When do you catch up in tech?

When do you catch up to AI in tech?

  • Medieval

    Votes: 25 19.8%
  • Renaissance

    Votes: 63 50.0%
  • Industrial

    Votes: 30 23.8%
  • Modern

    Votes: 8 6.3%

  • Total voters
    126
(I think it's definitely easier than in vanilla; in BNW AIs rarely go for rationalism; usually by mid Renaissance I'll catch up; on emperor; and I always play culturally XD I'm currently in love with Brazil's carnival ability)
If I'm lucky with a spawn (desert folklore, holy warriors, mt Sinai), and I can pull a great library off, choose mathematics as free tech, get hanging gardens and then petra on a hilly desert full of sheep, by classic or the very worst medieval era I've over taken them :-/ thanks to 20+ size capital with national college.

I think though that in vanilla some AIs will spawn with a tech research discount or smthg; while having the same number of cities of smaller size than mine, and often having few friends, they still manage to lead my in tech by a whole era. (Catherine and Hiawatha come to mind); now I haven't seen that kind of thing in BNW.

on immortal, I dunno, playing culturally is impossible (no more holing up in one capital city size 50 wonder wall and just waiting for that utopia to happen), and I hate having to go to war (makes the game last longer in real life time) blah, too many clicks; I usually emphasize faith and have to wait (worse in BNW where the entire rationalism tree has to be completed before you can start buying GS with faith) to industrial era or modern era; or sometimes I don't catch up at all but manage to win through diplomacy.
 
Industrial. Autocracy>Industrial Espionage=Ignore Science
 
Catch up as in on-par, within 1-2 techs or take tech lead? #1 in demographics?

That's easily 3-4 tech spread! A huge diff.

Also depends on games. Sometimes, there will be a yaning tech gap, so its easy to have superior units on a local level and wonder grab even if you're not in the tech lead, in other games, most civs are close together
 
Catch up as in on-par, within 1-2 techs or take tech lead? #1 in demographics?

That's easily 3-4 tech spread! A huge diff.

Also depends on games. Sometimes, there will be a yaning tech gap, so its easy to have superior units on a local level and wonder grab even if you're not in the tech lead, in other games, most civs are close together

King and below is ridiculously easy to be #1 in tech by a long shot. My last Babylon game I finished with 20 more techs than the 2nd place Civ :lol:
 
I think the best time to catch up is during the renaissance when one player gets to the renaissance era and everyone else gets spies which gives the opportunity to steal technology. However, there is a greater opportunity to steal technologies in later eras when a civilization gets all the police stations and get the national wonder that gives bonuses to spies.
 
Something I wonder about, on Emperor (and likely goes for above as well). Is there even a possibility to play the game succesfully without filling in Rationalism? Seems like you need to take it, every time. (Most played maps: small continents and Continents..)
 
Something I wonder about, on Emperor (and likely goes for above as well). Is there even a possibility to play the game succesfully without filling in Rationalism? Seems like you need to take it, every time. (Most played maps: small continents and Continents..)

You can definitely do it on Immortal, 100% of the time. Keep growing/adding cities, get your science buildings staffed and all that jazz. Then you can feel free to enjoy trees like Piety, Aesthetics or Commerce instead. Though Rationalism will pretty much always be the optimal choice.
 
Something I wonder about, on Emperor (and likely goes for above as well). Is there even a possibility to play the game succesfully without filling in Rationalism? Seems like you need to take it, every time. (Most played maps: small continents and Continents..)

I've done pretty well going for a commerce/patronage combo. The extra money from commerce and the city state bonuses go really well together, and if you can ally all the city states, you can get a sizable scientific boost from the city state sciences. In fact, I'm just learning now how good rationalism is. I didn't want to take my first few games in BNW, and I was still moving up difficulty levels.
 
Sometimes i never catch up (deity), but when you have the strongest military it rarely matters.
 
In my original question I meant catch up as in catching up to the leader - at least even. It's never precise of course, you will know things they don't and vice versa
 
Diety I usually take the lead around plastics

Immortal usually take tech lead around chivalry
 
Sometimes i never catch up (deity), but when you have the strongest military it rarely matters.

Out of curiosity how far behind are you till then? I would think not too far or even the largest military would be shredded by better units.
 
usually it's in renaissance , as I always try building up the economy and culture thing first, play defensive and then offensive. Catching up AI in tech isn't a problem I think with good economy.
 
Something I wonder about, on Emperor (and likely goes for above as well). Is there even a possibility to play the game succesfully without filling in Rationalism? Seems like you need to take it, every time. (Most played maps: small continents and Continents..)

I play exclusively on Emperor right now, crush 90% of my games (so def need to turn it up and/or disable Diplo victories :lol:) , and *filling* Rationalism is not a must although it is rare that I don't put at least a couple policies into it. In games I don't plan on Space Racing I usually take the opener, Secularism and Sovereignty for the auto/passive awesomeness.

The 25% to Great Scientists is not a big deal - I rarely get Science wonders/GPP and unless I'm speccing for Space this is junk. The RA boost is situational in that it can break down once Civs start drawing Ideological lines in the sand, and Free Thought's trading/uni bonuses are amazing enough to be a no-brainer except that you have to go through the +25% GS policy first.
 
King, catch up on late Classical / early Medieval, depends on the map.
 
As a side note, why can't they just program the AI to be smarter about their science focus? It would make deity/immortal much more challenging. I feel like it is too easy to catch up to them.
 
Emperor, renaissance. That is though when not playing as Babylon or Korea.
 
Top Bottom