The Council has reached the modern age, while Free remains industrial. They are obviously aligned and Saber is intent on holding Free down. I'm guessing, but Free is probably losing the research battle due to high unit support. They were the first science team to become stronger than us. I'm working on an IA timeline, but so far it appears Saber stole at least atomic theory and electronics from Free. Council and Free researched at least four cheap optional techs during the IA and probably saved money for safe steals from Free.
I've received this reply in gmail from Whomp in regards to stealing techs ourselves.
Whomp said:
I sent the map and 189g. We can do 423 gpt and are running 80gpt unit supprort. I could disband some cavalry and focus solely on infantry. I stopped research for the turn if you guys think it's better to steal. Remember it would be through the embassy so if we were to steal grabbing espionage would be the most logical. We don't have embassies with any of the others iirc but I can look again. Stealing through the embassy is less efficient. I know there's an article with the odds but I know espionage helps those figures quite a bit.
Let me know if you think we should research again or save the cash
Just realized I forgot to send mass production. So sorry but I'll send it next turn
My thought is we should have them research motorized transportation for defense and then espionage while sending us gold when they can to speed our research on flight. We can then research the cheap scientific method while they do marines and be ready to start steal attempts after this in about 14 turns.
I've checked the percentages for stealing tech safely. It's 68% with a spy and 52% using the embassy. That means on average we need 7500-8000 gold to get 2 techs with a spy. We should be close to having an attempt every 4-turns by then. Not a bad deal at all, especially considering tech costs in the modern age. Atomic theory and electronics would be cheaper though, so we may want to research those and have more time to get the Intelligence agency built and build some defense as we need to be ready if we fail. We can hope getting flight, tanks, and marines will deter an attack a while longer. According to the formula on the cost of tech steals, the less techs they are ahead, the cheaper its cost as well. I need to give Whomp an answer by the next turn, so input on what we should do is requested.
In production this turn:
Heartbreak Hotel=>marketplace-colosseum
Whip It!=>marketplace-courthouse in 10
An infantry is drafted at We Built This City and Smoke on the Water whips a marketplace for 4 pop. We get our first bit of pollution at Sugar Mtn, but 6 workers clean it and no builds are delayed. We need 3 more workers to have the 18 needed to clean a mountain or two hills in one turn if we get pollution there. Our workers also chop ten shields into We Built This City and it will now produce an infantry in 2 turns. Dirty Old Town becomes our 12th city and will continue to grow even while building a few workers. Here's a zoomed out look of Gongland after all actions this turn.
We'll be able to whip markets in several cities soon and might also consider building a couple of banks to pay the bills as well. Our boats continue their patrols and another Saber destroyer is spotted 9-tiles east of DSOTM. The Councils frigate has stayed in place and is monitoring movements as we are. In the above minimap we need line of sight as far as the small resource islands. This would take another 6-8 boats and we should have these in about 12 turns. We remain average to Council and weak versus all other teams. Here's a screenshot of our domestic advisor with 10 tax-men, 4 policemen, and 41 scientists for a balanced budget and flight due in 27 turns at 100% tax-rate.
With the courthoses seen in the screenshot we should have about 6 towns able to make infantry every six turns as well as the 2-turn infantry from Graceland and Sugar Mountain. DSOTM will be our main naval producer.
We are still at 840cpt with 41,524 total culture and the Council remains in a distant second at 265cpt. Just completing the culture builds we have going now will save another turn. We can expect to reach 100K at least by turn 270 or 65 turns from now in 1390AD. Here's screenshot of the culture graph so far in the game. This of course accounts for a good part of power graph as well as we still are behind most in military.
