I was playing a game today where my treasury was filling up pretty fast, but my research rate was horribly slow. So I just ended up contacting the other most advanced AI civs and kept buying techs at fairly reasonable prices. I mean, starting at 300 gold a piece and slowly working its way up to 1000 a piece. This all ended at the start of the Modern Age, however. But by then, my research facilities were in place, and I ended up surpassing everyone in techs.

I've been doing the same thing. Seems one of the few compensations for the painfully slow R&D. It's really hard to beat the AI to the Great Library so if you don't buy or trade for techs early you risk getting WAY behind.:arrow: