Hi, Welcome aboard!
Well, science is a product of the % of your commerce you realise as
science, commerce is what you need, without commerce, you have
no science.
Sure, you can grab techs from goody huts, trade it with other CIV's or
even demand it as tribute in a peace treaty, but the golden rule applies..
Commerce, Commerce and yet more Commerce.
To get loads of Commerce, try planing city sites that have gold near
them, if possible keep your palace as the core and expand around it
in a circular pattern to keep corruption under control, if you get enough
cities, built the forbidden palance at one end and relocate your palace to
the other end of your empire.
Also, Luxuries are crucial, make sure you gain control of a few luxuies,
or even multiples of just one luxury, these become powerful trading
items.
Typically I can get about 20 cities on a crowded map. Always connect
ALL of your cities.
Beeling straight for Republic, buy and trade for other techs, build temples,
libraries and universities in ALL of your cities, never have any cities on
'Wealth', if you have nothing else to build, build some defensive units until
tech catches up.
Trade vigorously, keep an eye on your trade advisor and foreign advisor
screens, if offered techs.. buy them, if offered luxuries... buy them too..
they let you get bigger cities without disorder.
ALSO, TRADE FOR COMMUNICATIONS WITH ALL OTHER CIVS, Regardless
of the price, it will pay for itself later.
At the start, you will find yourself falling behind in the tech race as the AI
players will go for the cheaper military tech's early on and trade them
with each other so that they always have the techs everyone else has,
don't despair, just keep hard at work building your city improvements.
However, once republic, libraries, cathedrals and market places kick in
you will suddenly find your empire almost doublling, or trippling it's
commerce output, which is the engine that will drive your tech.
Now, you MUST watch your science % spend carefully.. many players
loose thousands of Gold in a game by not watching it, here are a couple
of tricks I've learned:
1. Never just 'set and forget' the science spend rate. Keep checking it,
for example.. Let's say you are about to get a new tech in '1' turn..
and science is at 70-80%... adjust the slider until it is as low as it
can be yet still provides you with your advance in '1' turn... often you
be able to knock it down to 20% or even 10%, get your tech, get a
nice boost in gold for a turn and then set it back again.
2. Keep tech spending high, but not too high.. for example.. you may
have tech at 80% to get a new tech in 6 turns, if this is costing you
too much money, slide it down the scale until it is as low as can be yet
still give you your new tech in 6 turns, sometimes instead of 80% you
need to spend only 70% or 60%, or even less! This can save a lot of
gold with which you can 'cash build' more libraries, marketplaces and
banks. If the tech doesn't allow a Greater Wonder to be built, then
consider letting it slide by one 'notch', use the surplus gold to speed up
libraries or marketplaces to catch up later.
3. Become a tech exporter. Eventually, with lots of infrastructure and
hard work... you will begin to pull away in tech, hopfully by 100AD and
onwards, export your tech advances to ALL other civs you are in
contact with, offer it to them and see what they will offer you in
return, do NOT hold back, I think this has a major effect on how
other empires 'rate' you, there must be some sort of 'war baromoter'
in the software.. if you are trading lots of tech to each empire they are
gaining benefits from you and are less likely to go to war.
Being a tech exporter has other benefits:
3.1 More money. Often other civs will pay good money (often on a
per turn basis) for tech, do this five or six or more times and you
will soon have a nice big income stream from the other civs.
3.2 They have less money! By giving you all their money for tech,
they have less to spend on maintaining large armies, combined
with a good garrison force in your own empire, it make them even
less likely to go to war with you.
3.3 More tech. If you're pulling an extra 700+ gold a turn from other
Civs, bump up the research rate if it will get you tech
sooner...soon you'll become the 'research engine' of the world,
with so much gold on hand that buying that University in one of
your provincial cities in 1 turn becomes feasable.
Many people horde technology, I say don't.. other civs will eventually
get that tech anyway, so you may as well benefit from being first to
get to that tech.
Often I have three or more agreements with other civs for techs they
have bought off me, with everyone 'polite' with me, even if the good'ol
Germans or Zulus declare war on me I can turn the whole world
against them by offering money and any untraded techs to other
nations.
Anyway, hope this helps. Have fun.
ps. I always play Egyptians.
