Techs to beeline to?

pholkhero

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I'm going to try the Emperor GOTM4 here, but, since I'm having trouble getting up to prince, I was wondering which techs out there do the AIs generally not prioritize so i can rush to and hope to trade.

I know Alphabet, but after that, I really have no idea where they go on the tech tree and feel it's holding me back from higher levels, somewhat...
 
Civil Service is great for bureaucracy
 
As a general rule, any tech that provides something military has a better trading value. The problem is that usually you aren't too willing to give to the AI advanced weapons. So, one tech clearly stands out as extremely good trade value: Theology (the theocracy civic). My favorite method is to use a possible second Great Prophet for discovering that first - I get the holy city plus something like 4-5 techs easily.

Culture techs usually don't have such a good trading value - but generally you might be able to trade back music for something more useful: this tech is good for the free artist and for the access to Military Tradition.

About other techs, Literature is an idea, but better to wait a bit so as to make sure you will have the Great Library yourself.

The AI will usually take the religious path (either to have a religion, or to build Spiral Minaret, or to have Organised Religion) and will also try to invent Feudalism.
 
try not to trade alphabet. that way you can monopolise on tech trade for as long as possible.
 
pholkhero said:
I'm going to try the Emperor GOTM4 here, but, since I'm having trouble getting up to prince, I was wondering which techs out there do the AIs generally not prioritize so i can rush to and hope to trade.

I know Alphabet, but after that, I really have no idea where they go on the tech tree and feel it's holding me back from higher levels, somewhat...

A lot depends on what kind of start you have.
Monarchy is good to get early if you lack happiness resources.

Calendar to hook up some happiness if you have a couple of those luxuries.

Getting to Code of Laws for the courthouses, and then to Civil Service.

If you want that free Great Artist then get to Music asap.

If you're isolated then you'll probably want to beeline for Optics.

There are different reasons in each game for needing to get to a particular tech quickly, it's just a matter of deciding your priorities at the time.
 
If you have marble and are in need of GNP, then heading for literature for the great library can be great, not just for the extra research but because you can usually get a couple great scientists out of it for academies.
 
A free Great Artist is not that great a prize, unless you are looking to do some culture bombing. However, Music is a great technology to give or trade since the AI places a good value on it, but it does not really help with anything (except maybe for Military Tradition -- every army needs a marching band.)
 
Techs and Units I beeline to:
- Bronze working
- Pottery (cottages)
- Writing (library and scientists to get a Great Scientist)
- Alphabet
- Code of Laws (courthouses)
- Civil Service
- Guilds (knights)
- Liberalism (for free tech)
- Printing Press (I need the money)
- Rifling (riflemen)
- Assembly line (infantry)
- Rocketry (via flight for Gunships)
- Radio (bombers)
- Industrialism (tanks)
 
Code of Laws (for early courthouses and for religion) and metal casting are two of my early favorites. Another good one is writing. Optics too, if getting +1 naval move will help your strategy.
 
You beeline to what you need for your civ to be successful.

Let me qualify my remarks by saying that I play most games on Prince level, and my point of view is geared to the Noble-Monarch range of play. I tend to be very aggressive on continents from the very start and peaceful across seas until Infantry.


In Ancient era, you need the following to have basic functionality: Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, The Wheel, Animal Husbandry
and sometimes Agriculture. Soon after these basics, Writing must be a priority, or you won't be able to research the better Classical techs. Boiling it down to what can be "beelined" to, that comes to BW, AH, and Writing (the rest of the essentials are prereqs for one of the above) Since you say you have this part down well I won't elaborate on it here.

In the Classical era, it really pays to get Code of Laws first, not only for the religion, but because the ability to build Courthouses means the ability to grow either by establishing new cities or conquering them. I'm not a big Alphabet fan, because in my (minority) view, you hurt your own cause by trading away any tech which can't be traded to an AI by another AI already, except in extreme cases where you can really cash in on a tech (where you can trade to 4-5+ civs for many different techs). I personally would rather have Monarchy and Calendar (assuming available plantation resources) early, which can add the happiness (and some Health in the case of Calendar) which can grow your cities to a pretty good population. Then I like to get Currency and Optics... I'd be perfectly pleased to do them all without ever getting Alphabet.

From Renaissance onward, there are no real standard beeline techs except Assembly Line, because the needs of your civilization will be unique to your circumstances. or maybe the cat that's crawled into my arms has made it awkward to type more...
 
I have never ever heard of anyone putting a low rating on alphabet!

I think the only reason you can get away with that is the AI is a tad slow about getting it. I often trade alphabet for every other tech as soon as i get it because most of the AIs dont have it. [and sometimes every other tech and every other tech again after someone gets another] That really strengthens the slow alphabet position though.

Really the alphabet is like "the bomb". If nobody else has it its not a big deal. If everyone else has it then your lost without it. If its a mixture then who knows.

Im a safe player so I get alphabet as soon as feasible. Mostly because its impossible to be left behind with alphabet but its feasible for some nasty scenarios to emerge if you dont have it.

Its not huge because your still teching. In my early games i used to not get an early alphabet. Wasnt the end of the world. However now though i dont really want to deal with 6 AIs that have the alphabet and I dont. So I just head that off ASAP.
 
The AI tends to avoid certain techs - I think these are techs which are off the main path. Consequently, they provide excellent trade returns if you research them because you can get something different from each AI in exchange. In my experience these include:

Alphabet itself
Metal Casting
Drama
Paper
Civil Service (sometimes)
Flight (AI tends to go for Artillery instead on its way to Rocketry?)


Also, I always try to get Liberalism and Economics first for the free tech and free Great Merchant, and then I can shop around the tech itself (which is now safe to give away because I've already extracted the bonus benefit)
 
beestar said:
The AI tends to avoid certain techs -

Alphabet itself
Metal Casting
Drama
Paper
Civil Service (sometimes)
Flight (AI tends to go for Artillery instead on its way to Rocketry?)
Thank you! This is exactly what i was looking for....thanks again!! :king:
 
liberalism, communism, or anything with significant military value
personally, i dont like beelining more than a couple techs up
 
(which is now safe to give away because I've already extracted the bonus benefit)

This is a key rule of thumb: don't trade the tech away until you have extracted any benefits you want. Example, I often beeline to liberalism, and if I dont need astronomy (say I'm on a pangea map) I take nationalism. I never trade nationalism away until after I have built the taj mahal, THEN I trade it. I have been burned to many times by trading it away only to lose the taj mahal to some civ that had a great engineer stashed away.
 
Since i tend to built (conquer) a big empire, i always try to get communism (for state property and kremlin) as fast as possible...
 
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