Yay I'm tech leader! Er... now what?

[MyOtherName]

I've had an interesting problem in several games -- I set myself up decently in the beginning, and pull ahead to become the tech leader. Yay! But... I don't yet know what to do to press my advantage!

(I'm in the middle of an Emporer game right now where I'm having this problem)

I haven't been getting very far ahead, mind you; just a little bit ahead. I sustain it for a while, and then eventually everyone else catches up. I often think to myself: "Oh, I'll get myself to a good military tech, and then clobber my neighbor", but I can never get there fast enough for it to do any good.

Since I can't keep myself in the lead forever, I have low hopes for a space victory... especially when I'm facing Emporer production bonuses! (And my territory isn't exactly high-production to begin with!) I think my specialist city is going to kick in soon... maybe I'll have a chance with representation and caste system?

I haven't been working on cultural cities, and I don't really have hopes of mounting an overwhelming military force...

So, I guess I've resigned myself to attempting to manufacture yet another diplomatic victory. But I would really like to know what others do to turn an early tech lead into a victory.

 

[Shadzy19]

Im a emperor player also and with me its just the opposite , im always 4/5 techs behind the leader early game and start taking the tech lead in the industrious age(after killing 1 or 2 AI's)
Where do u start falling behind?
The worst part for me is always around guilds , up untill there i can manage very good but then 1 AI always seems to get banking , economics , liberalism etc in a very fast order .

What i try to do is after getting CoL is enabling caste system , make me a GP city to crank out 2 great scientist for my 2 science cities and once the game progresses these cities often get 150-350 beakers even before the industrial age . If your capitol is one of them and u beeline for civil service for bureaucracy added in by a academy gives u lot of beakers so u can focus on military in other cities.

Im mostly a warmonger so i always have plenty of cottage cities late game so i dont really know how this goes when u cant beat up a neighbour.

 

[Crimso]

I plan ahead and try to grab all the bonuses certain techs hold for the first person to discover them. For the early bird there's one free tech and four great people, if I'm not mistaken. If your lead isn't big enough for you to secure wonders or get the slightest steam-roll effect going, you might as well get something out of it.

Perhaps you could build a ton of knights, discover economics first, use your Great Merchant, and do a mass upgrade to cavalry. That would certainly help you take out another civ, and lead you closer to victory.

 

[MyOtherName]

In this game, I went up the nationalism - constitution path to get representation and trading fodder (I was working on getting my GP factory set up). Nobody wanted to trade me guilds for the longest time, though. Maybe I should have gone up that way instead? I was easily the first up through metal casting - machinery.

Another big problem was that two of the three biggest AI's have been in the "We fear you are becoming too advanced" mode, which really slowed me down.

At the moment, I'm up Military Tradition on most of the civs (except one of the leaders), and the leaders are up scientific method and replacable parts. (And at least one has rifling) As luck would have it, the leading civ that will trade with me is the one who has MT. I've had democracy long enough before trading that I think I'm going to get the statue of liberty.


I can't seem to do an early warmonger on Emporer: I go broke to quickly. When I started this game, I was planning on trying to make one city heavy finance and the rest military to do a warmonger thing, but my starting area was light on production, so my second and third city weren't exactly powerhouses, and didn't make units quickly enough that I felt I could go attack anyone. I was able to seal off a decent chunk of area behind me, but it was all jungle. (And somehow, I didn't build enough workers in the early game. *sigh*)

Maybe if I had been able to clear that out earlier, I could have kept the tech lead?

I certainly think beelining for representation was a mistake now -- the time lag between getting it and getting my GP city set up was simply too much. Maybe it would have all worked out if I had went up the guilds path instead.

But if I had kept the tech lead, I still don't know what I would do to win a victory -- when I've tried to do this, I am consistently unable to muster an army quickly enough to hurt anybody, and always seem to have run out of steam before the riflemen/cavalry era.


Maybe I just need to step back down to Monarch again. What would be really nice is if I could play an Emporer game, but where the AI only have the Monarch bonuses (so I could get better used to the upkeep and happiness/health limits) -- maybe I should figure out how to set that up.

 

[Shadzy19]

Ya that we fear... is a real pain in the ass.
I think its normal to fall behind in the renaissence part at emperor .
I won 9 games out of 11 on emperor so far and in only 1 of them i was tech leader in the renaissence .

I always try to beeline for civil service > guilds > liberalism , up untill guilds im succesfull most of the time but then 1 AI always beats me and strafes away a few techs .

You cant always be agressive in the early game , it really depends on your map and what civs you have close to you and how the other civs like those .
Its not worth it to try and kill off 1 civ just to get 2 civs mad at you for it.
Even if you'r able to take a few cities here its often still better to raze them and settle them once you got CoL in since you cant make these cities profitable yet and they cost you a arm and a legg.


The early medeival area is most important i think for your future , setting up a GP city and a city with the heroic epic here helps bigtime since your heroic epic city alone can make more then half of your army so other cities can focus on other things.
Killing a neighbour here is highly recommanded.

 

[Islandia]

I have found on emperor and above, that not going war means pretty much dying. The higher the difficulty, the more you have to go to war. On emperor, I have found that there are two points that are really great for war. The first is right after you get construction for catapults/elephants and that era extends until your opponents get feudalism. You must seriously weaken or kill one of your neighbors during this era to get and stay in the tech lead. The second profitable war point (at least for me) is when you attain military tradition. At that point you just want to cripple the current tech leader (or #2 if you are #1) and then it is smooth sailing from there to culture victory or spaceship launch.

These war eras change on deity though. I find that by the time I get construction the ai already has feudalism so my first war mongering era starts after hooking up bronze The second war era happens after artillery and that is when I use it to beat on the guy with the most spaceship parts.

 

[alexti2]

These war eras change on deity though. I find that by the time I get construction the ai already has feudalism so my first war mongering era starts after hooking up bronze The second war era happens after artillery and that is when I use it to beat on the guy with the most spaceship parts.

I usually conduct first war with catapults vs longbowmen. It works well enough. I'm losing plenty of catapults, but those that survive become 4-promotions monsters that will later be crushing everything in their cannon/artillery incarnation. The second war era with cannons, until opposition gets machine guns. And the third one is with artillery too.

 

[KerThud]

On those higher levels, what's your goal with the early war(s). Are you trying to capture a city, deny a resource, force him to throw troops against troops on strongly defensive terrain? I know this depends strongly on the map condition, but on lower levels, I would only go to war in order to wipe a civilization off the map. Now, I don't know when to stop. On lower levels, I did a few tests: clear them out or take half, get peace, heal, reattack. I was always better off with the clearing approach. Not true on higher levels?

 

[kb2tvl]

I would not worry about having a dominant tech that can take out all civs... I would obtain a tech and take out one of the small fish civs... Alternately, you can take out a civ involved in a war... Sometimes the AI will fight wars.

The advantage to not being the tech leader is that the AI will trade techs with you... Whatever gain obtained by a free tech is lost by not tech trading....

 

[Moonsinger]

I have always hate being the tech leader because almost everyone would come to me with the "would you spare this or that for your good friend". If I say no, they get mad. If I say yes, I may not have the tech lead no more.