So Huayna Capac and I are the two tech leaders, but we're teching up different paths. Huayna is going Guilds - Banks - Nationalism - Economics, while I'm going Gunpowder - Chemistry for Grenadiers to kill him.

So I get Chemistry, upgrade a bunch of Macemen to Grens, and attack. A few turns later, Huayna finishes researching Economics and claims the Great Merchant. Fortunately, he can't do much useful with him -- my Frigates command the seas, so a trade mission isn't an option -- so it doesn't help him much.

About twenty turns after that, I finish off Huayna's last city.

About five turns after that, I finish researching Economics -- and, what's this? A Great Merchant appears in my capital!

Nobody else had Economics, and Huayna was dead, so it looks like the game decided I was "first". Apparently you can "win" the tech races by coming in second -- if you first eliminate the original winner.

Has anyone else pulled this off? Does it work with the other races, like Liberalism or the circumnavigation?


Waldo

How sure are you that you didn't naturally generate a GM?

Darrell

There used to be a bug exactly as you described: If an AI discovered a tech that granted a free GP like Economics and if that AI was eliminated before any other civ researched the tech then the next civ to research the tech would get the free bonus as well. I believe it happend on Liberalism as well, but I thought they fixed that in a previuos patch.

How sure are you that you didn't naturally generate a GM?

Darrell

Very sure -- I checked the city screen, and I was still several hundred GPP short of the next pop.

Waldo

it is fixed in various patches. Also work for liberalism and other goodies.

it is fixed in various patches. Also work for liberalism and other goodies.

It still works in vanilla 1.74.
I was fighting the tech leader, who got liberalism already (I know it from the trade screen). He got killed.
After that, another AI reached liberalism (I wasn't researching it, so didn't get it :lol:) and it showed a message about him being first to liberalism.
The game ended before I killed the second one and got to liberalism my self:mischief: .

Actually I like that way of working. If a civ is uber advanced but gets eliminated then its technology is lost and gone. So the next "first" person should get the bonus. It might not have been a bug but an intentional design feature. That would make sense to me :D

Actually I like that way of working. If a civ is uber advanced but gets eliminated then its technology is lost and gone. So the next "first" person should get the bonus. It might not have been a bug but an intentional design feature. That would make sense to me :D

I agree it's no big deal and doesn't deserve a fix, but IMHO this is still a bug.
In some way, it's abusable, although the hard work required to abuse it makes it more a strategy than an exploit:crazyeye: .
You would give away the prereqs to a "next victim", probably in exchange for something, then patiently build up an army while the victim researches economy.
You then attack, let him settle the guy, kill him the nresearch it yourself.
Doesn't quite work for liberalism, though.
You would need to hurt him bad enough to make him cough up the free tech he got, wait 10 turns while strating research on lib, then attack and kill him. Seems a bit desperate, since the techer may very well buy an ally with lib + the free tech

Actually I like that way of working. If a civ is uber advanced but gets eliminated then its technology is lost and gone. So the next "first" person should get the bonus. It might not have been a bug but an intentional design feature. That would make sense to me :D

for the beaker discount on techs that civs known to you already know that tech, dead civs don't count i think? meaning "technology progress" is lost and gone even when the eliminated civ wasn't uber advanced. to me, that would support your thinking. but i'm not sure whether that's a hint that it was originally intended behavior, or whether it's evidence that i'm the queen of rationalization.