Civ 7 GOTM02 - Completion of Age of Exploration Spoiler Thread

[Eyswein]

At the top of your post please post:
Total Legacy Points for Age of Exploration, Number of Age of Exploration turns

A few questions to consider:
- What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?
- What was your plan for achieving the most Legacy Points? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
- What were key production/purchase focuses?
- Religious bonuses chosen and why?
- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Are Total Legacy Points the right measure of success for the Age of Exploration?
- Did you enjoy this Age?

Reminder that for Civ7 GOTM02 we request you chose Qing for the Civilization entering the Modern Age and do not change the mementos! Goal in Modern Age is Economic victory!

 

[SiCK_Boy]

11 points in this age (3 science, 3 culture, 3 military, 2 economic), and a cumulative total of 22 (not sure why, I only had 10 points in antiquity). This age lasted 80 turns.

Exploration - Turn 0:
Chose Ming as my civilisation (as instructed)
I have my 6 settlements. Commander is in Pataliputra with 1 infantry, 1 cavalry and 2 archers; 6 archers are guarding my towns.
Am hostile to Amina and Trung. Could go for a war with Amina to capture Maste, on the west coast, and I guess Tosali from Trung could be considered as a potential target, but I'm not really looking forward to such wars. Let's focus on fighting and settling in the distant lands.
I'm back to friendly with Himiko, but I'll try to resume this alliance as soon as possible. Will wait and see for Auguste (he's got 8/8 towns already, and seems to be my main opponent production-wise).
Priority is to found a religion (will try to go for city-states giving 2 relics each) and then convert and protect my cities, plus any of my distant land settlements.
Legacy choices: abundance (+2 city limit), wonder legacy, diplomatic point (will let me get 50 % discount on friendship with IP), 2 x economic point (the caravan option only gave me +5 gold, not worth it), golden age libraries (had 2 of each amphitheater and academies) and knowledge collection (using my joker point). I also switched my capital to Aksoum, but realized it has no access to the sea, so my fleet will have to start in Changan.
Cog is in Changan.

Exploration - Turn 10:
Chose plutocratic government for the gold
Started sending my cog to the west, bringing my commander and its army back to Aksoum.
Relation slightly improved with Amina (inamicable instead of hostile). Will try to snag as many IP as possible, not sure which ones I'll favor (probably the ones closest to me, whatever type they may be)
Amina actually destroyed he first civ I was trying to befriend... an ominous start
My cog has reached the first continent to the west, I'm sending my commander as well to grab a goody hut. No trace of any special resources, however.

Exploration - Turn 20:
Founded Hankou on a west island with tea. Didn't find any other civilisation, and must now try to explore further north.
Founded sickounism religion, aiming to convert city-states, then distant lands, then my own cities
Himiko is taking a very strong lead on science... will make for an interesting end game, where I may have to sabotage her and betray her in the end
Diplomacy is where I shine against the AI production output

Exploration - Turn 30
Sent my general with his army across more high seas to the west, discovering a new barbarian tribe and a couple of goody huts
Met Ibn Battuta to the north, he makes a tempting target for an attack to expand my distant land empire, but he's allied with an unknown leader, and knows the last missing one as well
Amina settled Lulami next to my own distant land colony, but she's got no interesting resources, so I'm not in any hurry to capture her town
I skirmished with a couple IP, and 2 of my potential vassals were dispatched by other leaders... I guess I'll take the influence points as consolation
August started a war with Trung Trac, and that pushed him to love level with me. I offered an alliance, joined the war, and Himiko followed suit. I'll harrass Trung a bit, but will settle for a quick peace. Door of nations ensures I have positive war points right away. I don't care to capture any of her cities, and don't have the men or the fleet to capture Tosali anyway
As I suspected, Himiko seems to have started settling distant lands to the east
There is one nice settlement location on the same island as Thuthy Hotewe; Changan is producing a settler while I'm producing my second army commander in Yingtian

Exploration - Turn 40
Reached turn 10 of my war with Trung Trac. Offered peace, and she was willing to throw in one of her 2 towns. I didn't know where it was located, but took a chance on it, and got rewarded with a nicely located Suvarnagiri, south of Vilnius (in that south-east section of the continent I didn't explore in the antiquity age)
Amina settled a second city in the distant lands, this time on that island already occupied by Ibn Battuta. I brought my commander and its army, along with my lone cog, and started saving gold (to be able to rush units or boats, as needed) and bid my time. Once my units were healed, I launched the war, killed another Amina settler wandering in that area, and captured the town in 2 turns. As expected, my allies declared war as well, which should keep everyone busy. I'm sending a lone commander and archer to create havoc near Maste, but won't put much heart into it. My settler still has room for a nice colony on that same island, with 3 exotic resources to grab, but there is also an Auguste settler, so I'm not sure who will make it first. Also have to be careful of the positioning, as it may be complicated to get a building to the sea with the way the resources are spaced
I'm undecided if I'll try to also capture Lulami; with 2 captured colonies and 2 of my own making, I could just convert them all to get my 12 points for Non Sufficit Orbis (I think)
Changan is already spawning specialists, so I'm not too worried for the scientific legacy

Exploration - Turn 50
War with Amina is over; I've conquered my required settlements on the distant lands, am looking at 4 exotic resources (soon to be 5), and have reached naval construction, so I'll start collecting economic points soon. I even went above my city limit since she offered me Maste in the peace discussion.
Met all the other leaders. Will try to be nice to Xerxes, but the poor guy is borderline extinct.
Have started to spawn missionaries - time to get the military and culture legacies out of the way.
Finished building my first fleet, assembling them for now.
Should be done with war for the rest of the age; will further settle in available lands to the southeast if I have more room. For now, I'll focus on upgrading a few units and creating more cities (I'm missing 2 cities, but they've started becoming expensive)

Exploration - Turn 60
Completed the military legacy path, on my way to finishing the cultural one (two more city states to convert and I'm done), started plopping some specialists down in Changan and Yingtian, and am about to complete my second round of exotic resources delivery (I'm the only player with points - 5, and I'll rake in 6 more every 8 turns or so). Age is at 50 %, everything is peaceful, I'm finally catching up to Himiko in science and culture output, so things are looking good. Just need to continue expanding with my 6 cities and developing them as much as possible. Should be able to have a nice railroad network on the main continent in the modern age.

Exploration - Turn 70
Completed scientific path. Missing 1 relic (once I finish converting Birrarung into a city-state) to complete the culture path. We're at 80 % age progression and I'm the only one with any exotic resources points; this bodes well for the next age and our goal of an economic victory.
I may have time to settle one more time before the end of the age: there is a nice spot east of Suvarnagiri that would have access to at least 5 ressources and a full circle to expand 3 rings.

Exploration - Turn 79
Auguste had us jump 5 points when he completed his relic collection, and I took us to 100 % by reaching 23 points for exotic resources. My closest opponent on the economic front had... 0 point.

Exploration - Turn 80
Scored 11 points (3 science / 3 culture / 3 military / 2 economic)
Got access to science, culture and military golden age - will keep the science one
Scores are:
Confucius: 22
Himiko: 11
Auguste: 10
Trung Trac: 5
Xerxès: 2
Ibn Battura: 2
Amina: 1
Catherine: 1
Clearly, none of the secondary continent leader did very good; they are not in the race.
I will keep the same strategy in the next age: diplomacy to snatch city-states, stay allied with Himiko and Auguste and simply outpace them
Limited settling - will produce settlers if I have time, but I can win with my current colonies.
Science: rush for the economic requirements (railway and manufacturing)
Culture: no rush at all, try to quickly get a civic that will let me increase my economic output

For once, it was nice to reach a peaceful state where I didn't feel the need to start wars. None of my allies forced me into unwanted wars either, so that was a nice change of pace from the previous game. If I feel like another civ is at risk of winning with culture or science before my economic empire comes online, I'll have to launch surprise wars. But otherwise, I should be able to remain focused on pure economic development.

 

[MACKA0ili]

76 Legacy Points (19 cultural, 35 economic, 12 militaristic, 10 scientific), 83 turns

Edit: I misunderstood which points were being asked for. Checking my save, I have 25 points which subtracting the 12 I had from antiquity means I earned 13 legacy points. Or maybe I only had 12 this age since I'm pretty sure its counting the 1 wildcard legacy point it gave me.

- What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?

I decided to forgo all golden age bonuses and instead grab as many 2nd tier bonuses and attribute points as possible. I also decided to change capitals to Amina's former city of Aksum since it had more space to expand and a bunch of wonders from the last era to use for adjacency bonuses for the scientific legacy path. Fealty was an important bonus since I had was already over my settlement cap from last era and I wanted to settle for treasure fleets quickly.

- What was your plan for achieving the most Legacy Points? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?

My plan was to just spam settlements in distant lands while focusing early religion to make the most use of the evangelism reliquary belief before the other civs could get their religions up. A joint declaration of war from Augustus and Himiko changed my plans, so much so that I actually had to stop settling lest I end the age too quickly from completing the militaristic legacy path. I ended up delaying a lot of things in order to get the max amount of legacy points.

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?

Cartography to get the early settler over to distant lands and Piety to get the early religion and missionaries over to distant lands for relics. Later on I beelined to shipbuilding to start getting treasure fleets.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?

I wanted to maximize science so I stayed mostly on the Ming civic tree until I got to shipbuilding

- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?

I settled 2 more towns, captured another and then got a last one in a peace deal. All of these were in distant lands. 5 cities, all in the homeland, 9 towns

- What were key production/purchase focuses?

Lots of missionaries, they're the best scouts and key parts of two legacy paths

- Religious bonuses chosen and why?

Evangelism for easy relics from scouting out distant land civs, tithe for more money to buy more missionaries, sanctum for more relic slots

- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?

Plutocracy, money is really strong. Also, later on during the crisis, I went for Revolutionary Authoritarianism since I wanted to know what bonuses it offered but I didn't really use either of them.

- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?

Since I was the tech and civic leader this age, I didn't need to to a lot of espionage so I ended up spending most of it on befriending independents. I also made sure than Ibn Battuta liked me and I ended up allied to him.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?

Getting double war declarations from Himiko and Augustus was surprising since neither were hostile to me. They ended up almost taking some of my border towns since I underestimated their forces, but I refocused my efforts into military and managed to repel them. I also realized I could take a few distant land cities off of Augustus so it ended up being a net positive. Towards the end of the age however, other people's missionaries became a real frustration since and it almost made me lose out on the militaristic legacy path. I had to delay my final treasure fleet in order to re-convert my distant land settlements.

- Are Total Legacy Points the right measure of success for the Age of Exploration?

I feel like I could have ended this era a lot sooner if I wasn't focused on getting as many legacy points as possible

- Did you enjoy this Age?

Exploration is my favorite age, I just wish it didn't end so quickly

 

[GeoGeo]

Turn 88 - Finished Science and Culture, 9 points total (victory screen says 19)

Kept my capital from the previous age with the intention of first pursuing Enlightenment with other paths on the side. I had the Master Caravaneer legacy and took Plutocracy for all the gold I'd need (particularly for those wall sections). First order of business was to conquer Amina's one remaining city. She gave me a reason to declare war early by trying to take out a nearby IP I was befriending. Didn't take long thanks to an assist from some cogs I had travel upriver.

For religion, I took Icons, though I wasn't very religion-focused overall. I never even researched Reformation, and Over the course of the age I set up three island settlements (Great Barrier Reef!) and largely ignored the Distant Lands proper until later on (didn't meet Catherine until turn 79). There was a painful moment when I got greedy forward settling a hostile IP and lost a settlement the turn before the IP became friendly toward me. The settlement I eventually got there was my largest source of Treasure Fleet points, so that may have cost me the Economic golden age.

I had three cities for most of the age, utilizing the respective bonuses on the Scientific and Expansionist trees. Plenty of hard buying buildings in the best adjacencies I'd found back in antiquity. Enlightenment came very easily.

Trung Trac had established her capital in the land to my east and after 60 turns of peace declared a surprise war on me. I got to buy a four-tile-long Great Wall in the settlement between us and park my troops there in one turn. Very cool moment. Generally happy with the amount of wall I established in various settlements. The Qing will surely be grateful.

Also, there were several occasions on which I couldn't convert an IP due to the game thinking it was being razed. Wasn't aware of that bug. I ended up finishing the age through cultural mastery relics.

Looking ahead to Modern, I fully expect to go for the World Bank. If I go to war, it may well be against Catherine depending on the resources she has. I established a single settlement on the Distant Lands proper in the last few turns and could take her three settlements to claim the south of the continent. But it's probably better to use my cheeky settle as a trading hub unless ideological tensions flare up. I do have access to two natural wonders for easy artifacts, but I'd sooner invest in my Hangshang.

 

[Acken]

On to the exploration age:
We pick Ming as required.
For legacies we try to think more about what will really help in the Modern age than for exploration. Since Eco victory requires to beeline we kind of neglect the 2 cost bonuses that usually don't translate to modern bonuses so we pick 2 Culture, 2 Science, 2 Diplo 1 Expansionist 1 Eco and get the +2 settlements and the thing that keeps your cities to save 3K gold. Amphitheaters or Academy bonuses are not super useful here I think because racing through Exploration does not really help us for the final goal.
We move also the capital to Huaiyang as it has more room for growth and is already quite a powerful city.

T1: Lot of maintenance. Buying some stuff with our gold, setting up towns etc. We buy a Cog to go east and move the one we got for free west.
T20: We settle Guiyang on an island in the East with 4 (!) chocolates
T22: We settle Beiping on an island in the West with 2 sugar and a spice. Science is absolutely crazy between the legacy bonuses, the yields and the city state free techs. At turn 22 I am already almost done with Education and have 7 techs and 4 masteries.
T23: We sttle Hangzhou on an island in the West with 1 Tea
T24: We already have a tile with 69 yields
T28: Shipbuilding done
T35: Tomb of Askia built in Aksum. We finish the science legacy having 5 tiles at +40 without even trying.
T42: Serpent Mound in Aksum
T44: Build El Escorial in Linzi and reach Metal Casting for Tier 3 units
T50: Ji builds Forbidden city
T51: Shwedagon built in old capital. We declare war on Xerxes
T52: We capture Parsa
T54: We get Future tech 1 from a city state (free tech per city state)
T55: Similar to antiquity, we start preparing for finishing the age and delay the end. We're already doing future techs though.
T57: We have added a few extra towns to the empire and are now at 20/15 settlements. Mostly making sure we are dealing with it in cities through resources. 11/12 Military 11/12 Culture 18/30 Economic (with some non-cashed fleets) 11/5 Science.
T58: Built Machu Pichu in Ji
T62: Future tech 2
T63: Our setup for finishing the age is ready. We can finish Military by taking Xerxes cities. We can finish culture by buying a temple and filling it and we have a lot of treasure fleets not cashed in. We now cumulate future techs for more attributes.
T64: Future tech 3 from a city state
T67: Borobodur built in Fuzhou
T68: We start to get quite a few settlements with Plague.
T70: Future tech 4 from a city state
T73: I make a mistake and settle a city in the distant lands we are now forced to trigger everything, probably then missing an extra future civic

 

[kcd_swede]

Turn107, Legacy points 14 for age of Exploration. I didn't really know how to max out the tile yields, but I managed to do it without trying and then lots of specialists. I am generally hated by the AI opponents... perhaps they are just jealous of my relative success? I was really tempted to pick the Economic Dark Age, but felt like it would leave too much on the table.

 

[Bleidraner]

t69, 12 legacy points (finished all legacy paths). The game tells me I have 25 I assume it counts my 12 from antiquity and one other maybe that wildcard attribute? No idea. Anyway I thought 12 legacy points was the maximum you could get but maybe not.

This was the best I could do completing all 4 paths but I am sure it can be done somewhat faster with an extra or two towns for more treasure fleets, as eco path was my limiting factor. I guess you can set it up to finish by t60 or so. But while I was reading the posts to prepare mine, I saw Acken's game and I challenge myself, I do not believe I have done this right. He could probably have finished by t64 but did not finish on purpose to give himself time to accumulate more future techs and so on, and he has built a massive science and culture machine on those extra turns setting himself up for success in the Modern age. I did think and prep for Exploration in Antiquity, but have really neglected prep during Exploration for Modern. I have too few cities and less settlement allowance as my culture is relatively poor and played peacefully.

Anyway, chose mostly attribute points for legacies at the beginning. I find them more powerful than the double point stuff like super academies etc. Went all out from t1 to settle the distant lands that I had seen in Antiquity on the East, unfortunately I did not have a coastal town in the West for more towns. I planted 3 cities in the island chain, killing 2 independents in the process. I think that was a mistake and made me waste a couple of turns. Set up to finish military by befriending a city estate and then incorporating it and founding a couple of other towns in the new continent farther east.

My science was so so and my culture not great, also lost El Escorial in the last turn because I was not paying attention as I had won all the rest of the wonder races. Nobody attacked me I think because nobody dared, they all hate me. My total treasure fleet production as 3, 2 and 4 from 3 towns. Had 3 cities total. Spammed misionaries for the relics and to keep all my cities following my own religion, probably a mistake.

Anyway this was fun, Let me see if I can find some screenshots I took a few.

Spoiler Screenshots :

 

[Acken]

t69, 12 legacy points (fnished all legacy paths). The game tells me I have 25 I assume it counts my 12 from antiquity and one other maybe that wildcard attribute? No idea. Anyway I thought 12 legacy points was the maximum you could get but maybe not.

Everybody gets +1 point in Exploration and +2 in modern on that screen.

 

[Bleidraner]

Everybody gets +1 point in Exploration and +2 in modern on that screen.

Thank you Acken. Yes I get it now.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

12 Legacy points | 92 turns

• What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?
  
  Spoiler Legacies screenshot :

  
  
  Fealty was a no-brainer to fix my over-expansion at the end of the Antiquity. I added an Expansionist and Military attribute point (consuming my wildcard point) as i find Expansionist is the most important tree and i wanted the free War Support to bring me to 3 (with the Gate of all Nations)
  I didn't take any Golden Age bonus, i purposefully avoided the Economic GA in order to get back to 3 cities (a much better number than 4 for specialists) so i lost one economic point, but i didn't had enough trade routes to make the 2-points option better than a simple attribute point. I wanted to get to the +2 culture/science on specialists if possible so 2 attribute points in each. My last culture legacy went to a diplo attribute and the last science legacy point was used for Confucius unique option (+15% food at the cost of -10% gold).
  
  
• What was your plan for achieving the most Legacy Points? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
  Much like for Antiquity, i wanted to try and get all 4 golden ages as the difficulty was low enough to allow it. This time however i also had a personal goal to build a proper great wall as i couldn't build one with the Han in the Antiquity and what's China without a great wall?
  Science wouldn't cause any issue between Confucius, Attribute bonuses and Tianxia tradition. Culture also would be easy as i find Toshakana to be the easiest legacy for the exploration age, and possibly the entire game, i just made sure to research Piety first to get one of the good (+2 relics) belief.
  So once again that left Economic and Military legacies the ones i had to pursue actively. I didn't know what was on the distant lands but my scout revealed some land mass to the north-east of my position so that's where i would go (the beauty of Imago Mundi + Discipline policy). Also one of my last-turn towns was in a position to block Trung-Trac's former capital access to the ocean if i could grow 1-tile to the north, so i bought a Fishing Quay and assigned some fish to the small town in order to get a growth event as quickly as possible. Second fish went to the other small town, it wasn't strategically positioned but i wanted to reach 7 pop early as those 2 were really only meant to feed my cities.
  
  Spoiler Situation at turn 1 :

  
• Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
  Techs : Cartography (so settlers can cross the ocean) → Astronomy (early science boost) → Feudalism (+1 settlement) → Machinery → Heraldry → Shipbuilding (straight into Treasure Fleets).
  Civics : Piety (for +2 Reliquary belief) → Nine garrisons (science boost) → Theology (as i now had my religion) → Rest of the Ming tree → Whatever +Settlement limit civic there was
  
  
• How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
  Confucius makes Enlightenment victory really easy between +25% growth and +2 science per specialist. He also give a lot of extra science to get a head-start with Distant Lands. Exploration might be when he's strongest. By the time my first settler for the age was produced, i already had Cartography. Nvigating around Pataliputra's borders slowed me down more than researching the techs.
  As for the Ming, their Great Wall is really good, i barely added any Culture building, and rather late, and was never short on culture to progress through the tree. This also helped me stay friendly with Himiko. Their UU is also very solid on defense. Park it on a Great Wall tile and you have a strong defensive infantry unit capable of shooting at the enemy without retaliation. it helped me when Augustus and Amina decided to be annoying near the ed of the Age while i was warring across the ocean.
  Speaking of Great Wall, i completed my personal objective at turn 43, i just had to settle an additional useless town to do it
  
  Spoiler A Great Wall worthy of it's name :

  
  There were smaller segments in other areas but this is the one i'm most proud of

  
• How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
  I only settled 2 in this age (but there was a really nice spot with 4 chocolate in the islands NE of my empire), and captured another 2 which was the minimum for Non Sufficit Orbis GA. I wanted to capture Hamatana but my ships had a hard time getting there and i was 2 turns short of being able to bully Xerxes for peace. Oh well, it will only cost me a merchant to get those resources in the Modern age.
  
  Spoiler New settlements :

  
  A nice spot for my first DL settlement
  

  

  
  End of the age, a few turns short to take Hagmatana
  

  
• What were key production/purchase focuses?
  Missionaries mostly. I purchased a bunch of those to make sure i could maintain religious presence in my DL towns as i really needed it in order to get Non Sufficit Orbis GA.
  
  
• Religious bonuses chosen and why?
  +2 relics per capital. I used to play with +2 per CS but now that you can convert Holy Cities +2 per capital is even better they don't require influence.
  Merchants convert settlements. Very good as you need only one even if the settlement already has a religion and i had a unique merchant.
  Can't remember which Founder belief i took. I never care much about those as i have other priorities than try to maintain religious presence in other civilizations settlements.
  
  
• What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
  Feudal Monarchy. Bonus growth. Is there anything else?
  
  
• How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
  Endeavors with BFF Himiko (including Farmer's on T1). Also befriending a few CS (i managed to befriend 3, but Augustus captured one and i couldn't liberate it, that option should come back).
  
  
• Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
  Not really.Well, succeeding at locking down Trung-Trac's ocean access just as her first ship was coming down the river was great. 4 treasure resources on my first town was also great.
  
  
• Are Total Legacy Points the right measure of success for the Age of Exploration?
  I will just copy-paste what i stated in the Antiquity AAR. I'm not sure there's one "right" measure of success for a specific age (not the entire game) anymore but it sure aligns with my way of playing the game more than something like "fewest turns to finish the age". It can be quite of a puzzle to get all the milestones to trigger at the exact same turn to score everything without finishing the age yourself too early. In this game it turned out perfectly. Here i parked my last treasure fleet while waiting to capture a few more towns from Xerxes and it was actually Future Techs that ended the age before i could take Hagmatana (i ran out of masteries to research) but fortunately i saw it coming an captured an easier, if worse, town to get enough settlements to score Non Sufficit Orbis.
  
  
• Did you enjoy this Age?
  Yes. I like Exploration age in Civ 7 but unfortunately it feels short compared to the Antiquity. At 92 turns this is actually a rather longish exploration age, i had some games where it was over after ~80 turns while the Antiquity often goes for 120+ turns and unfortunately longer ages option doesn't help much.

Spoiler End of age score :

 

[enKage]

Turn 72, intentionally delayed for about 5 turns to get missing +1 settlement civics. All legacies completed.

Among golden ages I chose to keep my cities, especially that changing capital offered me a town t be upgraded, so I could go with 4 cities from the very start and focus on buying cogs and setlers.

First settle was east for quadruple cocoa, second west on sugar island southern coast, third for volcanic wonder and then Romans declared, so I burned their colony and took another one on my sugar island. At this point it was pretty obvious economy would be easy to complete. Later I declared on Xerxes for his sweet coast and got 3 settlements. At final stage wars with Trung and August, Catherine, Xerxes, but I focused only on August and Trung to push them back from my belongings, meaning the whole eastern coast and southern half of home continent.

I was constantly struggling with gold so no more settlements upgraded,

Pretty standard teching - cartography and straight to shipbuilding. Civics were 2nd Piety. Religion my uual combo of relics from capital and enchanced by trader conversions. However unlike usual I went for natural wonders, as I needed the most yields with the fewest possible charges, and nicely reef was settled by Ibn.

I was reaaly weak at yields, only around 500 each at the end.

However, this town is really nice

 

[MrRadar]

12 LPs, 94 turns

Spoiler :

It looks like I got carried away by the building side of the game and dilly dallied too much

I picked Economic GA and Feudal Monarchy. Went to early war with Trung Trac to straighten up the borders a bit, took two settlements off her. Augustus jumped in on her side, so I took one forward settle from him as well in the old world. Settled one more city and one more town in the Distant Lands, and took another expand from Augustus there, and one from Ibn Batutta at the end.

For religion I went for Apostolicism, though on Viceroy it was a bit of a sweat to find AI cities with wonders, I had to complete my relics with Masteries. I thought I was picking Confucianism for the name, but after going back and forth with the options, I seems I misclicked at some point and Confucius ended up spreading Hinduism. Oh well. I also chose Zeal for more missionary charges and the belief giving 2 culture from tundra tiles in AI settlements. After the patch where they allowed Holy Cities to be converted, this kind of beliefs has been indirectly buffed considerably, imo. Augustus had some tundra settlements that have brought me quite a chunk of culture this way.

On the whole, it was quite fun to orchestrate all the final legacy points to happen within two last turns.

Final glimpses at the Exploration Age empire:

Spoiler :

 

[Manpanzee]

55 turns, all legacy points completed.

I took Science Golden Age, Fealty, and all other legacy points were attributes. Moved capital to the woodsy tundra area to the east, which I'd been planning since early in Antiquity. I got Serpent Mound and a bunch of wall segments in there, so it should be a production powerhouse for launching the spaceship.*

*I misrembered the target victory condition

I started the age with both the science/culture specialist buffs in the attribute trees, and stayed on three cities for a while to milk it. Eventually upgraded and developed three more cities. I also got the science/gold per alliance attributes and carried three alliances throughout the age, with Himiko, Ibn, and Catherine. Went two points into right-side Expansionist before veering back to the left, as I'm usually too happiness constrained to care about specialist growth in early Exploration, instead using that time to fill in all the hammer tiles in my cities.

I fairly quickly added six settlements to my nine from Antiquity, bringing me to 15 on turn 26. I added a 16th settlement late in the age, purely to give a closer landing spot to my treasure fleets out west. Did my usual thing of rushing Borobudur before cultural tree settlement limit, meaning I was eating some serious happiness penalties for most of the age.

I made an unlucky guess and sent my first two settlers to the massive area to the southeast that was somehow entirely devoid of treasure fleet resources. Was seriously concerned that I'd have problems getting there economically, but found some very juicy treasure fleet regions later and managed to fill them up in time.

I jumped over 30% era score in the last turn and didn't have a single real turn of crisis. Finished future tech, had the last treasure fleet I needed show up in perfect time, then popped my stash to finish both the military and culture tracks, instantly ending the age. I could have stalled it out quite a while to farm more stuff, but thought this was more fun.

 

[shoshonte]

101 Turns: 10 Legacy Points Completed (3 Scientific, 3 Militaristic, 3 Cultural, 1 Economic)

The questions are a bit challenging for me to answer without detailed notes, it was my first time playing the Exploration age. Definitely made a lot of mistakes, including not keeping my relics slotted out enough to avoid progressing the age until I was able to get all of my Treasure Ships online.

Not dealing with Amina in Antiquity age also meant that I invested significant effort into clearing Amina in the Exploration Age, as she was blocking my capital from being able to get its navy out (on the navigable river by the NW) which meant a lot of my early navy had to come from the South, which was not fast at all.

Definitely learnt a lot by reading the above writeups, will try to take better notes for the modern age so that I can have more to contribute.

Cheers,

 

[pkf]

Thought about legacy points for a while and changed at the last second. Probably better to go Acken's route with attribute points. The codices science buff was actually detrimental.

T1: Legacies were: Culture Golden Age, Wonders give culture, codices give science, settlement limit, trade route gold, confucius custom (+food -gold), rest on points.
Made three towns to cities for 200g each. Should have picked only two for the expansionist bonus (3 or fewer cities).
Started with Cartography which was also boosted and Piety.
T3: Started Stonecutters in cities. Scouts, Cog and Army went to W where I had scouted a 2 tile deep ocean spot to cross. Other 2 Armies and scouts went E, more spread out to check for crossings.
Also food agreement with Augustus, but the game decided not to show me whether he supported or just accepted it
T6: Declared on Trung Trac.
T7: Amina declared on me. Religion founded (Confucianism obviously). Relics from caps and culture from settlements. Started 2 Settlers.
T14: Amina actually got quite a few UUs out and I'm starting to wish I had gone for Economic Golden Age. I took Pataliputra. I also took out an island CS to the W.
Cap is building missionaries and sending them to other's capitals. Teching Feudalism and Ming civic.
Had so much excess influence that I went for the Science CS to the SE (the same one as in the previous age) for the cost of 340 Influence.
After reading Acken's writeup in Antiquity, I realized I should have either gotten Emile Bell (even though I hate sacrificing another rough tile) or at least spent the Wildcard attribute more wisely (I got the penultimate Expansionist point instead). 170 vs 340 seems just too good.
T20: Settled first new town (Beiping), W of Aksum. Can't build Serpent Mound in Aksum anymore because I took away the grassland tile with the closeby town accidentally.
T25: Finished Tomb of Askia in Huaiyang and reallocated resources for 112 prod city
T29: Trung Trac is dead. Managed to let CS take the blame for razing her capital Amina offered white peace which I accepted. Was at 15/11 settlement limit for a while.

T31: Shipbuilding and Colonialism II done. Augustus denounced me for being next to his island city close to GBR. I declared on him and razed the town, waiting with my settler there.
Met everyone else. Himiko has settled the islands to the E. Not acceptable, there's 4 cocoa there. I'll settle close and hope she declares later on so I can stay friendly with the other continent, at least for now.
T36: Declared on Xerxes earlier to disperse a CS myself instead. Bad call because he had -8 war support. Augustus has -5 too, all due to the razing. About 10 turns of quite some unhappiness follow due to being at 17/14 or 16/13 respectively. Apparently unhappiness scales down production etc. as well. Lost a lot of time here.
T46: Augustus peaced and gave me another town. Now I could finally white peace with Xerxes. Huiyang is at 140 production. I built Escorial (in the wrong place lol) and Forbidden Palace there.
Trying to tone down Science to not have the age end too soon. I had two settlers waiting for 8-10 turns. Settled one at volcano at natural wonders. 17/14.
I forgot to make Pataliputra a food town
T55: Declared on Amina again to take cap and prevent her from settling on small islands. Finally 17/15 and building 2-3 more settlers.
T56: 66% Age progress. Augustus declared on me. I started building Haew'wahh (or something) in capital, unsure where to put house of wisdom, perhaps in another city to prevent overshooting science further. I already completed the science legacy path, culture is ready but I stalled building more relic slots. Economic feels like it's gonna be close, Military is probably a matter of the last few turns again.
T62 68%. Continued with new patch. 630 culture to get it onto sync with my science progress which is at metal casting already.
T64: 70%. The plague
T69: 77%. Then 87%. I got suzerain of Muara Jambi and the free tech I got was Education II, giving me a relic that auto-filled and finished cultural legacy. Now scrambling to get wonders and economic and military path.
T70: Augustus offers peace and Roma. I accept.
T73: Plague starts actually doing something and wrecks Aksum. I had divine mercy and Aksum was following my religion so not sure why everything got damaged.

T74ish: Another mistake, I converted another town of mine and reached next military point. 96%.
I got a wildcard attribute point from a wonder and spent it on the Legend Unlock in Expanionist Tree: +50% Gold on converting towns to cities. It didn't do anything (bug?)

T76: Finally Notre Dame built. Macchu Picchu just in time, in two turns in a new island city. Probably still not worth going for though.
T80: Future Tech finish. Second Future Tech by allying CS. 2 turns away from Future Civic. I rushed cultural civics to keep them. I dont know if settlement limits get added automatically at age end (probably yes), so I got the last point for 23/18 with 1 town still razing. All TFs used.
Settled two towns. Converted my others BUT made another mistake: One town was converted by someone else so I needed 2 turns to convert. 11/12 Military. Killed Vilnius. I had tried to annex Vatican City and missed by huge margin, 4 turns.

11/12 Legacy points.
Gotta say antiquity age was more fun to play. Exploration age currently reminds me of Civ 5 late game turns that would also take forever and become somewhat tedious. The scaling for science and culture is completely broken, hope they adjust it soon.
As for what is possible for GOTM to change, legacy points from previous ages mattering for the final score leads to stalling out age progress, which is, in my humble opinion, likely just less fun. It's also annoying if you play multiple short sessions like me and have to remember a lot of "donts" every time you start a session (and eventually forget about one, see mistakes above).
I believe a different variant is already up for testing in GOTM3, we'll see. Maybe it could also be addressed by setting Age Length to Long.

 

[Sullla]

As before, the full summary for the Exploration age is posted to my website and linked below. The short summary is the era finishing on Turn 87 with full scoring in the Cultural, Economic, and Scientific categories, only the initial objective in the Military category:

Civ7 GOTM2

 

[Ballcrusher]

69 turn: 10 Legacy Points (I missed 2 Economic points)

This was only my second exploration game, so I miscalculated the timing for Treasure Fleets completely. After I found the treasure ressources, I missed quite a few turns, as I didn't start with the tech, that allows settlers to cross the ocean. So several of the good spots with treaure ressources got taken by AI. I considered war, but I was curious to try a peaceful exploration age. So I ended up with only 3 towns with a total of 5 treasure ressources, which apparently was way to few.

I finished Culture and Science legacires around turn 50, and then I stalled Military legacy to see if I could managed at more Treasure Points before the age ended. But I ran out of techs, so I had to complete 3 Future Techs which ended the game with only 16 Treasure Points.

Personally, I still don't like the concept that you have to stall in the end of the ages to be sure to complete all legacies. I hope future GOTMs will focus on how to finish the ages quickly rather than stalling to complete all legacies.

 

[pmarc]

Turn 82, 9 legacy points (0 economic)
(4 future techs, 2 future civics)

[As a sidenote, I wasn't sure where to best put attribute points to rush the economic victory in Modern. Once I had the +15% to purchasing from the economic tree, I put all wildcard points from exploration future techs/civics into science and reached +40% on the last node there.]

Forgot to mention it in the first spoiler, but I'm using the following UI mods: Sukritact's Simple UI Adjustments, TCS Improved Plot Tooltip, Detailed Map Tacks, Detailed Tech Civic Progress.

From Antiquity, I took fealty, the science golden age academies, then mostly attribute points.

Wanted to experiment with the economic dark age option for Modern. This also means Exploration is focused solely on maximizing the future techs/civics, and settling distant lands settlements for factory (rather than treasure) resources.

Aksum had a lot of open tiles and already a few of the Aksumite unique improvement, so I used it for a Serpent Mound / Forbidden City / Great Wall combo, plus also Tomb of Askia and Borobodur there. El Escorial built in Ji to reach 4 cities, while Luoyang built House of Wisdom and Brihadeeswarar. Notre-Dame would have been good I think, but had to avoid that mastery to not trigger the cultural path early.