Aside from the espionage economy, and of course the fact that you start with a ton of free stuff, there are a couple other things that help tech rate compared to the AIs, compared to a default deity game.
- Perception: in a tech trading game you are always researching expensive (beeline) techs and trading for any cheap ones. In this game you probably research techs in a saner order, such that you get the benefits of the tech relatively soon because you're not always one era ahead of your tech rate.
- Compounded returns: you're smarter than the AI, and if you both have more time to develop an empire you will benefit more from that time.
- Although tech trading helps the human more than the AI, the human is often willing to give away much of that advantage in exchange for a quicker finish date, by speeding up themself a little bit more and the AIs a lot more via lopsided trades.
But yeah, the free stuff early (settler, worker, great engineer, and state property are all significant), and the espionage options a bit later, both help a lot.
- Perception: in a tech trading game you are always researching expensive (beeline) techs and trading for any cheap ones. In this game you probably research techs in a saner order, such that you get the benefits of the tech relatively soon because you're not always one era ahead of your tech rate.
- Compounded returns: you're smarter than the AI, and if you both have more time to develop an empire you will benefit more from that time.
- Although tech trading helps the human more than the AI, the human is often willing to give away much of that advantage in exchange for a quicker finish date, by speeding up themself a little bit more and the AIs a lot more via lopsided trades.
But yeah, the free stuff early (settler, worker, great engineer, and state property are all significant), and the espionage options a bit later, both help a lot.
