CFC: Fastest Deity Science Victory

Many aspects of the NFP modes are fun and interesting. My main problem with them is that some of them make the game way easier to win (and specifically since they are easier for the player to use than for the AI) like a hero that gives you free districts or major extra yields (e.g. the vampire castle). Also, some of them really make the game harder (yay!), but even more so for the AI than for the player. I've played dramatic ages maybe three times so far, and all of them half of the AI's empires collapsed under loyalty pressure. Not fun when the little opposition you have gets kicked out of the game by the game mechanics themselves.

 

I have really only been interessted in speedruns the last years, and then the AI is not really that relevant anyways. I see that the modes does bring some new combos that might be interesting to try out. Hope there is something that can compete with cheesy flip city pillage games, although I highly doubt that.

What are your ideas about the maximal tweeked settings? All my games has always been all normal, so I have no idea. It will depend a bit on what strategy you are using of course, but it seems tempting to max out CS, only have one AI (if you disregard pillage-waring strats). That way you will be suz of many CSs, and get more chance on wonders, and probably many monopolies. Alternatively have it crowded and go all war to get a crazy amount of cities?

 

This is why I think Science Victory is interesting for speed runs. Domination, Religion and Culture victories obviously benefit from specific settings (like only one opponent or a tiny map), but science could be approached in many ways...

• What leader should one play? There's a few of them that are obvious choices, but I wouldn't be surprised to see someone nail it with a leader I hadn't considered before.
• What AI opponents and how many should you choose? Taking over cities really helps for a SV and trading is always a part in my games. Therefore I wouldn't have too little AI, too many and they take all your suzerainties and early expansion land. What is the optimum? I couldn't really say yet. During the Peter game I realized that it probably would have been better to get more science and gold focused AI as opponents. (I chose mostly faith focused ones). To get more trade routes and campuses, and to be able to pillage more science in the mid game to get to one science per turn earlier.
• How many and which city states is an interesting one as well. I think as many as possible and all of the science ones is an obvious choice. You need a bit of a mix though, some give very good extra culture and as most of us know by now: culture (especially in the early game) is key for a fast SV. So which CS you pick is an interesting choice to make. This game I realized I should have scouted more (maybe six or something?), some of the good ones I found too late and were harder to suzerain because some AI had invested in them already.
• Disaster intensity I leave at 2, you want the yields, but not the broken districts... Maybe 0 would be better since you rely on yields less in a speed run?
• Which map type is interesting as well. Depends heavily on your strat. For Peter you want much land and tundra. I tried inland sea first, but after a few rerolls I noticed I somehow got too little woods (even with rainfall on wet) every time, where I was expecting dense tundra forest. (I just checked my screenshot above and see that I posted the settings screenshot using inland sea by mistake), I used Lakes (large one) eventually and that seems to work well.
• Map size standard or large will both work fine I think. Huge might be useful for some strats?
• Resources abundant and start location legendary I think are the obvious choices. In longer games I sometimes find the abundant resources to be in the way of district placement, so that might be a reason not to do that. Legendary start can really help for a kickstart (especially with a natural wonder e.g.). It's cheesy, but that's what we're discussing here.
• Selecting the right natural wonders for your strat can help, but likely you won't make much use of them. So matters less I think.
• Extra hills and mountains can be useful sometimes (new world age), but they also really slow you down, so I typically leave the world age on standard.
• A cold temperature is good for Peter, other strats might like it hot or standard.
• Rainfall should be wet in most strats I think, extra chops are very important.
• Sea level can be important. For Peter I wanted more land, so a low sea level.
• All the NFP modes can help a lot for faster wins, I think:
  • Apocalypse NO
  • Barbarians YES
  • Dramatic ages NO
  • Heroes YES
  • Monopolies YES
  • Societies YES
  • Tech and civic shuffle NO (but you could get lucky..., most are harder to get properly boosted imo than the regular one)
  • Zombies HELL NO

What do you think?

 

I find I lose a significant number of turns getting Spaceports up in a Science Victory. The first one, sure, bought with Gold or Faith, but it seems like Hercules could help getting the ones up for laser stations.

That monopolies multiplier seems imminently exploitable too.

 

You wanna (faith or gold or ideally Hercules) buy your first spaceport in a heavy chop city, to get to the Moon Landing in a few turns. The other spaceports are in less of a hurry, because getting the techs for the final push takes a number of turns, even if you're 'one turning techs' at that moment. So there is time to move your governors and Hercules around to get some more spaceports. If you have one or more heavy production cities you can even hard build a few spaceports if they'll only be used for boost projects for the exoplanet mission. I used to think that three spaceports cities were enough, but I now believe that 5 or 6 are useful (for a speed run) to get one or two more turns off your finish time. I had some cities completing more than one project in a turn with lots of chops.

 

I agree to most of what you are saying here, but there are so many variables, it really is not easy to wrap your head around it.

-What AI and the number of AI: If you have only one, you will get all suz of all CSs, free choice of religion and all the space and Great People you want. But you will suffer for lack of gold and cities to conquer. Best AIs should be ones that builds the districts you want to steal or someone that pays for dipo favour (If any still do).
-CSs I think you just max out with science, culture, and fill inn with the best of the others. The alternative would be a small map with few CSs to ensure some kind of combo. Volcanic map with Rapa Nui, Kandy maybe?
-Disaster level I agree with your assessment
-Map type and size needs to be tweaked to the strat. I dont think there is a one best setup. But Large map gives a lots of CSs and space.
-Resources I agree on. The only thing I wondered was if you had a small map, could it be worth it to have few resources to get many monopolies? It is probably not good, but worth a think.
-Natural wonders I agree.

-Game modes:
-Apocalypse? Would it work with the great bath cheesing?
-Barbarians ? Not sure if we want this. It seems to lessen the number of barbarian camps, and we want to clear one to get the Vampire.
-Dramatic Ages ? I think yes, but never played a game with it before. How hard is it to get golden ages connected? If that is easy at least it seems good to have extra movement on settlers and the +4 culture per wonder would be good for China.
-Heroes: Yes
-Monopolies: Yes, although at first glance I can see that much benefit from it. It will be coming to late to matter much?
-Societies: Yes- Vampires seems good. All the other seems to come to late?
-Tech and zombies: No

Then the fun part! What civs and strats? Some ideas:

Babylon and Norway- games will still be the fastest, but boring.
China - Only one oponent, and expand peacefully with all CSs in a Large map. Religion of choice, 19 wonders to boost. And maybe the +4 culture per wonder card in Dramatic ages?
Teddy- With the boost of a early vapmpire castle, and Granada should be fast.
Pericles- One of few leaders with a unique ability that directly benefits from the 20+CSs in his 5% culture bonus.
Hungary- Combined with Himiko could suz many CSs and probably do a good war game. You will have plenty of envoys after a while!
Alexander- One of the civs that I want to work, but am very unsure if it can work. With the right setup he can get all the boosts and will require less science than anyone except Babylon. Can also produce instant science, although it is highly questionable how well that can work.
Gaul- On the highland map they will get 1000 culture bombs, and have access to tons of chops.
Ethiopia- Should generate tons of faith on a highland map, although I think Voidsingers will come in to late for this to work...
Aztec- Again another civ that could try something different. Small map, war on everyone and get all monopolies? I have no idea if this is viable, but would be fun to try.

Maybe also some CS combos can work?

What we need to answer is what civ will benefit the most from our freedom to tweek settings? And that might be narrowed down to what civ benefits the most from having 20+ CSs, endless space to expand, the terrain of our choice and the boosts from heroes/Societies?

All in all very many things to consider and try out! =)

 

I rarely build many Theatre districts in a SV. Takes too much time I think. So getting many cultural ones for the extra yields isn't a big thing for me. Same of the suzerain bonuses of the cultural CS are great though, so those I think are mandatory.

Hmm, it might. Al the disasters really mess up your cities though, all that rebuilding takes too much time I think.

I'm still in doubt which Society is the best for SV. I used Voidsingers in the Russia game (slots for works of art and off course the 20% bonus to all yields. It takes a while to get that, but I think it's worth it. Vampires are not worth it I think, the castle can be great, but will never compare to +20%. You won't ever get the third society slot, so only the first two matter in a fast SV. So those have to match with your strat.

I hate it, cause all the AI crumble before your eyes... But chaining golden ages should be doable. It scales with the number of cities you have, so the wider you go, the harder your next golden age will be. More so than without dramatic ages. You can pillage and conquer all the free cities, so that's worth something.

Nice ideas for SV strats. The Khmer looks viable after the last patch as well (and I love the massive faith game, so the Khmer go well with that). I really like the Hungary suggestion. I've had a lot of fun with them (e.g. a one city domination challenge) in the past, but haven't played them in ages. Didn't Civtrader (years ago) do a super fast Aztec SV game? Might be fun to try that with all the builders in the early game and lots of chops.

Definitely!

 

Khmer looks promising I agree! My problem is that the 20% bonus activates in the medival era, and by then the game will be more or less won if we are talking superfast times sub120-130. Except if you manage to speed up the ages by having just one oponent? I dont know how that will actually play out, but if you can speed up the ages, I agree that voidsingers should be better. I liked the vampire idea, because it come into the game early to make an effect. But I did a few test-starts, and I can never seem to find a barbarian camp anymore... Cant ever remember that I had problems with that before! Aztec I still think can be very fast, but I think it is kind of a micomanagement hell with all the workers. No theater squares? Well I cant agree to that. Strong culture speeds everything up. Unless you have another strong culture source I will always build them.

I think I will try a run with China, which should be fun playing at least.

 

Being able to freely swap in and out appropriate Golden Age cards when playing Dramatic Ages is really powerful. And you cleanly scoop up a bunch of border cities 10 turns after the Era break. The biggest drawback is that almost every Civ gets a Golden Classical, but if you played Lautaro you might just conquer the planet before the Medieval. I've been trying Man-at-Arms Hammurabi rush with Dramatic Ages (you complete so many Techs that the Era Score comes easily) and sub-200 is cake.

 

Just realized that vampire castles doesnt come into play before medival era either... I thought you would get it instantly. Then Sanguine pact is definently out. Then Im starting to question how we can actually speed up the start enough. Maybe the optimizing wont matter that much early game, but come into play only mid-late game...

 

Because they take more work to gain proper culture from them (way more work to get good adjacency than HS and Campus) I typically find myself building only a few of them in the 'top cities' (many chops or early high production). I might be thinking too much about the Peter strategy though, where you get a lot of culture from other sources (Obelisk e.g.), how do you prioritize theatres squares in your games?

Looking forward to see it!

True. Might be interesting to try to use dramatic ages to speed things up.

Agree.

 

Great work @Bangau with the fast science win. I'd like to post my T179 Khmer game here just for a reference. Standard speed/size, Deity, SS mode only with Void singers, wet map, dropped 1 AI, all other settings standard. I think the Khmer could challenge with the right map. They're so good at the religious science with Work Ethic just like Russia. Spaceports bought in 4 cities with mass faith leftover. The AI was completely broke all game, so going Reyna would've been a huge let down.

I have no doubt a better player with or without enhanced settings could destroy this. This was my first attempt with them after all. I even played with my food and built Estadio for the culture and amenities (with GE charges and a few turns of hammering). Most of my cities were either happy or ecstatic for the +10/20% boost.

At T114 my science was a little slow, hence I still wasn't 1 turning techs. No T100 screenshot unfortunately.

Spoiler T114 :

There was discussion about Theater Squares. Here is a note from the game, I only built 3 in total and had good culture throughout. 1 by the Colosseum, and two around Mahabodi and Forbidden and a EC to maximize their adjacency.

Spoiler Khmer Final :

Not a good spread of CSs. Only 1 science and 1 faith. Nan Madol was pretty clutch though.

Spoiler City States :

Amundsen Scott city at the bottom. Spaceport Two city built Military Academy and IZ for the 100% power. Mass chopped Lasers in this city and 1 other. I believe it took 6 total turns to make it to Mars, but that could've been faster had I not moved Magnus from Spaceport One to Spaceport Two (I should've just chopped anyways).

Spoiler Shot of lower empire + Menu :

I'm looking forward to all of your feedback about the Khmer and future posts of your own games.

 

Nice game @The Highwayman ! You inspired me to try the Khmer science speed run as well. Curious to see how my game will compare. How much do you think the tall cities help the Khmer? Since the latest changes they are the kings of tall cities, do you think they grow fast enough to really help with a fast SV? Their ability to generate massive culture is quite nice as well, don't think you need many theatre squares with them.

___

To inspire others to join in , latest standings:

• 1st place: Bangau - 144 turns - Peter of Russia (apr 2021)
• 2nd place: whacker - 173 turns - Qin Shi Huang of China
• 3rd place: The Highwayman - 178 turns - Yayavarman of Khmer (may 2021)
• 4th place: Victoria - 191 turns - Kupe of Aoteoroa
• 5th place: kirrbbb - 195 turns - Matthias Corvinus of Hungary
• 6th place: Ceydezed - 216 turns - Pericles of Greece
• 7th place: Bangau - 236 turns - Pachacuti of the Inca
• 8th place:
• 9th place:
• 10th place:

 

@Bangau Thank you! The tall cities really help the Khmer, but I still went wide and would suggest trying that first. At least 16-20 cities - I wound up with 23.

The tallness of the Khmer in addition to wide help in all kinds of ways:

• Civil Service and Urbanization boosts without even trying.
• Getting those 4th and 5th district slots opened up for the situational extra trade route, IZ, random district for free envoy, etc. Holy Sites and Campuses are of course the priority. Getting an extra district slot also helps with certain wonder requirements, such as Colosseum.
• Extra tiles to work production. This is underrated. Big food and housing is all free of opportunity cost and Khmer's cities grow so fast without restriction and have such big production from the pop + work ethic that building extra districts listed above is so fast.
• The two points above make them better than Germany at doing Germany things. The basically get the extra district slot(s) but have the pop to rock n roll without having to go overboard with IZ and Comm Hubs. Massive amounts of faith allow GE purchasing.
• They can run specialists much earlier. While many scoff at this, the Khmer get this extra pop for free. It's +9 per city before any amenity, wonder, or city state modifier is applied. With 20+ cities, that can be around 250+ spt. This is probably irrelevant for the sub 150 games, but for 150-180 it can provide a nice boost.
• Early higher pop directly impacts the new sensational Prasat and aqueduct changes. That Theater Squareless culture just keeps getting higher and higher. The faith just keeps pouring in for all the faith related goodness.

The big takeaway is the return on investment of the Holy Site. The extra pop from food and housing simply rolls in quicker by doing something you're going to do anyways. Even if the Khmer cannot overtake the mighty Russia in a peaceful fast science game, I think they can be considered within their league. I think "Tall and Wide" as opposed to "Tall" when thinking Khmer.

 

You do make a convincing case for Khmer. I think you might be on to something. I will do some tests as well. Have you considered the highland template for him? Just thinking that food is no problem, so with lots of hills you will have even better production as well?

Im at turn 70 with my China game, but I realized I had forgotten how much planning a speedrun actually requires. Playing fast just doesnt work... So it wont be a very fast game. I think I will play the game to turn 100 at least and see what the main learning points are.

I normally build at least two theather squares quite early, and after that it often becomes the no. 3 district, if the first is campus and the second a district you need for boosts. I see my first speedrungame with Peter I had 7 theater squares. That might be too much, but you will benefit a lot from strong culture, so you need some sources.

 

@ATEX The highlands template is interesting, as there's a lot of land and hills. My only concern would be a lack of rivers. The map I played on had rivers near the cap and starting location, but the cities to the south suffered and I had to settle for lakes and coast or neither. I took the River Goddess pantheon and was quite pleased, but it's not the be all for them. The extra housing and amenities in around 2/3 of my cities was a nice boon. What would the pantheon choice be on a highlands, especially if DotA isn't a viable option and assuming Religious Settlements is gone per usual?

And I agree completely with the slow play. My game took 4-5 actual gaming sessions to complete, with pauses at just the right times. Slowing down to think big picture, especially during the expansion phase, is so vital for me. Sometimes it's so hard to take a break to think though.

Early Theater Squares are interesting, especially if the GWs aren't contested. If nothing else they're trade bait for the AI assuming they have money to spend. I think they can be minimized to a degree provided the adjacency is maxed out. I'd definitely go harder on them with Greece or Japan.

What's your opening China strat? If religion what beliefs? If Work Ethic isn't that great due to poor adjacency and Coral isn't available, would you consider Divine Inspiration to bolster the early faith gen? Is it still Holy Sites and Campuses and every other district situational? Would Stonehenge ever come into play for the quick religion and faith gen from Divine Inspiration to have a baller Classical golden, or is the opportunity cost too high for speed runs?

 

Playing a game at the moment with it set and the problem I see is it is using up one of your wildcard slots. Just got to rockets at T127, playing too fast, not enough planning, missed the industrial era wonder but worse, Kupe, seemingly because of Toa’s did not trigger the three musketeers, rather annoying.

 

I agree. Heroic ages does not seem to work unless there is some combo I cant see. The wildcard-slot is to valuable.

@The Highwayman I dont know what would be the best panteon for the hills map. Maybe it doesnt matter that much. As always it is highly situational.
My China strat, was basically trying against 1 comp on a large map with all CSs. The idea was that I could get all the wonders, and what religion I wanted, and maybe use the heroic age wonder card for +4 culture. I rolled a map with good desert, so I went work ethics with desert boosting. It is ok, but nothing more. I did not feel that I got much synergy or anything out of optimizing. So Im going to try something else. I still think China should be among the fastest though, so I might pick it up again if I get some ideas.

 

Yeah, that's a major disadvantage.

I'm thinking about the timing of war. To set up the snowball with faith, cities and culture, I find myself starting wars after turn 80/90, which I feel is too late. What's you're experience in starting wars? What other development do you suspend to get an army earlier (if you do...)?

 

It depends a lot on the civ, Kupe has to go earlier than that as he gets little faith.
It is a question of the value of war, all those cities make you unhappy unless you are only pillaging