Fastest Science Victory

I finished the game on turn 204, following the advice and guides in this thread. Thank you so much to everyone who posted! For me the biggest suprise was to see how much the fast start can get you. With early university, the research really starts to be swift.

I did not plant the scientist, Ironfighter. There were many voices in the guides say that it is not good. But I suppose you must be right because you are much faster! Also, I did it differently from you with the national colege. And I stoled your city locations from the picture, so I don't desreve much credits.

It is a great map! No cahnce of attack.

It's tempting to plant as Korea, since you get the +2 science bonus and your late game bulbs are so strong that you don't need many GSs to finish the tree anyway. The academy also means you start building LToP a couple of turns earlier, which can be the difference between getting the wonder and losing it.

The computer got LtoP super-quick on my game. Whoever it was, dont rmember, they must have reached Renaissance in Priting Press AND used a Prophet to build the wonder.

hiawafer said:

The computer got LtoP super-quick on my game. Whoever it was, dont rmember, they must have reached Renaissance in Priting Press AND used a Prophet to build the wonder.

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Prophet Laughs of day

Oop I mean Engineer!

which is better in patronage, philanthropy --> scholasticism or consulates first? i've been testing out both philanthropy and consulates, but consulates just seems better since you get a lot of allies from just completing random quests and have a decent amount of influence with all cs so you don't need to spend as much gold in gifts

In my games using the tips in this thread, I went to Scholasticism for a nice early 'snow ball effect'. That way when you open Rationalism with Universities up, Science is already between 200 and 300. That which makes for a really quick drive to Scientific Theory.

What t2 do you guys take in freedom if didn't plant any academies? What about 1 academy?

I have sometimes found myself taking volunteer army for the gold (540 + 6 maintence free units), but I sometimes feel like arsenal of democracy is better. What do you guys think?

Universal Suffrage and Urbanization

Babinski said:

Yeah, 5 GS isn't alot . Did you bulb a few before? I try not to bulb any GS before plastics. I usually have 10+ GS when I hit plastics. If I have that, and a full wave of RA:s, 2 faith bought GS, a few natural borns after plastics and Hubble, I can finish within 30 turns from Plastics. Key thing is as many working specialists as possible in your cities when you bulb. After Plastics you fill all slots and sacrifice growth and aim for 1300+ beakers and you're good.

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Revisiting this post - Babinski, is 10+ GS by Plastics accurate for your usual game, as in you've had 11 and perhaps even 12 GS by Plastics, with several more coming before you finish the game? Are you hitting 14-15 'natural' (including LToP & PT) GS, plus 2 from Hubble, plus 1-3 from Faith for 17-20 total?!?

Blatc said:

Hmm, with Mayans you could go 5-6 city Tradition (1st expo helps with settlers), GE the NC and build Oracle to coincide with Theology, aiming to get down to Mercantilism. Would also let you start building guilds earlier.

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Just gave the first part of this a go, but changed plans as I had a very strong production capital, so I built a 5-city NC then settled 6th. I used T86 great person for GS (plant), hard-built LToP (bribed AI that was building it to war), and got GE in the T180s for Hubble. I made a couple significant mistakes:
*while letting cities starve late-game, I didn't factor in a caravan and lost several pop in my 2nd city
*bulbed 3 info era techs same turn despite the first one not finishing. It's not an overflow issue, I'm not sure how to describe it. Anyway, this wasted 2 turns.

I was a lot more aggressive in the early game, including WLTKD trade/DOW, which is new to me. Milestones were roughly
T98 Education
T138 Scientific Theory with 1 GS bulb (and 1 planted)
Wasn't done 6th University so did not use Oxford until the end
~T172 Plastics with Rationalism finisher. Bought 6/6 labs the next turn when I finished Big Ben; had recently hit Mercantilism with post-WF win great writer bulbs

Next Great Scientist comes at 1,400, so with 2 from Faith that means a total of 15 Great Scientists at T200 including 2 from Hubble, 2 from Faith, 1 from LToP, 1 from PT, and 1 from Mayan UA.

vadalaz said:

I won the Maya game on T207. Should've been T203, but I forgot you don't need Lasers for Nanotechnology and put my 6200 beaker overflow into it. :/

I missed LToP to Gandhi on T124 or 125 (on a 4 losing streak now) and I misplayed the endgame. Around T130 I saw Attila was getting crushed, so I quickly built 4 trebuchets, liberated a cultural CS and captured one of Attila's cities, which I sold for 2872 gold and 115 gpt to William. This was T162, so I could've gotten a wave of RAs in there. Instead, I saved the gold and bought 5 labs instantly and 2 more a bit later. I should've known better, missing LToP really hurts and on Deity gold for labs and SS parts is never a problem. This would've been a T197ish game if I played it right, I think.

Anyway, I thought the strategy itself worked well. For the Maya, Piety seems to be a decent alternative to Aristocracy as filler policies when you're playing a Liberty game. I finished Liberty in the end for an engineer to rush Hubble. Getting 5000 faith for 3 GSs was easy even with just one religious CS.

Spoiler :

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So, that makes T207 Mayans finishes with Liberty/Piety and Tradition/Commerce (Mercantilism).

Has anyone tried playing as a 'neutral' civ, or have baseline estimates of what kind of turn # milestones a neutral civ can hit? The early #s could also be based on a civ whose benefits don't come into play until later.

Garmeth made this video of a playthrough on Babinski's Poland which inspired me to replay the map to a t188 SV.

I went 5 city tradition, 4 cities before NC and 1 city after like usual. t69 NC, t91 education, t133 ST, t158 plastics. I signed 3 waves of RAs, right as I reached education, a bit before scientific theory and a bit before plastics. I ended the game with a pretty much perfect amount of science and didn't have extra.

Social policy order was something like tradition 6 patronage 3 (scholasticism side) rationalism 4 patronage 1 (consulates) commerce 1 freedom 3 commerce 2 piety 2 (needed this for enough faith to buy 3 GS) freedom 3.

This definitely could be faster. I wasted quite a bit of faith early game because I forget borobudur existed and I could have had a bit more a focus on City-State allies. Sub-185 possible.

Iamteehee said:

Garmeth made this video of a playthrough on Babinski's Poland which inspired me to replay the map to a t188 SV.

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Thanks for posting that. I really wanted to play the map, but couldn't because it requires DLC, and at last now I can vicariously enjoy it on video.

You are missing a few of the map packs, I had the same issue. Should be able to buy them from steam for less than five dollars.

Still struggling to break 200. I get research labs by 170, build in all cities by 180 and it still seems like it's taking forever (on the Spanish map). Not sure how to get from labs to to Hubble quickly

cbucks said:

You are missing a few of the map packs, I had the same issue.

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That's the problem — I don't know which ones because the game doesn't tell me.

If you go to steam it will tell you which dlc you don't have.

Ok well I did a turn 197 with NO OBSERVATORIES ( haha ) with Order with this modded civ, the halfings.
Their ability is basically to start with a medical lab in every city. They also have a water mill that gives +1 food and +1 culture to every river tile, and it counts as a culture building for tradition purposes ( so if you build monument first, then you get free water mills.

I just tried a random liberty/tradition mix type game to see how I could abuse this and it randomly finished at less than 200 with no observatories.
I gotta say, this is a pretty good civ yep

Says turn 198 no pic because dumb AI jammed an automated worker into my capital to prevent me from adding spaceship parts. Wow, just wow.

This was a super bad game too, no observatories is obviously awful.
But also, Greece and Kamehameha nearby always DoWing me, and all the AIs hating me right away for spamming 6 cities in the early game. So almost no RAs until late game.

But my cities were insane. I went for workshops before universities, don't know if that's a mistake. I did get Leaning Tower and Sistine Chapel and crushed World Fair solidly, but I still didn't even finish Rationalism. I finished Liberty though, to get a great scientist. No idea how much culture I would be having late-game.

My counterspy only got 1 guy, none of my spies managed to get any techs and basically I couldn't even attempt a single city-state coup all game and as a result had only CS friends, not allies, because Greece was in the game dumping 50 quadrillion gold on them all.

Modded civ = cheating since they are way out of balance, so T197 doesn't mean anything.