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**vulture** · July 7, 2004, 09:25

For me, it varies depending on what starting techs you have (also, are you playing Conquests, Play The World, of normal Civ - in Conquests, the maximum research time was set to 50 turns).

The idea of doing 40 (or 50) turn research for the first tech is to save money. For an expensive tech like writing (if you start with alphabet), researching at 100% science will probably get you the tech in 45 turns or so, depending on how fast you grow / develop roads, whether you are on a river, whether there are resources giving a trade bonus nearby, etc. In PtW or vanilla civ3 (that's the original version, pre PtW), it basically means that you get the tech in 40 turns whether you research at 100% science or 10% science, so you might as well go 10% and hoard the case for lating trading or upgrading troops.

BUT you have to do this on a tech that you can be the first one to get, going at 40 turn pace. If you decide to research the Wheel, for example, you are wasting time to do it at 40 turn pace, since it's guaranteed that all AI civs will either start with it, get it from a goody hut, trade for it, or research it themselves much more quickly, long before you can finish it. So it has no trade value.

So pick an expensive tech - preferably 'second teir' (i.e. not a tech that someone can start with, but writing, polytheism, mathematics, iron working, or whatever you have available), and research that at 40 turn pace. There comes a point where this stops paying off, particularly in Conquests, where the 40 turns becomes 50. The AI civs research at 100%. If you go for writing at 40 turn pace, you sometimes find an AI civ gets it after 38 turns, and trades it to everyone you know before you get it. This messes up your trading opportunities quite badly.

Anyway, on Emperor, the key to keeping up in tech is trading with the AI. Learn which techs the AI tends not to research, and get them first. Be cunning with your trades. Fairly often you can find opportunities where all civs know at least one tech you don't, but you can buy one, trade it to others, and end up with all of the techs and a profit as well. (Map trading is also very useful for making money, pre-conquests).

It takes a bit of practice to learn to beat the AI in the trading game. Until that point, you just have to get used to being behind for a while. Most players who move to Emperor find that the usual pattern is to fall behind in tech early on, and not really catch up until towards the end of the middle ages. With practice, you start catching up earlier, and once you get good at the trading game, you can keep up throughout the ancient era, and start to pull away in the middle ages. But to get in to the trading loop, you need to stockpile some cash and have a good tech to trade around - otherwise you just end up buying techs, not selling anything, and lagging behind.

If you want to make things easy on yourself, play commercial civs until you get the hang of it - starting with alphabet and being able to go straight for writing is a big bonus.

The other key is to get out and start making lots of contacts as soon as possible. Selling contact is valuable, and having lots of trading partners (particularly ones who haven't met each other) is essential.

**Aqualung71** · July 7, 2004, 10:24

In general I agree with Vulture's most of comments, and the principles he outlines are true in all circumstances. However, I would like to respectfully disagree on a couple of points.

If I remember correctly, the Wheel is a starting tech for only 1 civ, the Japanese. Therefore early research of the Wheel can often be a very good strategy, particularly if the Japanese are not in the game. This can provide very good trading value.

I know that some players will advocate a 50 turn strategy, however in my experience (at Emperor or above), doing so will put you seriously behind in techs, which will have a compounding negative influence on your ability to trade techs with the AI.....which as Vulture has pointed out, is essential at Emperor or above to remain competitive.

Again, in my experience, by researching at 100% early in the game and ensuring that you improve sufficient tiles (and specifically, the right tiles), your growth over that time will enable you to reduce even the most expensive techs to 20 turns or less (unless you incessantly build settlers/workers before granaries).

Don't be too concerned if you are a few techs behind the AI in the early game. If you are researching a valuable tech that none of them have, you can easily catch them up and pass most of them with some shrewd trading as soon as you research the tech. The key is to look at every AI as soon as you have a new tech, then try to trade it for techs that some AI's don't have, which then gives you more to trade for the more common techs that all the AI's have. As Vulture points out, the obvious requirement here is that you meet at least 2 or 3 (or more) AI in the early game.

Antoher thing to consider - Vulture recommended playing commercial civs in order to gain immediate access to the most expensive 2nd tier tech (Writing). I would add that the industrious trait is just as useful in that it enables you to more quickly complete road-building, which adds to your commerce and increases your research capacity. It may still be possible to research a unique tech and trade for Writing early, then score Philosophy first for the free tech. This gives you a great trading advantage.

In general, look at the civs you are playing against and avoid researching their starting techs, in order to give yourself the best chance of profitable trading.

If you want the best of both worlds, play France

**vulture** · July 7, 2004, 11:22

Originally posted by Aqualung71
If I remember correctly, the Wheel is a starting tech for only 1 civ, the Japanese. Therefore early research of the Wheel can often be a very good strategy, particularly if the Japanese are not in the game. This can provide very good trading value.

Okay, so maybe the wheel wasn't the best example. Pottey then. The point is that cheap, first tier techs aren't good targets for research.

I know that some players will advocate a 50 turn strategy, however in my experience (at Emperor or above), doing so will put you seriously behind in techs, which will have a compounding negative influence on your ability to trade techs with the AI.....which as Vulture has pointed out, is essential at Emperor or above to remain competitive.

In Conquests I always go 100% research now - you usually need to to guarantee being the first one to your target tech, and getting the trade value out of it, as you say.

Agree with everything else that Aqualung71 wrote, I think.

Another thing to consider - Vulture recommended playing commercial civs in order to gain immediate access to the most expensive 2nd tier tech (Writing). I would add that the industrious trait is just as useful in that it enables you to more quickly complete road-building, which adds to your commerce and increases your research capacity. It may still be possible to research a unique tech and trade for Writing early, then score Philosophy first for the free tech. This gives you a great trading advantage.

In general, look at the civs you are playing against and avoid researching their starting techs, in order to give yourself the best chance of profitable trading.

If you want the best of both worlds, play France

The free tech from Philosophy only applies in Conquests though. But I agree that industrious is a great boost for your early research, particularly if you go for a granary rather than immediately settler-pumping.

France is indeed a good civ, and with a nicely-timed golden age as well... The only weakness it has is that all buildings are full price

**JereL** · July 7, 2004, 12:34

Oh, should have specified, I play Conquests.
OK, I've usually tried to head for Philosophy, the free tech is tempting. Only problem is that before I can get the trading going I only have warriors for units and I would rather have spearmen

So I've also tried with researching bronze working or warrior code, they just don't make for good trading since the AI seems to always go for these if they don't start with them.

The start on Emperor seems VERY hard. Maybe the fact that I've played on 80% water factors in. I usually have only the said 4, sometimes only 3 cities as the AIs start harassing. Even though I pay their tributes of 20 something gold they get pissy and jump on me. Leads to a lot of re-starts.

**Kloreep** · July 7, 2004, 14:22

Also, another thing: I noticed you say you stay on 100% science. This is good since having surplus gpt won't help you in the early game. However, don't be afraid to use the luxury slider to have higher population, and to delay building temples.

**JereL** · July 8, 2004, 03:28

One problem still seems to remain for me. How to prevent the AI from crushing me early. 95% of the time the closest AI will declare war on me just because at Emperor the AIs grow so fast in the early game that they seem to run out of space and then it's not hard to guess who they will pounce, the puny human who is still setting up or just set up his settler pumps or the other AI who is similarly powerful with many cities and free/built units.

How do you dodge that bullet? Second city starts to just pump out military? First city dedicated settler pump. Workers need to be built too somewhere.

**Drakan** · July 8, 2004, 08:23

JereL, at Emperor it's normal to be lagging behind in tech even a whole Age, at least until the beginning of the Middle Ages, that's the challenge of this level.

I would advise you that at the beginning when you meet other civs, to plonk an Embassy straight away ASAP. This makes their attitude towards you more polite. Then sign ROP with ALL of them, unless you are into warmongering. By following this simple advice and TRADING with them, none of them will be bullying you.

now regarding the research I agree with Aqualung71. Try putting it at 90 or 100% from the start. You cannot research it in less than 40 turns at the beginning. Also don't use the GL as a tech crutch, in case you do. At Emperor you must train yourself to rely without it to keep up in the tech race. Bargain, haggle, trade all you can with the AI's.

Have you seen my post on the "Ailing Civilization Strategy". It works very well at Emperor, follow it and you will be leading the tech race by the time of Education. You could also follow the GL elevator strat (*)but then you would have to build the GL after all.

Remember that the AI researches first the easiest techs (the ones that require less turns to research). Take advantage of this and take an overhead in studying those it will not research at first such as Literature or ToE, for example. Then trade your findings and follow the tech broker or pope strat to cripple their research.

The difference comes later in the game, not at the beginnning at Emperor unless you adopt a warmongering approach to the game from the start which doesn't seem your case, IMHO.

Also, don't restart or you will never learn the game mechanics, nearly always play untill the end of the game. You will learn so much more from lost games than from those you win.

(*) GL elevator strat, courtesy of SirPleb:
There is a gambit where you build the Great Library and use it until Education is about to be discovered, then gift it to a weak neighbor, you then set your science to 0% and start building knights (helps if you have Leo's). Once you see someone begin railroads, you declare war on the weak neighbor and retake the GL city. You instantly get all the techs you need to reach Steam Power and you've got a big bank to upgrade all those knights to cavalry and you set off on your way to conquer the world quickly before the world gets to infantry (you will be facing riflemen, but with 100+ cavalry, it shouldn't matter).

**vmxa1** · July 8, 2004, 08:57

I have to jump in to say I would not agree to make RoP's until I was at least as strong as them.

**vulture** · July 8, 2004, 09:03

I usually avoid RoPs, since I generally find myself wanting to block the AI from moving through my territory to settler land I've earmarked for myself. I'll quite happily sign RoPs with overseas civs I've made contact with though, since it help with attitude and has no effect whatsoever.

Jerel, part of your problem might be the 80% water setting. That puts you noticably closer on average to the other civs starting positions, and more importantly, means that can't expand very far. IIRC the AI tends to expand aggressively if it is trapped in a small area, and does so by picking on its weakest neighbour. On Emperor, with the bonus starting units and production bonuses, you are almost always going to be the target of choice.

Try a few 70% water games, and do a comparison of how much room you have and how aggressive the AIs are in general.

**Cort Haus** · July 8, 2004, 10:36

Key to staying on-par with the AI research pace on Emperor from the start is commerce + contact. 50 turn research in C3C is a lot less viable than the old 40 turn, in my experience and I like to push science to the max.

Commerce from tiles fuels your research and comes from pop + roads + tile bonuses. If you have a river, that should be enough to get into the loop, if sufficient contacts have been made. Deluxe tiles like Cows are nice, but needn't be considered a 'mandatory starting requirement' to getting up-and-running on Emperor.

Contact with the AI Civs allows you to trade, and the more civs you know, the better deals you can swing. Take a Pangea with eight civs on it. If you know all seven other civs, but the AI civs have only met three or four each, you can wheeler-deal into a lead because you can buy techs cheap and sell them to civs who haven't met everyone yet at a favourable rate.

So, use warriors / scouts / curraghs to find the others as soon as possible. It does mean that there are more civs to bully you, but it does allow you to overcome the research and AI-AI trade handicap that the human faces on this level.

On the domestic front, keeping pop up in your capital by building a granary before the first or second settler, while roading worked tiles should allow Writing in well under 50 turns if a river is available. Without a river it's a lot tougher. Slider and/or MPs to keep happiness will be needed, so a nearby luxury really helps.

Try to keep the unit-count within or close-to the free support threshold. So don't spend too long with more than 4 units with one city, 8 units with 2 cities etc as this eats into research.

If dealing with that lot is enough without the constant bullying from the AI, lowering the Aggression rating a notch on the start-up screen gives a bit more breathing-space to enjoy the tech challenge of Emp without feeling overwhelmed.

**Aqualung71** · July 8, 2004, 11:17

Some good points in the posts above, but I think Vulture has hit on the most pertinent point for your game - I agree, try 70% water. Look at it the other way - by playing 80% water you've only got 20% land. Increasing to 30% land gives 50% more land! That will obviously give you more time until the AI's decide they need your land.

I also agree with Cort Haus - bonus resources are nice, but at the higher levels early research capacity is just as important as bonus food, so extra rivers and possibly a gold hill (which combined with a cow or wheat is very powerful), so that you can get into the trade loop early.

The 3 rules of real estate are location, location, location. The corollary in playing civ at anything from Emperor upwards is contact, contact, contact! Get out there and meet those civs, whether by Warriors or Curraghs! This gives you trading choice. Then as soon as you have something to trade, take your time over the foreign advisor's screen. Say you have discovered Writing. Civ A has CB and BW. Civ B has CB and Masonry. Neither will give you both techs for your writing because the AI gets scroogier at higher levels. So, trade Writing to Civ A for BW. Then trade Writing AND BW to Civ B for CB AND Masonry (disclaimer: example only, I haven't even thought about what your different starting techs may have been, nor what extra cash you could squeeze out). but I think you get the point.

I have sometimes found myself behind by say 5 techs fairly early on because I am researching an expensive tech like Writing.....or more commonly, because I am researching an optional tech like Literature. Why? Because often the AI will skip those entirely, especially when using say the AU mod which adjusts AI research preferences. In such cases and with careful analysis of each AI civ's tech situation, I can sometimes pick up 7 techs with my one unique tech. You need to learn how to do this to succeed at Emperor or above. Period.

Philosophy beeline is nice strategy, but hard to pull off at Emperor if you don't start with Alphabet or are able to trade for it early.

Other points - read again what CH has said - there are a lot of points there that are subtle but very important and will have a significant effect, even though they may seem minor. Improving tiles, using rivers to best effect, and most importantly for players not used to it - using the luxury slider. Try to avoid entertainers at all costs in the early game. Happiness should be managed in this order: First connect all nearby luxuries. Second garrison your towns up to 2 per town and try to ensure you remain under the maximum unit support allowed and if you are pushing the limit try to get another town out (4 per town under despotism INCLUDING workers), Third use the luxury slider. Fourth build a temple. Fifth and only as a last resort, use an entertainer. Understanding the luxury slider is critical, and it's effectiveness on a town by town basis is completely dependent on two factors - the level of roaded tiles (remembering rivers provide a bonus too) and the corruption level (since content faces from entertainment are calculated as a percentage of commerce AFTER corruption).

On RoP's, I agree with Vulture - sign them at your peril. If you have lightly defended towns as you've said, the AI will have no qualms about sending units into your territory, parking them next to your towns and either hitting you without warning or extorting money when you are in no position to refuse. Watch this - they usually put their units next to your towns or workers before doing this, so they can get immediate benefit if you refuse and declare war. Another thing to watch - when you have little cash, try not to research at a deficit. The AI will often demand all your cash, which will leave you with nothing and a deficit, and will cost you a valuable improvement next turn such as a granary.

On build queues, there are circumstances in which you may want to build an early settler - to establish a unit production facility for example. But I don't think I would ever build more than one settler before a granary....usually I would build a granary first, unless I was on flood plains.

Again, picking up on other people's comments here and reinforcing what Kloreep said, you will note above that I placed Temple building as a low priority. At higher levels, get used to not building temples so early - you have other more important priorities, and the luxury slider is a better alternative. The only exception is when you are playing a religious civ because temples are half price.

A lot of info to absorb I know, but I think you've been given some pretty good and concise advice in this thread.

Cheers!

**JereL** · July 8, 2004, 18:04

Thanks to everyone for the advice.
Tried some games and things went pretty smoothly, got to a better start on both times, screwed it up later on though

Come weekend I'll make a more dedicated effort, it's now 1 am and I still need to get up in the morning for work X)

**GeorgeWang** · July 9, 2004, 01:32

To keep from the A.I. crushing you early in Emperor and above difficulty, gift them early or pay their demand and bide your time. Because of your superior empire management, the longer the game goes, the less of an advantage the A.I. has.

Tribute's a good idea anyways as it gives you good relations which repays itself when you're trading with that civilization.

**vmxa1** · July 9, 2004, 02:41

While there are situation where you may need to pay a demand, it should not be need most of the time.

Bribes and gifts as a strategy to get good relations is fine, if that is your pleasure.

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