Is Normal speed meant to be horrendously hard to beat Scientifically?

[Logoncal]

From my past games, Regent to Monarch, me and the AI barely reach Future Era at the last 20 turns. Is it normal?
Epic lessens that a bit and Marathon goes the polar opposite, but i guess these speeds are never meant to be balanced.

Civs i tried to reach full tech: China, Russia, France and Ottomans. Some are capable of being tech monsters others not so much i guess.

Maybe i'm not too exploity or min maxer enough for it.

 

[Leoreth]

The last couple of columns of techs are not meant to be reliably researched. They exist so that there is still something for you to discover even if you are doing very well in research.

 

[Logoncal]

The last couple of columns of techs are not meant to be reliably researched. They exist so that there is still something for you to discover even if you are doing very well in research.

Ah, so they're meant to be extra should you somehow bulb everything in a normal speed?
Actually that is a very good game mechanic holy crap. Cause most civ games and mods you just fill up the research and you spam the repeating one that you have at the end.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, I mean by whatever strategy you accomplish that. It can also mean doing well with a civ that has good research modifiers. A common complaint about the vanilla tech tree is that the late game is boring because there is no value in research at some point.