What techs are best for trading?

I find myself behind in techs regularly on monarch. What are the best techs to use as leverage? i.e. What techs do you often see that AI will trade for when you are quite a ways behind.

I've seen those associated with founding a religion are good ones to trade: Code of Laws, Philosophy, Theology, Divine Right.

Alphabet, Aesthetics, Literature, Drama, and Music are oft neglected by the AI.

Printing Press and Banking are neglected but require fewer beakers relative to those in that era, therefore trades involving these are often lopsided.

Biology and Medicine are often good trade bait, but lead to lopsided trades.

Divine Right is a good one. Even after founding a religion and building the Wonders, the AI values this tech high, but I usually don't research it. I researched it in my last game because I wanted to build the wonders. I missed Education on the list. Education is an expensive tech, I usually trade it out, I just make sure I'll win the Liberalism race.

I think beelining is a good approach. If you go for all the techs the Ai rush to you will never get any trades. Go for the techs that suit your strategy.

Aesthetics, Codes of law and others are good to go for. The Ai nearly always beat me to iron working and other religious techs.

I try to stick to the top of the tech tree. If you set up a city with library and use 2 scientists. You can soon add an academy and start bulbing towards philosophy with great scientists. If you add pyramids and representation to this you could have 100 science beakers a turn by 1ad. The Oracle will help here but make sure you have writing before you finish building it. I got to liberalism by 1000ad by doing this. I took a few detours on the way.

Just keep a watchful eye on the military strength of your neighbours though.

I recently started bulbing COL instead of Alphabet with oracle to found the religion , build courthouse and take me out of the red...

bad strategy?

Liberalism is a good one , if you get there first or second, because the AI shuns to research it after the free tech is gone unless it is beelining for Communism ( a rare thing anyway ).

But the prize tech for trading ,as AnitaGaribaldi said is definitely AI ( still have to understand why AI loves it so much ). The AI will give their kingdom and a horse to get it... if you manage to get it first that is

Believe it or not, HBR is an incredible trade tech. In games where I want it earlier (a UU, Elephants), I often find I can trade it very easily, and quite often to civs without access to horses.

Aesthetics is great for deity when that is the only tech you have a chance of beating the AI's to. Usually.

To be good for trading it has to have high trade value but also be something you are pretty sure to get first. AI almost never researches aesthetics yet they do value it quite a bit.

Replaceable parts is another one the AI seems to research late. They also seem to love nationalism. If you use lib to pop it you can backfill a lot of techs.

Actually CoL isn't so good tech for trade imo. The AI values it lower after the religion has been founded, and it gives a powerful economic building (ch) for large civs. On the higher levels (where trading becomes more vital), the AI's also have production bonuses so they get those courthouses up quickly.

I will often trade CoL to AIs I plan to conquer soon. Courthouse is one of the buildings I LOVE to see left standing when I take a city.

I've found some of the truisms in the posts above to hold for me as well. The difficulty level makes a huge difference in whether or not I trade; for example, I can often maintain a handsome tech lead on noble and still dabble in espionage or culture: however, I am having a devil of a time running in the black on my current (and first try on) Prince game. I'm running a 0% research specialist/espionage economy, so I've researched "exotics" like aesthetics, printing press, and chemistry: traded those for the most advanced tech I can get (printing press netted me drama, theology, music, philosophy, and guilds, along with 200+ gold and my first peek at the world maps of my vassals and allies): before that I backfilled through warmongering/demanding tribute.

When I am not way behind in techs, I will trade to the world (when my nearest tech rival is a turn or two away from getting the best tech I have) to backfill anything I don't have, get gold/maps, or to bribe a rival into a skirmish with a neighbor. At the end of a series of trades I will gift a tech rather than take a paltry trade just to prevent the AI from benefitting from any trades/diplomacy involving the tech.

Bleys said:

Believe it or not, HBR is an incredible trade tech. In games where I want it earlier (a UU, Elephants), I often find I can trade it very easily, and quite often to civs without access to horses.

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The AI really needs to be buffed with regards to offering their shirt for HBR when they have no horses. And trading everything they have for oil, despite not being able to use it and having it in their lands available as soon as they can use it.

They might want stables for phants And they might want destroyers ASAP, even if they have to buy oil

Culture techs. Aesthetics, Drama, Music, Literature. I often use the great artist to lightbulb part of Divine right. It gives you a religion, wonder and you can backfill a lot. Something for nothing.

Late game, I find I get good trade/research value from biology and medicine. Unless the AI is gunning for Sushi they almost always go down other branches. Likewise refrig, superconductors, and genetics are good techs with high values that the AI neglects. Of course with SC I much prefer to hoard and get the science boost to let me not have to worry about WFYABTA, or the AI finishing a spaceship.

r_rolo1 said:

They might want stables for phants And they might want destroyers ASAP, even if they have to buy oil

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But trading six or seven resorces for oil when they are 30 turns from combustion and they have oil in their lands?

A human would build a fort over the oil before combustion then well it if it it within the BFC. The AI giving up a half dozen trades for one resorce, which by definition cannot do it any good whatsoever, is just broken.

Fair enough......

But you know the drill: oil is a military resource and the AI is coded to value military resources a lot more than the others and AFAIK they do not check if they can build units with it......

In addition to the techs already mentioned, you can often trade compass and optics even quite late since the AI will usually be thorough in getting all the "middle path techs" like Monarchy, Currency, Construction, Feu, CS, Engineering, MC, Machinery etc before they pick those up.