amirsan]

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...

 

[Sharkey]

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.

 

[Eklektikos]

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.

 

[amirsan]

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.

 

[Eklektikos]

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.

 

[Chieftess]

*brushes the dust off*
ok, ok... you brought me in kicking and screaming. (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.

 

[BCLG100]

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.

 

[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.

 

[naervod]

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

 

[donsig]

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.

 

[Strider]

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.

 

[ybbor]

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)

 

[amirsan]

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.

 

[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.

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?

 

[Cyc]

Well, I'm amazed. Here I am agreeing with Strider. 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.

 

[Vander]

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.