TGOM 02 - The Grumpy Old Monk and the Ancient Crone go to Alpha Centauri

Got it. We're having some people over tonight, so I'll play later after they leave. I'm intending to post the turn log some time late tonight. Do we have any reason to believe Egypt and Greece are in contact with each other? If so, might as well sell to both to get as many techs and as much cash as possible. In any case, I will wait to last possible turn to sell to anyone. Blue dot sounds like a good growth plan to me.
 
Careful with the population of Salamanca. Want to keep it at least at 3-5 and preferably 4-6 if there is an improved field to work. That will help big time with the research effort.

Silly Greeks, running around busting barbarian camps like some kind of Ijeets.
 
So do you think I should switch the settler over for now and let the population build back up for a bit? As for the worker, obviously the silks are a priority, and then improvements around Bedesville...
 
I have a couple technical questions.

1) Does anyone else have problems trying to use Mapstat and CAII together in a game? I brought up CAII on (I think) turn 16 to evaluate the trading opportunities. Whenever I have both programs running, I get a sort of flash/flicker of mapstat/CAII on my screen for notifications, but then they both recede to the background and I have to bring them up manually. I think that's how I missed Salamanca's growth on turn 16 or 17 (usually relying on mapstat), and didn't see it until I went into the City view subsequently. Are there optimal settings for running both, or should I just use one? or bring up CAII when needed...then close it completely? They seem to interefere with each other, but maybe it's just me.

2) How do you get the smaller screenies? I can get the whole screen, but have no idea how to get smaller, like just the mini-map. I liked General Mayhem's presentation of detail.

Edit for another tech question:

3) Does anyone else have a problem with CFC completely freezing up after having played Civ? I find I have to reboot every single time I switch. I can get CFC to come up, but cannot click on anything. Again, is that just me? Any ideas on how to fix that? It's very frustrating to look at one of this game's saves, wanting to make a comment, but needing to reboot first. Sheesh! I am soooo impatient. :rolleyes:
 
eotinb said:
So do you think I should switch the settler over for now and let the population build back up for a bit? As for the worker, obviously the silks are a priority, and then improvements around Bedesville...
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I'm no expert for sure, but I'd build a warrior or something to allow Salamanca to grow (or get closer to growth) before building the settler. We don't want to go back to pop 2. Pop 3 seems to be ok to start if growth is on the very next turn with settler in 5, as it actually is produced in 4 with a little MMing (at least that seems to work for me). Kinda depends on the food and shields available.

I'm still working very hard on learning to develop settler factories, playing games just to the point of getting them to work dependably, then scrapping the game and starting another. A very useful exercise, but not so good if you really enjoy Industrial Age play. :(
 
I never run MapStat and CAII together, the only thing that MapStat has that CAII doesn't is pollution alerts, and CAII has a much nicer format.

I get my smaller screenies by pressing ctrl + Print Screen, then opening paint and pressing ctrl + v (paste). Then I use the selection tool in paint to grab the area of the screen shot that I want, press ctrl + c (copy), go up to file on paint and choose new, and then paste the selected area into the new blank form that paint provides.
 
Thank you, General. I didn't know there WAS a selection tool in Paint, but I will go look immediately. :D

I've used Mapstat for months, but CAII is new to me and has more info than I can easily absorb, so I've tried running both to compare. Maybe I'll try a few games with CAII only instead. It's hard to switch from the familiar to the unknown. ;) I love the city planning feature in CAII and the trading screen and tech valuations. The drawback seems to be getting more alerts than I really want, often when nothing has changed. Maybe it's my settings.
 
Yes, I've gone through the alerts menu and de-selected a lot of them, the show current year one is the one to de-select if you don't want to recieve an alert on a turn that nothing happened on.
 
OK, I've figured out the smaller screen shots. Also, CAII is working nicely alone in a current game. Thank you, General, for your advice. Whether or not I ever become a better player, I'm definitely improving on posting mechanics. :lol:
 
TGOM's Three Tenets of Technology Trading:
(Based on a reversal of the old horse trader's saw about white feet on a horse)

"One white foot, buy him
Two white feet, try him
Three white feet, feed him to the crows"

1) Do you need it?
2) Can you afford it?
3) Can you make it profitable?

If a technology trade meets one of these criteria pass it by. If it meets two of the criteria then consider it. If it meets all three, then do it now. But if #1 makes the difference between victory or defeat then do it earlier.

And if you want to see smoke pour from my ears and flames from my Irish proboscis, then buy a monopoly tech and have no sucker standing by to relieve you of the burden.

And since we will be doing lots of our own full bore research I have another tactic which I apply: if you do not succeed in beating a rival to an important, valuable, monopoly technolgy, then go to F1, move both sliders to 0 and try to buy it, but only when there is some way to get back most of the investment. The seller will give some credit for what has been invested and you should be able to make some coin back when you sell it on.

Since I usually don't build wonders until ToE and Hoover's I tend to ignore the optional wonder building technologies, except for Literature and Navigation. Literature for the libraries and Naivigation for the maps. Printing Press can be good too as it tends to be ignored and will frequently have a monopoly value.

Since this game is heading for Space we want to work the era change as hard as we can. That will mean researching or acquiring lots of the optional MA and IA knowledge so there will be trade bait for the Scientific nations' free tech at the era change.
 
Quick update. Guests left late and I'm bushed. I will have to wait until tomorrow, perhaps as late as tomorrow night. Sorry to those feverishly refreshing their browsers in anticipation of my update.
 
Admiral Kutzov said:
better to buy with gold or gpt? why or why not?
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Depends.

Generally speaking, if an AI is beating you to a tech it's because they have a stronger economy. Paying gpt only compounds the problem, because your payments will be strengthening their economy even further. Besides which, if you pay lump sum the AI will usually burn the cash by rushing unnecessary units or improvements, which will chip away at their economy through maintenance or unit support costs.

On the other hand, large gpt payments to the AI can serve as a deterrent to a war declaration. Resources work better for that purpose, but gpt is better than nothing at all. Also, if an attack looks imminent you can trade gpt for a tech and leave the AI with the bill if he declares on you next turn.

How's that?
 
Good answer, cleverhandle. I'd have had to think about it for a long time and then I'd have only come up with the second part as a deterrent. You saved me the mental exercise in getting an only partial answer.
 
I'll let your mentor give the definitive answer. it was a good answer, clever.

I'm not much good above emperor, but I rarely buy anything except by gpt for diplomatic reasons. sensei will elaborate
 
Upon further reflection, I would add that those are my thoughts for most of the game, but that I wasn't thinking specifically of our current position. I suspect the dynamics could be different early on, because there aren't many resources on the market yet (to act as deterrents) and because there are so many techs that can be researched at the same time (so an AI could easily get a tech despite having a relatively weak economy). I always feel pretty confused about tech trading in the early AA.
 
I find that in the AA, I rarely have enough gold for either lump sum OR gpt for trades. Since we are going for max science right now, that would seem to be the current case.

Which brings up an additional question for me. How do you decide whether to go for max or min research? I've seen both recommendations in various threads, but never a direct comparison in a single thread. In my SP games I generally go for 50% science as a compromise, but I've read comments that it is the worst way to go and don't understand why.

Good question, AK, for bringing up more discussion. Questions lead to more and more questions. :)
 
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