Science Victory

[grom358]

I used to play I think it was Civ 3 over 10 years ago, and just started getting back into it with Civ 5. Currently playing on prince difficulty almost at turn 250 with +550 science per turn and thinking I'm not going to get enough research done in time to get my science victory before Time victory (I had to dip into the military science part of tree, cause I had 3 aggressive civs to deal with).

I started with unlocking the tradition tree cause I only started with 4 cities. I have something like 12 now, and spending my social points on the Rationalism policy.

What are some of the key points to achieving a science victory quickly?

I putting libraries, universities into every city. Only just now working on public schools. I have 2 cities that have there production set to science.

[otomik_]

try Babylon, China, India, Korea and try for a smaller number of larger cities rather than many small cities.

[Tabarnak]

Originally Posted by grom358

Currently playing on prince difficulty almost at turn 250 with +550 science per turn and thinking I'm not going to get enough research done in time to get my science victory before Time victory

Not true. You can finish way before

Build growth(Tradition!) and public schools. Run scientists everywhere. Sign RAs with DoFed civs. Then research labs for more science. You have 12 cities, this is more than enough.

[Esperr]

Porcelein tower and rationalism equals a huge increase in RA's. Max out specialists for research when you can, take freedom for the food and hapiness bonus and rationalism obviosly. Hanging gardens is really good for super rapid growth in a city and National college is a must early.

And you can pull off a science vic by turn 230-300 on standard easily.

[grom358]

In the GOTM #40 challenge I managed science victory in 337 turns. But I want to improve on this and get a science victory in less then 300 turns.

The settings I plan to use:
Civ: Babylon
Difficulty: King
Map: Continents
Promotion Saving: Yes
Policy Saving: Yes
Resource Type: legendary start

Some questions.. when to bulb scientist versus using them for Tile improvements?

When to replace farms with Trading Posts?

Should I stick to 4 cities? Or should I be warmonging and creating puppets as well?

What order to reasearch in? Should I beeline to research labs? Then go back to the other tree?

[ifinnem]

12 cities is probably too many for a fast science victory as you want to finish tradition and rationalism and maybe 1x order to be able to guy a faith GE for the Hubble

Go tall, learn to grow big cities, beeline Education then each major science building tech, ignore most wonders except Pisa, PT and later hubble. Settle a few GS then save them a bulb after RL labs have been in place for 8 turns.


On prince you can use the GL of course but that won't work on higher levels.

[ifinnem]

Originally Posted by grom358

In the GOTM #40 challenge I managed science victory in 337 turns. But I want to improve on this and get a science victory in less then 300 turns.

The settings I plan to use:
Civ: Babylon
Difficulty: King
Map: Continents
Promotion Saving: Yes
Policy Saving: Yes
Resource Type: legendary start

Some questions.. when to bulb scientist versus using them for Tile improvements?

When to replace farms with Trading Posts?

Should I stick to 4 cities? Or should I be warmonging and creating puppets as well?

What order to reasearch in? Should I beeline to research labs? Then go back to the other tree?

Try normal start pangea for good settings...

Getting some puppets does help with gold etc but its not critical. As long as its not at the expense of growing your core and signing RAs its ok

Farms -> TPs won't make a big difference regarding turn times so don;t worry too much. Keep growing!

Yeah basically beeline Public schools. I find this works well: Education -> PP (Pisa) -> Architecture -> Sci Th -> Chemistry (mine boost) -> Industrialization -> Fertilizer -> Elec -> Plastics -> At Th (tx MadD) -> Satellites (lots of bulbing) for Hubble via faith GE -> Robotics for Spaceship factories -> Rest of top part of tree

There is a whole thread on bulbing vs settling but basically settle a few GS and stop settling when you are pretty close to Sci Theory

[Tachii]

I would always take a couple of puppet cities early on. If you want to improve your time, puppet cities (especially if you get it early, before industrial period), you will have a good amount of gold to bribe CS (get patronage science policy before you go down rationalism), and by the time you get rationalism policies, you'll get another boost in science as most of your puppet tiles should be trading posts. Also, by the time of industrial period, if you did puppet cities already, your steady stream of gold can be saved to buy public schools and research labs instead of producing them, especially in your high populated cities.

By turn 250 I think I'm usually getting around 1000+ science or so (On Immortal).

[ifinnem]

Originally Posted by Tachii

I would always take a couple of puppet cities. If you want to improve your time, puppet cities (especially if you get it early, before industrial period), you will have a good amount of gold to bribe CS (get patronage science policy before you go down rationalism), and by the time you get rationalism policies, you'll get another boost in science as most of your puppet tiles should be trading posts.

By turn 250 I think I'm usually getting around 1000+ science or so (On Immortal).

I agree but ideally you do not want to take Patronage until you have the left side of Rationalism if at all

[Tachii]

Well that's up to the context. If I were allying say, 5 CS by that time (not a completely ridiculous number), then I'd get the patronage science policy first (but probably get rationalism opener ASAP once renaissance), I wouldn't go down that fast since you need a good amount of trading posts to really utilize the second policy and the RA boost is alright, but if you aren't allied with 2 or more civs, it's not that useful either.

[ifinnem]

Originally Posted by Tachii

Well that's up to the context. If I were allying say, 5 CS by that time (not a completely ridiculous number), then I'd get the patronage science policy first (but probably get rationalism opener ASAP once renaissance), I wouldn't go down that fast since you need a good amount of trading posts to really utilize the second policy and the RA boost is alright, but if you aren't allied with 2 or more civs, it's not that useful either.

Oracle -> Rationalism opener as soon as Tradition is done should be the approach

If you are trying to win a fast victory you need RAs so that policy helps alot. Plus the TP policy includes +17% on unis which is significant by that point

[Tachii]

I dunno about below Immortal but there's little chance for the Oracle to still be there by the time you enter Renaissance. Unless your science is ridiculously good already and beelined for a Renaissance tech or something.

[ifinnem]

Originally Posted by Tachii

I dunno about below Immortal but there's little chance for the Oracle to still be there by the time you enter Renaissance. Unless your science is ridiculously good already and beelined for a Renaissance tech or something.

Nope you should be getting it around T110 and its often there

[TandooriChicken]

With a hammer-friendly start, GL usually consistently achievable on King and often Emperor, crapshoot on Immortal, and, since Gods and Kings, near impossible on Deity unless you are very fortunate (or selective) in your choice of opponents. Make sure you are ready to take either Philo or IW with the free tech.

The technique is Pottery-Writing-Mining-Calendar, build order is Scout (assuming huts enabled)-worker-(something till writing done)-GL and chop as soon as mining completes. Babylon, Korea, +/- Egypt are opponents you would prefer not to have in the game.

Make sure you settle on a hill or a hammer resource or, ideally, a hammer resource on a hill. (note: settling on stone or marble requires an additional tech to gain the benefit).

If you get lucky and pop a hut for one of the techs (especially mining so you can pre-chop while finishing Writing), GL before turn 35 is no problem.

[teakbois]

One thing i dont think ive seen mentioned: Observatories. Only built next to mountains, but they give a huge science boost and they come fairly early on (compared to research labs anyway)

[Tachii]

Originally Posted by ifinnem

Nope you should be getting it around T110 and its often there

Thing is I also don't do the widely popular Tradition approach many people seem to be doing lately. And I don't think I'm reaching the Renaissance as early as T110, at least not on Immortal anyways. But I never really focused on the turn number, so I can't say much here.