Do these still work? I have seen lots of people doing tech phases->cash, and I seem to remember grimjoww and Bug showing with all the maths that pure cash starts were more efficient.

yes they work but are more risky.

Of course they work. Whether it is more efficient depends on the tech price on the market. If tech is $8000 per point, tech start is better. If tech is $500 per point, obviously cash start is better. Tech price also changes everyday. If those "proof" doesn't take this into account, then it is not really a proof of anything.

it is my experience often, vic, for team server if you don't tech start for your casher you're going to be woefully short on tech by the time you reach like six or seven thousand acres, because it's either outright empty or so expensive you simply can't keep up with exploring (eventually you need to run turns, and you can only create so many cs)

alliance i suppose you have a much deeper market and there personally i don't tech start

team has 106 countries and top 25 is mostly reps and commies, few tyrs and 1 theo.

alliance has 6 times more countries and top 25 has 1 theo, few demos and tyrs and not all are farmers.

Xin, no need to be so condescending. Rainbow "works," when you get right down to it, but I am confident that in the context of the strat board you know what I meant. And there is no need for ludicrous tech examples either. Anyone trying to figure out the viability of a startup is obviously not going to know how the market is going to be for the set they are starting up in, and any calls are going to use averages. This doesn't strike me as difficult to follow.

Braden, thanks, that makes sense.

Marshal, I have been wondering who is buying all the military on team, there seems to be a huge percentage of commies.

those outside top25 since 50+ commy isn't majority.

earthgraph says team has 15 commies, 3 dicts (should be farmers), 10 fascs (mostly farmers), 9 tyrs (farmers and techers prolly), 3 theos, 16 reps (should be all cashers) and 10 demos (farmers, cashers, techers prolly), rest are monos (farmers, indies, cashers, techers, rainbows).

Well Vic, my experiences is that a tech start is generally superior, if that is what you're looking for.

If Tech is "average expensive", then tech start is of course the right choice.

If tech is "average cheap", then the tech start simply allowed you to use the extra income from your tech start to buy even more cheap tech, resulting in an upward spiral where the tech pays for itself as you grow; you don't have to go out of your way to get that initial tech base to get into that upward spiral. This reset, I played a Demo farmer on Primary, and was able to keep my entire Agri tech above 210% the entire reset, hovering closer to 220%. 5 weeks in, that tech is 230%, and 6 weeks in, its 238%.

The same applies to a casher, 2 previous sets, I was able to keep res/bus consistently over 165% at all times, rather than having to claw your way from 100% to 165% in the first place.

What I am driving at is not the per turn income, but rather the cost of conversion. The actual start, in the past (and remember I last played back in 11 prior to this month) tech easily outpaced cash but cash passed it during the conversion process and, if played correctly, stayed ahead by having more land despite an initial tech disadvantage. If I am reading you correctly you are saying that even with the conversion costs figured the cash start never pulls ahead. Is that right?

I suppose something could be factored in for flexibility. You don't know how many techers/cashers/oilers/farmers there will be until enough people are out of protection and some spy reports are coming in. For myself I always take out a bit of insurance in case bushels or oil are in very short supply; maybe something more could be done to delay any really commital move?

If you stayed Monarchy for a bit, say, and the units market was totally dead (as it was in Alliance this set) you could then almost seemlessly switch to casher.

Not really sure about this though. It is generally right to make your bet and then do your utmost to make that bet come good. Sitting on a fence might just give up too much in the critical early phase.

Well I am absolutely planning to run a rep cashier next set in tourney. I am just trying to figure out if a tech start is actually better. Although, I am a contrarian and likely to go against the advice just to prove my way can work lol

I have attempted casher just once - in Alliance this set.

I actually started out intending a turret heavy (untagged) commie Indy but the units market was 100% inactive at the start of the set (everyone warring) and I got fed up and switched to Rep caher so I wasn't constrained by the unreliable market.

That has worked out pretty well but if I had it to do again I would do a tech phase. I am stagnating just now because tech prices are sky high. (Altough if I had done a tech phase I would probably just have gone on teching - Rep techer, that would have been a thing to see!).

But this is, again, to do with the server wide war. There just aren't any techers. What things are like in tourney I don't know. A tech phase carries the risk that you get discovered and farmed flat before you can get going. But it mght allow rapid advance during the early middle part of the set.

I have known strong players in the past (long distant past) who swore by a tech phase and were willing to do a complete switcg after completing it. I'm not so sure myself.

Be interested to hear how you get on.

Whether a tech phase is good when market conditions are less extreme I don't know

Hao2, definitely a colossus among the laf pantheon, was a fan of Indy->tech->cash, and he won 1a and 1b the same reset I believe with that outline. That was many changes ago. So many, that demo cashier/reseller was a thing and theocracy was not.

Really depends on what server it's played on. With tag protection and decently priced tech, cash start does quite well. Other servers, I would probably go with a tech start.

Yep. With the formula change to Building costs that is now exponential, the old and new building costs formula equal each other at 3.7k land or so, so it is actually cheaper to convert buildings below that acreage, making tech starts even stronger. The building cost is also constant up to 750a, so there is no reason not to explore up to 750a, before doing build/explore alternating turns.

how many cs do you have on those 750 acres, out of curiosity?

300 for techers 160-180 for non-techers?

That is exactly the info I really needed. Good deal, thanks.

Oh wow, so that's why tech starts are so popular / strong since I've returned to the game. Good info +1.

160 CS usually. That's 45 BPT (standard government).

You can only have half your land empty in order to explore more, so I would likely only have about ~300-500 acres while building those 160 CS (with about 120 farms for funding the labs).

No, the building cost change is basically negligible at that level.

Tourney server you absolutely want to tech start. Tech prices are always $3k in the early going.

dont see how that will work