Civ 7 GOTM03 - Completion of Modern Age (end of game) Spoiler Thread

[Knowtalent]

At the top of your post please post:
Victory Condition Achieved (Note: Science was goal for Civ 7 GOTM03)
Score = total turns for the 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 game?
- Did you enjoy the game?

 

[enKage]

turn 49 science victory

The final score is
Maya 96 turns -
Shawnee 69
Prussia 49
Total 214 turns

As I had nether strong science districts nor specialists farms, the plan was to utilize Shawnee tradition of faster befriending to free tech from city states - unfortunately 3 of them were destroyed by nasty AI - and combine their +2hammers on half of the world (some rural tiles with 11 production) with someone production haevy.
My choice was Prussia and I went directly into their civic tree, ignoring usual Explorers start.
Having +2 science on resources as the very first civic, then bonus hammers from navigable rivers, hammers from assigned resources and multiplied by constant +10% production (just a war with Trung) allowed me to quickly set up some schoolhouses and transform production into research, research on the other had boosted production in 3 post-Mayan cities with their unique quarter.

Such a loop allowed me to finish all projects in 1 turn and the final mission in 3 turns.


Basically during the game I was shocked how passive AI was. The best AI completed maybe 6 legacies throughout the game.

 

[SiCK_Boy]

Finished modern in 59 turns. Total score: 123 + 97 + 59 = 279 turns total.
Total of 26 legacy points across the entire game.

Chose Russia.
Have 2 joker attribute points I didn't spend from last age (took the +5 % in science twice, that's +20 % total there).
I had the option to pick an economic dark age (so I really didn't do well on that front, and my exploration age report is off), but I ignored it.
1 point militarism (+15 % for producing military units), Deep Roots (+24 culture), 1 point diplomacy (+1 happiness per age in palace and city halls), Golden age - Lights (universities retain adjacency bonus), high schools (+3 science per district), and I switched my capital to Tikal (second city founded, just south of Baak - now renamed as St Petersburg)

I started with 16 / 19 settlements, and converted 6 of them into cities (for an 8/8 split).

Before assigning my resources, looking at the opposition, I'm generating 342 science and 564 culture; my closest rival is at +182/+204. I think I have a good chance to win.

And the age went smoothly. I started moving my armies from the west to the east to once again try to wipe out Amina and keep myself entertained while ramping up and building modern districts. Made war on a couple of aggressive independant states along the way, but managed to suzerain most of the friendly one (with a focus on science ones first - managed to get 3 scientific CS and I think 7 or 8 of them total).

War with Amina started on turn 10, using only the units I had accummulated up to that point (including a 5 ships navy, although I had 8 of them at the end of the previous age with two naval commanders - there's still something I don't fully get on how many and what units get transferred from age to age). I picked up her two cities without much of a problem: the biggest suspense was if Trung Trac would beat me to it or not.

Made an Alliance with Confucius soon into the age, and with José in the second half. Hatshupset became hostile toward the end, but I managed to denounce her presence on my borders and she retreated, so my last 20 or so turns were just city growth + building.

I had my great bankers on his second capital by the time I finished the last science project. One way I should have optimised is, once I got access to the last two projects, I should have loaded my main city with whales for even more production, but I didn't want to change my factories resources. Ended up taking 10 or 11 turn each for those last couple of projects, when I could probably have reduced it a bit more.

All of my focus was on science advancement, so I completely ignored explorers. I still scored 2 or 3 artifacts late by upgrading some buildings, but nobody was much advanced along this path. Didn't build any new cities either; I simply went ahead and made production and science buildings, using gold to max out cities (again, this is my non-optimized way of playing: I'll focus on a single city, building everything - including food production buildings - and only moving on the next one when I'm completly done). Once my cities were done building, I expanded into international commerce (love the fact you simply click and boom - trade is done! - in the modern age) and then put many cities on scientific / culture projects (once I had reached future techs).

It was once again a fun game, always interesting to read about little ways people chose to optimize speed across the 3 ages (I think eliminating opposing civs early to boost age progress in Antiquity is the main thing I'll remember, and it seems like many people went for economic golden age as well rather than science, which I find interesting). Looking forward to the next one and if the new patch will have any impact!

 

[patparker]

367 total turns from all ages

- What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Modern Age?
Nothing but attribute points. Mostly because the others did not help a science victory at all.


- 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?
Just rush science. Build up production in one city. Try to get a science vassal, and then others if possible. Otherwise, just keep AI happy.

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

Astronomy for schoolhouse and Oxford. Then rush flight, etc.
Ignored all science masteries uleass they gave bonus science somehow.
Social Question for science bonus to specialists


- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Not a all

- Did you settle more towns/cities in the Modern Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
No settlement

- What were key production/purchase focuses?
Focused on science and the in the capital - production to launch the space projects

- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
I chose Communism for the science bonus and the city project bonus

- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
Tried to stay neutral, but eventually every single AI in the world declared war on me (even my friends). I then used it to get better war score agains the most dangerous

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
All of the AI declared war. Even those that were freinfly with me. I can tell we are at a higher difficulty. They took all my overseas towns, and focused on my capital to try to stop me from winning, but I held out.


- Are Fewest Turns the right measure of success for the game?
Probably. I'm not sure what else you can use in the modern age.


- Did you enjoy the game?
Other than getting piled on by everyone else in the world, sure. It might have been different if I was allowed a military victory, but I just played completely defensive. I could gave taken out a few of the AI, but I did not want to advance the era and risk ending the game before I got the space victory. This one takes the longest time.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Science Victory turn 42 (modern)
Total turns 125 (Antiquity) + 80 (Exploration) + 42 (Modern) = 247 turns

Forgot to post the final age. Here we go, should be quick.

• What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Modern Age?
  Very simple as i didn't have any military/economic points to spend from my full science focus exploration age. Enlightenment GA for more science from the start and a science attribute point, one culture and one diplo attribute.
• 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?
  Crank up science, research techs as fast as possible and use the OP Maya Unique Quarter (unsurprisingly it has now been nerfed in the latest patch, but my game was complete prior to that patch being released) to "build" the projects
• Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
  Techs for more science buildings first
  Edit : oh, and i went into ideologies this time. Communism obviously : more science per specialist and more food for more specialists and even more science. Didn't have any diplomatic side-effect as i won before the AIs choose their own.
• How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
  I choose Great Britain as my civ for the modern age, but it was totally irrelevant. This was a Maya/Abassid game and it was over at the end of the exploration age. I could have choose anything but Mugal (and their horrible -25% non-gold yields) the result would have been the same.
• Did you settle more towns/cities in the Modern Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
  Nope, no point adding more settlements when the game is already over.
• What were key production/purchase focuses?
  Science buildings
• What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
  The one giving science
• How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
  Influ-what? I guess i tried to befriend some scientific CS but mostly to kill some time. The game was already over.
• Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
  Nothing really, did i mention the game was already over when the modern age began?
• Are Fewest Turns the right measure of success for the game?
  When the goal is fewest turns (in the modern age or through the entire game), the game is over when the modern age starts. I don't know if it's right or wrong but it's how it is and i think it's a little sad.
• Did you enjoy the game?
  Yes. Even replayed a bit the earlier ages to try different strategies and see which one leads to faster finishes. Eradicating a civ or two is clearly THE way to go for fastest Antiquity but it might lead to slightly weaker Exploration compared to focus on growth and infrastructure. For the exploration age however i really should have tried to get the legacies for Military/Economic as the Immortal AI just isn't good enough to get the later milestones and get to the end of the age quickly.

Spoiler Screenshots at the end of the age :

 

[Bleidraner]

Turn 62 science victory

Maya 93 turns
Spain 59
America 62
Total 214 turns

Well, that was a disappointment. The update slowed down science quite significantly, I am guessing 12-13 turns slower science. And as I had gone all out for speed on Antiquity and Exploration, my empire was not optimized. I tried to make up for that by going war in the first 20 turns and getting the best cities the AIs had, but even that was not enough for the sub-60 win I wanted (sub-50 before the update).

Here is what happened in the game:

I spent a few days agonizing about the best civ for modern science from the ones I had available, came to the conclusion that Prussia was the best, and not America as I previously thought. Prussia has production advantages that are stronger than America at the City level, maybe not at empire level, but in a science victory you just need one city with high production. But when I went to play, I realized I had already generated my America file, I could have sworn I had left it in my final turn at Expl, but no. So I had to play America.

I then decided that instead of playing peacefully I was going to go war to get the best cities from the AIs, specially's Jose's old capital, who had the potential to be a production powerhouse better than my own capital Baak. The idea was to be done with war in the first 20 turns, but have then a powerful empire with great cities and go wide. Took me 22 turns, war slowed me down somewhat but the cities I got I think made it a worthwhile sacrifice. Maybe. Not so sure as with the new update my benchmarks are useless. Happiness was difficult to manage though as I was constantly over the cap limit, 3-4 cities, which is too many. 1-2 over the cap is OK more than that really slows you down.

Tried all the tricks (timing CSs free techs for expensive techs, building Oxford and timing it right, befriending all the CSs and protecting them from the AIs, etc). But science is much slower now. I also kind of neglected culture, which is not great as getting quickly to Communism is important. I lost 1 CS to the AIs, Marrakesh was killed, I should have defended her better. Anyway, many ways to make this a few truns faster.

I am happy with Antiquity and Expl, not quite happy with my performance in Modern. But it was fun! Thank you GoTM team for a wonderful map that played to Isabella's strengths.

A few comments.
- Inmortal feels easy compared to other iterations of civilization, and so does Deity by the way.
- The game is pretty stable, I had just one crash.
- UI needs to improve, fast.
- I feel the innovations are good ideas, but it is true that before the update you almost did not play Modern, so making science slower kind of makes sense.

Here is the screenshot from turn 61 and my save game. I won on the turn change, already officially in t62.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, I generated a Prussia file and played it. Was 4 turns better, t58, same strategy. 1. Prussia has better production than America, and similar science. 2. Turns out that if you choose a different civ, the CSs change. In this new map there were 3 science CSs instead of 2 and that made a difference. Same locations though. 3. Played with 2 less cities, things were a lot easier in terms of happiness and the result was the same, my science yields were better on average but not enough to make a significant difference.

Spoiler Screenshots :

 

[GeoGeo]

I missed that we were going for a Science victory and went Economic instead, but I’m going to submit this for fun anyway.

Turn 45, (oops) Economic Victory, 5 points

Went for America to take advantage of my huge tracts of land, and took the Toshakhana Golden Age and Deep Roots legacies, which were very lucrative given all my proselytizing in the previous age (Holy Waters means lots of extra happiness), and then Bureaucratic Monarchy for even more gold. Just…a lotta gold—thousands per turn by the end. Hard buying all the requisite buildings with gold. I need to lay off the Economic victories (and read the fine print about victory conditions more carefully).

I finished conquering Amina as a side project to save exactly one turn with the Great Banker. Managed one Cultural and one Scientific point by spending excess gold on explorers and science buildings.

Wrong victory condition aside, this is at least a new personal best for completing the Modern Age!

 

[RaidandTrade]

Haven’t done a GOTM in a while and first one in VII. Made a hash of this one. I didn’t read the instructions properly and pursued culture…

Something I’d not seen before was that on one continent not a single museum was built so no dig sites for that continent spawned the entire game and I couldn’t get the 15 relics I needed.

I ended up switching to a world bank ending instead. Didn’t clock the end turn but it must’ve been in the 1840’s - slow by all accounts.

Enjoyed Exploration the most. Confucius DOW’d me and, due to the chain of alliances, that put me at war with Amina and Trung. (I was allied with Lafayette). Took all of Confucius’ islands and one of Amina’s in peace deals. Gotta love a good navy: 2 ships!

I normally play on the “long” age so this one took some adjusting. Will read the instructions better for GOTM 4!

 

[wenamon]

At the top of your post please post:
Victory Condition Achieved Science
Score = 124 + 79 + 66 = 269

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?
See below
- 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 just tried to emphasise staying in peace and building up production and science mostly. There was not much interesting things other than avoiding war.
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
I focused on getting to schoolhouses and laboratories and the UQ for britain.
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Honestly not much in this age.
- Did you settle more towns/cities in the Modern Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
I did fill out some of the southern areas.
- What were key production/purchase focuses?
I was able to outright purchase some factories.
- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
I went with the gold bonus as that was what my former allies were in.
- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
I befriended independents, only to find many of them killed by the AI before I could complete. This is despite me trying to protect them.
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
As above
- Are Fewest Turns the right measure of success for the game?
Im not sure, I am just playing for fun!
- Did you enjoy the game?
I love the first age, like the second, and tolerate the third. If the idea was to keep things engaging in later eras with Civ 7, i think it gets a middle grade. Thanks

For the next age, I figure I haven’t tried Great Britain yet and my empire stretches globally so why not. I did consider Russia, but I don’t have that many tundra settlements. For my legacies, I don’t plan to war much but defense is always good to have.
For the legacies, I go for land of opportunity, deep roots, treasure fleet golden age, lyceeums, contagion theory and points in culture, military and economics. I also change the capital back to Baak.

Turn 1:

We start our research with Academics and Natural History. With the goal being science victory, I want to maximise, well, science!

Turn 2: I want to go for elective republic for Science, but realise my buddies are all going bureaucratic monarchy so I head the same way. Not sure if this was a mistake!

Turn 3: somehow trung is already allied with Ibhn.

Turn 4: Lol, Confucius offers me an alliance as well! I accept it and work to befriend Ibhn.

Turn 6: I finish academics and start for Oxford University in Baak now London. Also, I note that I have quite a few tribes around me and some of which I think i might even be able to protect and befriend. So, instead of immediately wiping them all out, I start to do the suzie.
I start researching Electricity hoping to speed to some laboratories.

Turn 12: with the completion of Oxford, we burn through steam engine, military science and electricity. Next we turn to industrialization

Turn 23: I have worked towards befriending the city states to the south of my main continent now. It is a slow process, since they hate me. I have also completed Red Fort and Hermitage. I am now researching combustion

Turn 48: I kinda zoned out for a few hours. Just been pushing buttons! Researching the tech for the 2nd project for a science victory.

Turn 57: I have completed the 2nd space project. Everyone else seems to be keen to kill each other so I ended my alliance with Ibhn and Confucius when they went to war against each other. I have since been offered another alliance by Jose which I rejected given his wars with Trung and Confucius. I just have to stay out of this mess and aim to get off of Planet. I built the wonder that gives +20 rel with everyone so maybe that helped?

Turn 64: again, just clicking stuff. Modern seems to drag at this point for me. 2 turns or so to finish the project. Also doing some digs and sending my banker around the world just for the heck of it!

Turn 66: I complete launch and thus ends the game. I have to admit, I mostly lost interest by the end as it seemed a foregone conclusion!

 

[pmarc]

Turn 42 science victory, 188 total turns (95 + 51 + 42)

Spoiler Legacy choices :

I let one science point go to waste in order to pick 2 economic attribute points (to reach the +15% gold for purchasing) along with the economic golden age, instead of picking Lyceums. From the culture tree, I took the 10% bonus on culture for cities with wonders; from expansionist, the points along the left side boosting city growth and specialists; from diplo, two points on the left side related to happiness. For science I got to 30% from the repeatable +5% science at the beginning of the age (ended at 55%).

I chose Russia in Modern for the civics that boost production and science, but I waited to get communism before getting into the civ-specific civics and couldn't get very far. In the end, the choice of modern civ. probably isn't that important compared with the accumulated benefits from Maya / Abbasid, especially the 5% production from the Maya UQ, which is still very much felt in its nerfed form. (The victory project went from 7 to 1 turn left when completing Future Tech I.)

There was also a strange bug (I think?) at the beginning of the age, when many of my towns and cities gained 1-2 free population on turn 1. First I thought it was linked with the Treasure Fleet Golden Age: only distant land cities should get free growth events, but maybe distant / homelands were confused in a game starting before the 1.2 patch? However, after I had finished the game, I checked again the start of age save and picked a different golden age, I still got the growth events on turn 1.

The civics order was Social Question (boost specialists), then the other prereqs for Political Theory, then the first two communist civics, then Serfdom I-II from Russia for +15% production to cities, and finally socialism for +30% to projects.

I started by befriending two scientific city-states for the free tech and +5% science / city state bonuses, so I planned the scientific research in order to get the most values from the free techs (finishing cheap masteries before moving to the next tier, etc.).

The age went by so fast that very few buildings had time to pay off, for example productions buildings may not have time to pay back for themselves. My slower cities (mostly those without the Maya UQ) just built the science buildings, others built science and culture, and I only got production/military buildings in my capital and 2 other cities for Oxford and the final projects.

Spoiler Final turn screenshot :

 

[kcd_swede]

Science Victory turn 137 (1896CE) of the Modern Age
Total turns ( 133+110+137)= ca 380

I am just happy that I could win at this level of difficulty. Maybe I'm getting the hang of it. But it really takes a long time to play so many turns.
To the staff I just say for the challenge.

 

[Manpanzee]

There was also a strange bug (I think?) at the beginning of the age, when many of my towns and cities gained 1-2 free population on turn 1. First I thought it was linked with the Treasure Fleet Golden Age: only distant land cities should get free growth events, but maybe distant / homelands were confused in a game starting before the 1.2 patch? However, after I had finished the game, I checked again the start of age save and picked a different golden age, I still got the growth events on turn 1.

If you've already taken it, the Expansionist node that gives +1 population to towns triggers at the start of each age. Since it triggers at the start of the age, and since all settlements but the capital start as towns, you can get the growth in cities even after upgrading on turn 1 and/or taking Econ golden age.

There is some weird behavior where this node seems to sometimes give two growth events instead of one. I think it may actually be that towns you upgrade to cities on turn 1 are the settlements that get double pop-growth. Which doesn't really make sense, but if it's what's happening...