Science Victory Guide (Any Difficulty)

This is a very general guide on how to improve science victory times. It's centered around the traditional tradition approach: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371
...but I added some tips that some newbies might not know. I don't believe this kind of information is available all in one place anywhere else. Also I've never seen listed tips around these parts, so maybe step-by-step instructions will be a bit less overwhelming. Sorry in advance for wall of text.

1. Education by t115, scientific theory by t170, plastics by t210. NC as you are researching civil service.

2. 4-city tradition as fast as possible. Make 4 cities by turn 75 and take these policies: tradition opener, legalism, monarchy and landed elite (can be switched), oligarchy and aristocracy (depends on if aggro neighbor/when you get to NC). Pantheon should be the maximum faith-per-turn pantheon. Failing that, fertility rites, and if that's taken, then monument to the gods.

3. BO in cap: scout, scout if Pangaea, shrine, worker, settler, settler, library, worker, settler, granary, caravan, Oracle/NC (switch depending on timing).

4. BO in other cities: library, granary, then other buildings as the need arises.

5. Buy all science buildings in your capital except library.

6. Make sure you have enough production in your other cities to build science buildings in 10 turns or less.

7. GROW GROW GROW. EVERY TILE THAT CAN HAVE A FARM MUST HAVE A FARM. Work farms, especially riverside ones, full-time. Your capital should be size 10 by education, 20 by scientific theory, and 25-30 by plastics. Other cities should be 5 sizes smaller-ish, but really depends on terrain - no more than 10 sizes smaller than the thresholds though. Send 2 food routes full-time to your capital and maybe 1-2 to a city with least food.

8. Once population reaches 15 in a city, and food-per-turn is more than 20-25, fully staff the scientist slots.

9. Don't neglect your guilds - build and fully staff them for culture.

10. Social policies: take rationalism, secularlism, and free thought. Then pick freedom as your ideology, and get the tenet which allows you to buy ss parts. Along the way take civil society and universal suffrage.

11. Get plastics with Oxford and satellites with rationalism finisher.

12. Don't neglect gold, culture, or faith - these are very important. You want at least 5000 gold and 1000 faith accumulated by the endgame. And a religion in at least 1 of your cities. Need 10-50 faith per turn, 100 gpt, and 100 cpt for this.

13. Build Oracle, Pisa (choose free great scientist), Porcelain Tower, and Hubble Space Telescope.

14. Win all the international projects, even if it means deviating off your current builds - not that hard, as I demonstrated in the game.

15. Settle 1-2 great scientists in your capital - no more than 2. By the time you reach satellites you should have 12 great scientists saved up total: 7 generated by working scientist slots, 1 from Pisa, 1 from Porcelain Tower, 2 from hubble, and 1+ from faith. Bulb 1 every turn for techs which take 5+ turns to research. You will blaze through tech tree bottleneck in no time.

16. Buy 2 SS parts (or how many you can afford) and build 1 in your cities each - shift away from food to production and make sure each city has SS factories.

17. Beaker milestones: 70 bpt before universities, 300 bpt before public schools, 600 bpt before plastics, and 1000+ bpt by endgame.

18. Misc advice: think about how you're gonna get coal/aluminum - there's nothing more disappointing than grinding through with 30-production factoryless cities before discovering there's no aluminum to build ss parts. Ally with 1 culture and 1 mercantile city-state during modern era and stay allied with them thru spies/quests. Build Notre Dame if you need happiness, but make sure you can get it. For religion, take divine inspiration for guaranteed +10 faith per turn. RAs are generally not worth it (except on Deity) as most civs will be far behind you on science and you need gold to buy science buildings/ss parts, but if they give 4+ turns of research, go ahead and take them if you have the gold. And finally, if you feel unsafe, don't worry about getting some defense units - in the early game archer units, later on bombers/infantry. There's a freedom tenet which gives you 6 free Foreign Legion, upgrading into infantry.

When settling cities, make sure they have at least half of these traits:
1. Coastal but not overly so (50% of tiles water at most)
2. At least 6 tiles of freshwater grassland/plains
3. A river
4. A hill
5. 1+ luxes
6. Good production, especially early on
7. A mountain
8. Easily defensible
9. Bonus resources, but they don't clog up useful farm-able tiles
10. Natural wonder (rare, but some are great)

On any difficulty it might be wise to steal 1, 2, or even 3 workers from 1 civ. Basically, you take worker, pillage, and park warrior/spear 2 tiles from border to catch workers which try to repair. These free workers will both jump-start your tile improvements and delay other civs' progress.

Try to connect cities as fast as possible, first with roads, then with railroads (make sure you connect all resources and farmspam enough to grow some first, though). The gold/production boost will come at the time when you most need it.

If there's anything I missed, please post what. This is meant to be a GENERAL guide, and not cover anything incredibly detailed.

Good luck, and have fun!

That was the guide I used to get started with the Tradition start. The more I play, the more everything he mentions seems to be true. It is easy to get distracted with your growth and rush towards the NC or wonder. The more I play, the more I realize that growth is key early on (and all the way through really).

I've also had more success stealing from CS's than civ's. Civ's always have a lot of defensive units, CS's don't. I just look for one with a hill/junk/forest just outside the borders next to a lux/strategic tile. This lets you hide outside the border unseen to steal workers several times. The obstruction is important when doing this.

Oh, and from what I'm seeing, adding a 5 or 6 city can speed up victory times even more, but learning 4 cities first may be advisable.

I think that this is a strong guide but newbies may not know where they can (or will need to) be flexible. Main thing to remember is that this is a best-possible-case sort of deal here.

1. Education by t115, scientific theory by t170, plastics by t210. NC as you are researching civil service.

Click to expand...

Not much flexibility here, actually, more than 5 turns later on the first two and you're doing something wrong (or have gotten yourself into a fix).

2. 4-city tradition as fast as possible. Make 4 cities by turn 75 and take these policies: tradition opener, legalism, monarchy and landed elite (can be switched), oligarchy and aristocracy (depends on if aggro neighbor/when you get to NC). Pantheon should be the maximum faith-per-turn pantheon. Failing that, fertility rites, and if that's taken, then monument to the gods.

Click to expand...

This is great if it's doable but often it won't be. On a coastal start you can make a good argument for a two-city NC (with cargo routes between the cities) and sometimes you just don't have the luxes/mercantile allies to support 4 cities. I think Monument to the Gods (+15% on wonders) is kinda ass, I'd rather get a food bonus from bananas/citrus or from camps, or even God Emperor. But when you can make a 4 city NC happen, it's awesome.

3. BO in cap: scout, scout if Pangaea, shrine, worker, settler, settler, library, worker, settler, granary, caravan, Oracle/NC (switch depending on timing).

Click to expand...

Optimistic in that there is no archer in here but this is not unreasonable. Granary first can sometimes shave time off of settler building.

4. BO in other cities: library, granary, then other buildings as the need arises.

5. Buy all science buildings in your capital except library.

Click to expand...

If your cap is a prod powerhouse and you're not bleeding money, I would say no to this. Just hard build your university in 5 turns and buy the university in that 2nd city of yours next to all the jungle and save 15 turns .

6. Make sure you have enough production in your other cities to build science buildings in 10 turns or less.

Click to expand...

Easier said than done .

7. GROW GROW GROW. EVERY TILE THAT CAN HAVE A FARM MUST HAVE A FARM. Work farms, especially riverside ones, full-time. Your capital should be size 10 by education, 20 by scientific theory, and 25-30 by plastics. Other cities should be 5 sizes smaller-ish, but really depends on terrain - no more than 10 sizes smaller than the thresholds though. Send 2 food routes full-time to your capital and maybe 1-2 to a city with least food.

Click to expand...

Yeah, must-have.

8. Once population reaches 15 in a city, and food-per-turn is more than 20-25, fully staff the scientist slots.

Click to expand...

I'll do this by turn 12.

9. Don't neglect your guilds - build and fully staff them for culture.

Click to expand...

You're really assuming we have a ton of production here . But yeah, if you can.

10. Social policies: take rationalism, secularlism, and free thought. Then pick freedom as your ideology, and get the tenet which allows you to buy ss parts. Along the way take civil society and universal suffrage.

Click to expand...

You need Humanism before free thought.
Main thing, though -- if you are stuck on 3 cities and/or have a little bit low Prod/cash, going Order may be better, for the faster factories and +25% science from factories.

11. Get plastics with Oxford and satellites with rationalism finisher.

Click to expand...

You may not have the culture to both finish rationalism and get to a 3rd tier ideology.

12. Don't neglect gold, culture, or faith - these are very important. You want at least 5000 gold and 1000 faith accumulated by the endgame. And a religion in at least 1 of your cities. Need 10-50 faith per turn, 100 gpt, and 100 cpt for this.

Click to expand...

On Immortal+, easier said than done!

13. Build Oracle, Pisa (choose free great scientist), Porcelain Tower, and Hubble Space Telescope.

14. Win all the international projects, even if it means deviating off your current builds - not that hard, as I demonstrated in the game.

Click to expand...

Yeah yeah yeah!

15. Settle 1-2 great scientists in your capital - no more than 2. By the time you reach satellites you should have 12 great scientists saved up total: 7 generated by working scientist slots, 1 from Pisa, 1 from Porcelain Tower, 2 from hubble, and 1+ from faith. Bulb 1 every turn for techs which take 5+ turns to research. You will blaze through tech tree bottleneck in no time.

Click to expand...

Assuming gardens and whatnot, this may be about right, but it's best-case-scenario.

16. Buy 2 SS parts (or how many you can afford) and build 1 in your cities each - shift away from food to production and make sure each city has SS factories.

17. Beaker milestones: 70 bpt before universities, 300 bpt before public schools, 600 bpt before plastics, and 1000+ bpt by endgame.

18. Misc advice: think about how you're gonna get coal/aluminum - there's nothing more disappointing than grinding through with 30-production factoryless cities before discovering there's no aluminum to build ss parts. Ally with 1 culture and 1 mercantile city-state during modern era and stay allied with them thru spies/quests. Build Notre Dame if you need happiness, but make sure you can get it. For religion, take divine inspiration for guaranteed +10 faith per turn. RAs are generally not worth it (except on Deity) as most civs will be far behind you on science and you need gold to buy science buildings/ss parts, but if they give 4+ turns of research, go ahead and take them if you have the gold. And finally, if you feel unsafe, don't worry about getting some defense units - in the early game archer units, later on bombers/infantry. There's a freedom tenet which gives you 6 free Foreign Legion, upgrading into infantry.

When settling cities, make sure they have at least half of these traits:
1. Coastal but not overly so (50% of tiles water at most)
2. At least 6 tiles of freshwater grassland/plains
3. A river
4. A hill
5. 1+ luxes
6. Good production, especially early on
7. A mountain
8. Easily defensible
9. Bonus resources, but they don't clog up useful farm-able tiles
10. Natural wonder (rare, but some are great)

On any difficulty it might be wise to steal 1, 2, or even 3 workers from 1 civ. Basically, you take worker, pillage, and park warrior/spear 2 tiles from border to catch workers which try to repair. These free workers will both jump-start your tile improvements and delay other civs' progress.

Try to connect cities as fast as possible, first with roads, then with railroads (make sure you connect all resources and farmspam enough to grow some first, though). The gold/production boost will come at the time when you most need it.

If there's anything I missed, please post what. This is meant to be a GENERAL guide, and not cover anything incredibly detailed.

Click to expand...

tl;dr. I kid, I kid! Basically agree that if you follow this in spirit (and sometimes to the letter), well, this is how you SV.

Thanks for the feedback guys! I hope some people will legitimately see this and benefit from it (instead of tl;dr).

A thing about the international projects: put cities on production focus, stop all growth if you have to, and just build them full-time. Finishing in 1st in 3 turns and losing out on growth on those 3 turns is better than working for 10+ turns in cap only, finishing in 2nd with culture runaway becoming culture monster, and losing out on 10 turns of growth and production in the cap. If you can pump out 200+ production/turn WITHOUT switching away from food focus AND are sure nobody else can do that, though, then don't switch away from food focus.

Undefeatable said:

Thanks for the feedback guys! I hope some people will legitimately see this and benefit from it (instead of tl;dr).

A thing about the international projects: put cities on production focus, stop all growth if you have to, and just build them full-time. Finishing in 1st in 3 turns and losing out on growth on those 3 turns is better than working for 10+ turns in cap only, finishing in 2nd with culture runaway becoming culture monster, and losing out on 10 turns of growth and production in the cap. If you can pump out 200+ production/turn WITHOUT switching away from food focus AND are sure nobody else can do that, though, then don't switch away from food focus.

Click to expand...

Actually -- thinking about it, I don't think that you'll be doing any International Projects other than World's Fair. Winning the Games isn't necessarily worth spending 10 turns in all of your cities (unless you really aren't doing anything else) and in my experience by the time the space station comes up for a vote, I don't need it.

nice. Just to add/adjust a few things:

- only bother with World Fair international project, other two aren't worth it. Build and staff the writers guild 30 turns before the proposal of the world fair, and save the 2 writers that you gain. Bulb 8 turns into the world fair. Easy to fill up on important freedom tenants, along with rationalism. Dip into patronage if you lack something else.

- don't neglect WLTKDs. Try to have endless WLTKDs going in all cities, get creative with the trades. Trade the AI lux for lux and add in 3 gold. If they are neutral or better, they will normally take it. Those are actually better than massive food for city booms.

- settle on hills on all cities, even move the cap if needed.

- don't neglect city state quests at all. in fact city states are a top priority

- if you want faster win times, move up in difficulty

- don't feel that you need to play it nice. If another city has a wonder you want, especially colossus, go ahead and take it. Just make DOFs with as many other civs as possible and ensure the 2 of you don't have 1.

- don't accept embassies pre-turn 100 on any difficulty above king.

- if you need to build a building quick, lock all the food tiles then select citizen management and select production. when the new citizen is added to the city, they will instantly move onto the hills (or whatever has the best production)

- bribe civs to attack each other that are close to one another when possible.

- counter-intuitive is sent the first cargo/caravan to the capital. this is mainly because of monarchy. many people have issues with happiness mid-game, and it normally is due to them trying to send their cargos to the satellites to "catch them up"

- if a heavy jungle start, you are best off actually using liberty over tradition. Just don't bother building the monument, if you get the culture ruin, you get the culture ruin, otherwise use the sacred path pantheon to speed up the culture. Tradition and it's growth bonus is not helpful in the jungle, but the free and quicker settlers/workers, extra production, golden age, and free gs is.

Why shouldn't one trade embassies early?

humbe said:

Why shouldn't one trade embassies early?

Click to expand...

There is risk that the AI will covet your lands. However, I personally sell embassies for 1 gold a turn early, because it gives much needed gold, and most guides I've watched do the same. You might hurt your relations a little, but the result is usually better.

Uzael36 said:

There is risk that the AI will covet your lands. However, I personally sell embassies for 1 gold a turn early, because it gives much needed gold, and most guides I've watched do the same. You might hurt your relations a little, but the result is usually better.

Click to expand...

I guess it depends on the map size. On a standard continents map, I've found that 30 gold isn't worth having to get 4 archers by turn 75. If the civ isn't bordering me, but I find them through later scouting, then I give them the embassy. 1 gold per turn for 30 turns shouldn't really make or break anything.

fallout3dc said:

I guess it depends on the map size. On a standard continents map, I've found that 30 gold isn't worth having to get 4 archers by turn 75. If the civ isn't bordering me, but I find them through later scouting, then I give them the embassy. 1 gold per turn for 30 turns shouldn't really make or break anything.

Click to expand...

If you sell an embassy to several civ's, it adds up and allows you to purchase that library in your 1st or 2nd expansion city.

Uzael36 said:

If you sell an embassy to several civ's, it adds up and allows you to purchase that library in your 1st or 2nd expansion city.

Click to expand...

I seem to start next to aggressive civs all the time though, specifically China, Assyria, and the Huns. Even the peaceful ones pray on me when they can. You figure that 1 gold basically pays for 1 of your units for 30 turns. That is a bit underwhelming to be honest.

fallout3dc said:

I seem to start next to aggressive civs all the time though, specifically China, Assyria, and the Huns. Even the peaceful ones pray on me when they can. You figure that 1 gold basically pays for 1 of your units for 30 turns. That is a bit underwhelming to be honest.

Click to expand...

You may have to adjust based on starting conditions, but if they are your neighbor, they already can see your lands, so you don't lose anything by selling the embassy. If they are not your neighbor, it is highly unlikely they'd DoW on your due to distance and people in between. Not to mention without being able to open borders, that is a logistics problem.

Thank you very much won my first game on Immortal as Korea with this build. Got a turn 326 victory, a little late but its my earliest date so far, and i've been trying my best to work on my science victories.

I do have one question about the unhappiness you get from dissitants, in regards to other ideologies, in my game I was hovering between -4 happy and +3 for the late game as only myself and another ai had freedom, i had -33 to public opinion on ideologies, is there any way around this?

i_imperator said:

Thank you very much won my first game on Immortal as Korea with this build. Got a turn 326 victory, a little late but its my earliest date so far, and i've been trying my best to work on my science victories.

I do have one question about the unhappiness you get from dissitants, in regards to other ideologies, in my game I was hovering between -4 happy and +3 for the late game as only myself and another ai had freedom, i had -33 to public opinion on ideologies, is there any way around this?

Click to expand...

I believe it is tourism that causes this. Keeping your borders closed will prevent other civs with higher tourism than you to not get bonuses. Upping your culture will also fend off tourism. Getting open borders on their side can help you apply tourism pressure as well.

If going for a science victory, I mainly just focus on ending the game quickly. It takes a while for their tourism to impact you, so if you can win faster, you'll run into less problem.

i_imperator said:

Thank you very much won my first game on Immortal as Korea with this build. Got a turn 326 victory, a little late but its my earliest date so far, and i've been trying my best to work on my science victories.

I do have one question about the unhappiness you get from dissitants, in regards to other ideologies, in my game I was hovering between -4 happy and +3 for the late game as only myself and another ai had freedom, i had -33 to public opinion on ideologies, is there any way around this?

Click to expand...

Get stronger culture during your game. Ally city states, run guilds and win world fair. And then be faster The faster you are and the stronger your culture the less you will feel ideology pressure. Keep your border closed from culture civs too.

@Uzael36 and Acken ye are spot on i think, I was very stingy with my open borders that game lesson learnt

it is a struggle for me to try and win under 300 turns, i missed out on oracle in the last game but i managed to pick up leaning tower, Porcelain and Opera House, Didn't actually manage to finish Rationlism, but I did get to Lvl 3 on freedom. It was actually the GOTM 89 map with Korea.

#5: Income dependent. If your GPT is low, its better to hand build in your (normally high prod) capital and cash buy to a low prod city, especially if the low prod city has a large population.

#7: I normally go with 3 food cargo routes to my capital. If this actually was a great local food start then I might only go with 2 food cargo routes but when that's the case it was a poor hammer start and so they'll be a hammer cargo route to the capital.

#8: I'd fill all the scientist slots even before then. (Like the moment the science buildings are complete)

#11: I much prefer Radio with Oxford for ultra-early entry to modern era to found Freedom in the first place without being dependent on either having coal or a city state having it. I've been in games where neither me nor any city state had coal.

#13: Hammer dependent. If your hammer production isn't high enough for the difficulty level to be assured success, your better off passing to avoid the fail gold which isn't worth it.

#14B: That is dependent on timing. If Worlds Fair is actually proposed the very first time, then 30 turns from then when it passes is a bad time, (this is when your normally building the improvements that increase production), and culture per turn output isn't really strong yet. In addition second place is good enough for a free social policy on this.
Also, if this was a bad hammer start, its better to just contribute the minimum for Silver in the first two projects to avoid wasting a ton of extra hammers for no benefit.
In addition, the International Space Station is really late, if it's not proposed the very first time its possible to do so its probably going to be to late to help your victory.

#15: I prefer many more academies than that so I get the tech before I've already effectively won the game. (You've effectively won the game the moment you reached the Atomic Era before the AI did.) Late Industrial is my cut off point unless I ran out of good spots for an academy before then.

As a side note, a lot of this is directly applicable when seeking a Diplomatic victory since reaching Globalism is the bottleneck.
And to a lesser extent it's also applicable to standard Cultural victory with The Internet doubling tourism.

IMHO, Deity is apart, specially for things like ideologies, settle spot, wonders, etc.

1. No really fundamental. Education early is nice, but useless if you're not able to have universities up faster. Same for Public schools. If you can have labs up 5 to 10 turns after plastics you're making something wrong.
On Immortal you have to win before T380-400 so you have time, below you can do what you want. On deity, you'll win if you can catch Hubble. Without, you'll lose T320-330.

2. More important NC up as soon as possible, sometimes with 2 or 3 cities. If you have 3 mountains cities, you can go with them, don't bother with a 4th. Specially if you don't have enough lux or no really good 4th spot.

3. no worker for me. I steal them from AI or CS or rush buy them. Sometimes I build my 5th and 6th one, but mainly I spend 330 gold.
My basic is : scout (monument on archipelago or tiny islands), scout (no one if on an islands or monument on continents), shrine, granary, settlers, settlers (a third if I'm short on gold), caravans, caravans, archers, archers, library, NC/Oracle.

4. granary until writing, library, granary...

5. Sometimes rush a library is a good thing, in caps or satellites. In caps, if I'm going for Oracle or other wonder first.

6. 15 turns is reasonable. Usually 34 turns at first, then less, thanks to growth due to caravan foods.

7. Mines first in caps, you need to pop those settlers ASAP, then farms. Never neglect early production. Don't work an unimproved tiles.

8. I filled scientists slots as soon as scientific slots is up. No matter of city size. The only parameter is next pop. At most 10 turns. If city cannot growth in less than 10 turns, I don't fill a specialist slots.

9.

10. On Deity, Scientific revolution first in a good alternative. Specially if you can have Porcelain Tower up. Also, Order is no-brainer on Deity. Liberty, if you really good or really lucky.

11. I use Oxford for Radio, for Ideologies. And ratio finisher for Nanotech or advanced ballistics. For plastics on below Immortal.

12. Stock faith when you reach Industrial era. No matter of religion in endgame, you just need to have as many faith points as possible. Gold is nearly always abundant in late game and you need bank and stock exchange for specialist slots. Culture is more about which ideologies you picked and how many tenet 2 and 3 you want.

13. but you need no wonder to win a space race. Only Hubble is necessary on Deity, if you can't win under T300.

14. Even word's fair is not really a must have, so others...

15. Settle as many scientist you want if you pick Liberty. No need to stock a GS 50 to 75 turns to bulb it. It's academies is more profitable in long term. If you planed order. stop to plant GS when you reach Industrial era. And never build Hubble or buy a GSwith faith 10 turns before a natural GS. Otherwise, you'll regret to have to wait 15 to 20turns to reach nanotech or particle physics.

16.

17. With 4cities 1100 bpt is low after plastics, with order. 1300 is better. With Liberty is different.

18. Immortal and below, research industrialization before your ideologies. If you have access to coal -> order, if not -> Liberty. With Liberty, go to penicillin after plastics before satellites. Build hospitals and medical labs (in theory you'll have enough cash to rush buy them).
RAs are good is you have plenty gold (Portugal, Venice, or simply a real good macroeconomics). Spend useless gold in them. I have to end a game with more than 1 000 gold. Many games, I ended with over 10k and wonder why I can't be faster.
There are more effective on low level if you let AI thieft your technologies. Dangerous on Emperor and beyond, because AI begin to be warry after ideologies and you'll many times won't be leader on military.

Be careful with Liberty. You can screw a good start with roads. So choose it on bad dirt (islands or so) or if you have enough luxs to sell. And be careful with that on level below Immortal, AI use to be negative in gold after the first 30 turns you sold a lux to it. So do not base your economy on luxs on low level or demand tribute to CS (if you have enough units).

My 2 cents. Not the best, but, I'm satisfied with it.

Memoryjar - faith bought great persons do not increase any counter (except their price in faith).

17) - seriously speaking, I have only seen 1300 bpt with 4 cities on screenshots. 1000 is more than enough for a 270-280 turn win.

Decent guide. A few things I do differently though.

-Steal a worker, build granary instead. Build caravan before library. Build/buy a few archers as well (archer often an early build in expo cities).

-Two or 3 city NC usually, then expand 2-4 more cities depending on space and quality of sites (4-7 good cities total; although 3 can be fine).

-I usually work uni specialists at pop 10-12, depending on how badly it will hurt future growth

-I usually plant 3 GS, then save the rest to bulb after research labs are up in core cities

-Oracle and Pisa often not possible on Deity; PT and Hubble for sure though

-2nd place in World's Fair and International Games is fine

-Ideology always depends on what is taken by the AI tourism leaders - Don't want crippling unhappiness hurting your mid-late game. Freedom is not always an option.