Does the 'AI' have a clue what to research? (It is a rhetoric question.)

[Fafnir13]

Random example of horrible teching by the AI: Turn 325 on normal speed, Sheelba asks me for agriculture in exchange for 70 gold.

 

[WarKirby]

Although everyone has different eventual goals, most of the initial techs are necessary for all civs.

Would it not be possible to just tell the AI to research agriculture, exploration, animal husbandry, ancient chants, mining, crafting, calendar, and education, before starting on ANY of their civ specific paths ?

 

[Zechnophobe]

I don't think that'd be quite right. While Agriculture and Ancient Chants are pretty major, a lot of the others are a bit less certain. Education in the middle of a forest isn't necessarily a good way to go, and animal husbandry can often give you little to no benefit (Ooh, you spent 20 turns to research a tech that gave your pop maxed capital 2 more food!) The true solution is to allow them to choose which techs they actually need early on.

I think by forcing all these bee-lines we end up over-regulating the AI, instead of teaching them what values each has, and then letting them respond accordingly. (THat is, tell them to research calendar if they have workable resources for it).

 

[Grey Fox]

Education also locks up a Civic, which is sometimes the bigger reason I even research the tech. Calendar does as well. Calendar also leads to Festivals, one of the best techs to combat expansion, better than Code of Laws in my opinion.

But I agree, we shouldn't force the AI to research anything, just give them appropriate weights and teach them how to judge correctly when to choose what.

 

[Sarisin]

Although everyone has different eventual goals, most of the initial techs are necessary for all civs.

Would it not be possible to just tell the AI to research agriculture, exploration, animal husbandry, ancient chants, mining, crafting, calendar, and education, before starting on ANY of their civ specific paths ?

That's pretty logical, but for some reason, the game has beelining built into it.

For example, the elves and dwarves will ignore most of the techs you mention to found ROK and FOL even though in slow games especially, those take an ungodly number of turns to get. Later in the game, there is always a few AI civs that beeline Taxation for some reason.

Of course, this beelining can come at a cost as often military techs are ignored and they get squashed by other civs.