Fastest Science Victory

I generally use them 8 turns before I know I get a G Writer. I also use them when I have very Hammer intensive building phases, for example hardbuilding midgame wonders like LToP, Sistine, Porcellain and hardbuilding high Hammer value building queues like Factories into Public Schools into Stock Exchanges into Hydro Plants.

Yes, I pretty much use all my musicians for GW instantly.

Ok.

Oh and I forgot about writers. Should you just save all early writers for world's fair and then a few for timing rationalism finisher properly? Are there any other key spots or should you just insta-bulb each of the rest when they come?

I save writers for WF and 1 for timing on Rationalism finisher. Some will advise to use 1 on Secularism; I've done this a few times, but not always.

The faster my SV games go, the less likely I am to build Musicians guild, let alone have anywhere to put them. I don't make it a priority.

What does it mean to save a Writer for the WF?

Using it after 8 turns of world fair for more culture out of the bulb

Yep. Even better, 8 turns after winning WF where those 8 turns were also during a Golden Age (either natural or from a Great Artist bulb).

Should you reroll if you don't get a culture ruin in the first ~10 turns?

No make a monument

Before or after shrine?

New attempt at making early war work, this time playing the Huns. Trying to do the same thing I did on Chieftain once.
I got a ram ruin, captured Mecca early and kinda snowballed from there, ignored all buildings except monuments and built 7 or 8 HAs. This time I added some less peaceful opponents so that I could bribe more easily. So far it's been working quite well, the world is at war constantly and everyone hates each other. Though Pachacuti actually offered me a DoF after we "traded recently" when I took all his gold instead of a city

Currently at 10 cities on turn 75, finishing Liberty in 7 turns, so going for a T83 NC and hopefully ~T100 Education. I have Pyramids in my capital and Petra in Marrakech. Unfortunately my neighbours didn't build any more wonders, Stonehenge or ToA would've been really nice. I'm currently farming XP on Persia and I should have some Logistics HAs soon.

Edit: captured Persepolis in late 80s, Education T97, Renaissance T105 through Acoustics. This is the first time I built Oracle in Renaissance on Deity, I guess taking 4 capitals helped with that. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance at Notre Dame because Indonesia finished it on T88. I got Borobudur though, and my religion has 3 happiness per city (garden + shrine), which is the only reason I can grow my 11 cities at all. Gold is a huge issue as well, I have to spend all of it into mercantile CSs, most of which are hostile. I really hope Ahmad doesn't randomly beat me to Machu Picchu, that'd be really painful.

unrendered said:

Before or after shrine?

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Depends on how good your pantheon is and what difficulty you play. Both orders are valid options.

I find it usually almost impossible to win the WF when playing peaceful. I've tried putting the big runaways at war, in fact I usually pay everyone to be at war with everyone else (except me), and then starve my cities as someone (Manpanzee, I think) once suggested, everything possible. I usually still lose. You can't MAKE the AI not put hammers into the World's Fair, and 4 tradition cities with better-than average dirt can't get anywhere near the amount necessary to beat them in a head-to-head.

Of course, when I play for Domination, I almost always win it effortlessly. Yet another reason I go for Domination most of the time.

Do you have factories, hydroplants, or chemistry? I think these help if you can get the tech for them and rush. However, I think that the 5th city or even the 6th if you can get it is sufficient to win WF reliably most of the time. On top of that, it provides extra strong bulb for the end. My fast SV all had more than 4 cities.

Decided to finally get back to playing civ after too much Stellaris.

t208 SV and PB (poxpower's first map). Settled 5 cities, 4 before NC 1 after.
t90 edu, t101 astronomy (bought observatory in capital), t137 ST, t173 (I think?) Plastics.
Savescummed a bit so I could get Petra but that meant I couldn't get NC. I'm pretty sure if my early game was a bit faster I could have got edu around t87ish. I'm not sure if Petra was even worth it. I think trying for Colossus would have been better.

Social policies were tradition 6, rationalism 3, freedom 2, commerce opener, freedom, rationalism 2, fredom 3, finish rationalism. I think I may have forgotten to bulb a great writer after WF, but that still wouldn't have been enough culture for mercantilism. I would have also needed to get Globe Theater (which I think I could have built in time )
William passed arts funding on the first WC and I couldn't get it unpassed so I probably could have generated another scientist. I also timed my final wave of RAs about 10 turns too late. I also got really lazy at the end and didn't build more trade routes or assign spies. With all these factors considered, I think I could sub200 this map .

consentient said:

I find it usually almost impossible to win the WF when playing peaceful. I've tried putting the big runaways at war, in fact I usually pay everyone to be at war with everyone else (except me), and then starve my cities as someone (Manpanzee, I think) once suggested, everything possible. I usually still lose. You can't MAKE the AI not put hammers into the World's Fair, and 4 tradition cities with better-than average dirt can't get anywhere near the amount necessary to beat them in a head-to-head.

Of course, when I play for Domination, I almost always win it effortlessly. Yet another reason I go for Domination most of the time.

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Am I just getting lucky then? I have won the world's fair easily for the past 10 deity games in a row all with a peaceful 4 city tradition start. I've even doubled the 2nd place AI with the Shoshone a few times.




I will say that I certainly only play above average starts when going for fast science victories these days. I can't be bothered to play out jungle starts or forest calendar starts without even a 2 food tile.

Not only do I think you're lucky, but I've never seen an AI put less than 900 hammers into the WF. I think 1200-1500 is average in my games.

@iamteehee: Nice victory. Could you share the map? Was there a period when the 5th city became a bit costly since it could not be connected and pay for itself?

consentient said:

Not only do I think you're lucky, but I've never seen an AI put less than 900 hammers into the WF. I think 1200-1500 is average in my games.

@iamteehee: Nice victory. Could you share the map? Was there a period when the 5th city became a bit costly since it could not be connected and pay for itself?

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How many turns do they do that in? If the WF is finished in ~5 turns I've never seen hammer count that high.

garmeth said:

Am I just getting lucky then? I have won the world's fair easily for the past 10 deity games in a row all with a peaceful 4 city tradition start. I've even doubled the 2nd place AI with the Shoshone a few times.

Spoiler :

I will say that I certainly only play above average starts when going for fast science victories these days. I can't be bothered to play out jungle starts or forest calendar starts without even a 2 food tile.

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I don't think I've ever lost WF with over 900 hammers. I don't think you are getting exceedingly lucky here.

consentient said:

Not only do I think you're lucky, but I've never seen an AI put less than 900 hammers into the WF. I think 1200-1500 is average in my games.

@iamteehee: Nice victory. Could you share the map? Was there a period when the 5th city became a bit costly since it could not be connected and pay for itself?

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It can be found here

The 5th city became useful fairly early on thanks to the Petra caravan. I connected the 5th city at about the same time I would have connected Barcelona were the 5th city not there. (The 5th is toledo, not seville, in case you weren't aware of that) I never connected seville, but I think that was a mistake.

Iamteehee said:

I never connected seville, but I think that was a mistake.

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Yeah, that's the one I meant. I just wondered if you had Alliance with the CS the road passes through/would've passed through or if you ran into money problems because of it.

I'm pretty sure it behaves like open borders. If you are friends+ with the CS, roads through it will form city connections.