Crappy Technology

[unmerged(10150)]

Wallachia Brave is still going strong, but the future looks dark. Why? I have conquered much land, I have stability, I have God on my side, I have mighty alliancies with many powerful nations...

yet my mighty army is apparently armed with rusty sticks and throws stones at the enemy, an enemy that by now is very likely to be crack units, armed with firearms, equipped with artillery, lead by mighty generals and number legion!

How the hell can I do something about my Land tech? Or am I doomed to rule a downtrodden, forgotten, backward empire?

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Conquer some more territory to increase your income base.

And most importantly of all - don't panic. Being a CRT or two behind the AI hurts, for sure, but isn't usually fatal. Being three or more CRT levels behind, on the other hand, really, truly, hurts.

 

[unmerged(6559)]

It'll be a lot of work, but you CAN catch up. Adjust your income sliders so that you're advancing to new levels in a reasonable time... preferrably faster than the AI is going. It will take time, and you should refrain from expensive wars until you can compete again, but you can do it.

I got this kind of rude shock in a game as England. Declared war on France expecting a walkover only to find that they were six levels above me, and they badly kicked my ass. It took a long time, but I managed to turn my empire around... and eventually got revenge.

 

[unmerged(10150)]

I'm tech 6, and all the others got little groove conquistador-type soldier

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by plomeros
I'm tech 6, and all the others got little groove conquistador-type soldier

Well, unless the opponents are tech18+, you are only two CRT levels behind.

Hire more cavalry.

(And levels 8 and 9 are pretty cheap, so once you reach 7, you'll reach 9 really quick and be only one CRT behind. Still means you need to overwhelm your enemies with numerically superior cavalry armies, but that shouldn't be a problem.)

 

[Caesar Augustus]

Actually, I think the new picture comes at tech 11, and the new CRT doesn't come until tech 14, so you may only be 1 CRT behind. That's not so bad, and it goes real fast between 6 and 11, if you play your cards right. And as for getting new territory, that might be possible, but only get rich territory; otherwise it could hurt as much as it helps. I don't know what territories you have right now, but think about Thrace and Steiermark. Otherwise, war won't be too helpful for this situation. And increase your infrastructure. I don't mean the tech, I mean the actual buildings; tax collectors and manufacturies, at this moment, are probably all that you can do, but they're not bad at all. Since you can probably only build a Fine Arts Academy, for a manufactury, build it in the capital for maximum oomph.

 

[Owl]

You can of course find out exactly how far behind you are by hovering the mouse cursor over each enemy's capital city.

Also, a quick check on the budget screen will tell you how much neighbour bonus you're getting - i.e. how far you are behind others in your tech group. Neighbour bonus +1 is no big deal. If your enemies are not in your tech group of course that may just give you a false sense of security.

 

[Waffen9999]

Make trade agreements with alot of nations, than just flood the centers of trade. That always works for me. Early on due to your lack of technology goods production never really pays big money unless you're France or England. But merchants alwasy deliver the goods. So sign a trade agreement with a power that owns a center of trade than just merge into it. Odds are it'll take about 12 merchants to get to level 5 in it. But if you're lucky, and have enough agreements with other nations, you'll probably get to keep them there for probably 5 years or so. Can really be a boost.

 

[Owl]

Waffen is right, concentrate on the economy for a while to get your income up then you can allocate lots of it to land tech development. This would include sliding your troop maintenance % down a bit.

Let your allies do the dirty work for a while

 

[Castellon]

Ignore your mil tech at the begining of the game concentrate on economic techs. once you get those going you can close the gap in land tech in no time and you will still have a huge lead in economic techs.