Falling behind in Technology all the time. Help meeeeeee!

Make sure spending itself is at max, research more research tech's, and other than that could you give us more details on output/ spending etc?

Research xeno ethics, choose "Neutral", then research up to "Neutrality Learning Center" and replace all your research facilities with those. That'll be the end of your research problems.

Also a factor, but not mentioned yet, mining bases on research resources. Do your enemies (Terrans) have them? Do you have any ? These affect your empires research ability by increasing it with each additional mining module.

Define "falling behind". The graph on the bottom is often meaningless with regard to actual technological superiority.

Infrastructure techs are very expensive and slow to research. By comparison, weapon techs are often much faster. If you spend your time on infrastructure, you won't have nearly as much tech as the guy working on weapons, so it will look like you are behind. But you are actually not behind.

Don't research techs that take a LONG LONG time (anything above 8 turns for me) unless you really need it.

Don't specialise research too deep into a tech tree, for most part a balanced approach is better, particularly for infrastructure techs. There is not much point researching all the way to stockmarkets or discovery spheres when you are stuck at base factories, since it takes ages for you to build stockmarkets.

Don't research techs that take a LONG LONG time (anything above 8 turns for me) unless you really need it.

Bah. XenoEthics always takes me 15+ turns to get. And it's always the most helpful thing to research.

And industry tech should always be a priority infrastructure building (because it gives you great starbase improvements). Likewise for economy buildings.

Build some specialised research worlds, PQ 10 and under, 3 factories to allow for easy upgrading, one entertainment building to keep the locals happy and pretty much all other tiles filled with Xeno labs etc. And it can be a good idea to leave/terraform a tile for planetry fleet management.

This is what works for me. 50 % research is enough. Set your pre-game diplomacy at max or near max. This will enable you to get the most for all of your tech trades. Research things the AIs' arent researching. As soon as you have researched a new tech, trade it with everyone. Go through all the races with this new tech then go through them all again, trading the new techs you have acquired from the previous trades. Also remember to get as much cash as you can from them as well as the techs they are willing to give you. This will always keep you ahead. I have other secrets but this will give you a great start. I have achieved 4 suicidal wins with this strategy. Bye for now.

Hi!

As soon as you have researched a new tech, trade it with everyone. Go through all the races with this new tech then go through them all again, trading the new techs you have acquired from the previous trades.

A good advice. Just don't trade diplomacy tech, and the defense tech that counters your main weapon. And if you want to go the conquest path, don't trade soldiering tech.
BR, Iztokj

This was one of the secrets I wanted him to work out for himself. We shouldn't give a noobe too much info too quickly. He may encounter information overload. We also want too maintain our edge so when the recalc is done we can forge ahead. Bye for now.

Get the "blue" techs that will get you better research buildings to upgrade. Also what level are you playing on?

I play challenging most and I dont have dedicated research planets, I am more likely to focus on pop. and cash on larger planets (i.e only ever 3 or 4 factories and 3 or 4 labs). My overall spending at 100% and my tech spend at ~60%. I can keep up enough to never fear falling too far behind.

Dont forget to build your technology capital on a planet with labs built on tech bonus squares. Or use colony manager to see the highest research producer and build it there. Later there is another planet tech booster building and a trade good. I think my best ever planet research production has been 640 points late game. I doubt that is "outstanding" for late game.

You have to keep in mind that some people, like me, have 'Tech Trading' turned off! It looks like a couple of people here are talking about Research depending on Tech Trading. How about we just talk about how to get the best Research going in order to keep up with the AI, regardless of 'Trading'. Also, NLC's are only available to certain political parties?

I myself had a terrible time figuring out how the AI was doing so damn well on Research compared to me the first couple of games too! In other words I was in the same boat as you waitingtoconnect. Then my next game I decided that since I had espionage going on upon one of my oppenents, and it was up to the Expert Level(or whatever the highest is called) AND I had a scout by their home planet, I'd have a look around by viewing their planet and the area. From that I agree with what Supreme Shogun and Richrf says...

Also a factor, but not mentioned yet, mining bases on research resources. Do your enemies (Terrans) have them? Do you have any ? These affect your empires research ability by increasing it with each additional mining module.

Don't research techs that take a LONG LONG time (anything above 8 turns for me) unless you really need it. Don't specialise research too deep into a tech tree, for most part a balanced approach is better, particularly for infrastructure techs. There is not much point researching all the way to stockmarkets or discovery spheres when you are stuck at base factories, since it takes ages for you to build stockmarkets.

As Supreme Shogun more or less said, if you can, seek out and find a Research Resource to mine before someone else get it!

Build and Economic Starbase near your home planet(s). And then upgrade them with the Social and Research production modules! You should do this as soon as you can really. AFTER sending out constructors to mine resources.

Your first constructors should be sent out to grab any mining resources that you scouted out. Then the next one should be sent to 'upgrade' the mining process. I believe +2 is the first upgrade. To get the next upgrade may require you to have researched a certain tech. Anyway...

Next is to build an Economic Starbase near your home planet and then the next should be to install the module that gives it the Social and Research bonus to planets within it's range. +2 is the first one again, and again, this can be upgraded but I think it may require a tech to be researched first. THIS is what my opponent was doing. He had Research Academies with a Technological Capital on his home planet WITH Economic Starbases nearby(as in more than one!) with the Economic modules installed on them that give Social and Research bonuses to planets within it's range.

The other part of researching goes with what Richrf said imo. Don't be too specialized. While researching some other techs let yourself get some expansion done while building some research facilities and get the research 'resource mine' upgraded. Then go for researching 'Research Centers'. While letting your current Xeno Research facilities get upgraded start building some Research Centers, and research some other techs. Then after a while research 'Research Academies'. Then eventually the same for 'Invention Matrix'. It's a balancing act, especially since getting Research Academies and Invention Matrix can take a while. You want to get those as soon as you can but you should try to have a fair degree of researching power available to you so that they do not take too awful long.

A good thing to might be to get some trade routes going asap so that you're on good relations with your neighbors. This way you might be able to leave yourself militarily weak by preventing races from wanting to start invading you in the first place, while you build up an underlying research and economic powerhouse. Believe me, there is some incentive into wanting to have trade routes continue! But leaving yourself militarily weak, and the length of time you leave yourself weak will depend on who your neighbors are and what's going on with them.

This is what I did in my current game playing as the Terran Alliance. I was so tired of being so far behind in the research wars. But I took a hint from what I saw my opponent doing in the last game from my espionage. So, I went for the trade routes and good economy while building a up a very good underlying research powerhouse(still too a little while to get that Invention Matrix researched!) but left myself very weak militarily for a good while. I was worried! But I was surrounded by good neighbors. The Drengin Empire and Yor Collective were on the other side of the galaxy from me. The Korx weren't too awful far away but they were in a corner with just a very few planets and my nearest neighbor, the Altarian's, were interested in keeping the Korx at bay and eventually assimilating them. There may have been some luck involved with my not getting picked on. Anyway, as Richrf stated, there is a balancing act to do to.

Bah. XenoEthics always takes me 15+ turns to get. And it's always the most helpful thing to research. Don't research techs that take a LONG LONG time (anything above 8 turns for me) unless you really need it.

I guess you really need xenoethics then (I do too) , but seriously there are certain techs I'm extra willing to spring for more, but in general, I prefer not to spend too much time on one research item, the tech tree is fairly balanced, so chances are you can do better with another cheaper tech rather than trying to delve too deep into the tech tree in one limited area.

I particularly like the ones that give you an instant ability boast, even if you dont build any improvements.

And industry tech should always be a priority infrastructure building (because it gives you great starbase improvements). Likewise for economy buildings.

Yes, but you typically don't want to research 2 of each in succuession.

mmm well i tend to go for the infrastructure techs first while keeping my military technology spending moderate. For example I have xeno-ethics and alliances and none of the other races have those at all. I also have an awesome economy compared with that of my neighbours (which makes why I seem to be falling behind in tech strange).

What I was using as a basis for comparison was the civ comparision charts with my nearest neighbour, the Terrans whom I am friendly with. Clearly the Terrans and I are close in military while I kill them in econ, population and morale. However they kill me in tech, with 3 times the 'apparent' output but I talk with them I have heaps of techs they don't and vice versa, so I am v. confused as to how I can be. If the graph is in fact lying then maybe that is something that needs to be adjusted at a later point.

When I go into diplomatic negs with other races I can see that I have the better economic and infra techs but those guys have gone further ahead in weapons. It seems the AI in this patch values those techs much more than the infrastructure stuff.

I'm playing on a huge map in the corner of the galaxy so I am busily building up the starbases at the moment.

i also had a pq20 planet with two facs and a media center with 17 tiles for research. Also have 8 on my pq32+ planet with my tech center cos that planet has a 700% boost to it. Mostly I've gone for the 4 week techs, tho I did spend 16 weeks on Xeno Ethics.