Tech trading advice, please

[splunge the 2nd]

I want to improve my tech trading. I've won one emporer victory but in most emporer games I get hosed techwise. I've tried the "pointy stick" diplomacy by beating up neighbors and demanding tech as tribute, but (not surprisingly) everyone hates me. (plus it's cheap to take a city or 2, trade peace for tech-repeat)
Can anyone help me or link me on advice of zero research/trading to tech parity? Thanks!

 

[Sashie VII]

Here are some related articles:

Zero Percent Science

Trading Reputation

What Will The AI Research Next?

You can also go to the Sucession Games forum and read some SGs. They usually discuss trading in detail and you can pick up a lot.

 

[TheOverseer714]

You might be interested in my SGFN-04: Ragnar for Secretary-General, which was a zero-science game at Emperor level. It was surprisingly doable, no science spending allows a huge military and plenty of gold per turn. The one most important thing, you absolutely must have a squeaky clean trade reputation. That means careful attention to trade route integrity and never trading depletable resources unless you have extra. So say you have 2 Iron, you trade 1 and it depletes. If the 1 remaining can't get to the trade partner, you are screwed. No more gpt trades for you, Mister!