Acken
Deity
Edit: This OP is a bit unrefined and would have to rewrite it a little bit. See some additional thoughts here and following posts: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13695004&postcount=45
Hello everyone. Due to debates on the other thread I've spent a little time refining my freedom late game plan when going for a science victory so I thought I'll share how I do it here.
That thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=532958
This thread isn't really to debate whether Order or Freedom is better. If you want to debate that please do it in the previously mentioned thread. I'll just say Freedom has underrated strengths and leave it at that.
This guide is aimed to advanced players looking to shave off extra turns in their science victory.
Warnings:
This is based on Standard Size, Standard Speed. It can work in other settings but I never play those so I can't say. I know winning the world fair can be difficult on huge maps due to some AI making 15 cities.
The following strategy relies a lot on your ability to grab gold out of the AI. This can be difficult on low difficulties because the AI is poor. Also you'll lose one of the main strength of Freedom if you cannot get friends to get the gold from.
Also this guide mostly focuses on the post ideology part of the game. I'll give a brief summary of what should be achieved before then but for the basics surrounding early game science you will have to rely on another source.
Finally, some tips are based on a fast game. You will have to review some stuff with a critical eye if your game takes 300turns. For example regarding academies, I base my opinion on a 220turn game.
Games take me around 50-60 turns after ideology so I base my calculations on that when calculations are necessary in game
Why should you give it a try.
There are 3 main reasons to give Freedom a try when going science:
-It doesn't require coal to do good. This is important on low difficulties or when being way faster than the AI which is something that can happen even on Deity.
-It is not production dependent. Food and gold is all you need so don't worry if you don't have 3 cities able to pump out parts. As long as you can make Appollo and Hubble in reasonable times you're good to go.
-It's reasonably a different game than Order, so it's cool to break habits and try the new cool.
Pre-ideology goals in brief:
1. You obviously want to have planted all your cities by turn 100. I usually like 5 cities but if you can 6 is also a good option or if you don't think happiness will be manageable restrict to 4. For National College I personally have a preference with going 3 cities NC and then adding additional cities after it. Grow your cities as much as possible, work the scientifics slots, etc. etc. Classic science game.
2. For policies I suggest Tradition. Additional policies prior to Renaissance should be invested in right Commerce. However, I really suggest you don't generate too many policies prior to Renaissance since it will delay your progress into Rationalism. Once you hit Renaissance you will obviously want to go Rationalism and Secularism. You must build the guilds soon to accelerate your SP acquisition !
3. Money buildings are important for this strategy. Try to make markets when you have time and banks later. Even if your city doesn't have good gold tiles.
4. Get your faith going. All science victory require a certain amount of great person faith buys. You should aim to AT LEAST be able to buy 2GS 50 turns after ideology. This means reaching around 50 faith per turn after ideology: get good beliefs, get religious CS allied. You cannot always do that but try to.
5. Start securings friendly relations, especially with the runaways since they are the ones having the most gold.
Tenets and policies
Goals:
Freedom(6)
Rationalism(6)
Tradition(6)
Commerce(3) (Patronage (3) is also an option, see gold section)
You should be able to finish tradition and get at least 2/3 into rationalism + open commerce before getting your ideology. Rationalism (especially secularism) is your #1 priority. Try to get a very strong culture output to accelerate rationalism and maybe even pick mercantilism before schools !
1. The 2 free tenets should go into specialists food and +25% GP generation. Once that's done, it's time to start working all your slots (merchants, engineers etc... and the future one as you get new buildings). Diminish hammers before food when assigning specialists.
Freedom is a very specialists heavy ideology and it goes well with +2science per specialist from rationalism so get these working as soon as possible. It's also very important to achieve that that your pre-ideology game is solid and that you were able to grow as tall as you can in all your cities.
2. Especially if you have low happiness or have a golden age coming, try to boost up the arrival of your next policy so that you can get universsal suffrage for a HUGE boost in happiness if you work many specialists.
3. Once you have universal suffrage it's time to finish getting Mercantilism if you went commerce, and of course freethought + Sovereignty in rationalism. The last policy in Rationalism should be kept for getting a free Information Era tech. Of course if you can save it for one of the most costly techs its perfect. For example you can keep a great writer around to be able to time your pick of that policy.
Best options for this finisher are getting Nanotechs or Particle Physics (whatever you get first) or Satellites or Advanced Ballistics. Purposely keep one of those techs unresearched to pick it with the finisher. Which one will just depend on when you can get the finisher (remember to not keep it for the very last tech ! You need to finish Rationalism to be able to buy GS).
4. Then it's time to finish Freedom, get Capitalism (happiness for money building), New Deal and the buy ship parts tier3 tenet. If you made no Academies take whatever of the other tenet you need. Note that if you somehow spent a little bit of time to get Landmarks, new deal will help you (see 5.).
5. Sometimes it can be a little difficult to get all of this in low culture games. In that case if you really must skip policies you will have to drop Commerce's policies (try to keep the opener if you can). Or the other option is to push culture yourself a little more, getting the hermitage and/or landmarks. It is almost imperative that you win the world fair. If you don't intend to, you probably will have to skip Commerce altogether. But really most of the time it isn't that hard to win it if you put all your ressources into the world fair, 1000 hammers often is enough to win.
What do I do with my great scientists
I would not plant more than one academy in my game. The maths are still up to debate so just acknowledge that for the first GS it's approximately the same value to plant vs not planting and then it's worse and worse for every successive great scientist.
Yes, even if you play Freedom.
Park the rest in your Great People park and only use GSs for a bulb at scientific theory and/or Plastics. Everyother will be used at the end some time after plastics.
Remember a critical point however: It's useless to bulb a tech you cannot use right away (start building or buy). If you need 4 more turn to get the gold or if your cities are too busy building a critical building, do not bulb. Just get it normally to give you more time. That way you'll save some beakers by saving your GS now to use it later.
Another thing, I suggest not bulbing scientific theory if you chose to plant an academy. It seems to be overkill to use 2 GS prior to scientific theory.
Oxford should be used for Radio.
Other Great Persons:
Obviously you want to avoid generating merchants and engineers. And you must check that you don't. Freedom running a lot of merchants and engineers runs the risk of making an unwanted GP so beware.
All writers and artists must be used to bulb (no great works). You should try to use a GA during world fair and have one or 2 great writer ready to be bulbed 8 turns later.
When to bulb the GS army
We start to get to the tricky parts here.
This strategy wants you to finish Appolo and Hubble in VERY short window before the end. It usually takes between 8 and 10 turns to finish Appolo and between 10 and 12 for Hubble. Therefore if you have a goal, say sub 220, you should start bulbing around T203-205 so that you can reach rocketery and satelites at T206 at the latest. At that point capital should make Hubble while your best expansion makes Appollo.
If you have no idea when you'll finish. I suggest bulbing after reaching Penicilin or Railroad. See what to tech section. Do not bulb all your GS, just enough to reach Satellites in a timely manner.
Other GS should be used at the very end to reach the last techs. You can count approximately 1 GS per techs of the last 2 eras. Ideally just get your calculator out and sum techs costs.
Before Large bulb session try to be building science for the last 8 turns and all slots filled. For exemple if you plan on bulbing T203, make all your city build science at T195. This will increase the bulb values.
What to tech ?
Simple. After scientific theory, get Electricity and get Radio with a well timed Oxford.
Then just go to plastic (with industrialisation first to unlock Big Ben).
Then Fertility.
If you are late on schedule or if you fear Hubble will take a long time to make, get your way on the bottom of the tree immediately toward Rocketery so that you can get faster to Appollo and Hubble. If you are having a very good game however make the detour toward Penicillin first for 2 trade routes. Also if you swim in gold you'll be able to rush a couple food building that can make the difference (but a very minor one so be 100% sure you'll still have the gold at the end of the game).
If you don't care about being late on a schedule (to break a reccord in HoF for example) then just go Penicilin first.
Once you have researched Satellites just grab Nuclear techs and then whatever techs you want while trying to synchronize stuff with the Rationalism Opener.
What do I build in my cities ?
After Ideology you want to make sure of course schools and labs are up. Getting loans for these is usually advised. See if you can grab BigBen/Mercantilism before buying a lot.
Once your science building are up. Your cities will need to get all the money buildings and factories if you have coal (and time) this in order to raise your gold per turn and get you even more specialist slots.
Get Caravans/Cargos as you unlocked techs. Use them as food for most of the game, you can use some of them as gold in the last 25 turns in order to raise your GPT. If production of hubble is difficult, you can use a little production caravans.
Faith
Make sure you do your possible to get your faith up. If buildings are required... do them. Do not neglect religious CS they are worth a lot of faith in the end.
Get your faith going to reach 2500faith minimum at the end. This is so you can get 2 great scientists at the end. It's usually the minimum you need.
Another very good benchmark is 3500 so that you can get a great Engineer also to get a fast Statue of Liberty.
Finally if you can reach 5000 for 3 GS or 6000 for 3GS 1GE it's excellent.
Wonders
You want the usual wonders first: Pisa, Taj Mahal etc. Note that depending on the difficulty some will be hard to get. It doesn't make the strategy obsolete.
Some notes:
Pisa: Get a scientific out of it.
Taj Mahal: If you can get it after Universal Suffrage it's perfect
Globe Theater: Not necessary but can help, I recommend it.
Porcelain Tower: You need to get your calculator out for this one. You need to build it in the last city that would generate a GS before victory. While this is usually hard to gauge at the time the wonder is available, it becomes quite easy to see in the last 30-40 turns to see what city can generate a GS at the latest. Every GS generated prior to that one increases cost by 100 so it adds a number of turn dependant on your GPP in that city.
The +2 GPP from the porcelain tower should be enough to pay for the increase itself if you build it soon enough. The increase across more advanced cities usually won't deny you a GS out of them.
BigBen: I advise getting it as soon as possible after schools. You can choose to rush it with a GE but I preffer rushing the more costly Statue of Liberty.
Statue Of Liberty: If you have 1000 extra faith (3500 benchmark) it's always a rush for me. Free policy and a ton of extra hammers.
Hubble: You want to time this just after your last natural GS (the one from the porcelain city !). usually only 3-4 techs before the end if you bulbed your GS prior completion.
Gold Rush
It is very important as stated in the warnings that you get friends. These friends are your source of gold.
This strategy relies on buying ALL 6 parts at the end (or in 2 waves in the last 2 turns).
Here are the costs:
With no reductions 3050 gold per parts
With Mercantilism and BigBen 1850 per part
This means you either have to accumulate 18300gold at the end or 11100. I'm not going to lie, 11100 is a lot easier to manage.
How to do it:
-First all this strategy focused on getting these money building up. This should translate to a nice natural GPT with all those bonuses and merchant specialists.
-You can use some caravans to keep raising your GPT
-You can sell useless units
Now that you have a good GPT this is where loans come into action. You will want to spend the last 20 or so turns to siphon away your friends gold. But do not grab everything on turn 0 or you will end up with no gpt for the next 20 turns and therefore lose a lot of gold.
What you want to do is make small deals from turn 0 to turn 20 with all your friends. 102 gold for 4 gpt over and over (or a bit more as necessary).
Why:
Because if you send away all your gpt on turn 0 it's not good, ideally you would make no deals before turn 20 and then just get a massive loan at turn 20 of the amount you need. However it is often impossible to find an AI that sits with 6K gold to borrow from. Most often they sit with 200-300 and spend when it reaches some sum. So you want to actually syphon that to make sure they don't spend it. Then by doing that you raise their own GPT so that they will get more gold to trade next turn.
Finally, on the last turn if necessary (most often it isn't necessary I've used this rarely) you can send away your total gold per turn multiple times for huge sums by simply backstabbing the AI and getting all your gpt back. Scummy, but since you'll win in 2 turns who cares.
Once you have finished the tree, grab Alluminium (AI deal or settle a city on alluminium) and just rush all the parts. Of course it's fine to buy parts in multiples waves, no need to wait for that.
Note: Faster Appollo can allow you to build one or 2 part if you wish.
(to be continued)
Hello everyone. Due to debates on the other thread I've spent a little time refining my freedom late game plan when going for a science victory so I thought I'll share how I do it here.
That thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=532958
This thread isn't really to debate whether Order or Freedom is better. If you want to debate that please do it in the previously mentioned thread. I'll just say Freedom has underrated strengths and leave it at that.
This guide is aimed to advanced players looking to shave off extra turns in their science victory.
Warnings:
This is based on Standard Size, Standard Speed. It can work in other settings but I never play those so I can't say. I know winning the world fair can be difficult on huge maps due to some AI making 15 cities.
The following strategy relies a lot on your ability to grab gold out of the AI. This can be difficult on low difficulties because the AI is poor. Also you'll lose one of the main strength of Freedom if you cannot get friends to get the gold from.
Also this guide mostly focuses on the post ideology part of the game. I'll give a brief summary of what should be achieved before then but for the basics surrounding early game science you will have to rely on another source.
Finally, some tips are based on a fast game. You will have to review some stuff with a critical eye if your game takes 300turns. For example regarding academies, I base my opinion on a 220turn game.
Games take me around 50-60 turns after ideology so I base my calculations on that when calculations are necessary in game
Why should you give it a try.
There are 3 main reasons to give Freedom a try when going science:
-It doesn't require coal to do good. This is important on low difficulties or when being way faster than the AI which is something that can happen even on Deity.
-It is not production dependent. Food and gold is all you need so don't worry if you don't have 3 cities able to pump out parts. As long as you can make Appollo and Hubble in reasonable times you're good to go.
-It's reasonably a different game than Order, so it's cool to break habits and try the new cool.
Pre-ideology goals in brief:
1. You obviously want to have planted all your cities by turn 100. I usually like 5 cities but if you can 6 is also a good option or if you don't think happiness will be manageable restrict to 4. For National College I personally have a preference with going 3 cities NC and then adding additional cities after it. Grow your cities as much as possible, work the scientifics slots, etc. etc. Classic science game.
2. For policies I suggest Tradition. Additional policies prior to Renaissance should be invested in right Commerce. However, I really suggest you don't generate too many policies prior to Renaissance since it will delay your progress into Rationalism. Once you hit Renaissance you will obviously want to go Rationalism and Secularism. You must build the guilds soon to accelerate your SP acquisition !
3. Money buildings are important for this strategy. Try to make markets when you have time and banks later. Even if your city doesn't have good gold tiles.
4. Get your faith going. All science victory require a certain amount of great person faith buys. You should aim to AT LEAST be able to buy 2GS 50 turns after ideology. This means reaching around 50 faith per turn after ideology: get good beliefs, get religious CS allied. You cannot always do that but try to.
5. Start securings friendly relations, especially with the runaways since they are the ones having the most gold.
Tenets and policies
Goals:
Freedom(6)
Rationalism(6)
Tradition(6)
Commerce(3) (Patronage (3) is also an option, see gold section)
You should be able to finish tradition and get at least 2/3 into rationalism + open commerce before getting your ideology. Rationalism (especially secularism) is your #1 priority. Try to get a very strong culture output to accelerate rationalism and maybe even pick mercantilism before schools !
1. The 2 free tenets should go into specialists food and +25% GP generation. Once that's done, it's time to start working all your slots (merchants, engineers etc... and the future one as you get new buildings). Diminish hammers before food when assigning specialists.
Freedom is a very specialists heavy ideology and it goes well with +2science per specialist from rationalism so get these working as soon as possible. It's also very important to achieve that that your pre-ideology game is solid and that you were able to grow as tall as you can in all your cities.
2. Especially if you have low happiness or have a golden age coming, try to boost up the arrival of your next policy so that you can get universsal suffrage for a HUGE boost in happiness if you work many specialists.
3. Once you have universal suffrage it's time to finish getting Mercantilism if you went commerce, and of course freethought + Sovereignty in rationalism. The last policy in Rationalism should be kept for getting a free Information Era tech. Of course if you can save it for one of the most costly techs its perfect. For example you can keep a great writer around to be able to time your pick of that policy.
Best options for this finisher are getting Nanotechs or Particle Physics (whatever you get first) or Satellites or Advanced Ballistics. Purposely keep one of those techs unresearched to pick it with the finisher. Which one will just depend on when you can get the finisher (remember to not keep it for the very last tech ! You need to finish Rationalism to be able to buy GS).
4. Then it's time to finish Freedom, get Capitalism (happiness for money building), New Deal and the buy ship parts tier3 tenet. If you made no Academies take whatever of the other tenet you need. Note that if you somehow spent a little bit of time to get Landmarks, new deal will help you (see 5.).
5. Sometimes it can be a little difficult to get all of this in low culture games. In that case if you really must skip policies you will have to drop Commerce's policies (try to keep the opener if you can). Or the other option is to push culture yourself a little more, getting the hermitage and/or landmarks. It is almost imperative that you win the world fair. If you don't intend to, you probably will have to skip Commerce altogether. But really most of the time it isn't that hard to win it if you put all your ressources into the world fair, 1000 hammers often is enough to win.
What do I do with my great scientists
I would not plant more than one academy in my game. The maths are still up to debate so just acknowledge that for the first GS it's approximately the same value to plant vs not planting and then it's worse and worse for every successive great scientist.
Yes, even if you play Freedom.
Park the rest in your Great People park and only use GSs for a bulb at scientific theory and/or Plastics. Everyother will be used at the end some time after plastics.
Remember a critical point however: It's useless to bulb a tech you cannot use right away (start building or buy). If you need 4 more turn to get the gold or if your cities are too busy building a critical building, do not bulb. Just get it normally to give you more time. That way you'll save some beakers by saving your GS now to use it later.
Another thing, I suggest not bulbing scientific theory if you chose to plant an academy. It seems to be overkill to use 2 GS prior to scientific theory.
Oxford should be used for Radio.
Other Great Persons:
Obviously you want to avoid generating merchants and engineers. And you must check that you don't. Freedom running a lot of merchants and engineers runs the risk of making an unwanted GP so beware.
All writers and artists must be used to bulb (no great works). You should try to use a GA during world fair and have one or 2 great writer ready to be bulbed 8 turns later.
When to bulb the GS army
We start to get to the tricky parts here.
This strategy wants you to finish Appolo and Hubble in VERY short window before the end. It usually takes between 8 and 10 turns to finish Appolo and between 10 and 12 for Hubble. Therefore if you have a goal, say sub 220, you should start bulbing around T203-205 so that you can reach rocketery and satelites at T206 at the latest. At that point capital should make Hubble while your best expansion makes Appollo.
If you have no idea when you'll finish. I suggest bulbing after reaching Penicilin or Railroad. See what to tech section. Do not bulb all your GS, just enough to reach Satellites in a timely manner.
Other GS should be used at the very end to reach the last techs. You can count approximately 1 GS per techs of the last 2 eras. Ideally just get your calculator out and sum techs costs.
Before Large bulb session try to be building science for the last 8 turns and all slots filled. For exemple if you plan on bulbing T203, make all your city build science at T195. This will increase the bulb values.
What to tech ?
Simple. After scientific theory, get Electricity and get Radio with a well timed Oxford.
Then just go to plastic (with industrialisation first to unlock Big Ben).
Then Fertility.
If you are late on schedule or if you fear Hubble will take a long time to make, get your way on the bottom of the tree immediately toward Rocketery so that you can get faster to Appollo and Hubble. If you are having a very good game however make the detour toward Penicillin first for 2 trade routes. Also if you swim in gold you'll be able to rush a couple food building that can make the difference (but a very minor one so be 100% sure you'll still have the gold at the end of the game).
If you don't care about being late on a schedule (to break a reccord in HoF for example) then just go Penicilin first.
Once you have researched Satellites just grab Nuclear techs and then whatever techs you want while trying to synchronize stuff with the Rationalism Opener.
What do I build in my cities ?
After Ideology you want to make sure of course schools and labs are up. Getting loans for these is usually advised. See if you can grab BigBen/Mercantilism before buying a lot.
Once your science building are up. Your cities will need to get all the money buildings and factories if you have coal (and time) this in order to raise your gold per turn and get you even more specialist slots.
Get Caravans/Cargos as you unlocked techs. Use them as food for most of the game, you can use some of them as gold in the last 25 turns in order to raise your GPT. If production of hubble is difficult, you can use a little production caravans.
Faith
Make sure you do your possible to get your faith up. If buildings are required... do them. Do not neglect religious CS they are worth a lot of faith in the end.
Get your faith going to reach 2500faith minimum at the end. This is so you can get 2 great scientists at the end. It's usually the minimum you need.
Another very good benchmark is 3500 so that you can get a great Engineer also to get a fast Statue of Liberty.
Finally if you can reach 5000 for 3 GS or 6000 for 3GS 1GE it's excellent.
Wonders
You want the usual wonders first: Pisa, Taj Mahal etc. Note that depending on the difficulty some will be hard to get. It doesn't make the strategy obsolete.
Some notes:
Pisa: Get a scientific out of it.
Taj Mahal: If you can get it after Universal Suffrage it's perfect
Globe Theater: Not necessary but can help, I recommend it.
Porcelain Tower: You need to get your calculator out for this one. You need to build it in the last city that would generate a GS before victory. While this is usually hard to gauge at the time the wonder is available, it becomes quite easy to see in the last 30-40 turns to see what city can generate a GS at the latest. Every GS generated prior to that one increases cost by 100 so it adds a number of turn dependant on your GPP in that city.
The +2 GPP from the porcelain tower should be enough to pay for the increase itself if you build it soon enough. The increase across more advanced cities usually won't deny you a GS out of them.
BigBen: I advise getting it as soon as possible after schools. You can choose to rush it with a GE but I preffer rushing the more costly Statue of Liberty.
Statue Of Liberty: If you have 1000 extra faith (3500 benchmark) it's always a rush for me. Free policy and a ton of extra hammers.
Hubble: You want to time this just after your last natural GS (the one from the porcelain city !). usually only 3-4 techs before the end if you bulbed your GS prior completion.
Gold Rush
It is very important as stated in the warnings that you get friends. These friends are your source of gold.
This strategy relies on buying ALL 6 parts at the end (or in 2 waves in the last 2 turns).
Here are the costs:
With no reductions 3050 gold per parts
With Mercantilism and BigBen 1850 per part
This means you either have to accumulate 18300gold at the end or 11100. I'm not going to lie, 11100 is a lot easier to manage.
How to do it:
-First all this strategy focused on getting these money building up. This should translate to a nice natural GPT with all those bonuses and merchant specialists.
-You can use some caravans to keep raising your GPT
-You can sell useless units
Now that you have a good GPT this is where loans come into action. You will want to spend the last 20 or so turns to siphon away your friends gold. But do not grab everything on turn 0 or you will end up with no gpt for the next 20 turns and therefore lose a lot of gold.
What you want to do is make small deals from turn 0 to turn 20 with all your friends. 102 gold for 4 gpt over and over (or a bit more as necessary).
Why:
Because if you send away all your gpt on turn 0 it's not good, ideally you would make no deals before turn 20 and then just get a massive loan at turn 20 of the amount you need. However it is often impossible to find an AI that sits with 6K gold to borrow from. Most often they sit with 200-300 and spend when it reaches some sum. So you want to actually syphon that to make sure they don't spend it. Then by doing that you raise their own GPT so that they will get more gold to trade next turn.
Finally, on the last turn if necessary (most often it isn't necessary I've used this rarely) you can send away your total gold per turn multiple times for huge sums by simply backstabbing the AI and getting all your gpt back. Scummy, but since you'll win in 2 turns who cares.
Once you have finished the tree, grab Alluminium (AI deal or settle a city on alluminium) and just rush all the parts. Of course it's fine to buy parts in multiples waves, no need to wait for that.
Note: Faster Appollo can allow you to build one or 2 part if you wish.
(to be continued)
