Fastest Science Victory

What tech path do you take?
I go - philosophy - civil service - education - astronomy (if capital has mountain AND IT DOES COZ I REROLLED) - metal casting - scientific theory - radio - plastics - fertilizer - rocketry - sattelites.

Still can't break 250 on deity.
I also find that when I reroll maps where I get a mountain, there's also mountains EVERYWHERE and it makes worker stealing slower... haha.
I also tried the great plains and it was hilarious how fast you can steal workers, but starting 5 tiles away from shaka didn't really make me want to keep going...

stormtrooper, that is my general experience as well, but in replaying maps and comparing strategies I'm confident that for many maps (including this Poland GP one) you'd achieve SV faster IF you can successfully pull off a 5th city. The catch is that it makes the game more difficult.
Part of my interest in a CS focus (with the free Poland policies) was that they can really help with your happiness, especially if the map has 2 mercantile CS with different luxuries: that's 10-11 happiness each plus the 50% bonus = up to 33 happiness from 2 CS, who would also give you science! While this Poland map with the 193 finish had lots of Cultural CS, the luxury variety was poor and there were two civs that could perma-steal your CS allies, so a very strong map but not 'perfect'.

poxpower said:

What tech path do you take?
I go - philosophy - civil service - education - astronomy (if capital has mountain AND IT DOES COZ I REROLLED) - metal casting - scientific theory - radio - plastics - fertilizer - rocketry - sattelites.

Still can't break 250 on deity.
I also find that when I reroll maps where I get a mountain, there's also mountains EVERYWHERE and it makes worker stealing slower... haha.
I also tried the great plains and it was hilarious how fast you can steal workers, but starting 5 tiles away from shaka didn't really make me want to keep going...

Click to expand...

Same tech order here.

Try some of the maps posted in this thread. Post a screenshot from turn 50 and 100 and I imagine several posters will give you feedback.

Blatc said:

I'd say yes, 5th city is a big difference maker: Babinski went T193 with 2 GS left and no replays - that is far superior to my game, IMO.

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It's a stronger empire yes, but that doesn't necessarily affect finish times. At a certain point it becomes very hard to compress the post-Plastics game any further. Assuming you could reach that optimal late-game research rate with 4 cities, a 5th would help only if it actually sped up your pre-Plastics game. I think it's really rare to have such strong late-game science on 4 or 5 cities though, which is why I'm a proponent of aiming for 7-8 on most maps.

My best Plastics-to-victory time is 24 turns, which I only ever managed twice. First one was a 5 city game on Deity as Russia in the DCL, the second an 11 (!) city game on Chieftain as the Huns. The Hunnic empire was superior in every way possible, but I still couldn't finish the game quicker than Plastics+24 and ended up with 2 leftover GSs.

vadalaz, I think we're on the same page, as I think the 5th self-founded city should speed up your pre-Plastics game or isn't worth the hassle. Going 6+ peacefully would be extremely difficult on the GP map, where I think 4 founded and 2-4 captured could lead to sub-T190 SV, in theory.
That said, maybe Portugal on a strong GP map like this could be even faster?
And yes, given the specialists slots and possibility for more GS, more (good) cities is superior to more pop in fewer cities, it's a matter of how many you can manage on a given map .

vadalaz said:

It's a stronger empire yes, but that doesn't necessarily affect finish times. At a certain point it becomes very hard to compress the post-Plastics game any further. Assuming you could reach that optimal late-game research rate with 4 cities, a 5th would help only if it actually sped up your pre-Plastics game. I think it's really rare to have such strong late-game science on 4 or 5 cities though, which is why I'm a proponent of aiming for 7-8 on most maps.

My best Plastics-to-victory time is 24 turns, which I only ever managed twice. First one was a 5 city game on Deity as Russia in the DCL, the second an 11 (!) city game on Chieftain as the Huns. The Hunnic empire was superior in every way possible, but I still couldn't finish the game quicker than Plastics+24 and ended up with 2 leftover GSs.

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Do you remember when you hit plastics in those two games? Comparing your t195 Poland game, you had to use a GS to hit plastics in the mid 160:s yes?
What I mean by that is, yes, I do think a 5th city contributes to a faster plastics if you don't have to invest in wars. In my game I started to bulb t178. Hitting Plastics at t162, I could and should have started to bulb way sooner. Perhaps duplicate your 24 turn finish from plastics.

Babinski said:

Do you remember when you hit plastics in those two games? Comparing your t195 Poland game, you had to use a GS to hit plastics in the mid 160:s yes?

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It seems I planted one academy in the Russia game (plastics T165), not sure about the Huns game (T156), probably a GS or two for Radio since Oxford takes ages with 11 cities?

vadalaz said:

It seems I planted one academy in the Russia game (plastics T165), not sure about the Huns game (T156), probably a GS or two for Radio since Oxford takes ages with 11 cities?

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Oh, you finished in 24 turns from plastics in those games (SV 189 and SV 180)?

I just loaded my game and started bulb earlier, giving me a win on t190 sharp. Not as fast as I thought it would go .

Babinski, would you recommend starting to bulb 25 turns out from expected turn of SV? And if so, are you working all specialist slots and producing science in all cities 33 turns out? That would mean finishing buildings and 'building' science T157 for a T190 finish.

I've been trying to build every building with specialist slots, but am starting to think that in lower-production cities it may be better to skip the last one or two and switch to full science 30+ turns from expected victory.

Blatc said:

Try some of the maps posted in this thread. Post a screenshot from turn 50 and 100 and I imagine several posters will give you feedback.

Click to expand...

Ok this is trying the great plains map.
Stumbled a little early because of barbarians. They basically cost me 240 gold, 20ish turns of workers improvements and delayed a settler by 3-4 turns.

Turn50:



Finished NC turn 75 I believe. Skipped oracle because the AI gets it like 50% of the time so I'd rather build units/caravan/water mill instead in my expansion that would otherwise build oracle. Especially with Poland, seems a waste.

Turn111: ( I forgot to take one for 100 lol)



My religion is tithe + peace gardens ( all buildings were gone somehow ). I have +4 faith from natural wonders pantheon, +25% faster spread and +15% food if not at war.

I have finished tradition and 3 in right side commerce.

I decided to only settle 4 cities see where it ends up.

I'm trying out the Babinski map as well. I'm not sure how I can avoid a DoW if I settle a 5th city.

So I finished it, turn 231. Best time for me so far but I really felt like in the last 20 turns I could have been doing something other than waiting for science. Feels like getting the Leaning Tower is crucial as it looks like it would have made one extra GS in 3 cities, plus the bonus one. That would have been enough to speed this up by like 15 turns I would guess.

I also used 1000 faith to buy a great engineer to rush the Eiffel Tower as the AI were pressuring me already with their stupid ideology on turn 170. Was already at -35 at that point. Man that mechanic is dumb and pointless lol.

Anyway, turn 151:



Turn 200:


Turn 231:


I also didn't win the world's fair. It was close though, I got 520 and the winner got like 570. I was playing too fast, I should probably have tried to bribe the AIs to fight.

Anyway, very very easy win but still much slower than you guys

poxpower,
I built 4th city further South, where Babinski built his 5th, so you get Gold and Gems. I bought the Gold tile and improved it immediately, to avoid unhappiness.
I waited until 3 pop to buy NW tile and start working it in Lotz. However, as you're unhappy, it may be worth doing that at T50.
Looks like you didn't settle Krakow by river, as we did. That means no Watermill or Gardens. I'd say 2/3 expos could be in better locations.
T75 NC is great and skipping Oracle is fine. +15% food (Sword into Plowshares) definitely makes sense with 4 cities.

LToP is a BIG help, but does add 100 to next GS which you may not be factoring in.
To deal with AI pressure, you need to produce more culture, not tourism. GE is best used on Hubble.
Looking at later pics emphasizes how much poor city placement for Wroclaw hurt growth.
You have a lot of faith left at the end. Makes me think you could have either invested more into Faith CS or buildings to get another GE or GS (1,500), or done a rough estimate in advance (ex. calculate how much you need to get 2 GS and notice you're ahead of pace) and given less gold to Faith CS and/or sold shrines/temples.
Were you committing 100% to Worlds Fair? Using all cities? If you can only get ~500 in, it may be better to just get 350 and shift to something else. If you can get >600, then push and make sure you win.

poxpower said:

Ok this is trying the great plains map.
Stumbled a little early because of barbarians. They basically cost me 240 gold, 20ish turns of workers improvements and delayed a settler by 3-4 turns.

Turn50:

Spoiler :

Finished NC turn 75 I believe. Skipped oracle because the AI gets it like 50% of the time so I'd rather build units/caravan/water mill instead in my expansion that would otherwise build oracle. Especially with Poland, seems a waste.

Turn111: ( I forgot to take one for 100 lol)

Spoiler :

My religion is tithe + peace gardens ( all buildings were gone somehow ). I have +4 faith from natural wonders pantheon, +25% faster spread and +15% food if not at war.

I have finished tradition and 3 in right side commerce.

I decided to only settle 4 cities see where it ends up.

Click to expand...

Try to get 5 minimum workers faster. On the second screenshot one of your city is not connected

I might have not made this clear, but I was wondering how I would avoid getting declared war on early. In the Babinski game, Theodora and Maria DoW'd me. Maria coveted my lands and both had the they think you are settling cities too aggressive modifier. This seems unavoidable against non-expansive AI when playing 5cities. Is there anything I can do about this?

I didn't want to lose too much time moving Wroclaw down. I figured settling on a hill and 2 turns faster was worth not getting the gold, plus you get the gems right away. I'm not convinced really, but krakow definitely was in bad spot, I don't know why I put it there lol.

Yeah I don't know how leaning tower works but since you build it relatively early, and I was so close to getting more GS, I have to think it'd be worth at least 3ish so that's pretty insane. The AIs build it so freakin fast though, would it be worth it to just go straight for that instead of astronomy?

Yes I used all cities for fair and was in golden age. The winning AI only had time to get like 570 as well, which I've never seen before. It was the fastest I've ever seen the AIs complete the world's fair.

I did invest in faith city-states but a little too late. Basically when I realized I wasn't on track to get like sub-220, I just kind of stopped caring.

One thing I definitely underestimated was how much gold I could get at the end. I think getting two rounds of research agreements with every AI is doable. So you'd get a bunch at around turn 120 and then a bunch more around 160 and that would give you so much extra science. In this game that'd be like 10 research agreements.

And yeah definitely the engineer was a mistake. What I end up doing often is just popping 2 great scientists to get to rocketry and then sattelites so that two cities can build the wonders at once, hoping I'll get enough scientists by the time I'm done with hubble to just win within 2-3 turns.
Probably not the best haha.

I'm also wondering if it'd be better to build temples as early as possible, instead of markets and banks like I usually do. Often I'll be making shrines after banks, just to make sure I have enough gold per turn to get loans.
But seeing this game, probably a mistake. Getting to that 3500 faith benchmark sounds real nice.

But I also did waste faith on 1 extra great prophet that the game forces you to buy when you're not watching. So I should have sunk faith into a stupid missionary instead. My prophet did convert 3 city-states for quests but that hardly does anything.

Acken said:

Try to get 5 minimum workers faster. On the second screenshot one of your city is not connected

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Ah yeah there's an extra little dude next to the city who was working on connecting it. Probably finished like the turn right after
I had 6 workers at that point you can only see 5 on that screenshot.

I just start connecting the roads when my cities are working all improved tiles. Is that too late?

Personally, I think that building temples early with a start like this isn't very useful because the amount of faith given is small compared to Mt. Sinai and Uluru. I usually build faith buildings when I don't have much else to build, usually after banks.
You probably should have planted the prophet instead of using it to convert city states.
I think that 5k or 6k faith is definitely possible this game. Getting 20 free fpt for 150 turns is really really useful.

Blatc said:

Babinski, would you recommend starting to bulb 25 turns out from expected turn of SV? And if so, are you working all specialist slots and producing science in all cities 33 turns out? That would mean finishing buildings and 'building' science T157 for a T190 finish.

I've been trying to build every building with specialist slots, but am starting to think that in lower-production cities it may be better to skip the last one or two and switch to full science 30+ turns from expected victory.

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I try to calculate backwards. I count the research needed, guessing how strong my bulbs will be/how many GS I will get and try to somewhat guess how strong the RA:s will be. It will give me a roughly turn to start bulbing at. I then write down a finishing game plan. The turns I will use a GS, the turns RA:s coming in to avoid using GS those turns, when to bulb with Rationalism finisher etc etc.

I am working all specialist slots 8+ turns before bulbing. If a city has only few turns to finish buildings liks Factory or Stock Exchange or just 2 turns finishing Bank (the case with my 5th city) etc I build it during end game and fill the slots. If the city needs many turns I build science instead.

In my t190 SV attempt I started to bulb 171 instead of 178 (SV193). I didn't have enough GS the first 15 turns, and couldn't use the late GS from Hubble and last faith GS until very late so I was forced to have 4 turns without bulbs. Thats why I didn't end up sub 190.

Iamteehee said:

I might have not made this clear, but I was wondering how I would avoid getting declared war on early. In the Babinski game, Theodora and Maria DoW'd me. Maria coveted my lands and both had the they think you are settling cities too aggressive modifier. This seems unavoidable against non-expansive AI when playing 5cities. Is there anything I can do about this?

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Did you have Declarations of Friendship with them?
Btw, why did you settle 5th city one tile closer to Portugal and out of range of the gems in the north?