Situation: Renaissance era, Mansa and I are blowing everyone else away in tech, so should I continue trading with him to increase both our tech rates and continue leaving the rest of the world in the dust, or should I just slow it down and self research. Either choice still allows me to backfill techs with the lesser advanced.

I realize this is a pretty general question without the specifics of the game, but I run into this same situation occasionally and wondering how to proceed. Advance faster while helping create another tech monster, or slow both of us down?

This is Emperor level btw.

Situation: Renaissance era, Mansa and I are blowing everyone else away in tech, so should I continue trading with him to increase both our tech rates and continue leaving the rest of the world in the dust, or should I just slow it down and self research. Either choice still allows me to backfill techs with the lesser advanced.

I realize this is a pretty general question without the specifics of the game, but I run into this same situation occasionally and wondering how to proceed. Advance faster while helping create another tech monster, or slow both of us down?

As long as Mansa isn't so big that you can't shoot him down when you need to then keep trading with him as he will trade with any and everyone if he gets caught up to by the other AI's.

I tend to avoid trading with the runaway-partner in situations such as this. Think of it like this - your tech progress is only measured to the one other guy (since the rest are meaningless), and since the AI always wants lopsided trades you are actually hindering your research by trading with him.

Exceptions exist, though - many key techs are good to trade for in all circumstances (even when you will get diplo hits from worst enemy trades).

I will feed the small sized tech whore happily ----> he won't trade with others solely from being ahead, and when I want to kill him, he won't have much production and will get thumped even if you're behind him.

Using that kind of AI to vault ahead of other AIs in tech can let you capture vast swaths of land easily despite never actually holding the tech lead. I still remember that one LHC game where I was 3rd in tech just about the entire time, but was still able to completely obliterate another civ infantry vs rifles thanks to trades like this. Later on the # of cities just overpowered my former "friends".

I will feed the small sized tech whore happily ----> he won't trade with others solely from being ahead, and when I want to kill him, he won't have much production and will get thumped even if you're behind him.

Using that kind of AI to vault ahead of other AIs in tech can let you capture vast swaths of land easily despite never actually holding the tech lead. I still remember that one LHC game where I was 3rd in tech just about the entire time, but was still able to completely obliterate another civ infantry vs rifles thanks to trades like this. Later on the # of cities just overpowered my former "friends".

See, that's what I was thinking. If I can use the other guy to help me overrun the other dopes, pretty soon I'll have enough cities to out research Mansa all by myself. The only thing I try to be careful about is keeping certain military techs to myself, depending on the possibility that he might trade it to my next target. (For example, if I'm coming with cannons and grens at a civ with muskets and catapults, I'm probably not spreading around the Military Science tech, regardless of what it will get me in return. That one is too likely to end up in the hands of the muskets guy.)