[GS] <200 Turn Deity Science Victory

[Victoria]

Can anyone help me improve this. Bearing in mind I want to be peaceful. Thanks!

Buy the monument, not the builder but a trader takes precedence in most cases.
As a general rule of thumb, be ruled by your settler turns to complete for you capital, not the amount nor AH (which is a bit of a trap in some ways)
So I get to 2 pop and start a settler (why finish a builder before getting a settler?) Typically a second settler can be built before EE is complete (EE for the 50% settler card) then typically you can get 2-3 other settlers out before the turns start ramping up too high. My second city can also produce a settler and is not so turn dependant.
4 chops to speed up AH and that 4 chops cost you how many turns to get the builders?
For an SV the second city is aiming to support my capital and eureka/inspiration builds and my 3 rd city for pyramid and commercial hub. Rocket cities are based on chopping or harbours for me and these are typically further down the line.

A big mistake is going for high production early city as a rocket city. Chop and builder spam cities is how you make rockets best.

fitting granaries in is my hard bit.

 

[MrGrizzle]

Thanks guys that's really helpful.

I usually only have 2 cities when I start building AH. Will aim for 4 next time. I was building campus in second city, but i see that settlers are going to be more impactful over the game.

OK I'm definitely going to give monuments less priority. How do you have enough culture to progress decently along the civic tree then? Do you want to get a couple of theatre districts? Maybe as second priority after campus? I usually get industrial zones to give me production for endgame and start racking up the GE points. Although admittedly these haven't been particularly useful, still much more useful than writers though I expect.

Will give that a try in my next playthrough. The one I just had I think I was going to at least beat my record (not much of a boast) but Genghis Khan had other ideas and declared a surprise war the turn before rocketry (around 190). Not building enough defence / poor AI management is another weakness lol.

I was trying to save up to purchase the spaceport. Didn't have enough money or the last governor card i needed though. At least I think I didn't have enough money, I'm guessing it's 2000g?

Anyway, off to try again. Thanks so much

 

[The Highwayman]

Thanks guys that's really helpful.

I usually only have 2 cities when I start building AH. Will aim for 4 next time. I was building campus in second city, but i see that settlers are going to be more impactful over the game.

OK I'm definitely going to give monuments less priority. How do you have enough culture to progress decently along the civic tree then? Do you want to get a couple of theatre districts? Maybe as second priority after campus? I usually get industrial zones to give me production for endgame and start racking up the GE points. Although admittedly these haven't been particularly useful, still much more useful than writers though I expect.

Will give that a try in my next playthrough. The one I just had I think I was going to at least beat my record (not much of a boast) but Genghis Khan had other ideas and declared a surprise war the turn before rocketry (around 190). Not building enough defence / poor AI management is another weakness lol.

I was trying to save up to purchase the spaceport. Didn't have enough money or the last governor card i needed though. At least I think I didn't have enough money, I'm guessing it's 2000g?

Anyway, off to try again. Thanks so much

IZs aren't all that good to be honest. I would say in a 12-16 city empire, 2-3 well placed IZs is perfectly fine. Having one very strong IZ city possibly with Ruhr is solid for Science victories. A nuclear power plant is efficient for rushing the space projects that increase your power requirement in that particular city. But one IZ in every city is a waste IMO. You're better off building your win con districts. If you include an IZ in a Pingala/Oracle city, that will generate a decent amount of GE points where you can hopefully snag one or two of the wonder production engineers, preferably buffed by Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. With efficiency the game will be over before any of the space race engineers become available, and there are a lot of mediocre ones before that.

A couple early Theater Squares is powerful for a science victory - use the Government Plaza and/or an early wonder like the Oracle or Pyramids for good adjacency. If you can sweep the three early writers, that's +12 culture without any modifiers plus a guarantee on the Enlightenment boost. You can always sell the great works if you don't value the culture they provide, as the $ they bring in will help you buy buildings and units and such, making up for the loss of the IZ production. Culture will be powerful through the science endgame, as late governments and policy cards (such as International Space Something or Other from Globalization) are key to progressing through the future techs.

On standard speed, Spaceports cost 7200 gold with Reyna or 3600 faith with Moksha. If you have a big faith generator, like Russia or Arabia, I'd go Moksha, but the first 3 promos will be of little to no value. If you're struggling to get enough gold for Reyna, consider selling resources for bulk gold, especially diplo favor. Teddy and Kristina will usually pay a higher price than others. You can also add a Big Ben play to this - deplete the AI's gold reserves the turn before finishing.

 

[Victoria]

I only bother with IZ for the eureka (rarely) and for a power plant or 2... for the power, not the production.
I would prefer building a Big Ben by a long shot, both because it gives you 50% more gold and also an extra commercial card slot which also helps a lot.
I’ll try and find a spot with 10 trees equivalent of chopping and build a theater square there so it expands rapidly over the trees. I use this as my first spaceport, move Reyna/Moksha there to be ready for when rocketry finishes, buy a spaceport then move in Magnus for when AI discover moon landing (about 5 turns later) when AI will use all my one charge builders I have left in place to finish the earth satellite and moon landing which then shoots my culture up to globalization is I have done it right.

 

[MrGrizzle]

So I did a Pericles game yesterday. I tried to get settlers and didn't worry about AH at all (didn't even build it) but built lots more builders manually. Ended up with 12 settled cities by turn 97 - an improvement of two which is a pretty good start. Also there were more cities that were a bit larger as I had been settling solidly since the start.

I was planning on designating a chop city but messed it up and some of the woods I wanted ended up going to a CS. Planning on helping this next time by building a theatre zone there.

I was on course to beat my PB (turn 267). However the future tech tech tree screwed me and gated Smart Materials behind all the others on it's own separate bit behind . I didn't even know that this was an option. Although I didn't have a chop city I did have a city with just over 100 hammers which was enough to finish projects in 10ish turns with all the buffs I had.

Oh and Montezuma conquered Hong Kong just as I was finishing Spaceport lol.

I was still a long way off being able to buy the spaceport when I got rocketry (around turn 180 this time I think).

Going to try again and include more of the advice you guys have given. Thanks again.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

last game the AI killed 3 scientific city states and 3 industrial ones, among them hong kong. do you guys usually do something about that or just let the AI do its thang? I consider it hard to stop and am unsure if its worth. liberation war later on, after you establish technological dominance, might be good.

 

[The Highwayman]

last game the AI killed 3 scientific city states and 3 industrial ones, among them hong kong. do you guys usually do something about that or just let the AI do its thang? I consider it hard to stop and am unsure if its worth. liberation war later on, after you establish technological dominance, might be good.

If the city state is nearby and critical to my success, I'll take liberating action. If it's across the map, like the two science CSs in my last game, it's RIP. If I divert my attention to a liberating force, move them all the way across the map and liberate, chances are that CS will just get conquered again anyways and those resources could've been spent elsewhere.

For nearby CSs, I find it better to be proactive and passively block the AIs with scouts, military units, and sometimes even builders by placing them around CSs I'm suzerain of. They can hammer the city with ranged all they want, but won't be able to take the city. I've saved many CSs from certain death this way, even going as far as levying their military to do so.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

For nearby CSs, I find it better to be proactive and passively block the AIs with scouts, military units, and sometimes even builders by placing them around CSs I'm suzerain of. They can hammer the city with ranged all they want, but won't be able to take the city. I've saved many CSs from certain death this way, even going as far as levying their military to do so.

yes, that's my usual course of action. also blocking the AI is just insanely fun.

 

[MrGrizzle]

Is there any way to know which future techs are where? Are the patterns always different.

E.g. could Smart Materials just be either in the first, second or third tier? Or is it always in the same one.

Same question for Offworld mission. Anyone can help?

 

[The Highwayman]

@MrGrizzle The tech path and order are randomized. There may be some logic to it, but it definitely changes in all my games. I dislike this, as there's enough RNG in the game as is and my sub 200 could be stuffed simply by random tech order. Just stack 1,500-2,000 science per turn and 1 turn them is my solution.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

After reading the last few posts I thought it might be nice to have a Turn 100 Screenshot Thread.
Anyways here is my current game.

I probably won't win under 200 turns.
This game turned out pretty good for me though.
All Monumental Golden Ages so Far.
Easy Knight Rush on the AI as the Dutch had no Army or Walls.
I wasn't going to play for war but a bunch of free cities seemed worth it.
Usually I don't play for Religion but this map has a bunch of Religious CS's.
So I prayed my way into the 3rd religion.
Close race and Arabia is in the game so you know.
I haven't really focused on spreading as I am using Faith for Settlers and such.
I tried to play for the builder improvements from CS's as I usually don't bother.
Learning that its kinda a big deal putting down +2 Culture and +2 Faith Improvements.

Invaded the Dutch around turn 100 and they snuck in a last city to antagonize me.
12 cities at turn 100.
17 cities at turn 108.
Looks like 20 cities around turn 115 or less.
Not very good compared to others but better than my usual.

I am playing as Canada.
Not really focused on any Victory type.
Just playing my usual of dominate in most categories and wing it.
I was reading a thread and @Victoria made a funny comment about this Civ.
"Yep, accidentally pressing another civ next to it in the civ selection screen is the best strat for Canada."

Spoiler Turn 100 :

Spoiler Turn 108 :

 

[Victoria]

Just playing my usual of dominate in most categories and wing it.

Sounds familiar and doing great with a vanilla civ, certainly worth crowing about.
My non targeted games nowadays are more middle ground and certainly not aimed at 20 cities. I struggle with the end game with so many cities. I have fun baiting and deconstructing. That is my preferable immersive style.
Better to play against Canada than with because they just don’t denounce you so easily. Nice to have a trading companion while being downright naughty rather than underhanded.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Sounds familiar and doing great with a vanilla civ, certainly worth crowing about.
My non targeted games nowadays are more middle ground and certainly not aimed at 20 cities. I struggle with the end game with so many cities. I have fun baiting and deconstructing. That is my preferable immersive style.
Better to play against Canada than with because they just don’t denounce you so easily. Nice to have a trading companion while being downright naughty rather than underhanded.

A few turns after this I eliminated the Dutch and it seems I won the Emergency.
I guess you get extra or double diplo points with Canada for that?
Selling 400+ Diplo Favor pushed me over 200gpt and bankrupted all the remaining AIs.
Kinda Funny but very Abusive.
The land is pretty open and if I really concentrate I probably could self found another 10 to 15 cities.
Try to gear up and attack Spain while doing that I suppose.
Concentrate on more builders and working the Faith and Culture Improvements.
It seems the easiest route to victory would be domination from this point.
This is not a very good or abundant map.
The map just played into a perfect storm sorta.
All the CS's I met have stayed alive.
3 Military CS's, 4 Faith, 1 Gold, 2 Culture... haven't found a Science CS which would be nice.
I should of kept pushing my scouting but focusing on war made me forget about that.
I just got plain lazy.
Korea got trampled.
You and other players would most likely be closing out victory by turn 150 or so.

It seems you were correct in the past analysis of my gameplay.
I was playing way too fast and it was hurting my finish times.
I've been playing slower and concentrating more and it really helps to get the advantage much quicker.
I was also building or hard building far too many districts as I would build the same 3 or 4 in every city.
Turns out I don't need every district in every city.