Fast Science Victory: Civ VII Edition

[pmarc]

What is the determining factor for picking Scientific vs. Economic golden age for the Ant->Exp transition?

On a related point, if I read today's update notes correctly, it sounds like Shipbuilding is no longer required for Treasure Fleets/Convoys to spawn, so that could shake up the meta a bit. (Also the Hub Towns nerf and Urban / Mining town buffs! Even fewer cities in the horizon perhaps?)

 

[Salamis]

Incredible! It looks like 180 turns is likely very achievable now.

Definitely - I'm a bit annoyed I didn't get sub180 on this one. I think I played the Modern era pretty poorly in terms of planning for the projects.

I'd think going for Diplo attribute capstone repeats is the way to go.

Agreed - I didn't have any Alliances in this one but that was down to negligence/forward settling! I'm going to prioritise this in future games.

I'm still a little skeptical of prioritizing the free techs in Modern, but I can't deny that turn 25 Rocketry is very strong. Usually there's a big tech gap between the first and second science projects, resulting in some hammer downtime in the capital. So I suppose that it could be worth routing through the masteries and using free techs to shrink that gap, even if it meant you were starting the first project slightly later than otherwise.

Yeah I think it's arguably the toughest decision to make during Modern. Taking the free tech route requires completing all of the techs and masteries (14+11). Say you wanted to complete the final tech before turn 30, can you:
- Generate enough influence to befriend enough IP's by then
- Build Oxford University to provide two of the last techs (FYI - in this playthrough I made the mistake of having my capital build Oxford University which delayed project production)
- Complete the remaining techs in time
In this playthrough, befriending 8 IP's (two Scientific around turns 12-14 and the rest all on 25) and Oxford University gave 10 free techs and it was possible to research the other 15 by 25.
The big risk is that if even one IP gets cleared before being befriended, you're stuck without Rocketry and a low science rate will mean it will take many turns to research it.

If the base science rate is high enough there's less risk and the free techs aren't needed.

 

[Salamis]

What is the determining factor for picking Scientific vs. Economic golden age for the Ant->Exp transition?

For me, it's about having a higher base science rate in order to research as many early tree techs as possible before getting free techs from IP's.
1. Having 4 Golden Age Academies (obviously more is better but not always achievable) with (for example) on average of 3 adjacency each gives a base of 28 science. This doesn't sound like much when the first Exploration techs cost is 500 but it quickly increases with bonuses (specialists, science on scientific buildings etc.).
2. If you don't have this extra science, it will take longer to research Astronomy which in turn slows the acquisition of Observatories. Not by much though.
3. Is having more cities from an Economic Golden Age actually an advantage? The more cities you have at the end of Antiquity, the more of an advantage it could be.
Say you end with 4 cities: moving the capital gives you two free cities, the third will likely cost 200 and the fourth 1,000 (not completely sure on this so apologies if it's way more or less!). So you've saved 1,200ish BUT if they remain Towns, they will contribute gold so you're saving slightly less. Plus, if you specialise them, they provide extra yields.
If you ended the age with 7 cities, the amount of gold you're saving is obviously much higher but.....
4. What's that gold going to be used for? In Exploration, I usually only convert a Town to a City when I have enough gold to immediately buy at least the first available science building. If they're already cities then sure, I can buy the science buildings earlier. But if you take the Economic GA, how may extra science buildings do you need to make up for the loss of GA Academies that will be contributing science from Turn 1?

On a related point, if I read today's update notes correctly, it sounds like Shipbuilding is no longer required for Treasure Fleets/Convoys to spawn, so that could shake up the meta a bit. (Also the Hub Towns nerf and Urban / Mining town buffs! Even fewer cities in the horizon perhaps?)

For fast Science, I'm definitely more inclined towards more Towns, fewer Cities. In Antiquity and Exploration, I take the view that the main point of a city is to have the GA science building for the next age and any unique science buildings/quarters. Sure you need a few cities for producing wonders, units etc. but leaving more as Towns means you can increase the food going to cities and gain more specialists in those cities.

 

[Manpanzee]

I've been trending toward generally preferring Golden Age Academies myself, and will usually take it if I've actually gotten Academies down in Antiquity. But that doesn't always happen with more warmongery/civ-wiping strategies. With a better knowledge of narrative events, I've found that you can sometimes complete the Antiquity science path without even getting to Mathematics. So having access to the Golden Age doesn't always mean that you actually get anything out of it.

IMO the main benefit of saving your gold entering Exploration is spam-purchasing Settlers in the first few turns. Sometimes you get lucky and have plenty of immediately available distant land to get to without needing Shipbuilding. But that can be kind of a "highrolling" thing, and you can also end up with excess Settlers sitting in the archipelago for a dozen turns waiting for tech to catch up and unlock movement.