Roundman
Prince
I've read plenty of posts sying that they can get the AI to trade them multiple techs in a turn and be a tech broker, pulling themselves ahead in the tech race in the early middle ages. I've never had that happen. If I miss the Great Library, I have to conquer my closest neigbor and extort techs from them just to keep up. If I can build the Great Library, then I make a beeline for Darwin's. If I can build Darwin's, then I have most likely "won" the tech race. The problem is I don't like having a strategy that almost completely depends on building two Wonders.
My last game (on monarch), the AI managed to build both the GL and later Darwins, and I was behind in the tech race all the way up to Superconductor. (If one AI civ builds Darwins, its like every other AI civ built Darwin's, thanks to the shady AI tech trading. Preventing the AI from building Darwin's is a key strategy.)
I was Germany, a Scientific civ. My civ was the largest civ on the map, about 23-30% larger than the next largest civ, with an advanced infrastructure, but I had trouble keeping pace, due to the intra-AI tech trading. Civs 1/4th my size were 11 techs ahead of me at one point, and refused any trade I would make. I hadn't broken any treaties, I offered huge sums of gold, but still had no takers. Just to see what would happend, I offered 6000 gold to China for Ecology. No trade.
I have found that the only way to keep up is to research something that no one else usually does, like Miniturization, Genetics, Printing Press, etc., and trading them around for better techs. However, that strategy is tough when you just discovered Education and the rest of the world has steam power. I was lucky that I was large enough to eventually catch up, as well as being lucky enough that the AI started fighting amongst themselves. Does anyone have any good strategies for keeping up in techs in the upper levels of the game.
My last game (on monarch), the AI managed to build both the GL and later Darwins, and I was behind in the tech race all the way up to Superconductor. (If one AI civ builds Darwins, its like every other AI civ built Darwin's, thanks to the shady AI tech trading. Preventing the AI from building Darwin's is a key strategy.)
I was Germany, a Scientific civ. My civ was the largest civ on the map, about 23-30% larger than the next largest civ, with an advanced infrastructure, but I had trouble keeping pace, due to the intra-AI tech trading. Civs 1/4th my size were 11 techs ahead of me at one point, and refused any trade I would make. I hadn't broken any treaties, I offered huge sums of gold, but still had no takers. Just to see what would happend, I offered 6000 gold to China for Ecology. No trade.
I have found that the only way to keep up is to research something that no one else usually does, like Miniturization, Genetics, Printing Press, etc., and trading them around for better techs. However, that strategy is tough when you just discovered Education and the rest of the world has steam power. I was lucky that I was large enough to eventually catch up, as well as being lucky enough that the AI started fighting amongst themselves. Does anyone have any good strategies for keeping up in techs in the upper levels of the game.
) How about Copernicus's Observatory? You might want to think about getting that wonder too. I like to build Copernicus's Observatory and the Seti prgram in the same city. Makes it a super science city. Not that I can always do this, but when I can, it is nice. Turn some of the extra workers into scientists too in that city. 
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