Civ 7 GOTM02 - Completion of Modern Age (end of game) Spoiler Thread

[Eyswein]

At the top of your post please post:
Victory Condition Achieved (Note: Economic was goal for Civ 7 GOTM02)
Score = (Turns in Modern Age) - (Total Legacy Points throughout entire game)

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 Modern Age?
- What was your plan for achieving the Victory Condition? 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?
- Did you settle more towns/cities in the Modern Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
- What were key production/purchase focuses?
- 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 Fewest Turns the right measure of success for the Modern Age? Is the combination for score above the right measure of success for the entire game?
- Did you enjoy the game?

 

[SiCK_Boy]

Was able to complete the game without closing, so I played the entire game before the patch.
Achieved the Economic victory in 90 turns (could have done Science earlier a bit) - Total points 31 = 59

Modern - Turn 0
Chose Qing as my civilisation (as instructed)
I have 12/16 settlements. Both commanders are in Hangzou (distant land) with 4 canons in one, and 1 canon, 2 cavalry and 1 siege in the second; Fleet is in Changan, but it only contains 3 ships. Didn't know you could lose some when transitioning age; I thought all ships stacked in a commander were safe. I have an extra 3 gusa and 6 canons guarding my towns. The only town I feel is too undefended is Suvarnagiri, as it could be threatened by independant powers. I'll send one commander its way, and the other will cover Tadmekka.
I'm still hostile with Amina and Trung, and friendly with Himiko and August, neutral with Catherine, Xerxes and Ibn Battuta.
Legacy choices: land of opportunity (+10 prod in distant land), expansionist point, deep roots (+24 culture), diplomatic point, to the source (+gold per different resource), golden age - lights, high schools, reset my capital to Changan
My 6 cities are: Pekin, Koloe, Yingtian, Jinyang, Pataliputra and Maste.
I'm starting with the lead on most productions; Auguste and Himiko are my closest rivals, with Catherine a distant third.

Modern - Turn 10
My gold is not all that good, many building take a long time to purchase
Back in an alliance with Himiko, on my way to being king of 2 city-states

Modern - Turn 21
Railway was unlocked, but again, production is slow to ramp up
Auguste and Himiko have started going for artefacts, I'm still increasing productivity and buying buildings instead
Got my first city-state (free tech), and am working on 4 more

Modern - Turn 30
Starting to get a few railroads built
August is in advance at 4 relics, everyone else is still at 0 progress

Modern - Turn 40
Now up to 400+ gold per turn, can build factories
Allied with Auguste, he's the only one progressing at 6 artefacts

Modern - Turn 51
Factories are online, 96 points cumulated
Auguste still stuck at 6 relics
Slowly but surely getting there

Modern - Turn 70
War broke out
Ibn Battuta launched an attack, followed by Catherine and Trung Trac. This will let me collect a few military points

Modern - Turn 90
Victory - 31 points total

As you can see from my "journal", I got bored. I still managed to snag 6 or 7 relics without ever digging one out. The war gave me something to do (made it to 16 military points), and the AI were still going at it when I won. The game was fun, but now I'm looking forward to testing the new patch and civilisations. Looking to read reports from others, and especially to see which civs they allied / fought with during their campaign.

 

[MACKA0ili]

Economic Victory achieved on turn 59
Total Legacy Points: 1231 points (912 economic and 2 cultural in the modern age, 117 from the previous ages)
Score: 59 - 1231 = -1172

Edit: I think I misunderstood the legacy points that were being asked for as ones for tracking legacy path progress rather than the ones earned and spent at the end of the age. If that's the case, then my final score is actually 59 - 29 = 30

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

Went for a scientific golden age + lyceums to beeline factories. Other important ones were doubling down on expansionists attributes to increase specialist yield. Changed capital to my Natural Wonder City since it had the highest production and set up a bunch of towns to factory specialization.

- What was your plan for achieving the Victory Condition? 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?

The plan was to beeline to Mass Production for factories and settle any free lands that had factory resources

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

Academics for early science and Oxford and then straight up to Mass Production

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

I honestly forgot about their ability, but managed to really avoid their science penalty until later

- Did you settle more towns/cities in the Modern Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?

I settled four more towns in places with factory resources. Ended up with 3 cities and 15 towns

- What were key production/purchase focuses?

Purchasing rail stations and ports where they were needed was expensive. The unique merchant was also useful more making sure city connections existed where needed

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

Bureaucratic Monarchy for the gold bonuses

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

Not much honestly, just tried to appease people so they wouldn't declare war on me (to no avail) and befriended a few city states just because.

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

City connections really need to be better explained. Had to make a hub city to connect everything to.

- Are Fewest Turns the right measure of success for the Modern Age? Is the combination for score above the right measure of success for the entire game?

I don't think like the combination score is good, especially since modern age economic legacy points can end up much higher than the turn count. Fewest turns for the entire game might be a good way to go next time.

- Did you enjoy the game?

Yeah, I was planning on playing an entire china playthrough anyway and this was a good way to try it out. Deciding what civs to use for each age was an interesting call but I'm not sure what else could have been done.

Save is made right before the final great banker charge is used

 

[patparker]

Achieved economic victory in 81 turns.
Total legacy points:
Ancient: 10
Exploration: 10
Modern: 3

score = 81 - 23 = 58

Start: extra science and culture. Everything else is points.

I need to get out explorers to prevent the AI from getting a culture victory. Then beeline factories. Only by military units (for protection), gold and influence buildings. Max out trade routes. Spend diplomacy to keep AI friendly.

Tech: rushed factories, then airplanes

The leader bonus was good, but it did not change my playstyle

Started age with 5 cities and 8 towns. Settled nothing.

Got my railroads and factories dup ASAP. Traded for factory goods and slotted everything. Finished economic path and began the bank on turn 72.

Chose Bureaucratic Monarchy for the gold.

Influence was used exclusively to pacify the AI, so as to avoid war. I had a few who turned hostile and one even tried to denounce me, but I avoided conflict.

It was fine, but at this difficulty level, not really challenging.

As the third age was timed, I focuses only on the economic path and ignored the rest. I finished fast, but had only the 3 legacy points at the end of the game.

 

[patparker]

Economic Victory achieved on turn 59
Total Legacy Points: 1231 points (912 economic and 2 cultural in the modern age, 117 from the previous ages)
Score: 59 - 1231 = -1172

Edit: I think I misunderstood the legacy points that were being asked for as ones for tracking legacy path progress rather than the ones earned and spent at the end of the age. If that's the case, then my final score is actually 59 - 29 = 30

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

Went for a scientific golden age + lyceums to beeline factories. Other important ones were doubling down on expansionists attributes to increase specialist yield. Changed capital to my Natural Wonder City since it had the highest production and set up a bunch of towns to factory specialization.

- What was your plan for achieving the Victory Condition? 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?

The plan was to beeline to Mass Production for factories and settle any free lands that had factory resources

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

Academics for early science and Oxford and then straight up to Mass Production

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

I honestly forgot about their ability, but managed to really avoid their science penalty until later

- Did you settle more towns/cities in the Modern Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?

I settled four more towns in places with factory resources. Ended up with 3 cities and 15 towns

- What were key production/purchase focuses?

Purchasing rail stations and ports where they were needed was expensive. The unique merchant was also useful more making sure city connections existed where needed

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

Bureaucratic Monarchy for the gold bonuses

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

Not much honestly, just tried to appease people so they wouldn't declare war on me (to no avail) and befriended a few city states just because.

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

City connections really need to be better explained. Had to make a hub city to connect everything to.

- Are Fewest Turns the right measure of success for the Modern Age? Is the combination for score above the right measure of success for the entire game?

I don't think like the combination score is good, especially since modern age economic legacy points can end up much higher than the turn count. Fewest turns for the entire game might be a good way to go next time.

- Did you enjoy the game?

Yeah, I was planning on playing an entire china playthrough anyway and this was a good way to try it out. Deciding what civs to use for each age was an interesting call but I'm not sure what else could have been done.

Save is made right before the final great banker charge is used

This is not correct. There are a maximum of 12 legacy points per age!

 

[maximusvii]

Turn 96
But I did get three legacy paths done by the end. Economic was my worst path sadly and it stalled.
I didn't write down the total legacy score, but it was in the 30s somewhere.

I saw Augustus was close to winning the cultural victory, I think helped by the latest path because i've never seen an AI do that well in modern age personally.
He was my ally and I took a -6 war score to declare war and hinder him by taking the museums. Somehow it never really dropped his artifact count correctly, it would recover after a few turns which was pretty odd.

I would probably have finished a science victory some 30 turns or so earlier, and military 10 turns or so earlier.

Definitely felt the resource spread was working against me. Personally I think economic victories depend quite a bit on the map, and who is near you.

Overall I had fun. It has been a while since I played at a lower difficultly, normally I play Immortal, and this felt fun to be able to get more done.

 

[MACKA0ili]

This is not correct. There are a maximum of 12 legacy points per age!

Dunno how I messed that up, my real score would be 59 turns - 24 LP = 35
Not sure where the other 5 came from. I just checked my rankings at the end and it said I had 29 for some reason

 

[Acken]

TLDR:
Economic victory in 34 turns
30 Legacy points = 12 Antiquity 12 Exploration 6 Modern
Final score = 34 - 30 = 4

We pick Qing as required. I honestly feel that most modern civ are a bit useless because Modern is done so fast so you need bonuses early that really matter. Nothing particularly amazing for Qing then, the infantry is fine but infantry is typically weak in Modern because it is much harder to end up with a lot of rubber compared to a lot of oil.

We pick legacies to speed this up as most as possible so science bonuses mostly. We take 2 economic attribute points to get the +1 ressource per city

Plan for modern:
* Start on rail stations and factories asap
* Eliminate Catherine and Amina since they dont have a lot of cities to increase military path score AND reduce the number of turns for the world bank. Xerxes got removed in Exploration just before ending the age.
* Get explorers
* Get as much resources as possible for factories

T1: Again lot of maintenance. Buying cities, setting up resources to fight hapiness, group up units under generals etc.
T4: Declare War on Catherine
T10: Capture Washington
T12: Learn Mass production. Starting to spread railstation + factory. Somewhere around there we adopt Fascism for the gold and prod boost from specialists.
T17: Declare War on Amina
T19: Catherine is eliminated
T22: We have 47 factory resources slotted and 281/500. So 5 turns. A quick calculation shows that it is unlikely we can reduce that to 4 as it would require 8 additional resources and we have only 5 in bank and diverse
T24: Finish Oxford
T26: Amina is eliminated
T27: We finish Railroad Tycoon
T28: We finish science legacy step 1
T32: Himiko declares on us, we take one of her city
T34: We finish the world bank for the economic victory

Total Legacy: It seems everybody is getting 2 extra points (1 per previous age) on the end game screen for some reason example with mine 32 = 12 Ant + 12 Exp + 6 Mod + 2 extra. You can see the same in GoTM 1 where with all path it shows 38 instead of 36. Up to the GOTM team if they prefer to use the points from the legacies screen or the count for each age (which would be 12 + 12 + 6 = 30 for me).
Final score: 34 - 30 (or 32) = 4 (or 2)

End game yields

- Are Fewest Turns the right measure of success for the Modern Age? Is the combination for score above the right measure of success for the entire game?
I like that we get some rewards for completing the objectives in previous ages. With experience though these objectives are very easy with most of the trick being able to delay the age end.
I'll be curious what people will do for a game entirely judged on speed. The game has some potential to accelerate Modern and Exploration quite a lot more than what I was previously thinking. Despite the age mechanic I'm fairly sure you can get games regularly below 200turns total.
- Did you enjoy the game?
As I mentioned somewhere else Antiquity is really fun in Civ7. Exploration is ok but starts to get pretty crazy and Modern is way too poorly balanced for my taste.

 

[Acken]

Dunno how I messed that up, my real score would be 59 turns - 24 LP = 35
Not sure where the other 5 came from. I just checked my rankings at the end and it said I had 29 for some reason

Your LP is actually 12 Ant + 12 Exp + 3 Mod = 27 (and final screen adds +2 for everybody so 29)

 

[kcd_swede]

Turn 122 World Bank 7/7; Legacy report showing 22 Legacy Points; does that mean my being slow increases score 122-22=100??? seems backwards.
...and then there is a whole bunch of FXP and Confucius XP which baffles me. I think after reflection the Economic Dark Age from the Exp Age would have greatly speeded up things. Also, I thought it was over in t91 when I completed the 500/500 railroad legacy. I also made the mistake thinking it was only making peace and getting gold to finish, but lost a number of turns waiting for influence (that I had recently wasted on counter-espionage and messing up Yamiko's artifacts). So a lot of wasted turns not understanding what was needed, what would actually help in the next age, and just generally learning by trial and error - emphasis on error. What actually slowed me down was being dogpiled numerous times, and during the building of legacy points from about 350 against ALL 7 OPPONENTS simultaneously. Man... they really didn't like me, and I don't even understand why.

As for the goal on any given game, I think as long as we know up front that many different measures could be used. But number of turns in the Modern Era is consistent with how the GOTM's have generally been played for fastest finish. For highest score... not a big deal for me as I still haven't gotten there in Civ4 BOTM's but being slower in the modern age shouldn't improve the score... perhaps 10xLegacy Points minus turns played would be better?

 

[Acken]

Turn 122 World Bank 7/7; Legacy report showing 22 Legacy Points; does that mean my being slow increases score 122-22=100??? seems backwards.
...and then there is a whole bunch of FXP and Confucius XP which baffles me. I think after reflection the Economic Dark Age from the Exp Age would have greatly speeded up things. Also, I thought it was over in t91 when I completed the 500/500 railroad legacy. I also made the mistake thinking it was only making peace and getting gold to finish, but lost a number of turns waiting for influence (that I had recently wasted on counter-espionage and messing up Yamiko's artifacts). So a lot of wasted turns not understanding what was needed, what would actually help in the next age, and just generally learning by trial and error - emphasis on error. What actually slowed me down was being dogpiled numerous times, and during the building of legacy points from about 350 against ALL 7 OPPONENTS simultaneously. Man... they really didn't like me, and I don't even understand why.

Lowest score is the goal with that formula.

They could be hating you because of ideology.

 

[GeoGeo]

Turn 71, Economic victory, 24 total legacy points (I take it the count includes wildcard points from Future Techs/Civics?)

Fairly straightforward age. I knew I wanted to beeline the World Bank. I had some trouble finding large quantities of more than a few distinct factory goods, but quantities of Factory Towns could always fill in for quantity.

I'd chosen the Universities Golden Age and Lyceums as legacies (also Tap the Source as an extra gold source). Between that and the preponderance of specialists from across the ages, the Qing's science malus was unnoticeable. There were some hostilities in the beginning with nearby IPs after I settled land in between several of them to claim some resources. Then I decided to finish off my long-simmering tensions with Trung Trac and conquer her two best settlements to my east (as well as a couple mediocre settlements). It was Himiko and I versus Trung Trac and Augustus fighting over the homelands (Amina having been eliminated back in Exploration). Trung Trac actually gave me the big settlement I wanted in a peace deal. Once that business was done I was left in peace. Ibn Battuta was Mexico and hated me for not being a true revolucionario, but that never boiled over despite his nearby foothold in the homelands. The one spit of land I settled on the DL continent late in Exploration amounted to pretty much nothing. I maintained only three cities at all times this age, letting me benefit from those tall-focused specialist bonuses.

Shout out to the random Reddit post that reminded me you need to know where all the other Civ's capitals are when using the Great Banker. I'd been derelict in fully exploring the map and that would've been a rather rude awakening had I not been tipped off in advance. I got one Culture and one Science point as side projects once I knew the Economic victory was fully secured.

This is actually the first game I've played with a fully historic or strategic pairing between leader and Civs. Setting up Han to benefit Ming didn't go as planned, but setting up Ming to benefit Qing basically did. Even over the course of one full game, I find myself improving...or maybe Modern is just too easy to blaze through right now.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Economic Victory | Turn 60 | 29 total Legacy points
Score 60-29=31 (i guess that means lower "score" is better)

• What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Modern Age?
  2x Expansionist, 1x Militarist. Deep Root (free culture) + 1x Culture. Tap the Source + 2x Economic (as much gold as i could). Enlightenment GA (head start on getting factories) + 1x Science.
  
  Spoiler Legacies :

  
• What was your plan for achieving the Victory Condition? 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?
  As this was an "old school" fewest turns objective, my plan was simply to get factories online ASAP and ignore the rest. I did produce a few explorers to get a few artifacts out of the AI's way as Culture victory was the easiest one and i've always been a little worried that the AI could get there before i can get another one but it looks like Firaxis toned it down so it's harder to get plenty of artifacts right at the start of the game. I purposefully avoided Ideologies to avoid possibly turning friends into foes.
  I got my first Factory at turn 23. At turn 31 i was producing 24 pts/turn and at turn 40 i was producing 30. My Great banker spawned at T47 and finished his world tour at turn 60.
• Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
  Techs : Steam Engine (boosted by FT) → Academics (little detour for more science and Oxford) → Military Science → Industrialization (Railroads) → Combustion → Mass Production (Factories) → GG
  Civis : Natural History (wasn't really required but why not) → Qing tree (doesn't matter but i purposefully avoided Ideologies so why not get my unique tree)
• How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
  As always, the science i could get from Confucius helped me a lot. As far as the Civ unique abilities, i guess i got some gold from my imported resources so maybe that allowed me to purchase a factory early. BTW i noticed a bug when you purchase a building that's partially built : the price displayed is reduced based on the % completed but you still pay full price and easily go negative that way.
• Did you settle more towns/cities in the Modern Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
  Nothing new. Why get more settlements when the game is already over. I started with 3 cities and later got my 4th city back to get another factory (not that i can't have one in towns but at lest i could produce some of the infrastructure, and i thought partial purchase was a think at that time
  
• What were key production/purchase focuses?
  Rail Stations and Factories
• What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
  Elective Republic. Science for faster factories.
• How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
  Influ-what?
• Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
  The bug i mentionned above
• Are Fewest Turns the right measure of success for the Modern Age? Is the combination for score above the right measure of success for the entire game?
  As i said in the other 2 AARs, i'm not sure there is a "right" way to measure success in Civ7 but fewest turns is probably one of the worst in my opinion. It just leads to completely ignoring most of the game. The Modern age was mostly inexistant in this game for me. I purposefully avoided ideologies to avoid potential "distractions" from my goal. Civics were useless. I just rushed factories, then waited for the points to accumulate and finally used a single unit while the others were sleeping : move my Great Banker → end turn → establish Branch Office → end turn → rinse and repeat
• Did you enjoy the game?
  I was expecting "did you enjoy the age" so i'll answer both questions.
  Yes i did enjoy the game. Civ7 is far from perfect but i already like it more than Civ 6. There is a huge potential with this game and i trust Firaxis to improve over what's already a solid and enjoyable base (if a bit flawed) as they always did.
  As for the modern age : well i can't say i enjoyed it, i can't say i didn't. For the most part it wasn't there. The game ends at the end of Exploration Age when you go for a specific victory (except probably Military which i still haven't played so far) which is a little sad. I almost wish there was a 4th age after Modern simply to be able to actually play the modern age. I played a game on my own a week or two before this one where my goal was to get the 2x Legacy every age challenge and at least that forced me to play the modern age. Simply going for a single victory in fewest turns almost removes the last age from the game (and i was very slow compared to Acken)

Spoiler End of the game :

 

[Bleidraner]

Economic victory t53, 30 legacy points (game show 32 which translates into 12+12+6 plus the 2 extra points Acken was talking about).

Anyway, as expected my lack of preparation by rushing through exploration slowed me down considerably. I should have played 10-15 turns more in Exploration to get some future tech and up my science and culture by growing the cities and killing one of the rivals, Amina was a good candidate. This was made worse by the fact that I did not realize that I had not discovered two of the capitals so it took me from t39 (when I finished the economic legacy path) to t53 to build the world bank in all the capitals, fortunately I could see roughly where they should be and sent merchants. Took me 14 turns, by comparison it took Acken only 7.

I had never played an economic victory before. In fact I have only played 3 games counting this one, and the other two were science and much higher difficulty, so I only have a theoretical knowledge of what I need to do, but no practical experience. I learned a ton, it was a lot of fun, and reading after the game the experiences and benchmarks of the rest of the players was amazing.

Modern age seems somehow half cooked yet in my opinon, but Antiquity is a lot of fun and Exploration is OK. In my game I went hard for factory production, and that was my focus for the first 20 turns or so, then I started to figure out how to get some legacy points in military and science paths. I never even tried for culture legacy points. Killed Catherine, conquered a few of Amina's crappy cities, build rail stations and factories wherever I could, traded with whoever was willing to trade (only Himiko and Ibn and Xerxes in my game). Had three cities, I have only played tall in my three attempts, I wonder whether that is optimal or not.

GoTM team, really well done, thank you so much, this was so much fun. I have a few screenshots and I have just realized we are supposed to attach the last turn save, so I will do that here and go back and do it for the other 2 ages in their threads, if I still have them.

Spoiler Some screeshots :

 

[enKage]

I finished with pretty dissapointing turn 60. Why disapointing?
Because I totally wasted resource management, as well I had most of them only in very few copies, so I had to buy tons of factories. I also neglected explorers, so did not manage to collect 15 artifacts and conquest dissapointment failed my sattelites.

Anyway, I should have finish off Xerxes and Trung, so 4 turns of banker wandering would be saved.

So in the final era I lost 2 legacies, securing only 2/3 of culture and 2/3 of science.

According to final screen the score is 60-36 = 24 (however it was 12+12+10, each era added 1 bonus legacy)

 

[kcd_swede]

Lowest score is the goal with that formula.

They could be hating you because of ideology.

Aha... like in golf.

I am sure ideology maybe helped get the distant civs to hate me, but every civ I met started hating me pretty quickly (despite cordial greetings and open borders agreements, and no espionage attempted), looooong before ideologies were available. I maybe need to make a few replay tests to see if I can avoid that with various strategies. Hmmm...

 

[MrRadar]

SV, Score: t86 - LPs 33 =53

Spoiler :

There was a specified VC??? *Note to self: next time DO read the rules in full, you (meaning me) nitwit!*

I won't go into details then, I'll just post my initial points selection, and final screenshot:

Spoiler :

To sum it up, I enjoyed Antiquity very much, I liked Exploration well enough, I was bored beyond belief in Modern. It is just awful, absolute torture, on the same level Civ6 late game was. When there's zero challenge from the AI, I just lose focus completely.
Anyway, thanks a lot for the game, I'll go and hone my micro skills... or not

 

[Manpanzee]

Victory turn 43, all legacies completed in all ages. Total score: 43 - (12*3) = 7

I took the gold celebration and also went into Fascism for the +gold on specialists. I think other options are generally better for most individual victory conditions, but trying to max all at once meant I would need a ton of gold.

Science and economic legacies were both straightforward. For military, Amina and Trung were conveniently allied with each other and had exactly 10 settlements between the two of them, so wiping both of them capped the legacy path perfectly while giving my merchant a shorter road to travel.

This was my first time trying modern culture since the tweaks, and that path was slow-moving. I was worried about coming up short, but got to 15 by upgrading a random island settlement that counted as a different continent, buying a Museum, and researching there for the bonus artifact from Hegemony. I still had "upgrade every captured settlement I can afford to, buy out every possible overbuild spot I can, and pray for a narrative-event gift" in my back pocket, though.

This was the most fun I've had with a Modern era yet. All my previous games I beelined single victory conditions and totally ignored all other legacy paths, and trying to get all four at once made things way more dynamic. So there are definitely pluses to the criteria chosen for this GotM. However, I hope reviewing the results makes it clear enough that "only minimize turns in Modern" leads to degenerate gameplay in the earlier eras, and that future GotMs will try to incorporate earlier-era turn count if feasible.

I will also use this space to harp on my personal biggest pet peeve of Civ VII design currently: locking tons of interesting civilization uniques behind a civics tree, while having multiple victory conditions that ask you to beeline things in the main civics tree. This is a major contributor to Modern age civs feeling mostly blank. I doubt it's the long-term single best approach, but for now I'd enjoy it more if Modern civs simply got their entire civics tree for free.

 

[Acken]

All paths in 43 turns is impressive, congrats.
Your screen seems also to suggest something I have started to do which is to mostly self settle because the AI cities from conquest are just bad and take too long to get out of unrest.

 

[wenamon]

Victory Condition Achieved Economic
Score = oops. I did not track this but will make a note for next time.

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 Modern Age? I forget much of this as I finished over a week ago and forgot to update. I had the golden age for culture and went with the legacy for it, I think?
- What was your plan for achieving the Victory Condition? 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? I was hoping to go peace after exploration and I was so far ahead that I think the rest just left me alone.
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all? I didn't build a single wall! Not sure why, just felt like I always had other stuff to build!
- Did you settle more towns/cities in the Modern Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities? I had about 1.5 towns per city by the end.
- What were key production/purchase focuses? I was still learning during this. I realize now my building practice is inefficient.
- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why? I was a democracy more for fun. I can't recall the bonuses
- Are Fewest Turns the right measure of success for the Modern Age? Is the combination for score above the right measure of success for the entire game? I am not sure? I am just playing for fun. Not competitive.
- Did you enjoy the game? Very much! I wish I could do a better job cataloguing my games. I really liked to see some of the picutres adn turn by turn analysis people posted! is this just done with screenshots or is there some special program people use to make doing this easier? I guess I could just keep a text file open while I play?

thanks again for organizing this!