Science victory under 250 turns, how to?

Using the OCC Science guide Ive been able to win a few games on King via Science with one or four cities, but I cannot manage to get my turn count much under 300. I am typically hitting education between 100-110, instabuying universities and starting on Oxford. In my last game, I completed Oxford on turn 120 with 15 pop in my OCC, and was able to get to architecture and the Porcelain Tower before my first round of RAs popped.

The problem is those techs between plastics and the end, I'm just not churning enough beakers to get there, even with 5-6 RA in place each window. What is the typical pop I should have in OCC at turn 200, and how many beakers should I be putting out. I ended up strapped for food and with my specialists going, was at 23 pop at 200, producing 589 science.

I'm just not sure how people get sub 250 science wins. I'm at 248 now, building ship parts, but I've got a good 20-30 turns before I'll have the techs ready build all parts, let alone finish them. Help!

Are you only trying for OCC, or regular games as well? I can't help for OCC, but I can give some pointers for regular ones.

My best attempts have been OCC, but I've done a couple tradition start with 4 or 5 cities and puppets around 290 turns.

Help with either is welcome.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

For a regular game(3+ cities), you're going to want to hit the following benchmarks:
1) Turn 110 Education or earlier. Can be a little later if you were delayed by taking a capital or two.
2) Around turn 160 Scientific Theory with 2-3 GS planted in your NC city.
3) Around turn 200 Plastics with money to rush-buy some research labs. You should have at least 6 GS(including ones from Hubble, bought with faith, and GS that will pop sometime before you finish your research) saved up to bulb 8 turns after maxing out your research. A GE would also be good to rush Hubble. Rationalism finisher should be used as late as possible to get the most out of it. I like timing it to get the spaceship factory research and Nanotechnology.

Some other tips:
-Some pre-building would be helpful to finish Apollo a few turns earlier.
-Work as many science specialists as possible.
-Always focus on population growth. Ideally your capital should be at least 25 population and satellite cities are 20+.
-Wonders that are helpful are: Oracle, Pisa, Porcelain Tower, and Hubble. All others are less important.
-RA's are good to have, but not necessary for sub 250 SV.
-If possible, try to go directly into Rationalism without side-tracking into other trees once you finish your starting SP tree.

Petra

I'd support budweiser, my best time was 262 with a great petra start, given the usual time I can pull out a spaceship is 280-290 turns. So yeah it definitely cuts some tens of turns down if you can have a petra capital.
I'm not suggesting you reroll, just keep in mind that your first successful attempt would very likely be a petra start.
I'd also like to add that for faster science you might try to rush buy universities.

Not that I ever look at the turn count, since I just try to win the specific game I am playing, and I can't compare it with other games in different terrains.

All these general guidelines are logical, but I have a few practical questions (I could also say as a response "Petra with salt", but that would be too brief)

1. Usually the capital is BOTH the best production city and the city with most food. Both Tradition and CS allies give extra food to the capital, and it is easy to get it big. Still, if you start planting GS everywhere, the net result will be to cripple production (unless you have very special kind of resources in your capital). Without production none of these wonders are certain. This is in fact my biggest question - do you intentionally destroy the capital as production city to get it a huge science factory?

2. The ideal would be to have NC and science in the second city, but that seems too situational to my understanding. Even building NC there might be a problem (unless you go for Liberty and you "burn" the GE from the end of the branch).

3. Can these things be done with all civs, or only with specific ones with certain bonus (i.e. gold or science)?

4. How much faith are you expecting to get, in order to get so many GS? And how are you going to spread this religion, if you only use the faith for GS?

5. And my most serious question: even if I add arbitrarily an observatory, the total increase in science is 200% (University, Research Lab, NC, Observatory). The maximum yield of an Academy is 12, which means that it gives at most 36 beakers (much less in reality, but I am magnanimous). Now, every tech after Plastics costs MINIMUM 4700 beakers, which means that there is no possible way for the Academy to be better that insta-getting the technology (of course, that applies EVEN MORE to the GS from Hubble). How on earth can such a thing as described here to be correct?

Played through an OCC science game tonight with Korea. Thought I had a great start, three wheat and two salt for Seoul, ended up at 37 pop, but finished the ship on turn 304. I'm uploading the save here if anyone wants to look. Another one where I hit Oxford pre 120. Main problem was I only had two saved to bulb when the lab went up. I also finish rationalism at an awkward time. Open to feedback if anyone has it, I'll probably try again tomorrow with Maya or Babylon.
Korea 304 Science Win (MODS)

-Uses Infinite XP from Barb mod, Info Addict, Religion Overview, Trade Opportunities mods.

atreas said:

Not that I ever look at the turn count, since I just try to win the specific game I am playing, and I can't compare it with other games in different terrains.

All these general guidelines are logical, but I have a few practical questions (I could also say as a response "Petra with salt", but that would be too brief)

1. Usually the capital is BOTH the best production city and the city with most food. Both Tradition and CS allies give extra food to the capital, and it is easy to get it big. Still, if you start planting GS everywhere, the net result will be to cripple production (unless you have very special kind of resources in your capital). Without production none of these wonders are certain. This is in fact my biggest question - do you intentionally destroy the capital as production city to get it a huge science factory?

2. The ideal would be to have NC and science in the second city, but that seems too situational to my understanding. Even building NC there might be a problem (unless you go for Liberty and you "burn" the GE from the end of the branch).

3. Can these things be done with all civs, or only with specific ones with certain bonus (i.e. gold or science)?

4. How much faith are you expecting to get, in order to get so many GS? And how are you going to spread this religion, if you only use the faith for GS?

5. And my most serious question: even if I add arbitrarily an observatory, the total increase in science is 200% (University, Research Lab, NC, Observatory). The maximum yield of an Academy is 12, which means that it gives at most 36 beakers (much less in reality, but I am magnanimous). Now, every tech after Plastics costs MINIMUM 4700 beakers, which means that there is no possible way for the Academy to be better that insta-getting the technology (of course, that applies EVEN MORE to the GS from Hubble). How on earth can such a thing as described here to be correct?

Click to expand...

1) You only plant GS until around Scientific Theory. This is usually 2-3 GS and they're normally on food tiles. Your production shouldn't be affected much if at all. My capital is almost always my best production city, reaching 250 production while building SS parts if it's pretty good terrain.

2) I've never built the NC in my second city. Much of the benefit of the NC is the early beakers that you get.

3) They can be done with any civ, but it's definitely easier with Babylon, Korea, Mayans, etc...

4) Good faith terrain is a big help. If you don't have that, then allying the religious CS will help get your fpt up. Though you might only be able to buy 1 GS if that's the case. If you have a religion and strong fpt, then you would spread pre-Industrial Era. After that, GPr's aren't automatically spawned anymore, so you start hoarding your faith for GS/GE later on.

5) Some people did the (complex) math for the break-even point of bulbing vs. planting. It came out to be around the time you research Scientific Theory. So you plant before that and save after. I'm definitely not going to do the math here, sorry .

Atreas, In my games I never had to actually cripple the productive capacities of my capital because there's alway enough tiles to settle GS. I mean tiles where no production boosting improvement is possible, as grasslands, or, with Petra, desert - whether with Academy or a Farm, their production is the same. I have no exact guidelines on when to stop settling GS's, but I definitely settle everyone before SC (barring an emergency bulb to get to the next era for civics) and stockpile everyone after Plactics. So, this nets to 2-4 academies, and that number of suitable tiles tiles is always available. Capital is alwayы NC city in my games, though I can imagine several situation where a better option might be available.

I tried it with civs like Rome, Carthage and Byzantium, I believe they;re just as good as any other.
Usually I opt for 3 faith GS, and 50 fpt is sufficient for this purpose if you start piling it in the Industrial Era.

budweiser said:

Petra

Click to expand...

+ ToA + HG + food beliefs + whatever food you can get. Did I mention food? Whatever you have + MOAR food.

atreas said:

1. Usually the capital is BOTH the best production city and the city with most food. Both Tradition and CS allies give extra food to the capital, and it is easy to get it big. Still, if you start planting GS everywhere, the net result will be to cripple production (unless you have very special kind of resources in your capital). Without production none of these wonders are certain. This is in fact my biggest question - do you intentionally destroy the capital as production city to get it a huge science factory?

Click to expand...

Don't plant all the scientists. Start saving them around the time you get public schools up. If you manage PT and Pisa, those are usually the last GS that should be planted. In addition, GP should be planted on high food tiles.

atreas said:

2. The ideal would be to have NC and science in the second city, but that seems too situational to my understanding. Even building NC there might be a problem (unless you go for Liberty and you "burn" the GE from the end of the branch).

Click to expand...

NC should be in capital.

atreas said:

3. Can these things be done with all civs, or only with specific ones with certain bonus (i.e. gold or science)?

Click to expand...

Some civs are stronger than others and on immortal/deity sometimes it means the difference between loss and win. On lower difficulties, you can execute with any of the civs, but of course finish dates will vary.
Strong science civs are: Babylon, Korea, Inca, Maya, Ethiopia, Siam, Persia, Egypt, Spain (if you are lucky), the Dutch (same), Arabia. A few others can work as well. Basically, on low-mid difficulties civs with military bonuses only (Japan, Germany etc) are slightly worse candidates, the rest are fine.

atreas said:

4. How much faith are you expecting to get, in order to get so many GS? And how are you going to spread this religion, if you only use the faith for GS?

Click to expand...

The more the better. Aim to faith buy at least two GS and one GE (3500 ).

atreas said:

5. And my most serious question: even if I add arbitrarily an observatory, the total increase in science is 200% (University, Research Lab, NC, Observatory). The maximum yield of an Academy is 12, which means that it gives at most 36 beakers (much less in reality, but I am magnanimous). Now, every tech after Plastics costs MINIMUM 4700 beakers, which means that there is no possible way for the Academy to be better that insta-getting the technology (of course, that applies EVEN MORE to the GS from Hubble). How on earth can such a thing as described here to be correct?

Click to expand...

See 1.


Ninjad... Twice.

Also, you should consider tempering your expectations on finish times. Going from a T290 victory to sub T250 is huge. The difficulty of reducing your finish time increases exponentially as your finish time gets lower. Going from 290 to 250 is much, much harder than going from 350 to 310. And going from 250 to 210 is a gigantic gap. If you normally win SV at 290, I would aim for a 270 victory and work from there. Otherwise, you'll just be frustrated because you likely won't be getting those sub 250 victories until you have more experience.

here is how to under t200

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=492208&highlight=tommynt

U dont need any wonder apart hubble

Wonders aren't necessary, but they don't hurt. One thing wasn't mentioned before, though, is that on king level RA's output isn't particularly high, since it's tied to your partner's bpt. Thus in order to clear late game techs you need to get your own bpt as high as possible. Either through war (more cities = more science) or trough growing your own cities bigger and also allying a bunch of CS while pumping the culture and picking Scholasticism. The latter is almost a must in OCC.

Don't get me wrong, I am currently usually having science victory around T275-300 at Immortal if I press slightly myself to aim for it (which I don't because I am currently trying to see if I was right that AI manages science victory around T325 at that level, plus I want to see how they do in the late game strategy - maybe I need to start playing on Deity to feel more pressure, but I enjoy Immortal). It is not a matter of disagreement with the general guidelines, but more of trying to be specific.

That being said, I will just say some more things about differences, and the main one comes from the number and quality of puppets you have. In my view, the important factor is to minimize the number of turns for a discovery, and this can hugely depend on the puppets - after all, your core cities are under your control and you choose the research buildings, but the puppets are out of control. Thus, their buildings will depend much on the acquisition date and the quality of infrastructure they had. Although in early-mid game they might easily have library+university after some turns, almost none of them will get a public house or research lab to my experience, which will make the later discoveries lasting longer (in turns) than the modern age ones.

If this is the case (and it usually is in my games, since I am a fanatic early warmonger), I save turns by delaying Oxford and closure of Rationalism, instead of rushing it. After all you want to save turns, not be the first to discover a specific tech (although this could also be the case sometimes). In fact, I read somewhere that in BnW they are going to somehow stop delaying closure of Rationalism, and I can understand why.

My fastest (T260-T270) victories were all a combination of great Petra start with puppets with jungle tiles. Probably I could milk them a bit to go under 260, but I am getting lazy when the game is obviously won. But to get around there I had first to learn how to "maximize" the puppet output by controlling the tile improvements building order around them. I also was lucky to get puppets with culture buildings inside, to expand their borders and cover the "good" tiles. Still, I most probably have to get used in using my Great Generals to cover that.

I admit I didn't know the Scientific Theory rule, but it fits to my understanding. But to save some turns I think that a very important and easy step is to find the correct moment for converting puppets into annexed cities, i.e. to change their focus from Gold to Science. Of course you hurt your policies (possibly not by much, if you are a bit careful and you can rush buy cultural buildings or even better faith ones) but you boost happiness (just have to rush buy a courthouse in them) - still, if you have done most of the job done leaving away perhaps only the last step of Rationalism then I see no harm, but huge benefits.

tommynt said:

here is how to under t200

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=492208&highlight=tommynt

U dont need any wonder apart hubble

Click to expand...

Wow! This is a really convincing way to go for a fast science victory.

You don't need to get any puppets for sub-250, but they definitely help. Most of my best SV times comes from peaceful play. That said, my bpt was woefully low in those games, so I have no doubt that take a capital or two would have shaved a few turns off my games.

Unresolved said:

Also, you should consider tempering your expectations on finish times. Going from a T290 victory to sub T250 is huge. The difficulty of reducing your finish time increases exponentially as your finish time gets lower. Going from 290 to 250 is much, much harder than going from 350 to 310. And going from 250 to 210 is a gigantic gap. If you normally win SV at 290, I would aim for a 270 victory and work from there. Otherwise, you'll just be frustrated because you likely won't be getting those sub 250 victories until you have more experience.

Click to expand...

Yeah, T300 for an OCC Science win is very good. When you look around you'll find that it's not among the absolute best ever, but the best ever OCC Science most certainly had ideal terrain and starting conditions. Which means they they were pulled off by skilled players over dozens and dozens of attempts. The skill is easier to get than the dozens of attempts, honestly. All of the things are the same on everyone's checklists, and no one who knows what they're doing is really puddling around wasting turns. So you might be skilled, but you might not want to do dozens of attempts to get 4 adjacent Maritimes, 3x Population goodie huts, etc, all in the same game.

And so T250 is a very ambitious benchmark for OCC. I would say that the all-out best Science victory times are around T200. And that's with gimmicks like the above, or the Legalism trick with Siam. To be only 25% slower than that as an OCC requires a very good start.

choose science victory condition Game of the month and play by yourself, and read after action reports of other players (you can even check save files and replays) and try the same map again. You can learn most, if not all, strategies you need to know for fast victory. To start, I recommend starting with one city NC and expand to tradition 4 city. do not try OCC - it looks okay till you get public school, but after that you need more developed cities to catch up and speed up your science.

Record the mistakes and if you think you can get better, practice again with the same map. Repeat if necessary. After playing 2-3 maps (with several replays), you can reach sub t250 for sure. This is what I did when I started to learn fast sci victory.

Usually skilled players take other capitals and annex them also, but to start, just focus on building your 4 cities. After labs are up, spt for your cap is around 350 and other cities around 150 (without observatory). Aim to get these numbers before t200.

glory7 said:

choose science victory condition Game of the month and play by yourself, and read after action reports of other players (you can even check save files and replays) and try the same map again. You can learn most, if not all, strategies you need to know for fast victory. To start, I recommend starting with one city NC and expand to tradition 4 city. do not try OCC - it looks okay till you get public school, but after that you need more developed cities to catch up and speed up your science.

Click to expand...

When I did a 237 science win it was diety OCC pre-patch with Petra. Are you saying this because of the patch?

If you ought to do sub 250 as OCC, I can provide you a game I played today particularly for this thread.

I must acknowledge however that as it was mentioned above, playing on King, for OCC science as opposed to aggressive warmongering expansion science is detrimental to turn-to-victory. I had almost everything lineup perfectly throughout the game and barely made the cutoff as T246 OCC SV as Korea. I was already top science into renaissance which pretty much cause RAs to be unbelievably weak, let alone the fact that I had to provide the gold for both parties most of the time and that the first wave had an added cost of 100g and subsequent ones had 200-300g added (usually from 200g diff and on, the science gain from it becomes almost useless).

Finished with a pop 49 ToA/HG/Petra/spa maritime CSs in the early game capital and used my 5 or 6 piled GS after 8 turns of building research/working all specialist slot regardless on type for the +4 korea/rationalism bonus for a total of ~1130 bpt OCC.

I rush bought university upon tech (around T102) hard built oxford in 3 turns and it perfectly lined up with clearing the top end so I could use the free oxford to pop observatory instead of the culture crap. I was completing the Oracle the next turn at the same time as my 7th policy (first after completing trad) came in so I had rationalism opener and +2 science per specialist on turn 105 or 106...

I played with specialists slightly in the late game to line up GS+GE+GM on the same turn 221 to rush hubble 2-3 turns later.

I had to use pilgrimage + that 2 faith per wonder follower belief to hit (increasingly) 125-190 FPT from the time GP purchases were available (@public scools) allowing me to purchase even the 6000 faith GS to cut 8 turns off the very last tech.

Anyway all this to say, I don't see how this could've been substantially improved "on king". The same map on, say, immortal could've lead to significantly better RAs throughout possibly shoving 15-30 turns off.


If you want the saves/further discussion on it, feel free to contact me in PMs. I've copied and zipped all autosaves (my config file is set to one save per 5 turns) in case you have any interest in it.