Library Techs
Age technologies:
Age technologies represent your nation's march through history. These researches are powerful advances in technology that make available new units and buildings.
There are a few important things to remember with Age technologies. First, you will need a certain amount of other Library techs before you're able to research the next Age technology. You don't have to research the other techs in a straight line, you just need a certain amount of them. If you need 3 more Library techs to advance an Age, these could be all Science techs or a mix of 3 different tech lines. The pattern you research these techs is completely up to you. Move the mouse over the next Age advance to find out how many other Library techs you need to research to advance to that Age.
Note: In Conquer the World scenarios, your Age advancement is often limited to a single Age advance within that scenario.
Military technologies:
Red military technologies advance your nation militarily. This makes new unit upgrades available (as long as you also have the equivalent Age research) and increases the population limit, meaning you can field a larger army and have more citizens working. Additionally, each Military tech you research above your current Age will reduce the cost of your military units and upgrades.
How can I effectively utilize Military technologies?
- Unit Upgrades: First, you'll want to make sure you have the military technology that matches your current Age. This will allow you to upgrade your military units to the most current, quite important if you intend on avoiding destruction at the hands of an opposing nation!
- Population limit: Population limit will often constrict your ability to produce citizens or a large army. Ideally, you'll want to try to predict things ahead of time and research a Military tech before you get cramped by population limit and find yourself unable to build additional units.
- Cheaper units and upgrades: Lastly, you have the option of pushing your Military tech line ahead of your current Age level. This will reduce the cost of your units and upgrades by about 5% per Military tech above your current Age (Example: If you're in Age 3 with Military 5, you'll have a 10% cost reduction of the base cost for your military units). This is particularly useful for nations like the Turks, who have much cheaper Military technology than other nations.
Civic technologies:
Blue civic technologies allow your nation to support an additional City. Civic technologies also increase national borders and make available some technologies like Attrition advances at the Tower.
How can I effectively utilize Civic technologies?
- Cities: Constructing more Cities opens up many options for increasing your nation's strength. Cities will be absolutely vital to your success as a nation and neglecting to construct new cities can stunt your nation's economic growth (in particular, your Wealth and Knowledge incomes are very limited if you don't build additional Cities). Generally it's a good idea to build Cities close to the edge of your existing borders to maximize the amount of new territory that City yields.
- Territory: Sometimes a little extra territorial force can net you control of a key resource or allow you to place a new city farther forward. This extra territory push will extend outward from each source of border push you currently own (both Cities and Forts exert border push). If your border is already pressing against another nation's border, an extra Civic tech alone generally won't shove them back too far. However, an extra Civic tech combined with a new City and/or a new Temple upgrade can really put the squeeze on them!
- Attrition and Temple technologies: Attrition technologies at the Tower usually require a Civic prerequisite tech. If you're planning on playing defensively with attrition to aid in your defense, you'll want to get Civic 2 fairly quickly in order to ensure you can research the 2nd level of Attrition. Temple upgrades and taxation technologies, both researched at the Temple, are generally not worth researching immediately when they become available. Temple upgrades yield extra border push, increased durability, and increased attack range for Cities with Temples - research them when you want to inch your border forward slightly or if your city comes under attack. Taxation technologies generate Wealth based on the percentage of territory you control, as well as increasing the income generated by Rare Resources. It's usually best to delay researching Taxation in favor of amassing more Citizens, Markets, Universities, Farms, and Woodcutter's Camps. The benefits of researching Taxation immediately when it becomes available are pretty small unless: (a) you own a large percentage of territory already, (b) you control 5+ rare resources, or (c) you are the British, who get double Taxation wealth.
Commerce technologies:
Green commerce technologies increase Commerce Limit and increase Caravan Limit by 1. Commerce Limit is the maximum rate at which you can gather any given resource type. Wonders can increase Commerce Limits for individual resource types and Knowledge is not affected by Commerce Limits (the limit for Knowledge is always +999).
How can I effectively utilize Commerce technologies?
- Commerce Limit: A good rule of thumb is that if 2 or more resources are being gathered at the maximum rate, it's time to research a Commerce tech to improve your Commerce Limit. The trick here is to research Commerce techs at the right time. Researching too early means that you may have needed that Timber for additional Farms, Markets, or other economic buildings. The Knowledge could also potentially be better spent on other researches (Science research in particular can open up new economy-enhancing upgrades at the Granary, Lumber Mill, and Smelter). On the other hand, don't hold off too long on upgrading since you'll be unnecessarily limiting your economy!
- Caravan Limit: Caravan Limit caps the maximum number of trade routes you can have at one time. One trade route may exist between any two cities, but you can never have more trade routes than your Caravan Limit. Generally this is only a secondary consideration in researching a Commerce technology, since creating another trade route won't be worth the hefty price of the tech. Wealth is a dire resource though, so increasing the Caravan Limit is important - it just takes a back seat to increasing your overall Commerce Limit.
Science technologies:
Yellow science technologies make other technologies cheaper, increase the distance scouts see, and increase the benefit of exploring ruins. The more science techs you get, the cheaper your other researches will become.
How can I effectively utilize Science technologies?
- Cheaper technologies: While it's possible to research nearly every tech in the game without any Science technologies, it's painfully difficult. There's a balance to be struck between spending on Science research however. It's true that if you had enough time you could get all the science researches first and then spend very little on the remaining researches - overall you would, in fact, pay much less than other players. However since you're constrained by time you'll have to make some strategic choices about when to research your Science technologies, since they could cost you 300 Knowledge that would be spent on Commerce techs and drastically increase your economy. Increasing your economy is somewhat like reducing your technology costs (if you have a huge food income, it's much easier to research techs that cost food because it won't take you very long to save those resources). That's not to say Science techs aren't worthwhile at reducing your technology costs - you just have to make some strategic decisions on what to research first.
- Ruins bonus: When the game begins, you'll only gain 25 resources per ruin you find. For each Science research you have this increases by 25. Getting the first and second Science researches very early in the game can allow you to get much better benefit from the ruins you explore. Extra Science techs also increase the distance your scouts see, so they'll usually find more resources with more science research. On Sea maps, fewer ruins are placed so you often don't have quite as much need to research the 2nd science tech level early.
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