Fast Science Victory: Civ VII Edition

[civfanatic4sure]

Ashoka leading Egypt / Bulgaria / Japan -- Standard -- Pangea & Islands -- Deity -- Rest default
95 + 30 + 13 = 138 turns

Antiquity Mementos: Sci attr + Culture attr // Exploration Mementos: Sci attr + Settler movement // Modern Mementos: NoteG + Lotus

I think there are maybe 1-2 more turns on a perfectly optimal run, but this is it for me in the current meta. I knew there were a lot of turns left to improve and finally got the result I thought was possible.

Antiquity:
- 7/11 cities, leaving the two largest towns to convert at the start of exploration for a big discount before choosing economic golden age, starting exploration with 9/11 cities
- Wonders: Great Stele, Pyramids, Gate of All Nations, Hanging Gardens, Colossus, Terracotta, Theodoric, Nalanda
- Immediate access to large distant lands off the coast from the civ wipe (Lakshmibai/Persia)
- Prebuilt 6 galleys, 4 settlers (3 waiting at distant lands water edge), 18 cavalry, and had 3 generals (hard built one before terracotta)

Exploration:
- Weird bug (that would come back to annoy me later) where I got 4 science legacy points.. i.e. 4sci/3cul/3mil/3eco/1wildcard
- This was not that useful, it just let me take the +11sci from codices where I usually leave 1 sci attr on the table after taking two attr pts since I always use the wildcard to get 2 exp and 2 mil
- I built havana on one of my last distant lands settlements and squeezed it in with pillaging before its first TF and got two fleets in with havana for the first time
- Had all legacy paths done on turn 29 and got a future tech on turn 30 being a few pillages of science away from triggering on turn 29
- 10/65 Cities w/ universities, only converting one new city during the age in distant lands for havana wonder
- 191 Quarters
- 50 settlements on turn 18

Modern:
- This is where the bug came back to bite as even though I had science golden age available it only gave me 2 sci attribute points, something bugged here that gave to me in antiquity and then subtracted it the next age transition *shrug*
- This meant I couldn't take both golden age universities and lyceums.. but maybe it was better? I took lyceums and the extra sci attribute point got me +94 sci from specialists node -- I'm pretty sure that's more science than 10 universities' adjacency plus specialists bonus plus quarters in their settlements
- Settled one more town and wiped Trung Trac on turn 6; not sure any of this mattered
- No science IP and only one military which I ended up not using because overflow prod was so strong from note G
- I went all the way to rocketry before using any masteries and then tried to cascade them for all the projects but it took two turns

 

[ValleTomate]

It's insane how much you pushed this strategy on your own. Breaking first 150s and now 140s in like 2 weeks?!? I don't know what to say except well done.

I finished my own promising Antiquity attempt just today however it's very hard to tell atm how much slower explo will be and where it ends up in total. Using your idea in I think it was your 149 game, of taking the free chariot instead of the expansionist attribute from Ashokas quest, I was able to get 2 civ wipes in Antiquity, together with 2/3/3/3 legacy paths in science / the rest and finished Antiquity on turn 80.

While I suspect my game will finish in the 130s, I am already thinking that maybe a perfect map that allows for a t80 Antiquity and t30 Explo is possible which would make a sub130 game doable.

Btw, is Ashoka somehow cursed to only allow one millitary and no science IP to spawn in modern??

 

[Shumal]

Ashoka leading Egypt / Bulgaria / Japan -- Standard -- Pangea & Islands -- Deity -- Rest default
95 + 30 + 13 = 138 turns

Antiquity Mementos: Sci attr + Culture attr // Exploration Mementos: Sci attr + Settler movement // Modern Mementos: NoteG + Lotus

I think there are maybe 1-2 more turns on a perfectly optimal run, but this is it for me in the current meta. I knew there were a lot of turns left to improve and finally got the result I thought was possible.

Antiquity:
- 7/11 cities, leaving the two largest towns to convert at the start of exploration for a big discount before choosing economic golden age, starting exploration with 9/11 cities
- Wonders: Great Stele, Pyramids, Gate of All Nations, Hanging Gardens, Colossus, Terracotta, Theodoric, Nalanda
- Immediate access to large distant lands off the coast from the civ wipe (Lakshmibai/Persia)
- Prebuilt 6 galleys, 4 settlers (3 waiting at distant lands water edge), 18 cavalry, and had 3 generals (hard built one before terracotta)

Exploration:
- Weird bug (that would come back to annoy me later) where I got 4 science legacy points.. i.e. 4sci/3cul/3mil/3eco/1wildcard
- This was not that useful, it just let me take the +11sci from codices where I usually leave 1 sci attr on the table after taking two attr pts since I always use the wildcard to get 2 exp and 2 mil
- I built havana on one of my last distant lands settlements and squeezed it in with pillaging before its first TF and got two fleets in with havana for the first time
- Had all legacy paths done on turn 29 and got a future tech on turn 30 being a few pillages of science away from triggering on turn 29
- 10/65 Cities w/ universities, only converting one new city during the age in distant lands for havana wonder
- 191 Quarters
- 50 settlements on turn 18

Modern:
- This is where the bug came back to bite as even though I had science golden age available it only gave me 2 sci attribute points, something bugged here that gave to me in antiquity and then subtracted it the next age transition *shrug*
- This meant I couldn't take both golden age universities and lyceums.. but maybe it was better? I took lyceums and the extra sci attribute point got me +94 sci from specialists node -- I'm pretty sure that's more science than 10 universities' adjacency plus specialists bonus plus quarters in their settlements
- Settled one more town and wiped Trung Trac on turn 6; not sure any of this mattered
- No science IP and only one military which I ended up not using because overflow prod was so strong from note G
- I went all the way to rocketry before using any masteries and then tried to cascade them for all the projects but it took two turns

Was this in 1.3.1?

 

[enKage]

Just a question - is Buganda valid for fast science with sth like +225% pillage yields? (Cav buy / pillage unique tree + added happiness from clan + mass pillaging the world for science + increase adjecency bonus via unique improvement) For sure Buganda is top tier for cultural, as culture from pillaging is independent from what you pillage, in other words, would it be enough science tiles on map to make a difference?

 

[Manpanzee]

Sub-140 turns is bonkers!

 

[ValleTomate]

Just a question - is Buganda valid for fast science with sth like +225% pillage yields? (Cav buy / pillage unique tree + added happiness from clan + mass pillaging the world for science + increase adjecency bonus via unique improvement) For sure Buganda is top tier for cultural, as culture from pillaging is independent from what you pillage, in other words, would it be enough science tiles on map to make a difference?

For modern ages this fast, science is kind of the only stat that matters and since Exploration and Antiquity are so short and you already war every AI they will usually not have that many buildings to pillage. With Buganda the only advantage would be that you could reach communism a few turns faster, however with the 7.6k gpt civfanatic4sure has in his modern age screenshot, japan can get around 1k spt by spending almost all of it on buying modern buildings to overbuild stuff from japans base abillity.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

It's insane how much you pushed this strategy on your own. Breaking first 150s and now 140s in like 2 weeks?!? I don't know what to say except well done.

I finished my own promising Antiquity attempt just today however it's very hard to tell atm how much slower explo will be and where it ends up in total. Using your idea in I think it was your 149 game, of taking the free chariot instead of the expansionist attribute from Ashokas quest, I was able to get 2 civ wipes in Antiquity, together with 2/3/3/3 legacy paths in science / the rest and finished Antiquity on turn 80.

While I suspect my game will finish in the 130s, I am already thinking that maybe a perfect map that allows for a t80 Antiquity and t30 Explo is possible which would make a sub130 game doable.

Btw, is Ashoka somehow cursed to only allow one millitary and no science IP to spawn in modern??

80 turn antiquity is the most epic thing in this thread -- I knew it was plausible from all the antiquity rushes I tried awhile back w/ Trung Trac's turn 2 unique general where I could get 2 civ wipes by turn 50-60, but I never cracked 90 and my exploration start was always weak. Because of that, I was skeptical on pushing antiquity faster because I rely on those last 10 or so turns to pump out boats, settlers (and cavalry with the Bulgaria strat) to set up min/maxing exploration. Super interested to see how your game plays out. If you have a settler or two staring down a distant land that spawns some of the insane TR dense islands I've been seeing, it can happen.

Couple other quick notes I'm remembering that may be interesting or useful --

1. The first religion tree tradition for civilian movement doesn't stack with merchant's saddle memento which seems like a bug. So in my last run my civic order was temple > food pillage > +5cs from 5 relics -- getting a few of my closely packed cities converted quick + always building rila monastery to get the 5cs early and then never spending gold to upgrade the units to get more quarters/monasteries.
2. I don't know what triggers ashoka's legacy in exploration for culture from happiness but if I knew I would always make sure to get it because it's so powerful -- it did not trigger in this last run
3. I forgot to share in my game that I had 17 tea in modern! That gave me +50% science by I think turn 4... and there were at least 5 more on the map. If you get strong tea spawns sub 10 turn modern can also happen.
4. I did draw the dreaded Amina which is the absolute worst for this strategy because she has a +13 cs advantage (+5 in desert and plains leader ability + deity) but luckily stayed out of denounce range even with her leader agenda constantly putting relationship pressure on me all game
5. If you go the path of not taking university golden age like I was forced to do, there is an interesting play with religious golden age if you take the +2 sci for every tropical tile belief -- I converted trung trac's tropical settlements and got about 150 science from it.. if you lean into that strategy a bit more it could be 300ish science added, that plus the specialist sci node and it's gotta be way better than university golden age can ever be -- the only reason I didn't take it is because trung trac was the only leader to found a religion in time and her holy city had the most tropical tiles and I didn't reconvert.
6. I am now always using a strat w/ science IPs in antiquity whenever I find a friendly one early -- get all techs through irrigation, leaving writing and masonry untouched and for the turns you need to wait until suzerain just roll over your science, then choose the free tech which sometimes can be writing and then you're only a few turns away from an early bronze working from all the banked science OR if it's masonry you tend to get both masonry and writing within a few turns... and on occasion where I find the IP a little later and already working writing, then I also get writing 2 and because it's a random tech you can get lucky and bop bronze working immediately -- this strat lets me ignore libraries until later when I just need to house codexes, and I never even research the academy tech
7. Ashoka 100% cursed for modern IP spawns

Was this in 1.3.1?

Yes -- nerfed egypt is still so good because of (1) free military attr point (2) one unit medjay defense (3) 2 free (sometimes very early) chariots w/ +3cs from tjaty (4) a load of strong, easy-to-trigger narrative events (+100 culture early / free codex / +35 sci early / etc) (5) culture & food traditions from navigable rivers is still a lot (6) and obviously the wonder building

Sub-140 turns is bonkers!

This is how I felt when you first started posting 40 turn explorations!

 

[Salamis]

Got a new one to post. It’s nowhere near the astonishing times of @civfanatic4sure but comes with a few observations.

Himiko leading Tonga / Hawaii / Japa
Huge -- Archipelago -- Deity -- Rest default
90 + 40 + 23 = 153 turns

Mementos: 50g per 100tiles + culture attribute; Sci + Cul attributes; Note G + 10% towards Sci masteries (I don’t have access to Lotus and need to fix that!)

Antiquity: No civ wipes, All legacy paths complete, one future tech and civic researched plus one free future tech from IP bonus.
Finished with 4 cities with 4 Academies and 3.5 UQ’s.
Tonga can reliably return a very fast Antiquity thanks to their Traditions (research their unique civics as quickly as possible). The aim here was to work as many reefs as possible.

Exploration: Academies GA; Two civ wipes, three complete legacy paths and economic 2/3, one future civic and one future tech researched.
Chose Hawaii as I wanted to play without Abbasids (and had not prepared for a Bulgaria pillaging game) and they offer a nice culture synergy with Tonga - I was hoping the +1 culture on marine tiles tradition would lead to a faster acquisition of Communism in Modern. Finished with 10 cities with Universities but only 21 settlements overall.

Modern: University GA plus Lyceums, all nodes on the Science attribute tree but the science rate was not high enough (around 1,850 including Himiko’s unique science endeavour in place from t1). Researched Rocketry on t21 and used Oxford Uni, two culture masteries, two more science masteries and two Militaristic IP harvests to complete final project on t23.

Observations:
Tonga’s reef Tradition is great but the drawback is that dropping a building/wonder onto a reef to convert the pop into a specialist does not net much extra science. It’s difficult to works loads of reefs and have loads of specialists. There also aren’t many buildings/wonders that can be used to kick population off a water tile.
A better approach might be to work lots of land in one of every three settlements and earmark these as future cities for specialists. The others stay as towns to work as many reefs as possible and specialise after they’ve acquired all of the reefs.

Huge Archipelago map:
Great for Tonga as there will be lots of reefs and IP’s to suz (got 18 in this game). Bad for warring and Treasure Fleets due to the extra number of turns needed to cross the map. Even having explored almost all land in Antiquity and having Settlers ready to sail in Exploration, I only got the 20th TF point on t40 (there was an odd bug which meant that two fleets were spawning 1 point less than they should have been - the age might have ended one turn earlier without that). To get 30 TF points by t40 it would have needed better RNG luck and more settlements earlier. Without Ashoka you need to be mindful of settlement limit but I should have produced more settlers.

Overall:
I was aiming for sub 150 and perhaps it would have been doable with Abbasids instead of Hawaii.
This combination feels as close to providing a “peaceful” approach as possible while still being fast (if just two civ wipes overall can be classed as peaceful!!!). Tonga doesn’t need any civ wipes to return a fast antiquity time and sub 90 would be doable.
I wonder if Ashoka leading Tonga into Iceland could return a fast Exploration with no more than one civ wipe? Spam settlers to work as many reefs as possible and use the Iceland Vikingr +Culture pillaging Tradition to accelerate through the tech/civic trees and research futures… The pillage yields might not be enough though. I will give it a try!

EDIT: Neglected to add the maps - end of each age inserted now. Also, to show the power of Tonga, the shot of t49 when the reefs Tradition was unlocked.

 

[MutilationWave]

That's amazing @Salamis !

I've followed the new strategy developments and I'm impressed with everyone who posts, but getting a 90 antiquity with all four paths is, to me, just outrageously good. I've only managed all four a couple times and my turn count was far higher.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

@Salamis 90 turn antiquity with no civ wipes is something I can't even wrap my head around. Would love to see some maps from that game!

 

[Salamis]

That's amazing @Salamis !

I've followed the new strategy developments and I'm impressed with everyone who posts, but getting a 90 antiquity with all four paths is, to me, just outrageously good. I've only managed all four a couple times and my turn count was far higher.

Thanks! The cultural path is usually the most difficult but Tonga ends up with loads of resources (so usually production) from suzing IP's so can build wonders pretty quickly.

@Salamis 90 turn antiquity with no civ wipes is something I can't even wrap my head around. Would love to see some maps from that game!

Added the maps to the original post plus the t49 shot when Tonga's reefs Tradition was unlocked. The Science yield sky-rockets and the culture yield continues to build from warehouses so you can research every tech and civic and all of their masteries.

 

[Bleidraner]

@Salamis amazing result. That t49 shot is really powerful. I may give this combo a try.

 

[Salamis]

@Salamis amazing result. That t49 shot is really powerful. I may give this combo a try.

Thanks! If you do give it a try and intend to use the 50g per 100tiles explored memento, I’d recommend a large map rather than huge. You may get less gold overall but the rate at which you can acquire it won’t change. I opened with free scout (obviously), 3 scout builds plus a 5th not long after. Even with 5 scouts systematically roaming for most of the age, I couldn’t cover every tile on a huge map.

 

[Bleidraner]

Thanks! If you do give it a try and intend to use the 50g per 100tiles explored memento, I’d recommend a large map rather than huge. You may get less gold overall but the rate at which you can acquire it won’t change. I opened with free scout (obviously), 3 scout builds plus a 5th not long after. Even with 5 scouts systematically roaming for most of the age, I couldn’t cover every tile on a huge map.

Thanks I agree. I have tried the Tonga combo with the gold memento before, and it is incredibly powerful. I agree with the Large vs Huge. In Large you can cover the whole map by t80 or so, and missing the extra gold those final turns does not make any significant difference. I just did not double down on reefs the way you have, and want to try that.

 

[ValleTomate]

Ashoka leading Egypt -> Bulgaria -> Japan
Standard size - Pangea - Deity
80 + 34 + 11 = 125 turns

Mementos: Science + Culture Attribute ; Movement to Settlers + Movement to Commanders ; Note G + Lotus

Antiquity: 2 Science Legacy points + 3 for the rest and 2 civ wipes (Ada + Catherine)
I started producing units right after my first 2 settlers to farm xp on a IP which was close to Ada and then got a chariot from a hut + one from Ashokas quest, giving up on the expansionist point and send all those units directly to her cap somewhere around t 40-50 ish. Took her Cap pretty quickly which made cleaning her 2 other settlements up quite easy. In between I hard produced an Army Commander before producing Terracota and send 2 of those to Catherine in the south, who did have issues expanding due to aggresive IP's. When I declared on her my Suzing of a millitary IP went through and I took +50% Commander xp. I had to do a bit of planning to be able to finish the economic legacy by t80 but it worked out and I send out 2 settlers quite far to the west/east in order to spam settlers from those settlements into the distant land, but I didn't have settlers in the water ready to swim to distant land due to how short the age was. One thing I did which was quite usefull for explo, was buying multiple scouts in the middle of the age to reveal as much as possible. For wonders I got Stelee, Hanging Gardens, Pyramids, Terracota, Petra, Oracle and Theodoric. At the end of the Age I declared on all other civs to tank the relations.

Spoiler Ant end :

Explo: 2 Economic Legacy points + 3 for the rest and 4 civ wipes (Jose, Fritz, Benjamin and Himiko.. so in modern, only Napoleon and me were left) + 2 future techs and 1 future civic
So I wasn't setup particularly well for the start of the age. My Commanders weren't close to anyone, and I didn't have any boats set up to scout out the distant land on t1. I only started pillaging on t6 and got the first distant land settlement down on t15 however I was extremely lucky with my distant land being almost just one long continent completelly filled with TR's. I managed to build the Havana wonder in that first settlement before it spawned the first fleet which meaned I got two 8 pointers back from that settlement + a 4 pointer and 5 pointer from the second and third distant land settlement. I did use Bulgarias prod to make a lot of Cav early, and then produce mostly settlers for a while, getting up to 14 cities who all got a uni and all other possible warehouse buildings but almost no other buildings build by the end of the age. After I got the Erdene Zee wonder and everything else was build, I starting putting almost all of the prod just into cav unit's which I deleted all, just for the culture to get the Future Civic and I was almost able to get 2. The 2 Future Techs I got by researching the first one normally and then finishing all masteries by turn 34 at which point I had lined up a Scientific IP suz which gave me a free tech. Most of my gold in the last 10 turns got spent on Monestaries, I mostly bought one or 2 warehouse buildings in all the settlements I settled to keep them happy but turned them into quarters for lyceum mostly at the start of modern. By the end of the Age I had pillaged almost every single Building or Improvement all the AI's had build. I only reached 50 settlements by t26.

Spoiler Exp end :

Modern: The Ashoka curse got lifted, I got 2 entire Millitaristic IP's! But I had even more luck with this map as I had 18 tea available, and reached Mass Production by t4, Communism and Flight by t5 and Rocketry by t9 however I was just a bit of prod/science/gold short of finishing the modern age on t10. If I hadn't wasted some prod by forgeting to put in the 30% prod for projects card in for a turn and hadn't wasted a lot of gold before that, it probably would have been a turn faster.

Spoiler Modern t1 :

Spoiler Modern end :

This was crazy, and I took super long to play it all out. So long I am definitly not finishing the Gotm Krampus game I started but that was worth it. What is even crazier, I think this is still not the limit, with how good this modern was even with a much shorter explo from my last try, I think that sup 120 is theoreticlly possible, however I am definitly done for a while now as if I try another run I will probably fail some courses this semester. If the game is still the same in march, I might give it a shot. Thanks @civfanatic4sure for pushing this strat so far and also motivating me to try again.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

@ValleTomate This is awesome! What a run Also very cool to see you continue to leverage the future tech/civics explo strat I had avoided.

The insane part is the 80 turn antiquity, and I feel like getting a reasonable setup for that is quite dubious because of the insta-walls update they did in a patch awhile back. If you need to rip through walls on the 2nd wipe it probably puts too much strain on your resources to power through. What turn was the 2nd wipe and did they have walls up?

This actually opens up a throwback antiquity meta to push double civ wipes and if you optimize for it out the gate, it may be more reproducible than I'm thinking it can be.

 

[Salamis]

@ValleTomate this is outstanding, thanks for sharing!

 

[ValleTomate]

@ValleTomate This is awesome! What a run Also very cool to see you continue to leverage the future tech/civics explo strat I had avoided.

The insane part is the 80 turn antiquity, and I feel like getting a reasonable setup for that is quite dubious because of the insta-walls update they did in a patch awhile back. If you need to rip through walls on the 2nd wipe it probably puts too much strain on your resources to power through. What turn was the 2nd wipe and did they have walls up?

This actually opens up a throwback antiquity meta to push double civ wipes and if you optimize for it out the gate, it may be more reproducible than I'm thinking it can be.

I think I declared a bit before t70 and full wiped on t78, she did have walls on all districts in the cap and walls on the city centers of the 2 other settlemenst but 2 Ballistas, maybe around 6 cav and 4 archers was enough to widdle her down. I was lucky that she struggled the whole age due to aggresive IP's, if she had more then 4 settlements the two wipes wouldn't have been possible the way I did this game. It was also important that both of the Wipes where close to me so that I could walk extra units together with the full commanders towards their cap. I definetly focused a lot on units and my development suffered due to it but it kind of doesn't matter, once you hit Explo Bulgaria just compensates everything and development is just tied to how fast you can kill and pillage all the Ai's. The commander Movement Memento was so good for that, definitly better then an attribute.

 

[Bleidraner]

Ashoka leading Egypt -> Bulgaria -> Japan
Standard size - Pangea - Deity
80 + 34 + 11 = 125 turns

@ValleTomate this is just amazing! Congratulations, I truly thought this could not be done. I could see in your first games you posted subpar antiquities for a player of your caliber, so I thought you would improve but I never ever thought sub130 was possible. 80 antiquity is truly amazing. And of course I still cannot get my head around the 34 Explo and the 11!!!!!! Modern!

I am in awe.