The Compromise of 210 BC *Everyone Read*

[Apocalypse]

The Compromise of 210 BC

Right now the vote is 16 for Lain and 10 for Eiri. Dora and the government techs have three votes each.

This is too close. Too many important people support both plans for them to be tossed aside. A compromise must be struck. We have until Wednesday 01:00 AM eastern time. That is the last time I will be able to be online before the next set of turns. This is urgent. All the input you can provide would be greatly appreciate. This will require the help of every prominent member of the forum. This is the most important decision in the game in weeks.

I have thought long and hard about this, after posting the original Area 25 thread. What I have to do is make the most people content. If I go ahead with Lain and later onto Dora, too many people will be upset and left out. They will be unhappy while others are happy. This could lead to a revolt. If we switch it Eiri, I believe enough people can be content if there is a compromise. I just don’t see us being rich enough to buy peace techs if we just focus on military ones.

Here is the plan:

Provision 1: Switch to Protocol Eiri. This means researching Theology and Education. There is little point in researching Theology without next going after Education so there should be no going back after Theology is chosen.

Provision 2: Buy Chivalry as soon as possible. Once another civilization has Chivalry, we will do whatever possible to get that technology as quickly as we can, especially if it looks like we are in danger. I want assurance from other ministers that money will be set-aside for this.

Provision 3: Go to war with America if it can be worked out. If it assured that we could win, we must go through with this. First, America has a lot of Saltpeter friendly land. Secondly, annexing America would leave us with enough room to expand. We will have all the cities we need for a while. I would like it is people like Uber and Aggie come up with a good plan for this.

Provision 4: Buy Gunpowder as quickly as possible. Engineering and Invention aren’t a must. Gunpowder is though. Musketmen can be used very effectively against Knights. With Saltpeter, we should be able to hold off any attack. I would like money set aside for this when the time is right two. We should be able to trade Eiri techs for these Dora techs. We may even be in a position to start research on Gunpowder after we get Education.

Provision 5: Keep a large defensive force. This includes a counterstrike force. I would like assurance that this will be built. If we don’t have knights for a while, some way to divert war and protect ourselves is needed.

That is what I have so far. I would like the ministers to agree on it. Don’t look out for your own interests. Look out for what is good for the civilization as a whole. I believe this plan is the best plan for the majority. There could be some more additions that would make it even better though.

[adaMada]

I am fully in support of this plan.

Togas makes the actual decisions in the Foreign Ministry (obviously), but I will happily recommend to him that we make a priority of obtaining Chilvary and Gunpowder at the earliest opportunity. That makes the most sense to me -- those are the only two techs that I think we really can't do without for now, and buying them will probably get them faster than researching them ourselves.

Good compromise, Apocalypse .

-- adaMada

Edit: Changed to clarify what I meant

[Donal Graeme]

This seems to best way to get ahead, remember that the sooner we get Education, the sooner the Russians lose the use of the Great Library.
Plus Banking would get money to help acquire Dora techs, and would be a key step to Democracy.

[Apocalypse]

BTW, this is a manual type poll. There is no time for prepoll discussion as this has to get done by the end of Tuesday. I will go by the most recent views on the compromise. Hopefully the compromise won't have to be changed much, if at all. So post your views of the subject, no matter how brief.

[notyoueither]

I have paid zero attention to the Area 25 threads.

My $0.02 would be to point out that researching anything at this point is useless for us. We can buy tech for less total commerce than we can research them, and you can rest assured that some AI will always beat us to any tech until we have Libraries and Universities in all main cities. The ForbiddenPalace wouldn't hurt either.

[Apocalypse]

That is true, but researching something makes it cheaper. Going toward Eiri would allow us to go on a road that would lead to more development and thus get a lead in the tech race sooner.

[Togas]

NYE has a good point. We're not researching anyhow, so any tech we get will be through trade. It'll take us 40 turns to get Theology.

All I know is that we need to have something to trade with ... technology, resources, etc. Get me something valuable, we'll trade it, and the focus will be Chivalry.

--Togas

[Apocalypse]

We won't be some backwards civilization for ever. In 30 or 40 turns we will have a chance to be significantly more developed.

[Apocalypse]

BTW, I would like to have some clear input on whether you support this compromise, not just some comment on how we won't be the first to research the next tech.

[Togas]

Apoc,

I know you're trying to do your best to satisfy the most people, and I can assure you that whatever you decide will be questioned. There's no making everyone happy. Therefore, you must make an educated choice that you feel is best for the nation, and prepare to defend it.

I don't think we should continue going about our 10% research rate and then pretend that we're actually researching. We're not. We beg, extort, and buy our way into knowledge, and until that pattern changes we should just be honest, pick our target, research it just to decrease the price and go for it as soon as it's available.

So if our target is Theology, then let's not say that we're going to research that, but buy Chivalry. The fact of the matter is, we're going for Chivalry, because we're never going to get Theology by researching it.

Decide what order is the most important, let me know, and I'll go after it for you. But keep in mind that the tech we're seeking through trade is our actual #1 priority, not necessarily the one we put on the screen with our poor Science Advisor (you know that guy, the one who constantly begs us to spend more on research).

--Togas

[Panag]

hi ,

sounds great , ...

we should get more workers also , so we can start to grow , .....

have a nice day

[caesarqbear]

I think our perspective on this will change once we become a Monarchy and boost the tech slider a bit. I say we need to start towards education now. Chivalry and Gunpowder will only threaten us if they are in the hands of our neighboring enemies. Persia is certainly not likely to acquire it, and if we are successful in attacks against Germany, they also will be a small threat.

[Vitreous Humor]

A good anaylsis as always apocalypse

I voted eriri on the poll. If we are attacked suddenly we may have to buy chivalry anyway.

[SABRA]

There should be a clear goal.
If we can control most of the terrain we need no worries as to wether or not we shall have saltpeter.
It's very likely that we shall control rubber and coal aswell.

[MrWhereItsAt]

/me sees Gunpowder, Theology and Education

I like the whole thing.

However, Togas' post does make me wonder how much research will actually be possible - it might just end up being wasted cash until we build a few libraries and crank up our population. Monarchy will make a difference, but not for a while, especially if we go to war with America, and if we can't end the Persian/German wars for a bit.

Incidentally, what tech rate does this call for? We are currently still on 10%, and whatever happens little of this will be possible with that rate (except for buying, that is), until we get growth and Libraries, anyway.

[Shiber]

It's not wasted cash. Researching a technology makes it cheaper and saves you a lot more money than you invested in researching it.
As for actually researching whole techs ourselves, I think we should enter a building period after we finish the Americans and build libraries in cities with a high science output while we establish a mobile defense force of knights to defend us in case there's trouble.

[Reddawg]

Apocalypse proves once again that he is one of the most able minister's Apolyton has even seen!

[MrWhereItsAt]

Well if it is a rate of 10% there is as little cash waste as possible whilst still making the tech cheaper. A rate higher than that and we'd need to factor in the fact that we're losing out on GPT for a very slight chance of actually researching something ourselves.

I agree with the building libraries phase, too.

[vulture]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Well if it is a rate of 10% there is as little cash waste as possible whilst still making the tech cheaper. A rate higher than that and we'd need to factor in the fact that we're losing out on GPT for a very slight chance of actually researching something ourselves.

I agree with the building libraries phase, too.

I'm not part of the Demo game offically, but I just though I'd interject here. Setting to research a tech in 40 turns isn't going to make it any cheaper to buy, in my experience. I may be wrong, but the way it seems to work is that the Ai charges you based on how many beakers you need to get the tech, not how many turns. With science at a minimum to get the tech in 40 turns, there is a good chance that after 39 turns you will still have made very little progress in terms of how many beakers are needed. Hence, although you will get the tech in 1 turn, you still need to pay almost full price to buy it from the AI. Only if your tech rate at 10% is enough to make a significant impact on the beaker cost in 40 turns will you be able to buy at a discount (and if you do that, you could research it in 20-30 turns with science at 20%). If with science at 20% you would need more than 30 turns to research the tech, then there is a good chance that running at 10% won't make any significant impact on the price of buying it from the AI.

I may be wrong, but that's the way it has seemed to work in my games.

[Sheik]

This is a good plan.

Apocalypse, good work on this. I am happy to see that you are getting the people involved as much as possible.

[civman2000]

Sounds good. I think with a period of building after the war ends we could be in good enough shape to actually research techs ourselves.

[Shiber]

Vulture, it's true, only you missed one fact: the minimum rate of progress in tech research every turn (unless you're in anarchy or the tech slider is at 0%) is 1/40 of the amount of beakers needed for completing the tech.

[vulture]

Originally posted by Shiber
Vulture, it's true, only you missed one fact: the minimum rate of progress in tech research every turn (unless you're in anarchy or the tech slider is at 0%) is 1/40 of the amount of beakers needed for completing the tech.

I'm not convinced that's true. You can't take more than 40 turns to get a tech certainly. But, for instance, I have sometimes set my tech rate to zero and made one citizen a scientist (one beaker per turn) to get the tech in 40 turns. If what you say is true, the effect is that that scientist generates 1/40 the cost of the tech every turn, due to the lower tech rate limit. What I've seen stronly suggests something different, namely that the scientist does indeed produce 1 beaker per turn, and that after 40 turns you just get the tech depsite having only 40 beakers of research for it.

Consider the situation after 30 turns. If I am right, then you have 30 beakers of research, which is basically nothing compared to the cost of the tech. So buying it off the AI will cost nearly full price, and changing your tech rate wont gain you any benefit unless you change it to a level where you could have researched the tech in less than 10 turns initially (say you set science o 100% and are told you will get the tech in 7 turns instead of the 10 it would take with 1 scientist; that only happens if your science production could get you the tech in 7 turns staring from zero beakers). If you are right (assuming I haven't misunderstood your point) any change in the tech rate will give you an improvement, since you already have 75% of the required beakers, rather than a mere 30.

As I said, I've looked at the price of buying techs when I'm 38 turns into researching them with one scientist, and the cost has been basically the full price for the tech, not the price of a tech for which I have 95% of the research done. Obviously the effect of this is going to vary depending just how far below the 40 turn limit you fall - 10% might actually be giving you 1/40th of the required beakers every turn, or it might be giving you a lot less (which is why you look at the time needed with science at 20%). I've not seen any evidence that you always get at least 1/40th of the total beakers needed per turn - if you have any thing to support this I'd be interested to hear about it; my experience has been the opposite.

[DAVOUT]

The Minister of Science is taking over by his provision 3 and 5 the whole General Policy of the Nation. These two points should be assomptions or official policy, not Science Ministry policy.

The Minister of science should not define which tech is traded and which is internally researched ; he should establish the prioritized list of the techs he find desirable to acquire ; then the Minister of Economy should determine the amount of gold available for internal research and trade of techs, after due consideration given to units upgrade, money rushing and minimum treasury authorised; then the Minister of Foreign Affairs should look after a potential seller of tech according to the Science Minister list, and within the limitations edicted by le Minister of Economy.

My personnel choice by order of priority is :
Chivalry
Theology
Education

Chivalry should be internally researched and at the same time externally looked after. Then, when traded, Theology would be internally researched, etc. All that with the cursor at zero.

I am not far from being in agreement with the compromise you offered, with the few adjustments suggested.

[Shiber]

Well, this whole debate made me curious so I began crunching some numbers and this is what I got:
Let's take Feudalism for example. The cost of a tech is the tech's cost factor (24 in Feudalism's case) times the tech cost factor for the size of map we're playing at (we're playing in huge, meaning 400) divided by ten. Therefore Feudalism costs 960 beakers.
Now, when we bought Feudalism from France we were 13 turns away from Feudalism and we paid 371 gold + 10 gpt to get the tech. Supposing that 1 gpt = 15 g (based on my own experience) we paid 5w1 gold for Feudalism, which is ~54% of the cost of the tech.
We were 13 turns away from Feudalism, and at a rate of one tech every 40 turns we've completed 67.5% of the research and we needed to finish the remaining 32.5%.
If my theory is correct then 32.5% of the research (the part we needed to complete) equals ~54% of the price of the tech (which we paid in gold), or one beaker is worth 1+2/3 gold. I think this makes some sense... the cost of buying a tech is naturally higher than the cost of researching it ourselves.
However, if we pit your theory against the numbers it would mean that buying a tech costs less than researching it yourself (MUCH less, in fact) and IMHO that doesn't make any sense (no offense).
So far I'm sticking with my theory unless someone can propose a better one. Also, if you find any mistakes in my calculations please bring it to my attention so I can mend my theory.

[vulture]

Shiber: I thought it was pretty much given that buying techs was cheaper than researching them yourself, at least from civs that are on good terms with you. I assume from your example that France was the only other civ to have Feudalism, since the cost goes down as the number of civs increase.

I'll go and trawl through the forums to see if anyone has done any definitive tests on this. I know that some strategies are based on the belief that buying tech is cheaper than researching it yourself, and these strategies seem to work very well. Presumably they have some support from studying the game mechanics...

[DAVOUT]

Shiber,

You assume 1 beaker = 1 gold ?

[Shiber]

Vulture, when a certain AI is the only civ that has a certain tech the price they demand for it is very high, practically rediculous. Later, when a few more civs have the tech (like in our case with France) the price drops to a reasonable level.

Originally posted by vulture
Shiber: I thought it was pretty much given that buying techs was cheaper than researching them yourself

Don't be rediculous. When we bought Feudalism we got it immediately, whereas if we continued to research we would have gotten it in 13 turns. Of course buying a tech is more expensive than researching it, you pay extra to get it now instead of wait for your scientists to complete the research.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
Shiber,

You assume 1 beaker = 1 gold ?

I'm assuming that every gold coin you spend on science is transformed into 1 beaker. The outcome of my calculations was that when you buy a tech you pay roughly 1.66 gold for every beaker you're missing. Of course the price varies depending on the relations between your civ and whoever you're buying from and how many civs already have this tech.

[DAVOUT]

I agree with the calculations, I would like to be sure of the conversion rate of gold into beakers. Ill check this night, unless you can do it immediately