What is each era's most useful tech?

[salty mud]

Let's discuss the best techs of each era. These are the techs that are a good idea to research ASAP regardless of map, civilisation or situation. Of course there's never a 100% definite answer, but we can theorise.

Ancient - bronze working. Unlocks two massive benefits of chopping and slavery.
Classic - currency. Trading in gold and the ability to build wealth kick starts the next stage of your expansion.
Medieval - civil service. Unlocks the fantastic beurocracy civic, as well as the mighty heavy footman unit.
Renaissance - liberalism. Allows a free choice of whatever you'd like.
Industrial - physics. The free great scientist makes this worth beelining for every time.

I'm afraid many of my games don't last long enough to fully understand the modern and beyond portion of the technology tree. I'm interested to hear how your responses may differ from mine.

Regards

 

[InovA]

Ancient - Bronze Working. Chopping and Slavery are just too good. Though the food unlocking techs (Agriculture, Fishing, Animal Husbandry) are better, this tech is more universal. Pottery for Granaries is a good runner-up.

Classical - Alphabet. Tech trading basically gives you free techs and can build good relations with AI. Though on Monarch and above the AI will usually tech it fast enough that you should trade for it instead, but this thread isn't talking about difficulty specifics. Currency is the one I actually tech ASAP for Wealth building.

Medieval - Civil Service. Bureaucracy civic along with chain irrigation are fantastic. Paper is a close 2nd for map selling - practically free gold.

Renaissance - Liberalism. Fairly obvious choice if you think you'll be first! Otherwise Nationalism or Printing Press depending on your empire.

Industrial - Assembly Line. Factories' bonus and Infantry drafting are great for wars, and it comes pretty early in the Industrial era. Biology > Physics to me if I'm not going for war, but if I think I'd end up being 2nd to Physics if I didn't beeline it, I'll go Physics first. The Scientific Method almost always kills a wonder of mine, so I like to avoid it for a while unless I need to go for Communism for Spy Economy. Medicine could be >>> the rest for Sushi Co.

Modern - Superconductors. If you're in the Modern age you're probably going for Space Race, so getting the Laboratories in the proper cities ASAP is needed. Otherwise if you're going for Culture/Diplo win: Mass Media for Broadcast Towers/United Nations or Radio for the Eiffel Tower.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Steel is the most useful industrial era technology. Quite easy to lib and give the super powerful cannon unit.

Military tradition + gunpowder are the most useful renaissance techs because together they give you cuirassier.

Medieval, I go with civil service as it both open up the tech path to military tradition and steel, give a very useful civic bureaucracy and open up chain irrigation. Philosophy is another good pick here, easy to bulb and trade. It also give pacifism and is needed for liberalism.

Classical, there are so much important stuff here. Monarchy for happiness, code of law for caste and courthouse, alpha for tech trading, currency for wealth building, markets and trade routes, horseback riding for horse archers and later cuirassier and construction for catapults and elephants. All of these can be very useful so it is tricky to pick out one specific one.

Ancient, worker techs are obvious the most important and useful techs.

 

[lindsay40k]

I rarely get the Physics GS, much rather get Steel first, plus I have an aversion to obsoleting my Monasteries that's probably suboptimal, ridiculous that developing the Scientific Method is often akin to tearing down your University!

Radio for me in the Modern era, couple of decent wonders plus access to Bombers. Flight is good and necessary for them but their arrival makes more impact than Fighters.

Future... I guess Stealth? Though they don't make as big an impact, as your Jet Fighters already got you air supremacy. Maybe Genetics? But if you've got enough massive cities for unhealth to be an issue, you're probably losing tiles to global warming anyway...

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I rarely get the Physics GS, much rather get Steel first, plus I have an aversion to obsoleting my Monasteries that's probably suboptimal, ridiculous that developing the Scientific Method is often akin to tearing down your University!

On the other hand you need to get SM to get some very strong stuff such as biology or communism.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I agree with all the OP's choices, except industrial. where it depends heavily but usually it's not going to be physics.

The most important techs for Industrial Era is going to be assembly line for infantry and power plants. This will be the default regardless of victory mode. Combustion if you need a navy, and communism if you've made mass conquest and need to deal with the maintenance.

Physics has its uses, but not really for the GS. In the case of Curassier/Cavalry rolling ball that's crashed through several targets, you may find others have reached rifling and mass airships will extend the shelf life of your mounted ball by far, instead of having to transition to rifle/cannons which may take too long. Airships can weaken even infantry enough for your cav to overwhelm them. Physics also leads to artillery, which may be needed against a tough enemy.

But, I'd still rather grab Communism first. You're also less likely to have spies, meaning that past the 1st golden age, it's easier to form a golden age with it.

On water maps, steel is king, for the drydocks plus you will already have had chemistry for the frigates.

 

[civvver]

Ancient BW is definitely the best tech. Writing is a close second for open borders and libraries, but chopping and whipping and axes are too important.

Classical I'd say it's a tie between currency, alphabet and code of laws. I don't really value one over the other, all three are major economic techs and you need at least one to fix your economy after rex or conquest early. Currency, trade money, build wealth, trade routes. Alphabet set slider to 0% but build research and you can tech trade. Code of laws is my favorite for long term economy fix of building courthouses, but it requires the most work to accomplish.

For medieval can't go wrong with civil service, but it's not a clear winner to me. I also really like machinery, start building watermills for eventual state prop, also gets you crossbows so you can ignore feudalism for a while if you want. And it's a prereq for... Engineering! This can be the best medieval tech if you need it. I think notre dame is drastically underrated, depending on the map, and trebs are the best offensive weapon of the era. There's a big difference between catapults and trebs for sieging longbows, and trebs knock down defenses at double the rate. Guilds can also be super strong if you get early knights, then you won't even need trebs.

For renaissance liberalism is only great if you get there first. Rifling's in the renaissance era and one of the best beeline techs there is, steel is basically the other side of that coin and a little easier to get but it's industrial for some reason even though it's around same timeline as this stuff. For econ I'd say astronomy or constitution, astronomy for those overseas trades and constitution for representation, probably the best civic in the game. This era has so many essential techs it's impossible to just pick one.

Industrial I think assembly line is a clear winner as factories and infantry are so powerful. I have a love affair with electricity though, probably cus I spam watermills most games for state property. A watermill with electricity state prop on a grassland is 3f, 2h, 3c. Compare that to a sufferage town with free speech and printing press, 2f, 1h, 7c. 1f and 1h and I don't have to grow a whole town and can keep running representation. There's also railroad for moving troops and unlocking mining inc and ai just can't deal with machine guns on defense.

Modern I think it's pretty clearly radio cus bombers are so strong. Everything is is kind of equally good, unlocking modern armor is possibly more significant than bombers but it takes multiple techs. Stealth is super good but super late.

Summary:
Ancient - Bronze working
Classical - Currency, alphabet, code of laws (tie)
Medieval - Civil service, engineering, machinery (tie)
Renaissance - Too many, no winner. Liberalism, rifling, constitution, astronomy
Industrial - Assembly line, runners up railroad, electricity
Modern - Radio

Edit: Didn't realize steel was an industrial tech. Had to shuffle things!

 

[ztrapon]

Pottery/BW, Construction/Currency, Engineering, Rifling/Astronomy, Assembly Line.

Non-military wise: Pottery, Currency, Civil Service, Corporation/Astronomy, Industrial depends: Steam Power if you have lots of rivers, Communism if you have Permanent Alliances, otherwise Physics default.

 

[Randy Random]

Map dependent.

 

[civvver]

Map dependent.

As is everything. I just subjugated my entire continent with catapults and elephants quite easily, teching construction before my usual grabs like currency, alphabet, literature line.

 

[Randy Random]

As is everything. I just subjugated my entire continent with catapults and elephants quite easily, teching construction before my usual grabs like currency, alphabet, literature line.

Exactly. I don't bother with Literature if I don't have marble, unless I build mids and might get a GE that I specifically want for GLib.) Pottery, Writing, Bronze working are all tremendously important. So are Alpha, Currency CoL, and Math much of the time, but not always. Sometimes you've got 3 or 4 or 5 calendar resources that getting online will be a massive boost. Usually Civil Service is huge, but not always. It all depends on the map which makes these sort of discussions pretty banal.