Are we limited in what technologies we can demand?

I recently discovered something about this game with which I'm not impressed. It seems to me that when you are in negotiations with another civ, you can only ask for technologies that you are currently able to research yourself. This means that if a civ has Code of Laws, Philosophy, and The Republic, you can demand Code of Laws and Philosophy, but you can't demand all 3!
That's really annoying, because I'm beating the crap out of the Romans, and I'm sure they'd love to bribe me with everything they've got (which is considerable) but for one peace treaty, it seems I can only demand what I already have the prerequisites for. After that, I'd have to coerce more from them in separate negotiations. Is there a way around this? Am I missing something?

You can demand as many techs as they want to give up as long as you are able to research them.

UltraMind said:

I recently discovered something about this game with which I'm not impressed. It seems to me that when you are in negotiations with another civ, you can only ask for technologies that you are currently able to research yourself. This means that if a civ has Code of Laws, Philosophy, and The Republic, you can demand Code of Laws and Philosophy, but you can't demand all 3!
That's really annoying, because I'm beating the crap out of the Romans, and I'm sure they'd love to bribe me with everything they've got (which is considerable) but for one peace treaty, it seems I can only demand what I already have the prerequisites for. After that, I'd have to coerce more from them in separate negotiations. Is there a way around this? Am I missing something?

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Nope, you've got it right. Same thing as you can only trade for what you could currently research -- a peace treaty is basically a form of a "trade".

You can make the peace treaty, then try to make a demand of their next level tech (if you've beaten them up badly enough, they might give in), but you can't trade up two levels at once. Or you might find a way to get CoL and Philo from someone else, THEN get Republic in a peace treaty.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

Well it's a damn annoying feature. The previous games you could take another civ for everything they had.

The problem I have is that if I sign a peace treaty with them, I go back the next turn and try to extort more advances from them, but they refuse, even though they are a battered shell of a civ. If I declare war, they won't even talk to me for a very long time yet (who cares that they constantly broke treaties earlier). This was a lot easier, earlier, when they kept declaring war, then paying me advances as reparation for the next treaty.

Can someone give any strategic advice on how to handle them? I think the key might be tricking them into declaring war, now that they aren't doing that on their own anymore.

I can't get any help from other civs, since none of them have been brought to their knees, and they don't seem to take me very seriously (don't care about my resources, money, treaties, etc.) Another problem I have is that I don't even know what science the other civs have. That's another disadvantage over previous games. You don't seem to be able to gather specific intelligence; it all seems to be very vague.

If you get CivAssist II or MapStat, those will help you learn what sciences the AIs know. Also, you'll learn how to tell what they've got by what you see. For example, if they start Sun Tzu's Art of War, they've got Feudalism.

And yes, tricking the AI into DOWing you is helpful. Wait for them to send settlers into your territory, then start demanding, every turn, that they leave.

A lot of times they have to be furious with you before declaring war on a demand to leave. So piss them off by first demanding all their cities.