AI tech paths and trading techs with AI's.

[aquar]

I play vanilla and I am assuming continents and everything else standard.
I would like to know the 'best' way to trade with AI's on technologies AND what tech paths the AI's take. I have been unable to find articles on techpaths by the AI's as well (a bit off-subject) as how AI's react/respond in the game. I would assume that there are probably two preferred tech paths for the AI based upon how aggressive they are: 1) war orientated; 2) religion orientated. I'd love to know what they are and how to trade most effectively with the AI.

I just tried Prince level and was blocked out from trading techs. I have much to learn. I can win on Noble at late late dates where tech trading is not needed for me.

 

[xanadux]

The first thing to do is get alphabet early in vanilla. Grab BW, a couple worker techs, then straight to alphabet. You can often get 2 or more of IW, MC, and Mathematics for alphabet. After that, the AI does prioritize military and religious techs. They will go through all the religious techs, get monarchy and feudalism, CoL, philosophy, Engineering etc. If you get things like Drama and Paper, you will be able to trade them.

 

[KMadCandy]

the leaders are coded to have different "flavors", and the techs all have a flavor code, and then there's a random element too when they decide what to pick next. for flavor, one example is liz really likes to aim for music, i think one of her flavors is culture. isabella's is religion, what a surprise! as a general rule pre-BtS, you could always count on them to be fairly slow to research alphabet, and they tend to prioritize calendar, currency, and construction if i'm remembering the 3Cs right. i know i always got calendar from them in vanilla/warlords, CBA to research it myself. often they do ignore paper like xanadux said.

there's a lot to re-learn every level jump. good luck and have fun!

 

[I EAT CRAYONS]

One tech that has been left out so far is Metal Casting--a relatively expensive that the AI does not prioritize. It is easily obtainable through the Oracle, though sometimes it is a waste of hammers.

 

[AnaNg]

I always have a hard time trading off MC. Not because the AI doesn't want it (I usually get trade pop ups from them the second I complete it), but because I like having xbows for a bit before they do and it seems like if I trade MC they get machinery pretty quickly.

Course that's my hardest problem with tech trading, either I give them too much too early or not enough too late.

 

[Sisiutil]

As Maddy said above, each AI leader has certain tech preferences. However, I find most of them tend to set a low priority on the Liberalism path, so you can often go down that route and trade those techs, but not right away. I like to hang on to Liberalism pre-requisites for as long as I can until I have the race won. Then I trade Philosophy, Paper, Education, and Liberalism itself to backfill techs I missed.

Metal Casting is an excellent early tech to obtain. Because of its expense the AI makes it a low priority, but that also means you can get some expensive techs for it like Currency and Calendar. Plus forges are terrific, and if you're an Industrious leader they're cheap. Land is power in this game, but production isn't far behind. If you can get the production boost of forges early (especially if you combine it with a further boost from Organized Religion), you can have the game in the bag very early.

 

[petey]

Alphabet and Education are the two main ones that I find the AI tends to ignore. If you prioritize those, you can generally backfill quite a bit of the techs you skipped to get to them.

 

[aquar]

Thank you for the replies everyone. I will practise what I have learned.

 

[KMadCandy]

However, I find most of them tend to set a low priority on the Liberalism path, so you can often go down that route and trade those techs, but not right away. I like to hang on to Liberalism pre-requisites for as long as I can until I have the race won. Then I trade Philosophy, Paper, Education, and Liberalism itself to backfill techs I missed.

i was playing BtS last night and saving liberalism until one of them was going to get it, since i had the spy points to see what they were all researching. i could have started researching it (but didn't) a long time before they did (i had education before some of them could even learn paper, i had truly ridiculous hut luck). they just put it off and put it off. finally isabella started to study it. so being the kind and generous soul that i am, i let her put a few turns into it and then i swooped in to finish it first and get the free tech.

the odd thing is that she had 4 turns left to go on Lib the turn before i learned it. but the turn i was first to discover it, she changed techs! she still hasn't gone back to finish it. i suppose that makes sense, she's isabella, she wasn't interested in free religion *giggle*, and the only thing it's a prereq for is communism i think. so if you're not going to use FS/FR/SP then you don't need it. but it surprised me, since i haven't ever seen them do that, since obviously i haven't had access to that kind of insight into their decision-making before BtS.

communism gives a free great spy to the first to discover it, so i won't trade lib to anybody til i get that out of the way .

 

[Sisiutil]

communism gives a free great spy to the first to discover it, so i won't trade lib to anybody til i get that out of the way .

Ah, a good point. I'm like that with Education. You'd think I'd start trading it for backfill techs once I have Liberalism, but Education is also a pre-requisite for Economics and its free Great Merchant to the first taker. Since the AI has often researched through Guilds and Banking while I've obtained Paper and Education, they have a head start. So I often hoard Education until after I get Economics, too.

I'm not surprised by Isabella's behaviour. I've noticed that one any of the techs that grant a fringe benefit to the first taker (founding a religion, free tech or Great Person) have been researched, it takes the shine off of them for the AI.