Mo Money Less School tactic?

[Pitman]

I am curious if anyone has tried a strategy where one engages in essentially no research at all (I could imagine exceptions for particular needed techs) but instead maxes out gold 100% all the time, buying/trading for all needed techs?

It seems to me that one could amass the amount of money techs usually go for in the same or less time than it would take to research it. In the meantime, you don't have to worry about building research facilities (unless you wanted some for culture, etc.).

Anybody ever try it? Is it feasible? Just curious.

 

[Panopticon]

I haven't done it, but other players will probably be reluctant to sell you good tech, so you will be facing a tech gap and therefore an arms gap.

 

[mechaerik]

There is something called a Specialist Economy, you know.

Where research is handled by science specialists instead of commerce.

 

[wioneo]

What about the "We fear you are becoming too advanced" thing. How does that even happen, actually?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

"We fear you are becoming too advanced" is a trade cap that varies by AI. It is null if they are at friendly with the player.

The only way to stand a chance with gold only is to get 1 or several AIs to friendly so you can keep buying. Not a very effective approach but it can be done if you're playing down.

 

[Lay_Lay]

You can buy tech from civs that are less than friendly I think, so I'm confused by that statement. I am guessing that this strategy is possible, maybe even practical, on some maps.

 

[war ensemble]

You can buy tech from civs that are less than friendly I think, so I'm confused by that statement. I am guessing that this strategy is possible, maybe even practical, on some maps.

There is a limit that varies by AI on the number of techs you can buy off them before they stop selling you techs. You can buy techs from them until you reach this limit. However, if you are at a Friendly relation with that AI then this limit is removed and you can buy an unlimited amount of techs.

 

[Iranon]

Also, the AI considers 1 beaker roughly equivalent to 1 gold in trades... which means buying techs is getting ripped off as you don't lose knowledge of a tech by trading it.

Selling a 1000-beaker tech for 500 gold would still favour the seller because for the most part you will have bigger science than gold multipliers and you get a further bonus if the tech is known to any civs you are in contact with.

This *might* be a semi-viable approach if you handle diplomacy perfectly and want to feed certain AIs (e.g. because you think they'll be useful war allies or trade partners for a faster space race), but it's horrible if you want to attain and keep a tech lead.

 

[say1988]

The only big advantage I can see is that when running Universal Suffrage, you should have lots of gold lying around for any needed buys.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There is something called a Specialist Economy, you know.

Where research is handled by science specialists instead of commerce.

That's a poor definition of a specialist economy (which is itself a poor term). You are going to be getting commerce no matter what, and if you leverage resource trades it might still out-strip your specialists before factoring in bulbs.

Certainly, research can be had at 0% science, but you have to ask yourself why you want to do that. The OP seems to want to bypass the need for each set of multipliers for some reason by skipping science multipliers. You can technically use (merchants or cottages) + gold multipliers to accomplish that, just as you can use (scientists or cottages) + science multipliers to get research.

Completely ignored in this discussion, and improperly so, is the use of hammers and trade conversions which allow more fluid manipulation of the slider.

Specialists do have the ability to go against the grain of the slider ----> you can get gold at 100% science or research at 100% gold. In that sense, you can skip the other kind of multipliers in such cities. But rather than calling something a specialist vs cottage setup, it's more relevant to merely consider the concentration of specialist cities within your empire, because that gets a LOT less convoluted.

 

[r_rolo1]

I am curious if anyone has tried a strategy where one engages in essentially no research at all (I could imagine exceptions for particular needed techs) but instead maxes out gold 100% all the time, buying/trading for all needed techs?

It seems to me that one could amass the amount of money techs usually go for in the same or less time than it would take to research it. In the meantime, you don't have to worry about building research facilities (unless you wanted some for culture, etc.).

Anybody ever try it? Is it feasible? Just curious.

I believe you are thinking in something like this. It was tried, it works sometimes ( most likely rarely ), it is not easy.