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Paths of Civilization

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ctulhuslp said:
I am reasonably sure Spiritual and Knowlwdge is what we want, since education is how you get specialists.
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Academies are our current best bet for how to solve the solution long-term. However, they don't help us prevent the crash that is currently looming in the short- or mid-term, and my goal for the moment is dealing with that. Once we have ensured that we aren't about to fall into Tech hell, sure, it makes perfect sense to try for Academies as a way to try addressing our structural tech issues.

(Though frankly, I'm pretty sure that by then we will have gotten an Academy built via Passives or faction actions or something like that.)

10ebbor10 said:
Actually, it is an option. We can go below zero tech if we need too. Sure, other stats will be consumed to make it work, and bad effects will happen, but we can do it.
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Interesting thought. Yes, if it is a question of only 1 tech under zero, it might be worth doing.




Actually. @Academia Nut - does our Excellent Admin king have any thoughts on the consequences of dipping slightly under 0 tech? Will it just drain other stats at disfavorable ratios, or cause other major problems?
 
PrimalShadow said:
So. Right now, we are at 1 Tech. Thankfully, we are going to get a good amount refunded next turn, but the fact remains - we are going to be bumping up against our Tech limits really hard really soon if we don't get our overflow highway working properly again. In light of that, I want to discuss what happens if we run out of tech.

In short? Our action grinds to a screeching halt.
  • Do we want to restore our Econ with Expand Economy? That takes tech, and lots of it. The same holds for Passive City Support and Passive Agriculture.
  • Perhaps we would like to generate Wealth with Plant Cash Crops - Textiles? Even if we have Econ to spare, it takes a single tech to do so, so at zero tech it isn't an option.
  • Do we want to finish the Guild Quest? Well, Block Housing and Ironworks both take Tech in significant quantities; so too bad.
  • Oh yes. Judging by the Triangle Canal's costs, the Lowland Canal is likely to cost Tech as well.
In short. We can't work on the Guild Quest, can't keep up our Econ score, can't make progress on the next MP in our Queue, and possibly can't even generate more Wealth. It is not a happy place to be.



So what is the lesson here?
  1. We need another GP, and we need it yesterday. This doesn't solve the problem of us having no Tech inflow, but it does mean that a lot more of our expenses each turn are refunded, which means that worst case, instead of a hard crash we have a gradual recession while our factions struggle for a way to earn Tech.
  2. We need to think real careful about any major expenses. Overflow is our best and only method for getting significant amounts of tech right now. To avoid a crash in the short term, we need to reestablish our overflow channels, which means no buying expensive stuff.
    • This includes GA purchases. Please stick to Prestige purchases or nothing if at all possible.
    • It might even include MPs. We should seriously consider switching our policy from MP support to Balanced next turn instead of starting the Canal. Yes, the Canal is important and I want it ASAP, but I also want to avoid crashing the economy.
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So I guess we will use at least a Secondary next turn to start on another Palace and hope the Patricians finish it?

That one refund is already going to stem the bleeding quite well, but as you said, we have no decent sources of tech and Academies are going to murder Mysticism overflow.
 
PrimalShadow said:
Academies are our current best bet for how to solve the solution long-term. However, they don't help us prevent the crash that is currently looming in the short- or mid-term, and my goal for the moment is dealing with that. Once we have ensured that we aren't about to fall into Tech hell, sure, it makes perfect sense to try for Academies as a way to try addressing our structural tech issues.

(Though frankly, I'm pretty sure that by then we will have gotten an Academy built via Passives or faction actions or something like that.)


Interesting thought. Yes, if it is a question of only 1 tech under zero, it might be worth doing.




Actually. @Academia Nut - does our Excellent Admin king have any thoughts on the consequences of dipping slightly under 0 tech? Will it just drain other stats at disfavorable ratios, or cause other major problems?
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1 more Arsenal or Library Annex may help too.
 
ctulhuslp said:
1 more Arsenal or Library Annex may help too.
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I would be overjoyed to vote for an Arsenal or Library annex.

DakkaMania said:
So I guess we will use at least a Secondary next turn to start on another Palace and hope the Patricians finish it?

That one refund is already going to stem the bleeding quite well, but as you said, we have no decent sources of tech and Academies are going to murder Mysticism overflow.
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Well, Patricians and passive policies.

Honestly, I'm hoping we get to start a GP as a reaction this turn; if we do, i think we are going to be in a good place to finish it next turn.
 
PrimalShadow said:
I would be overjoyed to vote for an Arsenal or Library annex.


Well, Patricians and passive policies.

Honestly, I'm hoping we get to start a GP as a reaction this turn; if we do, i think we are going to be in a good place to finish it next turn.
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Also mid to longterm, we may want to try and do Support Artisans and Academy at the same time. Perhaps something useful to our tech woes happens.
 
Glassware said:
In retrospect we could have kicked the Great Library...
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I'd rather see what happens as it is. I doubt that the extra stability is just wasted; I expect that it is more likely to either have gone towards offsetting some unexpected loss somewhere, or get turned into narrative goodness.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to see it upgrade our Baby Boom. Wouldn't that be grand?
 
PrimalShadow said:
I'd rather see what happens as it is. I doubt that the extra stability is just wasted; I expect that it is more likely to either have gone towards offsetting some unexpected loss somewhere, or get turned into narrative goodness.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to see it upgrade our Baby Boom. Wouldn't that be grand?
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Steel Blooded Population Explosion. Good God.

Would we even have enough EE for that?

Would we have it even if the Colonies take some of it?
 
PrimalShadow said:
I'd rather see what happens as it is. I doubt that the extra stability is just wasted; I expect that it is more likely to either have gone towards offsetting some unexpected loss somewhere, or get turned into narrative goodness.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to see it upgrade our Baby Boom. Wouldn't that be grand?
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Population Explosion in this day and age? Hnnnnhghhh. As I recall, all Baby Boom -> Population Explosion did was make Iron Blooded apply to the Expand Econs, which doubled it. Unless things are different this time, Steel Blooded would triple it.

24 econ per turn. We would need all of the New Settlement actions :V
 
8bitBob said:
Population Explosion in this day and age? Hnnnnhghhh. As I recall, all Baby Boom -> Population Explosion did was make Iron Blooded apply to the Expand Econs, which doubled it. Unless things are different this time, Steel Blooded would triple it.

24 econ per turn. We would need all of the New Settlement actions :V
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And Black Soil.

For the first time since centuries, I think.
 
DakkaMania said:
Steel Blooded Population Explosion. Good God.

Would we even have enough EE for that?

Would we have it even if the Colonies take some of it?
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Well, we now refund what, 11 econ? Subordinates, IIRC, also give refund, so 10 if Amber Road counts. With 21 refund, if PE gives 24, we only lose three LTE/turn, disregarding any other econ income/expenditure. We should be fine.
 
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DakkaMania said:
Steel Blooded Population Explosion. Good God.

Would we even have enough EE for that?

Would we have it even if the Colonies take some of it?
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Keep in mind that Pop. Explosion mechanics are not going to be the same that they were before.

Look at our baby boom. It is producing 8 Econ, even though we have 17 provinces - so it is either 8 flat, or provinces/2. Previously, the bonus was equal to our number of provinces.

Honestly I expect Population Explosion to just upgrade the boost to our full province bonus or something. Even that wouldn't be much of an "explosion", though; we'd only be getting a bit more Econ then we do from a single Main Expand Econ.

8bitBob said:
24 econ per turn. We would need all of the New Settlement actions :V
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We are currently slated to use 8 (cities) + 3 (non-free-cities) + 3 (total block housing levels) + 1 (lvl3 Ironworks) = 15 points of Econ a turn, and that is just upkeep. Building something like a GP takes 9 Econ; and there is your 24 econ used. No need for New Settlements or anything like that.
 
PrimalShadow said:
*Snip*
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I remember at least one time when we finished a megaprojects while close to entering a golden age, one of the rewards for the megaprojects was to start the golden age early. If that is an option, I think it is likely one of our better ones.

Short term, GPs, would be a good idea. While I like the idea of library annexes, certainly, I do not think getting them and arsenal would do much. We also need to try and find a way to reduce the cent penalty from GPs, and two stables sounds quite possible in dealing with that. I also would like to get two of each annex upgrade for creating a basic palace before we start specializing again.

As for MPs, on the one hand I want the law upgrade ASAP, on the other hand I don't want Mr. Entitlement within spitting distance of writing it, but that could easily see a three to five turn delay. I do want to get the great library done, though, so I am likely to want to stay on MP support one more turn to finish that. Though, if we advance at double speed again, I might be willing to switch it off, as it would only take two more actions.
 
bluefur87 said:
Short term, GPs, would be a good idea. While I like the idea of library annexes, certainly, I do not think getting them and arsenal would do much. We also need to try and find a way to reduce the cent penalty from GPs, and two stables sounds quite possible in dealing with that. I also would like to get two of each annex upgrade for creating a basic palace before we start specializing again.
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We've been told that the cent penalty only applies to lvl1 GPs, which means we don't especially need to worry about it; just build them as lvl2s.

It isn't like there is a rush to build GPs anyways; we really need the next one, but after that they fall off sharply in value.

bluefur87 said:
As for MPs, on the one hand I want the law upgrade ASAP, on the other hand I don't want Mr. Entitlement within spitting distance of writing it, but that could easily see a three to five turn delay. I do want to get the great library done, though, so I am likely to want to stay on MP support one more turn to finish that. Though, if we advance at double speed again, I might be willing to switch it off, as it would only take two more actions.
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It is extraordinarily wasteful to use the MP policy for actions that we are getting for free. Is there any reason you can't just patiently wait for it to finish normally? It isn't like we don't have enough other things to do in the meantime. Set our policy to Rural Support to Expand Forests and Build Roads. Or set it to Trade to gain wealth and do diplomacy. Or set it to Connection so it can help build those GPs we need. Point is, we can use those actions; why burn them on getting a MP a little faster?
 
PrimalShadow said:
It is extraordinarily wasteful to use the MP policy for actions that we are getting for free. Is there any reason you can't just patiently wait for it to finish normally? It isn't like we don't have enough other things to do in the meantime. Set our policy to Rural Support to Expand Forests and Build Roads. Or set it to Trade to gain wealth and do diplomacy. Or set it to Connection so it can help build those GPs we need. Point is, we can use those actions; why burn them on getting a MP a little faster?
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Inefficient? Sure. Wasteful? Only if you don't value having the GL earlier.

Many of us are hoping the GL will increase the Library Myst refund, which will make building Academies easier. This would let us take Knowledge and Spirituality as Agenda or Policy and get a large number of Academies up. With us at red RA and wanting Academies for the tech crunch, I'd much rather get the GL finished to pursue this instead of trying to optimize for maximum efficient use of our GA pick.

The stats are spent either way, and retroactively maximizing its efficiency only matters in the sense of what it allows us to achieve. If we can't start the Canal, then I'd rather stay on MPS and finish the GL so we can start the Canal next turn. By the time that finishes, maybe Baby Dragon will be dead and we can start the Law. GPs and roads are important, but these Megas are critical too. We should stay on Mega Support until they're mostly done.
 
PrimalShadow said:
It is extraordinarily wasteful to use the MP policy for actions that we are getting for free. Is there any reason you can't just patiently wait for it to finish normally? It isn't like we don't have enough other things to do in the meantime. Set our policy to Rural Support to Expand Forests and Build Roads. Or set it to Trade to gain wealth and do diplomacy. Or set it to Connection so it can help build those GPs we need. Point is, we can use those actions; why burn them on getting a MP a little faster?
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Roads cost lots of tech. Our great library megaproject is actually one of the cheaper things we can do in terms of stats, effectively costing 3 culture for a main action, as the mysticism gets refunded.

I think that two things it is reasonably likely to do is either double the refund rate of libraries or provide a mysticism drip based on libraries. The first would be great in both allowing the priests to pick more mysticism heavy actions and indirectly make Academies cheaper with only needing one library/Academy then. The second would be nice on its own and something we can start benefiting from, though I suspect other benefits will be seen if it's the second one unless it's something insane like +1 Mysticism/Library, in which cases, yes, that is going to be one of the cheapest ways of getting overflow we can manage.

My biggest reason though, is a general desire to get things out of the way whenever possible. That's a personal preference, and while I understand you feel raw efficiency is more important here, I hope you can understand that stance, even if you don't agree with it.

Another thing we can do is try to get some mining set up. A survey or main survey probably isn't something we should turn our noses up at. I mean, I think Econ gained from iron mines doesn't even take up EE slots, making it one of the cheaper ways to raise LTE? If we can get a gold or silver mine, then it is much more likely to fill up the pool and end up overflowing into tech.

GPs continue to be the best short term fix though. I really think we should go with administrative agenda next turn.
 
We may need to send our warships on anti-piracy missions next turn. So don't count on administrative agenda being available, unless you want to take us off MPS.
 
8bitBob said:
The stats are spent either way, and retroactively maximizing its efficiency only matters in the sense of what it allows us to achieve.
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The stats are spent either way, but the ACTIONS are an extra expenditure. You would be paying a full main for turn that the library is brought up; possibly TWO full mains, if we assume that the new Hero is going to keep doubling library progress.

8bitBob said:
Many of us are hoping the GL will increase the Library Myst refund, which will make building Academies easier. This would let us take Knowledge and Spirituality as Agenda or Policy and get a large number of Academies up. With us at red RA and wanting Academies for the tech crunch, I'd much rather get the GL finished to pursue this instead of trying to optimize for maximum efficient use of our GA pick.
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If the GL increases the Library discount, perhaps. But even then, you are paying multiple main actions to get the ability to add Academies a turn or two earlier. I would much rather go on trade policy or something and spend that time earning stats and improving relations with our neighbors.

The GL really isn't urgent. We can use it, certainly, but we absolutely don't need it right away.
 
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