Is it possible to upgrade your technology group?

[TheMeInTeam]

Well you just enter in to the territory of modding and not vanilla base game.

Mughals get Indian units + Muslim tech when formed by a horde, if you form them as anything else you get Indian units but don't change tech group.

Assam is weird too and starts the game in Indian tech group with the Chinese unit group.

I forget if custom nations allow split unit/tech group by default.

Finally, it is possible to recruit units from other tech groups by holding core provinces of living nations in that group (gives you access to the lowest pip unit they have that you don't). Once deemed an "exploit" by Wiz (which was never self-consistent), this was since reintroduced to the game many patches ago but has rarely had much utility since the unit rework.

 

[Foefaller]

Neighbours? Which neighbours? At that time, i don't care about my neighbours anymore. If they still exist, then because I could not afford all the points to take them over. But they aren't any thread at all anymore, regardless if they have euqal tech or not.
And maybe its new to you, but at that time I usually have empires being too large as that I could embrace an institution from one province. So I still need to wait to spread it to more provinces, which means I wait even longer with your method, even more expensive.
In the given example Mali, around 1550 the remaining threads should be European majors colonizing, Ottos and maybe a welldoing north african power. All of them won't get printing press from Mali.

Exactly. Obviously if you are still dealing with local threats, there is no reason to develop for institutions- you just have to be ahead of your peers. It's when you are the sole or overwhelming dominate local power and, whether by choice or by necessity, having to deal with more advanced nations that developing for any pre-global trade institution becomes something you do.

 

[bbqftw]

Exactly. Obviously if you are still dealing with local threats, there is no reason to develop for institutions- you just have to be ahead of your peers. It's when you are the sole or overwhelming dominate local power and, whether by choice or by necessity, having to deal with more advanced nations that developing for any pre-global trade institution becomes something you do.

you are always racing the clock against Europe even when you don't see them.

Always develop the instituion you won't realistically get for 50 years.

There is also the snowball effect that not developing one instituion in timely manner means you lack the excess mil to develop the next one..

 

[Robert de Bruce]

If your neighboring Europeans then why develop the institution yourself? Just steal it off them.

First, it is not certain you will neighbour a European power as Mali at that time directly. Much more certain is to become involved in conflicts about American colonies, especially in Brazil. If you allowed some European power to colonize a coast province in West Africa, it is very likely it will be Portugal or Spain/Castille. These two don't get Printing Press early, too. Since it will spawn in Germany and spread faster in protestant/reformed countries. I haven't tried it yet, maybe it is possible to be in North Africa or even on an European Isle in the Mediterranean at that time already. If you managed that, you can maybe wait for the spread, but TO did not sound like he managed this.

 

[Foefaller]

you are always racing the clock against Europe even when you don't see them.

Always develop the instituion you won't realistically get for 50 years.

There is also the snowball effect that not developing one instituion in timely manner means you lack the excess mil to develop the next one..

Actually, Reman did a video on Institutions when they first came out, and after some observer games, found out a few things:

1.) Every non-American region stayed within 3.5 MIL techs of Europe on average, with the one exception being East Asia, who peaked at about 3.75 techs behind after the first quarter of the 17th century. Yeah, it's a unit type behind in the vast majority of cases, but I bet it's smaller than you thought. Region that stayed the closest to Europe? India, thanks to the Portuguese getting Goa and AI not wanting to add provinces to TCs until they've converted the Heathens first.

2.) Pretty much everyone who isn't Non-Totemist American or Hordes gets within half a tech of Europe by the end of the 18th century. This is partly because of how the last 3 institutions spread, but also because the Ahead-of-time penalty for technologies goes from 13 years between tech levels to 15 years once you get to the 18th century.

3.) AI nations will sometimes develop institutions on their own. Every game had an East or Southeast Asia country developing the Renaissance on their own before the spread got there, with one where Korea got it in 1500. And this was before MoH and Ming's super cheap advisors.

You can watch it here:

Also, worth keeping in mind that, until we get the patch for Cradle of Civilization, the AI has a bug where it will *never* attack a nation that it doesn't have a province or colonial nation next to it. if you ever wondered how Cyprus stays alive through the entire game despite being an heathen OPM right next to the Ottomans, or why in your GB games you were never directly wardeced after losing all your mainland territory, that's why... and it pretty much means that, outside of West Africa and the New World and Southeast Asian islands that have colonizable territory on them, you never have to actually fight a European nation until you want to.