An Unofficial Science Competition -- paying homage to Mesix

In my opinion, it is all about optimizing the early game. Start not on the shore, but on the hill next to it - first, you get extra production and second, it is safer against an attack - even if you play Korea. Next, you can optimize growth. Buy a tile with the jungle, then buy the wheat tile. Buy the silver tile too (as Mining is faster to open than Calendar) and build a mine, then start selling. Build granary before GL. This provides really good initial growth and some gold to boot. I also like to let the barbs destroy the mine, cause I can quickly rebuild it and resell the luxury (it's a trick I picked up in my Deity OCC games, as nothing guarantees plenty of luxuries to sell).

This way you get the upper hand, so then it is up to you to decide what do you want to do - tech up or wage war. In all my games Harald and Caesar were constantly harassing me, and DOWing me regularly - so I may well do what Mesix did in the end. To hell with the RA's...
 
t250 Korea

Spoiler :

722 BPT
Still 4 cities
Full Tradition, Right side Commerce, Freedom Opener, Rationalism and Secularism
RAs a re sparce and am wishing I had 2 more cities, but happiness is also scarce.

Rome is a super power and is rivalling me in tech. I am kinda cash poor for weapons upgrade.

Ballistics in 4, 3 techs to Apollo. Its going to be real slow self researching all that.




t250 Maya
Spoiler :

At least I am improving over my Koea Game.

915BPT
7 Cities
Rockety in 4 turns.
Full Libery, 2 Commerce, Left side Rationalism.

Settled in place. I feel the missing border pops from Tradition hurt me bad this time.

 
I think the map might be better if the Settler was on the hill to the west where several people prefer to settle and the tile the settler is currently on is a grassland. This would give the player the option to settle in place (on the hill) or move 1 space east to the coast and still settle on the opening turn. I guess as it is now, the player must choose whether to move 1 tile onto the hill at the cost of a turn (which can be made up with the extra :c5production:) creating an interesting opening choice for the player.
 
Ruins ruin (pun not intended) the experience.
Mayans start +1Pop+20Culture.
Bablyon start with tech (not writing) and map.

I have tried mayans 7C and they start very slow. And everyone hated me. Around turn 150 I exploded went from 130B to 300B in around 15 turns.
I still tihnk the mayans are not good for science. At least not in Deity.

I'm going to try my first run with this map as the Maya, since they're being neglected so far. Those figures don't seem particularly bad for those turn numbers, and Korea will be optimising at about the same time, only likely while having had fewer beakers per turn earlier in the game.
 
t300 Korea

Spoiler :

Around 1144 BPT
I added 1 more city but it is still growing. I guess I will call it off here. I am probably still 50 turns away. I guess 6 cities by turn 200 along with control of the Denish valley are desirable here.

While I think I made decent progress through the tech tree, some other elements of the game were missing. It would have really helped my cause if I had had the cash to buy all the science buildings in my cities on the turn they were researched. That and very poor early scouting was probably the big factors.

I settled on the coast.

 
Do you need all the released DLCs to play this map and the Ancient Wonders pack?

I just bought the Incas (+Spain duh...) and I'm gonna shell out for the Korea + AC combo anyway. But I'm not that interested in buying the Polynesia DLC. I think Korea and Polynesia are the only civs I don't have.

i didnt set it up with any DLC disabled but technically not all the DLC is in this game. Korea, GnK, Inca and Denmark are in the game, but not Polynesia. Try the save to see if it will load.
 
ruins are random, i get it, but this is also how any "normal" game goes. I did find more than I expected in this one but I didnt set it up to add any extras or anything. and for some reason, denmark waited 40+ turns to get one near him.

but for me this isnt about optimal starts (like on the hill or not) but about a test or comparison of all these civs, assuming all things being equal (with barbs and ruins being the only x-factors). if you think moving to the hill will ultimately shave off more turns than the 1 you took to move there then do it. If you finish the game with Korea on t247 and Babylon on t251 and those 4 turns were mostly due to something like a free tech from ruins then it was negligible to begin with. anything less than 5-10 turns being the difference isnt going to necessarily prove any one's point as to who is the better sci civ.

in statistics, differences have to be significant (and repeatable) to make sure it isnt some outlier and thus thrown out of the measurements. while it will be quite boring for some, replaying this many times will actually be able to measure who can finish the same board fastest. (but of course, that argument can be thrown out too, because that would be specific to this map when another map might provide completely different results.)

anyway, just clarifying the end desires. sorry about the map not being optimal to everyone, i tried to not skew things to be so favorable as it would be seen as really cooking the books on results. outside of known opponents, and couple of tile adjustments, this really was a standard Emperor map.
 
i didnt set it up with any DLC disabled but technically not all the DLC is in this game. Korea, GnK, Inca and Denmark are in the game, but not Polynesia. Try the save to see if it will load.

If a DLC is enabled it is required to be able to load the save even if it's a DLC civ that isn't in the game.
 
Well, it's not a problem. The DLC's only improve the game, so they are well worth it.

The only thing that bothers me, is that this map sure gives you a run for your money. Having Denmark and Rome as your neighbors means you're in the world of hurt unless you do something about it. This isn't really a problem, but it helps Babylon big time. Babylon can OCC, turtle and tech up easily, while Korea and Maya will be forced to get creative in the early game.

However, I gotta admit that I am having heaps of fun in my last game as Korea. I teched up, made a Tradition-Honor opening (!!) got the Uni's, (un)expectedly got DOWed by Denmark, destroyed them (and the freaking Caesar decided to take advantage and poached a city) and then squarely DOW'ed me too. Now as I march towards Rome, I expect getting more puppets than I can maintain without dropping to -10 happiness... But I will find a way out of this :D

Problem is, Hiawatha isn't sleeping and got to play the crazy wonderbuilder :p
 
it's a decent tough board for Emperor. Rome first came at me with legion and ballistas when I had 2 crossbows, a pikeman, and a Knight (from Sidon who i didnt even know i was friends with). Rome already had about 5 cities and one of Denmark's puppets. Rome also came at me with ballistas and legion when I had Machine Guns, Cav, Lancer, and Artillery. Those 4 units killed over 20 of his units through the eras (with the Oligarchy bonus from a garrison). I never made peace with them through the whole game, even when I had bombers and helicopters to his great war infantry. They werent a real threat to me ever.

You can OCC with babylon but will it ultimately mean a quicker win time than 4-city or any other strat with the other civs? just because you "need" to delay certain advancements for mining or archery doesnt mean much because you will need to do that with everyone, Bowmen being irrelevant to the argument. Bowmen help you to delay Construction for comp bows, that's about it.
 
It's impossible to finish earlier with only 1 city vs 4 when you really know what to do.

Another influent point is cs. In one try i managed to ally Tyre around turn 40 and another time the barb camp was dead before he suggested me to destroy it.

Other cs are pretty far away. Making 2 groups of 2 archers and send them north to kill barbs and their camp when they ask for it will ensure you a couple of important allies when you will need them if you expand over 4 cities. I realized this a bit late.

I'm playing the 3rd playthrough(always as Babylon). 1st one was for map knowledge and made some unusual tests for my 2nd(didnt go well :lol:). I will probably play more than 120 turns because i need to really calculate how much Korea can ''catch'' Babylon's rocket(free gs). Some pictures will follow.

Edit : About ruins...so much of them to catch! I popped 2x:c5citizen: and 2x:c5culture: in 1 playthrough. A pop 6 Babylon before turn 30 is just insane.
 
It depends. I am very interested in trying my hand at a Korea turtle (not turtle ship) game with 4 cities. Although in my current one this is exactly where I will be (Seoul + 3 Danish cities). At least the Messenger of the Gods pantheon is paying off :)
 
so far in the couple of tries ive had, 4 cities is good but i havent been able to get 4 good hammer cities. usually 2 of them are okay and some get taller than the cap but parts productions becomes difficult. im struggling for a solid sub-300 win. at best theyve been high 280s and 290s which isnt that great to me. i havent tried maya yet but they were included as mesix used them in his own competition. it will take a new set of skill for me to think Maya can compete with Bab/Korea.

my first try was to see if i could deny religion benefits and focus on more sci efficiency but that didnt work out very well. +2 faith from wonders usually funds all my faith bought scientists. without that i lose out on 2-3 by the end of the game amd thats with any civ.
 
Science Victory for the Mayan
Turn 324... bpt at 1340 with 4 cities.
When the final piece was ready I just researched Nuclear Fission (just one tech too many!!)

I opened with a worker to hurry the ToA. It went well with my Pantheon Fertility Rights in the early going.

I managed to settle 6 academies. My next great person spawn was going to be a great scientist on t325. My spawn count in my cities was at 1900. Besides all the Great Scientists I also managed to spawn a Great Artist and a GE. I used this GE to hurry the Sydney Opera House which coincided with my final policy choice. I took Universal Suffrage and Free Speech to finish out Freedom Policy on t316

I finished out three Policies: Tradition, Rationalism, and Freedom. I took no other policies from any other tree

My city sizes:
Capital @ 32 with 705 bpt. My final space part took only 3 turns to build @ 230 hammers!!
Tikal @ 16 with 167.5 bpt.
Chichen Itza @ 24 (coastal city) with 166 bpt
Uxmal @ 11 with 127.5 bpt
 
Gee, Mesix, you are kinda bloodthirsty these days :) First Denmark, now Rome... that's 2 capitals in the vicinity of your own as puppets. Nice.

The thing is, in the end it all falls to who gets science victory first. Unfortunately, even if good, my Babs run was unimpressive. I will try the others today and tomorrow too.

I believe that is a common strategy. I usually get the two nearest capitals as my 3rd and 4th cities (if they're good enough) no matter what civ I play and what victory condition(s) - except if I'm doing OCC. I just don't understand people allowing two close neighbors to grow and expand. ("close" is the operative word)
 
I believe that is a common strategy. I usually get the two nearest capitals as my 3rd and 4th cities (if they're good enough) no matter what civ I play and what victory condition(s) - except if I'm doing OCC. I just don't understand people allowing two close neighbors to grow and expand. ("close" is the operative word)

I should probably be more aggressive, and at least wipe out/curtail one early neighbour, but quite often one of your close neighbours will be the first civ to offer you a DoF, so you can form an alliance early and use them as a buffer against mutual enemies (chances being, if a civ is in a position to threaten you militarily, they will also be in a position to threaten your friend - and for that friend to threaten them).
 
I'm trying this out right now, did a first playthrough as korea, so now i know where everything is I'm doing a new playthrough with each of the 3 teams, starting with korea. I'll post the results soon as i finish.
 
it's a decent tough board for Emperor. Rome first came at me with legion and ballistas when I had 2 crossbows, a pikeman, and a Knight (from Sidon who i didnt even know i was friends with). Rome already had about 5 cities and one of Denmark's puppets. Rome also came at me with ballistas and legion when I had Machine Guns, Cav, Lancer, and Artillery. Those 4 units killed over 20 of his units through the eras (with the Oligarchy bonus from a garrison). I never made peace with them through the whole game, even when I had bombers and helicopters to his great war infantry. They werent a real threat to me ever.

You can OCC with babylon but will it ultimately mean a quicker win time than 4-city or any other strat with the other civs? just because you "need" to delay certain advancements for mining or archery doesnt mean much because you will need to do that with everyone, Bowmen being irrelevant to the argument. Bowmen help you to delay Construction for comp bows, that's about it.
Bowmen have been far from irrelevant in my game. I would say they were quite a game changer at this point. Being able to take more hits than a regular Archer might have made a difference in only losing 1 against Harold and none against Caesar (mostly due to better positioning against Caesar). Having Harold and Caesar out early will allow me to concentrate on more important things.

I don't have any update past turn 80 as I didn't play last night at all.
 
I believe that is a common strategy. I usually get the two nearest capitals as my 3rd and 4th cities (if they're good enough) no matter what civ I play and what victory condition(s) - except if I'm doing OCC. I just don't understand people allowing two close neighbors to grow and expand. ("close" is the operative word)
Exactly! I need breathing room...
 
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