Fast Science Victory: Civ VII Edition

[Manpanzee]

Fast science victories are always a fun topic, and Civ VII seems to be reaching a relatively stable state for exploring and comparing. I got a very nice game for my first full run in patch 1.2.0, and will share that to kick things off:

--Jose Rizal leading Greece -> Hawaii -> Mexico
--Deity difficulty, all standard settings
--Only used attribute mementos: Scientific + Cultural in Antiquity, Scientific + Expansionist in Exploration, Expansionist + Diplomatic in Modern
--197 turns total: 96 Antiquity, 60 Exploration, 41 Modern

It is possible to finish quite a bit faster if using some of the more OP civs (Bulgaria, Maya, Abbasid), but at this point I’m just trying to get a handle on what’s achievable while playing relatively “fair”. I think the 200-turn benchmark is a reasonable target for a lot of setups, and that a dream game avoiding the more broken civs could get down to around 190 turns, but probably not much less than that.

Golden Ages were Economic in Exploration and Scientific in Modern. Pre-patch, I thought that Scientific was basically always best in Modern, but higher city costs means that Economic may now pull ahead of it in a lot of cases. However, current allocation of Treasure Fleet resources also means that having access to the Econ golden age may not be something you can reliably count on. It wasn't an option for me in this game.

Communism was the ideology choice, and probably always should be for science victory. The raw specialist science is obviously great, specialist food is now pretty relevant, and the +hammers for projects at the end of the tree is fair compensation for skipping out on Fascism’s specialist hammers.

The double-project requirement after you’re done teching means that “chopping” type hammer effects are extremely powerful, and thus I’d rate Bulgaria and Maya significantly above everything else for fast science victory. In this game, I was fortunate to have access to five Militaristic independents, which I was able to keep around and “chop” after finishing the last tech. Saving the IP chops for the right time is now much easier to accomplish with the changes to IP and AI civ behavior in the latest patch.

I ended Antiquity with three cities, Exploration with seven cities, and Modern with seven cities again. That’s far less than half my settlements in all cases. I know there are a lot of people out there claiming that “all cities all the time” is the meta, and that anyone who knows anything knows that towns are worthless, but I didn’t buy that before the latest patch, and I don’t buy it now. Of course, I could be wrong, and that’s why we post these kind of things: to share concrete game reports and have a clear context for discussing claims.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Few questions --

• From the screenshots, it looks like you didn't move your capital. Correct? Thoughts?
• Harvesting IPs (rather than befriending them) is a fascinating idea. Especially since (post patch) the AI players are less likely to disperse them
• Choosing Communism vs. not choosing an ideology: For my first several games, I didn't choose an affinity at all, to avoid a war with an ally. Do you find the benefits outweigh the potential costs?

 

[Manpanzee]

From the screenshots, it looks like you didn't move your capital. Correct? Thoughts?

I didn't, but that was probably a mistake. Even if it's already in the "right" place and you don't really want to move it in Age 2, it's probably worth doing to unlock the free city upgrade moving it back to it's original spot in Age 3. More relevant now that getting the final Econ golden age in a reasonable time is seemingly less reliable.

Choosing Communism vs. not choosing an ideology: For my first several games, I didn't choose an affinity at all, to avoid a war with an ally. Do you find the benefits outweigh the potential costs?

Even on Deity, I don't find the AI unlocks ideologies much earlier than turn 40. Maybe a couple might pick it up around 35? If you're ending the game fast enough, it doesn't really matter.

 

[pmarc]

Besides the resources with different effect in capital vs. other cities, is there any other game mechanic that is affected by choice of capital?

Turn 40 modern is really fast! If you can post the final save, I would be curious to see what the cities look like. One thing I've been wondering in my games is how early to prioritize specialists over more tiles (esp. production tiles) in cities.

 

[Manpanzee]

Besides the resources with different effect in capital vs. other cities, is there any other game mechanic that is affected by choice of capital?

Turn 40 modern is really fast! If you can post the final save, I would be curious to see what the cities look like. One thing I've been wondering in my games is how early to prioritize specialists over more tiles (esp. production tiles) in cities.

For Modern, I want the capital in the highest potential production city, for the extra resource slots to pump up project hammers. For Exploration, I want the capital in the city that's best for taking advantage of city center quarter adjacency. Often these are the same city, which is when I don't really want to switch.

The IP chops in this one cut around 7-8 turns from the game. I unlocked the final tech I needed on turn 38, and was able to finish chopping out both projects only three turns later. It makes a huge difference.

I think I'm usually going to almost all specialists in city growth around halfway or two-thirds into Exploration. Unfortunately, I deleted the save already, and may not be able to recover it. But my cities were stacked with specialists by the end -- with the fishing/farming towns I had, cities were growing in 3-4 turns the entirety of Modern. So I was able to add a ton of specialists in that era alone.