by rattkin
I second that. Computers are absolutely crucial. It's just math and chance calculation.As for buying techs, you sometimes do that not because you want the actual benefit, but instead:
- you want to deny this to your opponents
- you want further development on your tech tree (more VP)
That said, the expansion offers the variation of having "next round" techs drawn and available to look at in current round. This gives you some information about how future would look like. I don't like this variant very much, it becomes quite fiddly (no place to put them) and increases the predictability, which takes some fun from the game for me. But you might want to use it so that situations like the one you've described won't happen often.