JAR02, Always War Emperor

[jarred!]

For the large map, do we want the 9 scientific AI plus 2 randoms, or do we want to play 2 civs short?

 

[tjs282]

If we're really going to DG *tremble*, I'd be happy to play 2 Civs short...

 

[CKS]

Either is fine with me, really, but 2 civs short gives us a little more room at the start, and I like that.

 

[Lanzelot]

Haven't played an SG for quite some time, so I might be tempted... But spaceship takes a lot of time, especially a "self-reliant" one on DG... (Don't underestimate the tech prices on DG -- it's a quite significant difference to emperor.)

The only restriction is to disallow gifting backward civs to the next age for the sole purpose of us scalping their free, now reduced price, techs. 'Regular' tech trading is allowed.

I think this rule is going to cause trouble, because it's too "imprecise". How do you define "regular"...?

"You want to buy Magnetism for your world map? Fine! And how about Theory of Gravity for 2 gold? Excellent!" -- I think you get the picture...
Most often a deal like that would have the sole purpose of circumventing your rule... But not always: I have done such deals as real deals (even with non-scientific civs where there would clearly be no return on investment) in cases where I urgently needed 13 more gold to

• upgrade an urgently needed unit or cash-rush something urgently needed
• prevent my bank account from going below zero, so that I was able to run science at 10% higher and still finish a tech this turn instead of next
• see the map to find resources well in advance and be able to make plans on how to acquire them
  
• etc.

Also, in order to get a somewhat decent science rate going, you will need to trade for luxuries. Otherwise your science rate will stay at 30% for a long time... On DG you cannot simply roll over 2-3 neighbors quickly to get the required luxes, so you will have to trade for them. And the only way to buy these expensive things is to pay with techs! Have you thought about this important point already?

I can imagine that this rule is going to cause a lot of controversy. You'll need a lawyer in your roster, if you want to play under this rule...
If you want to try the real thing ("No tech trading. Full-stop."), I might be tempted to join. Alternatively you could go for a regular game (no trade restrictions) and up the ante to Deity?!

 

[CKS]

Somehow, I don't think the "impreciseness" of the rule will be a big issue for us. Unless you'd care to join in, I expect we won't be in this situation until the modern age, when I'll not be wanting any more AI to join the space race. On DG I've never been tempted to gift the AI any techs, though I've made some strange deals as you have.

Our idea isn't to learn all the techs ourselves, Spoonwood is the one who mentioned that. We are only disallowing one tiny segment of tech trades, and I think we have a good understanding of what's okay and what's not. If I'm wrong, there will be plenty of pages of arguments to entertain everyone who didn't want to join us.

 

[jarred!]

Generally, having a bunch of scientific AI in the game will make it easier, not only due to the human keeping them on life support long after a civ with other traits would have died or gifting scientific civs back into the game to exploit their trait. The point of the rule is not to find loopholes, but to try to stop us from exploiting their trait.