Why am I ALWAYS behind in tech?

[armzngunz]

All my enemies are literally unbeatable as I am the only country in europe to be 3 techs behind everyone else, I almost never spend my monarch points on anything, yet I am always behind in tech and can barely invest in ideas.
It is soo frustrating that tech has to be such a big issue in this game, no matter what you do if you fall behind you WILL have your ass handed to you.
I literally had to cheat to bring my tech level up to par, yet even then only some years later, the AI STILL shoots ahead.

[Yaldabaoth]

Do you play Castille with its terrible 0/0/0 monarch? Do you buy technology as soon as you can if you can (paying +90% ahead of time even once will cripple you)?

[tonypa]

Depends which country you play, some start with amazing 666 rulers, while others are stuck with 000 for 60 years, followed by regency 10 years and then another 60 years of 100 ruler.

If you can afford advisors, they do help, but of course those other countries can hire advisors too.

Also, if you are expanding quickly, it is normal to drop behind in Admin Tech as you simply need to core all the new land.

[armzngunz]

Played as byzantium, I could only afford lvl. 1 advisors :/

[IvantheFormidable]

Mostly comes down to your ruler and how many advisors you have. The AI won't always be ahead of you in tech if you play your cards right.

[MertSahin]

switch monarch points focus every 10/20 years??

[Halcyon]

As a monarchy, it's really up to the RNG but there are a few options. Your monarch power is directly tied to the quality of your monarch, over which you have no control beyond maybe disinheriting/abdicating particularly bad heirs/monarchs when the conditions are right.

You can save points by taking the right ideas, but that's a 'spend money to gain money' issue, since you need the points in the first place to get the idea that saves you points.

Another option is to buy advisors, even 1 point advisors add up. 12 points per year, 120 per decade, etc.

Spies can help once you unlock the study technology ability which gives discounts based on your active spy networks in other countries (not sure if this is DLC locked or not)

Get your power projection over 50 by humiliating or conquering rivals, that gives +1 to all categories for as long as you stay over 50 power projection.

Manipulate your estates so you can get their influence and loyalty high and then demand support every 20 years or however long it is between interactions. This can net you as much as 200 power per interaction if their influence is dangerously high!

Don't buy tech until it is at a discount, or military tech is needed to win a war. Don't buy tech when you have a large institution penalty. Take actions like state edicts (if you have the right DLC) to encourage institution spread and embrace institutions when it is feasible to do so.

[tonypa]

Originally posted by Halcyon:

Spies can help once you unlock the study technology ability which gives discounts based on your active spy networks in other countries (not sure if this is DLC locked or not)

Requires The Cossacks DLC.

It only gives you 5% per level behind with 100% Spy Network. 100% can be difficult to achieve as many countries use Counterspionage or your Spy gets discovered. At least it is passively active after Diplo tech 9 if you are building Spy Networks anyway and it works well with Espionage Idea group.

[Caelus]

AI does seem to pretty much focus their tech... but i dont think they do the ideas and not sure they develope land too so that means everything they do is probably all put into tech. so thats why they are ahead probably..... but in that case that is a negative to them as they then miss out on all the other things.... if you develope land you can easily overtake a AI as they dont develope much, if you have ideas your probably gonna have lots of bonuses they dont have. their tech isnt really that impressive when they sacrifice everything else for it.

[MattyDMZ]

are you doing a lot of province development?

[armzngunz]

Originally posted by MattyDMZ:

are you doing a lot of province development?

I usually don't

[Sargon The Grape]

The AI seems to prioritize tech ahead of everything else right now. It’ll stockpile until it hits the cap, and only then does it spend points on something other than tech (and only if the tech cost is still greater than the mana cap). At least that’s my guess based on the behavior I’ve witnessed.

As long as you top up your military tech whenever you’re planning to go to war, you should be fine.

[Dendrofiili]

Don't buy tech too early (unless you REALLY need +1 military tech for a war). Don't spend monarch points like they're money. If you expand quickly, vassal a country and feed it land, they will core the land for you, which saves admin points. Then annex them after they're big enough.

[Dendrofiili]

And the only tech you really need to worry about is military tech. That needs to be on time. Otherwise neighbors will be knocking on your door.