Early Tech Gifting

[sethos]

When I meet an AI civ very early I always refuse to trade techs - I give it as a gift. So my neighbours become friendly. Even if they demand a tribute I will give it and give a tech, too.
In nearly every case I manage to make them allies. Then I trade techs - and ask them for a gift. Money or techs - both are welcome. At least you can trade maps with your friendly neighbours.

 

[funxus]

I usually trade techs whenever they want to (some exceptions), but maybe I should try that strategy. It depends on if I want them as allies or not, some of them I want to piss off so that I can get the whole continent for myself

 

[pallypia]

I alwats try to hol dback on Tech swapping unless they have a tech to help me get to the Wonders.....It helps to keep a few techs ' in the air ' for when you meet new AI's....Its more useful, & you are more likely to get that tribute!! ( 800gold last go....!)

 

[sethos]

800G isn't much - you can get more than 3000G from one ally - you have to ask him every 3rd or 4th turn.
And I like to have a lot of allies - I had games where I had 5 allies.

 

[ElephantU]

Early tech trading has one major benefit: to find out what techs the other civ already has that might help your early tech plan. In some cases you may be trying to get to something critical, like Monarchy or Trade, that takes several steps and getting another tech from trading would increase the beaker costs of several steps in a row so you need to refuse. Otherwise, refuse the exchange and gift instead. Get Marco Polo early and manipulate the other civs techs...

I have noticed a difference in attitude change between giving the tech they ask for first versus the one that is listed as an alternate. There seems to be a difference in their "appreciation" based on the "nature" of the other civ - are the Civilized, Militaristic, etc. If you are trying to shift their attitude consider giving their first choice. If you are just trying to tech-bomb or get something it does not matter as much.

Sethos - imagine there IS a heaven...

 

[sethos]

@Elephant
I know that there is a heaven -
no heaven, no earth ...

 

[ElephantU]

I had a very interesting early Tech Gifting exchange which I hope to write up and post to the GOTM24 Spoiler by the end of the week. I basically started with no contact with anyone and only 7 techs, built MarcoPolo, and traded until I had all 19 techs known to any civ at that point. Figuring out who to approach first and what to trade were the keys. If I was shooting for OCC I would have been much more selective in trading, but since GOTM24 is Fundy-only I needed all the tech from others I could get.

BTW, if you are going to play GOTM24 dont check the Spoiler thread until you have played to 1AD...

 

[Old n Slow]

I agree -- this game is playing FAST

 

[Ayatollah So]

Is there another advantage to giving techs away besides the fact that the receiving civ will like you for it? I think I read somewhere that it costs you less beakers to research your next tech if other civs (on average?) have a lot of techs, than if you are way ahead of everyone else.

Please give me an html link to any relevant posts.

 

[funxus]

If a certain civ has more, less, or equal number of techs, your research cost varies. So by gifting techs to that civ you can reduce your cost. The civ is called the key civ, try to search for it, because I don't have any link to it.

 

[ElephantU]

Here is Samson's Key to Tech Gifting thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HTML/001828.html?17

and here is his Cost of Research thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HTML/001831.html?6

My Marco Polo Manipulation post is now up in the GOTM24 Spoiler.

 

[johnnymiller]

Just followed your link and have come to the conclusion that Samson is a genius.
:worshp:

 

[ElephantU]

In partnership with Solo he also broke the formulas for Supply and Demand, here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67754

 

[johnnymiller]

He's an even bigger genius now

Samson, is your real name Sid Meier?

You deserve a Nobel Prize for Civ.


I doff my cap to you sir.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by johnnymiller
He's an even bigger genius now

Samson, is your real name Sid Meier?

You deserve a Nobel Prize for Civ.


I doff my cap to you sir.

Looking at the work they put in on that thread, I think they would have had an easier time reverse engineering the executable! That is some amazing stuff. Still trying to figure out how to apply it, but just the fact that they figured it out is mind boggling. This tops the one citizen challenge just from the sheer complexity of the formulas