Great scientist generation optimization

[igorsrs]

I asked myslef this question a few days ago:
How can I get the largest number of great scientists to make SVs as fast as possible?

So far, my best outcome came out of:

• 5 city tradition empire
• Prioritize gardens and national epic before writers/artists guilds.
• Education ASAP (obviously), buy University in the capital the same turn, build them in cities that can do it in less than 13 turns (buy elsewhere)
• Priority on GS points wonders in the Capital (important). Oracle is not necessary, but helps a bit, porcelain is essential
• LToP seems too tricky, so I skip it.

On doing so, I get 9 GSs, in order, from:

• Capital - around the time the other cities get their universities
• Capital - Garden + National Epic will boost capital GS production, and get it faster than other cities
• Porcelain Tower (Capital) - This gives 2 GS points (base, more with multipliers), and makes RAs much stronger
• Capital - again! I may be forced to remove some people from other cities University slots for a few turns
• One from each non-capital - 4 of them
• Captial - With more GS points base and National Epic, the capital should generate one more GS in good time

This way, I can get a reliable SV around 110-125 turns after I hit Education.

Edit: see post below, for further optimization

 

[Equilin]

you need to specify civ, map type, and difficulty
cuz settler, prince and deity strategies are different.
from the Fastest Science Victory thread i think you should get 10+ total GS (12-13 i think) to blitz after Schools/Plastics.
Also GS is not the only thing that matters in fast SV, base beakers too. And wider (if done properly and early enough) is better for science, probably around 7 cities on deity.

 

[igorsrs]

Tried again, today, but adding a garden in one of the city expands, and buying the university in that one city too.
Got this:

But this map (old Deity challenge lineup 24) is broken (so much gold)...
And Arabia is monster of a civ...
And I got both Desert folklore, early Petra (turn 70ish), and Oracle
But I got a late-ish NC (turn 96).

So my GS order was: Mecca (garden+NEpic) - Baghdad (garden) - Mecca - Porcelain Tower (Mecca) - Mecca - Medina/Damascus/Narjan (don't remember the order) - Baghdad - Mecca
As I said, only bought Universities in Mecca and Baghdad, built elsewhere, to generate the first Scientists fast in those cities with gardens and National Epic.
Used the gold I didn't spend in the other 3 city universities in City states, and it was worth every penny.
In the end, I had almost no GS points left in those cities, so I hope I made the most efficient use of them.

And I'm mostly sure, to get optimal SVs, 5 cities tradition are the way to go (provided there is room for 5 decent cities and Ok-ish ground).
Maybe a with a 6th city, I could go only buying the university in the capital, but I fear it would slow me down.
In a bad map, 6 cities may be a bit better than 5, if we end up needing it to get more specialists slots for science.

 

[so_what]

There are some Civs (Poland, Austria, Venice, India, Inca, Aztec) that favour tradition more. But otherwise, I think liberty is on average better for SV on deity pangea. It can give a consistent SV in almost every situation on pangea.

My take is that,
1. For a tradition-favoured map, tradition can achieve a slightly better timing than liberty.
2. For a liberty-favoured map, liberty will beat tradition quite squarely.
3.For a really bad map with poor yields, or a warmonger neighbours. These are the games where most tradition players will throw their hands up and quit. Yet, liberty can still deal with it.

 

[igorsrs]

Well, sorry, but..., the idea of this thread is on optimizing the generation of Great Scientists, for fast SVs (about turn 200 - 230 on standard speed).
It's not really about Tradition vs Liberty, I'm sure there are specific threads for that somewhere in the forum.
I wanted to showcase this one plan I had, to generate 10 Great Scientists in 100 - 115 turns after getting Education (assuming the player can build Porcelain Tower).

 

[Equilin]

i think you should check out the Fastest Science Victory thread still. You should get better answers reading stuffs there compared to asking a new question.

 

[zxcvbob]

Just found this thread. I've been playing at emperor level and trying to optimize science. The best I've managed to achieve was science victory in 1918 (don't remember how many turns, about 200 at quick pace) with Poland and 4 or 5 cities; I think it was 5. (Tradition and Liberty, you can do that with Poland ) I haven't even come close to that with Babylon, and haven't tried Korea yet. Arabia is an interesting choice...