Giving techs

[Enkidu]

Even though i am just a newly registered member, I have read along with this forum for some time. It is often mentioned that giving technologies to other civs will increase the rate of your discoveries.
I have two question concerning this:

Is there any particular reason for this?

How can I do this most effectivly?

 

[Odin]

<a href="http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HTML/001828.html?17">This link</a> will take you to a thread at <a href="http://apolyton.net">apolyton.net</a> that explains the tech-gifting concept pretty well. Personally, I use tech-gifting rather extensively in OCC, but for my money it's not really worth bothering with in my other games. Even if you do use it in your regular games, you'll probably find that its usefulness drops off rather dramatically relatively early in the game. Because I tend to play a relatively isolationist strategy in the early stages of my games, by the time I am ready to gift/trade with other civs, I am pretty far ahead of them, or at least at a point where the benefits of gifting to the key civ are negligible.

Of course, everyone has his/her own opinion.

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"Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music." -- George Carlin

 

[Enkidu]

Thanks for the link. I tested what it said (gifting to the corresponding civ) and it seems to work. What I don't understand is why the programmers put in this feature. Having a corresponding civ which is far behind in science could severly hamper your science while a technological advance civ could speed it up quite drastical. Quite illogical.

 

[Odin]

From a programming perspective, I actually consider this sloppy work. For an extra few hours' effort, they could have randomized the key civ (or not had a key civ at all) rather than linking it to something as seemingly unrelated as shield color. Unfortunately, Civ-II is riddled with examples of this (e.g., "Oedo" years). However, for whatever reason, I and many, many others still really enjoy the game. I think most of us have viewed finding these instances of corner-cutting as challenges in and of themselves.

However, from a sort of "abstract" perspective, a technologically inferior civ <u>should</u> hamper your development, and a technologically superior civ <u>should</u> help your development. This clearly illustrates the value of cooperation, as well as the fact that it will be more costly for a civ to break new ground. I think this is consistent with history, and kudos to the programmers for finding a way to include it.

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"Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music." -- George Carlin