Owning technology on Monarch+?

[akuratnik]

So today I won Cultural victory with Frederick on Monarch (Huge, Pangea, 12 players), while trying not to let Kublai Khan get Diplomatic OR space victory (ended up beating his space race prolly by a few turns) and trying not to get annihilated by Alex's modern armors.

I managed to pull it off, but to do it, I had to go to 100% culture (0% science) and so I was doing Rocketry (or whatever its called) in late 1970s. Kinda pathetic, considering everybody else was doing future techs. The only reason I did not get destroyed was my diplomacy (78% approval rating, as I found out), my cultural dominance (+80% defense bonus in almost all cities), and my mass production of riflemen towards the end of the game.

So now comes the issue: I want to try my hand at Emperor difficulty, but I know for a fact that my a$$ will get served in the tech race and this time, the AI will not be as stupid and will destroy me in a matter of 2-3 turns. So how do you get ahead in tech on these diffuclties?

I don't expand too much, I had about 9-10 cities in the end, but I definitely owned the classical era with technology by bee-lining for the Oracle and getting alphabet for free. However, towards the end, the others completely shut me out ("You are getting too advanced") and would only trade among each other. The result? I'd be one tech behind Kublai Khan, and then contact him again next turn and find out he's now 5 techs ahead of me.

Any clues on how to be ahead the entire game?

[cal_01]

I have a feeling that the only real way to compete on the higher difficulties, like previous Civs and SMAC/X, is to expand aggressively and/or wage numerous wars to overrun your opponents.

A Civ-on-civ tech race on Monarch+ is impossible unless you have an overwhelming number of cities; they have way too many bonuses on everything.

[Hauptman]

There is only one way.

Ensure that your rivals cannot research techs.

A) You can pillage their lands and take all there comerce away yourself or...

2) Have all 3 of there neighbors declare war on them and pillage for you.

#) Maintain such a huge military that whenever they research a new tech you can "BULLY" them into giving it to you.



All 3 are very expensive to pull off and you cannot let up. And as far as i can see the AI does seem to remeber getting its arse whooped good enough to give in to your demands the next time.


(count the post descrepancies and win, Nothing!)

[akuratnik]

dang. war and cultural victory don't really go together.

I guess I'm going to try to expand a bit more...

[lastchance]

Only way you win on higher difficulties is a large amount of convincing victories in war. In peacetime, your opponents can easily outtech and outexpand you, but early war gives you a big advantage in space and hopefully production and techs.

Until the AI gets Longbowmen, I think it's very possible to get the advantage and keep up, except the maintenance costs will kill you if you expand too quickly.

War is a necessity in this game. Trying to avoid it when it is effective makes your game a lot harder.

[Blake]

With a strategy like CS Slingshot + some GP whoring you can indeed keep up on Tech on Monarch, and emp too if you disable tech trading.

You may or may not consider disabling tech trading a bit of a copout. I mean the AI are obviously being whores if they only keep ahead by exclusive trading.

edit: Whether or not they actually induldge in exclusive whoring is debatable (firaxis would say no), but AI's do tend to be friendlier with each other due to not making demands. AFAIK they don't demand each others techs, they trade it fairly. They probably also don't demand lopsided trades (atleast not to the same degree).

[Risa]

Short answer: the Internet.
Long answer: beeline to the Internet. It isn't so far away than you think, although it's still quite far away...

[Dubhghlas]

Originally posted by Risa
Short answer: the Internet.
Long answer: beeline to the Internet. It isn't so far away than you think, although it's still quite far away...

That brings up an interesting point. In past iterations of the game, the "great library catch-up" was something you built early, and expired after about half the game was over. With this one, the technology catch-up wonder is built late in the game, and doesn't expire at all.

It will be interesting to see how, if at all, this changes people's strategies on technology acquisition.

[kormesios]

I've pulled a "come from behind" win on monarch a couple times using the internet--basically, beeline for fiber optics, start building it, go for robotics to get the space elevator, then change science to 0% to rush build factories/laboratories and the elevator itself.

Other than that, I've found opportunistic wars go a long way towards keeping up in tech. Ignore the basic builder mentality of peace and love, and shamelessly "pile on" some poor AI player when you're asked. Even if you get no territory, there are two tech race advantages: you help your own diplomacy standing with some AI players (=more tech trading for you) and help knock down a rival (=less tech trading among AI).

[soztabak]

Originally posted by Risa
Short answer: the Internet.
Long answer: beeline to the Internet. It isn't so far away than you think, although it's still quite far away...

also if you beeline for the internet right from the start, you don't need to research alphabet

[Lost in Civ]

Well given the stunning lack of command of the alphabet demonstrated by many internet denizens, it's not that much of a surprise...

[Diadem]

So building the internet makes The Alphabet obsolete?

Suddenly it all makes sense!

[Diadem]

Anyway.

It's entirely possible to stay ahead in techs even on monarch difficulty. I haven't tried the higher difficulties yet, but I suspect it might be possible as well.

Rapid expansion is actually not a good idea. You want to have your second and third city up and running as soon as possible, but after that, don't hurry. Only settle very good spots, and keep a very close eye on your economy. Use a lot of cottages, specialists, and GPs. Keep a strong army, and choose sides in conflicts between AIs. Make sure you have a few good friends, and don't be shy about warring. Pillaging is fun.

I suspect the best way to play might actually be a semi-OCC strategy. Focus everything on your capital to make it a huge powerhouse. Build some tribituary cities, to mass produce units and acquire key resources. Unlike in real OCC you won't be able to build all national wonders in your capital, but National Epic and Oxford University will do.

[ulyanov]

Originally posted by soztabak


also if you beeline for the internet right from the start, you don't need to research alphabet

n0 but U still n33d m4th3m4tics.