Some context - the game was my usual setup; Terra Incognita, standard size, Immortal difficulty.
The idea was triggered by the fact that the games started to feel a bit samey if played "as expected" (by which I mean, treating the legacy paths like a bingo card and picking follow up civs as they come). Playing that way, I'd normally end Modern somewhere betwen turn 50 and 65, with both Cultural and Economic paths either done or close to done, and Science 2/3rd of the way in at most. Even if I would decide to pivot to Science in Modern, it would still be significantly slower than Economic, since you need factories for both. Hence, the following plan:
1. Stack the deck entirely in favour of Science - pick a leader with a science bias and best civs in each age. Make sure you have production to back it up.
2. Focus on continous borders and production; only settle off the coast if all the good nearby land is claimed, and settle nearby to utilise those towns.
3. When given a choice, always pick the option that gives more Science.
4. Ignore anything that doesn't directly help with Science win.
5. Find three camels to improve in Antiquity, even if you have to bathe the whole continent in blood.
Enter Benjamin Franklin, the uncultured swine. He never trained a missionary, didn't have a single city following his religion, and never seen a dig site in his life. He also, as is the custom, spoke softly and carried a big stick - didn't start a single war, tried to make allies, but on the one ocassion he got declared on, he made sure to come back with a couple of good towns, and scorched ruins of a couple not-so-good ones.
The civ choices were Maya, into Abbasids, into America.
The result was as follows:
This was my fastest Modern victory so far - faster by a few turns than even the early Culture ones, before they got rejigged. It also felt different. I ended up with fewer settlements - but more cities - on average in each age. By completely ignoring the cultural objectives past Antiquity, the pace has shifted. And I only got to 500/500 in Economic objective few turns before finishing the last project. I didn't bother sending the banker out, but even if I had, I still wouldn't have to artificially delay. Science win would come first.
Few conclusions:
1. I knew the Maya district is very, very busted, but it's even more busted than I thought it was. I had 7 turns of production left on the final project at the end of turn 30. Then I completed Future Tech research, and the project was done.
2. The era objectives are not just optional; they are actively detrimental if you have a different win condition in mind. You can only have one golden age, and the other 2 point policies are often underwhelming. By avoiding culture legacy past Antiquity, and military in all eras, I managed to get 8 extra Wildcard points from future research, which gave me much higher returns.
3. The era reset is not that much of a reset; with the singular focus and half-decent plan, the snowball was very, very evident - by turn 4 of Modern, I had Rail Stations unlocked. I don't see that happening with a Modern Era start.
I might do a follow up post with more detail if anyone's curious, but TL;DR is - if you get the feeling of sameyness as well, disable the legacy path tracking, and go for the best Science, Culture, Military or Economy game you can. I'm keen to try full Culture focus game next, or conquest of the distant lands with minimal homeland, and see how that plays.
The idea was triggered by the fact that the games started to feel a bit samey if played "as expected" (by which I mean, treating the legacy paths like a bingo card and picking follow up civs as they come). Playing that way, I'd normally end Modern somewhere betwen turn 50 and 65, with both Cultural and Economic paths either done or close to done, and Science 2/3rd of the way in at most. Even if I would decide to pivot to Science in Modern, it would still be significantly slower than Economic, since you need factories for both. Hence, the following plan:
1. Stack the deck entirely in favour of Science - pick a leader with a science bias and best civs in each age. Make sure you have production to back it up.
2. Focus on continous borders and production; only settle off the coast if all the good nearby land is claimed, and settle nearby to utilise those towns.
3. When given a choice, always pick the option that gives more Science.
4. Ignore anything that doesn't directly help with Science win.
5. Find three camels to improve in Antiquity, even if you have to bathe the whole continent in blood.
Enter Benjamin Franklin, the uncultured swine. He never trained a missionary, didn't have a single city following his religion, and never seen a dig site in his life. He also, as is the custom, spoke softly and carried a big stick - didn't start a single war, tried to make allies, but on the one ocassion he got declared on, he made sure to come back with a couple of good towns, and scorched ruins of a couple not-so-good ones.
The civ choices were Maya, into Abbasids, into America.
The result was as follows:
This was my fastest Modern victory so far - faster by a few turns than even the early Culture ones, before they got rejigged. It also felt different. I ended up with fewer settlements - but more cities - on average in each age. By completely ignoring the cultural objectives past Antiquity, the pace has shifted. And I only got to 500/500 in Economic objective few turns before finishing the last project. I didn't bother sending the banker out, but even if I had, I still wouldn't have to artificially delay. Science win would come first.
Few conclusions:
1. I knew the Maya district is very, very busted, but it's even more busted than I thought it was. I had 7 turns of production left on the final project at the end of turn 30. Then I completed Future Tech research, and the project was done.
2. The era objectives are not just optional; they are actively detrimental if you have a different win condition in mind. You can only have one golden age, and the other 2 point policies are often underwhelming. By avoiding culture legacy past Antiquity, and military in all eras, I managed to get 8 extra Wildcard points from future research, which gave me much higher returns.
3. The era reset is not that much of a reset; with the singular focus and half-decent plan, the snowball was very, very evident - by turn 4 of Modern, I had Rail Stations unlocked. I don't see that happening with a Modern Era start.
I might do a follow up post with more detail if anyone's curious, but TL;DR is - if you get the feeling of sameyness as well, disable the legacy path tracking, and go for the best Science, Culture, Military or Economy game you can. I'm keen to try full Culture focus game next, or conquest of the distant lands with minimal homeland, and see how that plays.
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