Science 1420 - Options up to Industrialization

[TimTheEnchanter]

We are currently researching Chivalry which will take away our last 20s unit.

Next techs available (none should be hidden this time): Atomic Theory, Leadership, Metallurgy, Steam Engine.

Atomic theory doesn’t lead to much so I won’t include it at this time. It doesn’t hurt anything, we just can’t do anything with it until Mass Production.

Once again you are asked to identify our next target technologies. The list shows our possible targets up to industrialization. I think the potential benefits of these are fairly clear and well known. However, some have potential drawbacks that I will try to point out here.

Railroad has the biggest negative impact – Obsolescence of our Hanging Gardens. Because of this, the Science ministry recommends that we do not research this until we are ready to race forward to get something to make up the happiness like Suffrage and Cure for Cancer. Railroad will also cut our caravan delivery payments by another 1/3. However, we aren’t delivering a lot of caravans right now, so this may not be a big factor.

Discovery of Industrialization has a couple potential impacts. First, it triggers more pollution than pre-industrialization, even in cities without factories. Second, it tends to be a trigger-point at which the AIs really start to form alliances, gang up on us, and trade a lot of techs with each other to catch up

What should be our next tech research targets? – Pick up to 3

 

[funxus]

I think refrigeration should be one of the techs, because that'll make it possible for us to grow our SSC so that we can get much more science than we have now.

I also think tactics and consription are good techs so that we don't have to worry about defense as much and cavalries to attack Hell. We probably need to use 8-attackers, and that's what cavalries are for, but maybe we also need to use cannons on river cities like Athens.

 

[TheViking]

This is a tough one - I'll delay voting until I have a looked at the tech tree and the game at home. The only easy choice is refrigeration.

Tactics would be nice and one of the prereqs is metallurgy (cannons are useful as 'cannon fodder' because cavalry is more expensive). Since tactics requires conscription I wouldn't vote for conscription if I voted for tactics and I also see no need for conscription at the moment, except as a prereq for tactics.

Railroad should definitely not be discovered until after we have celebrated. However, it is a very useful tech. It is true that delivery bonuses drop and HG stops working but as a compensation the existing trade routes yield more $$ once we start railroading Coresux. And we are not making many caravan deliveries at the moment but having RR makes it much easier (faster) to move caravans around. Also it would be extremely useful to discover RR no later than when we invade Hell, sending an army of engineers over there to build RR makes military (oops, peacekeeping ) operations easier (in particular, using cannons).

Heading for industrialization is premature and should be delayed for a long time. Also these days I usually do not build that many factories, preferring to buy stuff instead since factories are expensive.

Port facilities plus some veteran ships could be fun but requires a lot of techs. However, if we head for tactics AW is not far off and if I vote for tactics but also want AW I think I should vote for AW only. Hmmm...

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by funxus
We probably need to use 8-attackers, and that's what cavalries are for, but maybe we also need to use cannons on river cities like Athens.

A cannon is attack 8, 2 hit points. A cavalry is attack 8, 2 hit points. Exact same attacking power. It costs 20s more, but we may as well go with the one with higher defense and most importantly, 2 movement for the quick strike.

 

[TheViking]

I usually prefer conducting first strikes with 'expendable' units like cannons when I expect the attacker to die because cannons are considerably cheaper than cavalry. I then follow up with cavalry when the defenses have been softened up.

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by TimTheEnchanter
A cannon is attack 8, 2 hit points. A cavalry is attack 8, 2 hit points. Exact same attacking power. It costs 20s more, but we may as well go with the one with higher defense and most importantly, 2 movement for the quick strike.

I know, but as you've pointed out earlier, the greeks probably defend their cities with vet pikemen who have double defense against horses. A vet pikeman would therefore have a defense of 6 (If I calculated that right) anywhere against horses. When fortified/behind walls and on protective terrain, this number is quite large, and a vet cavalry would have a hard time beating it.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by funxus

I know, but as you've pointed out earlier, the greeks probably defend their cities with vet pikemen who have double defense against horses. A vet pikeman would therefore have a defense of 6 (If I calculated that right) anywhere against horses. When fortified/behind walls and on protective terrain, this number is quite large, and a vet cavalry would have a hard time beating it.

Actually the pikeman bonus is only 50% and more importantly, it goes away when the attacker has 2 or more hitpoints - therefore it is not in effect when attacking with dragoons or cavalry. If we go in with vet cavalry, even vet pikemen behind walls on a river should not be a major problem. If we do not have vets, we will likely see some casualties in a case like that. If we go in with Crusaders, we would stand almost no chance.

 

[funxus]

I didn't know about the bonus not being in effect with 2HP units. The civilopedia said doubles defense, but it is surprisingly often quite wrong.

I'm all for waiting for cavalries before launching an attack then.

 

[Archer 007]

Refrigeration is an ovious choice

 

[TheViking]

I ended up voting for refrigeration, tactics and steam engine.

Refrigeration was the only obvious choice, it enables Doughnutia to grow, grow, grow.

Tactics was a distant runner up. It is very useful for military operations. However, since metallurgy is a prereq for both refrigeration and tactics it seems to be becoming a very high priority tech as the poll stands now. That's also useful because we should build some cannons to use against the Greeks in cases where we think our attacker might die. This makes sense because cannons are considerably cheaper than cavalry. So once we discover metallurgy (but before we discover tactics) we can build some cannons after barracks are finished in the cities that are to build barracks according to the build queues.

The third tech to vote for was a difficult choice. I ended up voting for steam engine because it is a prereq for railroad but researching railroad is premature at the moment. However, RR will be extremely useful the moment we start peacekeeping operations in Hell so we should research all of RR's prereqs (steam engine is the only prereq we have not finished).

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Recommendations

As the poll stands now (Monday evening Eastern US) Our top priorities look to be Refrigeration, and Tactics. Secondary goals are Electricity, Conscription (prereqs of Refrig and Tactics) and Steam engine. There is strong sentiment not to research Railroad yet.

The MoDA has suggested stealing Chivalry from the Greeks.. This is a good idea, and we can do it on the current turn. This will allow our small number of current beakers to be used on our next tech.

Choices for the next tech will be Atom Theory, Leadership, Metallurgy, and Steam Engine. Our first choice should be Metallurgy because it leads to all of our priority technologies. To get to our top priority of Refrigeration, we need Electricity, but this will not be available when metallurgy is complete, so choose Leadership as our second tech. When leadership is complete Electricity will be available. Again, our desired tech Refrigeration will not be available next, so select Conscription. Once we’ve completed conscription we have access to our top two priorities Tactics and Refrigeration (along with Atom theory, Fundamentalism, and Steam Engine). While Refrigeration was the higher priority, we should choose Tactics because it will not be available next time. Then choose Refrigeration.

In summary, the tech path should be as follows
Chivalry (steal), Metallurgy, Leadership, Electricity, Conscription, Tactics, Refrigeration.

An alternative is to switch the order of Metallurgy and Leadership since electricity can’t be researched until both are complete. They will both be available for the next two techs and by switching we can get dragoons sooner.