most important tech in civ 4

[GreatKhan12]

In your mind what is the most critical and important technology in civ 4

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Early on: Bronze Working
Pre-liberlism: Civil Service
Post-liberalism: Rifling probably

Civil Service gets my vote anyway.

 

[CCRunner]

Bronze working for me in most games. If not that then rifling

 

[Joecoolyo]

Welcome to the forums GreatKhan12


Its very hard to choose the most important tech... there so many of them. But I guess I would have to lean toward bronze working mostly because of early rushes and the ability to chop forests.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ridiculous. It's impossible to pick one. How well would you do without pottery? Bronze? Assembly line late game?

Monarchy and pottery is a pretty important combo to get early though.

 

[Phoenician]

I would argue that the most important tech in civ4 is Military Science.
It lets you bypass rifling for a long time--giving you grenadiers and safely leads you to machine guns and destroyers later. It gives you a huge naval advantage with Ship of the Line which are amazing naval units, and military academies are important.
By following this path of the tech tree, you will usually try to nail steel before hand.
I would rather have muskets/grenadiers/cannons than riflemen.
Having cannons while your opponent still has catapults and trebuchets is huge.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It's hard to pick one tech because so many things in civ require multiple techs anyway.

But my vote would be Code Of Laws or Bronze Working.

Code Of Laws, for the courthouses, is important at any difficulty level and pretty much any type of game. Bronze working is important to get reasonably early on because it opens up the two ways to speed up production in one tech - slave rushing and chopping forests, not to mention the revealing of copper and allowing axemen - important for a sound military and barb defense.

 

[Matthew5117]

The starting techs, cause they are required to research any more techs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I would argue that the most important tech in civ4 is Military Science.
It lets you bypass rifling for a long time--giving you grenadiers and safely leads you to machine guns and destroyers later. It gives you a huge naval advantage with Ship of the Line which are amazing naval units, and military academies are important.
By following this path of the tech tree, you will usually try to nail steel before hand.
I would rather have muskets/grenadiers/cannons than riflemen.
Having cannons while your opponent still has catapults and trebuchets is huge.

Cavalry and to a lesser extent even cuirassers (they have promo advantage) will steamroll both cannon and grenadiers. MS is useful for the academies but many maps pay to skip the grenadiers entirely. I use military academies enough to justify trading for MS though.

 

[GreatKhan12]

yeah for me I'd have to say rifiling, it opens up alot of powerful military units to close out a game

 

[Turquoiside]

You would be shocked at how long I avoid Rifling in the games I actually make it to the Industrial Age. Incidently, by the time I'm in Industrial Age, I usually have two firm allies that form a DP Empire.

For me, Theology is my most important tech, for my startegy yet most peopl would laugh at that notion. Those would be the axes rushes. I'm not a fan of those. Game-play, the quicker I get Currency, the better my chances of survival.

 

[bestbrian]

Curris and Cannons do it for me; I put Rifling off as well, and usually don't grab it until after Assembly Line.

My answer: BW, for Slavery, Axes, Chopping. It's very often the first tech I research (assuming I'm starting with Mining and don't need a food tech).

 

[mechaerik]

Bronze Working and CoL.
If i'm playing as the Ottomans, Ethiopians, or Americans (minuteman), i'll try to get gunpowder/

 

[Picard42]

I'm going to put a vote in for Construction. Just about any reasonable unit disadvantage can be compensated for with some siege. When you're stuck attacking Longbows with Classical Era units, having Catapults to soften them up makes all the difference.

Of course, this also depends on the civ. If you're Mongol, you'd better have Horseback Riding, and anyone without an economic trait is going to have a tough time without either Code of Laws or Currency.

 

[Roller123]

One of the terraforming techs for sure. Id pick Agriculture. No farms no cities. No cities no nothing. Roads can be emulated by water, mines in many ways too, cottages are not needed until midlate game. But lack of food is suicidal.

 

[Sian]

now ... important is a tricky word to slap on ... if rifling is most important, then what about Replaceable parts? ... aren't it at least as important since you need it to get rifling in the first place? ... same thing with pretty much every tech in one way or another ...

 

[Joshua368]

One of the terraforming techs for sure. Id pick Agriculture. No farms no cities. No cities no nothing. Roads can be emulated by water, mines in many ways too, cottages are not needed until midlate game. But lack of food is suicidal.

Agriculture is one of the few techs that you don't need to research for any other technology... so now this post feels like a challenge.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Agriculture is one of the few techs that you don't need to research for any other technology... so now this post feels like a challenge.

Will you be running a specialist economy? Oh wait I'm not meant to mention that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Will you be running a specialist economy? Oh wait I'm not meant to mention that.

No you won't, because you won't have writing, priesthood, code of laws, or any other tech that lets you actually run them .

I don't think I'll have much trouble making a case that "citizen economy" isn't optimal haha! Especially since you couldn't chop trees anyway...

Edit: I misread that, and took it in reverse.

no AG would be funny. A lot of seafood or livestock would certainly help...and hey! You could cottage over food resources for food-positive commerce tiles! Score .

 

[PieceOfMind]

lol TMIT thanks for the tips