Tech Troubles

[turrumbi]

I consider myself to be reasonably able at Civ 4 as i,ve been civving since Civ 2.
I have worked myself up to Noble level but with warlords i constantly get kicked at that level.
i know i handle war, building etc OK but i get shamefully left behind in the Tech department. i still have knights and others have tanks--you know.

how can i at least keep up with the opposition - i do want to advance beyond the easiest levels. i would like to go beyond Noble!

Can anyone give me any real clues as to what im doing wrong

please help as i'm languishing in defeat!

 

[46852]

Building cottages early is one way to improve your commerce and consequently research too. "Cottage Economy" is at it's best with specialized cities that have enough food to work all tiles, and have most tiles "cottaged". Floodplain cities and food resources are especially good for this.

Specialized cottage cities also get more out of the scientific and economic buildings, as they multiply your base commerce. Hybrid cities aren't that good at producing research and money, as they sacrifice commerce for production.

Another way to pump your research is to use specialists. This requires high food production, 2-3 food resources in the fat cross gives you a chance to use specialists even in the early stages of the game. "Specialist Economy" is best used with the Representation civic, which adds +3 beakers / specialist. Specialists add up to base beakers, so buildings multiply their effect too.

I have mostly ended up with my capital being a mixed cottage/specialist city (and thus a GP farm too) in the few games I've played, and that seems to work quite nicely, especially if you have very high food production in your capital. With Bureaucracy civic, you can pump your capital commerce up +50%, so it kinda makes sense to build as many cottages as you can around it.

Another important strategy to build up your research capacity early on, is warmongering. Capturing lucrative capital or a well placed city of a nearby civ can give a huge boost for your economy. On higher levels, early wars are the key to victory, at least that's what I've learned by reading these forums. At least an early conquest makes the endgame a lot easier.

Oh, and tech trading! Well-timed and strategic tech trades will keep you in pace with the AI, and improve your relations too. Sometimes you may find it useful to research a tech just to trade it to the AIs!

And don't expand too fast! Keep an eye on your maintenance costs, and expand accordingly. You might even want to run "test games", in which you test out how fast a new city pays itself back. This period becomes longer and longer the more cities you have. Sometimes even grabbing a resource might not be worth wasting a maintenace-hog city on a mediocre spot.


Enjoy the game

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Welcome aboard.

Can anyone give me any real clues as to what im doing wrong

The fastest way I know to retrieving an answer specific to your circumstances is to post a couple saved games (I'd recommend one from around 5 AD, another from 1600 AD).

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

A couple things that I try to do to help me in tech

1. Get acadamies for my best research cities. This means farming great scientists of course. Two quick ways to do this are to either build a library and run two scientist specialists, or build the great library which will give you great gs points.

2. Make use of great people to lightbulb techs, and then trade those techs. You can often be the first to theology or paper with a great scientist or prophet.

3. Take advantage of the two things that give you a free tech...build the Oracle or be the first to liberalism. A great scientist will help you get through Education quicker, as that always seems to be a "long" tech to finish.

4. Try to research techs that the ai doesnt have so you can trade. If all the ai's have iron working, for instance, try to research literature instead and trade for it.

5. Research alphabet as fast as you can. That tech lets you trade with the ai's. Usually if you are one of the first civs to alphabet, you can trade it for all the stuff you skipped...like animal husbandry, meditation, sailing, etc.

6. Run civics that increase your research. Representation, Bureaucracy, Free Religion, mercantilism to run great scientists, caste system to run lots of great scientists early on, free market for more commerce (research).

7. Build six universities as quick as you can. Not only will you get getting 25% more research in each city you build it in (plus the 25% you have from the libraries in those cities) but you will unlock one of the most important national wonders...Oxford University. This national wonder gives 100% research in one city, often giving you more research then you have in SEVERAL cities combined. Build it in your best research city.

8. Ive found that a huge help to my early research is getting Pottery asap and building cottages right away. Usually I build lots of cottages in my capital, especially on the river tiles because they already have 1 on them. They will give you a research boost once they start to mature, those river tiles often also have good food (grassland) or an extra hammer (plains), and cottage money will help support you building new cities without having to drop your research level to new lows. Then when you run bureaucracy you will capitalize on the 50% boost to commerce in your capital...you will have lots of nice cottages to boost.

9. Its not entirely reliable, but if you can, send out a second unit to look for goody huts. That extra money will help with expansion and research rate, but the best is finding those free techs.

10. If you can, try to settle cities near money resources like gold or incense. Thats great commerce for research.



I know thats a lot of stuff, but try a couple on for size. It will make a difference.

 

[OceansEleven]

Cottages. Work them ASAP. If you're working a Plain w/ forest, change it over to the cottage.

Build atleast 4 in every city. Unless it's a coastal city or one without that many tiles.

The Great Library is helpful. Oracle is helpful. Liberalism is very helpful - but I usually never get it. I got other things on my mind ''/

But yeah, it's pretty much the beginning of the game. If you start off fast, you'll just have to keep it at that pace. Work the cottage tiles as soon as you can afford to. After that, you'll be good to go.

 

[Khalid]

And another important thing. Don't overexpand your empire. Try to have your science slider on 60% and above. If you go to war, consider razing useless cities and keeping only the good ones.

In previous civs: more cities = more production and commerce. You could just add to your overall civ.
In Civ IV more cities = more maintenance. That means you can ruin you economy by adding cities.