Lysippe's Ivory Tower in Themiscyra - The Tech Thread

[SilentConfusion]

Building the AP would give us +2 temples and monasteries. If we have the most cities it will benefit us the most. Could be we could mess with people too. Fits with our spy mission abilities. We could also force opponents to stop war with ally member or face unhappy penalties for defying. Sirius is getting a religion that they say they will spread to us, but I do actually like the idea of getting Theology now after your suggestion.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Building the AP would give us +2 temples and monasteries. If we have the most cities it will benefit us the most. Could be we could mess with people too. Fits with our spy mission abilities. We could also force opponents to stop war with ally member or face unhappy penalties for defying. Sirius is getting a religion that they say they will spread to us, but I do actually like the idea of getting Theology now after your suggestion.

Wow I did'nt even think about the AP. That would be great way to neutralize the bonus that Sirius will get from their Dike UB. We can build a temple (and or Monastery) in every city and get the same amount of the Sirius is getting from Dikes.

Another reason for Theocracy. OK I think I'll go vote for Theocracy now

As far as Sirius's religion goes, I'm all for them spreadig their religion to us. The more religions we have the better... more temples, more faces, more monasteries for more , more priest specialists for a quick Great Prophet Shrine, etc... but let them spread their religion around... we don't have to do the work for them.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Spoiler :

Construction and then Feudalism. Both military techs and on a side note - best turns/beakers ratio of all. Construction will give us also bonus to chopping if we still do have something to chop.

Having said that team Amazon is not on the smart side of the bunch, how we will proceed in the future? Are we going to count on the other civs go share their advanced technologies with us in unequal tech deals as we will producing the less beakers of all our allies? Or trying to build up some science industry ourselves? Or counting on super production + large population and territory to provide military protection for our less powerful but educated allies in exchange of which they will give us their technologies?

Yes, that is exactly what we are doing

We have a treaty with our allies called the ETTT, which requires all the members of the alliance to gift their tech to each other as soon as they discover it, without counting beakers. Here is a link to the treaty:

The ETTT

The relevant section is this
FYI, everyone, I put copies of bot treaties (The SAP and The ETTT) in the AMAZON Constitution thread... I just got tired of looking for them everytime I needed to see the terms

Thats good, but how long the ETTT treaty will be viable? After we eliminate the non-members of the treaty, then what? A new block or blocks must be formed or all will go for themselves. If we are not the smartest or even reasonable - smart by then, who will want us to be their allies if this sets their team back? Or we will use then our super production and population to overwhelm some of them and catching with science? I read about the 4vs1 -> 3vs1 -> 2vs1 -> 1on1 plan, but what will guarantee us that we will not fall in the "1" before the "1on1" stage ? At some point technology will be important so much, that raw power will not be able to compensate.

Since the Theology Poll is almost over, I am attempting to move the tech discussion over here...

2met raises some very good points... some of this damnrunner has mentioned before, but one important issue that we have not discussed much is that we want to be an attractive ally once M&M are defeated. So my response to 2met's questions is that we have a three prong plan/approach to propping up our tech AFTER Merlot and Mav are gone...

1. Treaties (Plan A) - We already have a seperate treaty with Sirius that lasts until 1000AD. We are currently working on a treaty with CDZ that will potentially last until the end of the game. We have also talked to Quatronia about forming a secret treaty. Once we have NAP treaties with our three ETTT allies, we should be well protected from being the odd-man-out in a 3-on-1 situation.

2. Specialist Economy (SE) (Plan B) - Our IMP trait means that we can get cities founded faster, and our CHA trait means that we can grow them larger (with the extra from Monuments). If we get our cities founded early, and focus on growth, (farms, food resources, health, happiness) instead of commerce then we will have plenty of extra citizens to run science specialists for . That is the way to keep up in tech, with not . Our 3 allies are FIN so they get extra . There is no way we can make as much as them, so if we are relying on for tech, we will always be way behind. For this strategy we will need Libraries for scientists, and courthouses for spy specialists, which also produce . Once we have more cities, larger cities, and libraries with 2 scientists in each, we will be making as fast, if not faster than the other teams.

3. Espionage (Plan C) - We are already probably producing way more than anyone else, because we are probably the only team with a courthouse and almost definitely the only team running a spy specialist. We are making 10:espionage/turn while the other teams only make 4/turn. We built the Great Wall in our Capital which gives us 5/turn towards a Great Spy. We will get our first Great Spy very soon. Once we get the Great Spy, we will settle the Spy in our capital, which will increase our output to 22 /turn. Our 2nd Great Spy will come soon after, giving us 44/turn. With this high base rate, by the time M&M are gone we will be able to use the tech slider to pump our output to over 100/turn. Our allies will be reluctant to dump us when we are making enough espy to steal any tech they have. They will want to be on our side rather than against us.
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So in summation,
That is how we stay competitive in tech... Plan A is keep ourselves in an alliance using treaties... If Plan A does not work we use Plan B,... ie., our numerous, larger cities to run science specialists to keep up... and if we start to fall a little behind, we can resort to Plan C, tech stealing with our vastly superior espionage.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Very good logic. But I count them as 3 or 4 turns instead of 2. On turn 97 we log before them and see they need 309 turns. The very same turn they switch to 100% and all their trade goes to beakers (turn1). On turn 98 they tech at full speed (turn2). On turn 99 too(turn3). On t100 again (turn4). Here they finish those 309 beakers, play after us select Optics and lower the slider to 0%. Thats roughly 75-80 BPT, nearly as much as we produce.

Anyway, it seems that we need to adjust and emphasize our tech strategy. In those interesting times with teams resigning and new powerhouses rising steep, we must try to be able in mid-term to depend on ourselves for teching. Sirius are monstrous in GNP now, if they get something from Mavericks they will get insane.

I think the way to do this is to build libraries and run scientists.

We could start by building a library in Otreta and running 2 scientists

 

[2metraninja]

I did not saw this thread until now.

On plan A, I like your strategy and how you conduct it until now. I can say that we are already a diplomatic power everyone have to respect. But if we have NAP with all the 3 remaining members of ETTT, how we can separate and kill one of them to be treated as the "1" in 1vs3 ?


On plan B, I can say that to my experience specialist economy cant keep up with cottages, but is something to keep up and support the cottages.

And for plan C, you know my opinion about espionage economy. Maybe here is the place for me to learn something - how this with the esp. points per turn will be successful if for example someone have 3 or 4 or 5 technologies ahead of us and at some point we decide that we are going to be hostile with them and start investing points and stealing? For points to be accumulated to steal 5 techs from a hostile opponent, we must wait 40-50 turns or more! In this time they will be at our gates with their advanced soldiers to punish us for stealing from them. I think that having great spies at hand and using them as a surprise is more common sense.

Here I agree - having large population in lot of cities will help us. When we win the war we must settle like crazy Merlot's home island will be a fine addition to our empire too.

 

[damnrunner]

Now we are talking libraries - I though we were on a 100% war footing?

Sirius has an insane GNP but it is still largely based on just their capitol city (which has gold, I assume some cottages by now, is in CS, and has an academy). Long run they are not as powerful as they appear right now.

We need to focus on killing Merlot. After that we can get libraries fairly quickly and run specialists. My main concern is that we should have 1-2 cities with cottages to ensure a good gold output - and right now we have none on the horizon. Guess we will just need to capture some.

 

[Sommerswerd]

@ damnrunner - If you look at my above 3 prong plan you will see that I am only talking about increasing our tech output AFTER M&M are defeated. For now we should focus on War, War, War, and let our allies handle the tech, since none of them seem inclined to fight. Especially if the admins let Merlot take over Mavs...... all they are going to do is slave down the Mav cities to produce a suicide squad to overwhelm us and protect the Merlot positions. At least then they take us down with them.

@2metra - After the 2nd Great Spy builds Scotland Yard, then we can save great spies to give big Spy points against enemies as a suprise. That is a good idea 2metra, and I think the best way to use our spies After we get Scotland Yard.

Reason we need Scotland Yard is as a HUGE deterent against enemies betraying us. If they know we have Scotland yard, they know that we are capable of seeing their cities in only a few turns. Also, we will always have a steady stream of espy points to use for spy missions whenever we need them. Remember that Civic switching is allowed in this game... that will be a powerful weapon down the road.

I agree that Scotland Yard, (ie building espy points each turn) is not what we use for stealing tech. Great Spy bomb is what we use for stealing. Right now we have no need to steal tech, because of the ETTT, but later, the threat of being able to steal will make allies think twice about dumping us.

FYI, In the Tribal Pitboss game we are playing, my play was not a good example of Espy Economy. So you should not use that as a basis for your opinion about using Espionage.

Spoiler :

First of all, I joined the game too late to get the Great Wall, which is a must for an Espy Economy. Also, I never settled a great Spy, or built Scotland Yard. Additionally, I did not save my Great Spies to use as a Surprise, instead I kept using them on you one at a time. So I would say that you should not use this as an example of a well run Espy Economy. It just does not set a good example. Finally, I depended totally on Espy for tech which is a no-no. A well run EE means you must support it with SE, WE, or CE.

If you look at the Plan C above, you will see that I only recommend we use tech stealing as a last-resort, stop gap measure... but to have this option available to us we must put the foundations in place... For example, with Scotland Yard, we will be able to quickly determine what enemies are teching, so we can move Our spies and Great spies into place to steal the tech as soon as they get it, rather than waiting for them to get superior units and bring them to our gates before we realize what is coming.

 

[2metraninja]

Everything you said makes sense to me. Maybe I am too straight-forwarded and always use what I know best and I know it works every time. I have learned that in Civ4 land and food are kings, slavery is the most powerful civic, waging war is essential, cottages are the best for economy. But I guess I am wide open to try and learn new things.

Spoiler :

In fact I am new to this type of multiplayer games that last up to the second millennium AD and you have time to plan everything. I have learned multiplayer in The League, where the games are decided normally at the arrival of knights around 1000AD. Every game lasts 2 or 3 hours and you learn how to attack and how to defend in ancient and medieval times really well, as there is a city capture limit - every city is priceless. Tribal Warfare is my second pitboss and it showed really well that I even dont know what to do and how to plan research after the knights - I left myself catched having only macemans against Niklas riflemans.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Spoiler :

I left myself catched having only macemans against Niklas riflemans.

That is another example of how we can use espionage in this game. So that we have visibility of their cities, which is priceless. If we can see all their cities then we will know all their units movements and army strengths, withou risking our spies and without them even knowing what we can see. The way to do this is with imbedded points, not wasting spies to see cities. That way we can use our Great Spies and other Great people for better things.

Spoiler :

I had no contact with Niklas before we started fighting. I walked a spy all the way across your land to meet Niklas. Then, I used my espionage visibility of all your cities to tell Niklas where all your defenses were. That convinced him to attack you and take half of your land. He had no plans to invade you before I told him where all your units were. Once he realized that your defenses were down he was convinced to attack. That is one reason city visibility is so important. If Niklas had not made peace with you, he might have taken all your cities. Espionage can be very powerful if used well.

 

[Sommerswerd]

We get Feudalism in 3 turns if I read the turn log correctly. What should we tech next. I favor going for Frigates. I don't want Sirius to still have Naval Superiority when the treaty expires. I think we need Chemistry for frigate so we might need Guilds and Gunpowder first. if that is correct, I say beeline Chemistry.

As an aside, I think we should plan on invading MHI with Knights and trebuchets. Waiting for Rifles takes too long, especially since we are dependant on allies for most of our tech. while we wait for Sirius to give us the tech to Invade MHI, they might be planning to dump us before Rifling, and keep it for themselves to use against us. We should try to capture the MHI cities before Sirius gets the Mavs island or they may end up too strong to catch up to.

Please let's build Libraries in all cities and start running 2 scientists in every city as soon as possible. The main thing we should be doing with the time between now and when SAP ends in 1000AD is get some tech independence.

 

[Calis]

In the other thread you said we should run spies to steal techs.

I am not an expert in this game, but building up a money economy and steal techs--> would that be doable?

 

[Sommerswerd]

In the other thread you said we should run spies to steal techs.

Yes that's right, and I still want to run spy specialists in the capital. The reason I want to continue running a spy specialist is so that we have a decent chance of popping more Great Spies. Great Spies will be very valuable to us when the ETTT starts to break apart.

However, we also need to boost our tech rate dramatically, as the SAP treaty with Sirius is drawing to a close. They may want to extend it, but we cant depend on that. They could just as easily be planning to attack us as soon as the treaty expires. We need to build libraries and run scientists for the they produce. If you run enough scientists, you still have a high tech rate, even with the slider set to 0% research. That is because scientists make directly, so they dont need to convert to science. With the slider set to 100%, we are converting our into . If we run scientists, we are generating pure even with the slider at 0%.

So what I propose, is to build libraries, starting with our largest cities, and immediately start running 2 scientists. Keep running the spy as well in the capital. With the Spy the Great Wall and the Courthouse, we generate 6 per turn towards a great Spy. the two scientists from the library will give an additional 4 per turn towards a Great Scientist. This will also make our Great People come faster.

If we get Great Scientists, we can build an academy in our Capital and other higher cities/ cities, settle them, or use them for golden Ages. If we get Great Spies, we bank them to be unleashed on our enemies when the ETTT breaks up. By running the spy, we keep our base espionage high, which, in addition to helping us against Merlot, also lowers the cost of spy missions against teams that we are not even putting espionage against. By running the Scientists, we keep our tech rate at a steady pace, even with the slider turned all the way down for upgrades.

Our allies will know that with our Great Spies and High base espionage points, we will be able to steal their tech as easily as trade for it. That will make us a more attractive ally, because we can tech one thing and steal what the enemies are teching. It is not now that we need it so much, because we are ahead of M&M, but when the ETTT breaks up, everyone will be relatively even in tech. That is when tech-stealing becomes most valuable, because it will allow us to prevent our enemies from getting ahead of us, even while they refuse to trade with us.

What I expect will happen, is that someone will get a powerful Military tech, like Rifling or Guilds or or Steel or Assembly line... something like that and then they will leave the alliance with one (or two) of the other ETTT members. Since our 3 allies are FIN, and we were not able to get a head start in our cities (because of the War) they will continue to tech faster than us. That makes us dead weight techwise, unless we can make up the difference somehow, or prove valuable in some other way.

To illustrate, when M&M are gone, it will probably either be 3 against 1, or 2 against 2. If we are the slowest to tech, then none of the fast teching FIN teams want to be stuck with us, the non-FIN, slow teching team. Unless, that is, we are teching faster than they are, even without that bonus that they get for being FIN. The only ways we can get tech faster than them is to either have more, cities, and larger cities, or run specialists to make up the difference. We can't compete with them in terms of . We already missed out on the lead in cities, so we have to go to plan b.

The other thing we can do is let them know that we will be able to steal tech any time the opposition gets ahead of us. That will counteract our lower . We dont want to be the ones left out in the cold.

I am not an expert in this game, but building up a money economy and steal techs--> would that be doable?

If by "money economy" you mean cottage economy, then I would say we are better off using a food based economy, running specialists. As I explained above, our allies are all FIN, so it is hopeless trying to keep up with them in terms of money.

 

[Calis]

To steal techs, do we need money, or espionage points?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Espionage points.

 

[Calis]

Espionage points.

In this case my previous comment made no sense anyway

 

[2metraninja]

However, we also need to boost our tech rate dramatically, as the SAP treaty with Sirius is drawing to a close. They may want to extend it, but we cant depend on that. They could just as easily be planning to attack us as soon as the treaty expires. We need to build libraries and run scientists for the they produce. If you run enough scientists, you still have a high tech rate, even with the slider set to 0% research. That is because scientists make directly, so they dont need to convert to science. With the slider set to 100%, we are converting our into . If we run scientists, we are generating pure even with the slider at 0%.

So what I propose, is to build libraries, starting with our largest cities, and immediately start running 2 scientists. Keep running the spy as well in the capital. With the Spy the Great Wall and the Courthouse, we generate 6 per turn towards a great Spy. the two scientists from the library will give an additional 4 per turn towards a Great Scientist. This will also make our Great People come faster.

If we get Great Scientists, we can build an academy in our Capital and other higher cities/ cities, settle them, or use them for golden Ages. If we get Great Spies, we bank them to be unleashed on our enemies when the ETTT breaks up. By running the spy, we keep our base espionage high, which, in addition to helping us against Merlot, also lowers the cost of spy missions against teams that we are not even putting espionage against. By running the Scientists, we keep our tech rate at a steady pace, even with the slider turned all the way down for upgrades.

Our allies will know that with our Great Spies and High base espionage points, we will be able to steal their tech as easily as trade for it. That will make us a more attractive ally, because we can tech one thing and steal what the enemies are teching. It is not now that we need it so much, because we are ahead of M&M, but when the ETTT breaks up, everyone will be relatively even in tech. That is when tech-stealing becomes most valuable, because it will allow us to prevent our enemies from getting ahead of us, even while they refuse to trade with us.

What I expect will happen, is that someone will get a powerful Military tech, like Rifling or Guilds or or Steel or Assembly line... something like that and then they will leave the alliance with one (or two) of the other ETTT members. Since our 3 allies are FIN, and we were not able to get a head start in our cities (because of the War) they will continue to tech faster than us. That makes us dead weight techwise, unless we can make up the difference somehow, or prove valuable in some other way.

To illustrate, when M&M are gone, it will probably either be 3 against 1, or 2 against 2. If we are the slowest to tech, then none of the fast teching FIN teams want to be stuck with us, the non-FIN, slow teching team. Unless, that is, we are teching faster than they are, even without that bonus that they get for being FIN. The only ways we can get tech faster than them is to either have more, cities, and larger cities, or run specialists to make up the difference. We can't compete with them in terms of . We already missed out on the lead in cities, so we have to go to plan b.

The other thing we can do is let them know that we will be able to steal tech any time the opposition gets ahead of us. That will counteract our lower . We dont want to be the ones left out in the cold.

Very good analysis, Sommers. I am worried from the start about us being as you brilliantly said "the dead weight" when the ETTT breaks apart.

Running specialists can be a life belt when it comes to this, and we must have the ability to do it, when the time comes, but for now, if we run 2 scientists in each of our cities, most of which are small on population, this will keep them small for the future. Also, 2 scientists in each of our say 5 big enough to support 2 scientists each cities = 10 scientists x 3 beakers = 30 beakers ( + 25% for libraries) = 37.5 beakers/turn (+ ofc the Great Person points, which they generate), which isnt great - now we are making 147 beakers/turn at 100% science slider.

I would say we to let our cities grow on full speed and if we need to show ability to tech fast, we can build wealth and probably run 100% science. Building libraries and having Great Spies at hand is still a must ofcource.

As an aside, I think we should plan on invading MHI with Knights and trebuchets. Waiting for Rifles takes too long, especially since we are dependant on allies for most of our tech. while we wait for Sirius to give us the tech to Invade MHI, they might be planning to dump us before Rifling, and keep it for themselves to use against us. We should try to capture the MHI cities before Sirius gets the Mavs island or they may end up too strong to catch up to.

I am not sure if M&M will be dead before rifles, but the idea for knights and trebuchets is nice. With Triple City Rider promoted trebuchets and quatro promoted Knights protected with LBs and Xbows on hills we can take cities on MHI with surprise landings from the sea if we build enough spies to cut effectively and surprisingly their reinforcement roads. I have to think about this and see if such plan is doable.

 

[damnrunner]

Knights to attack MHI makes sense to me. It will also give us a strong core of elite cavalry units for when we end up at war with ETTT members.

Timing wise we probably want the ETTT to break up right after we have Nationalism and Rifling. That will be the point where we will be comparatively most powerful due to the fact that we will have the most cities allowing us to draft huge numbers of units.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I dont want the ETTT to break up TBH. I would rather systematically expel one member after the other, until it is just us and one team left. To me the ideal situation is for the "other" (last) member of the ETTT to be fighting to elimminate the member we just agreed to expel, while we are building our military and cities up. That way, when that team is destroyed, we are in the best position to win the game through war or peaceful means.

One good way to help ensure this, is for us to always be the team that is researching the Military tech.

 

[damnrunner]

That would be ideal, but it will be hard to pull off. More likely is it splits into a 2v2 fight.

Which team do we think would be easiest to isolate? We would gain the most by taking Sirius's land, as they are our closest neighbor. However, by the same logic it would probably be easiest to convince Sirius and CDZ that they should dog-pile on Q. They attack from the flanks while we secure more of central Star. Then with 3 teams left it starts to get tricky. At this point we probably don't want to be the clear strongest team as that would encourage the 2 weaker teams to ally up.

 

[2metraninja]

I also think Q are the best candidate for isolation. They had quarrels with CDZ already, and CDZ and Sirius are our most trusted allies. Also, Sirius are the strongest team overall for now and this tendency is likely to stay valid for the time before M&M are gone.