What to research now?

[Locutus]

In the last turn chat we finished Monarchy and Slave Labour. We started Geometry but there's still plenty of time to change. So what should we research now?

The choices are: Geometry, which gives us Catapults (the most powerful units in the game for many centuries to come); Horse Riding, which gives us Horse Archers (fast moving strong ranged units) and Trading Posts (more science + gold); Shipbuilding, which gives us Coracle and Nets (but we're nowhere near a sizeable body of water); and Masonry, which gives us Arena and Great Wall (happiness and protection against Barbs).

This poll will expire in 5 days (Sunday 30 March, ~23:30 GMT), although there may be a turn chat before that.

[Maquiladora]

Horse Riding, because it gives us Trading Posts and leads to Feudalism.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

horseriding and geometry both seem fine choices. horse archers aren't better as normal archers in combat iirc, but they are the almost perfect (no mountains!) scout unit during this stage of the game due to their vision range of 2 and their high speed (4? iirc). of course trading posts will be helpful in developing a scientifically and economically flourishing nation, but a national roadnetwork, some farms and mines are more urgent at this time.
catapults on the other hand are slow, but they are the first siege weapons ever, bombarding enemy towns (like eg wien) for a few turns with a handfull of them will save many a lemurian hoplite's life.
since we don't have any body of water nearby shipbuilding isn't usefull yet. neither is masonry, since we have a couple of happinessbuildings avaiable (shrines, theatres) we could build if we wanted to, before we have to go for arenas. and btw we don't have any slaves or lions yet, so the arena would be a boring place. the great would be a good argument for masonry, hadn't it already been finished by someone else.

this leaves two good options, if we have a look at the needed research time i would say horseriding then geometry, but i'm eager to hear any contradictionary arguements.

EDIT: there's a wall missing in the post above. the first one to find the correct place will get a free app-campaign t-shirt

[Pedrunn]

I voted Geometry!

Shipbuilding is just stupid and Mansory isnt good enough since the Great Wall wall was built by the Germans and we still need to build Theater in order to build arenas.

Horse Riding is ok. Still i voted Geomtry.

[Gilgamensch]

Geometry

For me another reason to take the slighty more expensive one: It gives us more time to improve our infrastructure, before changing to trade-posts (increased production/growth).

The mounted archers, in my point of view, aren't so usefull anymore as we know most of our surrounding, and as we know it and we still have to stop the Össis (Austrians) from plundering our valued towns, we need for defence and peace keeping catapults.

[Locutus]

I think most people will agree that it's a choice between Geometry and Horse Riding.

In my own games with the unmodded tech tree I always beeline for Ballistics (Archers) first and Philosophy next. Once there, I research either Monarchy or Geometry next, depending on what I need most at that point. Catapults are an absolutely vital part of my military strategy and probably the most important unit in the game the way I play it: a stack or two of 10-12 Catapults can make it possible to capture cities of civs which are already fighting with gunpowder weapons when you're still fighting with Hoplites and Archers yourself.

So personally I think we should research Geometry at all cost - it will save many Lemurian lives when we can bomb the enemy into submission before engaging in street-to-street battles. If it's good enough for the US, it's good enough for Lemuria

[Devil of Truth]

I agree with Zaphod here. There really are only two choices to go with: Horse Riding or Geometry.

IMHO, I don’t really see a need for slow siege weapons now. Sure they open a can of whupass on whoever dare oppose us, but do we really need it right now?

Horse Riding, on the other hand, allows both Mounted Archers and Trading Posts (plus it opens the door to Feudalism). The Mounted Archers allows for mobility on the battlefield; and even though we may not have the PW right now to build any Trading Posts, we’ll at least have that option available.

Horse Riding
Geometry

Zaphod, one wall too few:

Originally posted by Zaphod Beeblebrox
the great would be a good

Pedrunn, one wall too many:

Originally posted by Pedrunn
the Great Wall wall was

Now do I get both an APP and War Party shirt for that?

[Gilgamensch]

DoT,

you might have not seen it, but we have couple of 12 stacks walking around in our territory:

1 Hebrew
1 German

+ 1 8-stack Austrian (?)

And I think there was one more (English?)

[Locutus]

Siege weapons are no slower than Hoplites or Archers, the units which our armies are currently composed off.

The mobility of Horse Archers is no good as long as we don't have Knights to come with them, and even if we do get Knights such stacks still can't take on the heaviest defended cities (i.e. most German cities - and war with Germany will eventually prove unavoidable).

[Maquiladora]

Theres no doubt we're gonna need Catapults to take cities soon or else we'll take heavy casualties without bombarding, (and the land is gonna be slow regardless even if we use Horse Archers w/ Knights when they come) but if we grab Horse Riding and build a mass of trading posts while we're researching Geometry that would be a good strategy also, afterall we cant build PW when we're in full War mode again, building expensive Catapults.

Usually Ports are the critical improvement to up early science into **** hot mode for me but we dont have any coastline so we need to pig out on Trading Posts on all inner ring tiles that dont take farms or already have 4 or so farms.

[Gilgamensch]

Actually Maq,

your argument could be turned the other way round:

If we now research Geo (14 turns), it would give us plenty time to build mines and increase our production for both catapults and trade posts. HB takes 5 rounds only, in which we can't really improve our infrastructure. With 14 turns, we can increase 'easily' our production by ~10-30%, using like 6 turns out of it with PW=80% (brings around 750PW).

750PW is 2 mines and a road (OK depends a bit).

But I rather prefer to increase while researching, because as you mentioned: Afterwards we can't spare so much anymore. And again with the increased production we could spare like 10-20% PW-rate to build trade posts (should be like 1 per turn, with 10%).

Just some more thoughts............

[Pedrunn]

I must remind you that we already have plenty of gold (more than 5,000) so we dont need Trade post. We can concentrate on Production with the mines.

Originally posted by Devil of Truth
Zaphod, one wall too few:
(...)
Pedrunn, one wall too many:
(...)
Now do I get both an APP and War Party shirt for that?

Write that a WP member stoled an APP member

[Immortal Wombat]

Horse Riding!!

Just to interject into your debate that the MoI you elected is heavily concentrating on commerce and roads, and mines are right at the bottom of the list. Note that in the 14 turns between getting Horse Riding and Geometry, we will build Trading Posts, and we will build a strong economy that can run catapults efficiently.

We need Geometry, yes, but a delay of 5 turns now will prove worthwhile in the long run IMO.

[Maquiladora]

I think we all agree we need both Catapults and Trading Posts, and we also agree we cant spare PW when we start building Catapults so shouldnt we get Trading Posts ASAP? And afterall the sooner we build T. Posts the quicker the following advances will come, even shave a couple of turns off researching Geometry.

[Devil of Truth]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
DoT,
you might have not seen it, but we have couple of 12 stacks walking around in our territory:

Yiperdee-doo-da. I know. However, I seriously doubt any of them (except maybe the ‘brews) will attack. But let’s say for argument’s sake they do. Our proud wooden catapults have the same defensive value as a brown paper bag, and a movement rate to match. So, IIRC, we’ll have to park our catapults next to their stacks and defend them before we can use them. Can I maybe see what’s behind door number 2 ? Catapults are only useful as siege weapons.

Originally posted by Locutus
(i.e. most German cities - and war with Germany will eventually prove unavoidable).

I agree 100%. However, right now we don’t need it against the Austrians, and we’re not at war with the Germans (yet). While we wait for Geometry, we can at least benefit from Trade Posts, and have mobile forces to secure our (ever expanding) borders. Then later, we can reduce the German cities to ashes.

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Write that a WP member stoled an APP member

Nah, I don’t want to join. I just want my shirt d@mnit!

[Gilgamensch]

IW,

and we will build a strong economy that can run catapults efficiently

So you agree that we need a strong economy to build/support catapults. We would have 14 turns to push our economy to be ready to 'rush' catapults, if we take it now. We don't have a strong need to build units, so we could invest our production into mines and really increase our production and therefore again the economy.

With this extra production achieved in those turns we can build catapults and trade-posts at the same time. If we follow your suggestion, we won't be able to do it, as we will be missing the extra-economy, provided by the mines..........

In the moment we mainly need production and not commerce. One we have catapults we can/need to switch. But first I think we need the mines/roads and not the trade-post. They won't give us any benefit in the moment. It takes already couple of turns for them to finish. OK, same for the mines, but they would be latest ready AFTER researching catapult.

[Immortal Wombat]

As I see it thus:

a) spend 14 turns without trading posts and get catapults

b) spend 19 turns before catapults, 14 of them with trading posts. Surely the choice is obvious?

5 turns is not a huge delay.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
I must remind you that we already have plenty of gold (more than 5,000) so we dont need Trade post. We can concentrate on Production with the mines.

Gold is abundant even without Trading Posts, we build them for the science boost firstly and rush-buying second. On the subject of mines, theyre overpriced, 300PW alone to build on flat land, 400 on hills and a whopping 500 on mountains, where only mines can be built right now. Even on mountains they only give +15 prod, 500PW for an extra 15 production? Whereas we can build 2 trading posts for 500PW for 20 commerce. Comes down to that choice and we dont have alot of mountains...

[Gilgamensch]

DoT,

Our proud wooden catapults have the same defensive value as a brown paper bag, and a movement rate to match. So, IIRC, we’ll have to park our catapults next to their stacks and defend them before we can use them. Can I maybe see what’s behind door number 2 ? Catapults are only useful as siege weapons.

If they are combined with hoplites, they easily match up with far stronger units.
A stack 6C 6H is even deadly against 'modern' troups. The catapult is a 'protection' device, when used in conjunction with a good defence unit. The defence unit takes the full blast and the catapult kills from the distance. It is a far better combination than any archer. IIRC archer have bombard of 1 and catapult 4.

So there isn't any comparision between archer or catapult. Archer any from off, doesn't matter if mounted ot foot.

So HB doesn't bring us any advantage for this.
The mobile units aren't worth anything as our defence units are not faster as a catapult, meaning 1 MP. So where is your mobile force?

Maq,

Yes, trade post will allow faster research, but in the moment I think we need more production.
Plus the extra production would mean, either faster unit-production or same length and constant PW income, which would allow us, to constantly increase tradeposts/roads/mines. So where do you win more? The 'cheap' shot or........?

[Maquiladora]

It seems strange using Hoplites and Catapults to attack if the enemy has any Pikemen at all (not unlikely), concentrate on using Catapults to bombard first, think about attacking stacks later. Mostly i use Catapults in siege then Knights/Samurai and Mounted Archers to mop up.

Re: Mines
In SAP Production is copious compared to Commerce on land tiles, and all collected resources increase largely naturally (not by tile imps) by increasing city size and # of cities, Production will increase at a much faster rate naturally than commerce ever will, so Trading Posts become more important than mines even in these Ancient times.

[Gilgamensch]

Maq,

you never used hoblites and catapults for attack?

As our best attack unit (warrior) has attack 1 and defense 1, it would be better to use a hoplite as he has defense of 2, so he can substaine far more damage. The catapult is there to actually kill/damage the oponent. A 6C 6H is a threat/killer even against pikemen(Samurai)/archer-combo.

And Yes, the main purpose is to use it as a siege-weapon, but as our offensive units are weak, you have to counter it with a better bombard (catapult).

General:

For the production:
Yes, it mainly depends on city size, but to make it easy, let's asume all fields are worked upon (correct me if I am wrong):

the town has the 8 surrounding fields.
If we have a city with mountain fields, we would produce 80 (not counting the city itself) resources. With mines we would produce 160. Assuming we only have mountains.
This would like double the production..........
Yes mines are expensive, but only increasing the commerce will slow our production, unless you want to rush every single item.

But again with the added resources we would have more PW for the trade-posts afterwards........

IW,

I just see the 14 turns as a chance for us to improve the roadnetwork/mines BEFORE we have to build trading posts........

For the trading posts they take 2-3 turns tu build, so it wouldn't really increase the advance of GEO, maybe 1 turn..........
The other way round we can increase production by 10-30%.

But again some thoughts for discussion/understanding

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
DoT,

you might have not seen it, but we have couple of 12 stacks walking around in our territory:

1 Hebrew
1 German

+ 1 8-stack Austrian (?)

And I think there was one more (English?)

There is only one additional stack near our territory, it is a Scottish size 12 stack between Wien and Graz. The Austrian 8 size stack was killed by the Lemurian army near Linz, in the first turn thread.

-Martin

[Tamerlin]

I agree we need more production power but we also dramatically need to improve our science rate if we don't want to fight with out of date units. We need Trade Posts and I thus voted for Horse Riding.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Shipbuilding is just stupid and Mansory isnt good enough since the Great Wall wall was built by the Germans and we still need to build Theater in order to build arenas.

Shipbuilding is not stupid it just does not make sense to research it now, it the long term it leads to gun powder. Well until then there is still a number of advances to research first. It just does not make sense to research it now.

Our science output is growing and growing. So there comes a time when this advance costs just one turn. If we research it before we have to or we need it, should depend on the fact if science is carried to the next advance.

-Martin