Classical Breakthrough Techs

[Major Tom]

HBR is a neat way of entering the classical era too.
Nice for HA rushes, good for construction later if elephants are around, and a very good tradebait in it's own right. Requires more beakers into alpha though.
I look for an excuse to go this route most games because I really enjoy warfare.

I very seldom tech IW/Alpha/Math as it's usually techs that you can trade for.

Aestethics is very common in my games as it's one of the most reliable trading chips there is. About 50% of games I go there.
I do like CoL, but for some reason I seldom go there.

Hi @krikav . Question about first sentence. What is the merit in entering the classic era (soon)?

 

[krikav]

There is no perticular advantage.
The AIs do get some sort of era bonuses though. Perhaps the player also gets that on settler/warlord difficulty?

It's just a neat way to talking about it. The classical era techs are all a notch up in terms of price in beakers.

 

[Nick723]

I think the Gallic Warrior is also an underestimated UU. Faster than regular swords, and being able to build with copper means you can safely plan the rush without the worry / delay about hooking up iron.

 

[dankok8]

I think the Gallic Warrior is also an underestimated UU. Faster than regular swords, and being able to build with copper means you can safely plan the rush without the worry / delay about hooking up iron.

Agreed about Gallic Warrior that it's underestimated. Being able to build with Copper is a pretty big deal as they can come out 5-10 turns earlier. With Boudica, you get C1 and G1 and with a cheap Barracks G2. You can really abuse the double movement on hills and you're one XP away from G3 that gives 50% retreat chance.

 

[sampsa]

Agreed about Gallic Warrior that it's underestimated.

But especially on lower levels, if you have copper and a great leader for an axe-based attack you don't really need to go IW. Rather tech ahead towards something that your empire will greatly benefit from, be it monarchy, construction, CoL... Maybe IW is good if you happen to have something like a triple gems spot. Anyway, in general, settling jungle cities should not be a priority.

 

[Powerfaker]

Imo there are 3 breakthrough Classical techs. Either a special strategy is followed or the focus is on getting these.

In order of usually obtained:
Alphabet - On your top diff level you need tech trading to survive. You can call the trade bait your breakthrough tech. Essentially it's Alphabet you need. The first Classical tech for me is pretty much always Alpha itself or Aest/Maths in order to trade for Alpha. Which one depends on my tech rate compaired to the AI (Alpha=AI is slow, Aest=I am slow, Math=in the middle, the tech itself is more useful than Aest but AI can beat you to it)

Monarchy - All (usually very pressing) happy cap issues are gone due to adopting HR. Nowadays I prefer HR over Rep actually. You can reach much higher, for each individual city appropriate, pop levels. Monarchy can be obtained through trade easily even on noble/prince level at a time you're not in growth mode yet. So maybe it doesn't feel like a very pressing tech to get. Its a big leap for the near future then.

Currency - End of the line Pottery/Writing/Currency which require balancing with empire expansion till you got them. Beyond Currency you can expand much more without crashing the economy.

These 3 are economic/empire building keypoints, which is a factor in each and every game.

As for military breakthrough. Frequently not needed, enough land available. If you do need one it's usually the bigger priority. Because you get Alpha/Monarchy through trade there is not much conflict there anyway. Which tech HBR, Constr/ or maybe IW will show itself in the particular game. Imo on competitive diff level you selftech IW only for faster Praets or uncovering valuable jungle resources (nowhere else to expand)

Caste/Paci is a further away keypath for me.
One more possible breakthrough tech is MC I think, when Colossus/triremes play a part as well, in other words => water maps. Always great when you can Oracle this one in such a game..

From the Classiical key techs the path moves on to either Lit/Music or Civil Service or Astro........

 

[dankok8]

One thing I feel I should mention about Hereditary Rule is it's a good idea not to research Hunting so you can still build Warriors as garrison police. Of course you can also build Axes but it's 35 as opposed to 15 for a Warrior.

 

[Powerfaker]

Absolutely. Warriors only.
If you happen to have hunting, you can trade/give your metals away. When you're in a hurry to take 'm back you can pillage your own copper/iron mine(s) and reimprove a turn later, the deal will be canceled.

Another nice thing is that the needed size of garrisons drops, due to collecting more luxuries over time. Those warriors are taken along to war, so your precious cuir or rifle army doesn't have to leave units behind for garrison duty (or more likely, you don't have to produce longbows at this stage for that purpose).

 

[drewisfat]

What do you mean? I don't have any saves on immortal praet rushing, but on a monarch game I had declared 1320BC with 10 praets on a very -dry start.

Going to pull a reverse-Seraiel and point out 1200BC is an earlier DoW date than the one in the most relevant HoF slot with Praets-conquer-the-world strat.

Unreasonably early because you would have to sacrifice a lot for that time. How many cities are we building? There's no justification that taking cities is cheaper than building cities, because both Roman leaders are IMP. What's our tech/eco situation look like? Obviously we self-teched IW, which is a beaker dud. Certainly didn't tech Alpha. Maybe we'll get lucky and do IW + random for alpha, except that you probably don't have any of the small random techs (sailing, masonry, monotheism, etc) either. Probably didn't get writing. Do we even have granaries or barracks anywhere? If the end result is we've got a couple of our own cities, several AI cities, and we're ~10 techs behind the AI, little infrastructure, and every forest chopped, I would call that a disastrous result. There are worse games. It'll probably be winnable, but boy is it an unambitious result for a civ as powerful as Rome. This could be somewhat mitigated by leaving the AI with 1 city and demanding all its techs. But at least one of us needs Alpha to do that, and we need at least writing for it to be profitable. How are we securing that Alphabet is owned here? Are we hoping the AI researched it early? (which we can't know when we click IW and commit to this). The AI is probably unlikely to select Alpha while you're destroying it. Are we self-teching Alpha ourselves, sinking heavy beakers once again into a tech we can't trade? Are we going for a really late Aesth, buoying the high unit cost and support cost with city-raise gold, hoping to get it in time while it still has some trade value left? Are we partially teching Alpha as soon as we get IW hoping to get a straight IW -> Alpha deal in? I'm legitimately asking. I don't know the answer, but I'm skeptical there's a 100% foolproof way here.

Why not wait a little bit? What's the concern here? We're not Persia, the AI doesn't have to be stuck on archer-only phase. It's probably preferable the AI has metal if it has a lot of hill cities. Axes are at best slightly better defenders per hammer cost, and spears and swords are going to be worse than archers. Maybe the AI will find horses and build chariots! I also like to give the AI time to build a wonder like mids so I know which neighbor is the juiciest target. What's wrong with an even later very consistent push? Catapults + Praets will destroy everything in their path until macemen. There's a much bigger window here and a much easier way to conquer back-to-back AIs consistently AND have an economy that isn't backwards. We can utilize IMP. We might utilize IND failgold or forges, or be in a position to get CoL in a reasonable timeframe for ORG courthouses. We can spend some worker turns making cottages. We could utilize some math chops. We can utilize granaries/barracks in every city. There's no risk of a diceroll surprise or a last-second wall ruining the game.

I don't like the argument that things like this are better on lower levels. On the one hand it is totally relevant to AI tech pace and your tech pace (the original topic, sorry :X). But ultimately everything is better on lower levels. Deity is a good stress test. The last time we had this discussion dankok showed off an Emperor game where he sword rushed someone saying it was good. Then Fippy chariot rushed someone saying it was good. Then I warrior rushed two AIs out of the game and said it was good.

I don't think IW is never worth self-teching, but I disagree that "playing Rome" is one of the exceptions for when it makes sense. It still rarely makes sense with Rome, and tends to make sense in the same situations where it makes sense without Rome. Like being choked off at 2 cities, having 4 jungle gems, or being alone on an island with Shaka.

 

[sampsa]

Going to pull a reverse-Seraiel and point out 1200BC is an earlier DoW date than the one in the most relevant HoF slot with Praets-conquer-the-world strat.

Hmm, hard to say without looking at that game. I'm definitely not an expert on praetorian-strategies, but in my monarch game I expanded to 4 cities and went IW without any -specials. It led to an attack a few T before 1200BC, that's all I know. My justification was to win as fast as possible, which IMO means you should start conquering as fast as possible. My plan was to completely shut down tech after IW.

I don't like the argument that things like this are better on lower levels.

What exactly do you mean by "things like this"? Early win via conquest? It's better on lower levels, because it's possible.

But ultimately everything is better on lower levels. Deity is a good stress test. The last time we had this discussion dankok showed off an Emperor game where he sword rushed someone saying it was good. Then Fippy chariot rushed someone saying it was good. Then I warrior rushed two AIs out of the game and said it was good.

Ah, this partly answers to my question. Yes, early aggression just works. Everything is not better on lower levels though. Tech trading is a lot better on deity, thus falling out of the trading game is more costly. Bulbing is better on deity. Espionage is better on deity. Bribing AIs into wars is better on deity. Some wonders (GLH at least) pay back better on deity.

I don't think IW is never worth self-teching, but I disagree that "playing Rome" is one of the exceptions for when it makes sense. It still rarely makes sense with Rome, and tends to make sense in the same situations where it makes sense without Rome. Like being choked off at 2 cities, having 4 jungle gems, or being alone on an island with Shaka.

I agree. Funnily my deity praetorian experience was exactly shared island with Shaka.

 

[Fish Man]

@Fish Man
There is almost nothing that is as satisfactory as attacking a chariot+archer AI with swords. So I totally get it why.
Much better odds than HAs, and way cheaper. Swords are also very nice to whip as one 2pop whip can usually build two swords in 3 turns, something few cities manage with HAs.

I almost always keep my eyes open for a weakling to rush with swords, but on deity it happens seldom enough that going for IW doesn't make that much sense.
Oh, and you don't always have horses either. And waiting for catapults..? Well, that can be a missed opportunity.

Come to think of it... I must self-tech alpha more often than I do, as thats almost certainly the best way to get hold of IW opportunisticly.

Swords aren't are as satisfactory as declaring and then taking their capital within 3 turns because your HAs can move 4 tiles/turn with roads. Also, swords are "cheaper" technically but since the AI panic-whips archers in threatened cities, more swords will still die because you give the AI time to amass defenders. Finally, you just can't count on AIs to not have metal in their BFC...since you only "know" where iron is if either you or an AI already has IW, too often you'll find yourself beelining IW only to be met with a nasty surprise.

 

[drewisfat]

I agree. Funnily my deity praetorian experience was exactly shared island with Shaka.

There comes a time in all our lives where we find ourselves alone on an island with Shaka.

 

[dankok8]

Going to pull a reverse-Seraiel and point out 1200BC is an earlier DoW date than the one in the most relevant HoF slot with Praets-conquer-the-world strat.

Unreasonably early because you would have to sacrifice a lot for that time. How many cities are we building? There's no justification that taking cities is cheaper than building cities, because both Roman leaders are IMP. What's our tech/eco situation look like? Obviously we self-teched IW, which is a beaker dud. Certainly didn't tech Alpha. Maybe we'll get lucky and do IW + random for alpha, except that you probably don't have any of the small random techs (sailing, masonry, monotheism, etc) either. Probably didn't get writing. Do we even have granaries or barracks anywhere? If the end result is we've got a couple of our own cities, several AI cities, and we're ~10 techs behind the AI, little infrastructure, and every forest chopped, I would call that a disastrous result. There are worse games. It'll probably be winnable, but boy is it an unambitious result for a civ as powerful as Rome. This could be somewhat mitigated by leaving the AI with 1 city and demanding all its techs. But at least one of us needs Alpha to do that, and we need at least writing for it to be profitable. How are we securing that Alphabet is owned here? Are we hoping the AI researched it early? (which we can't know when we click IW and commit to this). The AI is probably unlikely to select Alpha while you're destroying it. Are we self-teching Alpha ourselves, sinking heavy beakers once again into a tech we can't trade? Are we going for a really late Aesth, buoying the high unit cost and support cost with city-raise gold, hoping to get it in time while it still has some trade value left? Are we partially teching Alpha as soon as we get IW hoping to get a straight IW -> Alpha deal in? I'm legitimately asking. I don't know the answer, but I'm skeptical there's a 100% foolproof way here.

Why not wait a little bit? What's the concern here? We're not Persia, the AI doesn't have to be stuck on archer-only phase. It's probably preferable the AI has metal if it has a lot of hill cities. Axes are at best slightly better defenders per hammer cost, and spears and swords are going to be worse than archers. Maybe the AI will find horses and build chariots! I also like to give the AI time to build a wonder like mids so I know which neighbor is the juiciest target. What's wrong with an even later very consistent push? Catapults + Praets will destroy everything in their path until macemen. There's a much bigger window here and a much easier way to conquer back-to-back AIs consistently AND have an economy that isn't backwards. We can utilize IMP. We might utilize IND failgold or forges, or be in a position to get CoL in a reasonable timeframe for ORG courthouses. We can spend some worker turns making cottages. We could utilize some math chops. We can utilize granaries/barracks in every city. There's no risk of a diceroll surprise or a last-second wall ruining the game.

I don't like the argument that things like this are better on lower levels. On the one hand it is totally relevant to AI tech pace and your tech pace (the original topic, sorry :X). But ultimately everything is better on lower levels. Deity is a good stress test. The last time we had this discussion dankok showed off an Emperor game where he sword rushed someone saying it was good. Then Fippy chariot rushed someone saying it was good. Then I warrior rushed two AIs out of the game and said it was good.

I don't think IW is never worth self-teching, but I disagree that "playing Rome" is one of the exceptions for when it makes sense. It still rarely makes sense with Rome, and tends to make sense in the same situations where it makes sense without Rome. Like being choked off at 2 cities, having 4 jungle gems, or being alone on an island with Shaka.

There's no way you'd be falling 10 techs behind. Each captured city plus the plethora of razed cities give a nice supply of gold to fund deficit research. I'm prioritizing Writing/Alpha as soon as IW is done. By 500 BC one can probably even nab Currency as well. On Monarch which sampsa was referring to it's unlikely you are behind in tech period let alone 10 techs. Deity is a whole different ballgame. Of course Sword rushes are incredibly situational on Deity. But I disagree with that being the barometer and that every strategy should be judged by its effectiveness on Deity.

Anyways Sword rushes are even situational on Emperor.. The Sword-rush game... glad you remember it and yes that's the one I posted on the forum. I played poorly and still Sword-rushed 2 AI's on Emperor. Took Pacal out completely and completely crippled Hatty. Gumbolt I believe repeated my attempt and did it 7-8 turns earlier on Immortal on the same map and replicated the same results. Albeit we played as Agg leader Ragnar. His Swords' extra promo from cheap Barracks came in super useful taking Shock against the occasional Egyptian axe. And Fin probably shaved a turn or two off of research. The reason the Sword rush worked especially well is Pacal had no metal and went down like a house of cards with only Archers and Holkans letting us use the surviving veterans on Hatty who doesn't exactly spam units. Praets on that map would have gotten us close to Domination all on their own. HA's would have worked just as well on that map but IIRC I didn't need AH early to improve food so I didn't know I had Horses till later. I can agree that an HA rush is better in most cases.

You mention using Cats... if you're using Cats you don't need Praets. Sure they are nice to have but Cats + stock Swords will still clean up. And while those later classical wars feature a more stable economy they can backfire in other ways. Once AI's have Alpha they can bribe others into the war and they also might just get early Feudalism. On Immortal I've seen AI's get Feudalism in the BC's relatively often. Lastly you are gaining that territory later in the game. Snowballing earlier can result in winning the game earlier.

Playing on Immortal I'd consider a stock Sword rush if:
- there is a soft neighbor preferably with no metal
- there is no Copper or Horses revealed early
- and more so if playing an Agg leader

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@Fish Man
Oh, and you don't always have horses either.

We can see, pasture, and connect horses before deciding on Horseback Riding. With Iron Working, good luck! I still feel that maps where self-researching Iron Working or Horseback Riding early is the correct choice, are difficult.

But yes, for attacking cities, swords are a big upgrade over axes. This one I remember from a decade ago.

Imo there are 3 breakthrough Classical techs. ...
Currency - End of the line Pottery/Writing/Currency which require balancing with empire expansion till you got them. Beyond Currency you can expand much more without crashing the economy.

Currency requires alphabet or mathematics, those are breakthrough techs.

There is no perticular advantage.
The AIs do get some sort of era bonuses though. Perhaps the player also gets that on settler/warlord difficulty?
It's just a neat way to talking about it. The classical era techs are all a notch up in terms of price in beakers.

Random events and quests. (I wish streamers keep tribal villages and random events on, more entertaining.).

 

[Snowbird]

Aesthetics - great trade bait, good if there is some marble. Typically means I hope to trade for Alpha few turns after it finishes.

Alphabet - great for anything lower than Immortal as the player can get at least get some use of trading. By Renaissance AI' should fade away tech-wise. It also allows building research which is mega great.

Code of Laws - Courthouses mostly suck, Caste System is cute, but just after writing I typically want something for tech trading/economy boost, and CoL gives nothing short term. For me, it happens to be the tech only if oracled.

Iron Working - anything not roman probably should avoid this unless there are like two jungled gem tiles or something like that.

Horseback Riding - if you have horses and targets this is very good, tech a few turns into Alpha, and the rest can be traded for HBR, hopefully.

Mathematics - aqueducts suck, consider Aqueduct is approximately the same cost as an extra settler. A new city could provide (among other benefits) a new health resource, which would benefit all the cities... The only way this happens to be the tech is if Construction will be rushed - maybe bulb Math as a philosophical leader with the first scientist.

Metal Casting - forges do not suck, but in that era, they are a very low priority. In general, this should be the tech after writing only in mega specific situations - typically trying to do something like Astro/Engineering bulbs.

Monarchy - good tech, but easy to trade for. If a player's area has a lot of green riverside tiles, no luxury resources and bad trading partners... maybe in that case.

 

[drewisfat]

@dankok8 10 techs behind would be a worst case scenario (and is admittedly an unscientific measurement) but is absolutely in play if you're unable to get tech trades. One tech passed around for 3 big techs 3 small techs, and a depressed research rate from late OBs, war expenses, and very late currency and you're ~10 techs behind from where you could have been. It's not destined to happen, but it can happen. Early conquest is all but guaranteed with Rome, but eco is more up in the air, so why sacrifice eco at the cost of military? Why decide to go all-in with a plan that's hampered or even derailed by bad iron locations?
Claiming you don't "need praets with catapults" is weak, as you don't "need" anything. Praets certainly help catapults a lot. I will make a bold claim that Praetpult is the most consistent breakout war strategy in the entire game. I can't think of another method that isn't either more resource dependent, more vulnerable to bad combat dicerolls, or reliant on a good eco for longer.

AI bribing is somewhat predictable (they need a tech advantage and relationship requirements) and probably won't happen the second they hit Alpha. All the more reason to get to currency though so you can beg targets into truces. Longbows aren't a dealbreaker. I'd rather have praetpult vs longbows than normal catapult stuff vs non-longbows. The difference of Praets is huge. You can mop units left and right. I think you can get efficient odds on any unit outside a city with the exception of an axeman on a forest tile. There's no extra snowball in some absolute Praet rush out of 2 cities unless we've cherrypicked a target with with like multiple gold. Rome is IMP. Just build a couple more cheap settlers. When you do go to war, your Hammers/food will go further with granaries and barracks, or potentially with math-chops, forges, and catapults.

 

[dankok8]

@dankok8 10 techs behind would be a worst case scenario (and is admittedly an unscientific measurement) but is absolutely in play if you're unable to get tech trades. One tech passed around for 3 big techs 3 small techs, and a depressed research rate from late OBs, war expenses, and very late currency and you're ~10 techs behind from where you could have been. It's not destined to happen, but it can happen. Early conquest is all but guaranteed with Rome, but eco is more up in the air, so why sacrifice eco at the cost of military? Why decide to go all-in with a plan that's hampered or even derailed by bad iron locations?
Claiming you don't "need praets with catapults" is weak, as you don't "need" anything. Praets certainly help catapults a lot. I will make a bold claim that Praetpult is the most consistent breakout war strategy in the entire game. I can't think of another method that isn't either more resource dependent, more vulnerable to bad combat dicerolls, or reliant on a good eco for longer.

AI bribing is somewhat predictable (they need a tech advantage and relationship requirements) and probably won't happen the second they hit Alpha. All the more reason to get to currency though so you can beg targets into truces. Longbows aren't a dealbreaker. I'd rather have praetpult vs longbows than normal catapult stuff vs non-longbows. The difference of Praets is huge. You can mop units left and right. I think you can get efficient odds on any unit outside a city with the exception of an axeman on a forest tile. There's no extra snowball in some absolute Praet rush out of 2 cities unless we've cherrypicked a target with with like multiple gold. Rome is IMP. Just build a couple more cheap settlers. When you do go to war, your Hammers/food will go further with granaries and barracks, or potentially with math-chops, forges, and catapults.

What you described isn't my experience on lower levels like Monarch. Attacking earlier is certainly more advantageous. In fact as Rome going for Domination you might actually first attack with Axes then transition into Praets then transition into Praetpults and then eventually into Praettrebs by which time you've conquered everyone on Pangaea. On lower levels, maintenance costs are lower, AI's research much slower and AI's are much weaker meaning you can just keep attacking collecting sums of gold for every city to keep the economy afloat and simply razing most of them. Having a bad Iron location on Monarch barely matters. Maintenance just isn't as big of a factor. And if economy is getting really bad just raze everything. No big deal.

Then again I understand your point about risk. We are all comfortable with different levels of risk. Some people find the roughly 10% chance of not finding Iron anywhere to be way too big of a risk to self-tech IW. Another example... is having one Archer garrisoned in a city defending against a barb Archer. 90% odds of winning means there is a 10% chance of losing a city. Some people will opt to whip a 2nd Archer just in case and some people will roll the dice on winning that 90% battle. I remember several games where I've lost a city defended by an Archer to a barb Warrior at 98-99% odds. Where do we draw the line between risky and not risky? Is it 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%...?

 

[drewisfat]

Obviously it's not relevant on Monarch, this was established, and you don't even play on MON level so

 

[ArchGhost]

Initial thoughts



Best trade-back techs for getting beyond the opening phase (i.e picking up Alpha) are Aesthetics, CoL and HBR:

Aesthetics- On the path to Music if you want to Cuir rush or just trade it around, unlocks Literature which has the NE and GreatLib, two great wonders especially if you have marble to fail-gold with, rarely teched early except by single outlier AIs sometimes so it has a ton of trade value that you can use to pick up all kinds of stuff after Alpha trade. Even if you have no eyes on Music, Aes is still an awesome tech to trade around to catch up because of that, and is much cheaper than going CoL for similar effect. Also it doesn't really advance them along any critical paths like CoL does, so if you don't care about the Music GA it is a perfect trade tech. I have even gone straight in Drama next several times for the exact same reason, if I don't care about GLib or Music GA that game.

Horseback Riding- can open with a HA attack to gain a stronger position, valued higher by the AI than its beaker cost suggests, and while it's a popular tech for them it isn't that often it's completely proliferated in time for the Alpha trade, and there is often an outlier or two that greatly delay picking it up so you can often make the trade with them.

Code of Laws - good beaker value, very easy to pick up the tech around the cost of Alpha with it and you'll have small religious techs for more value too. Can bury a religion by going there fast, and quickly get into GP generation of types other than GS or get GS without Libraries. Opens up option for quick CS going forward Two issues I have with it though are it's more expensive to go this route, especially with adding the need to tech the little religious techs, and that trading the AI CoL advances them into the next stage of vying for CS/Nationalism or Philosophy that much more quickly...especially if they are already done grabbing calendar, monarchy, etc. Also utilizing fast Caste flies in the face of Slavery productiveness, of course

Less incentive:
-Math has crap trade value as most AIs tech it quickly and it's less expensive. Improving chops is nice but if not Const. rushing I wouldn't bother and just tradeback when the Ais decide to give it (which can be frustratingly long if wanting to go Music quickly)
-Monarchy isn't very useful getting it super early (esp. if CHA or have a luxury or two), is easily traded for as AIs will always give it and you can usually pick up with Alpha or Aes + some progress. Being in happiness crunch sucks but HR never seemed worth it to me unless there is nothing else for happiness otherwise at this point.
-Metal Casting is out of the way unless going Optics/Lib which are both way later. Forges are very expensive at this stage of the game and take a lot to pay back their cost (you must run 480 hammers through a forge to break even for building it). Cheaper than going CoL, I guess, as you are likely to have BW + Pottery already.
-Iron Working has the exact same problems as Math, and OP seems to overvalue chopping jungle quite a bit. The issue is timing; you can easily get IW in tradeback so early (on Immortal, anyway, they tech it before Alpha) that you don't even have the worker labor to clear jungle anyway. Self-teching it even faster than that only hurts your trading position. I play Tropical maps pretty much all the time as my random games and even with larger jungle belts it isn't an issue.

Self-teching Alpha itself sometimes becomes necessary in some (thankfully rarer) games where the entire field refuses to tech it until like T130+ on Immortal. I've done it a few times and it's not as bad as it seems because you can at least build research to help you along even if trade value quickly melts as it proliferates. In getting to the next major goal after the opening of the game (for me that's Currency) self-teching Alpha is a very valid way to get there...especially with no trade partners!

 

[gavenkoa]

Beyond Currency you can expand much more without crashing the economy.

Sailing also sually doubles your income. I find it bearable to grow with only Sailing to 10 cities, when you have enough trade partners.