Science game

My games tend to end by diplo or culture long before the space race begins, so I actually want to play a space race game. I know Babylon and Korea have science bonuses, but who else would be a good science civ?

Poland is a good choice (there is even an achievement for it if you're into that!) because they get so many extra social policies that you can fill out the Rationalism tree more quickly.

I haven't played as Maya yet, but they get a Shrine with bonus science. So if you got a few of those built early it could help you to get to universities a little faster and snowball from there.

I'm sure there are plenty of others, but that's a start!

Babylon and Korea are both great. Inca can be good (they tend to end up close to mountains for observatories), Aztecs can be good (floating gardens for population boost), Maya can be good (UB, free GS with long count).

Honestly though, especially at lower levels (I'd say below Immortal), pretty much every civ is fine for a science victory if you optimize your tech path.

cain3456 said:

My games tend to end by diplo or culture long before the space race begins, so I actually want to play a space race game. I know Babylon and Korea have science bonuses, but who else would be a good science civ?

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Many are suitable, but they all use slightly different tactics added to the same strategic core.

With Poland for example you get free SP/tenets and with that you can get pretty fast through Rationalism and to Scholasticism, which can really boost your tech lead. There's a strategy with a mixed Tradition/Liberty opening with that Civ (Poland's UA lets you do it without delaying the opening of Rationalism) described in a thread on the strategy & tips MB that really puts you in a good position for a SV.

The rest is the usual: heavy growth, good focus on getting the Science techs and putting up the science buildings, focus on farming/getting GS for Academies (ideally 3 or 4 around your NC city) and, if required, GE in good time to get the key science Wonders. GS for Academies until Public Schools, then saving them for bulbing in the late game, starting 8 turns after your Research Labs are up, though waiting even more can be beneficial too (if there are still ways coming to increase your science output, eg: Worker's faculties, several CS still left to ally, some big cities you might be able to obtain etc.). Having good Faith production for the endgame is a big plus, since it might let you buy more GS at the end. Then there's not missing out on the extra GS from Hubble, from Space Flight Pioneers an eventually from ISS etc.

If you play on the higher levels, then espionage for tech stealing is another key factor, and Trade routes. If there are cultural Civs not far behind you, it can be worth it to make a detour to grab the Great Firewall to negate their eventual Internet.

Not winning diplomatically is a matter of choice. Even with all or nearly all CS as allies, it's usually not enough anymore to win since the Patch. You can avoid Globalization, and if it comes to that, simply not assign all your delegates because, say, in your political vision you don't believe there should be a World Leader and "boycott" the vote.

Not winning by Culture before science is easier on the higher levels where global tech-ing rate is much faster and you miss some Culture Wonders anyway. On the lower ones when you could win almost by accident you need to learn to balance it out more and decided when your tourism/culture are enough. You're not after cultural domination, so you don't need all the Cultural Wonders, you don't need to assign as many cultural specialists, and you can use some Great Writers for culture boosts instead of for Works. You can grab artifacts in your territory or to deny a few to the AI, but you don't go out of your way to get others. You can choose to align yourself ideologically with the stronger cultures, eventually even open your borders for a while (if they're not too strong) so that you get protected from pressure. If it's not necessary, you can avoid buying OB from the AI over which you'd gain influence too fast, or else compensate for your lower tourism by buying OB and counting on the boost to stray afloat with the tourism leaders. It's quite possible to maintain a fairly strong, reasonable tourism that combined with a strong culture (that you'll want with Poland to obtain SP even faster anyway) that's enough to protect you from an AI winning by culture without risking Cultural Domination before a SV.

With a tall and wide Poland (that's also valid with any Civ played wide-ish, like Germany etc) you can choose Order for the science boost to factories, and make sure your production is up to the task of producing the Spaceship parts, or if you judge your science lead is enough with Space Pioneers + Hubble + Internal Station, prepare to farm or buy a few late game GE and with the level 3 tenet buy a few parts with those.

Having done pretty much all of this in my current Emperor game with Poland, I'm 3 part away from the SV, influential over 5 out of 11 Civs (with no chance to become Influential with 2 of the remaining ones). I have a lead of 12 techs over my next rival and still 3 GS to bulb, and at the bottom of the board Pacal and Morocco get a whooping 18 bpt each from my TR to them.

And you can also go Freedom, and in that case the focus is no longer on your production capacity, but on your treasury to buy spaceship parts (if you play Germany with Freedom, you can do both... extra science with Scholasticism, production from TR to city-states, tenet for influence from TR to CS etc.)

Another Civ I've won some great SV with on Emperor is Venice. It's also fairly easy, but I haven't tried it with anything but Freeedom (I imagine trying to produce or rush with GE the parts when you have only one city able to do it when it's been focused on growth/science to begin with would be a challenge).

With Venice the key is to be super tall and to get very tall puppets too. Getting a mountain for an observatory for that extra 25% is a massive help with Venice (but can be compensated by extra puppets). If it goes too slowly in the late game, buying a few more CS can be important (I bought three on the same turn in the Information era in a SV game, bought their RLs and one observatory and then 8 turns later the strength of my stored GS was much improved). On the higher levels, Venice benefits massively from its double TR in the early game - beakers are flowing in from the other Civs, and this can be prolonged longer by focusing on the top of the tech tree for as long as possible/safe. Piling up the gold to buy the spaceship parts while maintaining the CS allied for science and the rest is easy with Venice.

Those two Civs aren't specifically tailored for a SV (some even find Venice tricky for one, though I don't think so myself), but both these "strong civs" can easily get one. Another with which I found it sort of easy was Germany, with the heavy production.

I haven't tried it with other Civs since the patch, but I imagine the core science/growth strategy is the same. My general idea would to see how you can use the chosen Civ's unique benefits to ameliorate the general strategy for growth/science, and after the Apollo Program, also production or gold.

All civs with advantages for growth should do great, and eventually all those with faith, or gold, or production bonuses should be workable if exploited with a SV in mind.

I'm not sure if OP means some AI is winning the game before he can start building space race parts or if he himself is achieving an accidental cultural or diplomatic victory before he can start building space race parts.

If the later, are you playing Brazil? If so, that's probably going to happen every time you are playing them thanks to your UA. (Late game caravel induced Cultural victory)

Otherwise; to avoid a Diplomatic victory, you can simply abstain from the leader vote if you don't want to win that way; but making less of an effort towards getting city state allies would reduce that.

For avoiding accidentally winning cultural victories: don't build world wonders that have theming bonuses nor Eiffel Tower nor complete Aesthetics nor be Brazil / France. But at the moment, Cultural victories can often be the fastest form of peaceful victory even as generic civ; depends upon if any of the AIs are also after it.

I'm guessing assurbanipal of Assyria because you can take technologies when you take a city from a civilization that has more technologies so that you can get closer to the tech lead.

reddishrecue said:

I'm guessing assurbanipal of Assyria because you can take technologies when you take a city from a civilization that has more technologies so that you can get closer to the tech lead.

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It only works if you're behind in tech or you're beelining. If you're already in the lead, however, this doesn't really work quite as well, unless you take advantage of your tourism from Royal Libraries and influence people for the extra science per turn trade routes.

Poland is pretty nice as stated above for going heavy science, Babylon, Korea. its really the start, getting that fast national college, lately I even spend the time to get the GL, I find it totally worth the extra turns before a quick rush to NC. you get both up by turn 75, you will decimate in the science game early. grab a GS(Babylon) and plant one, and you will find yourself tripling their output

I just had a heck of a game with Poland though. so many social policies. it allowed for a perfect run down the order tree, where I was able to grab the 6 units free plus 6 actual units ideology bonus from the second tier. that in itself allows you to rush the heck out of science, then when the borders start to get a little to close for comfort, you drop that and basically turn them to infantry and its a beautiful time to destroy your neighbor who at this point hates you for your hopefully strong work with CS allies, voting down their awful proposals, and spreading religion.

Great Library: Very much difficulty level dependent. On Prince, you can successfully build it every time.
On Immortal, it's rare that you can actually succeed in completing it. (AI's starting worker on Immortal)
[King & Emperor start specific]

Poland is a very good civ all around; you basically have a free extra tree of social policies. One option is to use them for science; but Poland can also choose Ascetics to be that extra tree's worth to go after a cultural victory. Poland can even if going after diplomatic victory have Patronage tree be their extra tree.

When ideologies hit; Poland is just as good using the free ones for faster Freedom tenets as they are faster Order tenets as well.