Science Victory Guide (Any Difficulty)

I think saving great scientists until the end could be a negative impact on your gpt. This could apply to other great people such as great artists or great writers which also cost gold in maintenance per turn. Putting great people to work as soon as possible could save you gpt.. making academies could also give you more science per turn instead of saving the great scientist for the later eras unless the scientists are born in the later eras. Early era scientists for academies and later era scientists for the technology boost.

It's a generally accepted fact to plant before st and bulb after to maximize science, so I'm just following that rule. And 12 GS with 8 turns research each = about 100 turns of research saved with this strat.

A couple things in here I disagree with/have a different perspective on:

1. Archers are awesome! You always want a few early. I'd target 3-4 by turn 40. It's ok to delay other stuff a bit. Getting Archers isn't just about defense -- fighting barbs gives great return on investment. Completing City-State quests, recovering captured Workers (either for personal use or for more CS influence), stealing AI workers, etc -- Archers will actively boost your economy and pay for themselves before too long. Seriously, City-State influence is incredibly valuable, and Archers are the best way to acquire it.

2. On higher difficulties, you nearly always want to build Caravan before Library. You'll usually have time for both before National College, and an external trade route will be worth at least as much science as a Library AND will get you gold. I'm a big fan of super-early Caravans -- i.e., before turn 40. After the first trade route expires, then it's often better to switch to food routes. Food routes are very powerful, but you don't always have the spare happiness for them to be worth it in the early game.

3. Selling embassies depends a lot on the geography and the particular AI. Yes, giving an embassy might cause an AI to covet your lands, but letting them see your capital might also enable them to send you a trade route that would otherwise go elsewhere. If you don't think there's too much risk of them DOWing you, go ahead and sell the embassy.

dragonxxx said:

Memoryjar - faith bought great persons do not increase any counter (except their price in faith).

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Sure ? I was pretty sure every GS,GE or GM delay next GS, GE or GM even if it wasn't bought with faith.

Memoryjar said:

Sure ? I was pretty sure every GS,GE or GM delay next GS, GE or GM even if it wasn't bought with faith.

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Yeah, I am absolutely sure about that Only "free" great persons generated from wonders and policies up the counters. Those you buy with faith are completely free.

Damned !
Thanks.

i have a hard time using Pisa for GS, if i can even get it. i almost always use it for a GE for some necessary wonder, sometimes on PT. but i also usually generate two GS from faith, the one for 1000f and 1500f so 12 GSs is still what I usually generate, unless Im Babylon and get about 14.

So, just starting to get the hang of this start. Got a fairly decent start on my last one, but I was next to Shaka, with Atilla and Japan also on the map (small Pangea). I got Edu at T110, had to build 4th city after NC ~T75, then Shaka declared war (he settled a city next to my cap and then warned me for settling near him? wtf?) and a barb camp spawned next to me boarders...

On T170 I was still ~ 20 turns off ST, as I couldn't get many Uni's built due to having to spam walls and comp bows/xbows...

I do have a couple of questions.
How do you deal with the negative diplo for 'settling cities too aggressively'? I seem to get this hit often and it generally comes with a DoW some point around Education.

How do you keep up (timeframe) when you get DoWed, before you can complete Uni's and don't have the $$ to buy them?

corranhorn01 said:

How do you keep up (timeframe) when you get DoWed, before you can complete Uni's and don't have the $$ to buy them?

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I don't think you do. War just slows stuff down, no real way to avoid that unless you are playing the Inca or something and have production coming out the wazoo.

Memoryjar said:

17. With 4cities 1100 bpt is low after plastics, with order. 1300 is better. With Liberty is different.

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This seems extremely optimistic. My typical 4-city bpt is about 1000-1100, even with Order. If you have an observatory in every city, sure, but that's rare. Without an observatory in the cap, especially, you shouldn't expect much more than ~1000.

TheGrumpyBuddha said:

I don't think you do. War just slows stuff down, no real way to avoid that unless you are playing the Inca or something and have production coming out the wazoo.

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I thought that'd be the case, just wanted to make sure.

However, that brings me to my first question .

my 2 cents

18.) All cities must be growing a new in 10 turns or less, the exception is when building a contested world wonder, the world's fair or when a city has just been founded when you will be working the 4/3/2 tiles first.
19.) First 3 trade routes are sent to the capital, in which you build the Iron works.
20.) You only need 1000 or so to win the world's fair and a strong capital can almost solo it on the lower levels.
21.) Cities must be able to sustain themselves from the beginning without the need for trade routes. If they do then it's a bad spot.

corranhorn01 said:

I thought that'd be the case, just wanted to make sure.

However, that brings me to my first question .

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Regarding your first question: if you know your neighbor is Shaka you generally need to keep him occupied to avoid his DoW. either bribe him to DoW or bribe others to DoW him early. sometimes the cost is just a few gpt or 1 lux or some small combination with horses/iron or embassies. this is roughly around t75-100. This works with any neighbors but is most handy for aggressive ones. It lets you get to Edu soon after and build Unis (maybe buy one but that depends on yer economy/lux), then switch to more defense (walls/units) if the wars start to wrap up with peace deals over the next 20-30 turns. this also leads to other added diplo benefits with having common enemies down the line.

terrain and neighbors really do define the game, imo, and need to be managed as much as the tech/stat benchmarks. picking your friends correctly can be tough but helps very much in surviving the early game delays.

Hammer Rabbi said:

i have a hard time using Pisa for GS, if i can even get it. i almost always use it for a GE for some necessary wonder, sometimes on PT. but i also usually generate two GS from faith, the one for 1000f and 1500f so 12 GSs is still what I usually generate, unless Im Babylon and get about 14.

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For Pisa I usually go along the lines of:
SV: Take GS
CV: Take GE

Getting a GE for a science victory is very questionable. Porcelain is often easy to build if you do it early enough.

However for a CV I'd say it just depends on how good your production is. If you can spam wonders you probably should take the GS and build wonders the hard way. But if you are in a rush to grab Uffizi you should probably get the GE.

Hammer Rabbi said:

Regarding your first question: if you know your neighbor is Shaka you generally need to keep him occupied to avoid his DoW. either bribe him to DoW or bribe others to DoW him early. sometimes the cost is just a few gpt or 1 lux or some small combination with horses/iron or embassies. this is roughly around t75-100. This works with any neighbors but is most handy for aggressive ones. It lets you get to Edu soon after and build Unis (maybe buy one but that depends on yer economy/lux), then switch to more defense (walls/units) if the wars start to wrap up with peace deals over the next 20-30 turns. this also leads to other added diplo benefits with having common enemies down the line.

terrain and neighbors really do define the game, imo, and need to be managed as much as the tech/stat benchmarks. picking your friends correctly can be tough but helps very much in surviving the early game delays.

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It was really weird this game, he actually wouldn't take bribes to DoW anyone -.-. I think I pissed him off a little much somehow (settling cities too aggressively, warned him for settling near me - he planted a city NEXT to my cap, warned me for settling near him... and coverting lands I owned). I got Atilla to DoW him, but that cost me a fair bit and he only warred for 5ish turns.

I didn't lose a city, but lost close to 30ish turns of growth, etc due to the barbs that happened to spawn at the same time.

However, that half of answers the question (and thank you for the response!). Is there a way to negate the diplo hit for 'settling cities too aggressively', as that seems to be the common factor of the early DoWs I'm getting against me. I'm settling 3 extra cities by T60-75.

That said, the map that caused me to ask this question was small pangea with Japan to my south (he went for Wonder spam), Shaka to my immediate left and Atilla above Shaka, so it was a bad map for testing this, at least when I'm only just trying this start.

small pangea means less room for everyone. your proximity is already very close. any city will be considered 'lands they covet'. there is pangea plus and continents plus specifically designed to increase the room on normal map sizes (by pushing the CSs to islands and the coast). maybe experiment with them. also, Japan, Shaka, Attila as immediate neighbors is quite unfortunate, definitely not the norm for most games if random opponents are selected.

Yea, I normally play on Normal or Huge maps, I just wanted the game to go a little quicker I guess so wanted to try a small map .

It's a great guide.
You should only buy the last SS part, you can hard-build the others before finishing Particle Physics.
I might have mentioned which are the best civs to do this with.

Few Questions:

1) Fully staff the specialist slot? Can you explain this, I am unfamiliar with the specialist slots in the city.

2) At what point should cities go into research for production?

3) Why staff the guilds, since this is a science not culture victory?

4) Is there a max to how large cities should be?

5) After plastics, what tech should be aimed for in the tech tree?

rover6695 said:

Few Questions:

1) Fully staff the specialist slot? Can you explain this, I am unfamiliar with the specialist slots in the city.

2) At what point should cities go into research for production?

3) Why staff the guilds, since this is a science not culture victory?

4) Is there a max to how large cities should be?

5) After plastics, what tech should be aimed for in the tech tree?

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1. Some buildings give you specialists slots. For example universities give 2 scientists slots. You can make some citizens work these slots in city management. You should fully use scientists slots.

2. After labs

3. Guilds give culture and artists/writers give goldenage / culture. They are needed to grab science social policies.

4. No, bigger the better.

5. Fertilizer and then Rocketery+Satellites. Top techs if you have more time before Appollo and would like more trade routes.