Difficulty levels

[Chester]

I have succesfully completed games on civ III however only on first difficulty level (i forgot wot this is).
The problem is tho i have seen on the forums people before 2000 AD researching sythetic fibres and other such hi tech advances. The best i ever got was fission and that was last turn of game!!!.
So if the difficulty is harder does scientific research go up thus making it easier to win by say UN or Space Race

 

[muppet]

Quite possible. At least in theory. I've not played below Monarch, so I can't really say how poorly the AI performs at lower difficulty levels.

At higher levels, AI gets more bonus units at start, which translates to quicker goody hut finds and more cities earlier. More AI finding same techs equals more tech swaps. More AI's with duplicate techs from swapping equals cheaper for you to buy.

Later, the AI bonuses translate to simply 'more'. Which means when you can afford to pump research at a good clip, the AI can afford to pay you 'more' for these techs, which means you get to eventually pump your research rate to 100% in some games.

So, generally I believe you are assuming correctly that tech is accelerated at the higher levels if you play your cards right and help to facilitate the general tech level of the world.

For details on AI bonuses and player handicaps check out the 'difficulty' tab in the editor.