I always am very hesitant to trade these two somehow.

Education especially, since I always get the feeling the AI's research increases exponentially when they have it on immortal+

so what is the general opinion on this. Will you trade Education and Lib to AI's, when will you do it and why.

Also will you rather keep a monopoly on them?

I am very interested in peoples thought about this, since I always pound myself in the head in these scenario's.

It is very game dependent. Holding Education so you can get liberalism first and 1 free tech does not always help if you miss out on trading education for a slew of techs from deveral AIs. Liberalism I almost always trade away once I get it.

Education I usually won't. It's a great stop gap between AI research and yours. They can beeline a lot of military techs, rifling, steel, and I find they usually neglect education, constitution etc. Thus I end up leap frogging them to assembly line which is a pretty big advantage to have factories cranking out infantry over their rifles. So generally I hang on to education as long as possible.

Liberalism isn't that valuable on the tech tree however. Unless you want to keep the AI out of free religion I have no qualms about trading it. Sometimes it's very bad when they go free religion though, you lose your diplo bonus and their research goes up quite a bit. But lib is not a steeping stone to any other important techs.

I typically wait for an AI to get Edu and then trade it around before he can. Its a very expensive tech and can also sometimes be used to bribe AIs.


Unless you want to keep the AI out of free religion I have no qualms about trading it. Sometimes it's very bad when they go free religion though, you lose your diplo bonus and their research goes up quite a bit.

This is an important consideration, imo, especially with leaders like Asoka and Willem who love FR. Allowing the AIs to switch into FR severely limits your ability to manipulate the diplo situation.

I typically wait for an AI to get Edu and then trade it around before he can. Its a very expensive tech and can also sometimes be used to bribe AIs.



This is an important consideration, imo, especially with leaders like Asoka and Willem who love FR. Allowing the AIs to switch into FR severely limits your ability to manipulate the diplo situation.

That is indeed one of the reasons I keep to Lib. Also those games you are bordering people you rather not DoW, and of which you will know they will take FS, it can be very annoying when you trade it away due to border pushes.

About the Education. I always try to do the same, but whenever one of the AI's get it, they sometimes either trade it straightaway, or the other AI's already put beakers in it in my experience. Therefor drastically lowering the trade value of it.

I like trading Liberalism to bust up a same-religion lovefest (especially if it isn't my religion) and I avoid trading Liberalism if I want to keep a same-religion lovefest (if I want to manipulate the diplomacy that way).

The biggest thing to keep in mind is which empire has which religion - and which AI leaders likes Free Religion vs. having a single religion.

If I can afford to avoid trading Liberalism and Education to the AI, the chances are that I stand very well.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is which empire has which religion - and which AI leaders likes Free Religion vs. having a single religion.

I think the number of religions present in the AI's cities seems to be a major factor that influences whether they adopt FR too. Shrine collectors like HC and Mansa nearly always seem to adopt FR early in my games.

About the Education. I always try to do the same, but whenever one of the AI's get it, they sometimes either trade it straightaway, or the other AI's already put beakers in it in my experience. Therefor drastically lowering the trade value of it.

Yes, I remember having a vassal once, and they could research Physics significantly faster than Biology, despite not putting any turns into either. So I "think" the AI can partially bulb techs that it isn't currently researching, and Education is a high bulbing priority.

I will only trade Education once I have already acheived Liberalism. Usually, because it takes so long to get Education, I have fallen slightly behind. The plus one free tech from Liberalism helps, but once I have it... fair game.

I have two schools of thought...
1) Trade Education to EVERYONE in a turn, getting the most I can possibly get (including gold)... same with Liberalism...
OR
2) Only trade with allies WHEN they have techs I really want

I usually go with option 2, to keep the rest of the world behind my in beakers.