Science buff in BNW?!

It was a game on a duel map prince difficulty.

On the first picture you see England (white) keeping up in techs with Morocco (green), while on the second you see the beakers per turn.

At first I thought - how could Liz do this?

Maybe that could be/is a solution for the AI. Difficulty levels determine how many techs the major civs can fall behind in tech. While on prince it could be 10 on deity it could be only 5, which meant that whenever the techleader gets a new tech, all the AIs that are further behind than x techs get an old one. So no longer just the CS get the latest equipment cheaply, but also the major civs the second hand one.
Having a low tech rate will never make an AI jump from last to first, because the AI will rather get an new tech because the techleader got another one instead of researching one on own means.

Upgrading units could also be buffed, when the techleader gets metallurgy, x turns later all catapults are upgraded to trebuchets. No longer riflemen against spearmen, but still able to use your shiniest weaponry against others.

Don't forget the other major civs represent major civs and not tribes. What do yo think?

Wow, nice find. I don't remember this being in G&K; I recall one time that Japan somehow got stuck in the Classical era while I just finished researching gunpowder. Unsurprisingly, Japan didn't last long against me.

Nice find, and I'm actually pretty glad this exists.

I've had so many games in G&K where Boudicca or Askia or some other science-hating civ lost a war early on and ended up fielding longswordsmen when everyone else had infantry. Its just not realistic in the least.

It looks like a bug, possibly in the display. England only having 0 to 30 beakers throughout the game seems a bit unlikely.

anandus said:

It looks like a bug, possibly in the display. England only having 0 to 30 beakers throughout the game seems a bit unlikely.

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It was a very unusual game. First I stole Liz two of three settlers. She then gave me the city in a peacedeal, in which she founded another city which she gave me in the next peacedeal ... most of the time she had a crappy capital, at least after I surrounded London with citadels. so that is why Liz had no beakers.

But the question for me was how could she nevertheless keep up techwise? And I now think giving AIs techs others have researched long time ago might improve the game.

I had a few duel map games and after I stole the first settler(s) the AI stopped expanding - only one AI escorted the settler with a unit which didn't make a big difference. I don't know what the AI was doing, maybe I beat the AI to all the wonders?

Are you sure it wasn't espionage?

Kintara said:

Are you sure it wasn't espionage?

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This, she would have had two spies going for techs as soon as one person in ren.

You may be noticing the effect of trade routes with major AI civs:

One of which is that for every 2 techs you are missing, you get 1/2 a beaker (rounded up on a per trade route basis)

While a human will notice this and informally boycott someone a massive number of techs behind, the AI won't.

In my own game, Assyria is very far behind. Looks like it built too many military units.

JanghanHong said:

This, she would have had two spies going for techs as soon as one person in ren.

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I thought of that too, but had a spy in my capital and never got a notion. But maybe my spies didn't reveil her spies.

joncnunn said:

You may be noticing the effect of trade routes with major AI civs:

One of which is that for every 2 techs you are missing, you get 1/2 a beaker (rounded up on a per trade route basis)

While a human will notice this and informally boycott someone a massive number of techs behind, the AI won't.

In my own game, Assyria is very far behind. Looks like it built too many military units.

Click to expand...

But most of the time I was allied to all CS and in permanent war with Liz, so I don't think trade kept her science up.