How to get a technological edge early game?

[flame from Halo]

I played this game a ton and then took a break after January. I always used to play a fairly small empire style early game that prioritized technology over economy/size/military while staying under the empire sprawl and then reaped the rewards late game with a technological advantage.

With the Empire Size system now I have no idea how to get ahead of massive empires. I am/have:
-Both Rubricator and First League relic worlds exclusively geared to tech research with +30% research from the planet modifiers on both with a homeworld to keep my economy balanced
-A fanatic materialist, with xenophile ethic which means I have refugees capping my planets and +10% research
-All planets at 70+ stability, with amenities in the green/no jobless pop/no homeless pop
-95% of total pops are in a faction with 70-100% approval
-25-30% of my total population as scientists
-Have both Tech ascendancy first and discovery tree first for +20% tech

Despite how lucky a start I got and how geared towards tech my empire is, I am just barely ahead of other several other empires by 1 or 2 techs. The empires in question are simply big, some materialists but all of them are just heavily populated empires.

How can I get ahead, what am I doing wrong? Is this the best I can hope for?

[Elitewrecker PT]

The only answer - get more labs

[Ryika]

Originally posted by flame from Halo:

Despite how lucky a start I got and how geared towards tech my empire is, I am just barely ahead of other several other empires by 1 or 2 techs.

Tech count doesn't really matter. The AI will spam low tier techs all day long, while if you're using the system well, you will probably be choosing a lot of the much more expensive higher tier technologies.

[TheWhiteRabbit]

pump out science vessals early and do every anomoly you find, currently i run 15-20ish vessels so i can explore as much of the galaxy as possible. make sure your empire dosent actually get much bigger i,e pops/planets/distrcts now that you cant counter sprawl. the more you sprawl the slower you go.

[flame from Halo]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Originally posted by flame from Halo:

Despite how lucky a start I got and how geared towards tech my empire is, I am just barely ahead of other several other empires by 1 or 2 techs.

Tech count doesn't really matter. The AI will spam low tier techs all day long, while if you're using the system well, you will probably be choosing a lot of the much more expensive higher tier technologies.

Even researching their worst techs it is surprising that they can get so many so quick. You think that my tech choices will out scale theirs properly [science bonuses and tech path upgrades]?

Originally posted by TheWhiteRabbit:

pump out science vessals early and do every anomoly you find, currently i run 15-20ish vessels so i can explore as much of the galaxy as possible. make sure your empire dosent actually get much bigger i,e pops/planets/distrcts now that you cant counter sprawl. the more you sprawl the slower you go.

I had 10 science ships early, with Map the stars edict activated. I had the league home world found by around year 35 as well as picking every science resource reward I could [getting around 3 free techs and tens of thousands of research points].

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

The only answer - get more labs

[Half Phased]

Specialise your homeworld for tech early game.

The +10% from empire capital is really good, as is the guaranteed 100% habitability so no production malus.

Rush the discovery tradition tree and technological ascendancy ascension perk.

[Elitewrecker PT]

But seriously, wide will always outproduce tall, and the way to counter empire size is the same for both - increase tech production more than the tech penalty increases from size.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by flame from Halo:

Even researching their worst techs it is surprising that they can get so many so quick. You think that my tech choices will out scale theirs properly [science bonuses and tech path upgrades]?

The base tech costs double for each tier, so in terms of raw tech numbers, it's quite easy to keep up until you run out of tier 1 technologies.

I'm not saying that's the only thing that's happening here, but tech numbers simply don't mean much until much later. If you want to have a more accurate read on how you're doing, you need to compare diplo weight from techs, since that takes into account the tech base costs and essentially compares your "real" tech progress.

It's not as easy to get ahead in tech as it was before the Ai was reworked, but unless there's some grave mistake you're making, that comparison should look a lot better for you with that empire setup.

[flame from Halo]

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[TiberiusGaben]

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