What Tech Do We Research? II

[Togas]

I forgot to add Writing to the list in the prior poll. Please revote in this poll.

[Rhothaerill]

Still pottery for me. :P

[Inverse Icarus]

anyone who votes against iron working is a terrorist workign against the state, and will be dealt with accordingly.

1. we need to see iron ASAP
2. we can trade iron working for tons of stuff

[Togas]

Other Civs in this game:

Elucidia -- Vikings. Alphabet & Warrior Code
PAL -- Mayans. Masonry & Pottery
Shumeru -- Sumarians. Bronze Working & Pottery
Webring -- China. Warrior Code & Masonry

Us -- Greece. Bronze Working & Alphabet


Civs with Alphabet = 2
Civs with WC = 2
Civs with Masonry = 2
Civs with Pottery = 2
Civs with Bronze Working = 2

Absolute balance here. There is no tech that is more or less common at the start.

We are one of two civs that start with Writing. We could opt to take the Philosophy Gambit, however, we need to be assured of landing Pottery to actually get Mapmaking (best possible) as our free tech.

--Togas

[Duddha]

Bash Skulls!

[Kloreep]

Iron Working. We should be able to research Pottery in time as our second tech if we don't meet one of the teams with it.

[Togas]

We are one of the two civs that can make a run for Philosophy, if we choose to.

I'm not sure if we should choose to, though, but I'm pondering it.

--Togas

[Dominae]

Sorry (more stupid questions): what's the size and land form of the map?

If we're not reasonably certain to meet someone to trade Pottery with, we need to research that ourselves first. The reason is that we've got a high-Shield start, and may run out of big-enough prebuild items before we research Pottery, which would be bad.

Then the Philosophy gambit makes sense, since we've got a high-Commerce start.

The instances where you do not get access to Iron because someone saw it first and denied it are very rare; either it's within your sphere or influence, or it's not. I know that's not very comforting to many of you, but if we expand quickly enough we should get our Iron if we were supposed to get it in the first place.


Dominae

[BigFree]

Originally posted by Togas
We are one of the two civs that can make a run for Philosophy, if we choose to.

I'm not sure if we should choose to, though, but I'm pondering it.

--Togas

It's a good move.

[Hot_Enamel]

This is a normal map, with only 5 civs, so there should be plenty of land....So Pottery sounds good.

But with 2 other civs with it already, I think we gamble and trade for it.



My other choice is Iron Working, for 2 reasons.

If we want to save our GA, from some foolish git who wants to sacrifice a warrior against our Hopilites, then we will need other defenders. Swords are our only option.

And of course, swords (protected by Hopilites) make a great offensive punch.

[Dominae]

I disagree that gambling for Pottery is a good idea. With a 3spt right from the start and two more 2spt tiles (after some improvement), we're up to 7spt very quickly. Prebuilding on a Barracks will get us to within 20 Shields of a Granary in 6 turns. If we're not in possession of Pottery by then our early expansion is severely stunted, and it might be slowed even further if we end up having to research the tech ourselves.


Dominae

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Dominae
I disagree that gambling for Pottery is a good idea. With a 3spt right from the start and two more 2spt tiles (after some improvement), we're up to 7spt very quickly. Prebuilding on a Barracks will get us to within 20 Shields of a Granary in 6 turns. If we're not in possession of Pottery by then our early expansion is severely stunted, and it might be slowed even further if we end up having to research the tech ourselves.


Dominae

Well said. Pottery!!!

An early granary pays sooooo many dividends...it's especially needed for a team that is not agricultural as we're not.

[Arnelos]

Dominae is extraordinary correct about the primacy of Pottery as the first tech if we have the room in which to use it. We'll be sorry we didn't opt for pottery if we end up needing it and there's no-one that can trade it to us.

POTTERY!!!

[BigFree]

Conerning Pottery....2 Civs out there already have it. 2 don't. The chances are decent that we'll find a Civ with it in the next 20 turns.

[Dominae]

Are we on a Pangea?

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Uber KruX
anyone who votes against iron working is a terrorist workign against the state, and will be dealt with accordingly.

1. we need to see iron ASAP
2. we can trade iron working for tons of stuff

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by BigFree
Conerning Pottery....2 Civs out there already have it. 2 don't. The chances are decent that we'll find a Civ with it in the next 20 turns.

We all know the importance of pottery.
Chances are, the 2 that dont start with it, will also study it.

So.. 2 have it and 2 might study it.


Pottery is good, but I would gamble on Iron Working.

[Arnelos]

The problem, as I see it, is not whether we can trade for pottery, but how SOON we can trade for pottery.

As Dominae said, are we on a pangea map? More importantly, how large is the map?

[jim_steer]

The settings from the UN :-

Game Type: Epic
Difficulty Level: Emperor
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Continents
World Age: 4 Billion
Climate: Normal
Temperature: Temperate
Barbarian Activity: Restless

Edit : Ocean Coverage: 70%

[BigFurryMonster]

With 5 teams on a standard map with continents, there is quite a chance that we're not going to meet someone with pottery very soon.

Normally, I'd say: "wait for the trade opportunity" but given the above, we'll have plenty of time to expand. Expanding is better done with a Granary than without.

So: pottery is my choice.

What is the "Philosophy Gambit" anyway?

[jim_steer]

Originally posted by BigFurryMonster
What is the "Philosophy Gambit" anyway?

Researching straight to Philosophy and hoping you get there first (thus getting a free tech) and that along the way you manage to trade enough techs for your free tech to be something worthwhile, normally map making.

Given that we start with Alphabet and we have started on a river we have fair chance of pulling this off.

Whether we should try this in what is likely to be quite a combat/conquest orientated game is another matter.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by BigFurryMonster
With 5 teams on a standard map with continents, there is quite a chance that we're not going to meet someone with pottery very soon.

Normally, I'd say: "wait for the trade opportunity" but given the above, we'll have plenty of time to expand. Expanding is better done with a Granary than without.

So: pottery is my choice.

Well, at least someone gets it.

[Arnelos]

The main thing I think people are failing to consider when they call this a very "combat-oriented" game is that it is very likely to be so, but the fact that we're playing with five civs on a STANDARD MAP (as in, a map designed for EIGHT players) means that it may be a little while before such conflict takes place.

If we don't get iron working as our first tech, it's not like we're going to be out in the cold being attacked by someone's swordsmen before we get it. Hell, we may not even have contact with another civ by the time we finish research on our first or even second tech.

Pottery just makes so much sense... we ensure ECONOMIC power... that will let us have military power when we need it, which will come sooner than in many games, but won't be coming in 3600 BC or anything crazy like that...

[BigFurryMonster]

We'll be the GWT of this game with such a start position (grass, river, luxs) + granaries.

[Beta]

Pottery.

[Arnelos]

Concerning MP strategies and especially how the PAL thinks, it would be very worthwhile for everyone thinking about this game (especially the leadership) to read this thread by Fried-Psitalon about MP strategies in use in the ladder community:

Playing the Metagame: Overarching MP Civ Strategies

Given the sheer size of our map and our SEEMINGLY good start, not to mention the type of expertice we have on this team... we're going to want to go for what F-P calls either a "Sledgehammer" or a "Castle" strategy. In Apolyton strategy terms from the first ISDG, that's what we did there as well, but with MUCH worse land.

We're going to have to be much more careful about guarding ourselves from earlier attacks than in other games, but the likely distance between civs because we have 5 civs on a standard map is going to give a team like Apolyton a huge advantage because it's going to make economic development more important before the wars really get underway.

And let us remember that economic development is this team's forte.

The way we're going to win wars in this game is going to be by using the best builder strategies we possibly can in the very early game (though we'll have to temper it somewhat with protection against an early hit by any of these teams). By the early to early/mid stage of what we're used to, however, I fully expect the wars to start. Whether we want to be defensive or offensive, the way that OUR team is best suited to win these conflicts is to have the most powerful economy on the block pumping out more units than any of these other teams can hope to match... combined with our 20-shield pikeman unique unit (that also starts our golden age if someone attacks us, making us EVEN MORE FORMIDABLE)... no-one in their right mind is going to pick us as one of the two elimination targets unless it's EVERYONE ganging up on us (which our diplomatic core is going to have to prevent).

Apolyton will be playing on equal footing with some of these teams in warrior talent. Our warriors will therefore gain the greatest advantage we can give them through HAVING MORE TROOPS. The way to do that is to out-compete our opponents in building and there's nothing Apolyton does better by comparison.

Given this, we want to give our economic development every conceivable advantage. Granaries are a KEY element to this, as granaries will give us more cities and especially more workers for tile improvements. Because this is going to be a war-oriented game, we use those many workers to build roads (for miliary mobility far more than for trade) and we build MINES (more shields, more shields, and more shields!!!). It's mines over irrigation because the wars are likely to be EARLY and mere survival against the early wars is going to be the most important factor.

Because we're playing against cutthroat early attackers, we'll need to protect all of that early economic development and we'll certainly need more units in the early game than perhaps many of us are used to, but economic development is still going to be the key to victory here.

When our generals are commanding 50% more or even twice the number of units as the generals of our opponents when the wars start to get furious, we will have a far better shot at survival.

[Hot_Enamel]

If I was fighting apolyton, I would be using FP's choke tactic. And doing it as early as possible.

So when a warriors start marching through our territory, I'd rather have a few swords handy to knock them out.

I not seen a worker, settler or a grainery kill a warrior yet. And I would also like to protect our GA until we are out of despoticism, so using our Hopilites in offensive or defensive positions should be our last resort.


We spent a lot of our early game discussion on how we expect this game to be a brutal early blood bath. Why then, on turn one, do we now go builder mode ?

And especially since we looked at our opponents, and all identified them all as an early war threat.

Get our offensive & defensive options available & up and running first.
Then we can go builder.
There is plenty of land available for everyone. Having a grainery first up is not essential.

The other teams (especially those with a rush or choke tactic in mind) will probably be doing the same thing, and building their military before their economy.

[Arnelos]

H_E,

We're playing on a standard map with 5 players... our closest neighbor may be as far away as GoW and RP were in the PTWDG (without ND in between).

Under those circumstances, we're going to have (ESPECIALLY with our high-commerce start) more than enough time to research both Pottery and Iron Working before we're going to be in so much danger that we need swordsmen (which cost 30 shields) rather than warriors (which only cost 10).

I also specifically noted that we're going to have to build more military units than we are likely accustomed to in the early game precisely because of the danger of a choke strategy being used against us. We're going to want to build a good number more warriors than we typically would in the early game just to guard our workers and settlers.

The point is that choke strategies can be defended against by players who use sledgehammer or castle strategies, which is our forte. We need not ALSO become choke players. We'll have swordsmen, H_E, we just don't need them in the first 20 turns of the freakin' game when we won't have the resources to build them anyhow.

As for the concern about knowing where iron is, that's all fine and good, but there's likely to be a TON of real estate between us and the nearest civs. There's either going to be iron there or not and it's not going to move on us if we get in the measly 48 beakers it costs to research Pottery before starting on Iron Working.

[conmcb25]

War is futile without a good economy.

Go for pottery and then lets race for Philo.

By the time we get there we should be meeting some of our fellow Civ's and can start working deals.

We are the only Comercial Civ with a chance for the Philo beeline.

Being ahead in the tech race is nothing to sneeze at.

[Donegeal]

I think I have to go with the Pottery then IW path.

1) Lots of land between the civs making an early choke difficult.

2) 2 of the 4 other teams in this game have it already. Right off the bat, our chanches of running into a civ that has it is 50%. Now that gets reduces further as we are on continents (how much further is unknown at this time). It also gets reduced further because of the pure NATURE of this game. If all our opponents are serious war threats from the get go, why would ANY of them want to trade us a tech that they know we would be able to us very effectively?

Pottery --> Iron Working --> Wheel --> Horseback Riding

Going for the Philo gambit is ridiculous (no insult intended) in a game that is really going to be short and bloody. Tech trades I think are going to be much less common then in the other MP DG's because this is an elimination not a winner take all. So this makes a tech lead a pretty thing to have, but not a needed thing.