CFC: Fastest Deity Science Victory

[Bangau]

all those cities make you unhappy

Hmm, good consideration I think. Some cities (e.g. with luxuries you didn't have yet or entertainment complexes) take care of their own amenities. If you're short on them capturing too many will decrease the output of your main cities. It's a nice balancing act to consider.

 

[Victoria]

If you're short on them capturing too many will decrease the output of your main cities.

and an SV has these real nice subtleties, like the difference between local and global amenities
Blessed is the ski resort and I am certainly into my water entertainment.

 

[Bangau]

and an SV has these real nice subtleties, like the difference between local and global amenities
Blessed is the ski resort and I am certainly into my water entertainment.

How do those help a faster SV in your experience?

 

[ATEX]

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...)?

I think this cannot be answered in general, because war is always situational. I find that war is another element of the game to master unless you are technologically superior, and it is hard to do it smoothly and fast. Currently Im testing how Aztec works with optimal settings. The idea is to use heroes to aid with early conquest. Get tonns of cities, lux and free workers, and spam campuses in all cities with the worker charges. Max civs and CS on a large pangea with high water. Ledgendary start and max resources ofc. So far its lots of fun, and potentialy fast, but the start was very odd with a wonder but no food... so I dont know if this will translate to a strategy. Conquered 3 cities and stole a settler by turn 30 and will have PP by turn 32. =)

 

[Victoria]

How do those help a faster SV in your experience?

Well, my capital is where additional science and culture goes, like from CS. So my capital has more than another city.
Then let’s say I have Kumasi, I want to send all my trade routes from my cap where I have lots of districts. Lots of districts = high pop. Naturally this is then a good place for Kilwa, consulte and so forth, and just why OCC works so well.

It is pretty easy when warring to have just too many cities with too much amenity drain and quite easy to get a -10% in your capital where a large amount of your value is. Relying on global amenities mean they are spread evenly throughout the empire while local ones apply before global ones and so you fail but pushing local... This means all your cities can be miserable apart from the ecstatic capital where you are getting +20% or more just from amenities. And lets be fair... +20% production and gold aint bad either... a good place to have a defensivy spy

And more subtlety... entertainment district or water district?

Spoiler :

If near water it’s a no brainer, you need the land and the other districts early and it’s only near when you get a water district that the local amenities really kick in value and you need it for the moon. And not only is it half price then but you get some science off your water from an aquarium earlier than a stadium kicks in which gets none.

I also tend to put my plaza elsewhere if I can get +4 adjacency as every district here gets 20% apart from the plaza.

and its +%+% rather than +%*% sadly
Note that entertainment is a local amenity, even if shared
I also hate how bread and circuses does not give happiness, how inane a mechanic is that?

 

[ATEX]

So the promising Aztec game ran into the same problems we had earlier in the standard settings SV-HOF. Pillage is just too good. Well into the second war, I had two of Mongolias cities that keeps flipping every other turn, and the most optimal way to play would be to keep them that way, and just have flip cities for the rest of the game... I almost think we need to ban pillage or just have peacefull games if we are going to have interesting strats here...

 

[Victoria]

Flip n pillage has always been too strong, the problem with it is the pillage value scales with your level, not theirs.
The problem with peaceful is Russia has a big advantage peacefully. The war pillage removes that advantage but war on deity is often not easy.

 

[ATEX]

Flip n pillage has always been too strong, the problem with it is the pillage value scales with your level, not theirs.
The problem with peaceful is Russia has a big advantage peacefully. The war pillage removes that advantage but war on deity is often not easy.

Yes I agree with you there. a better scaling would fix it. Also maybe look at how fast the cities flip. When there is only two turn between flips, almost any yield would be good. But with regards to fast peaceful games, I think there are others that can give Russia some competition. When we are tweaking all the settings freely at least we should be able to find setups that can give Peter a run for his money.

 

[Casualty of war]

Huh. Fair or no?

 

[Bangau]

Huh. Fair or no?

A friend for live that doesn't take up space! Sounds great. Hmmm, he won't have much to trade for unfortunately.

 

[Minou]

Yup, I have self-banned flipping cities for pillage. They could fix it very easily by making pillage just give the old 25f/50g (would still be useful but not grossly overpowering) or making it so each tile could only be pillaged once. Or make Builders use a charge to repair. Again this would still leave flipping useful but you’d eventually be scaling up your Builder cost very high if you kept flipping every two turns and burned a Builder or two each time. Scaling it to AI progress might help somewhat but I wonder what that would mean for Free Cities? Would their pillage value scale to the tech progress of the last owner? In that case they would still be using the player’s progress after the first flip. It was very sad for me to see the last rebalance patch just give out power ups for most Civs but not fix this.

 

[Bangau]

I'm still in the fast SV mode, and had a really fun game with Matthias of Hungary. In fact I managed to get a (one turn...) personal best with them. Getting all the envoys, and pillaging and capturing your enemies cities can really get the snowball going.

Turn 143 win:

Spoiler t144 after win screenshot :

Aspects of the strategy (for the few fast SV lovers still watching this thread ):

• Cheese all the settings:
  • Pangea standard size map
  • Pick a few natural wonders you like (e.g. Matterhorn)
  • Max out CS, pick all the science ones and some others that are useful for your strategy like Kabul for a warmongering strat with Hungary. Leason learned: pick more cultural CS next time and less production ones, the faster you go, the less likely you'll build many factories...
  • Pick the AI opponents you want, e.g. WIlfred to ensure a trading partner (he'll never denounce you). Leason learned: choose AI that prefer to build 1.)Campus, 2.) Holy sites 3.) Theatre districts. If you don't build HS yourself, pillaging and then rebuilding the ones you capture is very useful. I only kept Canada alive in this game, and I noticed he really liked repairing those Holy sites. Maybe leaving some good cities for the AI and milking them all game with a few (levied!) units is more useful than capturing and rebuilding yourselves? With Hungary, I think you could add in a few extra AI, in the beginning I had to travel a few turns sometimes for the next victim to be in reach.
  • Wet map, always for the extra chops.
  • Same game modes as in previous (Russia) game.
• Go Hungary style: scouts --> first meets --> Amani asap (very fast thanks to SS) --> suzerain --> save all your money --> levy asap --> move Amani --> take your levied army to war --> first pillage everything --> capture cities (in the late game raze cities that are useless) --> repeat
• For the SV late game: this time I had one high production city (capital) that could do the final missions in 2 turns, and no less than 5 chop cities (!). Worked like a charm, especially since I used Hercules to get all 6 spaceports for free (three in the medieval era, three in the renaissance). Some time up front (10 to 20 turns or so?) I start placing builders in the chop cities. I noticed having all '1 use left builders' are just as effective as 5 or 6 fully loaded builders, since there's always a few turns between techs for the space race projects anyway, so you have time to move them around and be in time. Only one you want asap is the Moon Landing, so a few extra builders to get that in one turn is useful.
• In my recent SV games I (finally) realized somethin obvious: you don't need more than about 2800 science per turn, since from that stage you one turn even the techs you couldn't boost. So I stopped building science buildings and projects earlier this game and instead did e.g. holy site prayers for some extra faith to faith buy builders.
• I used the Hermetic Order this time and got a lot of great adjacency from the Ley Lines. If you don't focus on faith, I think they are better than the Voidsingers. The alchemical society works good as well with the extra gold and a little production.

Some of the highlights of the game:

• Turn 34 (6 science): started war on Egypt with my first levied city state.
• Turn 50 (13 science): captured Egypt's capital (they put up a fight and I only had levied warriors), another levied CS army joined my forces
• Turn 57 (23 science): meanwhile declared on Japan and captured their first city with the third levied CS
• Turn 101 (497 science...): a big jump... build many cities, pillaged a lot, suzerain of many CS, chopped out a lot of campuses, libraries and a few alchemical societies as well. Kilwa around turn 92 iirc. Over 25 cities.
• Turn 111 (829 science): began to worry I had too little culture (303 at this point) to make the culture jump to globalization. In the end it worked out ok, but would I do it again it would add more theare square loving AI and more culture CS in the mix to get to globalization a bit faster.
• Turn 118 (1078 science): first Spaceport for free with Hercules! Magnus in the first chop city and taking a few turn to get Satellites.
• Turn 125 (1283 science): Moonlanding! Time for the massive culture boost.
• Turn 129 ( 2514 science) Globalization! Time for the massive science boost. Now all the techs take one turn, even without boosts or pillaging help. Also chopped in Oxford this turn to get two techs ahead.
• Turn 139 (3324 science) Smart Materials researched, another chop city set and ready to chop in the Exoplanet Expedition.
• Turn 140 (3391 science) All spaceport cities build and (primarily) chop in the boost projects: got to 6 lightyears per turn this turn.
• Turn 143 WIN

I really did not expect Hungary to get me a (slightly) faster time than Russia, but they are amazing. And fun, which is the main thing off course!

There's only a few of us fanatics left I fear, but hope to see some inspiring games of you people over here.

 

[Bangau]

To inspire others to join in , latest standings:

• 1st place Bangau - 143 turns - Matthias of Hungary (june 2021)
• 2nd place: Bangau - 144 turns - Peter of Russia (apr 2021)
• 3rd place: whacker - 173 turns - Qin Shi Huang of China
• 4th place: The Highwayman - 178 turns - Yayavarman of Khmer (may 2021)
• 5th place: Victoria - 191 turns - Kupe of Aoteoroa
• 6th place: kirrbbb - 195 turns - Matthias Corvinus of Hungary
• 7th place: Ceydezed - 216 turns - Pericles of Greece
• 8th place: Bangau - 236 turns - Pachacuti of the Inca
• 9th place:
• 10th place:

 

[Casualty of war]

Nice! Matthias is a steamroller.

I don't even bother with games that aren't sub-180. I suppose I could move the 200-ish Secret Societies game I did for inclusion, but that was 15 patches ago.

I have the worst luck with Hermetic Order but maybe I should revisit them.

 

[ATEX]

143 is a very nice finish time @Bangau. Well played!

 

[Bangau]

I have the worst luck with Hermetic Order

It is a bit of a gamble, but with 30+ cities you're bound to have some great extra adjacencies somewhere. Turned out great this game boosting many campuses to +4 or more.

 

[Minou]

Awesome game Bangau. This board has finally convinced me to try out the special game modes and see what I can achieve in terms of SV on a cooked map (specifying all map settings, but no revealing the map or replaying turns). It's actually a whole side game working on the Map Settings! Here are the settings I came up with, interested to hear any comments, questions, or advice.

Civ: Hammurabi. I think he is the best for maximizing a speed run with war though I could be wrong as I am totally unfamiliar with all these modes. But on paper at lest he seems to have synergy with several of the modes. Hercules would be especially sweet with Babylon given the free buildings with the first copy of each district and faster cost escalation. Sinbad could be very helpful doing stuff like upgrading Crossbows for a Pike and Shot slingshot. Hammurabi can get Industries early (free Currency with first Trade Route). Very rapid Sailing can allow a Builder to find more huts / continents/ wonders to reveal new Heroes and Barbarian Clans so that when they civilize you will have already met them (actually, I am unsure how this works and whether you already "know" a new CS that converts from a clan or if you have to go visit their borders again).

Difficulty: Deity - AIs are there to provide more cities, so give them more Settlers to start.

Size: Standard - I personally just don't like maps that feel too large, not sure if this is optimal though.

Speed: Standard

Disasters: Left it at 2. Seems like the best balance of a few extra yields versus annoying district damage / pop loss.

Modes: Secret Societies, Barbarian Clans, Heroes and Legends, Corporations. I was not sure about Dramatic Ages but left it out - seemed like a pain to have to use a Wildcard slot for Monumentality and it seemed like it would make it hard to set up a flip-pillage cities.

Map Type: Continents and Islands. At first I thought Pangea was best but I really want Voidsingers and in a few practice runs on Pangea tend to have bad luck getting it - often I would only get 2 huts and none would give the invite. On Pangea, most of the huts will go very quickly but in Continents and Islands there should be a ton of island any icy huts. Hammurabi can get these easily by settling a coastal city for free Shipbuilding and sending a fast moving Builder out to sea. Those middle to late game huts should guarantee Voidsingers (I think, again not sure how the odds change with time) and also provide a chance at some sweet tech boosts (and hence free techs) for Babylon. As the game advances, it can also actually become easier to invade by sea since units can eventually move 6 spaces per turn.

City States: Pumped to 18 of course (max for Standard map). I actually specified 24 instead of 18, because this allows Barbarian Clans to turn into the remaining ones (otherwise the civilization feature will be disabled). This seems like the right balance between getting the good ones early and having the chance for more than 18 total. I took all 8 Science, 6 Culture (all except Vilnius and Mohenjo Daro), 4 Industrial (Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Brussels, and Buenos Ares), 2 Military (Akkad and Granada) and 2 Commercial (Zanzibar and Cahokia). I took zero Religious to reduce AI odds of getting an early Pantheon and hence increase the chance of Religious Settlements. I figure this way an early faith resource like Dye might be enough to get the first Pantheon, or alternatively going Monument first and taking Voidsingers with the first governor title could work.

Resources: Abundant. This will make it harder to get Monopolies rolling, but I think a faster start matters more.

World Age: Standard, did not want TOO many mountains blocking movement.

Temperature: Standard. But not sure if there is any reason to prefer colder for more forests maybe?

Rainfall: Wet (more forests=more chops).

Sea Level: Standard.

Start: Legendary.

Wonders: Selected Paititi, Ik-Kil, Eyjafjallajokull, Toerres del Paine, and Mount Kilamanjaro. I left out many I would have normally liked because with Legendary start many of the AIs will spawn near them, and I want to lower their odds of beating my to Religious Settlements by keeping wonders like Mount Everest off the table and also don’t want to accidentally give one of the AIs Zhangye Danxia and have them steal all the Great Merchants.

AIs: I find that with the standard 7 AIs you often don't have a close neighbor to rush. So, I bumped it to 10. I went for AIs with no defensive bonus or strong early unique units (except Gilgamesh) and none with faith bonuses that might steal RS. Here are my choices and reasoning:

Kristina: Tends to pay a lot of gold for DF.
Wilfred Laurier: Tends to pay a lot of gold for DF (or at least I think he does, haven't seen him in a few patches).
Seondeok: Builds lots of fast Campus, good to conquer/pillage.
Qin Shi Huang: Hopefully will build wonders to capture.
Robert the Bruce: Not 100% sure but he seems to build lots of Campus and I think pays for DF.
Kupe: A bit of a wild card, there is a shot he comes ashore right next to us on like T10 and we can steal his Settler!
Gilgamesh: Obviously to have one friend for life to trade with after everyone else hates me.
Dido: Figured since she starts with Writing she may build more Campus.
Pericles: Hopefully some Acropolis to conquer.
Victoria: Threw her in as a random vanilla AI and hope she will build Harbors.

 

[Bangau]

It's actually a whole side game working on the Map Settings!

Hah, it is! Takes me half an hour to determine what settiings are best for the strat I'm planning on.

AIs are there to provide more cities

I like the way you think.

don't like maps that feel too large

I've done a few of these recently, and think that large maps benefit some strategies. E.g. Hungary could use a few extra AI to capture with levied troops. But on the other hand, the faster you get, the less time there is to profit from the extra room , extra CS and extra AI. I don't think that huge is very useful therefore, and standard good for most strats.

Disasters: Left it at 2.

My thoughts are: damaging potential chops, improvements, districts & population is worse than the extra yields you'll get, so I set it to 0 now.

I really want Voidsingers and in a few practice runs on Pangea tend to have bad luck getting it

The RNG on this can be odd, I'm currently in a Pangea game and found at least 10 tribal huts... I did get an AI or 2 less than normal this game though.

Continents and Islands.

More waters often makes less woods in my experience. I've tried a number of Portugal games and I really had significant less woods and tundra to chop.

I actually specified 24 instead of 18, because this allows Barbarian Clans to turn into the remaining ones (otherwise the civilization feature will be disabled).

Is that how that works? Thanks! This way you'll be able to get even more CS. Nice.

Temperature: Standard. But not sure if there is any reason to prefer colder for more forests maybe?

Hmm, I've wondered about this one myself in the past. For Peter it's obvious, but I leave it at standard as well.

I left out many I would have normally liked because with Legendary start many of the AIs will spawn near them

I find mostly the CS settle near them, but a good consideration. Especially for wonders like Zhangye Danxia. Good call.

Seondeok: Builds lots of fast Campus

She places them on the wrong spots for you though for adjancency, but agree that she's a great pillage target.

Kupe

Might get a bunch of first meets on CS?

I find Saladin is great for HS and Campuses, and Gandhi will get you some nice HS to pillage and take over without risk of aggression.

Looking forward to see how it goes!

 

[Casualty of war]

Shuffle is kind of broken with Hammurabi because you don't have to backfill Techs and Civics. I won a game without teching Masonry the other day, the same game I teched Satellites before Rocketry. With Ham you aren't so much teching as Eurekaing your way through the tree. And sometimes you are 3 Civics to Political Philosophy!

Big fan of Barbarian Clans because of easy Bronze Working Eureka, vast amounts of Era Score and early Gold (bit of a bummer that it stays a flat 30,) nurturing future City-States where you want them and buying Shipbuilding for only 310 gold.

 

[Minou]

Bangau, appreciate the feedback. I guess I also left disasters at 2 so my two wonder volcanoes could still erupt (not 100% sure setting to 0 effects natural wonder volcano though). Good point about Kupe. He might have therefore been a mistake... I didn't want Saladin since he would possibly keep me from getting a religion and don't like Ghandi because Varus are one of the hardest UU to fight.

I noticed one other thing, leaving out AIs with good early UU increases the odds of getting a Barbarian Clan that offers a good one. For example, I wouldn't want Aztec in the game anyway but there's even more reason to exclude him if it means you have a shot at buying Eagle Warriors for 155g (though they aren't quite as good as real ones since they don't get the amenity bonus).

Casualty of war, I never thought of Shuffle. But I am not sure I understand fully. For example can't you always skip Masonry in normal game too (though I am not sure you would want to since they you can't harvest stone)? And Satellites would not be much use before Rocketry since you couldn't build a Spaceport for the missions right? I guess you could luck out and skip some leaf techs with a shuffled tree, but perhaps you could also end up with more onerous pre-reqs. I guess my main question is whether Shuffle let's you sometimes get Offworld Mission to not be the second to last tech in the tree.

Anyway I just rolled a crazy-good start with Himoko revealed early with these settings (except I ended up changing sea level to Low and adding Piopiotahi to the wonders), so I will see what I can do to mess it up!