[GS] A general path to scientific victory.

[Oldlamehand]

I'm a pretty new player of civilization 6. So far, I'm playing King difficulty. It seems to me that the best general path to scientific victory is these steps, no matter what map I play.

1)Get a large enough territory with 10 or more cities. This include building army, settlers, a few workers, conquering city-states or nearest neighbors. At this stage, I am basically not building any districts and buildings, and I¨m prioritizing territorial expansion. A very aggressive style of play usually works best at this stage.

2)A peaceful period of building infrastructure, campuses, and other districts + slowly adding a few more cities. During the previous period, an AI opponent or two may get ahead of me in science. During this period, when I prioritize the development of my cities, I usually catch up with the scientific pace and become the most technologically advanced civilization. Mostly, I only build so many military units that I don't look like too easy prey, preferably the units I need for eureka moments. Cities from the previous period serve the core of my empire, I slowly add a few more cities in more remote areas, or on the islands around my empire.
During this period, I avoid war if possible. If I uncover coal and oil locations, I will establish some cities near these sources if I don't have enough. At this stage, I usually get to a number of 15 to 20 cities.

3)In the last stage I prioritize research that leads to scientific victory. I add a couple of production buildings in cities where I want to build space ports. I try to cover important cities with power supply. I avoid war unless it looks like another civilization could win before I do.The size of my army at this stage depends on whether I see a military threat or whether I need to do military intervention.
I do military intervention only if I need to cripple one of my opponents.
But it usually doesn't happen if previous periods went well . I'm trying to get great people who can rush space port projects. I'll add a few more cities near aluminum or uranium if I don't have enough of these resources.


Do you also use a similar path to scientific victory, or do you have a completely different approach?

 

[Vargas1]

I'm no expert, but this is a solid general strategy for science and I've followed a similar path in several games. A couple of changes/tweaks for my usual playstyle (primarily emperor):

• I prefer peaceful games typically (especially when going for science), so I often don't expand through war if I can help it. Particularly if I can get an early golden age and have passable faith income, I don't have much trouble getting to 7-10 core cities without war
• Religion - if the map is right for it, I'll often go for a religion. Work ethic plus the faith income to spend in monumentality (and later to target specific Great People) makes it worthwhile. In a science game I almost always take Work Ethic and Religious Communities as first two beliefs (that way I don't need to buy units to maintain my religion in my new cities). If I get to the point of completing my beliefs I'll usually take stupas for late-game amenities and one of the beliefs that gives yields for cities/followers, depending which yield I may need more of (culture, gold, sometimes science)
• Early wonders - if the terrain is there (at least one desert tile, a handful of choppable resources, and hopefully something to quarry), I will typically try to rush Pyramids. The extra builder charges will make up for the lack of early development otherwise, especially since I will usually go ancestral hall early and particularly in late-game when I'm rushing space projects with them. I also will often build Temple of Artemis in capital or second city if they have the right resources to make it worthwhile to kick-start growth. Otherwise I probably won't chase many early wonders, though may build Oracle or Apadana if they're available for a while, and will often aim for Mausoleum and Colosseum in mid-game consolidation stage
• Kilwa plus being suzerain of city-states (especially scientific city-states) is huge. If my capital isn't within range of the coast then I plan ahead to make sure I will have an early coastal city with either/both good production and choppable resources so that I can make sure to get it
• Along the same lines, I prioritize heavily getting suzerainty over city-states and, even if not suzerain, getting quickly to three envoys in every scientific city-state
• Once I've got my core cities up and have campuses/buildings in most, I'll turn my attention to building up gold/trade routes and to building culture. Culture is big for three main purposes in my experience: (i) Get to higher-level governments (particularly Communism), (ii) Build up envoys, (iii) Turning those envoys into science through International Space Agency card. If you have Kilwa w/ suzerainty over two science city-states, suzerainty of Geneva and/or Taruga, plus the Int'l Space Agency card, your science will skyrocket in the latter part of the game.
• At some point in the mid-game, usually around late Industrial/early-Modern era, I'll decide which cities will be the ones I use for space race projects and which will be my other cities. Once I have all campus buildings I can build built, and have filled out other districts I want (industrial zones where needed, sufficient trade routes, culture in certain cities), I'll usually use most of my other cities to run campus projects to push through the science tree and capture the Great Scientists. One of the biggest things that has made a difference for me in recent games versus earlier is realizing when to stop building infrastructure and start running projects. In the past, even if I had plenty of gold and production in my main cities, I'd find myself building commercial hub buildings or harbors in secondary cities even up to the very end of the game, which really didn't do much of anything for me. In my recent games I've started using those secondary cities for projects which has really sped things along.

 

[Old Victoria]

I started playing Civilization only last October, so maybe because of my lack of previous experience, I go a >completely< different way. I was up to playing on Emperor level and finally getting it, but I bought the gathering storm expansion last week, so I've been playing King level again. The Swedes knocked me down my first game with tourism (the won by one turn! ONE!!!1!) and I won by diplomacy points before my Exoplanet mission was finished. But my strategy usually goes:

- I play a peace game. Don't conquer cities.

- I seriously cannot be bothered to settle more than 6 cities... 5-6 cities. By about turn 120 I think?

- I try to always go for a religion. Pantheon I choose depends, but I usually go for the 25% production towards cities that don't have a specialty district or the +1 Great People points. If I'm too close to a warmongerer, I might cave and go for goddess of the forge. My goal with religion beliefs is buying theater square and campus district buildings with faith. Lately, I've been going for the +1 culture for every 4 followers of the religion. That way, I don't need to build a Theater district early in the game. And when I do later in the game, I get archeological museums because not enough people points, of course.

- first districts I build are Harbors and/or commercial hubs. I build the market or lighthouse, get a trader and cash starts flowing in. Money I make, I invest in builders. If I'm lucky, I start the classical era (the second one?) with a golden age and choose to buy builders and traders with faith. If I'm lucky, almost at the end of the era, I managed to finish the feudalism Civic and plug serfdom in, squeeze a couple of builders out with faith, even if I don't need them - just let them in a city center where they're safe.

- I get a trader as soon as I got more route capacity, I don't wait. I trade mostly with myself. Big amounts of producitivity and growth. If I need to finish a Wonder quicker, I send a few of my my traders to that city. In later eras in the game, especially if I have a golden age, I might start trading with foreign cities. I try to make economy alliances with someone nearby and get bonuses, like extra gold for resources in the city where the route goes to - I get these bonuses from all the great merchants I get because I have lots of commercial hubs. So by the time I have 8 routes, I do 6 domestic ones and two international ones that give me a gold yield of about 20 per turn per route. If my cities are already very productive, I might even do more international routes.

- by the time I get to the industrial era (I think...) I've been getting over 200 Gold per turn, I've been buying builders (and traders) and improving whatever I can. I don't build a lot of farms because the domestic trade routes generate plenty of food. I build farms if I need housing.... I don't like neighborhoods because the AI will recruit partisans and that's a nuisance.

- The districts I invest in right after Campuses, a couple of Holy sites and Harbors/C.Hubs are the industrial zones. But I'm annoyed that they only get +1 production for each 2 adjacent mines/quarries with gathering storm., I'm still working that one out. I keep my eye out for certain scientists and engineers (the ones who give you production for space race projects,of course) and do district projects to pump my numbers up. I often pass on great engineers and scientists towards the end, so the AI won't snag my most wanted because I wasted my points on some other guy and couldn't gather more points in time.

- Until I bought gathering storm, I only built one spaceport - with the great people and the productivity over 100 that I've amassed in the chosen city, it's enough to launch the moon landing in 10 turns, start one of the mars projects, finish it in that same turn by activating the great engineers and strat vthe next project (that is another 10 turns...). Now I build 3 or 4 because of the laser guidance projects, but I still haven't gotten the hang of it.

Sometimes I get lucky because I built the wonder that gives great engineers an extra charge. I forget which wonder that is. There's usually a time in the game when I have to start building a bunch of ancient wonders, because I have 4 of my 6 cities with about 60 production, they don't have enough population for a new district, and I have to keep them busy. And because the AI has been doing.... whatever, there's wonders to build in about 10-12 turns. :|

Oh, I also snag resources like coal, niter, oil and Uranium. As much as possible. Because I make friends with everyone and then I check out who doesn't have any and sell it for profit. More builders. By the end, if necessary, I'll chop out a settler to settle on top of a strategic resource (doesn't always work. Depends on loyalty) and build a campus and/or theater square. I have enough faith amassed by to purchase all the buildings with my religious beliefs. And I'm a big amenity hoarder, for +10-20% production. I'll hoard copies and trade or sell, so I usually end up having all the luxuries available (some I get as worked tiles,and some I get either by trade or by suzerainty of a city)

This worked very well on King level before gathering storm, and after gathering storm I'm trying to make it work 100%. On Emperor level, it depended. It worked if I survived early game, but I'm not good with war,so when Imgot stuck between Montezuma and Gilgamesh.... Eh... I gave it my best, but my best sometimes isn't very good, haha... Oh, and on Emperor level, I need to use a lot more espionage to steal tech boosts and especially to sabotage the AI.

 

[Builderphile]

If you are looking for efficiency:

1) get as many cities you can before turn 70-100 (at least 10 cities is preferable). Focus those first 70 turns or so almost exclusively on expansion (either through settling, invasion, or both). While you are expanding, place campuses in every city as soon as possible (but don't finish building them until later).

2) Once you have most of your cities settled/invaded, get the feudalism civic, produce a ton of 5-charge builders, and finish campuses in every city. Move Magnus and some builders around from city to city, and chop forests/stone to quickly get libraries and universities.

3) Now that your science per turn has skyrocketed, start saving your money and get Reyna ready to purchase spaceports as soon as possible.

4) Once the spaceports are up, get the Royal Society government building, and have a ton of builders ready to chop forests and use charges to complete the space race projects. Also get the great people who rush the projects.

5) Win.