The 'Macemen Moment'

[trev]

Personally I would learn Ag, AH, mining much earlier and get workers active to improve your growth potential and hammer production earlier in the game. Early growth results in bigger cities quicker and you have the bonus one happy also with Brennus, so max your cities out to max happy size quickly and benefit from that trait. This will help with overal learning ability, extra useful buildings, extra pop to use as specialists etc.

[Kaosium]

When you say you fall behind in tech, that means you are being hampered by unit maintenance, city maintenance, not getting enough sources of research, or not trading as well as the AIs. So, to really help you, we would have to look at why that's happening.

Is there a way not to fall behind in tech playing the Celts with Civ Gold on Emperor? I had assumed it was inevitable and was learning to make do with the situation. The best I've been able to do is the very few games I've been able to build Stonehenge (meaning I had to build Bribacte right on top of stone and made Masonry the first tech after Poly) and also built the Temple of Artemis in another city and got a Great Merchant from that to go with the Great Prophet from my capitol for Stonehenge and built the shrine and gotten the massive cash from the GM trade to allow me to run 100% research with impunity. I'll stay close for a while that way, but eventually they still overtake me by late Medieval.

They won't trade with me at all in the beginning, though eventually someone will pop up and give me one with some cash for a tech or two, but by that time they'll have both Alphabet and Currency and I won't have either yet. I've considered bee-lining for Alphabet like I used to do when I first started playing, not for trade possibilities as they all despise me inherently on Emperor, but so I could 'build' research. Is that how it's done?

[Theben]

Consider using your Great People to lightbulb a high research tech or if Prophet/Merchant drop them in a commerce city.

[wodan11]

95% of the techniques to boost your economy work no matter what leader/civ you're playing.

It sounds like you feel trading techs with the AIs is the only way to keep up in tech. That's hardly ture, but even so, having good relations is a result of having the same religion, gifting them stuff such as extra resources, acceding to demands, sharing a war, etc. Also, you can lightbulb a good tech and then trade it to multiple AIs, turning 1 tech into 5, 6, or more.

[Kaosium]

95% of the techniques to boost your economy work no matter what leader/civ you're playing.

It sounds like you feel trading techs with the AIs is the only way to keep up in tech. That's hardly ture, but even so, having good relations is a result of having the same religion, gifting them stuff such as extra resources, acceding to demands, sharing a war, etc. Also, you can lightbulb a good tech and then trade it to multiple AIs, turning 1 tech into 5, 6, or more.

No, the best I'd been able to do is with the TA/SH combination I posted above. I merely pointed out that on Emperor playing with Civ Gold tech trading in the beginning is a non-starter. I always found a religion, that's the one real early advantage the Celts have, so my neighbors are often of the same faith, but until the late Medieval period or so they simply won't trade with you. By the time they will you don't often have much they want. A big change from Noble-Prince-Monarch when I'd have 5k in the bank by staying at the top of the tech curve and selling my new techs for gobs of cash allowing me to stay at 100% research.

My game last night I managed to better than I had before, I managed to get the Pyramids too. That meant I could go to Representation and get the beaker bonus for my specialists. I stayed with them longer than I had before, but had the game ruined when Catherine showed up with Rifleman against my macemen.

A tech or two from GP who I'd rather use more effectively isn't gonna help much methinks. Oh, I'll occasionally use them as such but that's not going to get me tech parity.

[#07]

I think this is where early wars help. Provided your the aggressor and you win them... the land you gain weakens them and strengthens you. Suddenly you're the tech leader, then it's time for more war....

[fani]

That is certainly true for monarch and below...dont know if this is a working strategy on empeor level though...

[Dinner]

95% of the techniques to boost your economy work no matter what leader/civ you're playing.

It sounds like you feel trading techs with the AIs is the only way to keep up in tech. That's hardly ture, but even so, having good relations is a result of having the same religion, gifting them stuff such as extra resources, acceding to demands, sharing a war, etc. Also, you can lightbulb a good tech and then trade it to multiple AIs, turning 1 tech into 5, 6, or more.

Yeah, but you have to trade to all in one turn because if you wait then the other guy will trade the tech and get all the free stuff instead of you. Civ4 always seemed, to me anyway, like all the AIs ganging up against the player.

[rah]

Turn tech trading off. If people say that at the higher level, you can't win without trading techs, then I consider tech trading an exploit.

[Hauptman]

Turn tech trading off. If people say that at the higher level, you can't win without trading techs, then I consider tech trading an exploit.

This hurts the AI's more than it will hurt you.

[Blaupanzer]

Turn off tech brokering. I agree w/Hauptmann that turning off all tech trading unbalences the game, hurting the AIs disproportionately. With no brokering, the AI, and you, can trade only the techs you researched. That way, the sense of the AIs moving in lockstep fades away.

[rah]

If it hurts the AI so much, why can't I win at the highest levels.

Ok, maybe I just suck.

[wodan11]

If the human in question uses and abuses tech trading techniques (aka power trading), then turning it off helps the AI.

If the human does not know or does not care to use power trading, then turning it off helps the human.

[#07]

So how do you use 'power trading'?

[Dinner]

I believing that just means you trade 1 tech for 4-5 other techs by whoring it out to every civilization on the planet.