Modern Age Big Picture Tech Trading @ Lower Difficulty Levels

[BlackBetsy]

I just played a game @ Warlord difficulty level for a Diplo victory where I realized that, because the AI were so far behind on techs, I didn't have a single non-required tech from the Industrial Age to trade them for a tech in the Modern Age. Because they were all broke, I didn't have any external income coming in to trade them 1,000 gpt for Fission and my economy didn't support a big gpt payment at 100% tax - I couldn't get more than 1 Modern Age tech, which meant I couldn't guarantee fission. So I decided to just research an extra tech and use the 2d free tech from ToE to get Fission. It worked, yes, but I hated giving up the 4 turns researching Atomic Theory to do it.

Anyone have any thoughts for trading for techs with very broke, very backwards AI at the Modern Age Big Picture?

 

[CKS]

Gift the AI into the modern age, set all your sliders to zero to maximize your available gpt AND set every less-than-productive citizen to be a Tax man, even if they are starving. I usually do a quick reset of all specialists to Tax men, and then I go through each town more carefully, pulling people off of tiles and setting them to tax men and adjusting things to maximize gpt. If you are paying any gpt for units, disband them until you aren't. Go into each town and sell any unneeded improvements (saving on maintenance and gaining extra cash). Cross your fingers and make your deals. Then reset any citizens you can, and, if you are scientific, sell your newly learned tech to get back some of the money you spent.

If you are going for spaceship, you probably want to save ToE for modern techs anyway, so you'll for sure have techs to sell back to the AI to get back some of your gpt. If you are going for diplo, and you can't do atomic theory in 4 turns, you could try picking up an optional tech (that you can learn in 4 turns) to trade.

Give the AI luxes earlier on to help them with research and cash flow (keeping citizens productive instead of clowns).

If you think the AI are going to be particularly bad at researching, try gifting them techs early, instead of waiting until you enter the next age, making it easier for them to learn something. Alternatively, if one is really far behind, try to avoid gifting it out of the ancient age, in hopes that you can give them optional techs from the middle ages. I have used Democracy in trades for modern techs several times, and at least once I made a modern age deal including chivalry.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Gift the AI into the modern age, set all your sliders to zero to maximize your available gpt AND set every less-than-productive citizen to be a Tax man, even if they are starving. I usually do a quick reset of all specialists to Tax men, and then I go through each town more carefully, pulling people off of tiles and setting them to tax men and adjusting things to maximize gpt. If you are paying any gpt for units, disband them until you aren't. Go into each town and sell any unneeded improvements (saving on maintenance and gaining extra cash). Cross your fingers and make your deals. Then reset any citizens you can, and, if you are scientific, sell your newly learned tech to get back some of the money you spent.

If you are going for spaceship, you probably want to save ToE for modern techs anyway, so you'll for sure have techs to sell back to the AI to get back some of your gpt. If you are going for diplo, and you can't do atomic theory in 4 turns, you could try picking up an optional tech (that you can learn in 4 turns) to trade.

Give the AI luxes earlier on to help them with research and cash flow (keeping citizens productive instead of clowns).

If you think the AI are going to be particularly bad at researching, try gifting them techs early, instead of waiting until you enter the next age, making it easier for them to learn something. Alternatively, if one is really far behind, try to avoid gifting it out of the ancient age, in hopes that you can give them optional techs from the middle ages. I have used Democracy in trades for modern techs several times, and at least once I made a modern age deal including chivalry.

Thanks. I know the slider to 0 / tax men trick, but it's not uncommon for me to still not have enough. One thing I haven't done is sell off all the improvements to raise cash and GPT on the grounds that I've only got 1 turn left.

 

[BlackBetsy]

I did learn something from my latest go @ Diplo. We all know that Nationalism is not a required tech to get to the Modern Age. Once you put the AI into the Industrial Age, it's likely that one or two will get it and the others won't. At lower levels, AI's can't afford to buy it from the AI that does have it. And from prior threads we know that trading for Nationalism is a BAD idea at the Industrial Age big picture because it INCREASES the chance that you will get a non-required tech (Communism, Espionage).

I didn't trade for it at any time in the Industrial Age, and then got it (for Flight and Electronics!) at the turn of the Modern Age. Packaging Nationalism with just 160 gpt and 1000 gold got me any Modern Age tech at the Warlord level. It's that valuable for them.

If you do get it as a free tech, I would just hold on to it through the Industrial Age.