What is more powerful, Knowledge or land?

[Grey Fox]

Land because even if you get so far behind you can barely trade, you can turn lots of land into a massive espionage farm to steal all you need to catch up and eventually you will out tech everyone.

Or turn it into a crapload of units through the draft and whip and continue to take moar land

This all depends of course. If you can't handle an invasion because you are too far behind then its no good.

 

[Tecibbar]

I would say Tech > Land most of the time. The major reason is that you could bribe AI to shape world diplomacy in your favor.

I will elaborate on this. With early tech advantage, you can
1)bribe AI to war with each other,
i)which gives you security, as they will fight among each other, and you can survive with a smaller army, which translates to hammer saved for you
ii)AI will usually bribe others to war, which makes the world a more hostile place. AI will trade less often, which translates to relative tech advantage to you.
iii)You can disrupt AI from forming close alliance. One situation I do not wish to see is religious buddies trading freely amongest each other, and ally against you in crusades. So, if I see Charlmagre convert to Christianity, I will bribe him to attack Elizebeth, the Christian founder, before they become religious buddies. With no new Christianity spread to him, Charlmagre will eventually adopt a different, less dominant religion. If I do not have the tech power to bribe him. Charlmagre will be Elizebeth's close ally, and when I want a piece of Elizebeth, he will gang up on me.

2)gift to AI please them
iv)Many warmongers won't attack you at pleased, including boudica, bennus, churchill, hannibal, etc.
v) Some warmonger will only fight for you at pleased, including Julius, Napoleon,Kublei, etc.
3)Other less common ways.
vi)Bribe AI to your religion.
vii)Bride AI to stop trading

You can not trade land, that's why tech is diplomatic power. In the long run, land can generate more commerce, but by then AI have already formed stonger friendship, and you can't bribe Charlmagre to attack Elizebeth any more.

 

[madscientist]

I will elaborate on this. With early tech advantage, you can
1)bribe AI to war with each other,
i)which gives you security, as they will fight among each other, and you can survive with a smaller army, which translates to hammer saved for you
ii)AI will usually bribe others to war, which makes the world a more hostile place. AI will trade less often, which translates to relative tech advantage to you.
iii)You can disrupt AI from forming close alliance. One situation I do not wish to see is religious buddies trading freely amongest each other, and ally against you in crusades. So, if I see Charlmagre convert to Christianity, I will bribe him to attack Elizebeth, the Christian founder, before they become religious buddies. With no new Christianity spread to him, Charlmagre will eventually adopt a different, less dominant religion. If I do not have the tech power to bribe him. Charlmagre will be Elizebeth's close ally, and when I want a piece of Elizebeth, he will gang up on me.

2)gift to AI please them
iv)Many warmongers won't attack you at pleased, including boudica, bennus, churchill, hannibal, etc.
v) Some warmonger will only fight for you at pleased, including Julius, Napoleon,Kublei, etc.
3)Other less common ways.
vi)Bribe AI to your religion.
vii)Bride AI to stop trading

You can not trade land, that's why tech is diplomatic power. In the long run, land can generate more commerce, but by then AI have already formed stonger friendship, and you can't bribe Charlmagre to attack Elizebeth any more.

I prefer to dictate world events through a more suttle method . Seriously, the more land you have the less you need to be concerned about diplomacy (although it helps alot). Land can be acquired peacefully (Rexing and land blockage) or by the sword/gun.

Trading techs for diplomacy is good until you trade the farm to Shaka or Ghnegis and they have noone left to stomp..... Except you!

 

[DMOC]

I will elaborate on this. With early tech advantage, you can
1)bribe AI to war with each other,
i)which gives you security, as they will fight among each other, and you can survive with a smaller army, which translates to hammer saved for you
ii)AI will usually bribe others to war, which makes the world a more hostile place. AI will trade less often, which translates to relative tech advantage to you.
iii)You can disrupt AI from forming close alliance. One situation I do not wish to see is religious buddies trading freely amongest each other, and ally against you in crusades. So, if I see Charlmagre convert to Christianity, I will bribe him to attack Elizebeth, the Christian founder, before they become religious buddies. With no new Christianity spread to him, Charlmagre will eventually adopt a different, less dominant religion. If I do not have the tech power to bribe him. Charlmagre will be Elizebeth's close ally, and when I want a piece of Elizebeth, he will gang up on me.

2)gift to AI please them
iv)Many warmongers won't attack you at pleased, including boudica, bennus, churchill, hannibal, etc.
v) Some warmonger will only fight for you at pleased, including Julius, Napoleon,Kublei, etc.
3)Other less common ways.
vi)Bribe AI to your religion.
vii)Bride AI to stop trading

You can not trade land, that's why tech is diplomatic power. In the long run, land can generate more commerce, but by then AI have already formed stonger friendship, and you can't bribe Charlmagre to attack Elizebeth any more.

To add on, being the first to, say, Literature, means you have a head start on building the Great Library, which further increases tech, etc. Tech > Land. Being the first to Liberalism means you get an extra tech for free.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

There's no one perfect answer to the question. It depends on the situation. Every game is so different, especially when you add more randomness in to the custom game.

The thing that makes Civ 4 so great is that you have to somehow overcome the inevitable economic crash (of early rapid expansion) just as you have to balance an economy with military and technology concerns.

Most of the time I would say land is more important. But I'm currently playing vanilla Civ 4 as Montezuma on a tiny fractal map, monarch difficulty normal game speed. My starting location had two gold hills. I saw an opportunity (and took it) to get an early tech lead. Somehow I managed to get Civil Service from the Oracle - first time I've done that. Long story short - I went from being really boxed in to an unstoppable conquering empire.

 

[Tecibbar]

Trading techs for diplomacy is good until you trade the farm to Shaka or Ghnegis and they have noone left to stomp..... Except you!

This is what happens when you do NOT manage diplomacy or manage poorly. Good diplomacy is keeping everyone week. EDIT: or prevent one AI or friendly AIs becoming dominate.

 

[madscientist]

This is what happens when you do NOT manage diplomacy or manage poorly. Good diplomacy is keeping everyone week.

Well then, I can't get this done at higher levels.

 

[oawiefga]

Land or Knowledge? What is the constant? The answer is time.

Land yields greater returns over time but takes much longer to develop if you consider the length of time required to build settlers and workers, to improve tiles and build buildings to maximize the return on the tiles.

Knowledge can require a significant investment in time also but knowledge can also be acquired through more immediate methods like popping goody huts, espionage missions, diplomacy and random events.

Focusing on either knowledge or land to the exclusion of the other would be a mistake. If I have to play catch up I am going to go for knowledge to get the biggest results in the short term and develop land to solidify my lead in the power rankings.

 

[mi6agent]

Well then, I can't get this done at higher levels.

well its because your dilomacy is still weak. You don't have any handicap for dip even you play Deity

 

[bestsss]

>>You don't have any handicap for dip even you play Deity
that's not true.

 

[mi6agent]

>>You don't have any handicap for dip even you play Deity
that's not true.

so what handicap ?

 

[madscientist]

The Ais are harder to please and less forgiving the more advanced levels you go up. Not sure of the rules, but refusing Ghengis tribute lasts longer and is more likely to trigger a "Bad" response than say warlord difficulty. Ditto on UN votes.

 

[tibbles]

Going a bit off the land vs tech debate, but I noticed the diplo thing myself last night. Was trying out emperor and I wasn't paying enough attention, clicked refuse to the wrong ai's demand. Dropped 1 of my trading partners from pleased to cautious despite only showing a -1 modifier in the summary.

 

[civvver]

Knowledge can be turned into a dominatino victory when starting with just 6 cities.

Long story short, give me Rifling 20 turns earlier rather than 4 extra cities and I'll be happy.

He's right, it's not really about either land or knowledge, but about specific techs and how soon you get them compared to the AI. Sometimes more land can get you those techs, sometimes more tech you can trade to get to those crucial techs faster. There's many ways to be the first to rifles/cannons/tanks whatever.

 

[r_rolo1]

Neither What matters in most games is the K/D ratio and the diplomacy

 

[Silence101]

You can not trade land, that's why tech is diplomatic power. In the long run, land can generate more commerce, but by then AI have already formed stonger friendship, and you can't bribe Charlmagre to attack Elizebeth any more.

A tech lead isn't required for good diplomacy... sure you can gift techs, but with more land, you can gift resources. Good diplomacy is more about giving into the AI's demands and choosing your allies and enemies.

As for the question about what is more important (land versus tech), I'd say land is far more important. You can get a short term tech lead and use that to your advantage, but the advantage is short lived... especially at higher levels where the AI can out-tech you. With that said, there's many circumstances where I like to beeline certain techs to get certain short-term advantages or wonders (e.g. Alphabet, or Literature for the Great Library)... and beelining techs (like Libralism) is an important strategy.

However, the principle of REXing in the early game often means sacrificing an overall tech lead because you know that the additional land and cities will pay dividends later on. Though there's not an immidiate payoff, the additional land creates a long-term advantage down the road... leading to a mid/late-game tech lead because of the additional land and production capacity. GENERALLY, a short-term tech lead isn't a sustainable long-term advantage compared to having more land.

 

[Le Singe]

in civ first you get the land then you get the knowledge then you get the women!!!!

and after you research corporation you can start a jeans company and have your name writen on peoples asses

 

[mi6agent]

The Ais are harder to please and less forgiving the more advanced levels you go up. Not sure of the rules, but refusing Ghengis tribute lasts longer and is more likely to trigger a "Bad" response than say warlord difficulty. Ditto on UN votes.

refuse tribute is bad dilomacy , isnt it ?

 

[Duckweed]

Maintain a balance is the best play. Over-expanding is one of the bad habit that hampers players advance to deity level. 4 cities empire with big tech lead is much better than 8 city empire falling behind hopeless, with the exception that you are living with only 1 AI in an island.

 

[civvver]

Neither What matters in most games is the K/D ratio and the diplomacy

what is k/d ratio?