Scramble for Africa: best tech for liferating?

[lucaluca]

Its 1869 and the scramble is about to start. I have all the 3 techs required, but the invention "Colonial Negotiations" has not fired yet. In order to have it fire, it looks like there are 3 techs that increase the likelyhood of it happening by 25% each: one military (Machine Guns), one Naval (Naval Logistics) and one Commercial (something like Reliable Economics). Which of the three is the best to start researching in 1870? Is it just player's prefernce or is there a logic behind it?

 

[GC13]

It's the player's preference, and therefore the answer is Machine Guns because it's pretty far and away the most useful tech.

 

[lucaluca]

It's the player's preference, and therefore the answer is Machine Guns because it's pretty far and away the most useful tech.

Yes I was going with Machine Guns, just wanted to double check it was the right path, thanks

 

[El Jojo]

I guess to really optimize you'd have to look at your academia school and see where you have bonuses. Military-industrial complex is a popular choice which would drive you towards machine guns, other schools could be different.
The whole naval logistics line is, in my opinion, one of the least useful, I often end up rsearching Alphabetic flag signalling around 1910 becasue there's no real point.

 

[qpspider]

I'd also suggest researching the techs needed to build Ironclads and higher level ships. Mass building them can help gain colonial points without releasing dominions.

 

[Owl Raider]

Really depends on which nation you're playing and what your goals are. Machine Guns is the obvious choice for land based nations, but if you're playing a naval based power like the UK, Netherlands, Portugal, etc, than you should consider going for the naval tech instead. If playing an isolated powerhouse like Sweden, Russia, etc, than the 3rd tech could be the best choice. The choice of strategy should also affect the tech school you're going for. Sweden is a good example, it starts with a pacifistic tech school(penalties on army and navy techs) which suits an isolationist style, which is also the recommended style for beginners(and the reason Sweden is a recommended nation for new players). However if you're a veteran and want a challenge than you can switch into a land based strategy and rather than stay isolated stick your nose in others' business, first by taking Finland from Russia than going south from there into Russian and Prussian territory, eventually taking the entire Baltic coastline. Going with such a strategy would encourage switching tech schools into Military Industrial Complex as you'll need a lot of military tech ASAP to contest the significantly larger Russian and Prussian forces. So in this example, an isolationist Sweden going for Africa should go for the 3rd tech, while a land based Sweden should go for Machine Guns.

 

[niallmcfc]

It's been a while since I played vanilla, but in PoD one of the techs can actually be researched ten years before the invention can trigger (think it's the naval one). You might want to look at dates and see if the same applies to vanilla.

 

[GC13]

I'd also suggest researching the techs needed to build Ironclads and higher level ships. Mass building them can help gain colonial points without releasing dominions.

In my last game, as the Ottoman Empire, I hadn't built up far enough for ironclads. So I built fifty-five commerce raiders and got a pretty nice haul anyway. Here's a picture, though I did steal my two southern-most states from France (in the big, obvious dip into French Africa).

It's been a while since I played vanilla, but in PoD one of the techs can actually be researched ten years before the invention can trigger (think it's the naval one). You might want to look at dates and see if the same applies to vanilla.

That's how it works in vanilla too: you research the base tech that you need for the invention in 1850, and then the trigger tech comes up in 1870; if you don't research the trigger tech, you get a pretty big chance to get the invention anyway once someone else does, as long as you have the base tech.

 

[Owl Raider]

In my last game, as the Ottoman Empire, I hadn't built up far enough for ironclads. So I built fifty-five commerce raiders and got a pretty nice haul anyway. Here's a picture, though I did steal my two southern-most states from France (in the big, obvious dip into French Africa).

That's how it works in vanilla too: you research the base tech that you need for the invention in 1850, and then the trigger tech comes up in 1870; if you don't research the trigger tech, you get a pretty big chance to get the invention anyway once someone else does, as long as you have the base tech.

Commerce Raiders are light ships, not capital ships, thus they don't give you any colonial points, which was spider's point regarding Ironclads as they're the most cost efficient colonial point generator. As the Ottomans you are in the best position to rush for Africa so getting most of Africa as the Ottomans isn't that hard, and has nothing to do with Ironclads.

 

[GC13]

Commerce Raiders are light ships, not capital ships, thus they don't give you any colonial points, which was spider's point regarding Ironclads as they're the most cost efficient colonial point generator. As the Ottomans you are in the best position to rush for Africa so getting most of Africa as the Ottomans isn't that hard, and has nothing to do with Ironclads.

Commerce raiders give two thirds of the colonial points that ironclads give. It's not as efficient from a naval supply perspective, but if you don't have the tech or infrastructure to build ironclads then you do what you have to.

 

[El Jojo]

Ottomans have a lot of costal states so they can have a lot of cored naval bases, which, in itself, gives a lot of colonial points. Mass building Commerce Raiders is actually quite efficient to complement that.
Even countries like Portugal will rely on Commerce Raiders since they only have 3 cored naval bases to build ironclads.