Deep or wide?

[Merzbow]

It seems that it's always better to go deep in the tech tree, no? 1000 beaker points spent on a tech few people have can be traded several times for earlier techs, so you are in effect getting far more than 1000 beakers out of that tech. Whereas if you go wide, you will almost never be able to trade your techs because everyone else has them already. I think my next game I'm just going to set research on automatic beeline for techs deep in the tree and then just trade for the others.

[vmxa1]

So long as those techs are not tradable. So many will be held and not traded for a very long time.

[Shr3dZ]

Youll gain better relations with AI ala "Our trade relations have been fair and forthright"

Maybe Ill give it a shot next game too...

[Strollen]

I disagree, I don't think going excessively deep in the tree (more than one or two levels max) is worth while.

First, you miss out on some useful tech that you can get for 1/3 or 1/4 time of your deep tech.

Second by going deep you are unlikely to have any lesser techs to trade to the AI.

Finally, there is no guarentee that the AI will be willling to trade you anything worthwhile for your new advanced tech.

For example take the strategy for making a beeline to Alphabet to enable tech trading.
Be doing so you don't get a chance to pick up mining or bronze working, which means you can't mine the gold mine or chop the forest.

When you finally get alphabet, the only tech you can safely trade is writing. If you are very lucky you might find a civ that would trade something like mining for writing more likely you will be forced to trade writing for fishing, mysticism and hunting. If you are lucky you will make a small profit. Of course the AI will be doing great trading a 50 beaker tech for a 120 tech.
Eventually after you have traded writing to everyone the only thing you will have to trade is alphabet. Best case you can pick up techs, like bronze working, polythesism, sailing etc. It is extremely unlikely you will be able to trade for similar worth techs like Iron working, math, or horseback riding. Because either you will lack the prequistes for the advanced tech or the AI is unwilling to trade advanced techs to you.

[LzPrst]

agreed. there are some techs that the AI wont give up no matter what. crazy buggers...

[QuestGAV]

I had some success going deep in the tree at Prince but I find I'm getting my rear handed to me while trying to go deep on Monarch. Overall I'd say going deep has a higher reward potential but the risk is significant if someone beats you there.

[Shr3dZ]

I would think you would only 'go deep' once youve gotten Alphabet.

So, start wide, then go deep!

[Blake]

I agree. Start wide, go deep.

After Alphabet good targets are things like Divine Right (for Islam, assuming you have no religion) , or the long slog to Astronomy on Terra maps.

[dschur]

Originally posted by Blake
I agree. Start wide, go deep.

After Alphabet good targets are things like Divine Right (for Islam, assuming you have no religion) , or the long slog to Astronomy on Terra maps.

The problem with Astronomy on Terra is that its the last thing in the world you'd ever trade away. The advantage you gain by Astronomy first there is phenominal, but would not impact a trade strategy.

Why not trade Alphabet when you get there first? I found it got me most of the early techs including iron working.

[khearn]

In a recent game, I made a dive for Gunpowder. Not a beeline, mind you, I grabbed a few important early techs that were off the beeline, like mining, agriculture, the wheel & bronze working. But I mainly concentrated on going for Gunpowder. As a result, I was several levels deeper into the tree than the AIs were. I had Paper when others were back at Writing and Monarchy. But had I skipped some of the religious & metalworkingtechs, and all of the naval techs. However, at this point I could go to one AI and trade one late classical era tech (but still one a couple levels below my highest) for a few ancient era techs of similar total point value.

Code of Laws requires 350 research, and I could go to one AI and trade it for, say, Hunting (40), Masonry (80), Pottery (80), and Polytheism (100) (total of 300 research). Trading 350 for his 300 made him feel good about me. Then I went to another AI and traded Code of laws for another bunch of low techs, again giving the AI a decent deal. Then I could go to another and do the same.

By trading off one tech to a few AIs, I was able fill in most of the lower techs I had missed that the AIs had gotten, and ended up trading a tech that cost me 350 beakers for a bunch of techs that would have cost me close to 1000 beakers if I'd researched them all myself. Plus I made 3 AIs happy with me because I gave each of them a good deal. And I wasn't even trading by best tech, I was a couple of techs past Code of Laws when I traded it.

This only works if you've got a few AIs that are happy enough with you to trade techs, and they have to be far enough along so that they've got a few techs each that they're willing to trade (they won't usually trade their most recent techs, or techs that still have unbuilt wonders). So I don't know if this would work well when you've only dove as far as Alphabet, they may not have many techs they're willing to trade yet.

But if you can dive into the Renaissance era while they are going wide and just reaching the classical era, you can make this work. Gunpowder is a good dive, did you know it can be reached in just 9 techs?

Mysticism -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> Writing -> Code of Laws -> Civil Service -> Paper -> Education -> Gunpowder

They start taking a while near the end, since their cost is rising faster than your infrastructure is growing, but when you trade one tech that took 20 turns for 8 or 10 that would have taken 40 or 50 all together, it's worth it.

BTW, rushing to gunpowder with the hopes of using it to conquer the world doesn't work as easy as one might think. You can build musketmen (or musketeers for the French), but they're too expensive that early in the game when you haven't had time to build up infrastructure like forges (not to mention the fact that you bypassed metal casting and only traded for it a little while before you got gunpowder). When they've got 3 swordsmen for every musketeer you've got, it's hard to make much headway.

[Strollen]

Khearn what level were you playing?

At monarch level I found I was hard pressed to convince the AI, even with decent (i.e. cautious) relation, to give me one tech for my advanced tech much less 3. For instance, I had Assembly line (2800) France had Scientific Method (and biology a tech beyond.)
I could get a straight trade but couldn't more money for it. Nor could I give the AI a bunch of money + Assembly line for Scientific Method and Military tradition (1800)

Don't get me wrong I think tech trading is still a very important strategy, but it isn't nearly as valuable as it was in Civ 3. I think researching techs solely for the purpose of trading them to the AI isn't an optimal strategy. By all means research techs that you think are critical but don't get tunnel vision and make beelines down the tech tree at the cost of missing out on some valuable infrastructure techs.

BTW, I did the same thing as you with France made a dive (not beeline) to gunpowder to get the 2 move musketeers. Turns out Musketeers are very good pillage units (2 moves + defense terrain) but lousy assault units.

[khearn]

Originally posted by Strollen
Khearn what level were you playing?

Strollen, you have a very good point, this was on noble. I can imagine that it wouldn't work as well on higher levels.

[Merzbow]

It seems to me that different difficulty levels require different strategies. This may seem an obvious point, but seems to be overlooked - i.e. people criticizing other people for suggesting one build a wonder to achieve X or Y because 'you rarely can get wonders at difficulty level Z and above'. At least on Prince and below, the AI is quite willing to hand over bucketloads of slightly older techs for one of my more advanced ones. I'm amazed anyone can accomplish jack on Monarch and above, frankly - it seems less like fun than an exercise at hair-splitting micromanagement.

[Blake]

Originally posted by dschur


The problem with Astronomy on Terra is that its the last thing in the world you'd ever trade away. The advantage you gain by Astronomy first there is phenominal, but would not impact a trade strategy.

Why not trade Alphabet when you get there first? I found it got me most of the early techs including iron working.

I'm not sure what you're point is. Just because you can't trade Astronomy doesn't make it something very worth beelining for. I beeline astronomy and trade everything except astronomy.

The AI doesn't seem to know that astronomy is the bees knees on Terra, I've traded all the pre-req techs to it and techs around it and they still don't seem to bother researching it with any priority.

[Kidinnu]

Blake, I think that's because the human knows about the special-case nature of the Terra map, but the AI doesn't.