earliest tech finish

[farting bob]

what is the earliest time anybody has got all the techs up to and inc. modern times i'm at 2132AD and have almst finished. am i slow. it is one of the first times i've played it... not making excuses

 

[WildFire]

I am sorry but that is reaaaaaaally slow. I have been getting finished now around 1880 and that is usually on regent or monarch

are you on chieftan?
Welcome farting bob to CFC

 

[anarres]

You can get all the techs by about 1200AD, but it's not easy.

The tournament has shown the best way to research quickly is to have several powerful civs, and to trade techs or give them away. With several civs researching at the same time, you can all fly ahead in tech.

This strategy has been used by a few of us to get a fast finish by spaceship victory. The danger lies in having strong opponents who may decide to attack at any time .

 

[Karl_t_great]

I agree with anarres in more civs -> faster tech.
In addition to the simultanious R&D he mentioned You get the known tech benefit:
- as certain tech has bee researched by some of the civs You've made contact with, the cost for it goes down (both for trading it and researching it).

Totally another thing is that when You move up the level, the AI gets benefit of cheaper tech (called cost factor in the editor), on deity the ai only pays 60%
compared to regent. So if You survive a higher level You may expect a faster spaceship.

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by Karl_t_great
Totally another thing is that when You move up the level, the AI gets benefit of cheaper tech (called cost factor in the editor), on deity the ai only pays 60%
compared to regent. So if You survive a higher level You may expect a faster spaceship.

This has laways been the case, but to quote cracker from the tournament forum:

V1.29 changed the tech progression rate so that the AI tech rate on every difficulty level is equal. What is now changed is the Human tech rate progression and it is multiplied by a number that is 10 divided by the AI cost advantage that you will find in the editor.

So on Regent things are still equal, but on Warlord the human takes about 8 turns to research things that would take the AI 10 turns. On Chieftian its almost ********, in that the human research cost is cut in half. On Diety level it takes the human 16.7 turns to research the same tech as the AI can research in 10 turns.

Trading techs is also further distorted in V1.29 and the AI seems to demand a 35% to 50% bounty for any tech trade for a leading edge technolgy.

All things being equal, games on the higher difficulty levels that rely on technolgy instead of all out maiming of your opponent will take 40% to 50% longer than the simpler levels.

I have not tested this yet, but I doubt if he just made it up...

 

[Gothmog]

This is true, and I think is a big improvement. It used to be that while playing Diety techs would just fly by, also it was too easy to buy techs instead of researching. Now techs come at roughly the right times and it is hard to keep up in techs. IMO this is good for Diety, it is too easy to win with a tech advantage.

 

[Lynx]

With the exception of when i play the Germans or Americans, I try to stay out of wars in civ 3 (at least anchient ones, I like the modern ones!) and i try to ger a massive amount of techs really fast, I can get all of the techs around 1250 if i am really lucky and having a good day. I ALWAYS have good days!