Fast Tech progress

[USMC]

How do you people research so quickly? I recently made it to the Modern era in the 1850's and thought I had really pulled something off, yet I always see screenshots of people researching Computers in 1700 or Modern Armor in 1800 or something like that. I almost always play on Regent, and stay at or near the top of the tech race, and routinely hit Modern Armor in the 1950's. I am mostly a builder type and all my cities have library/marketplace at least. Most have bank and university also. Do you just continually trade with the AI's, or am I doing something totally wrong?

[Hades]

Regardless of your playing style, the tech advancement is mostly depeneding on which difficultly level and how many civ's you are playing with. Also, the more wars fought amongst the AI's the slower the tech advancement it is going to be. My monarch games usually industrialized by 1300 AD; empire games around 1100 AD. I haven't played diety yet.

[Mathias]

I wouldn't say totally wrong, but you could certainly speed up your research. I play mostly on regent, and sometimes monarch. I'm usually in the modern times by the mid to late 1700s. I can, however, get there sooner if I want to. In my current space race game for the tournament (3-3 veteran division, regent), I entered industrial age in 920 AD. I expect to enter the modern times around 1400 to 1450, and launch my ship around 1600.

With that said, the best way to get faster research is to get good city base early, and build libraries and universities as soon as possible. For a standard size map on regent, you need 16 to 20 good cities around your capital and FP, and another 5 to 10 cities further out. The sooner you build FP the better. You will probably need to go to war early and wipe out one or two of your neighbors. Keep your science as high as you can, and switch to republic a soon as you get it. Try to get your golden age in the early middle ages. You should not have to spend more than six turns researching any middle age tech. In the late middle ages, you should be able to research techs in four turns.

In the industrial age, get sanitation and build hospitals to boost your population, and therefore you science. Build ToE for Atomic Theory and Electronics. By selling techs and buying luxuries, you should be able to keep science at 100% and still make money. Most industrial techs should run only four or five turns.

In the modern times, research computers. Then build, or better yet, buy research labs. Again, you should be able to research techs in four or five turns.

The most important thing is to get more cities early. Don't stop until you have at least 20.

[USMC]

I play on 2 largest map settings (Huge, Giant?) with 10 or 16 teams. I have never industrialized before 1600. If I try to trade w/ other teams, they have no money or hate me so much they will only accept rediculous deals. I don't know if everyone hates me b/c I am human player or b/c I accidentaly raze cities when they are size 1. I usually am ruthless when I am at war with whatever civ is unfortunate enough to start next to me, after that I often trade lux/resources/tech for next to nothing , or just give them away, but my reputation never recovers and everyone hates me. Why else would AI just hate you forever even if you never fight them or raze anyone's cities?

[Nad]

USMC - map size makes a huge difference to tech progress. The larger the map the more beakers required to research. I always play on huge maps, and generally get to modern age around 1800-1850 (but by that stage, even on huge maps, you can set science to 100% research in 4 turns, and still make huge profits). Smaller maps will lead to quicker tech progress, hence industrialization around 1000ad etc

[USMC]

I had heard that tech is slowed down on huge maps, but I didn't know it was THAT much.
Thanks.

[Sultan Bhargash]

Two words: Accelerated Production. Once this option became available with the last patch I entered the wonderful world of mideival stealth bombers.

[Sullla]

Don't forget that tech is faster on the lower difficulty levels and slower on the higher difficulty levels now with the 1.29f patch as compared to earlier versions of the game. Back in the days of 1.21f Deity, I won game by building the UN in 1190AD and launching the spaceship in 1250AD. But that wasn't even the fastest, I saw games where the spaceship was launched as early as 1090AD and Sirian really takes the cake with his 750AD diplo victory. Those days are long gone now and Deity tech progress moves at a more reasonable pace, so don't expect to see anything that fast again unless you turn on accelerated production.