Good Research Strategys

STB93

Chieftain
Joined
Dec 9, 2012
Messages
37
So, one of my main strategys in the game is to become the most advanced in the world. Although I notice I have a problem when I get to the late renaissance-early industrail age where my research seems to start to bog down and my economy is becoming a problem. Also, other players start becoming more advanced than me and I always want to be on top. I would like to know what are some tips and tricks to become the most advanced in the world?
 
How many cities do you have? What size are they? Do you build any cottages?
 
So, one of my main strategys in the game is to become the most advanced in the world. Although I notice I have a problem when I get to the late renaissance-early industrail age where my research seems to start to bog down and my economy is becoming a problem. Also, other players start becoming more advanced than me and I always want to be on top. I would like to know what are some tips and tricks to become the most advanced in the world?

First point - if the AI is outgunning you on Chieftain, then your primary problem is fundamentals, not anything relating to research per se. But that's not what you asked...

The basics of maintaining a research lead
1) Have more developed land than anyone else
2) Optimizing your development for research

Getting more developed land than any one else usually means getting your fair share of land (peaceful expansion), and developing that land, then using that advantage to get a neighbors fair share of land, and developing that.

So you need to recognize good land, and how important worker improvements are, and then you need to learn how to war - how military advantages snowball, how siege units work....

Optimizing your development includes learning which land improvements to use where, choosing appropriate buildings for each city, learning how the specialist mechanic works, and how to use great people.
 
I know there are certain ways to bulb techs. Is there a clear guide for that?
 
If a capital with decent food supply and many grassy riverside plots, start to work cottages early. Settle cities that overlap your capital BFC and work more cottages at the same time. That way you "grow" your cottages to strong commerce sources, and once the capital grows, it slowly takes back those cottages developped by satellite cities.
Once bureaucracy+Oxford+Academy+typical multipliers in, that capital will generate for a long time a large portion of your BPT rate.
 
How to play on Chieftain 101 by ZZZzzzzzz. Research Animal Husbandry, and The Wheel. Build a settler as soon as your capital hits size 3, settle said settler on horse. Use your worker to road to connect the two cities. Set said cities to produce only Chariots, start killing off the AI when you have 4 Chariots. From all new cities only produce Chariots. You have now beat Chieftain. Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
How to play on Chieftain 101 by ZZZzzzzzz. Research Animal Husbandry, and The Wheel. Build a settler as soon as your capital hits size 3, settle said settler on horse. Use your worker to road to connect the two cities. Set said cities to produce only Chariots, start killing off the AI when you have 4 Chariots. From all new cities only produce Chariots. You have now beat Chieftain.

Don't forget to select a map that's all land.
 
I'll ship over the Chariots with Galleys on Continents.

Yes, what he says is true. In CIV, you have a percentage of survival while crossing oceans just like CivIII. :) Take a risk and avoid Astronomy, which arrives much later.
 
my advice is watching TMIT on youtube or if thats too advanced yet, go check out tsk2103... he explains much more which is great for noobies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQaUJkhYH9Y&list=UUrRYiyFHJjGksix45hzLG0A&index=5&feature=plcp

Cheers for that, I'll check him out. What I like about Sulla's videos is that he explains things along the way. I hadn't heard about the bonus to teching from pre-reqs for example, nor the bonus to teching when other civs already know the tech. His video series that explained fogbusting and such was BRILLIANT as well, learnt so much from that.

However, some people said they didn't agree with all that he did. Anything in particular you have in mind?

Also, are there video series out there where people explicitly explain things, not in a playthrough kind of way, but going through more advanced things so others can learn quickly?
 
How the heck can I catch up on research if I have fallen behind? Is there any diplo shenanigans I can pull?

Speaking of videos, I have only watched one of the playthroughs but CaF from these forums did a pretty nice job. He explains his thinking process rather well and it's a different style.
 
What I usually do with pointless early technologies like Aestethics and Drama is that I postpone their discovery until Industrial era when I could research them in 1 turn, even when using the strategy of binary research and keeping the slider at 0%. Seems like a good strategy to backfill missing techs in the tree.
 
That's one way to go, but one of the things I learnt when trying to move up the levels, was that Aesthetics was a good path to take early, because AIs rarely research it, and then use it in trades to backfill other junk you don't want to bother with. It is also on the path to Literature which opens up GLib and some important national wonders, which can be neat to build early.

About trading, once you get a tech monopoly (and you're willing to trade it away), it's best to do several trades in the same turn. That way the AI you trade, say, Alphabet to can't trade it away to other AIs, and you can get more bang for your buck by trading Alpha with several AIs and backfill missing techs.

One annoying aspect about trading techs is that as you move up the difficulty ladder you get less and less back in trades. Early on we can get about 1:1 trades, but later on this gets considerably worse. It's not the most fun to trade away for example a 1000 :science: tech and only get 750 :science: back. Still, you're better off than doing the whole thing yourself.
 
I was a little bit wrong about Aesthetics. Well, Aestethics itself is crap, but Literature is not, because it enables Heroic Epic and also National Epic (not as good as HE though). Then it also leads to Music which further leads to Military Tradition and cuirs...
 
Aesth isnt crap at all... it unlocks the parthenon and paya. parth is very solid when you have marble to create great people and paya is great for building failgold. also it has tremendous trade value. both are great on higher difficulties but very much less needed on emperor and below but you guys wanna move up as quickly as possible anyways, right?

on IMM+ its very stardard to tech only the essential techs, that are needed (Agri, AH, TW, Pot, Mining, BW, Writing - sometimes even less) and then go straight to Aesth... then cut reseatch and only put 1-2 turn into Alpha until another AI will trade Alpha for Aesth. then you can trade pretty much anything you need for the one tech Aesth
 
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