New Technology strategies

In Civ 3 there was always one best tech path to start out with. Head for the Republic as soon as possible, with or without the philosophy slingshot.

This will no longer be the case in civ 4. If you want to go for writing, to get alphabet and Literature for the Great Library. You have the following options:

Growth options:
Wheel & Fishing > Pottery > Writing
Wheel & Agriculture > Pottery > Writing
Agriculture > Animal Husbandry > Writing
Hunting > Animal Husbandry > Writing
Religion options:
Mysticism > Meditation > Priesthood > Writing
Mysticism > Polytheism > Priesthood > Writing

So depending on your starting location you can choose for fishing, farming, cattle or hunting as main source of food.

Or completely different focus on religion and choose buddism or Hinduism.

Or if you dont care for food and religion go straight for bronze working and iron working to go war strat.

If the game is balanced correctly, each path: growth, religion and war should be equally strong. Food strat will have more towns. Religion strat will have more income and happiness. War strat will have stronger units at the cost of growth, gold and happiness.

We will have to wait and see which strat is the most powerful. Probably picking one your neighbours dont is good so you can trade around to get your balance.

this does indeed make for some interesting strats. But just with a slight unbalance to whole point with this could fail. lets hold our thumbs!

remconius said:

Fishing > Pottery > Writing
Agriculture > Pottery > Writing

Click to expand...

remconius, as far as I understand, those paths are actually invalid. In order to acquire Pottery one needs to have The Wheel (prerequisite as per the top right corner of Pottery tech) AND one of Fishing or Agriculture. (tech tree: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/techtree/).

It seems that a nice option to research would be the military one:
Mining > Bronze working > Iron working

Of course, you probably then depend on iron as a resource, plus potentially units themselves cannot be constructed until you have a tech from another branch of the tech tree.

I'd also hope that techs have "level-based values/costs", like in SMAC. In other words, Iron working would take more research points to discover than say Sailing, Pottery, Animal Husbandry, etc. because it is further up (to the right actually) the tree.

Hi gunner10... Seriosly lurking for 2 years, hah? Welcome.

I like the way Civ4 allows you to priorize one path out of many... Myself, I'll probably try to expand and then fight.

Thank you .

Have been to these forums many times over the last couple of years, but for one reason or another never posted. About time to remedy that ...

This thread was started before the knowledge of prereq. techs. I adjusted the options.

Especially as this thread is linked from the official civ IV website.

*My ego is touched by Firaxis*

remconius said:

In Civ 3 there was always one best tech path to start out with. Head for the Republic as soon as possible, with or without the philosophy slingshot.

Click to expand...

Interesting. I don't believe I ever used Republic in any of my games of Civ III (monarchy, then jump to democracy or communism depending on the situation and which victory condition I was going for).

-V

I rarely used an early Republic strategy once they put the upkeep onto it.

The republic was quite expensive tech-wise, but you could get it early using philosophy. Research/trade Alphabet (or get it as scientific civ), then research writing and code of laws. Then get philosophy, which the AI rarely focused on unless he was really ahead of you. Being the first on philosphy and having the prereqs. you could choose the expensive tech Republic as your free advance and get it really early. Known as the philosophy slingshot.

From then on you could finish the game without another anarchy period. Unless you wanted marginal benefits from democracy...

Sure you could get it early, but the upkeep for units would kill you if you didn't have a good infrasctructure in place first (this does not apply to Vanilla Civ3).

This simply proves how superior the new civics systems (along with the new tech tree) actually are to the old government types.
This time, if you want, it seems like you can obtain the tech necessary for a 'republic-style' government (representation), yet still have a feudal-style military and labour system!! Far better than the 'one-size-fits-all' Republic of Civ2 and 3!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

gunner10 I just read that you need only 1 point of contact in the tech tree so if there are 3 paths to a tech any 1 will do. interesting development it was in the pre-release document I will try to find it again. My mistake it says both what i said and what you said - it is pre-release material so I guess we have to wait and see.

Republic was certainly not the only nor best tech path in Civ3.

in the pre-release material under your advances there is a table. this table shows that wheel leads to pottery, but it also shows that pottery needs agriculture or fishing and doesnt mention wheel.

It's clear that playing as Egypt, France, or Japan will give players a good chance at being first to writing. With Alphabet coming immediately after, those civilizations will probably be able to trade with everyone else for the rest of the techs.

Having Agriculture and Mysticism will give a civ. a much greater chance of being first to the initial religions, I think. The civilizations that don't have access to food-increasing technologies will almost be forced to discover them very quickly.

If I am reading TF's chart correctly, for writing you need one of the following:

• Pottery (which requires the wheel)
• Animal Husbandry
• Priesthood

Of course, to get some of those, you need other techs too.

Paths to writing:

Mysticism -> (Meditation OR Polytheism) -> Priesthood: 3 Techs

(Fishing OR Agriculture) AND The Wheel -> Pottery: 3 Techs

(Agriculture OR Hunting) -> Animal Husbandry: 2 Techs

Paths to writing:

Mysticism -> (Meditation OR Polytheism) -> Priesthood: 3 Techs

(Fishing OR Agriculture) AND The Wheel -> Pottery: 3 Techs

(Agriculture OR Hunting) -> Animal Husbandry: 2 Techs

Click to expand...

Right! As can be seen from the Tech tree
Note that the little symbol in the pottery tech (top-right) means that pottery also requires the wheel.

Gunner10 said:

I'd also hope that techs have "level-based values/costs", like in SMAC. In other words, Iron working would take more research points to discover than say Sailing, Pottery, Animal Husbandry, etc. because it is further up (to the right actually) the tree.

Click to expand...

DOES anyone know if this is the case? If so, than takening the 2 tech path to writing might take just as long as a 3 tech path.

Later techs would have to cost more as you would have so many more beakers a turn available. If they didn't you would be able to research techs almost immediately in the mid/late game.