[GS] Guide to fast Science Victory - Religious Russians

[The Highwayman]

@Bangau
For my Khmer science game, my strategy was similar to the Russian one. I went straight for Astrology and a holy site and shrine in my cap and first expand. I chose the following beliefs: work ethic for the big production spike, religious colonization to save faith and guarantee my religion in every founded city from the first turn, and cross culture dialog for the extra science. I took the River Goddess pantheon for the +2 housing and amenities.

Expansion:
While I only had two cities around T50, I had hammered two settlers from the cap and they were in position to be founded while I Magnus chopped the Gov plaza and AH. All of my founded cities (I believe around 20) except for the first two took advantage of the AH builder. My second city hammered out another settler but the rest were purchased with faith from the low pop expands.

Magnus tour:
Most of my faith was saved for settlers. With the cap and second city being strong, they would hammer out builders and run them to the Magnus city while he was establishing. I would even purchase builders with gold, but my resources would always be prioritized to helping the Magnus city, as he needs to be active for only a couple turns before moving on. If I settled several cities at once, the free builders would always swarm the Magnus city. After Magnus left the cap, he went straight for the city where the Colosseum would be built. I chopped in a +6 holy site and EC, bought the arena, and 1 turned the Colosseum. At each stop thereafter, I would chop in the holy site and campus and their buildings if possible. I'd fill in subsequent district slots with a harbor or comm hub for the trade routes.

Moksha:
I chose Moksha to buy spaceports instead of Reyna since the Khmer's faith gen is so massive. I bought one in the cap, which by end game has almost 350 production thanks to trade routes, and 3 more in chop cities. 4 spaceports is probably overkill, but I had so much faith there was no real opportunity cost towards doing so.

I can give any additional detail if you'd like. Most of it was standard efficiency stuff like get as many eurekas as possible and be efficient with Magnus to get the holy sites and campuses up asap.

 

[Bangau]

@The Highwayman : thanks for the write-up! Did you play peacefully or warred a little? I used the Khmer in a crazy game recently with all the mods on. Battling the zombies all the time was a bit... meh. Also got the monopolies/corporations bug that made districts 999+ turns to build in the mid/late game. Might play them again some time soon for a SV speed run now!

 

[The Highwayman]

@Bangau you're welcome. I played 100% peaceful on the Lakes template for expansion room. I didn't even build the Domrey and a minimal amount of military just to satisfy eurekas and inspirations. I had SS on, but no other game modes. Ghandi was pretty close to my east, but he was friendly the whole game. The good expansion room was to my south regardless.

 

[ATEX]

@Bangau you're welcome. I played 100% peaceful on the Lakes template for expansion room. I didn't even build the Domrey and a minimal amount of military just to satisfy eurekas and inspirations. I had SS on, but no other game modes. Ghandi was pretty close to my east, but he was friendly the whole game. The good expansion room was to my south regardless.

Did you take Voidsingers as the SS? At what turn did Chorus kick in? We are discussing what are the optimal speed settings if you include all the game modes, and Voidsingers seems good, but maybe the effect comes too late ?

 

[The Highwayman]

@ATEX I took Voidsingers for the faith . Chorus didn't kick in until late....~T90ish I believe. The Classical era was unusually slow for Deity in this particular game.

On a side note, the AI was super broke the entire game - I couldn't get rid of all of my diplo favor because I was wiping their gold reserves too fast. AI Vicky was sitting at 0g/0gpt for the longest time and the majority of the other AIs weren't that much better off. That may be another reason to go Moksha over Reyna - it's easy to control my own faith economy vs. relying on AI deals. Sometimes you hit big and their riches are your riches. Other games Deity AI is living paycheck to paycheck.

 

[ATEX]

@ATEX I took Voidsingers for the faith . Chorus didn't kick in until late....~T90ish I believe. The Classical era was unusually slow for Deity in this particular game.

On a side note, the AI was super broke the entire game - I couldn't get rid of all of my diplo favor because I was wiping their gold reserves too fast. AI Vicky was sitting at 0g/0gpt for the longest time and the majority of the other AIs weren't that much better off. That may be another reason to go Moksha over Reyna - it's easy to control my own faith economy vs. relying on AI deals. Sometimes you hit big and their riches are your riches. Other games Deity AI is living paycheck to paycheck.

I finally had some time to test Khmer, and you are absolutly right. Khmer is a monster. Im still just testing openings, but highlands map with extra desert and work ethics has a lot of potential and good synergies. I will run a test game to turn 100 and let you know whats my take on Khmer.

 

[Bangau]

I played a Khmer game, took me a few failed tries to get the first Golden Age, but then I rolled a Paititi start which made that Golden Age super easy. Finished with a turn 160/161 SV:

Spoiler screen :

Not as fast as the Peter game I recently played, but the Khmer could definitely get sub turn 150. My turn 100 looked like this (for comparison @ATEX ):

Spoiler turn 100 :

 

[Victoria]

Kupe struggling with faith at T100

Spoiler :

 

[ATEX]

These are good yields, and 160 is a very good finish. What game modes are you guys playing with, and have you tried to optimize settings?

 

[Bangau]

These are good yields, and 160 is a very good finish. What game modes are you guys playing with, and have you tried to optimize settings?

I'm having fun trying out different settings for a fast SV last weeks. So I definitely tried optimizing the settings for the Khmer game. Was hard to pick the right map type for them. The Paititi wonder made it possible on this map to get a decent time. But I had some failed attempts on different maps, because I quit if I don't get the first Golden Age. That's too big a difference for a fast SV. For now I settled on the modes: Barbarians, Heroes&Legends, Monopolies & Corporations, and Secret Societies. All of them give benefits for the player to exploit. The other modes have more disadvantages than benefits I think for a fast SV.

@Victoria : that's great t100 science and culture with Kupe. I'm sure I've read posts from you on your strategy with Kupe. Didn't you describe it somewhere before? Remember where? I don't have a clear picture yet of how to get those yields with Kupe. Really wondering how to speed things up this much without chopping, or do you chop with him despite the bonuses he gets for not doing so? The world hates you I see, I guess you went all pillaging?

 

[Victoria]

I guess you went all pillaging?

No, just a cooked map, I got a really good one with some nice +4 adjacencies.
Also Kupe really has to war, about T50 I ploughed into the mongols with 4 Toa and a general.

very little chopping, at least early, they just give too much.
The +1 food from fish is underrated as is the extra housing in the capital.
Starting with 2 pop and good yields = a fast first settler
You can get to Toa’s fairly quickly with a good wind.

Stopped the game for the moment. I had dramatic ages on and that missing slot is sad.

 

[Victoria]

Hey @Bangau
Check this out, play a cooked map enough times and you get better at it ....I did not even cook anything to make the number bigger like loading Campi.
I got Kilwa T88

Spoiler :

 

[Bangau]

Wow, nice @Victoria ! I'm trying Hungary at the moment, see how fast he can go. Would love to see a full description of a Kupe fast SV some time!

 

[Victoria]

Would love to see a full description of a Kupe fast SV some time!

will do, the main thing I have been trying to do is get a fast win without religion.

 

[Bangau]

will do, the main thing I have been trying to do is get a fast win without religion.

I'm trying the same with Hungary, but not having all that faith to get builders everywhere takes some getting uses to...

 

[ATEX]

Around 20 cities at turn 100? That should give a nice finish time. Nice yields also @Victoria. I would also be interested in reading your take on how to tweak the settings optimally for Kupe. I must admit that I quite like analyzing different options for optimal games with different civs. A lot of considerations!

 

[Bangau]

Hungary isn't messing about, forgot the 100 turn screenshot, but here's turn 101:

Spoiler turn 101 :

I'm hoping Canada will get strong enough to prevent a culture victory, I'm already thinking about giving away my great works. Culture is a bit too much behind I'm afraid, I'll have to focus more on that. Might be a good idea for Hungary to put a few AI in the mix that love to build monuments and early theatre districts (Rome? Gorgo?).

First time I'm using the Hermetic Order, and damn: the Ley lines really give a great boost to many of my districts. The alchemical society is a great replacement for the university in a game like this as well.

 

[ATEX]

Reached turn 100 with Khmer, and as expected the yields are excellent. It is also fun to play when the cites growes so fast. The setup is highlands template on large, with all CSs and just one opponent. Max trees for chopping, legendary start, heroes and dramatic age. Dramatic age Im unsure if is helpful or not, but +4 for each wonder, when you can build whatever wonders you like is not bad, and the extra movement on settlers is very nice, but it does take up a policy slot...

Went for dessert faith and work ethics. Basically a holy site gives you all you need with both prod and food.

Some reflections:
Fast growth means cheaper districts
Chinguetti is a very plesant surprise. I think one can probably build some fun strats out of that CS combined with Kumasi and an overgrown capital.
Only one opponent was probably a mistake as gold is hurting a lot. But preserves in chop cities gives some work around from buying tiles.
Corporations is excellent, and requires the player to make a more planned approach to specializing cities. A very good addition to the game

 

[Bangau]

But preserves in chop cities

There: that's one I keep forgetting about. It does count towards #districts, right? That could be an issue. How do you go about your chop cities? Save all chops for the late game, or use a few to get in some infrastructure? I tend to place them later in the game, so they are often tiny cities with only an encampment and perhaps a campus if there was a good position for it. So squeezing in a Preserve would be hard.

 

[Victoria]

T145/146 victory with Kupe
Highly cooked deity terra with all CS science and culture apart from Hong Kong and Auckland.
Settling a wonder makes all the difference, I went no religion but war. Kupe is pretty good a getting culture but I avoided it mostly. Heroes, dramatic ages, secret societies and corporations.
You may find a big shock in that I took reduced resources but Kupe gets clogged up with resources and resources help the opposition. I managed to find 2 iron places and the Toa were only so for a few turns before they were men at arms, then muskets, then line infantry. The opposition had 0 chance. The key is you have to do it early... if you are going to war on deity, go all in.
The thing about dramatic ages is sure you get one less wildcard but being able to run two golden cards can be good with the right combo, like monumentality and free inquiry.
The main early strat is get Amani straight away and swap CS every 5 turns up until you get Sinbad. Now Sinbad may sound good for getting settlers but settlers you are getting fairly easy as Kupe at 50% so spending the cash on granaries, libraries and the like seems more effective.
As war was definitely on the cards I got an early encampment in the capital, did not use provision as I was growing too fast anyway and just left Pingala there all game for efficiency.
It really is key to get the right districts up in the right cities early, mainly +4 campi locations, but you need those inspirations and eurekas. Kupe has a good advantage in this regard being able to scout and move super fast. Probably his best ability but also fishy culture bombs and the extra food from fish is underrated for fast growth and tile grabbing.
I went charging into the mongols with 4 Toa and 3 archers followed up by a GG and a ram, and just kept rolling.
I went divine spark as the scientists are great now and having Bologna all game helps loads amd even managed to get +4 campi near the end when it did not matter anymore.
I made a noob mistake with Hercules and had to wat 5 turns until the era end to get him back to build spaceports. I also realised when it came to laser chops that sharing another coal station is not great so had to use about 2 laser of chops to get a local station.
Kupe rocks so well with trees that you do not really do a Magnus tour.
I chose owls for the extra slot and also the envoys from trade routes combined with Kumasi was great. i could have pushed culture with Rapa Nui but did not at all, Irelued on alumni and Nan Madol... nice to have the choice.
I think at the end of the game the capital was on 20 pop with +10 amenities... certainly no need for Amundsen when you end up near 4K science per turn without them.

can Kupe be done faster? Sure, but it more about a great map, getting everything right is asking for a lot on a map but Kupe terra is such a cheesy advantage... but then so is Russia and monumentality.

Spoiler :