Scientific Domination

[jackburton]

This really doesn't apply to playing at Deity level because of the huge advantage in researching techs the AI has.

However, I was wondering at some of the lower difficulty levels if anyone had tried economic domination via technology. What I mean is, put the vast majority of your money into research, and be expansionist and non-militaristic. Just a minimum of defensive units so that the computer will not constantly be attacking you.

Then when you start to get a technological edge, sell your techs to rival civs for gold per turn. You can usually get quite a bit of gold for a technology (I've gotten over 50 per turn for a single one), which should be enough to effectively bankrupt the other civs. And you stand to make a lot of money this way if you can sell the same technology to different civs, and you also prevent them from doing the same thing.

In a republic or democractic governmental system, this will allow you to speed production on just about anything you need, since you will have such an abundance of gold, and you can keep increasing production on things which will further enhance your research ability. Eventually, you can go for cultural domination in this fashion, as you're pouring money into cultural improvements in your cities while your rivals are struggling to get enough money to pay you for the technologies that you're selling them.

Anybody tried this?

 

[LaRo]

It's the strategy I usually use. It worked pretty well in chieftain and warlord. I got a lot of cash and increased my research to 100%.
I'm actually playing regent. (don't have time to play more ) In my actual game, a lot of civs don't have money to buy my techs. I also try the opposite, the "pope strategy". But when I put my research to 0%, others civs do the same. Does it ever happen to someone else?

 

[Luca Brasi]

Expansionist/non-militaristic is my style (I always play Regent because that's the level when noone has an advantage). Expand as much as possible, always make peace early on, build one defensive unit per city and build up your culture. Don't worry about cities not sharing tiles -- this is not Civ 2. Build cities on your borders and build up their culture so they take over your neighbors. In the ancient age, with all the tech trading going on, I always come out even - or one tech behind if I'm not scientific. I always go for Republic ASAP to help my money flow.

Then my goal is to get the advantage in the middle ages. I go for Democracy right away, since the AI tends to go in other directions, I can usually sell off Education/Printing Press/Democracy (let the AI be peaceful) for a lot of money and other techs (LOVE selling Education to the nation with The Great Library). After I get my Democracy, my money flow is steady, so I can outresearch everyone at this point. I research and sell, research and sell. I always plan my Golden Age for this time period too, and although I usually get only 2 of the ancient wonders, I always get all but 2 of the middle age wonders. You can get the most money from these wonder techs like Free Artistry or Music Theory -- what I love to do is get a substantial lead on Bach or Shakespeare and sell it off for a lot of cash.

As I move on in the industrial age, I am usually 3-5 techs ahead of the computer. So I let them catch up and enter the age, by which time I'm well on my way to tanks. I still sell off techs, but not as many and not as often, and I never sell off the ones that give them too close to infantry and tanks. I never go for Communism and Espionage, but end up getting them from Theory of Evolution or from a trade with AI. By the time I get to tanks, I'm way ahead of everyone in tech and in culture, and probably have at least 2 x cities of my closest rival. At this point, I start sniffing around for nations to kill off, and do it, one by one.

My last 3 games on Regent I've finished in a conquest victory by playing this peaceful strategy for the first 3/4 of the game. In one of the games, I got size 24 and size 22 cities by cultural conversion. In all but my last game, when I was isolated from everyone by deserts, I get at least 10 cities by culture. Sometimes much more.

You should be scientific or religious for this to work well. My third choice is industrial, because those fast workers really help. And you really do need to expand fast as hell. More cities = more money = more science = more culture.