tech - am I missing something?

[dracoraven]

I have read a whole buncha stuff at this site regarding the tech race and have tried to follow the tips I found however,


I'm playing at warlord and for some bizzare reason I'm losing the tech race and the wonder races to a civ I haven't even met yet. there are 3 civs on another continent (french, english, german) and 5 on mine (india, china, japan, aztec, iriquois and me the americans). the french are beating the snot out of me and I can't figure out how.

This is the first game I've played since applying the 1.29f patch and I don't remember it ever being this hard at WARLORD.

any thoughts?

 

[Grille]

Hmm. Shouldn't be too hard. Not knowing the details, I guess your commerce output is too low. Have enough workers (1 per city) from early on, build a road on every working tile as soon as possible. Trade. Don't stay in despotism too long. Place FP/Palace well.

 

[Greyhawk1]

I've been totally unable to fathom the tech right from the off. I play at Warlord and I'm always struggling in tech, I make a beeline for the Great Library and later the Theory of Evolution but the AI nearly always is either in front of me or very close to me no matter how many cities they have or any other factors I can think of.

The only time there is a clear difference is when a civ is crippled by bad terrain or lack of land. Even if they have 50% of the cities I have they still manage to keep up.

I read here that its a good idea to trade techs as you research them but I've tried that in the early game and all the decent techs are untradeable. I tried to get Monarchy in my last game from the Scandinavians and I offered everything I had and they still said 'they would be insulted by that deal'. Even when I have 2 or more techs than them and try trading I never can.

Yet lo and behold, the civ that had almost no gold and nothing to trade with gets Monarchy the next turn from the Scandinavians!

I think that beyond Chieftain there is realistically only one way to win the tech race and that is to eliminate everyone who is near your tech level.

 

[dracoraven]

details and my approach.

I road and mine everything ASAP, irrigation is for starving cities and post-hospital growth.
I stay out of wars and attack noone
I crank my science slider up until I see diminishing returns
I shoot for monarchy and stay there
I generally have 2 workers per city
I have at least one defender per city, two in frontier towns
I trade luxuries ASAP to the highest bidder
I only trade away techs if they are not strategically important
I rarely trade away strat resources
I micro-manage every city and every worker

this game i decided to try an expanionist civ to try to get a jump on tech with scouts. I thought it worked, then I found out that the french had built 'The Art of War' before I or anyone on my continent had the tech to do so.

there are execptions to my approach but not many
Am I doing something wrong?

 

[DaveMcW]

After building roads, the most important thing you can do is increase the population of your uncorrupt cities. More citizens = more worked tiles = more science.

Trade is also key. Get a monopoly on one tech and use it to buy other techs. This is easier if you research straight up one branch of the tech tree.

 

[DaveMcW]

Originally posted by dracoraven
I shoot for monarchy and stay there

That is what you are doing wrong. Republics and Democracies can easily out-research a Monarchy.

 

[Grille]

Your approach sounds generally nice, IMO.
But you must also make sure to claim a big territory very early by settling like hell. As expansionist, I'd suggest to build in your first town scout/scout/warrior/granary. If available, chop down a forest when granary is being build. When granary is ready, build settlers in a way that town's population status will oscillate between status 4 and 6.
If the capitol doesn't need an aqueduct (thus growing bigger than 6 w/o aq.), you should even let city grow to 7 or 8. Don't bother to use lux slider to keep pop happy. If city has grown, press f1 before turns end. If there's an unhappy citizen in your settler factory, raise lux-slider. When pop drops again due to settler leaving city, put slider back to 0%.
To keep capitol's pop big enough, you can build improvements & units inbetween settlers. If your playing on huge/large map with a big continent, you can install another settler factory (-> granary there).
You'll probably have enough units to guard settlers and protect newly founded cities. In new cities, you build worker first or unit/worker (depends on shield & food prod there).
This way, you second city will be founded late. But your 10th city very early.
When your not expansionist, research pottery (for the granary) first. Good luck!
Ah, irrigation under monarchy can be useful here and there. Don't bother to change to rep/demo, because commerce output/corruption/waste is better than under monarchy.

 

[dracoraven]

That is what you are doing wrong. Republics and Democracies can easily out-research a Monarchy.

I fail to see any advantage to democracy. I've switched back and forth between democracy and monarchy with the only result being a LOSS of cashflow under democracy due to unit costs and HIGHER corruption (wierd but true). is there some research bonus applied to the government type?

 

[Grille]

HIGHER corruption? Hmm. Maybe your we-love-king days went away by switching to demo. But when demo comes around, your cities should be big enough (=your economy) to support a lot of units (IMO even more than under monarchy). Marketplaces?

 

[jack merchant]

No, but republic gives extra trade at the expense of unit support and loss of military police. Sometimes a republic is initially worse than a monarchy in the early medieval age before you have markets and libraries, but once you get those, republic beats monarchy in every respect.
It should not be possible that having a democracy increases corruption - in fact, it reduces the corruption factor. The only thing that could happen is that if you had enough military police and luxuries, your outlying (corrupt) cities would reach we love the king day and they would lose it due to the lack of military police.
However, the increased commerce from your core cities should more than make up for that.

edit: ah, Grille beat me to it.

 

[dracoraven]

WLTK doesn't apply to corruption, just waste.

however IIRC military police do reduce corruption which would explain higher corruption after the switch.

FYI: I did the switch in the mid-industrial after I had banks, libraries, AND universities in almost every city. I can out-produce the AI at an estimated 3:1 ratio.

My big issue and reason for posting my question in the first place.
how can 3 civs out-research 5 including the player on Warlord? I "thought" the AI was handicapped at Warlord.

I decided to play warlord as an ego boost, now I'm getting my butt stomped. Pre-patch I walked all over the AI with any civ at warlord. it would seem that the patch has voided my strategy.

 

[Shillen]

WLTK doesn't apply to corruption, just waste.

Corruption is waste...

however IIRC military police do reduce corruption which would explain higher corruption after the switch.

Military police only increases happiness. This can lead to WLTKD which will reduce corruption though, the same amount as a courthouse does.

FYI: I did the switch in the mid-industrial after I had banks, libraries, AND universities in almost every city. I can out-produce the AI at an estimated 3:1 ratio.

I think this is because you mine everything. You should be irrigating plains/deserts/bonus food while in despotism. After you switch governments you should irrigate some grasslands too in cities that need it to grow. Slow city growth will definitely hurt your science.

My big issue and reason for posting my question in the first place.
how can 3 civs out-research 5 including the player on Warlord? I "thought" the AI was handicapped at Warlord.

Do the 5 on your continent have no contacts with the other continent? How is the land on the other continent? If they have fertile grasslands and most of your land is tundra then that can make a big difference. Also they might have had more room to expand with only 3 on their continent. And lastly were there any wars? Wars will slow down the tech pace, so if there were wars on your continent while the other one researched peacefully that could explain it too. The AI is handicapped on warlord.

I decided to play warlord as an ego boost, now I'm getting my butt stomped. Pre-patch I walked all over the AI with any civ at warlord. it would seem that the patch has voided my strategy.

Patch hasn't done anything to make it harder. Some games are harder than others though, mainly based on start position.

About monarchy vs republic, the only way you could research better in a monarchy is if you had way too many units. 2 workers per city is a bit excessive, you only need 1 per city. Workers have support costs too. Basically though, when I'm able to research at 4 turns per tech in republic, and then I switch to monarchy, the best I can do is like 6 turns per tech. More commerce = better science, simple as that.

 

[Grille]

dracoraven,
you're right about corruption/WLTKD. I like to srew that up. But military police???
Anyway, I guess it's the game start. And you seem to have a large military, use it. It's nice to have an own continent. Larger empire -> more power, larger economy, many resources...
Maybe you post a save. I'll be unable to look for it before Sunday, but looking at the save will surely provide better comments on a specific game.

 

[Renata]

Take a close look at your slider settings after switching to republic or democracy from monarchy. If you've been doing the right things with regards to roads and marketplace-building, you may still see your cash drop from postive to negative after switching, but if you check your sliders you'll almost always find that you're actually researching faster for that cost.

For example

in monarchy: sliders at 0% lux 10% tax 90% science, you have +20 gold per turn and can research your next tech (which you just started on) in 8 turns.

in republic: sliders at 0%, 10%, 90%, you have -20 gpt and half your cities are threatening to riot. But your tech is now due in 4 turns. Moving the sliders around, you find that if you go to 10% lux, 40% tax and 50% science, your citizens are happy, you have +30 gpt, and your tech is still due in 4 turns.

Renata

 

[Greyhawk1]

How about what I'm doing? I go through the governments as I get them as soon as I get them. Usually stopping at Democracy. I build Granary in my capitol as a first improvement then churn out Settlers every few turns or so, rapid expansion as fast as possible. Then I build Temples and cultural improvements. I trade techs with all ancient contacts I can until no-one will trade with me anymore (usually at Monarchy level and afterward). I also build Embassies with everyone I can.

After my borders have expanded as far as possible I go for all the research improvements like Libraries.

That seems OK but by now at least 4 other civs have overtaken me in tech with half the cities I have and even their capitol has no Library in it and a 2 pop (checked with Embassy).

I put roads in every square and endeavour to link all my cities with a road as soon as possible.

About this time its getting to time for civs to start declaring wars on each other so I build up my military as fast as I can.

After I've got a decent military and my cities are at a reasonable level of improvement I'm usually in front in the Histograph but 2 or 3 techs behind my nearest rivals even though they are handicapped at Warlord, have half the cities and very few improvements in their cities as well as a decent sized standing Army to boot! These civs will under no circumstances trade those techs with me no matter what I offer them

 

[tao]

Originally posted by Greyhawk1 Then I build Temples and cultural improvements. I trade techs with all ancient contacts I can until no-one will trade with me anymore (usually at Monarchy level and afterward). I also build Embassies with everyone I can.

After my borders have expanded as far as possible I go for all the research improvements like Libraries.

That seems OK but by now at least 4 other civs have overtaken me in tech with half the cities I have and even their capitol has no Library in it and a 2 pop (checked with Embassy).

I put roads in every square and endeavour to link all my cities with a road as soon as possible.
These civs will under no circumstances trade those techs with me no matter what I offer them

Even without knowing the details of your gameplay, these are the points I would check:

1. get luxuries for happiness (thus lower luxury slider)
2. on the final turn(s) of researching a tech, you usually can turn down the research rate and thus save lots of gold
3. cultural improvements are nice, but for cash (and happiness) you need markets and later banks
4. you need not improve more tiles of a city than are worked by its citizens (o.k.: some more, if you micromanage)
5. micromanaging your cities will usually generate more gold and food on every turn
6. irrigation is very important to increase pop (and trigger wltkd)
7. in abysmally corrupt cities, improvements are wasted and cost maintenance; just work irrigated fields and create taxmen to at least cover maintenence
8. keep your deals (always!) and the AIs will trade with you[/list=1]

 

[Grille]

Greyhawk1,
now I don't want to sound vaingloriously, but it's really not very hard to beat ai on that level. And as such silly dictum won't help you in the smallest way, I'd suggest to post your save for more detailed comments.
Or you take part in a SG or spy around on that board. If you don't like to take part directly, you may ask for the 4000bc.sav of a game and play it in your style. Then you can compare your decisions with the *official* ones described on the board (or w comments made there).

 

[Greyhawk1]

Originally posted by Grille
Greyhawk1,
now I don't want to sound vaingloriously, but it's really not very hard to beat ai on that level.

I know it should be easy. Thats the really annoying bit, on Chieftain it was far too easy so I thought Warlord would be another not too bad a step up but its orders of magnitude harder!

I've not actually lost a game on Warlord yet but its always so close, its usually down to the last few turns I'll win in the nick of time.

Here's my save (1.14f PTW):

 

[Pal {UI}]

Download does not appear to work - just comes up with a file called "attachment" without any file extension. Sticking .sav on the end doesn't work either.

 

[Greyhawk1]

Try this?

This is the first time I've tried this lark - sorry about any mess ups

Spain.sav