Fast Science Victory: Civ VII Edition

[Bleidraner]

Thank you @Salamis and @pmarc amazing response, not just great for this particular question but for any other of the leader quests. I wanted to replay the last 50 turns of the Isabella game as I focused on getting the three wipes (a first for me) and not on optimal gameplay, and I wanted to see what a full game correctly played would be like including Expl and Modern. One of my frustrations was that I had not managed to get the expansionist point that I wanted from Isabella’s quest and also wanted to lean in more on the naval advantages of Isabella, specially in Exploration but prepping in Antiquity, as they have been in my opinion underestimated. I am playing now carefully and may even decide that three wipes is not as good as 2 wipes with good preparation for an early wipe in Exploration and a couple more legacy points while I wait for the next GoTM. I will report back. I think this will be my last Isabella game, as the meta has changed quite dramatically in the last update and this coming one, and now I want to try Xerxes, Aksum, Tonga and a few others. But I want this last Isabella game to be great, lets see if manage to do that.

 

[Manpanzee]

Well, I blitzed through my first game on 1.3.0, and it looks like power levels are creeping back up. We’re into the 160’s… are 150’s still possible?

Himiko QoW leading Tonga / Inca / Russia
103 + 40 + 23 = 166 turns

Mementos:
Cultural attribute + diplo attribute
Corona Civica + Gold Snuff Box (+20% food when in exactly one alliance)
Lotus Blossom + Note G

--First impression of Tonga is that they might be the new strongest Antiquity civ. Perfect scouting lets you combine all the respective upsides of playing on Continents vs. Pangaea, and the yields ain’t bad either.

It became apparent fairly early in this one that I wasn’t going to manage an Antiquity civ wipe. However, I had a really juicy econ game going (including four Expansionist city-states, with enough settlement limit to delay that option for last), and decided to play it out and see. I ended up finishing both Future Tech and Future Civic to close out a solid 103-turn era.

Spoiler :

--I failed to unlock Abbasids and didn’t have the option to play as them, even if I’d wanted to. I was already planning on trying something different here, and, after considering then dismissing some Future-Civic-based strategies, decided to go with Inca.

I think Inca are (Bulgaria excepted) the generally strongest econ/infrastructure civ in Exploration. The plan in this game was to use my perfect map knowledge to get treasure fleets flowing extra fast, while relying on Monasteries to transmute econ into science.

Inca’s homeland treasure fleets ability is hard for me to judge, as the three-worked-mountain-tiles requirement is a significant price to pay. However, a couple extra treasure fleets were definitely relevant this game, shaving two or three turns. Ultimately, I managed to clear all legacy paths and Future Tech by turn 39, and the belated civ-wipe of my Antiquity adversary let the era tick to completion on turn 40.

Spoiler :

--Modern was mostly straightforward next-turning with big-yields Russia. Only really notable decision was passing on the Universities Golden Age (I think Lyceums and the +science leader legacy option are both better, if you have access to the latter.) I was a bit lucky, with three Militaristic IPs to pop, plus a spare Scientific IP to trigger more Note G hammers. Everything synced up, with Rocketry and the last Communism civic both finishing on turn 22, for the turn 23 finish.

Spoiler :

 

[ValleTomate]

Someone on the official Firaxis Discord had an idea that might get patched soon but could actually be quite a fast way to finish modern aswell. So the Press Gang Tradition of the Pirate Republic gives 50% prod for naval units per naval commander, which includes (probably unintended) other naval commanders, so the flat prod cost of them keeps scaling while the actuall cost you pay per commander stays mostly the same. Pairing this with Japans Tradition that gives 25% per Naval unit (again, not millitary naval, just naval), the english wonder that creates a second naval unit any time you produce one (which does give extra science from Japans tradition, I tested it once) and Mayas unique quarters in a few cities, this could potentially finish the entire modern era tech tree in one turn once you reach a critical mass of naval commanders, by just buying a normal millitary boats to force overflow being spent -> finishing a tech -> creating multiple commanders with mayas quarter -> finishing a tech ->...

 

[Krikkit1]

Someone on the official Firaxis Discord had an idea that might get patched soon but could actually be quite a fast way to finish modern aswell. So the Press Gang Tradition of the Pirate Republic gives 50% prod for naval units per naval commander, which includes (probably unintended) other naval commanders, so the flat prod cost of them keeps scaling while the actuall cost you pay per commander stays mostly the same. Pairing this with Japans Tradition that gives 25% per Naval unit (again, not millitary naval, just naval), the english wonder that creates a second naval unit any time you produce one (which does give extra science from Japans tradition, I tested it once) and Mayas unique quarters in a few cities, this could potentially finish the entire modern era tech tree in one turn once you reach a critical mass of naval commanders, by just buying a normal millitary boats to force overflow being spent -> finishing a tech -> creating multiple commanders with mayas quarter -> finishing a tech ->...

Probably best to cut the Press Gang Link (have it be Military Naval Units/Naval Commander)……That way the ~50 naval commanders needed to get the
100 production->25 science->3.75 production cycle to profit would themselves have to be built the hard way.

 

[ValleTomate]

Well it seems to not work anyway, the person on discord tested it and naval commanders don't seem to provide science with japans tradition despite the wording implying it

 

[Krikkit1]

Well it seems to not work anyway, the person on discord tested it and naval commanders don't seem to provide science with japans tradition despite the wording implying it

Still Press Gang seems to cause potential problems with "constant cost Fleet Commanders"

 

[Manpanzee]

Got another nice one to report. This will probably be as far as I push in the current iteration of the game, but I am now confident that 150's are possible.

Isabella leading Egypt / Inca / Russia
95 + 40 + 26 = 161 turns

--This was the fourth or fifth map I rolled, and the first that I pressed "Next Turn" on. It was a nice one, with Machapuchare in the capital, plus Uluru close by (Uluru may not the greatest find in itself, but was still awesome for juicing up yields on the hammers wonder). This snowballed into an absolutely monstrous production game, by far the strongest I've experienced.

I also had lucky rolls for civ wipes, managing to keep Confucius from ever going beyond two settlements. To the north, I fought two wars with Napoleon, with a peace treaty on the last turn of the age reducing him to just his capital.

--The one AI I didn't fight was Blackbeard, who stayed on three settlements throughout Antiquity. I anticipated he'd go pirates, meaning he'd struggle to expand in Exploration as well. Thus, I planned around completing a double civ-wipe in Exploration, to go with my one from Antiquity. Things took a bit of a turn when two of Blackbeard's three settlements disappeared between turn one and two of Exploration. I have seen this bug before and was not happy to have it occur now, both because it seemed to cheapen things and because I actually WANTED to take those developed AI settlements.

--So, yeah, Inca. Realizing that they can consistently clear the Economic legacy path within 40 turns changed my perspective on things. Twenty points of age progression is a ton, and matching that with multiple future techs/civics is a big ask. However, I have come close enough to getting there in 40 turns even without the homeland treasure fleets to think that Inca (or Songhai) aren't actually necessary to pull this off. Play as Tonga in Antiquity, and maybe you can set up to get there with whatever you want in Exploration.

--Barring crazy Bulgaria stuff, I think this is approaching the ceiling of what can be achieved without science traditions and without a science leader. I definitely needed more firepower on raw science yields once the age turned to Modern. That means using either Confucius or Himiko, or finding ways to play more science-oriented civs in earlier ages, even though science may be a relatively low priority for in-age progression.

 

[Marcus Montis]

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.

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.

Interesting view! I do notice that in my games (always deity on huge maps) sometimes an AI player will score an economic victory before I can score the science victory. Usually I try for three victories with any civ. Economic goes fastest. If I score that one, I go one turn back and put the banker on 'inactive'. Then I try to see whichever I can finish second. Usually the cultural one unless science is so high that the Science victory comes first. It does give extra XP to your leader though, finishing three victories But in general it's relatively easy to score these three victories if you play Exploration and Antiquities correctly. And I agree, you don't need the max of cities to win, but it sure helps a lot Regards.

 

[Bleidraner]

I want to report my last game on 1.2.5, with my old obsession Isabella.

Isabella leading Maya/ Abbassid / Meiji Japan
90 + 60 + 29 = 189 turns

This is the three wipes Antiquity game, but I actually replayed the last 20 turns of Antiquity to avoid wiping the third civ and set up a better exploration, I sacrificed 3 turns for eco and military 3/3 and culture/science 2/2. That worked OKish, my exploration was poor but not terrible, t60 in spite of the fact that I wiped 2 civs in the first 20 turns. I leaned this time into Isabella's naval advantages to play a very aggressive exploration, so instead of spamming settlers I went Astronomy for the Fleet Commander while spamming cogs and then Cartography and off to conquer. I only built one settler. I believe this is not optimal but it was fun to play.

As I had such a long Exploration finishing 333 and 2 in economic, I was able to set up a great Modern opening with 26 settlements and 2 cities. Note G is the real deal. Ended up with 29 settlements and 2 cities.

I am now moving to 1.3.0 as I want to try Tonga and Egypt and I think Isabella will still be even more amazing. But before, I wanna play the GoTM.

@Manpanzee I had the same "bug" of 2 cities dissapearing between t1 and t2. I did a lot of theory crafting about why this was not a bug (razing at the end of previous age, insurrection crisis, stuff like that), but none of the explanations really worked. It is a bug.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

A few thoughts after running a bunch this patch:

Having tried to push the Trung Trac + Egypt civ wipe rush a bunch of times I feel I can say definitively it is suboptimal. Getting 90-95 turn antiquities is a breeze with this combo (and honestly really fun) but it will never result in a sub 50 turn exploration, so you're giving back all the antiquity turn advantage and then starting behind the curve in modern.

Though TBH I’m barely comprehending a 40 turn exploration — getting all legacy paths by then is doable but that’s only 140 era score plus 40 turns for 180… getting a civ wipe + future tech is required and so leaving a civ close and weak in antiquity is a prerequisite — I think this makes antiquity single wipe or no wipe optimal to push the exploration age turn count.

Lastly, observing these runs by manpanzee vs the pillage run, it seems like starting modern super high yields has diminishing returns on turn shaving vs earlier eras… i.e. getting 40 turns in explo to get 25 in modern beats 50-60 turn explo to get 20 turn modern (based on the yields shown in the pillage focused Bulgaria build… unless 10-15 is truly possible).

My gut says the ultra tedious perfectly optimized pillage build is the best… if anyone has the patience to play it out.

Cheers all!

 

[civfanatic4sure]

Just got a personal best but it could have been so much better.

Isabella leading Egypt / Songhai / Russia -- Large -- Continents & Island -- Deity -- No Countdown -- Rest default
98 + 46 + 36 = 180 turns

Antiquity Mementos: Sci attr + Exp attr
Isabella with Egypt is completely cracked when you start with the prod+culture wonder because you can get so much food and prod the first 3-4 growth events from rivers before going into the wonder (usually taking that wonder immediately slows getting to 5 pop for settlers too much imo).

Took out Frederick/Silla's 2 settlements to the south easily in the 50s after playing sim city for a bit. Was not planning to do more warring but Tecumseh/Greece stayed weak on yields with Machiavelli keeping him in an era long war. I took all his settlements but left the capital for exploration to push the 40 turn age. Getting a future civic with Egypt's beefy culture ticked the age with 12/7 settlement cap w/ 5 cities with academies.

Spoiler End of Antiquity :

Exploration Mementos: Exp attr + Mil attr

I took these mementos to get both settlement limit bumps from each tree plus fealty. I had a great map and knew a lot of landmass was right there for my prebuilt settlers, but having never pushed the turn limit in exploration and having too many bad rolls in the past with sparse treasure resources I went for Songhai because I knew it would guarantee the treasure fleets be finished super quickly (started age with 3 cities on navigable rivers).

Not having Abbasid was a bit rough on yields, I thought having 5 golden age academies would be enough (it's not and not even close). I had all legacy paths by the mid 30s but was slow getting the future tech. I almost got the double wipe on Trung Trad/ Majapahit since I wanted to go for her natural wonder settlement, but she just had a zillion units left around her capital after I razed 4 of her settlements. One weird thing also -- when I wiped Tecumseh in the first 10 turns I only got 8 era score -- no idea why or how that works as I thought it should be 10. Finished the age with 21 settlements and 5 natural wonders.

Spoiler End of Exploration :

Modern Mementos: Note G + 4% yields from gold per turn

Standard stuff, only 2 military IPs to pop. I had way too low yields to get a good turn count here -- this is where not having Abbasid UQ + traditions hurt the most. I am not sure I am using the overflow correctly and looking for some help. Going into the last 2 projects on rocketry tech completion, I had overflow building up from a few turns before + oxford finishing -- I dropped the launchpad and hit the project and it was at 1 turn -- I took the sci IP free tech and it blasted the project... but then the next project still had 6 turns. My capital had 250 prod. I popped the 2 military IPs and was left with 4 turns. I guess it felt like all of that hitting at the same time should have finished both projects. Am I messing up the overflow somehow causing it to wipe the pre-turn overflow buildup?

Spoiler Start of Modern :

All in all, I think it's hard for any civ to beat Egypt this patch in antiquity. They're just too powerful. Tonga is good but while they de-risk treasure fleets in explo and have good yield traditions, getting the culture path in antiquity is always going to be tough. In exploration -- I think to really go for top runs, you have to go with Abbasid and pray you get the right distant lands roll, otherwise you're sacrificing too much in yields for modern. Though I still believe the Ashoka over settlement strat can outperform any of this.

 

[Salamis]

@Manpanzee I had the same "bug" of 2 cities dissapearing between t1 and t2. I did a lot of theory crafting about why this was not a bug (razing at the end of previous age, insurrection crisis, stuff like that), but none of the explanations really worked. It is a bug.

I’ve had it as well. In that particular game, the civ lost 4 settlements leaving just the capital. I reloaded t1 and the last turn of the previous age a few times to try and find a way around it. In the end, it was something very random that seemed to trigger it. Annoyingly I can’t remember the exact action but if I did one of these things (different to my original play) the settlements stayed on the map:
- Not take a Settlement in a peace deal at the end of the age (not from the civ in question, from another)
- Not change capital
- Not form an alliance at end of age or t1

 

[Manpanzee]

One weird thing also -- when I wiped Tecumseh in the first 10 turns I only got 8 era score -- no idea why or how that works as I thought it should be 10.

Age progression from civ wipes varies by map size and is smaller on larger maps. I don't think this is exactly for "balance" reasons, but it is actually a balancing factor, since otherwise larger maps are just better.

I am not sure I am using the overflow correctly and looking for some help. Going into the last 2 projects on rocketry tech completion, I had overflow building up from a few turns before + oxford finishing -- I dropped the launchpad and hit the project and it was at 1 turn -- I took the sci IP free tech and it blasted the project... but then the next project still had 6 turns. My capital had 250 prod. I popped the 2 military IPs and was left with 4 turns. I guess it felt like all of that hitting at the same time should have finished both projects. Am I messing up the overflow somehow causing it to wipe the pre-turn overflow buildup?

There are definitely restrictions on production overflow, and building up overflow across turns may not be something you can actually do. I'm not sure what the exact overflow restriction mechanics are here, but IIRC past games have had stuff like "overflow is capped at the hammer cost of whatever you just finished".

I have been consistently finishing everything the turn after Rocketry, with the sequence in my last game looking like:

T-1:
Capital working on science project #2.
Civic mastery queued up.

T=0:
Finish Rocketry. Finishing civic mastery finishes science project #2.
Buy Launch Pad in capital and start on science project #3.
Chopping two militaristic IPs finishes science project #3.
Queue up the spaceship and everything else relevant I can finish next turn.

T+1:
Researching tech mastery + civic mastery + finishing Oxford completes spaceship.

I have tested finishing Oxford at T=0, and it seems like some of the production can be lost in overflow. Doing it the above way ensures that the hammers all directly go into something.

What I haven't tried is putting Oxford in the capital and using another IP bump to finish it after science project #3, with the spaceship queued up after it. Possibly this could allow finishing everything at T=0, but you would need a lot of IPs to pop in this case -- I'm guessing 4+.

 

[Salamis]

A new one to share:
Ashoka (WR) leading Tonga > Bulgaria > Japan
95+45+23=163
Huge Archipelago map
Mementos: Ant - 50g for every 100 tiles explored + Culture attribute; Exp - Sci + Culture attributes; Mod - Science attribute + 10% Sci towards masteries (I don't have access to Note G)

The idea was to use @ValleTomate 's Ashoka happiness/Bulgaria pillaging strategy for expansion and combine that with Tonga's abilities, specifically:
- Tradition +2 Science on Fishing Boats on Reefs.
- Tradition +1 Culture on Warehouse buildings.
In other words, use an Archipelago map to maximise the number of reefs, settle as many of them as possible and spam Warehouse buildings.

Antiquity (all legacy paths complete):
Tonga are terrific and the huge amount of gold from the memento helped fuel expansion and consequently the Science and Culture rates. Finished the age with no civ wipes but researched 2 future civics, 1 future tech and got a free one of each from IP bonuses. Tonga can also give an outrageous amount of gold in Exploration as each trade route from an IP counts to the 5g per trade route economy legacy. In this game it gave 95 per turn!
A few mistakes though:
- Didn't build-up enough of a navy/army early enough and consequently entered the Exploration era with strong rivals rather than ones ready to be pillaged.
- Only had one Commander and gave him the wrong promotions (forgot to go for the pillaging promotion).

Exploration (all legacy paths complete):
The military mistakes from Antiquity meant that I couldn't pillage nearly enough to fully leverage Bulgaria's attributes. Finished the age with about 35 settlements including about 11 Cities with Universities. Completed tech and civic trees, including a researched future tech and 1 free of each from IP bonuses. Two civ wipes.

Modern:
The base Science rate was pretty good but not exceptional. Completed rocketry on t17. Though I didn't have Note G, I had one city with the Maya UQ. Unfortunately there was never an option to make it the capital so while three IP harvests helped complete the other projects in the capital, the final project was done via the Maya city. I tried to use the Japan ability to build some techs to speed it up but didn’t have enough gold to do it quickly. In hindsight it might have been faster to use the UQ to finish the penultimate project and the IP harvests to complete the final project in the cap but neither city had good raw production.

I think this combination has a shot at finishing in the 140’s. Taking 5 off each age does not feel unrealistic.