In tech I trust: should I?

[Kippa Tarxien]

I believe a strategy to buy tech up to 0.05 times the nation strength can be defended, using the argument of infra upkeep reduction. But above that, I'm not sure if there's any other reason to buy tech than to meet the requirements for certain wonders. If I mention my doubts somewhere, there's always someone who points out the military advantages that a good tech level offers and that's exactly the reason of this post.

Here's my problem.

Let's create two nations, Techland, heavily investing in tech and Infraland, built on infra.

Both are 40K nation strength.

Techland has 5000 Infra and 5000 Tech while Infraland has 10000 Infra and 2000 Tech

They now start nuking each other (imagine they have some extra nation strength to get the nukes)

When Techland attacks, a nuke damages Infraland badly:

150 + 150*0.01*Tech/100 or

150 + 150*0.01*5000/100 or

150 + 75 = 225 infra lost

Infraland's attacks are far less devastating:

150 + 150*0.01*Tech/100 or

150 + 150*0.01*2000/100 or

150 + 30 = 180 infra lost

Now here's what happens:

Techland has 5000 infra and loses 180 infra/day, which means that on day 28 Techland is in ZI status.

Infraland has 10000 infra and loses 225 infra/day, which means that it is on ZI status, on day 45. But since Techland is ZI'ed two and a halve weeks earlier, Infraland easily wins the war.

This isn't an isolated case because of the numbers I took. Here are the generalized formula's

Formula one calculates the infra level (I) depending on nation strength (NS) and tech level (T)

I = (NS - 5*T)/3

Formula two gives the damage given, the Infra lost (IL):

IL = 150 + (150*T*0.01/100)

The days a nation survives before being ZI'ed are given by I/IL

If T increases, the numerator I gets smaller and the denominator IL increases. In a fraction, that means that the result gets smaller, which means that the more tech, the less days you have before being ZI'ed.

Where did I go wrong? Or should I say: "In tech I trust, but not a lot?"

[crazymatty]

Here's my problem.

Let's create two nations, Techland, heavily investing in tech and Infraland, built on infra.

Both are 40K nation strength.

Techland has 5000 Infra and 5000 Tech while Infraland has 10000 Infra and 2000 Tech

Ok I agree your numbers look convincing...but let's go back.

At some point these two nations created on the same day had an equal amount of Infra and tech right? Let's say at 5000 Infra and 2000 tech. But Infra heavy nation used the rest of their money on Infra and Tech heavy spent it on Tech right?

Tech heavy nation spent about $90M on tech. Given that extra 3000 tech @ 3M/100tech.

Could Infra heavy nation get an extra 5000 Infra on $90M?

I honestly don't know the answer...but if not then your example doesn't really fit because an unequal amount of money is spent on the two example nations. I think that people buy a lot of tech at some point because at a certain point in the building of one's nation...tech cost is always the same while Infra keeps going up in cost to purchase.

Edited January 6, 2009 by crazymatty

[Decomposition]

Ok I agree your numbers look convincing...but let's go back.

At some point these two nations created on the same day had an equal amount of Infra and tech right? Let's say at 5000 Infra and 2000 tech. But Infra heavy nation used the rest of their money on Infra and Tech heavy spent it on Tech right?

Tech heavy nation spent about $90M on tech. Given that extra 3000 tech @ 3M/100tech.

Could Infra heavy nation get an extra 5000 Infra on $90M?

I honestly don't know the answer...but if not then your example doesn't really fit because an unequal amount of money is spent on the two example nations. I think that people buy a lot of tech at some point because at a certain point in the building of one's nation...tech cost is always the same while Infra keeps going up in cost to purchase.

Correct. Buying 3000 tech (via tech deals) is much much cheaper than buying the 5000 infra that gets you from 5000 infra to 10 000 infra.

Assuming that the goal is to increase NS a medium sized nation is much better off buying as much tech as possible via tech deals than simply spending every penny on infra.

[crazymatty]

Correct. Buying 3000 tech (via tech deals) is much much cheaper than buying the 5000 infra that gets you from 5000 infra to 10 000 infra.

Assuming that the goal is to increase NS a medium sized nation is much better off buying as much tech as possible via tech deals than simply spending every penny on infra.

Using an "Infra Calc" the cost to go from 5000 Infra to 10,000 infra is approx: $688M (with EVERY cost saving included, it is closer to $900M without any wonders)

So for your example above to be fair...

Your 5000 Infra nation would be able to have 24933 tech. Then they would have spent the same amount of money on their nations.

So TechLand would inflict 524 Infra damage per day. ZI would happen on Day 19. (although Nukes take out tech as well, so the amount of daily damage would be less and less each day of course...but to put things simply...)

Edited January 6, 2009 by crazymatty

[Kippa Tarxien]

Okay, so the main objection is that it is impossible to create an Infraland of the same NS as a Techland in the timeframe and the financial situation in which Techland gets created.

I disagree.

Here's why, I use the excellent website http://www.cn-utilities.com/ (Thank you Syzygy).

I use the infra calculator, start at zero infra, have all the correct resources, 5 factories and no wonders, click 'Submit' and in the new window I type 10,000 levels of infra. Cost 1044 Million.

Now the tech cost: Gold and microchips, 2 Uni's make 5000 levels of tech cost +/- 1600 Million.

Conclusion, buying tech from CN will make Infraland easily overpower you, Infraland has 500M left! So that's a no-go.

Other strategy: buy it at 3M/100T through tech sellers. Problem: 5000T takes you 250 days, at that time, Infraland should be able to gather enough funds to buy the 10000-2000 (Techlands infra) levels of infra. How difficult is that? 8000 infra is 24000NS, on 250 days is efficiency less than 100 (We all know that is achieveable). Even to get the 2000 tech, that would only cost an extra 30M, peanuts.

Infraland can build a same NS nation, no problem.

Edited January 6, 2009 by Kippa Tarxien

[schmutte693]

so why not buy both? I cannot spend more than 18 million$$ per 30 days on tech anyway, which is virtually nothing at that point. Heck, I am only at 30k NS, and that is barely over 3 days net income. At my infra level, 18 million is only about 100 infra anyway, so it does not make a huge difference in the amount of funds I have to spend on infrastructure.

[thaone]

@ Kippa tarxien: CN-utillities is MrCyber's work, but I agree with you it's a good site.

[Chairman Cao]

schmutte693 is right - buying both is best. When you compare pure tech vs pure infra obviously infra comes out on top, but that's a pointless and unfair comparison since Techland would be piling up loads of cash if he's buying tech through deals at a rate of 18mil per 30 days.

What you really should be comparing is pure infra purchasing vs buying the maximum tech through deals alone, and infra with the extra cash, which works out as follows for your previous example.

Infra Alone: 10k infra purchasing 8k over 250 days - Cost = 2833 mil, NS gain = 3x8000 = 24000

...or spending the same 2833mil over 250 days but with 18mil going every 30 days for a total of 5000 tech at a total cost of 150mil, the amount to spend on infra is reduced to 2683 mil, which can purchase a mere 7691 infra, for a total NS gain of 3x7691 + 5x5000 = 48073.

[zzzptm]

When techland gets its WRC, LOOK OUT. Infraland will look like ZI land...

[nc1701]

Their are several factors to look at, and the argument currently being placed is wrong in that tech takes aid slots to purchase while infra requires money... So trying to compare the cost of the two gives a completely useless conclusion.

So instead let's take your scenario, but assume several more things,

1) Each has a WRC.

2) Each nation is planning to rebuild after the war.

3) These nations have warchests of 500m.

Now Techland does 300 infra damage while, Infraland does 210.

Techland will be ZI'ed in 23 days, Infraland will be ZI'ed after 33 days.

If the war ends after 23 days infraland will have lost 6900 or 1900 more than techland has lost.

Tefchland has lost 135m worth of infrstructure, Infraland has lost 920m worth of infrastructure. So techland has dealt 785m MORE damage than Infraland has.

Now if each spends their entire 500m warchest on rebuilding Techland will have 7800 infra, Infraland spends it's 500m warchest and will end up with about 8050 infra... So pre-war the net infra difference is 5k, post war it is 250... Not to mention that Infraland will have had much higher losses in tech and land as well.

Looking at those stats I would have to say Techland won the war hands down.

[Overlord Shinnra]

I gotta agree that your looking at the wrong statistics in this war to base who won.

Sure someone will be ZI first but thats not the point. Who inflicted more damage will be the determining factor in who wins this war and TechLand would win it hands down I believe.

First of all if you look at the post above me by nc1701 then you will see that Infraland will have taken more damage infrawise then Techland not to mention the reprucussions of rebuilding and how close each would be.

Another aspect to look at is we have to assume that both of these nations have manhattan projects which would make this even more tilted in TechLands favor as he can use his war chest to continually nuke InfraLand down to ZI if he wanted while Infralands nukes would do nothing but serve to keep TechLand in anarchy.

[Hob Dobson]

Here's why, I use the excellent website http://www.cn-utilities.com/ (Thank you Syzygy).

I use the infra calculator, start at zero infra, have all the correct resources, 5 factories and no wonders, click 'Submit' and in the new window I type 10,000 levels of infra. Cost 1044 Million.

My estimate's slightly less: 1,031.4 Million. But it's only 997.2M, wonder included, if Infraland buys an Interstate System at the 3K infra mark (Note to self: Buy Interstate System!)

Infraland is getting burned by time as much as Techland is, because Infraland's 8BG might not be pulling in the maximum tax revenues to offset the infra maintenance. The world would have been looking better and better for the first 4-5 months... But that next 10 months would have been slow going, and there's 2K tech to be bought along the way, adding back 60M in costs.

Alliance aid, deals, wars, wonders - it turns out that there are nations at about 10K/2T that are just under 14 months old (finer things club, for example.)

Now for a 30+ day war, both nations are going to have to collect taxes at some point. With a tech advantage to making naval blockades, and maybe a Great University to take further advantage of a tech disparity, I'm thinking that Infraland needs to be a lot luckier than Techland.

[Tryptamine]

Might post something more extensive later, it's late, so two basic points:

-There comes a point at which purchasing additional infra is no longer profitable.

-The comparison of "cash invested in tech" becomes moot reasonably quickly, when it becomes very difficult to spend even a considerable fraction of income on tech. Cost is not a limiting factor. Considering six aid slots and standard $3M/100 tech deals, a nation with perfect slot economy is spending only $6M every ten days. It's cheap additional damage with no cap.

[Syzygy]

First: the CN.utilities page is co-work of MrCyber and myself, he does the layout and coding, I deliver the formulae/research.

Second: Techland wins at all fronts.

- the daily bills are way lower. which means the risk of being bill-locked is way lower.

- the rebuilding costs are way lower, so the overall damage taken in this war will be 3times higher for Infraland

- the tech losses will be way lower for techland, and tech takes lots of time to stock up - you can catch up with everything in this game, just not in lost time

- the daily army replacement costs will be a lot lower because there are a lot less tanks/soldiers to buy, but they still have almost the same battlestrength as Infralands huge armies (with WRC the costs will be around the same, but in that case Infraland suffers even more from all above points)

That means: *never* stop getting more tech. Never. Never. Never. And at best, do BOTH. That simply moves 90% of the possible opponents out of your range and the few which are inside have REALLY expensive stuff to put at risk so they will really think 5x if they want a war or not.

[Veritas]

Fill all your slots with tech deals and use the rest of the money to buy inf. It is the best way hands down. You will sacrifice a very small amount of inf. to gain a very large amount of tech.

[HHAYD]

Small nations-Tech is useless, it will only make you a ripe target for rogues and you can only keep a max of 50 tech while selling tech, otherwise, you will lose profits. Mainly buy infra, infra is cheaper at this time. Recommended amount of tech to infra; 50/any amount of infra, until you reach 2999 infra.

Midsized nation-Tech is important now, otherwise you will risk being smashed down by a tech heavy nation. Infra becomes more expensive, but it is also important. Recommended amount of tech to infra; 1/10, until you reach 5999 infra.

Large nation--Tech is very important now, otherwise you will risk being smashed down by a tech heavy nation. Infra is extremely expensive, but it is also important. Recommended amount of tech to infra; 1/2.

[Veritas]

This last post may be true but considering tech is acquired over a long period of time you should always be doing tech deals as fast as you can. If you aren't ready to be buying you should be selling up until you feel like you make enough to start buying.