Staying ahead in the tech race

[couerdelion]

I’ve noticed one recurring problem that I have faced in many games – generally at Emperor level – is that of keeping ahead of the AI in the tech race once early game plays have given you a small lead. Having looked at some of the problems experience during these games, I think I might have highlighted a few tips that might be of use to others that might have similar problems.

I will assume that you are producing a healthy output of beakers and that you are steadily getting through the techs on your own. The problem is still likely to be there so I think it can safely be attributed to the AI trading among themselves. What is more, in my experience I have been unable to trade at Emperor level on an even basis but can assume that the AI’s will do this among themselves.

Let’s suppose that you have 2 AI’s to trade with (ie pre-Optics) and that, in a given time frame, each AI will trade techs worth 300 gold once with each other AI. Without any trading on your part, each AI is 300 beakers richer having gained two further techs (at 300). If you trade with the AI at 80:100 then one trade with each AI will leave you 480 beakers better off, but the AI will be up 600 beakers. In fact, you would need to trade TWICE with each AI to give you 960 beakers worth of techs against 900 for the AI. That means two trades every five turns!!!

This may sound like a lot of trading and the barriers to trade are not insignificant:
- both AI’s must have the tech for one of them to be willing to trade it
- you must have suitable techs to trade (sufficient value but not too much)

Despite these problems, if we assume that the AI’s trade and also that you won’t ever get a fair deal at the higher levels, you have to find some way of trading with them or will certainly fall behind.

For me, the first key to improving your trading advantage with the AI is to limit their opportunities for trading while improving your own and your first key objective will be to get the Alphabet early. If you get this first, which seems quite common in many games that I play, you will not only be the only one who can trade but also you possess a significant information advantage over the AI. This is stage one in improving your tech trading lead over the AI even in the post-Alphabet world since your goal here should not only be to use your new tech trading capacity to gain an immediate lead but also to reduce future trading opportunities for the AI.

In short, this is a time to stop and study the form-book and discover what the AI has and which techs it “could” trade with another AI.

Here are a few guidelines for techs research and trading in a post-Alphabet world
- Avoid researching “Red techs”- those that are “Won’t trade”. Once you have completed the research, the other AI with the tech will trade it immediately almost every time.
- Research either new techs or those that are known by several AI civs
- Avoid trading one of your own techs that is “Red”. You’ll have to work this one out but it is essentially the same problem. If you give the tech to an AI then they might quickly find a possible trade with a third party.
- Know the tech tree and the pre-requisites well. You may have techs that the AI cannot research (and vice versa). You should certainly know which of the former you possess and at least be aware of the latter. There may be a few clues from the game (ie new units that the AI possesses, a switch in civics, improving certain tiles that require a given tech, or some new trading option from techs such as Currency or Astronomy
- In a pre-Currency world, research techs at different levels (200/400/600/800 gold) so that you have sufficient techs to trade and the necessary “loose change” to keep these tech trades affordable. Post currency, it is money that makes up the “loose change”.
- Don’t be afraid to make the occasional bad deal if you know that the AI will make it’s own deal anyway. Once the AI has traded for a tech that you could have given it, you’ve gained nothing from it. You may even get a friendly ally from your generosity.

Above all, don’t worry about spending a little time keeping on top of this. Failure to do so will almost certainly mean at least a tougher task in keeping any tach advantage that you may have taken so long to earn.

[trev]

The most important aspect to trading is to know your opponent and his likely allies and enemies before the first deals are done. The idea is to find 3 civs that will be willing to trade consistently with you and never do a deal with anyone else. This means no open borders with anyone but those 3 chosen civs, no resource agreements with anyone else etc at any stage of the game. The reason for this is that it reduces the number of red listed trades the the AI civs have to very few. Also be prepared to sometimes gives gifts when requested and go to war when requested and try to conform your civics and religion to your chosen civs likes. These steps will give you much freer trading conditions than you can get any other way. On top of this get to know what the Ai does not research as a priority and research those for what they do research. If you make the right choices it is pssible to maintain yourself close to the cutting edge of technology.
When all else fails, get everyone involved in a world war, particularly if the game is approaching the space race. My last game on emperor I won after such as a war, before the war I was about 10 techs behind the leader, after it I was learning at about 4 times their pace, got to the lead easily and built the spaceship.

[couerdelion]

In my experience, you’ll find few AI civs that won’t trade with other civs. I suppose you could hope to find three civs that mutually hate each other but, in this case, they will all send you demands to cancel agreements with the others and you’ll quickly lose any semblance of friendship you may have once had.

This policy of not researching a tech that is “red listed” seems to be a very effective way of keeping a tech lead. I’m on a continent with three other civs and at the time I discovered alphabet, I had a good tech lead over all three due to the CS sling shot and bureaucracy.

My situation was
Lizzie (Me) – Confucian
Kublai – Confucian (Pleased)
Cyrus – Buddhist (Cautious)
Saladin – Buddhist.(Annoyed)

These guys have the free space on the island which is typically jungle (with the associated resources). Cyrus and Kublai have hemmed me into a small area with room for 5 cities with two of them heavy with tundra. Resources in my own area include 3 happies (gold, silver and whales), 4 health (rice, cattle, sheep, fish, crabs) and 3 strategic (horses, iron and stone). I traded my single sheep for some Mongolian wheat to leverage of the granaries for extra health but on the whole I seemed to be limited in both vertical and horizontal expansion.

Returning to the subject of the tech lead, Saladin simply doesn’t want to deal with me so my trading has been somewhat restricted. I doubt that Kublai and Cyrus would trade. Techwise, Saladin and Cyrus seemed to be pushing ahead of Kublai and would trade if they could. By not researching anything that they have sole ownership of, I am stopping them from trading the techs.

The great irony of this type of technological terrorism is that, having moved into 500 AD, none of my neighbours have yet discovered Alphabet!!! I’ve moved through Literature to Music so am three techs ahead just on that tech line. My failure to acquire a free great artist would suggest that some other continent is leaving ours behind a little. However, I think I am safer in working on the assumption that I can catch up with these guys once I meet them and it is much better to maintain a relative advantage over my island neighbours.

Of course, this means that I cannot develop Monarchy, Currency or Construction. But I can still take the fast track route to Optics through Metal Casting and Machinery (also get my macemen here) and sail the seven seas away from this backward continent. I was tempted to say “god-forsaken”, but the existence of three religions on the island (I grabbed Philosophy quickly for both Taoism and Angkor Wat).

Compare then my tech advantage over Saladin
He has Construction and Monarchy (possibly Theology and/or Engineering?)
I have Alphabet, Literature, Music, Compass, Code of Laws, Civil Service, Philosophy.

Perhaps I’m just lucky, but this the sort of tech lead that I am accustomed to having at a prince level game and not at emperor.

I think the strategy works.

NB: When a civ acquires a new tech that would reveal another tech that you could trade, it sometimes takes two or more turns to realise this. When I traded Writing to Cyrus early on for Sailing, he took a while to realise that I had Alphabet also. And for some reason, Kublai Khan has taken a long time to realise that I had Code of Laws even after I gave him Writing. But Meditation or Priesthood were also not on my list of techs to trade to him so I am still confused as to how it selects which techs can be traded.

[couerdelion]

Seems I was wrong about other continents being advanced. Continuing my steady progression and trading down a couple of times with Cyrus for Currency and Construction, I'm still about 6 techs ahead of Cyrus and the latest survey put Cyrus second in the world in technological advancement.

Which does make me wonder how I failed to get the free artist with Music. Perhaps Louis XIV is out there (or someone similar) and perhaps they just bee-lined for it.