Monarch - Can I tech faster?

[tibbles]

Obviously this question is quite broad, but here's my usual monarch situation:

First off, I play to win by space race. Not cause I really love the space race, but just cause I figure it keeps the wins a bit more comperable and not quite as dependent on AIs or map layout as say domination.

By around 1000bc-0ad I reach tech parity with the AI and have nothing I care about left to backfill. By 500ad I'm far enough ahead that I can't even really beeline for trades because it'd slow me down to wait fo the AI to finish prerequisites to trade for. This last game I had liberalism unlocked at 800ad, but waited until 1350ad to finally get it as the ai was so far back. And by the time the game is over I've won the space race and they're back around Fission/Plastic.

But despite my best efforts, I keep finishing the space race around 1900 give or take 20 years. Not particularly fast. I seem to recall DaveMcW posting a 1650 space win on monarch a while back. I'd settle for 1800

I'd say I average 5-7 turns/tech in early-middle ages (3-5 to research, 2 to get gold) and 3 turns/tech from the renaissance and on.

So, just how fast can one tech without relying on trades with the AI? What can I do to go faster?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Not enough information here. Describing the timing gives us no hints as to how we might improve on your method.

Some guesses....

More deficit research. So more tech arbitrage, more bullying for gold, more cities building wealth.

More land.

Academies over bulbing/settling?

More golden ages.

For raw speed, instead of leaving the AI in your dust early, try to pull some of them into your slip stream so that they can be useful.

 

[tibbles]

I do run deficit. Why I mentioned while it generally only took 3ish turns to research the tech at 100% slider, I often also had to add in a turn or two at 0% for gold. I probably overdid the infrastructure my last games, I used to err on overbuilding Wealth. Things like markets feel far more useful when I know I keep alternating to 100% gold for binary research.

I generally run 1 academy in my capital, sometimes a second if I've got a production capital and another site to become my research powerhouse. Burn 1-2 GSs bulbing. The rest of my GPs I generally save for late game golden ages. This last game I tried out a midgame GA in order to recover after a conquest and do civic swaps, I think I'll have to try this out more often. End result is usually 3 GAs, 4 if I'm lucky and get the right mix to expend 4 GPs.

Landwise I usually aim for conquering my continent, so I end with 20 cities give or take.

My guess is I either need to conquer more early (the late conquests just don't have the beaker output) or conquer less to reduce maintenance and require less turns running in gold production mode...

I've never tried AI bullying or gifting. I don't really want to gift too much the civ I plan to steamroll next, but I suppose no harm in pulling the other continent up if they'd trade with me.

 

[tibbles]

I guess for this post, I'm more wondering what you as a better player can do at Monarch level where the AI isn't all that fast. If you for example said '1850 is the earliest you can do w/o trades.' I'd just move up in difficulty. But if you said 'I can tech a space race in 1600' then that means I've got a ton of possible improvement in my game left.

 

[Yamps]

You're not expanding aggressively early enough. You need to steal workers, choke, etc...Playing on Marathon would also help you. Here's a post from an expert that I believe you'll benefit from:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8373523&postcount=46

 

[tibbles]

Thanks, I'll read the whole thread later tonight. But that is defintely earlier than my usual. I often kill 1-2 AIs with swords/maces range then wait until curraissers/cavalry to start conquering again. It's an easy steamroll, but really too late for significant cottage beakers.

Ok, so based on my 2 threads my practice todos for next game are:
1. Attack more early on
2. Run Pacifism for earlier GPs

Guess I better kill fast so I can become nonviolent

 

[fugazi]

-Grab more land. Eventually you'll recover and the more often you crash your economy, the better you learn how to time mass expansion and when to expect and how to recover. Playing a game or 3-4 with Justinian might help

-Use your commerce/beaker gain to get the upperhand in conflicts. Either move on to units that they cannot counter or amass an army that the AI could not pay the upkeep for. Giving other AI's techs to declare war on neighbours is also spiffy.

-More workshops later on. Workshops with the right techs and civics are oh so nice.

 

[civver_764]

1900 is pretty good, better than I've ever done. Any earlier and you really have to be an expert and know how to exploit the game and stuff. I would be worrying more about moving up to Emperor than trying to get an early space race. If you go back to Monarch after getting good at other difficulty levels you might find you are able to win an earlier space race.

 

[Syiss_]

Getting a space race victory prior to 1800 on monarch is largely based on getting a really good start (good resources, good land, easy AI neighbor to conquer). I don't have too much personal experience since space race is one of my least favorite victory conditions, but your main problem on monarch is of course that the AI's dont tech fast enough, meaning you have to research pretty much everything in the industrial/modern/future era on your own.

As for maximizing your speed, I can't really say what you are doing right/wrong because you didn't give much information about how you play the game. Its important to get an early conquest on a neighbor to give you a good land base to fuel your research throughout the game. Don't be afraid to let your research rate slack a little in the early game to obtain some extra land. Grab some early war techs (BW, HBR, IW, maybe Construction) and take out a neighbor or two to secure a large land base. This will extend the amount of backfill trades you can do with the AI's a little bit (by slowing your initial tech rates), give you a very strong middle/late game, and more importantly, and keep you out of those inefficient mid game wars. I wouldn't advise getting into any wars past 500-1000 AD or so unless you don't have to put much effort into it. The cost of the conflict will usually be more than the gain you get, especially if your aim is to win by 1850 or earlier (remember you have to build up the army, pay for its maintenance, take the enemy cities, build all the infrastructure, pay for the extra city maintenance, improve the tiles that the AI worked inefficiently, grow the population, etc).

Also, make sure to have some good production cities late game for those spaceship parts. If you aren't launching the ship within a few turns of researching the last required tech, you probably dont have enough production.

It sounds like you could probably move up to Emperor. When you get to the point where you are trying to fine tune a strategy for the fastest win time, you probably have a good enough understanding to move up to the next level. Also, learning how to get the fastest possible space race victory on Monarch may not be beneficial at all to your Emperor level strategy, since you will be taking advantage of specific Monarch level AI strategies/attitudes to achieve it. On Emperor, the AI tech rate will be considerably faster, so you can depend a little more on AI trading to backfill techs. Ultimately you will end up with faster win times due to the faster tech rate, but you will have to learn different tech paths to take advantage of the techs the AI researches, and different early war strategies to compensate for the AI's larger unit stacks, faster expansion, and faster research, and an overall adjustment to how the AI plays.

 

[babybluepants]

I do run deficit. Why I mentioned while it generally only took 3ish turns to research the tech at 100% slider, I often also had to add in a turn or two at 0% for gold. I probably overdid the infrastructure my last games, I used to err on overbuilding Wealth. Things like markets feel far more useful when I know I keep alternating to 100% gold for binary research.

I think you'd be better off taking AI cash in trades and building wealth in secondary cities, while consistently running at a major deficit. Depriving your Oxford city of beakers 1-2 out of 5 turns isn't very efficient.