can't research my own techs

[Bella Hella]

after a long time away, i fired up a new game of civ. this is my first time ever playing on a huge map wth all the civs. i started off trying to get techs as fast as i could, but before long realized that i was far behind everybody else (which i had alraedy anticipated). so i used the great library strategy and got the needed techs. i then concentrated on making as much dough as possible, setting the science to 0 and promoting one worker to scientist so i was still researching. i bought techs or got them through the great library until, unfortunately, i got education.

well, i guess i'm pretty bad at this game, because i wanted to start researching on my own, but didn't have enough money, even though that's supposed to be my big strategy. i could only set the science slider up to 30% before my income became negative. so i continued to buy techs. everybody (me and the other bigger powers) has just entered the indistrial era. my tech buying strategy was to scout around until i found a smaller, less powerful civ who would sell me techs (the real biggies aren't selling at all), and now rome is kind of my little trading buddy (i also use france, and get the cheap, non-essential techs from the really little guys).

IMO this is a very sound strategy, and i'm right there with everybody else, tech-wise. i've been able to complete some really nice wonders such as j.s. bach's and smith's trading. the problem is that i've hit this neverending circle where i buy an important tech off somebody for nearly all my gold, plus X gold per turn. this depletes my reserves and greatly reduces my income. it hasn't been too bad so far, but i'm at the point where i just bought theory of gravity for around 500, plus 62 per turn. i have a feeling it's gonna get ugly. so now, i still have the science set to 0 and am netting 200 gp per turn after the gold i pay to the other civs per turn for techs and resources. this seems to be a pretty constant income. as i build banks and marketplaces and increase in population, my income increases. as i need to pay more gold for good techs (and inflation on luxuries), it decreases. so the total amount is pretty steady.

i really want to get out of this gold-per-turn trap so i can buy techs for one big lump sum at a time, and someday actually use my income to research on my own. as far as i can see, my only option is to keep saving until i get out of debt to the other civs, and forego buying new techs. but then i'll be pretty far behind, and who knows if i'll ever get back on top again? industrialization is coming up, and i REEEALLY want factories (who wouldn't?).

the thing that's pissing me off the most is that i can't use my money to upgrade units or rush infrastructure - it's all used on techs. i really need some ideas. can anybody help?

here's my game:
egyptians, huge map, continents w/ medium water, temperate, normal dryness, old planet (few mountains), all random civs, sedentary barbarians, regent difficulty, all win options enabled. there are 2 continents. i'm on the huge continent along with the other big/powerful civs (and a couple dinky ones), on a peninsula (sp?), so i'm pretty isolated. the small continent has the really lame civs who i sometimes take pity on and give tech gifts to help them keep up. i'm not big or powerful, but my money is letting me keep up with the biggies. no one has messed with me so far, except the zulu, and i spanked them hard. i could withstand an invasion if the schmidt hit the fan, but it's SO not worth it for me to get in a war right now.

[Theseus]

What are you researching now, and what techs do the big boys have that you don't?

[jkelly]

Breaking the cycle for this game

I'd recommend starting a pre-build for Theory of Evolution, use it to get Atomic Theory -> Electronics, and selling those techs to turn the flow of cash around back to you.

[alva]

could you post a save?

btw: doing some reasearch isn't bad at all, this way the tech you are currently researching will be cheaper to buy. So less money for the AI to spend on research himself (allthough you won't profit from it directly, it will hurt the AI).
As you said yourself, it is a never ending circle, this could be away to get out of it
hope this helps

[Keeper of Hell]

Also, don't underestimate the power of theft. This applies more in the Modern Era, where the AI starts asking for insane amounts of money for any and all techs you want, but it can be applicable in the late Industrial Era too. Example: Gahndi offers me Space Flight for World Map and 7,401 gold. I stole it Safely for 2,426. In other words, I could be almost guaranteed to get three techs for the price of one if I go through the less legitimate channels. It does have the downside that if you get caught, you may start a war, but no pain, no gain, right? And lastly, I realize this doesn't help much at the moment, as you're just struggling to keep your head above water, financially speaking. I'd definitely take jkelly's advice on this, get ToE (and make sure you get it!) and then pawn the resulting high-end techs for some serious cash. ToE can have that effect- it gets you right back in the game in more ways than one. That and the Great Library are my favorite wonders, hands down.

[Theseus]

Re: Breaking the cycle for this game

Originally posted by jkelly
I'd recommend starting a pre-build for Theory of Evolution, use it to get Atomic Theory -> Electronics, and selling those techs to turn the flow of cash around back to you.

Damn right. I liked your title, "Breaking the cycle..."

I'm feeling my way toward a strategy paradigm; in any given game, there are a few key possible levers towards dominance... one of the strongest is breaking out of the pack in tech. Others previously discussed have been aggression / oscillation, empire productivity, geopolitics, etc.

I like your phrase, though... my most enjoyable games have been where I have "broken one of the cycles."

[vmxa1]

It seems the amount the AI wants is a function of how much you have. It will not ak for 7000 if you only 300. The more cash I have the higher the price goes. Anyway how do you get the point were the AI is ahead in tech when you are at space techs?

[Bella Hella]

fantastic miracle - problem solved

a happy ending!!! (so far) i'm going to try to remember what happened last night, because it was pretty amazing.

ok, all the big powers were in the industrial era. at the time i was researching steam power, intending to rush to industrialization and then theory of everything. i had all the middle ages techs. i still had george, my one scientist, working on the research all by himself, and he was getting frustrated.

on a whim, i decided to go to the small fries and help them get out of the dark ages. the americans had a surprisingly good amount of gold, and i sold them a tech they didn't have. so did the indians! i did this with every single small nation, systematically. i also got as many luxuries as i could afford. at the same time i finished the building of built wall street and relocated my palace to the middle of my territory. these two factors boosted my income by quite a bit. most of my cities had all improvements at that point. i set the huge ones to building workers in anticipation of railroading, and set the rest to wealth.

suddenly, my citizens were all happy! they began throwing "we love the queen" parades in the streets. more importantly, FINALLY i had enough income to start investing into science. i raised it to 60%, and figured i was finally on track with everybody else, pretty much. well, somewhere in there some of my per-turn gold deals expired and i suddenly had a good income. i was finally able to set my science to 80-90%. i finished my workers and set those cities to wealth, and made the workers road and improve everything. (oh yeah, i should also mention that i'm placing a firm emphasis on production. my workers are fast, and i have a lot of them, which makes my military look stronger.)

by the time i got steam power, my income was 22/turn (as much as possible without going negative) and i wasn't paying per turn gold to any of the other civs for techs anymore. somehow, by some wonderful miracle, i was the only one who had steam power. this put me in an interesting position, considering that the other guys had nationalism, communism, and medicine. i was afraid that if i waited, somebody else would get steam power and whore it out before i had the chance to!! so i took a risk and did it first. by shopping around for the best deal, i ended up with every resource (including coal!!!), every luxury, every tech, world maps, all the gold in everybody's treasury, and something like an extra 300 gold per turn. i think i really crippled the other civs, which is good. i upgraded all of my pathetic pikemen to riflemen, set my science at 100% and went for industrialization. i started building my rail system, and set city production to useless police stations (i don't have a corruption problem since i'm pretty small) in anticipation for industrialization. then all i had to do was keep railroadin' and wait. my production really started to kick butt, what with all the new railroads.

in no time, i got industrialization and switched production to factories. in addition to railroading, my workers began to chop down the trees. in my top production city, i rushed the factory and set production to universal sufferage. i waited a little bit to get a good head start and then whored industrialization out for medicine (which the biggies had by then) and more gold per turn, as much as i could get. i'm hoping to cripple them scientifically by taking away a big chunk of their per-turn income. i also did my usual hook-up-the-little-guys routine, which gives me some money and makes them stronger so they can at least trade and defend themselves. i always feel bad for them and try to do my part. so now:

- science is at 100%
- i almost have electricity
- my factories are almost done (and i already have them in the city i rushed and one other)
- my net income is around 400 per turn
- my military sucks! this is a problem. i have no navy, either.
- EVERYONE is polite with me (except for the zulu, who have been furious since they demanded my territory map back in 500 AD and i told them to go fark themselves).
- speaking of which... i need to take over the technologically retarded zulu to get more land. too bad they have ROPs with everyone, and a few MPP agreements with unknown civs. apparently they knew they were weak and decided to save their butts. i hate not knowing who has a MPP with who!! i know that when i decide to take them over, some scary civ will come after me because of an MPP. i don't like the whole MPP game, which i'm really bad at. i don't know how to tell who has them with who.

it's really fun and frightening at this point. when i get electricity, i don't want to sell it to anybody else, because i am determined to get theory of evolution first. at the same time, i must maintain my current level of income in order to fund my scientific progress, which necessitates making deals with the other civs. *whew*

i guess this thread is getting more about me telling the story of the game than discussing strategies at this point. but right about now in the tech tree seems to be one of the most highly debated aspects of the game, and certainly falls under "strategy." i hope i did the right thing by going for industrialization. i figured, increase production and then i'll be able to build the theory of evolution that much faster. but i'm worried that somebody else will discover electricity and whore it out too soon. i mean, if i'm halfway through researching scientific method, and have a "palace" almost done at a big production city, i'll feel a lot more comfortable with selling electricity. do i have a way of knowing how close the other civs are to discovering a tech?

the next step after electricity & scientific method will be atomic theory & electronics. i always prioritize the hoover dam so i don't have to build those pesky power plants. hopefully i'll be able to buy/trade for replaceable parts, or maybe i'll get that tech once ToE is done. if anyone is interested, i'll give another update. for me, this is really interesting because it's the first time i've ever played a huge map with all the civs! it's blowing my mind to have factories in 1500 AD. LOL

thanks for the ideas and help. sorry i didn't post a save - i would have liked for you guys to look at it. i'm either really smart or really lucky that things worked out the way they did. i just hope i'm not setting myself up for bankruptcy/hostile takeover. i've never stolen technologies before, but i'll give it a whirl if i fall behind again and if i need to. i still can't believe i went from barely keeping up to the technological center of the planet in only a few turns!!! i guess it helps to be human so you can rip off the AI. theseus - i totally agree that the best games are the ones in which you make an amazing comeback. it's SOOO satisfying to turn around and thumb your nose at the civs who used to try to sell you techs for every last penny you had.

[Bella Hella]

oops, i forgot that you can choose the techs you want after getting ToE. d'oh! also i apologize for the extreme length of my prior post. i'm just a little excited.

[vmxa1]

How do you keep the citizens happy? No lux slider, you don't mention anything but one scientist? Even with markets and many lux items, some must be getting testy? What level is this? BTW glad you are having fun.

[alva]

I usally don't sell steam power, this one will give you a lead (railroads), even if they get a few turns later, this can be a breaking the circle point . once an other civ gets it, I might sell it to the smaller civs ( depends on how the map 'looks')

Now , make sure you get hoover dam and you will be on easy street. (remember that you can only build hoover in a city with rivers)

PS: once you get wall street, be sure to have at least 1000 gold in your 'bank account', otherwise it don't do nothingk

still would like to see a save game

finally: it's nice to hear someone is actually enjoing this game

[Cort Haus]

The example above of being first to steam-power illustrates the huge value of being first to a tech.

In recent emperor games I've recovered a middle-age tech deficit by researching Printing Press at 40-turns (having used all my Gold to pay for desirable wonder-techs like Theology / Invention / Music Theory). The AI's all crowd into the middle of the tree leaving the top row free for the human. Trade PP for things like Banking, Astronomy,Gunpowder and by then the payments have expired so step on the science and hit Democracy in maybe 10 turns or less as uni's & banks get built. They lurve this one - you can clean up just about all the available top-end Middle Age techs - with some spare cash and tradeables to oil the deals.

In the Ancient era I beeline for monarchy (with Cleo), trading my monopoly techs for the rest as I go.

[Catt]

Re: fantastic miracle - problem solved

Originally posted by Bella Hella
[. . . . ]
- speaking of which... i need to take over the technologically retarded zulu to get more land. too bad they have ROPs with everyone, and a few MPP agreements with unknown civs. apparently they knew they were weak and decided to save their butts. i hate not knowing who has a MPP with who!! i know that when i decide to take them over, some scary civ will come after me because of an MPP. i don't like the whole MPP game, which i'm really bad at. i don't know how to tell who has them with who.
[. . . . ]

Sounds like you're having a blast. I love the nail-biting games, especially when they're nail-biters into the late game.

On the MPP front - you should be able to see the current state of MPPs of all civs by establishing embassies and using your foreign advisor's screen. Assuming you have embassies with the other civs, go to the Foreign Advisor screen (F4); in the little box in the center-right, make sure the "diplomacy" (IIRC) tab is selected (can't remember the name of the tab, but the one that is NOT "Trade"); make sure to check-mark (by clicking) the appropriate "deals" to display (RoP, Military Alliance, MPP); and then click once on the leaderhead about whom you want the info -- your screen should show a web of different colored lines showing you the active deals between that civ and the others. By holding "shift" down and clicking on all the leader heads, you can see all deals at once (sometimes this is too much info, however). Remember that if you're playing with more than 7 AI civs, you will need to go through the rather tedious process of shift-right-clicking on leader heads to swap out the current leaders for the remaining leaderheads that don't fit on the screen at one time.

Finally, remember that these deals only show up for civs with whom you have an embassy.

Catt

[Theseus]

Great job Bella!

Remember to pre-build Hoover also.

If you can, go into researching Combustion HARD. What I think you'll find is that there's a chain of about 5-6 techs in a row where you can research in 4-5 turns, selling the tech to all the AIs 3 or so turns after discovery. Again and again...

You will basically own the game from that point on.

[Uppercut]

N00B question here:

What are u guys saying "increasing finance sliders" and that? i tried to find them but couldnt.