Having difficult with Tech choices.

[Dreven]

Very often I find that I am confused as to what technologies to research after I have been in a game for a while. When the game starts I usually see what I have available, as far as resources are concerned, and then I choose my opening research accordingly. After that I usually have no idea why I choose what, and I seem to always end up pressing the recommended tech. Now my question is, do I research technologies to benefit the civilization I am playing our do I target specific tech and go all out for them. However, I think the biggest question is when do I research what. Typically I just want to kill everything in sight, I'm not really thinking about a Space Race victory and usually suck at being a manipulative diplomat.


P.S. playing on Noble difficulty.

 

[DaveMcW]

Bronze Working -> Iron Working
Kill your first neighbor with swords/axemen.

Pottery
Get the cottages started so you can support those new cities.

Construction
Build catapults to take out your second neighbor.

Currency, Code of Laws, Alphabet
Some more economic techs to support your growing empire.

Civil Service, Machinery
Macemen for the win.

Astronomy
If you have problems teaching the macemen how to swim.

 

[UncleJJ]

Bronze Working -> Iron Working
Kill your first neighbor with swords/axemen.

Bronze working is key because it not only reveals copper but also allows Slavery and chopping trees. The increase in production these give can be vital for building the stack of axes fast, if you decide on an early war.

Also you should research the techs that allow your workers to develop the food and other resources near your first cities, Sailing if you have fish, Animal Husbandry if you need pasture for cows etc.

After that you can work towards the techs that let you use your civs UU if it is an early one.

 

[JackOfClubs]

Currency, Code of Laws, Alphabet
Some more economic techs to support your growing empire.

It is important to get Alphabet early so that you can see what techs your rivals have. Even if you don't trade with them (and I would recommend trading) you need to know what they are researching so you can counter it.

 

[erri]

Bronze Working is the key tech in ancient military advances. Hunt / Archery is another good basic choice. Other advances may vary in an actual game, especially if war centered, but a good strategy is to develop ALL basic techs, develop Alphabet and trade with other Civs you surely will find during an aggressive campaign. Usually Science Civs follow their own tech tree branch and many of them haven't researched all earliest techs, so you could easily cover your issues with diplomacy.

 

[Nestorius]

Code of Laws, Construction, Currency, or Alphabet are good classical techs to beeline to, depending on your situation.

Civil Service is an excellent tech to get because it gives you Bureacracy.

Then you got Guilds for Grocers which give you money and health.

Liberalism is a good focus for mid game because of the free tech.

Assembly Line or Railroad are good after that.

Then just focus on preparing for the space race.

 

[Aeturneus]

Wheel+Animal husbandry for chariot rush

 

[ownedbyakorat]

I'm anti-alphabet, myself, I don't get it until most other civs have it, usually. With competing priorities I never can bring myself to choose it.

In the beginning you want:
a) mining -> bronze working
b) agriculture (or Hunting) -> animal husbandry

I think you need those two early just to know where the exploitable resources are. Iron you don't need to know early unless bronze and horses are both out of reach and you need war units ASAP.

After that you'll want The Wheel. By this time you should have at least one worker, and it's The Wheel that keeps them busy. Besides, you also need it to hook up resources (e.g. copper) and trade routes to new cities. If you get bronze close by, prioritize Wheel over AH even.

Next you need the rest of the worker techs - Pottery especially, but Hunting can be useful as well. Archery is a judgement call; often you can bypass it until it's a one-turn research, if you can build an alternative unit.

Around this time is usually good to start on the Mysticism branch, because you need culture to expand new settlements. Grab Poly over Meditation, it's a little more expensive but of significantly more benefit. If on Noble or below, you can consider taking Judaism at this point by going Masonry - Monotheism, but I prefer the Priesthood - Writing - Code of Laws route for Confusionism.

After that, the next target should be Monarchy, because your cities should be filling up by now. Mathematics -> Construction is smart if there's war in the near future, otherwise I like to go right for Civil Service to cash in on Bureaucracy. After that there's goodies like Feudalism, Machinery, and Currency.

Anytime a research drops to 1 turn, take it. It stops the AI from offering it to you and it's the most minor interruption possible to a main path - and every tech is worth at least one turn, Divine Right post-Islam post-Spiral Minaret excepted.

If you play the average game getting techs in the order above, you'd do all right.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

After that I usually have no idea why I choose what, and I seem to always end up pressing the recommended tech.

Your game lacks clear strategic ideas.

There are a couple of approaches you can take. One is to focus on learning some general strategies (Maces for the Win!), and finding a technology path that does that general approach well.

A second approach is to identify key game elements (for example: priests!) and try to find a path through the tech tree to maximize the effectiveness of that element.

A third approach is to identify the characteristics of the current game that differ from a general game, and try to leverage those. Here, the key elements are your leader (traits - both the effect and the buildings related to them, unique building, unique unit) and the local terrain.

 

[ratrangerm]

Here's a general early tech research approach I use.

1. If I don't have Mining, get that first.
2. Bronze Working comes after mining. Then switch to slavery and locate copper resources.
3. The Wheel is next if I don't have it already. That way, I can ensure that I have the ability to hook up to my copper.
4. If no copper is nearby, a beeline to Iron Working can be good from there.
5. If copper is nearby, it's a toss-up between Pottery and Animal Husbandry. I go with Pottery if my first city can benefit from an early cottage spam. If not, then I go with AH so I can locate horses.
6. Writing should come pretty early so I can establish Open Borders and start checking out nearby civs.
7. Alphabet should come as early as possible to trade for other early techs. The AI usually does not priortize writing, so that can be passed around and you can get plenty of the early techs.
8. Agriculture is a low priority tech for me unless there's lot of grain resources. Then I work that in before alphabet.
9. I go for masonry only if there's stone or marble nearby.

So the early research path for me is this:

Mining (if needed)
Bronze working
The Wheel (if needed)
Iron Working, Animal Husbandry or Pottery (depending on situation)
Writing
Agriculture (if needed)
Masonry (if stone or marble nearby)
Alphabet

Most of the religious techs I skip unless I'm playing a Spiritual civ that starts with Mysticism, and then I pick between Meditation or Polytheism and ignore the others. I've found I can trade Writing to other AI civs and get most of the early techs I don't research, except maybe for Monotheism.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and don't forget hunting if you need it. Spearmen are generally better for defending cities, although Axemen could work if necessary. If I don't start with hunting, I squeeze it in just before or just after writing, depending on how close neighbors are and what is happening with barbarians.

 

[Winston Hughes]

A third approach is to identify the characteristics of the current game that differ from a general game, and try to leverage those. Here, the key elements are your leader (traits - both the effect and the buildings related to them, unique building, unique unit) and the local terrain.

The identity of your neighbours is also worth considering; if you've got Monty next door, then you'll NEED to get some military techs early on; if Gandi's your only neighbour, then you CAN leave them 'til later (although you might still want them early...).

As the game develops, your tech choices should be weighed against each other on the basis of both their immediate value (eg. Iron Working for cutting down jungles; Drama for happiness/culture) and their place in your medium-to-long-term tech-strategy (eg. Iron Working, because it's on the way to Optics; Drama, because it's on the way to Philosophy).

Imo, this is the crux of the matter: evaluate your present needs and your future goals and use your judgement to make the choice. Dreven, you say you're an out-and-out warmonger. Hence, in each game you'll want to develop a tech strategy that keeps you warring in the present, but also keeps you in the tech-race and keeps your economy building up for future stompings.

It's well worth planning a tech path to get you each era's key military techs as early as possible, but you'll also need to carefully choose some additional techs for research, growth and production. If you find that you're suffering in one area, then you'll have to decide whether it's worth diverging from the pre-planned path to address the problem.

Finally, make sure you USE the techs you research. It's no good researching Drama and building theatres for happiness and then leaving the culture slider at 0% whilst your citizens riot, or researching Iron Working to cut the jungles down and then not working the grassland cottages you build on the dejungled tiles. Choose your plan and then carry it out. If it fails, go back to the drawingboard...

 

[Tanstaafl]

How do you know who your neighbors are until you have done quite a bit of exploring?

Any successful game at any level would need a balance of civilization development and military might to fight or just protect yourself from others. I have played Civ 2 for years and have only recently started Civ 4 so I am learning to build cities and get development out to find Iron sources. You have to have that to build swords.

Learning and experiencing the different technical choices is part of the gaming experience...and I love practicing the game for the experience! My first one took 11 hours over 2 days.

 

[speedy55]

How do you know who your neighbors are until you have done quite a bit of exploring?

That's why you get scouts out at the beginning of the game.

If you want to kill anything in sight, then make sure to have a balance of siege weapons (they come in handy a lot for killing cities), horsemen (because they all kick a$$), city defenders (so you don't die) and more infantry types (for killing the anti-horsemens). It's what I do, and it usually works. Also, airplanes help a lot in the later game for bringing down cities. If there's a city within striking range, bomb and bomb and bomb some more. Alternate between bombing the city defences and attacking the people in the city.

 

[Winston Hughes]

How do you know who your neighbors are until you have done quite a bit of exploring?

My impression was that Dreven was talking about the tech-choices you make after the first few choices have been made. For the first few techs (the number depends on game speed) you'll be in the dark about your neighbours. But as soon as you meet them, you should be contemplating what they're likely to do, and adjusting your strategy accordingly.

Any successful game at any level would need a balance of civilization development and military might to fight or just protect yourself from others. I have played Civ 2 for years and have only recently started Civ 4

Your experience on civII will serve you well, but civIV is set up to reward those who make bold decisions and follow them through. Ultimately, of course, you can't neglect either your economic development or your military power (crazy variant games aside). But, over the course of a game, you will find that it's worth letting your civ become 'unbalanced' for a time, for the sake of grabbing some particular benefit, be it a swift conquest, winning a tech race, or building a crucial wonder.

Learning and experiencing the different technical choices is part of the gaming experience...and I love practicing the game for the experience! My first one took 11 hours over 2 days.

Spot on. And that's what's so cool about the CFC forums: the endless debates (just do a search for 'acidsatyr SE') over the complex choices available to the player can provide an endless source of inspiration for your own strategies.

 

[KMadCandy]

Astronomy
If you have problems teaching the macemen how to swim.

they'd rust!

i have trouble sometimes since i want to delay getting certain techs since i'll lose something i like (astronomy/corporation are 2, i forget which is collosus and which is great lighthouse). optics i like earlyish to send out missionary spies.

 

[paperchase417]

I rush to a few things, but most of the time I just build the quickest technology, to stay on top by any means.