T&T - Long term research.

[Rik Meleet]

It is usually not wise to decide every turn what we want to research next. A plan for the longer term usually pays off. Of course we shouldn't necessarily always stick to it, but it gives some handles.

1 such idea is to research "bee-line"towards Democracy. The government type which defines our game and our nation. And 1 of the best if you aren't heavily loosing in a war.

Another such idea is to bee-line towards Miltary tradition. That (optional) tech gives us a strong attacking unit.

Some people bee-line towards the Industrial age, skipping optional techs as much as possible. Advantages are that you get the important stuff, railroads, factories and hospitals soon.

You can also set smaller goals; beeline to gunpowder to reveal whether we have Saltpeter or not.

Do we want to bee-line to anything ?
If no, what do we want instead ?
If yes, where to ?

This thread is to express your long-term wishes concerning research.

 

[tao]

Research serves a purpose: to advance Fanatica towards the desired victory over all other nations. But we haven't agreed on our goal yet: space race? diplomatic? conquest? histographic? IMHO cultural 100k and even more cultural 20k are unlikely to happen.

As long as the victory target condition is not set, at least in the GOTM community the consensus is that best scores are achieved when expanding (by force) to the domination limit and then pursue the desired victory condition. And expanding would give us more provinces, more democracy in the democracy game. I favour it.

Since the world is mostly settled, we have to expand by force. This suggests to go for gunpowder and military tradition. The military way also gives better chances to generate Great Leaders to build Great Wonders.

I personally would never research towards education only to nullify Germany's Great Library. As long as we trade carefully, the Great Library is not a problem.

Despite the current war, we need some libraries. And markets. We can then pre-build for universities with cathedrals.

It is also likely, that the AIs favor the top branch of techs (theology, education, and chivalry). Once we learned gunpowder, and if at that time we can get education, we may put astronomy in between, if and only if this would allow us to trade with overseas civs. This is to be decided later.

And the opportunity in the current situation is, that properly handeled we slow down AI research.

 

[ravensfire]

Phase one: bee-line to Education, which we trade to Germany. No more GL for you!

Phase two: bee-line to Mil. Trade - we've got several aggressive countries on our continent - we'll need to knock Babylon back some, and Cav's the way to do it.

Along the way of both of those paths, we'll get the following nifty things:
-- Cathedrals
-- Sistine Chapel
-- University
-- Pikes
-- Sun Tzu's
-- Leo's Workshop
-- Longbowmen
-- Musketeer's <- our UU!
-- Cannon

With that path, we learn Gunpowder in 7 techs. Hopefully we'll have some. A nice win with a Musketeer, and we're in our GA. We should have a nice base of cities, and hopefully started on the FP. A nice production gain, some good growth, and that push should put us over the top.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Strider]

I would prefer to bee-line to economics. Smiths Trading Center is the VERY first usefull wonder that can really be built by the human player. Not only that, but the free marketplaces, banks, harbors, & airports will help our economy, ALOT.

Also, why make a bee-line for education and stop there? Banking comes right after education, the banks and wall street could greatly aid our economy, if we are going to head down that path, let's go all the way.

 

[Rik Meleet]

We are currently researching Feudalism. With the long term research beelines in mind; what to do next and then and then.

Give me your next 3 techs to research.

 

[Strider]

Monotheism
Theology
Education
Banking
Economics
Printing Press
Democracy

That's my prefered queue. (and yes, I know it's more than three)

 

[tao]

I think this is a too limited discussion. Research shall help us to succeed in our overall goal. But what is that goal?

1. peaceful expansion only: go for democracy
2. expansion: go for military tradition
3. we have no clue: discuss research without the big picture in mind
   [/list=1] I follow however two general rules:
   
   Never research the optional techs printing press, democracy, music theory, economics. They can easily be acquired by trading. Just have pre-builds ready to grab the wonders even if you only get the tech cheaply after most of the AIs know them.
   
   If it open overseas trading possibilities, always research navigation before banking.

 

[zorven]

I think we should pursue the military techs. We are going to need to expand with force and we need superior technology to do it.

 

[Strider]

We won't beable to expand by force without the economy to do so, which we don't have. We need to atleast acquire banking, untill heading for the military techs.

Also, the military techs are normally researched by the AI, and we hold very little chance of getting them before they do, so we will likely be buying them from the AI for alittle cheaper, then getting ahead in research.

 

[tao]

I have to disagree with you on both statements.

Originally posted by Strider
We won't beable to expand by force without the economy to do so, which we don't have. We need to atleast acquire banking, untill heading for the military techs.

Experience from the gotm says, that top players often don't even build markets before achieving conquest or domination victory.

Also, the military techs are normally researched by the AI, and we hold very little chance of getting them before they do, so we will likely be buying them from the AI for alittle cheaper, then getting ahead in research.

The AIs are much more likely to research the upper part of the tech branch.

 

[Rik Meleet]

Never research the optional techs printing press, democracy, music theory, economics. They can easily be acquired by trading. Just have pre-builds ready to grab the wonders even if you only get the tech cheaply after most of the AIs know them.

I disagree. The AI usually ignores most of these, so you can research them first and trade them for techs they all have. Especially Democracy is very expensive if you try to 'buy' it through trades.

 

[tao]

Originally posted by Rik Meleet
I disagree. The AI usually ignores most of these, so you can research them first and trade them for techs they all have. Especially Democracy is very expensive if you try to 'buy' it through trades.

I disagree.

The AIs ALWAYS research these techs. And trade them around. Thus you get also democracy very cheap at 4th, 5th, etc. price. The human player profits much more from advancing thru military tradition, theory of evolution, magnetism to the Industrial Age.

Trust me, I know what I'm doing. Sledge Hammer

 

[Rik Meleet]

Originally posted by tao
I disagree.

The AIs ALWAYS research these techs. And trade them around. Thus you get also democracy very cheap at 4th, 5th, etc. price. The human player profits much more from advancing thru military tradition, theory of evolution, magnetism to the Industrial Age.

Trust me, I know what I'm doing. Sledge Hammer

I disagree.
My AI's never research those techs, at least not immediately. They usually go for Feudalism, Gunpowder, Astronomy, Magnetism. When they've researched (nearly) all of them, they go for banking. Democracy is usually ignored for a long time by my AI. Remember this game was created on my PC.

When we get to the new age, sure ToE is the wonder to get. I suppose you meant ToG ?

- And I never trust Sledge Hammer. -

 

[Strider]

Tao, it's actually a proven fact that more AI's head up the military line then the democracy one, and the majority of one's that do go up it, often stop at banking.

 

[tao]

At least we agree that we disagree.

During the Middle Ages, I usually try to research as fast as possible. (As we are doing it now.) For this I build universities always before banks. If i run a high research rate, only about 10% go to taxes. And only on this 10% the banks would add 50%.

Thus I spend the Middle Ages building universities and maybe cathedrals and build the banks beginning of Industrial Times before factories and power plants are available.

Military tradition is just great because it allows you cavalry. And cavalry is great to conquer and generate Great Leaders.

While I research ToG and magnetism, the AIs usually research banking. Trading allows to enter Industrial Times, while the AIs research the missing 2nd tech. Thus I am first with steam and railroads.

Usually I am able to sustain 4-5 turn research and thus never go from republic to democracy. The war weariness risk is much too high to balance against the anarchy period and industrial workers with rep parts are good enough. Corruption reduction is below 5% and not worth the switch either.

 

[Krabius]

It was fun reading all your disagree statments, but you probably play different styles. I prefer playing millitary way, if we will be succesful it will be easy to get good techs from AIs giving them peace, but the war way is risky.

 

[Rik Meleet]

At least we agree that we disagree.

I disagree .

The AI usually choose the tech that it benefits immeiately the most from. Printing Press is one such tech that it doesn't benefit immediately from, thus while the AI will go for Monotheism and Theology, it then stops and research the bottom branch. When you trade Printing Press around, Education and Banking (with immediate benefits) are possible and they will be researched by the AI.

The AI usually doesn't bee-line, we do. That is our advantage; we have to use it.

 

[Strider]

So you are saying that we should constantly keep taking more money from our coffers, first by building universities, then by building calvary, and not building any improvements that will lessen this load untill the industrial age's? Also, your saying that we should keep our science rate at 90%.

By the time we research education, the AI's are likely to have invention already, while we still don't have engerneering, and were likely not to have any techs to trade for it, if we start heading up one path, and then just decide to stop and go up the other.

Also, what happens in your games doesn't matter.