Training game emphasizing trading - Emperor

trikos said:
Phil:
1) Can we afford it? Yes
2) Do we need it? Not right now (not an interesting wonder and nobody can research republic).
3) Can it be traded off profitably? Yes. We pay 194g. We can sell for 102+50+24+22+19=215>194. I choose to buy Phil from Spain. It sold the tech cheaply to some of the opponents, but got all their money. That might have been a mistake (?).
Click to expand...
Saldo: Phil for (not mentioned by Trikos) -40 gold (?)

1: What do we want ?
There is Poly and Philosophy on the market. Do we want/need them Not for their use; Philo has nearly no benefits and Poly the same. So we want them only for their trade value. And to see if there are techs beyond the visible techs. But that is unlikely. Only Greece has had Poly for some time. The tech beyond that is the uninterresting monarchy.

2: Trikos' trade.
Did Trikos do a perfect trade ? Well; not really.
He bought only Phil and sold it for extra cash. If an AI pays all their gold it is very likely he would pay more if he had more. And more importantly; Trikos missed a 2fer1. Greece had Poly, but not Phil and The Netherlands had Phil, but no Poly. As Trikos showed us in the price Spain asks for it Poly is more expensive than Phil. But buying Poly from Greece and then trading it to The Netherlands (the usual smart thing to do) has nearly no revenue though, as Neth only has 3 gold. If Phil is bought from the Neth and then used to buy Poly from Greece and then Poly sold to Neth to get out money back, we get a nice 2fer1. It's not good that Trikos missed this 2fer1.

Alternative 1:
Greece: Poly <-> 342
Nether: Phil + 3 <-> Poly
Greece: 156 <-> Phil
Saldo: Poly + Phil for -183

Alternative 2:
Nether: Phil <-> 194
Greece: Poly <-> Phil + 168
Nether: 197 <-> Poly
Saldo: Poly + Phil for -165

3: The Timing.
Was it the right moment to trade? Phil just entered the market and if we'd let it be it could have been a missed 2fer1. That Trikos chose to just buy and not do the 2fer1 doesn't change the fact that the timing was correct. If you use Bede's "3 rules" just to determine the timing, you would have been correct in the trade as well and not only in timing.

4: The trading partner.
There was a 2fer1 as described above. Although Spain also had both techs it wasn't wise to buy from them. Sure, they were lowest in score (of the tech holders) but if you buy Poly from Spain and use it to obtain Phil, you can't get your money back as Spain already has the tech. So Spain was the wrong choise his time. Correct would have been:

Nether: Phil <-> 194
Greece: Poly <-> Phil + 168
Nether: 197 <-> Poly
Saldo: Poly + Phil for 165


Rik's conclusion
I'm sorry; Not a very good display. Bede's "3 rules" were used incorrectly. It did help you to choose the right moment, but blinded you from what is even more important; 2fer1's. Instead of giving us tech equality we are still behind in techs. In 730 BC we are still (at least) 2 techs down on the leaders. I did Rik's alternative and continued the game.
In 825 BC Greece and Spain still have CoL up on us, but all other civs are at least Phil + Poly behind. If Rik's Alternative was chosen we'd be Only 1 tech behind with lots of trade possibilities left. Just Imagine Japan or Neth or Germany being the first and only one with Construction or Currency or Greece or Spain with Monarchy. Immediate 2fer1 or 3fer1.

In all: You've missed a 2fer1 and that is something you will need to learn to spot. 2fer1's are cheaper than just buying a tech. Buying a tech is not as powerful as a 2fer1 and should be only considered if a 2fer1 isn't possible.
 
@Rik Meleet: Thanks for pointing out that I didn't do the trading correctly. I actually 'saw' the possibility for a 2fer1, but decided not to do it. I think I didn't do it because I did not consider all the pros and cons for the 2fer1. I did not realize that the situation is what you call a 2fer1 (guess I didn't understood the concept). I hope I spot it next time.

@team: Sorry I didn't do the 2fer1. I have the save if someone thinks I put the team in a real bad situation.
 
:o

I will leave the trading round for Rik to comment on in detail but will just point out that a slightly different sequence would have netted both techs and the cash.

Now for the rest of the story:

Why all the cash in the treasury?

Why hire specialists at this stage of the game, particularly tax collectors, when we have all the money in the world for paid entertainment?

We lack embassies.

Utica and Carthage are out of phase. Both Carthage and Utica have too many shields and Utica is short food. Both towns need +5 food at all times and Utica needs no more than 5 net spt at all times, while Carthage should always be +5fpt and the shield count should oscillate between 6 and 8(six at pop4 and 8 at pop6).

Worker actions are also out of sync. First priority should be roads and water up the western spine, second roads and forest chops in the east.

Attention to detail is an absolute.

Edit: Per Rik's comments I may need to change Test 3 to read "advantageously" rather than profitably, or add Test 4 "Can you engineer a 2fer or better?"

Also, the quality of play right now is such that I concur with Rik's assessment that this game will be won "easily". It will just be "easier" with a little more attention to the small things.
 
@Bede: I should have used paid lux instead of tax men and bought embassies. I played the workers a bit too random (i.e without a plan). My mistake.

xfer1.
I am not sure I totally understand the concept, so here is my explanation, which might be wrong. Please correct me if I am wrong.

2fer1 means: you buy (or research?) tech A and trade tech A for tech B.
3fer1 means: you buy tech A and trade it for tech B and tech C. Tech B and C are not necessarily bought from the same civ.
 
Xfer1 (X techs for the price of 1).

What is it?
You trade for tech A.
You use tech A to obtain tech B (pay a little extra or even get some things extra). -2fer1
You then use tech A or tech B or both to obtain tech C. -3fer1
etc.

It practically means that for the cost of 1 tech you get 2 (2fer1) or 3 (3fer1) or X (Xfer1) techs. Basically you spend your tech(s) twice or 3 times in 1 turn. In order to accomplish this you need to have 2 or more civs with techs you don't have, but the 2 (or more) civs do not have the same tech. In our case: Neth had Phil, but no Poly and Greece had Poly, but no Phil.

Researching a tech (tech A) and then trading it to obtain 1 tech is not a 2fer1; you didn't buy tech A and only got 1 tech out of your tech A trade. However, if you can trade your tech A for 2 techs (of different civilizations) it is called a 2fer1 again. You buy tech B (pay for with tech A + money) and use tech A and B to obtain tech C. You use your tech A twice.
 
1. Specialists. With a good gpt rate, is it ever smart to use a specialist? When I see only one town with a happiness problem, and a taxman will make that go away for a loss of one shield but no loss of gold it seems to me it might sometimes be better than spending 10-20% of the gpt. Is there a "breakeven" point on specialists?

2. Embassies. I'd like to see discussion on this. I've usually just opened them all as soon as I could afford them but I imagine there is a more nuanced approach. What informs the timing?
 
peacemonger said:
1. Specialists. With a good gpt rate, is it ever smart to use a specialist? When I see only one town with a happiness problem, and a taxman will make that go away for a loss of one shield but no loss of gold it seems to me it might sometimes be better than spending 10-20% of the gpt. Is there a "breakeven" point on specialists?
Click to expand...

If you hire a specialist you don't get food and pop growth. This is a problem early in the game. I usually never use specialist early in a game when lux is cheap. This game was a strange exception...

Later in the game, a specialist or two doesn't bother me if I can get 10 percent more on gold or research.

2. Embassies. I'd like to see discussion on this. I've usually just opened them all as soon as I could afford them but I imagine there is a more nuanced approach. What informs the timing?
Click to expand...

I usually do the same. The only exception is if I know I will go to war against a specific opponent. Again, this game was a strange exception. Establishing the embassy right before the war gives some valuable information about the defense in the capital and wonders (you might want to wait a few turns and get the wonder).
 
Bang on on the specialist thing. At this stage driving population growth to the natural limits of the town site (native nine tiles or more) is critical and specialists only drag down the growth rate. I would only use a taxman now when the food produced working the terrain is less than the citizen's food need, i.e unwatered plains or a hilltop in a corrupted town.

Once towns reach their natural limits (12 or 6) and all terrain is being profitably and productively worked should you consider specialists. BTW I am a big fan of the specialist citizen but there are many things to consider before employing them.

Embassies: As always there is no hard and fast rule. In this game where trade is of paramount importance, and on this map, once Map Making is learned and the other nations are sailing galleys around knowing who knows who is critical knowledge so that you can plan brokering opportunities. In other words Nation A has Tech A, and knows Nations B&C who don't know it but have money to buy it. Then there is Nation D who knows no one, needs knowledge but has no money. You could buy from A, then sell to B&C, but not D, waiting until D accumulated the funds, or some other knowledge to trade for it.

This kind of information is the keystone to Xfering. And without embassies you don't have it.

Before Map Making is known you only need embassies in strategic map locations, for example if CivA has lands between B&C, you only need an embassy in A to keep tabs on whether they know each other.
 
I'd been thinking of the embassy question posted earlier from a strictly military point of view (which is decidedly uncharacteristic of me). I was trying to figure out who we need embassies with to aid and hinder rival civs that were getting ahead (I'd just been reading another sg you're running bede) and to be honest I was pretty much at a loss. But making sure we know who knows who makes much more sense in terms of what we're trying to accomplish in this particular game. Since, I'm on a mental military bent it leads to a question: when is the right time for a japanese invasion? How many units are necessary for assured success, and how quickly could we mount this assault and is it a priority? I suck at gearing up early military so by the time I'm ready for invasions I'm usually already at cavalry so I"m just checking to see how we're feeling about our japanese neighbors and whether we need to start focusing on their destruction.
 
According to some long-dead guy "War is an extension of diplomacy". In this world it is an extension of commerce.

So, fighting our first war with cavlary is probably a good idea. Let the other guys beat their plows into swords and keep just enough military in Carthage to secure the land.

Japan right now is no threat and as far as we know has no resources we need. ANd given our terrain mix the odds of the land we can already claim holding the resources we need are pretty good. At least until the Industrial Age, when we will need coal and oil.

We do need to start thinking about how to manage our relationships with the other nations, though, particularly the scientific ones.
 
So how do we start managing our relationships? I can see that we want to be friendly with the scientific civs, since they're the one's we're gonna be trading with and we want them to like us and specifically accept gpt trades from us, but how do we do this? I'm sure embassies are a good idea so we can tell who they know. That's simply an extension of the bit about who trade with. Just that the scientific civs are the most important because they are gonna have the most new techs for us to buy and possibly broker. But how else do we manage those relationships? I'm asking 'cause I don't know. Is taking less in trades a good idea for friendliness? are gpt trades a way to keep them us in their good books? Do we need to make alliances with them? Bede's asking how we should manage these relationships and I"m asking what are the tools available to manage those relationships. I've obviously not been focusing on that aspect of the game too much.
 
My points:1.Don't sign lux trade through neutral waters,t's too dangerous for our reputation,I've done it several times in my solo game and it's proved to be fatal in DG-Deity.
2.No MA unless there's a danger of dogpile against us.MA restrict us to trade with declared civ for 20t,unless AI stops fighting first,it limits our trading capabilities.
 
@plarq,
agree on the MA point. also if you have an MA with Civ A and an ROP with Civ B, and Civs A and B go to war you end up with a nasty rep hit. not sure I follow your point on lux trades though. can you explain more?
@group,
i want to revisit a question i asked before, not sure we ever discussed. regarding rep -- if you declare war when you are on someone else's turf, is it still a rep hit even if you do not have an ROP in place?
 
@peacemonger, To avoid the reputation hit all your forces, including units without A/D points (workers and scouts), have to be outside the other nation's borders.

Reputation issues are not fatal, they just make the job harder. You can always get a per turn deal by threatening war. It is a risky tactic but can be used effectively.
 
Roster check

jurimax - up :bump:
oopsy poopsy - on deck
bede
plarq
dl123654
peacemonger
trikos
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
[BTS] Earth 18 civs - How to Win (Monarch-Emperor) : 3nd game - India (Emperor)
4 5 6
Replies
110
Views
2K
sylvanllewelyn
S
jorissimo
Jorissimo's opening training shadow thread
3 4 5
Replies
88
Views
4K
jorissimo
jorissimo
chinemol
Immortal Elizabeth NTB ISO game for non specialists
2
Replies
30
Views
2K
Tecumseh1
Tecumseh1
G
A game to avoid punishments
Replies
0
Views
209
Glum
G
Z
Cloud Game - Live Tuner - Re-assigning player
Replies
1
Views
687
Zephn
Z
Back
Top Bottom