How to hurry tech research ?

[Mountain Sage]

Ducki,
I stay with the 'upper branch' and go for Economics and Democracy, even if I plan to stay in Republic for the rest of the game.
Besides Smith, those 2 techs (+banking) will give you all the 'lower branch' techs, up to Chemistry at least.
You get Education of course 'en passant'.
Gunpowder is never a priority, except if you are in deep trouble, but then you have other worries than tech leadership.
Foreget Music Theory, Free Artistry and, for me, Astronomy.

This is valid up to Emperor. On Demigod, it depends on the play. Sometimes I manage to be (almost) on the lead, and sometimes I am hoplessly behind.

[DrSpike]

Partly that may be because you have to play more accurately on Demigod+. Anything you think you can get first is a priority, and you have more chance focusing on one branch, with usually a better return on the necessary techs. Going for printing press, democracy and economics at the point in the game where you are hopefully just clawing your way back into contention is not the best choice for the majority of games. The fact that the AI researches these is a boon since you can use it to claw back ground.

On emperor IMO you also shouldn't research those techs, since post Gunpowder you are pretty much on your own if you have a good empire, and researching those optional techs adds turns to your finish time for no good reason. If you really want Smiths wait until the AI researches economics for you.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Theseus
* Roads and rivers: Commerce is exchangeable for tech research. So, in addition to Arrian's comments re growth, you need to maximize gpt.

I became a road/river fiend in Civ2 Deity, and that carries over to my Civ3 style.

* Exploration: Have you seen all the commentary re Scouts and Curraughs (including 'suicides')? Being an early tech broker due to contact advantages is very powerful.

AU501 was a powerful lesson in this! (Seafaring? What seafaring?)

* Tech leads: Do NOT research what the advisor suggest... learn what is maximally tradeable to the AI civs. Gaining a branch tech lead (do you understand that concept?) is invaluable, especially for the several tech 'chokepoints' or 'corridors'.

I keep seeing "branch lead" and I have more-or-less assumed that I understand it in context, but I don't feel that I *really* understand it, especially any subtleties. Can someone elaborate or point me to a thread that explains this?

* Extortion: *

I must not be building big enough forces; I don't remember being able to extort anything of real value. OTOH I usually have a tech lead, and *they* usually don't have any money.

[vmxa1]

It is hard to get blood out of stone. So a broke AI can't give up anything other than cities.