POLL: Buy or Research for Tech?

[theDragon]

OK. This is my first Poll, but I am wondering this so I hope everyone who is still concious and not drooling over Civ4 can answer it.

So what is it? How many of you Research for your tech and how many of you Buy your tech from others?

[Terra Nullius]

protest vote: still pining for the days of vanilla - all you needed to research was iron working! then employ lotsa swords as librarians/field researchers.

at medium to sid-ist levels, the concensus seems to be .. research at a minimum 'n buy the rest. i'm still having trouble making that work - my neighbours just never want to sell me things like chivalry - i can't think why...

[Modo44]

If playing peaceful, researching is the option, at least up to Demigod. However, if your strt is food-poor you will be forced to buy your way to tech parity, before research becomes useful (i.e. you can sell whatever technology you research). This is my favourite choice.

If warmongering, you should be able to extort (get techs for peace) most of the time.

In the early game, quick contacts and trading will bring you up to speed. Self-research or extortion are less effective in the Ancient Age (less techs to get, less people to sell to).

In advanced scenarios, or games that lasted until the Industrial Age, stealing might be an option. The higher the difficulty level, the more useful it becomes.

And, there is the Great Library trick. Do not build it, but capture it at some point. This gets you most of the techs researched by all civs at that time. First you need to get to that enemy capital that has it, of course...

[joncnunn]

Mix of resarching yourself and buying works best.

Note that the AI assigns a much higher value on govt techs than non govt techs, both in trade and for reserach priority (when it has all prereqs)

[Theseus]

Research, especially up through the Industrial Age... there are just too many opportunities to get there first, up to and including the branch tech leads and the "Industrial Corridor". It is , errrm, less than optimal from a strategy standpoint not to avail yourself of this balance in the game.

Ahhh, and then, just beat the crap outta the AI civs.