Fast Science Victory: Civ VII Edition

[Salamis]

Not boring at all! I’m currently trying a game with Silla led by Himiko, they have a nice alliance synergy. Totally agreed on the new IP’s. I’m still prioritising a Science and Cultural IP for the Sci/Cul bonus on warehouse buildings but then going for Expansionist.
The Diplomatic IP bonuses feel very underwhelming. Perhaps there’s an approach for fuelling Espionage but even with a discount, Espionage is very expensive. Maybe try to befriend one on about t80 and then hope to pick up a tech and civic from rivals?

I’m nearly 50 turns into this one and Silla’s culture on resources ability is excellent. Their civics and Traditions are also quite fun. I’m going to try to clear more IP’s than I usually would do, especially Militaristic ones.

 

[Salamis]

Also it occurs to me that Confucius with the all Chinese combo could be interesting with the new meta.

Definitely - the Han and Ming traditions give good Science yields

 

[Manpanzee]

I've also finished my first game on 1.2.5. A few notes:

--I don't feel that this changes the city/town balance all that much, at least for how I've been playing. I think you can make a case for converting more non-core cities earlier in Exploration, though. Reduced purchasing efficiency weakens the "convert a bunch of cities and spam-buy ageless buildings at the end of the age" thing, and it may be worthwhile to give some time for these cities to actually build something.

--I still don't see any reason for going beyond two or three cities in Modern. I do think the third city is probably usually worth it, mostly just as a specialist sink that takes food from towns that would otherwise be too far away to feed anything.

--Exploration Economic path seems very achievable on the new Continents & Islands map. I had a whopping 41 ticks completed at the time the age ended on turn 51. Need more data to see how unusual this might be, but all the screenshots of the new map gen that I've seen don't show much really open ocean. The games where you have a major shortage of settle-able treasure resources pre-Shipbuilding may be a thing of the past.

--Under-the-radar buff that offsets some of the nerfs: The Modern Lyceums legacy finally actually does what it claims it does, providing +3 science to all quarters (not just quarters composed of fully Modern buildings). This now should be worth way more than two Scientific attribute points at the time you unlock it, and I'm assuming it'll always be taken. It's another buff to the "spam warehouse buildings everywhere" approach, and I ultimately bought every single Antiquity and Exploration warehouse building across my entire empire.

--The nerfs definitely lop off a good chunk of the ceiling by removing broken stuff, but I'm not sure that player power has actually been reduced all that much otherwise. It's more like the games where you have terrible IP spawns and can't find Gold/Silver resources anywhere are just the norm now. Game still feels a lot better now, though.

 

[MutilationWave]

--Exploration Economic path seems very achievable on the new Continents & Islands map. I had a whopping 41 ticks completed at the time the age ended on turn 51. Need more data to see how unusual this might be, but all the screenshots of the new map gen that I've seen don't show much really open ocean. The games where you have a major shortage of settle-able treasure resources pre-Shipbuilding may be a thing of the past.

I'm still in exploration on my first patch game on continents and islands. The islands (one huge) are a desert for economic resources. I finally found a spot to settle deep in the other continent. The continent is half empty, as is the continent I started on. Could just be RNGesus messing with me but everything just seems so spread out. I can barely trade even with bonuses. Standard everything, deity.

 

[pmarc]

Is there some synergy between the warehouse spam in Antiquity / Exploration and using Franklin as a leader? Maybe with the Greeks for more influence to use the rest of his bonuses.

 

[Salamis]

Is there some synergy between the warehouse spam in Antiquity / Exploration and using Franklin as a leader? Maybe with the Greeks for more influence to use the rest of his bonuses.

His boosts to production buildings only applies to those in cities so is not as impactful as could be. It does boost the Assyrian Citadel though so there’s a little bonus there.

Greece for Influence is always good and as it’s no longer as valuable to befriend as many IP’s as possible, putting that Influence to extra endeavours could be a really good approach. It certainly would get the most out of his ability.

I’m looking forward to putting Influence to more varied uses!

 

[Manpanzee]

I think Franklin is actually very interesting as a warmongering leader, based on his ability to get to early-game military techs faster than anyone else. He may not scale as well as the other science leaders, but he does have that one thing going for him. Pouring influence into early endeavors is also just generally more competitive now.

Eventually I want to try Franklin/Assyria with Simon Bolivar's level 9 memento (+50% gold toward unit purchasing during a celebration). Basically just get to Wheel as fast as possible and have the gold to get Chariots on the battlefield way ahead of schedule.

 

[Salamis]

I haven’t finished a game yet but have completed Antiquity and most of Exploration with Himiko leading Silla. Some thoughts:

- Alliances: Both Himiko and Silla give decent rewards for alliances but without leader/civ-specific bonuses, how worthwhile are alliances now? The attribute nodes that give 10 of x yield per age per alliance are not that bad (not that much worse than the 10% they replaced and in some cases might even be better). They’re also useful for helping to wipe a civ (though that’s not really controllable). Pre 1.2.5 it was imperative to invest in generating alliances, now I think it’s far more situational.

- Tech/Civic tree: Free IP techs/civics in Ant meant you could usually finish everything on both trees in the age. Now that’s gone, ignoring some Masteries/unique Civ civics to get an extra future tech or civic to speed the end of the age feels more important.
In Exploration it’s nice to have more turns to get further through the civic tree!

- Map: It’s interesting to read @Manpanzee ’s observations on the Continents and Islands map being good for the Economic Exploration path. This run on the Pangea+ map is not! Lots of ocean in general and doesn’t feel that different from previous versions.

- AI civs and opportunism: The AI still seems to construct plenty of buildings and generally seems better at properly making Unique Quarters. Obviously subject to RNG but taking cities that have a UQ can be a very nice boost. Looking at you Maya

- Bug or stealth boost: Has the cost mechanism for converting Towns to Cities changed? In Ant, each population point reduced the cost of converting my first town to a city by 50g, the same as before. When I went to convert my second Town (around t75) each building purchase reduced the cost by 100g. The town was a captured capital but it always used to be that each population point would reduce the cost by 50g until you got to the point where it was a flat 1,000g no matter the size. I've checked the patch notes but can't find anything about this.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

Anyone put together a sub 100 antiquity yet? I’m not sure it’s possible without at least one civ wipe.

 

[Salamis]

Anyone put together a sub 100 antiquity yet? I’m not sure it’s possible without at least one civ wipe.

I haven’t. My Silla run finished the age on 102 but could have done so on 99 if I’d been better organised with settlers to complete the military legacy path. Without a civ wipe, I think the only way might be to use Assyria to get a load of free future techs but then you might as well be wiping someone! For sub 100 (without an AI doing something really useful) I think it needs:
- Complete all legacy paths
- Wipe 1 civ
- Get 1 free future tech or civic

 

[MutilationWave]

I haven’t. My Silla run finished the age on 102 but could have done so on 99 if I’d been better organised with settlers to complete the military legacy path. Without a civ wipe, I think the only way might be to use Assyria to get a load of free future techs but then you might as well be wiping someone! For sub 100 (without an AI doing something really useful) I think it needs:
- Complete all legacy paths
- Wipe 1 civ
- Get 1 free future tech or civic

@GoblinMatron pulled it off in gotm.

 

[Salamis]

@GoblinMatron pulled it off in gotm.

I think that’s with Abbreviated ages though so the counter progresses faster

 

[Bleidraner]

I think that’s with Abbreviated ages though so the counter progresses faster

And also, it was not peaceful. Very good game though. If it is possible to do it peacefully, we will find a way

 

[MutilationWave]

I think that’s with Abbreviated ages though so the counter progresses faster

True, I wasn't thinking about that but they still killed it.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

This GotM is also on Immortal.

 

[Bleidraner]

I haven’t. My Silla run finished the age on 102 but could have done so on 99 if I’d been better organised with settlers to complete the military legacy path. Without a civ wipe, I think the only way might be to use Assyria to get a load of free future techs but then you might as well be wiping someone! For sub 100 (without an AI doing something really useful) I think it needs:
- Complete all legacy paths
- Wipe 1 civ
- Get 1 free future tech or civic

I agree. Its the future tech that is the problem, clearly.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

in my most recent game the legacy path age progression values were 0-5-5 instead of 5-5-10

did age progression by legacy path get reduced in the patch or do I have some weird setting turned on I am not seeing?

 

[pmarc]

It seems fine to me, still 5-5-10 in Antiquity and 25 for a civ elimination. (e.g. Recently got a 105, well 106 finish for 3 completed paths + 1 to 2nd step + one elimination.)

That's with the no countdown setting. If you have the (now default) 10-turn countdown, what it does is that when it would get to 100%, the age progression actually stops at 95% (10 turns away) and at that point only turns make it progress.

 

[Bleidraner]

in my most recent game the legacy path age progression values were 0-5-5 instead of 5-5-10

did age progression by legacy path get reduced in the patch or do I have some weird setting turned on I am not seeing?

On the legacy paths you only get age progression if you are the first to that particular milestone, I believe. That would explain the 0. But I have never seen 5 instead of 10 when you complete the path, that is new for me.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

Weird — I have countdown off and otherwise default (or so I thought) settings — will have to double check and then send a screenshot if I can’t figure it out.

EDIT-3: Confirmed visual bug, pretty odd. It's not just on that screenshot, if I hover over the blue science '+' age progress icon the tooltip text also says 0 age progression. Oh well, at least it's functioning properly.

EDIT-2: Reinstalled the game and it's still like this, maybe some visual bug? I'll test to see how much age progress is actually added.

EDIT: Started a new game to check and this is what the legacy path age progress looks like on turn 1 -- I definitely have game speed on standard