Technologies v. Eras

What is the effect, if any, of researching and discovering a technology ahead of the era you're currently in?

You get an extra spy. The cost of missionaries, inquisitors, and religious buildings (pagoda, etc.) go up.

City-state friend and ally bonuses also rise as you progress through the eras.

Also
Research Agreement cost goes up
Cultural and Religious City states will provide more bonuses
The world Congress may get a new leader/move to the next stage

(I think that is it)

Internal trade routes give a bit more food/hammers, as well (+0.5 for land, +1 for sea)

Crus8r

Entering renecaissance era ==> enabling spies
Entering modern era ==> enables ideologies (if not already by factories)

You also get a discount on tech if you enter a new era I believe.

You beelined to a good tech instead instead of researching some less useful earlier era techs. It also pushes you into that era.

Sclb said:

You also get a discount on tech if you enter a new era I believe.

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This is the game mechanic I would appreciate some insight about. I cannot separate out the effects between (1) tech-is-cheaper-because-many-civs-know-it from (2) tech-is-cheaper-because-it-is-from-the-previous-era.

Hakan-i Cihan said:

Entering renecaissance era ==> enabling spies
Entering modern era ==> enables ideologies (if not already by factories)

Click to expand...

enables spies if not already enabled by someone else entering renaissance era.

So... if I'm understanding all of this correctly:
I get the benefit of the advanced technology, I get some benefits of the advanced era, but there is a penalty in the cost of missionaries and religious buildings.

Am I correct in assuming it's usually worth beelining to a valuable tech instead of completing all the research in your current era?

Thanks again.

Almost always. In many cases, there are techs in your current era (or even two or three eras ago) that are completely irrelevant to your game plan. You will eventually need to back-fill to pick up those "orphan" techs because they will be prerequisites to some later techs that you do want or need, but can be given lower priority for now.

A fun way of gimping yourself is to force yourself to finish researching all techs in an era before going to the next. It is a painful, but interesting, way to play.

As an aside, someone earlier in this thread mentioned a discount on earlier-era techs when you progress to a new era. This does not match my recollection of the game. I'm not where I can fire up the game to verify, but it is easily enough checked. The Tech Tree shows the research costs at any given point in time of all unresearched techs (giving effect to the "how many other civs that I have met already know this tech?" discount). One turn before researching a tech that will take you into a new era, pull up the tech tree and note the cost of techs you have not yet researched. Then advance one turn, and see whether those costs have changed after you entered into the new era (perhaps move forward two turns, in case there is a one-turn lag). I believe it will show no change in tech costs. If there is an era-progression discount, it will show up for all unresearched earlier-era techs, not just some (so, if one or two techs, but not all unresearched earlier-era techs, show a discount, that just means another civ you have met researched that tech on that turn, reducing its cost slightly).

It seems that there is no discount for older techs when entering a new era. Just tested it with IGE, and I even went ahead 2 eras to see if 2 era old techs get a discount. The ancient era first level remained at 40 even when the current era was medieval.

Thanks for checking, and reporting back!

When you enter the Industrial era, you can buy faith based great people such as Great Enginners & Scientists (with opening in G&K / completing in BNW the appropriate social policy tree) In addition, entering the Industrial era turns off the RNG for Great Prophets, making it both a fixed price and optional as to weather you take one or not.

I so hate it when I get an unwanted Great Prophet...

thanks for the input. The mention of a prophet reminds me of another question, but that's a topic for a new thread...

Browd said:

A fun way of gimping yourself is to force yourself to finish researching all techs in an era before going to the next. It is a painful, but interesting, way to play.

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Of course, this is how I used to play. LOL. I still kinda do, as I really don't have enough experience to develop a "plan."

^^ I hate stealing cheap techs, so I tend to keep my research more balanced than is probably optimal.