Fastest peaceful science victory?

[Rogue-star]

sorry I supposed to reply civtrader6.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

One interesting consequence of the district discount formula they uncovered in the other thread, is that you can get unlimited 40% off districts as long as they're all placed at the same time (or before finishing any tech/civic). For example, if only campuses and commercial hubs are unlocked, one could finish building two CH before placing any campuses, then place all campuses at the discounted cost. Of course, there's a tradeoff involved as this strategy delays the placing of campuses in the first few cities.

So that's just a guess, but perhaps three theaters involves researching only to campuses, CH and TS (i.e. Poetry and Drama before Games and Recreation), chopping three theaters, then placing all campuses and CH at once.

Actually, you cannot get unlimited 40% off districts, because the formula in that thread is not completed, there is a cancel condition at the end.

Here is the full version of 40% off formula from Chinese forum (posted on Nov 16th): https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5436448944 , I tried to translate it to English word by word.

Specialty districts are using the cost progress type COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH, include: Holy Site, Campus, Encampment, Harbor, Aerodrome, Commercial hub, Entertainment complex, theater square, industrial zone, and the UDs who replace them above.

There are 3 parameters to calculate which district to be discount,
X: total number of al specialty districts in your empire, which must be completed and unlocked. For example, if you have 2 cities, one has theater+campus+CH completed, another has campus+spaceport+neighborhood completed, X = 4. Also, if you captured an enemy city which has a district that you haven't unlocked, that district won't count.
Y: number of specialty district types you unlocked. For example, when you finished the tech Astrology, which unlocked a new specialty district type Holy Site, therefore Y increased by 1.
Z: number of an exact type of specialty district. Unfinished districts are also counted here.
so X/Y is the average number of each type of completed specialty districts.

When you finish a tech or civic(attention: X and Y are only refreshed at this moment), do test below:
if X/Y < 1, no discount applied;
if X/Y >= 1 and X/Y > Z (Z is under average), 40% off;
if X/Y >= 1 and X/Y <= Z (Z is equal or above average), also no discount applied.

When you begin to build a district, refresh Z and do test:
if X/Y >= 1 and X/Y <= Z (equal or above average), cancel the discount.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

I would like to hear more about this and cannot read the Chinese forum
So the idea is that you then delay researching the sciences for writing and commerce and astrology while building the three theatre squares?
Then what? You do writing and campuses next?

I try to explain how it works:

First, build 3 theaters at full price(this is very low at the beginning, for we have blocked other district's tech/civic).
Second, unlock campus, now X = 3, Y = 2, X/Y = 1.5 >= 1 and Z = 0, now we have 2 discounted campus. Complete them by settler's overflow prod(all we need is 60%, chop 1 tree provide 33%*1.5=50%), then X = 5, Y = 2, X/Y = 2.5, Z = 2, so we have the third discounted campus, and 2 settlers. Chop to complete third settler and the third campus.
Next please unlock the CH, now X = 6, Y = 3, X/Y = 2, so we have 2~3 discounted CH; then next is IZ... etc.

You may ask, why theater is the first district? Why not campus? They figured out that the early Great Writer is a HUGE improvement(2 great works which provide 8 culture per turn) to the culture output, speed up the civic tree significantly, and the key point in civic tree are much more instant than Tech tree(most of them need production); besides, very early campus will delay your expand, which is very important in peaceful play ( Actually in the mid-year of 2017, there is a peaceful SV at 179 turn with Germany on our forum, which is prod-focused, and in the first 100 turns he has very poor science income, also figured out that sometimes climb the tech tree too quick may slow down your victory, and here is the link: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5090133402 ). That is their answer.

Whatever, this method can really achieve very fast peaceful SV in 150~170 turns (deity, standard speed), for there are many reports and videos already.

 

[Victoria]

Whatever, this method can really achieve very fast peaceful SV in 150~170 turns (deity, standard speed), for there are many reports and videos already.

Thank you so much for this, very useful and appreciated.

 

[civtrader6]

Hi @Boyan_Sun
thank you very much for this explanation.
It seems like a very interesting method to try. China never ceases to amaze me (although - I am in Shanghai right now - so not much time to play civ).
I think I get the gist and how it applies to quick SV.
In my games - I've experimented a lot with SV through culture - getting great writers and going semi-tall with kongo - although the best I got was T150-160 victories - and it seemed to depend on not having Russia etc in the game.
In general I've got a series of below T140 (non-peaceful) wins with many civs (most around the ~140 mark, some T13x, and T120 with Aztecs) - and culture is definitely the key.
The question I've got is - what is happening on the Chinese forums when it comes to fast non-peaceful science victories?
Are there any good records? Or strategies?

Any input is appreciated.
Thanks again.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Actually, you cannot get unlimited 40% off districts, because the formula in that thread is not completed, there is a cancel condition at the end.

Here is the full version of 40% off formula from Chinese forum (posted on Nov 16th): https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5436448944 , I tried to translate it to English word by word.

Specialty districts are using the cost progress type COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH, include: Holy Site, Campus, Encampment, Harbor, Aerodrome, Commercial hub, Entertainment complex, theater square, industrial zone, and the UDs who replace them above.

There are 3 parameters to calculate which district to be discount,
X: total number of al specialty districts in your empire, which must be completed and unlocked. For example, if you have 2 cities, one has theater+campus+CH completed, another has campus+spaceport+neighborhood completed, X = 4. Also, if you captured an enemy city which has a district that you haven't unlocked, that district won't count.
Y: number of specialty district types you unlocked. For example, when you finished the tech Astrology, which unlocked a new specialty district type Holy Site, therefore Y increased by 1.
Z: number of an exact type of specialty district. Unfinished districts are also counted here.
so X/Y is the average number of each type of completed specialty districts.

When you finish a tech or civic(attention: X and Y are only refreshed at this moment), do test below:
if X/Y < 1, no discount applied;
if X/Y >= 1 and X/Y > Z (Z is under average), 40% off;
if X/Y >= 1 and X/Y <= Z (Z is equal or above average), also no discount applied.

When you begin to build a district, refresh Z and do test:
if X/Y >= 1 and X/Y <= Z (equal or above average), cancel the discount.

This seems like another version of district discount method.
I wonder why it does not happen before I posted my discovery, but lots of Chinese begin posting this a few days after my discovery, looks like enough time for a reverse translation. (You claim to have an origin that cannot be checked.)
T179 SV is a good victory time for peaceful victories, good enough to prove a strategy "may work", but not good enough to prove a strategy "better than others". Especially when other strategies mainly lies in the T140-160 zone.
Anyway I'm always a science focuser and will only push culture when reaching Enlightment/Globalization being simpler than pumping up science, such as using culture-related civs like Rome/Greece/Kongo.
For district discount, why don't we take Holy Sites as the first district? You can get Papal Primacy, or Jesuit combined with Goddess of Harvest, I think it's better than Classical Author, especially when there is only one in Diety, which provides 8 culture/turn, requires you to build an Amphitheatre, and that's all.

Hi @Boyan_Sun
thank you very much for this explanation.
It seems like a very interesting method to try. China never ceases to amaze me (although - I am in Shanghai right now - so not much time to play civ).
I think I get the gist and how it applies to quick SV.
In my games - I've experimented a lot with SV through culture - getting great writers and going semi-tall with kongo - although the best I got was T150-160 victories - and it seemed to depend on not having Russia etc in the game.
In general I've got a series of below T140 (non-peaceful) wins with many civs (most around the ~140 mark, some T13x, and T120 with Aztecs) - and culture is definitely the key.
The question I've got is - what is happening on the Chinese forums when it comes to fast non-peaceful science victories?
Are there any good records? Or strategies?

Any input is appreciated.
Thanks again.

I'm wondering whether a "peaceful victory" can be checked or not. If a declaration of war/peace treaty happens more than 10T before the save, are there any ways to figure it out?

 

[Victoria]

For district discount, why don't we take Holy Sites as the first district?

Because its about the culture, and why would you need 3 holy sites?

I'm wondering whether a "peaceful victory" can be checked or not. If a declaration of war/peace treaty happens more than 10T before the save, are there any ways to figure it out?

The main thing that matters is you have not captrured cities. Looting is a small overall affect in comparison although to be fair "in the spirit of the game" peaceful should mean no looting.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Because its about the culture, and why would you need 3 holy sites?


The main thing that matters is you have not captrured cities. Looting is a small overall affect in comparison although to be fair "in the spirit of the game" peaceful should mean no looting.

Holy sites for promphets, which is better than author.

Even choosing Shrine/Temple +Culture belief gives you a lot of culture.

Catching settlers and builders can result in great profit, especially when being done in the first few turns. As @civtrader6 points out, an early settler worth 8T even in a T128 game.

Also, maybe you can change captured city names(can we change city names in Civ6?) so that you in fact cannot distinguish whether a city is captured or self-built.

 

[Victoria]

Holy sites for promphets, which is better than author.

1 holy site early is by far the best way of getting a religion. Goddess of the harvest is not always something you can get and Papl primacy requires you conver these foreign, often far away CS for an amount of science that is while not small, not huge either. With peaceful you will not be able to control AI civ reloigious conversions. I have always thought Theaters are underrated, its nice to know they are treated with respect somewhere with a very interesting strat. It is a bit annoying that they are off the path to Political Philosophy but if it means getting the higher science bonuses faster its worth it in my view.

Catching settlers and builders can result in great profit,

Scouts are very very good at this but you never build them first when they are most useful.

Also, maybe you can change captured city names(can we change city names in Civ6?) so that you in fact cannot distinguish whether a city is captured or self-built.

While you can change names you can still identify by locatio0n whose they were to some degree and I am sure they will put some tracing in the logs soon enough (I hope)
Sadly logs get destroyed currently but they do have a history of that stuff. I did say "in the spirit of the game", Yes I know people will always cheat and while there is no tracking it is purely about what can be seen. As I am not competitive I do not care that much but appreciate others do.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

1 holy site early is by far the best way of getting a religion.
Scouts are very very good at this but you never build them first when they are most useful.
.

For Diety you need 2 holy sites with shrines/Divine Spark to form a religion. If you don't get harvest you just choose the shrine/temple+culture belief, which makes your holy site as productive as a theatre culturewise.

Then you get 1 campus(discounted), after the campus built you can get 1CH+1Campus( discounted), then 1 CH+1 Entertain(discounted)

Now AI always have their settlers locked with a warrior, so you need 2 warrior/archers to capture one basically. The main point is that "capturing settler" is never a "peaceful play" I think.

 

[EpicWestern]

Its tricky though, on deity you're also a lot more likely to get attacked and lose to various rushes so the 2 holy site play is too risky IMO if you actually care about winrate.

With one holy site, you can still get a religion the majority of games, just it usually requires holy prayers up to 3-4 times which is a very severe setback in production. Your wintime will suffer.

In any case, even just 1 holy site isn't really safe on deity (without Arabia). My preferred build order is builder/slinger/holy site while keep warrior fairly close, and then hopefully I'm neither attacked nor facing opposing civs that get great prophets quickly. Ideally you actually grab the first great prophet with maybe only one set of prayers. If you're attacked or are very certain you will be a attacked, with one warrior and slinger you usually hold off rushes while you pause site/shrine/prayers and transition to archers, then you can usually resume after you've stabilized and still get a GP but it will require more prayers (and slower overall wintime).

 

[EpicWestern]

for there are many reports and videos already.

link?

 

[Victoria]

link?

These will likely be in Chinese

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Its tricky though, on deity you're also a lot more likely to get attacked and lose to various rushes so the 2 holy site play is too risky IMO if you actually care about winrate.

.

2 Holy Sites certainly have a higher chance to ensure your religion. cap:builder/settler/holy site/shrine 1st:holy site/shrine

 

[Boyan_Sun]

The question I've got is - what is happening on the Chinese forums when it comes to fast non-peaceful science victories?

Glad to hear that! That is a long story, and also, very interesting. I'm not a skillful player, but I like recording the history that people research something. And it's my pleasure to share it here. I will try to collect, and seems it needs some time through,.

This seems like another version of district discount method.

I wonder why it does not happen before I posted my discovery, but lots of Chinese begin posting this a few days after my discovery, looks like enough time for a reverse translation. (You claim to have an origin that cannot be checked.)

Hello Lily, I do not claim you that, I just noticed it’s not a completed version in your formula thread, and try to fix it. This forum is for sharing, isn’t it? Besides, I think they are not reverse translation from your discovery, because it is more completed, with plenty of derivation processes and experimental data. If you are interested in it, I can translate them later. Also, there is a play video of the mechanism, here: https://www.bilibili.com/video/av16427908/ (Details of Deep Mechanism for District Discount, by Laochendanji), which was uploaded on Nov 18, you can check it.

I'm wondering whether a "peaceful victory" can be checked or not. If a declaration of war/peace treaty happens more than 10T before the save, are there any ways to figure it out?

It seems like you are talking about cheating? We are here to discuss the strategies, not for showing oneself, so why need cheating? Trust is the basis of discussion.

link?

I have to admit that I made a mistake, many good players could not upload videos, they use image/text report and can provide save files. And I trust them.
Here are some peaceful play videos of a good Chinese player ( Laochendanji ), may be not that quick(nearly 200t), but all of them were live play, which means very little save/load involved. Hope it can help.
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av16331222/
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av16366797/
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av16497809/

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Please take care when talking about cheating. English is not everyone's primary language (particularly in this thread), so it is easy for misunderstandings to get out of control.

 

[EpicWestern]

I have to admit that I made a mistake, many good players could not upload videos, they use image/text report and can provide save files. And I trust them.
Here are some peaceful play videos of a good Chinese player ( Laochendanji ), may be not that quick(nearly 200t), but all of them were live play, which means very little save/load involved. Hope it can help.
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av16331222/
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av16366797/
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av16497809/

Watched most of the first game and a bit of the second. I don't speak Chinese but was able to get the gist of it. The uploader is obviously a very talented player and has smart gameplan but we're talking slightly under 200 turn win with a premium civ (Pericles), a premium start (two city state envoys), an extremely risky build order, and several load games.

I think the build order was scout/builder/settler/monument/settler/settler/builder or something along those lines. Its just not something you can get away with consistently on deity.

All that said I was still impressed by the win and time, even if it wasn't perfect. I think with more chops, mines, a couple earlier expansions, and a bit better scouting he could have certainly shaved 15-20 turns off the total.

Some interesting things:

Very late first trade route, and very little usage of mid game trade routes
Trade deals were absolutely maximized in the sense that he searches for the best deal every time down to a single gold (way too tedious for my tastes but I respect the mindset)
Culture was hammered pretty hard. You couldn't even tell it was a science game until turn 100 or so. Acropolis in just about every city, several theater districts, rush buying archaeologists, etc..
Almost no faith
Very stingy with the mines (too stingy IMO), capital had several grassland hills that were worked but not even mines until late

 

[EpicWestern]

2 Holy Sites certainly have a higher chance to ensure your religion. cap:builder/settler/holy site/shrine 1st:holy site/shrine

I'm saying its at the cost of having a higher chance of losing the game or causing you to be severely crippled early on by enemy rushes. Obviously that doesn't matter if you're reloading.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Watched most of the first game and a bit of the second. I don't speak Chinese but was able to get the gist of it. The uploader is obviously a very talented player and has smart gameplan but we're talking slightly under 200 turn win with a premium civ (Pericles), a premium start (two city state envoys), an extremely risky build order, and several load games.

I think the build order was scout/builder/settler/monument/settler/settler/builder or something along those lines. Its just not something you can get away with consistently on deity.

All that said I was still impressed by the win and time, even if it wasn't perfect. I think with more chops, mines, a couple earlier expansions, and a bit better scouting he could have certainly shaved 15-20 turns off the total.

Some interesting things:

Very late first trade route, and very little usage of mid game trade routes
Trade deals were absolutely maximized in the sense that he searches for the best deal every time down to a single gold (way too tedious for my tastes but I respect the mindset)
Culture was hammered pretty hard. You couldn't even tell it was a science game until turn 100 or so. Acropolis in just about every city, several theater districts, rush buying archaeologists, etc..
Almost no faith
Very stingy with the mines (too stingy IMO), capital had several grassland hills that were worked but not even mines until late

For Globalization Greek SV @civtrader6 did a perfect example of T141 SV on Gotm, indicates that this type of SV shall at least be finished ~150 instead of close to 200.

I think T200 games are good for casual play, but shall not be treated as an example of sth. A casual player must reach a relatively high level for a T200 SV.

On the other hand, since the basic time is T140~150, you can set dozens of strict constraints (e.g. never chop or cannot change Government, or cannot settle your capital until T50) and still result in T200. So it's not persuasive to say a strategy "works" by providing a T200 save or video.

For example, I can provide a ~T190 SV with Chiefdom throughout the game, but it is certainly not wise to always use Chiefdom.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

Very late first trade route, and very little usage of mid game trade routes

Trade deals were absolutely maximized in the sense that he searches for the best deal every time down to a single gold (way too tedious for my tastes but I respect the mindset)

Culture was hammered pretty hard. You couldn't even tell it was a science game until turn 100 or so. Acropolis in just about every city, several theater districts, rush buying archaeologists, etc..

Almost no faith

Yes, it's interesting. This is a developing process. In the beginning, they were at first science focus, then try the priority of developing commercial and industry, and finally found that the culture was probably the fastest. I'll mention it in the history of the peaceful play on Chinese forum later.

I'm saying its at the cost of having a higher chance of losing the game or causing you to be severely crippled early on by enemy rushes. Obviously that doesn't matter if you're reloading.

Ah that’s the point, the win rate. Actually they have some skills to avoid the risk: don’t underestimate the first scout!
In fact, most of hardcore players in Chinese forum like to post report based on deity, standard speed, standard size, default settings. That is called “Deity-All-Standard”, which is another story since Civ4.