Whiskey in a Beaker - tech discussions & science lab

[RFHolloway]

OK what techs do we need particularly

Masonry - Pyramids
Maths - SOZ
Ironworking - GS's
A government tech.

what other techs are useful

Philo - if we get it first (doubt it)

what techs can we avoid

wheel and HBR (GS are at least as good as anything those techs will give us)

How fast?

bear in mind that as the Celts every ?90 gold is another warrior to GS upgrade we can always use the cash. Do we have room for a min science run, perhaps on the second tech?

What is our best shot at a SGL

Mysticism, poly

What techs are around

I wouldn't suggest researching pottery, since we can't.
Here's the techs everyone starts with:

Us-pottery, ceremonial burial
The Council(Korea)-bronze working, alphabet
Team Babe(Iroquois)-pottery, alphabet
Team Free(Sumeria)-pottery, bronze working
Team Saber(Ottomans)-bronze working, masonry
Unfortunately the track we have a head start on isn't useful.

 

[Ansar]

I believe the Alphabetized people will beeline for Writing and then do a Republic Slingshot.

With Pottery and Ceremonial Burial as starting traits, we could beeline for Monarchy... (and possibly build the Hanging Gardens).

 

[killercane]

Well 3 teams start with BW, and 2 with alpha, so either Masonry (hopefully trade for alpha) or mysticism which we are sure to get first but is useless unless we want to prebuild for Pyr/SoZ with the Oracle. Masonry gives us a palace prebuild anyway and was pretty tradeable last game. It will be nice to see our starting position.

 

[Daghdha]

I suggest we use the up's we have on others. No one will get myst as quick but they all need it in the end. Getting Oracle for pre-building is a bonus.
Some, if not all, of us agree on AA warfare so b-line to monarchy might be a good idea.
What we Really need is either WC and/or BW unless we want to rely on warriors for our early defense which seems risky. No one has WC so that equals but 3 have BW. We should be able to trade for it and maybe include IW in the deal. An early war means we have to pin point one victim and make friends with the others which keeps a lot of doors open for trading and peace agreements.
Saving gold for upgrades....nah, I believe its better to have 1 or 2 raxed 10 spt cities to build 'em straight up.

 

[RFHolloway]

What we Really need is either WC and/or BW unless we want to rely on warriors for our early defense which seems risky. Saving gold for upgrades....nah, I believe its better to have 1 or 2 raxed 10 spt cities to build 'em straight up.

Not worried about WC - need BW for IW anyway. We aren't going to be attacking with bows, so we shouldn't build any. No one starts with WC, many of them have better targets (philo, maths). Too many BW out there for an archer rush to be a viable strategy in my view, so we are probably safe with warriors.

Against the AI I would only build warriors till I had GS's archers and spears would be a waste of time. Against real opposition I am less sure, but that is still my preferred approach.

 

[Daghdha]

See your point. I didn't suggest archers for offense though. But an opponent with spears and archers might get an itchy trigger finger I he realizes we only have warriors for defense. A consideration I sense you share. Against AI, sure, warriors are offensive units that score high on the military advisors scale so that would prolly be safe.

 

[RFHolloway]

I'd still rather have 2 warriors on offense or defense than a spear or an archer.

 

[TimBentley]

I imagine the Iroquois will want the wheel, warrior code, and HBR before too long. Korea might go for philosophy.

We might as well note the tech costs (assuming nobody has it, since I don't feel like doing the extra work at the moment):
BW: 90
masonry: 120
alphabet: 150
pottery: 60
the wheel: 120
WC: 90
CB: 60
IW: 180
writing: 240
mysticism: 120
math: 240
philo: 180
CoL: 300
lit: 300
MM: 360
HBR: 150
poly: 360
currency: 480
republic: 840
monarchy: 720
construction: 600

 

[jb1964]

I believe the Alphabetized people will beeline for Writing and then do a Republic Slingshot.

With Pottery and Ceremonial Burial as starting traits, we could beeline for Monarchy... (and possibly build the Hanging Gardens).

We could pick one of the Alpha teams to enable them to Philo and share in the win. If we're first to Myst that could be part of the deal.

 

[SimpleMonkey]

Bumping this up to continue the tech discussion, now that we're underway.

Mysticism is the best choice for now, I suppose, if only because no-one else is going to bother. The two happiness wonders live along the bottom tier, and we have no idea what the lux layout is. (Not that I'm advocating putting too many shields in wonders. Other than the Pyramids, natch. We want those a lot. )Otherwise, Myst is only going to get us so far unless we want a Monarchy monopoly. That could be the fastest way to get us out of Despotism, at least. I suppose that going for IW soonish is kinda vital too, since no-one in their right minds is going to trade it to us. I wouldn't anyway.

 

[RFHolloway]

Agreed no one is going to trade us IW, but could we get bronze working from someone? Thats what I am hoping - get mystic, and do a trade for BW. If we get a Scientific leader we will also need to trade for Masonary. Questions are how long do we hold out for a trade of BW (mystic only or Mystic and poly)

 

[Daghdha]

Depends on how we want our GS's built, upgraded warriors or built from scratch. If we decide to up warriors we can hold on for a while, if we build from scratch we need IW asap.

 

[RFHolloway]

It needn't be an all or nothing thing. No one will mind building some vet warriors in the expectation that they will be useful for upgrade, and no one should object to building GS direct once we have IW (unless we have surplus cash and want to go the disconnect reconnect route)

 

[RFHolloway]

OK here's a thought

Mystic on Max comes in around turn 20

Poly on max come in around turn 46

if we then do a min run on monarchy (50 turns) we can build up some cash.

hopefully we trade for BW, then it will take us perhaps 10 turns to self research iron working (15 if we have to research them both) it might take us 6 turns to hook up iron once we see it, so that takes us to turn 112 to 117 is that too late ? - we will have a monarchy GA, cash to upgrade our warriors and all the AA techs we need to be a threat.

A slingshot will net the republic in under 80. So our best hope is it never happens. That means one of the Alpha civs goes for Philo direct as a spoiler so no one gets republic. Team babe have more incentive to do this as they could go writing Philo and get mapmaking which is still relatively expensive.

Anybody else familiar with the game theory concept of prisonners dilemma?

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Refresh my memory. Game Theory is facinating stuff. I studied some of in a leadership class a few years back.

 

[RFHolloway]

Classical prisoners dilemma has 2 players and 2 options Cooperate or defect

if both players cooperate then they both get 3 points, if they both defect then they get 1 point, otherwise the person who cooperated gets no points and the person who defected gets 5.

if you know that the opponet will cooperate the best thing to do is defect, if you know that they will defect the best thing that you can do is defect. However the analysis is the same for them, so in theory both people should defect. However that is not the best option for both people.

If you get to play repeatedly then cooperation can evolve given certain conditions. It happened in the trenches of the world wars when the snipers "backed off" each other a bit.

Anyway in this case the 2 alpha civs can get republic for free and a whole bunch of other techs if they cooperate. This would not be best for us (it might not be too bad as we are likely to have monopoly techs, which we could trade round). What we want is to maximise thier duplication of effort, and if possible get one of them to settle for something less than republic as the free tech. We could do this by persuading (or even just pointing out) a non alpha civ that they could get to Philo first, so that one of the alpha civs to go to to philo before COL.

 

[jb1964]

OK, I have not read through all the rules of this game so here's a question...

At what point can we start talking to the other players? I'm assuming (dangerous word) that we need to refrain from contact until we actually meet them.

However, if we want to be hamhanded about it, we can drop the idea of rushing to Philo in the public MP forum.

 

[RFHolloway]

I was kind of thinking something along the same lines

I suppose it would be unethical to post a new thread in the main forum saying something like -

" I think we can beat the Alpha civs to Philo, if they decide to go to COL first"

and then delete it 24 hrs later to leave a message like "sorry wrong forum"

... or would it?

 

[TimBentley]

Of course you'd have to edit your previous post to say "oops, wrong thread."

 

[Sir Bugsy]

The Great Meleet may frown upon such behavior.