How do you win a science victory?????

[Xiao Xiong]

This is the victory condition I can't ever achieve. The problem is that I win some other victory before I get there. Basically because by the time I am that far down the tech tree with enough production to build the ship I am likely winning a domination or diplomatic victory or a cultural victory.

I thought I had it the other day but I had built too many wonders and my specialist city generated too many great people so I got an unwanted cultural victory. I tried playing through anyway but once you have any victory you can't build the ship.

I wouldn't say I am playing below my level. I play immortal and I do lose a fair number of games. But I tend to win/lose before getting to the far end of the tech tree, meaning that by the time I can start building the ship I am either the 800 pound gorilla, or WAAAAAY behind with little hope.

Anyway, without just going in and shutting off cultural and diplomatic conditions, how???

My usual strategy is to make my capital city a powerhouse and opportunistically knock off any nearby AI if I can get enough units to do it without sacrificing building out my capital. Settle nearby only if there arw great spots. So I usually have around 3 or 4 great cities either settled or captured from the AI.

Then I go tradition, take policies from patronage while waiting for rationalism to open up. Then freedom or sometimes order. The cultural victories come from having loads of specialists and if I have a good production capital usually pick up some wonders. The cultural victories are too easy with patronage maybe, and I tend to put my spies in city states. With freedom you gain influence just by having trade routes and if you are leading they get in awe of you.

Is there a strategy that would work better for science?

 

[joncnunn]

Basically it amounts to speeding up progress thru the tech tree.
Can you build National College faster?
Can you build science buildings faster?
etc.

Also note that you can't actually be forced to win a diplomatic victory; if you have more than enough votes to win, you can vote one less than threshold to win and abstain on the rest.

 

[Knowtalent]

Tall cities, dont go warmongering, dont make great works. burn writers for culture and artists for GA. Only vote enough to prevent someone else from winning

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

 

[darkskies]

You could always turn off the other victory types (or the ones that foul you up).

 

[Sclb]

I'm not sure how you can win culture victory without trying before winning a science victory. 3-4 cities isn't enough to win on immoral culture automatically if I recall. You don't have to build hotels or airports. Also you don't have to use any GW or GA for great works, you just use them for the golden age and culture.

 

[KevinLandwaster]

you said "immoral" (that was funny)

I think SV is easy if you just basically ignore everyone and build 4 high population cities and crank out great scientists. I usually play as Babylon (Agamemnon is a douche, though).

 

[Mesodius]

When going for science I pretty much just ignore all the culture specialist buildings that don't help me in some other way and pump out only great scientists and maybe a few engineers. If it's early settle some academies around my capital then get the academy bonuses later (as well as as many of the Great Person generating % bonus wonders/policies as I can get), in late game I bulb the scientists. By late game I have my cities pumping out great scientists like crazy to race through those late techs. If you can get a couple great engineers and finish the Rationalism tree I use those to finish the last couple SS parts that you get later than the others.

Since Im ignoring making tourism culture victory doesnt really come into play. Since I'm not going down the whole patronage tree or trying to ally city states, diplomatic victory doesnt come into play either (edit: I'll make enough allies temporarily to get science funding passed, though). My focus is just on pumping out science while keeping AI off my back, which is pretty easy when you're more advanced than them and have a small but modern military.

 

[Illianor123]

Getting more than 1-2 policies in patronage means you are too slow getting to the Renaissance and rationalism.

Just focus on pumping out great scientists, making research agreements and growing tall. Plant only 1-2 academies and save the rest till 8 turns after you have research labs in your core cities and then burn them all to Hubble and then the rest of the techs you need for space ship.

If your going freedom, you don't even need that much production, just gold to buy the last couple of parts (commerce could be better than the second patronage policy for the bonus gold, and for Big Ben for cheaper parts).

 

[beetle]

I thought I had it the other day but I had built too many wonders and my specialist city generated too many great people so I got an unwanted cultural victory.

Try bumping up the difficulty level!

 

[BenitoChavez]

Basically make science your top priority throughout the game. As soon as you can build the national college, beeline for the big science techs, build science buildings as soon as you unlock them, use science specialists and get great scientists (don't get great engineers or merchants), get science based social policies (mainly rationalism and ideologies but there are some in other trees), focus on growth as population adds science per turn, build some of the science focused wonders (I go for porcelain tower and hubble telescope), and play as a science based civ like Babylon or Korea.

Something I like to do is before I unlock public schools is that I build academies with all my great scientists. Once I unlock public schools I save all my great scientists. Then once I unlock and build research labs I use the boost science ability to go through the rest of the tech tree. The reason being that over the course of an entire game you get more science by building academies early then using boost science later.

 

[Chum]

The reason being that over the course of an entire game you get more science by building academies early then using boost science later.

Math doesn't check out.

Academy is 8 science. How many turns do you need to play after an academy to equal the 8000-10000 beakers you can get from a post plastics bulb?

Even in a NC/Observatory city, that is only 18ish science per turn. A typical late game bulb would be 8000 beakers, and it would take over 400 turns of your academy being up to equal that.

Plant 1 scientist, MAYBE 2. After that, you're better off saving them.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Perhaps I got the optimal breakpoint wrong but the general idea is the same. I play on Immortal like the OP and the above strategy works for me a majority of the time. Tinker with it as you wish.

 

[Ribannah]

Academies help you to get to those science techs faster, compared to when you keep the Great Scientists for the late game. They also increase the results of research agreements and science bulbs. So they're worth more than their output suggests. (On the other hand, you cannot improve the tile so you lose a bit of food or production.)

There is a cut-off point, however, which of course depends on how many turns you need to win. It comes earlier than Public Schools though.

 

[Plumfairy]

Also, Academies start yielding 10 science when you research Public Schools, and it improves again to 12 science when you research... umm... the tech that reveals uranium.

Also, Ribannah's point can't be stressed enough: having academies on map tiles helps *enormously* when researching my way to Plastics. I can definitely feel the difference between games where I found 1 or 2 academies (i.e. I got a Great Engineer or two instead) vs. games where I have 3 or 4.

I use the same cutoff as BenitoChavez. (plant GS before Public Schools, save & bulb them afterwards)

 

[Mesodius]

What the two above me said. You cannot just measure raw science output of academies against raw science output of bulbing later. Academies help you tech faster in the present, which can get you to science buildings faster, which when built lets you tech even faster (also many other indirect things, like getting to the techs that increase tile food output faster, which lets you have more science specialists, etc)...it's compounding your science output in many ways.

 

[Aea]

Math doesn't check out.

Academy is 8 science. How many turns do you need to play after an academy to equal the 8000-10000 beakers you can get from a post plastics bulb?

Not sure what game speed you're playing on but damn I've never seen bulbs even approach that. It's typically in the 4-5K range for me if I'm bulbing that late.

Secondly perhaps you need to re-check your math.

With just a University and a National College you're producing 14.5 SPT from an academy. If you open Rationalism that's 15.5 SPT.

With Free Thought that jumps up to 17.5 SPT from a single academy.

Open Scientific Theory and that jumps to 22 SPT. Do you have an Observatory in that city? Well that's now 27 SPT.

Research Labs make that 32 SPT (but that hardly matters so late), and New Deal makes it a whopping 45 SPT.

Now you're right about not planting them all, but I like to plant 2-3 in my highest science city. If I have a NC Observatory city I'm definitely going to plant three of 'em.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Not sure what game speed you're playing on but damn I've never seen bulbs even approach that. It's typically in the 4-5K range for me if I'm bulbing that late.

A Great Scientist gives you 8 turns of Science minus some boni, like Research Agreements or the +10% Science while the Empire is happy bonus.

If your bulbs are in the 4000 - 5000 range you are doing something very wrong. After Plastics you should be looking at 800+ Science per Turn with 4 cities. Even more if you have more cities. Late game bulbs can go up to 10000 easily. Probably far more if you are working every specialist slot and doing 8 turns of Research in your cities.

I don't think planting 3 Academies is a problem at all. I think your cities are just a tad too small.

 

[Aea]

Guess I should mention that I pretty much play the NQ (no-mod) group and that's on quick speed. It's all about bulbing towards Hubble anyway, six turns of science, roughly 800 science per turn. Sounds about right to me.

*shrug*

 

[Chum]

I'm not gonna rehash work other people have already done. The credit goes to them --

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=549023

General consensus in there, doing all the math is that very early acadamies are worthwhile, after that, their value tapers off quickly. It's acceptable to bulb techs like Plastics, assuming you have the $$ to buy all your labs, but any other use doesn't pay off compared to a late game bulb.

 

[bhavv]

I don't like building national college faster though because doing so stunts my horizontal expansion, plus I no longer like having it in my capital.

I wait for settling a nice mountainside spot with lots of grasslands for academies and building it there.

Its not that science victories are hard, its just that the other victories are too much easier and faster.