Technology beelining

[Footie Mad]

I would be interested to know about different beelines you take in certain situations and why you take them. I mean there are so many different aspects to think about when deciding what the research next.

In the very early game it often boils down to what your starting techs are and what you can see from your immediate environment. If I have mining I go straight for bronze working in order to chop. If I see horses or cows nearby I might go for animal husbandry or if I have corn nearby go for agriculture. This is pretty basic stuff, but none the less many choices.

What decides your next steps and what are your prefered choices?

I often find myself beelining for alphabet after a few basic techs, since I often play pangea maps and have many people to trade with. Also on higher difficulties in the medieval era I try to get calendar quickly since I must get luxuries so I can grow and compete with the AI.

[baboon]

In my first games I always went for Polytheism.

In later games I'm going for development (agri, animals etc.) first, with bronze and iron working. And the fishing techs, I forgot them first but they are great (lighthouse, harbor) Then I usually try to get a religion and start focusing at that tech that gives capapults. And later on Knights, Cavalry.

And I always look for free stuff to earn by discovering a tech first.

[Delirium]

Depends a bit on starting techs, but getting a religion and then shooting for Alphabet before the other civs can get it gives you an edge (and all the early techs through trading). Of course, having something for the workers to do in the mean time is pretty critical, too.

[Hayden]

Like others I make sure I have a good look around my capital city and its surrounds to check the lay of the land in regard to resources. For example if theres no reason to get hunting then you wouldnt bother. Other than that, bronze is good for its chop so I get that quickly. After the that it depends on resources again, if I have iron I will go for iron working so i can build the strong iron based melee units. Or if I have horseys I will start looking at horse archers. I generally dont look at getting a religion, I will look at those others first and then see if I cant scam a religion a bit later if I can, probably should care about getting a religion more than I do though.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Hayden
For example if theres no reason to get hunting then you wouldnt bother.

Uhm, Scout and Archery for example

[Blake]

I've found myself using Islam a lot lately. It seems there's usually more important things to do than found early religions (+ build missionaries), but after the early game junk is out the way a tech to Islam can work great, and by the time you get it your cities are big enough to positively crank out missionaries. Another positive for me is the lack of an early religion helps allow other religions to infiltrate my civ, it can be quite hard without 3+ religions for multiple temples and free religion bonuses.

This is for Prince, at Noble and easier it's quite possible to found all 4 of the later religions (or atleast 3 of them).

This is my usual set of beelines:
First grab Bronze Working. If I have copper, great.
Next get some worker techs, as applicable.
If I don't have copper, pursue Archery.
Stonehenge.
Ironworking (if I never found copper).

At this point I can build Axemen (or Archers), Axemen are kind of essential, relying on Archers alone sucks... if you get easy copper you don't even need archers. The nice thing is with hordes of axemen your defenses are solid for a long time (until crossbows, really).

Anyway then I usually grab alphabet and head on up to Divine Right for Islam, trading to round out my tech tree.
(While teching I'll get a Great Prophet from Stonehenge. I tell him to sit on his holy butt until Islam arrives, then build the shrine).

[Proteus_MST]

Normally I try to get Hinduism and/or Judaism and therefore, at the beginning I put a lot of preference into researching the technologies for Polytheism and Monotheism.
Second in importance is bronze working as it allows to see copper and build powerful units.

[JackRudd]

My usual beeline path is Mysticism-Polytheism-Masonry-Monotheism-Priesthood-Writing-Alphabet. That way I can often get two religions, have some nice Wonders to go for, and can pick up other techs by trading at the end of all this.

[Tufturk]

If I start with Mysticism, I always take an immediate stab at Polytheism. It's more useful than Meditation, and there's less competition to finish it first. If I get it first, Priesthood is soon to follow for temples, and, especially if you have stone, The Oracle.

I normally play without tech trading, so Alphabet doesn't have a high early priority, but Writing - Mathematics - Currency - Code of Laws - Civil Service is my preferred "main route" up the tech tree if in peaceful mood, improving civics and economy and getting some wonders. Later, I often go Feudalism - Metal Casting - Machinery - Guilds. I like to have serfdom in place before bothering with workshops etc, though it leads to rather late building of Forges. With Bureaucracy in place, my capital can usually compete for wonders anyway.

When playing a creative Civ, I often lay off the early religion techs completely, as the +2 culture bonus means Obelisks are rather pointless and Temples not crucial early on.

[Blake]

It's worth noting that at higher difficulty levels (above Noble) you have only a small chance of getting an early religion. You'd need a very high commerce start to even consider trying. It's a real gamble and IMO better to go for something else (or maybe be lame and reload after trying if you fail *shrug*)

[Calvin Vu]

I always beeline for Alphabet. If I start out with Mysticism then I go for Meditation, Copper Mining, Priesthood, Writing, then Alphabet. If I start out with Agriculture then I go by Husbandry. I just tried my first game at Prince level and that strategy worked fine also. Maybe I got a little help from my Quechua who snatched an early worker from the Russian .

Even in the worst case scenario and I have only Writing to trade with, at least I have Writing to trade with 6 other Civs !! If I try to pick up the lowly techs and if any one of the other 6 Civs get to Alphabet first then by the time I get there, there won't be anything left for me to trade and I will remain the most backward civ for a long time if I can ever recover from it techwise.

BTW, to help with the early tech progress, I don't produce any worker/settler until the capital gets to size 3. If my marauding warriors can find and snatch a worker from a neighboring AI, that will even be better. That AI will be toasted if its first worker is stolen anyway so I wouldn't worry about having a war with it. In fact, I fortify my warrior in a forest (or at least a hill) right next to its capital to keep it on the defensive and give me room to expand. I cramped the Russian to a negligible size that way without being able to attack Moscow which was located on a hill. Having the Quechua helped, of course. A stack of two Quechuas fortified right outside the capital can drive the AI nut since none of the early troops can touch them without heavy casualty.

[kimmygibler]

On Deity I think the tech is dictated by you initial needs. There is no point going for a religion unless mabye you start with mysticism. Other than that I usually go for bronze working and then animal husbandry or fishing or pottery depending on what your first city needs. I also think on Deity your first build has to be worker so that you can chop out another settler to at least get 2 decently placed cities. (I play tiny map, 8 civs)

[khumak]

I go for tile improvement techs first and switch to a religion beeline in time to found Judaism. I've found that on Prince or harder it's HIGHLY likely that you'll get beaten to both Buddhism and Hinduism even if you have Mysticism and go straight for one of them. I've never been beaten to Judaism though as long as I make it a relatively high priority.

After that I go straight for Iron Working because otherwise I'll get wiped out by barbarian Axemen.

[DeepO]

I've been fiddling around with Aeson's civil service beeline... it works great, but I don't know exactly in which situations other starts might be better. So just a description, to test it out yourself.

my path:

1a. go for buddhism or hinduism if you've got a feeling you've got a good chance of founding either of them. Civil service needs priesthood (Oracle), grabbing an early religion is a nice bonus. If chances are low, delay priesthood until after writing.

1b. If an early religion is out, go for writing, preferrably trough the pottery path.

2. Build a worker fast in your capital (possibly after a couple of warriors/scouts) if you can build a granary in your capital, do so. Otherwise, try to get a settler out.

3. while waiting for writing, put total focus on food tiles in your capital. You want to have the capital hitting its health/happy limit.

4. Once writing is discovered, build a lib asap. Make sure it completes after your worker.

5. Your worker should be ready at this time, so give him something to do by researching one or two worker techs. If you can, avoid the wheel

6. depending on your safety, go for archers. If you can, avoid the detour.

7. next tech on target is priesthood. Oracle!

(7b. you might want to divert tech focus to masonry in order to build a marble quarry. But this will most of the times also require the wheel... costly...)

8. the moment your lib completes, put two citizens to scientists in your capital. This will add 6+1=7 bpt to your research rate, increasing your capital from a typical 10-12 to 17-19. The idea is that those two scientists are worth their lifes in gold: they will make sure you can research faster than the AI for much of the early game.

9. 2 scientists = 4 GPp (8 while Phi.). In 25 turns or less, you will get a great scientist... academy adds another 7bpt or more to your capital. Your research power has now about doubled in your empire.

10. The moment you can, start on the Oracle. Going for an early religion might mean the Oracle is very close, which might give you time to put in some other low cost, critical tech (archery, mining, or go for seafood). If you don't need it, don't waste time on a detour. The faster you reach civil service, the bigger the effect.

11. After priesthood, you should aim for Code of Laws. Time the Oracle build: it should complete after Code of Laws is discovered! With marble and a good start, you might have to delay the Oracle by building units or e.g. a temple. Also, after the academy, your scientists might be better used on production: whichever completes the Oracle first is the best option (but the Oracle has to come after Code of Laws, so you might need science over production)

12. Discover Code of laws. Take whatever you like as a next tech, I generally fill in worker techs, or go to alphabet , compass, some religion tech (philosophy: you are guaranteed to discover it first if you start on it now, and you already have founded Confucianism by beelining for Code of laws), monarchy...
One thing though: don't switch to caste system yet. The next change will come too quickly, and you will have to wait for 5 turns before being able to change again

13. Oracle completes, pick Civil service. Change your civics to Bureaucracy. Possibly change to caste system. Your capital will increase it's commerce and production by 50%. You might want to run with specialists now, but about everything else is also an option: more production for units or wonders, more commerce from cottages, more food for growth...

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This is actually a longer version, but so far I got it to work on about any monarch game I went for it. For lower levels, you get more time: you can research more techs before reaching writing, priesthood or Code of laws. For higher levels, I suspect you need to be more extreme.

The most extreme I got it to work:
1. start with mysticism (Ghandi)
2. go for hinduism (it turned out buddhism could have worked too, but I considered the risk too high)
3. go for writing
4. build the lib, get 2 scientists. I managed to cramp out a worker and a warrior so far, nothing more.
5. go for code of laws
6. start the oracle the moment the lib completes
7. discover code of laws (Confucianism)
8. get civil service for free.
9. now start on worker techs

In that game, I wanted to start on settlers, but found little free room: no units means a lot of barb towns... so I built a barracks, sped to swords, and started building swords 1-2 turns apart. I don't think I even needed to build a settler in the entire game. I got a bit lucky with the starting position, though, floodplains and hills, iron nearby, I even had marble (but as Ghandi, the Oracle already needed to be slowed down so no need to stop by masonry)

DeepO

[khumak]

Sounds like a VERY different start from most games. I'm definitely going to try this. I imagine a focus like this would wind up building a very small number of cities early on and getting the rest through conquest. Also sounds like this would be an ideal way to go for OCC.