Techs you ignore

I usually play on monarch and there are some techs I practically never research. Most are just dead ends and are not required to be researched at all. Also AI seems to prioritise these so usually it's not viable to get them as trade baits either. Here are my choices for useless techs:

Archery - Not really needed at monarch IMO
Polytheism/Monotheism - Not needed at all. Meditation/priesthood gives access to important tech monarchy + oracle if I choose to prioritize it.
Horseback riding - Not a fan of horse rushing
Feudalism - AI tends to get this asap and can be traded later if necessary
Theology - I don't like to play religious game at all
Drama - Not a culture player either
Music - Free GA can nice for golden age but not really necessary
Divine Right - See theology
Military Tradition - Just unnecessary IMO
Military Science - See above

Obviously player with a different play style can find these more appealing or even necessary to get asap. Just tell me what you think of my choices and feel free to add your own.

 

I would disagree with you with Drama, but I'm not an elite player by any means. I just think it's hard to ignore the and from the theatre.

 

I play monarch or emperor, and I like to try all kinds of different settings from game to game, so my favoured tech path varies a lot.

Archery - I agree, mostly. I hate to have to build archers, they aren't very good. But if you start next to a warmonger and/or have raging barbs on and/or play slow speeds on a big map (so effectively raging barbs unless you turned them off completely) and you don't get copper or horses nearby, you could be in big trouble without archery.
Polytheism/Monotheism - depends on the start I get but often I do avoid those for quite a while.
Horseback riding - as you say depends whether you want to HA rush or not. I'm not an expert in HA rushes but I can see how it can be a good idea sometimes.
Feudalism - if you can trade for it then fair enough. I consider it an important tech to get as soon as possible one way or another though.
Theology - I generally ignore unless I want to build the AP.
Drama - completely depends on the situtation. Also sometimes I play OCCs and this becomes a key tech - build GT and grow your city as large as you can without worrying about happiness.
Music - I don't often think about until I want military tradition, UNLESS I decide very early I am going for culture and I am very confident I can get the free GA and sistine chapel
Divine Right - I agree, I can't remember the last time I researched it. The spiral minaret is very nice but I normally have something more important to do. I would rather let someone else build it and capture it.
Military Tradition - same as feudalism
Military Science - I agree I often ignore this. Not always though - if the situation is right, Cannon & grenadier wars can be very advantageous.

One other one I would add - mass media. If I'm going for culture, and I'm still actively researching anything at that point in the game, I will prioritise radio very highly and build the eiffel tower (and the other radio wonders). So I don't need broadcast towers, I don't particularly care about the UN, and so all I will get from mass media is to lose any AP hammers I might be getting.

 

Mono can be really nice for OR early in the game. If there is a religion spammer like Izzy or Justinian that is spamming their religion to you it means that cities are set up easily. Music is really nice if you're going culture for GA and more importantly, Sistine. I would agree that Feudalism does not need to be teched, it can just be traded. Same for divine right. Drama is nice though, for the theatre can help grow cities, especially with dye.

As for Military tradition, I completely disagree with you. Cavalry rushes are among the most devastating post-lib wars if the opponent does not have rifles (which on monarch is pretty probable) You can sweep an AI's cities extremely quickly and cavalry are a very good offensive unit nonetheless. The same goes for HAs and horseback riding. HAs are very strong for sweeping 1-2 AIs early in the game.

Military science for military academies is nice, and for a foe with a lot of rifles, grenadiers are superior to rifles.

Theology allows the building of the most broken wonder in the game, the AP. Especially if you can get the religion, it makes a cheesy AP an easy fallback.

Archery on Monarch is pretty unnecessary, I agree.

 

Archery - Not really needed at monarch IMO. Agreed, w/o raging barbs monarch barbs are too easy to merit it.
Polytheism/Monotheism - Not needed at all. Meditation/priesthood gives access to important tech monarchy + oracle if I choose to prioritize it. OR and Pacifism are 2 of the better peace-time civics in the game, and many AIs count OR as favorite...seems a bit off
Horseback riding - Not a fan of horse rushing You sir have not yet lived
Feudalism - AI tends to get this asap and can be traded later if necessary. Yeah the AI loves it so much it's hard to justify gunning it instead of just trading for it.
Theology - I don't like to play religious game at all Then take your most popular religion, spread it around, and draft a metric ton of lvl 2 rifles or produce lots of lvl 3 troops easily.
Drama - Not a culture player either Must not like globe, high level trade bait, winning battles over contested culture tiles, or either.
Music - Free GA can nice for golden age but not really necessaryIt's not bad trade bait but might want to go straight for civil service if you're not using the other benefits. Then again, stealing the artist slows down AI culture
Divine Right - See theology DR sucks except for its wonders and trade bait abilities. If you have the religion + at least 1 of AP (built by anyone but you have the religion) or Sankore (built by you) it's definitely viable
Military Tradition - Just unnecessary IMO The strongest era-adjusted mounted units in the game are unnecessary? What?
Military Science - See above Usually worth trading for it at some point (Like when you have GG's and want to hammer out nukes), but I agree it's not very impressive to beeline. Steel is much better.

Other low priority techs:

Democracy (situationally ----> few or no cottages to be grown)

Mass media (obsoletes AP, so you're not going to bother here unless you get it from internet or are looking for some UN action)

Stealth (it's nice but so late and so many earlier options can take on all troop mixes in the game)

Fascism Only starts being good in late, terminal war situations or when you are launching so many nukes that there's no other way to handle the WW.

Communism If you aren't getting kremlin and you aren't going SP, this tech has very little of worth. Usually you'd rather have the econ or physics GP, and to an extent you have to pick.

There is no tech that is always useless though. Not a single one on the tree.

 

Feudalism: the AI always gets this, and is usually willing to trade it around, so i think i might have researched it like once before, when i played my first ever game on warlord (because in previous civs feudalism was always a vital tech)

Military science: cpu tends to bee line MS, which lessens its trade value. Also, steel is sooooo much better to get than MS. I usually save my great generals at this point and then trade much later for MS, then build military acadameies for an all out end game war.

Divine right: unless you really really want the religion, or really really want the wonder, it aint worth it. Personally there are so many more better techs at this piint in the game to tech, like liberalism, education, printing press, constitution and astronomy.

Banking: I hardly ever research it, usually because i have beelined to lib. Its also cheap so you can pick it up quite often with engineering for eduxcation from a war mongerer if you go for the liberalism beeline.

guilds: its very situational if you want to beeline guilds for a late medieval war. Ive never actually done it, but id imagine that it would be quite powerful, especially if your target does not have engineering or phants.

Ones i disagree with in the OP:

Archery: But i play on emperor/immortal, where its usually quite essential.

polytheism: isnt this the tech that unlocks great library?

military tradition: thats as dumb as saying that gunpowder is a useless tech

drama: a useful war mongering tech, and cheap too (for the happiness and culture). Granted i usually trade for it, but if needs dictate.

 

I have to say I hated archery allot earlier awell but when I moved up to empeor I started to like it allot more. If you dont have horses/bronze in a good close position you need some solid anti barb defense and they work wonders figthing of barbs,

Horse back riding is just golden if you got horses in a good spot beeline it build horse archers own enemies. With a stable you can get 2 promotions for them and 6str vs archers 3 if the enemy dont have spearmans they are doomed.

Military tradion is just golden aswell cavallary really own for wars if drafting a rifelman army isnt an option a cavalary war is exellent.

I have to say I never teached stealth tbh I didnt evne know there was a teach called that never built the stealthed destroyed either or well maybe I built it when spamming random ships but never used it for anything really.

Fascism I never get either.

Theology opens up the best wonder in the game no competion what so ever. But yeh if you dont plan to use the I win button as in building the apostilic palace there isnt that much use in it.

 

i tech archery even if i do have bronze in a good position. I find axemen too expensive for city defense for when hereditary rule comes around. A load of archers in your city costs a fraction of the price instead of axes. Especially if you are relatively secure, you can even delay getting feudalism, meaning you can work a lotr more cottages and/or farms and hammer tiles because of the happy cap.

 

I ignore everything after Flight + Industrialism + Communism + Facism + Artillery. (Edit: Forgot Artillery). If I dont have a big production/military lead by this stage, I lost the game in an earlier age.

I generally find I dont need nukes although that could be a function of being bad enough to only win the strong Immortal starts (therefore not being in position to scrape a late game dom victory by way of nukes).

@ OP:
Polytheism opens up Great Library which can be strong;

Drama gives good happy and allows the GT which can seriously boost army production if combined with whips/drafts;

Music GA can be VERY useful for getting into Caste + Pacifism and bulbing towards Liberalism (also Music is good trade tech);

Music + HBR + Mil Trad allows Curiassers and then Cavalry, very effective at sweeping up a continent;

Mil Science allows Grenadiers which can be useful if you beelined Steel for a Cannon war. I like the Military Academies also although some players may find promotions to be more important.

 

I play on Emperor.

Archery - I only tech this if I was unable to get bronze or horse in my second city. By that time the barbs start to come for me. Fog-bust and retreat with warriors holds them off a bit.
Divine Right - Fairly useless unless going religion-heavy with a decent tech lead. The AI weights this tech very high.
Military Science - Dead end tech with a high AI weight. I only self-researched this once because I wanted Grenadiers for some reason.

Techs that I tend to trade for and rarely self-research, but are useful anyway: Horseback Riding, Engineering, Feudalism, Compass, Optics, Corporation. I also tend to avoid Scientific Method for a bit because it obsoletes some useful stuff.

 

If you're not planning on teching archery and don't have any resources that require it, you can probably ignore hunting as well.

I would probably add Facism, Sometimes Calendar, Optics (depends obviously), Guilds (usually trade for that), and most of what has already been mentioned. Economics might be delayed as well.

 

Ignoring hunting can be strategic because it's something to do with not getting hunting means you can keep building warriors, which are really cheap happiness when you have HR running. So you're actually better off just not getting it sometimes.

I ignore archery if I'm not going to be using horse archers and/or I have other units to fight off barbarians with. But if I sense I'm getting to the time where the barbs can enter my borders and I don't have metal or horses hooked up I have to get it or else I risk getting my empire ravaged by the barbs.

Divine Right I ignore almost all the time, unless I am going all religious and then I'll get it.

Theology is sometimes ignored, but I do like to have theocracy for my military buildups, it helps to have that extra 2xp meaning an extra promotion for all your units. That means a more efficient army.

 

Hunting for sure, unless I have a lot of camp resources. And even then, I'll weight it against the cheap HR happiness boost.

Divine Right, for reasons stated above.

Military Science, because If I can't build grenadiers, I can still build maces, which can get the CR promos, which can then be upgraded to CR Rifles.

Meditation. I'll typically get this later rather than sooner (I'll usually trade for it). Polytheism is better, because I need it for the Great Library, and only slightly more expensive. Besides, meditations prime benefit is monasteries, but with OR from mono, you don't need them.

 

Playing at Immortal ...

Divine Right is great trade bait. Usually one civ gets it, and the others give up researching it. So if you can trade for DR from that one civ, you can then shop it around for a couple more.

I used to always ignore Music but the GA appears to be more important at this level.

And I'm going to have to jump on the Mil Trad bandwagon. Cuirassiers and Cavalry are too good to ignore!

All the ancient era techs I don't like (Archery, Monotheism, etc.) can usually be easily filled in with later backfill trade, so I continue to dislike them.

 

The worst tech in the game has to be scientific method.

Of course you need it because leads to most modern techs.

But it gives you nothing and obsoletes Great Library, Parthenon, Monasteries. I usually delay it as much as I can, and trade for it when it is cheap because multiple AIs have it. Meanwhile getting Assembly Line and Railroad.

 

And I think Scientific Method should provide a 10-25% research boost to all cities at least, to make it worthwhile (still, it will interfere with earlier culture victory plans).

 

I know what you are saying here, but it does have a few positives. It reveals oil, you can construct preserves and build the national park, and although it obsoletes your monestaries, they start producing double culture (i think they do at least). Granted though, i generally ignore scientific method until i have to research it. There are too many other techs like rail road, combustion, assembly line etc that i would much much rather have. Its essential though if you really really want that free great scientist that you get with physics, which all the other AI's seem to crave.

 

You need biology for national park, not sci meth. Sci meth opens up communism and bio though, and these are potentially game-changing techs, so there's some incentive there.

If you're going for culture that does not involve corporations, you should probably not be teching sci meth.

On Archery:

Avoiding it is a sub immortal/deity luxury. You don't have time on those 2 levels to always get strategic resources. While in a lot of cases, you can spawn bust effectively with warriors, if you get a lot of land you have no choice but to go archery to stay upright.

Doing this after you have rifling is a pretty bad idea, unless you're vikings or something. Even then it's probably a bad idea (just take amphibious after combat II). Upgrades are not cost effective.

Upgrading to hit ASAP before the opponent catches up in tech is another matter though, but if you're doing that you are not teching both military science and rifling. In fact steel is a higher war and peace priority than mil sci generally. Even physics might be.

Monasteries are as hammer-efficient as observatories (better if you have any of the wonder bonuses). They obsolete, but you can access them very, very early. Not building them in research-strong cities is a mistake. This tech is very cheap to research compared to stacking counters towards the trade cap.

Agreed if you don't need archers. Then, avoiding hunting means you can build warriors for HR instead of spears. Camp resources are an incentive but not always an issue.

Theology's benefits are useful, but never confuse "often optimal" with "free". Almost nothing in civ is free, not even the great people from techs. It all has opportunity costs, although in many cases those are low.

No fission + rocketry ? Those are fairly effective terminal techs though, as they allow tanks + air or the naval loop de loop with full strength naval units to match up to anything. Might want advanced flight eventually though, as jet fighters are a considerable upgrade (reach further, truly overwhelm all other air off carriers w/o exception, damage more consistently). Nukes + paras is a good setup too.

Fascism allows 100% war weariness immunity and if you get there first maybe even unlocks heroic epic w/o a war . I admit I don't get it *too* often though.

Deity players markedly better than me have advocated drama, and they didn't do so haphazardly.

 

In my last game, I went for Music, used the Great Artist to bulb Drama, and used those two to get back in position with the techs on the middle and lower tech trees (and built Notre Dame). It seems to me that Drama + Music isn't high priority for the AI, so you can get a monopoly on them. Still, I'm not sure if that's better than beelining for Philosophy/Liberalism way from the beginning and being even farther ahead on that particular line.