The speed-play wins are no major secretive feat. They're just a matter of finding large bonuses that the devs intended players to use in a moderated, balanced approach--things like chopping and production overflows and city-state bonuses--and instead leaning on them to the exclusion of all else. If you're looking to win a game as quickly as possible, this style of play absolutely makes perfect sense. Civ's victory conditions are about specialization and beelining, after all. But if you actually enjoy playing the game as much as beating it (I would say a lot of people favor the former over the latter), you'd probably find the cookie-cutter discipline that optimized play requires monotonous. As always, YMMV.
It's a difficult balance indeed, and as I've said in other threads, game designers and players have different goals. High level players may seek to win efficiently, but developers need to appeal to an audience and some things are for flavor-- otherwise the last 2 eras might as well not exist.
When I posted this, I was well aware that commercial hub or even trade route spam is not really important from a speedrun point of play. In fact I usually only build as many as needed to boost medieval faires. However, I'd also argue this perspective is incredibly tunnel visoned for one reason because things do not occur in a vacuum. Thus, I think the only reason to adopt this perspective is if you think the game will not change and will keep the status quo, and that's a bit pessimistic. Basically, there would be no discussion beyond the few trotted out, predictable lines that have been repeated endlessly.
For example, are encampments weak because they are useless, or are they useless because the AI does not present a military threat? This is effectively a meta created around your opponents being idiots; I talk that back because that's an insult to idiots-- your opponents not playing the game-- not necessarily the bad design of the encampment.
Why not argue that mushrooms in Super Mario Brothers be removed because better players don't need them and it slows down a speedrun due to the animation?
Likewise, the AI defends itself so poorly that optimal strategy pretty much is reduced to playing solitaire for the most part, so people are really just trying to win harder which is something I've never really had much concern for. That also means most of the game can just be ignored. And yes, mass trade routes are a novelty because production isn't needed that much if you can just chop everything.
I mean it's cool and all and certainly everyone has their own criteria. But sometimes I do have to scoff at people running down the street and then asking why everyone else walking isn't running properly, maybe because there is not a race. A little common sense would dictate that a superior player would be able to scale back accordingly and judge a screenshot by the point of development of the game. For example, if you see someone researching Games and Recreation and has 7 cities, it really doesn't matter little how long they took to get there. The game more or less plays out the same unless they've really fallen behind the AIs.
The end game score in the game doesn't account for score, and while you get achievements for a bunch of mundane things, finishing fast isn't one them. It's almost like if nobody cares.
