Fastest Science Victory

[Blatc]

Just submitted a Mayan game to HoF; curious what others would have done with the great people.
I was a bit slow to Theology; wanted to be sub-T72 (or 62) and I was going to plant GS, but I didn't reach the tech until early 80s. My choices were:
Turn 86 - Prophet. Had already enhanced, used this to spread to expos while buying Pagodas.
Turn 101 - Admiral (CS quest)
Turn 117 - GE to get LToP (Brazil reached Printing Press T114; I paid to start several wars to halt their production of this wonder)
Turn 133 - Artist
Turn 152 - Writer
Turn 183 - GS

I used 1 GS to bulb Plastics and had 12 at the end for 13 total, including Hubble and 2 from faith. Plastics at T175 but slow finish for T217. Only 1 cultural CS on the map; I never opened Commerce or Patronage - full Tradition, 7th policy went into Rationalism, which I finished, and 6 in Freedom. Unable to steal any techs. Overall, great terrain but some bad luck.

 

[IronfighterXXX]

Only 1 cultural CS on the map;

Yes, number of cultural CSs is probably one of most underrated factor for fast SV.

They are great mid-game (for ultra-fast rationalism and freedom policies) especially combined with GA and GWs.

 

[Manpanzee]

Just submitted a Mayan game to HoF; curious what others would have done with the great people.
I was a bit slow to Theology; wanted to be sub-T72 (or 62) and I was going to plant GS, but I didn't reach the tech until early 80s. My choices were:
Turn 86 - Prophet. Had already enhanced, used this to spread to expos while buying Pagodas.
Turn 101 - Admiral (CS quest)
Turn 117 - GE to get LToP (Brazil reached Printing Press T114; I paid to start several wars to halt their production of this wonder)
Turn 133 - Artist
Turn 152 - Writer
Turn 183 - GS

I believe the Mayan Great Prophet actually bumps the GS counter, so it's generally not worth taking. Especially if your faith is good enough to enhance by t86. I would almost always use the first for an Academy, I think.

 

[Iamteehee]

I'm pretty sure the only thing bumped up is the Great Prophet's individual faith counter.

 

[IronfighterXXX]

I'm pretty sure the only thing bumped up is the Great Prophet's individual faith counter.

No, Manpanzee is right - Mayans Great Prophet is a terrible choice as it increases cost of next Great Prophet and cost of next GS/GE/GM

 

[Blatc]

Ugh, I had no idea the Prophet did that. I'll likely give the Mayans another go, in that case, with GP choices most likely:

T86 (or 72) - GS to plant
next few, whatever crap great person (GG, Admiral, Musician) there is a city quest for. If none, GG to grab a luxury.
(GE if needed for LToP again, pretty sure that's worth it)
final 3 in order: Artist (T133), Writer (T152), GE (T182) for Hubble

Will aim for 5,000 faith for 3x GS.

 

[garmeth]

Ugh, I had no idea the Prophet did that. I'll likely give the Mayans another go, in that case, with GP choices most likely:

T86 (or 72) - GS to plant
next few, whatever crap great person (GG, Admiral, Musician) there is a city quest for. If none, GG to grab a luxury.
(GE if needed for LToP again, pretty sure that's worth it)
final 3 in order: Artist (T133), Writer (T152), GE (T182) for Hubble

Will aim for 5,000 faith for 3x GS.

Why get artist after the "crap great person"?

 

[Sclb]

I think you should get a natural artist early on, so you want free artist for one of the later ones. The early free GP are preferably ones that don't increase counters for others you intend to get.

 

[Blatc]

As Sclb said, want to get some natural GA and delay the counter increase.
The GS is different, as planting it can get you to Education/etc. faster so future GS points will start accumulating sooner. Similar with using GE on LToP, if necessary.

 

[Manpanzee]

I've been thinking a lot about how to maximize Korea -- their late-game science is pretty ridiculous, but the lack of infrastructure bonuses can make getting to the late game in time a challenge. The approach I've chosen is to focus on purchasing. The opening plan is to beeline Theology for early Medieval Era, then time Oracle to get Mercantilism before Education. Next beeline Edu (disregarding the infrastructure techs), and rely on purchasing to make up for the late Workshops.

I finally got a nice game with t98 Edu and enough cash to buy two Universities immediately. This isn't the most incredible start I've ever gotten, but Korea isn't a Civ for incredible starts anyway. I think sub-200 should be in play here, with a bit of luck.

Only major issue is that there's only one Cultural CS on the map. Means I probably need Statue of Liberty, so late-game hammers could be a crunch. Solution: I built Pyramids and have ticking GE points in the capital. I'll work an Engineer slot and try to naturally spawn an Engineer, making up for my lack of Tradition. Korea likes working specialists early anyway.

 

[Blatc]

I feel like I've asked this before, but how do you (Manpanzee) have your happiness and gpt so high at this point in the game?
Also, why aren't you selling extra luxuries when your happiness is >10? Or do you just have massive happiness coming in from CS?

 

[yung.carl.jung]

in his case specifically probably because he was about to trigger a Golden Age in just a few turns. in general though I think the additional gpt is worth much more than the surplus happiness could ever be. I usually give up on triggering natural Golden Ages after the first one.

 

[Blatc]

I believe that says his next golden age is in 11 turns. Personally, I would sell off some luxuries if possible and manipulate the golden age to occur around the same time as World's Fair, to help win it without using a great artist.

But the real question is how is Manpanzee so awesome
I would seldom reach +20 happiness at T98, let alone with 6-city Liberty and 62gpt at the same time. I probably need to try out Liberty more often.

 

[Manpanzee]

I feel like I've asked this before, but how do you (Manpanzee) have your happiness and gpt so high at this point in the game?
Also, why aren't you selling extra luxuries when your happiness is >10? Or do you just have massive happiness coming in from CS?

Normally I wouldn't try to have happiness so high. In this case it's basically an accident. The big factor is: I had a Mercantile CS ally with 2 unique luxes (including Porcelain) that I was about to lose ally status with. This CS gave me a quest for Jewelry. Meanwhile, a CS with Jewelry was asking for investors. So I put in 500 gold and basically picked up 12 happiness in one shot (and I got to sell a spare duplicate lux I picked up, so really that's 12 happiness for 260 gold).

My experience with Liberty is that you can end up chewing through happiness really fast, so I rarely take the chance of selling extra luxes anyway.

High gpt is just a combination of having lots of resources to sell and working all of my +gold tiles. I really like those Gold mines -- with Commerce + Mint + Market, working those three Gold tiles in the capital is bringing in 18 gpt just by themselves.

 

[Blatc]

High gpt is just a combination of having lots of resources to sell and working all of my +gold tiles. I really like those Gold mines -- with Commerce + Mint + Market, working those three Gold tiles in the capital is bringing in 18 gpt just by themselves.

It's safe to say you get your roads connected faster than me, and Liberty partly explains this, but I believe the above is likely the other part of what I need to improve on. I would likely have no Mints and only a couple Markets up at this point in the game. While I do switch it up a bit, I probably tend to work a 2 food/1 hammer tile instead of the Gold tiles you're working.

What kind of +food per turn are you aiming for around T50 and T100?

Edit: and you have Pyramids, so yeah city connections would have been very quick to set up

 

[Manpanzee]

It's safe to say you get your roads connected faster than me, and Liberty partly explains this, but I believe the above is likely the other part of what I need to improve on. I would likely have no Mints and only a couple Markets up at this point in the game. While I do switch it up a bit, I probably tend to work a 2 food/1 hammer tile instead of the Gold tiles you're working.

What kind of +food per turn are you aiming for around T50 and T100?

Edit: and you have Pyramids, so yeah city connections would have been very quick to set up

In this game I have Religious Idols (my favorite pantheon), so I'm working all Gold tiles close to 100% of the time. My strategy with this pantheon is to found cities either on Gold or with Gold in immediate range (could be in first ring, or could reach out into another city's tiles), and use the +culture from that to delay Monuments. This lets me build Granaries first, which makes it a lot easier to support constant Mine usage.

I almost never work 2f1h tiles with Liberty. Instead of thinking about food targets, I think more in terms of "tiles with 4+ stuff". If a city has such tiles available, I want it to grow. If it doesn't, I don't really care (plain 3h mines are ok though) about growing until I get closer to Education.

 

[vadalaz]

The Mayans are very interesting, you can use their UA to engineer the NC, just like with Liberty finisher. I'm currently trying out a Liberty/Piety mix: Collective Rule -> Piety to cheaper buildings and +faith from shrines and temples -> 2 more in Liberty and leave the finisher for the endgame. Alternatively I could've gone for Reformation, but I figured I wouldn't get enough faith to purchase universities fast enough. There's also the option to get Theocracy for +25% gold in every city.

Other options include wide Tradition (perhaps Trad/Lib tommynt style) or some sort of Liberty/Patronage mix. I'm not sure the current game is worth finishing, because a lot of things went wrong, mostly worker steals, it feels a bit slow and I couldn't go as wide as I wanted to. I'm pretty sure you can ICS to 9-10 cities with Piety pretty easily with enough space and luxuries.

By the way, Attila is a pretty funny AI to have in the game, as long as he isn't your direct neighbor. He gets a lot of cities in peace deals and just razes everything. You could get some extra space this way if he razes your neighbor's cities, and I guess the improved tiles around the razed city can be used for some easy pillage-repair gold. If I had any army at all, I could've sniped Grand River very easily there, since Attila's army isn't anywhere near the city:

Spoiler :

Another experiment I did was Shoshone 4-city Tradition + 3 cities captured with CBs, which was looking really good (T118 Secularism with a Renaissance Oracle) until Hiawatha got an early-120s LToP and I ragequit. Anyway, the key seems to be going to war as early as possible and crushing 3-4 AIs, instead of killing one and waiting for the inevitable 4-way DoW. My BO was something like Pathfinder x3 - Archer x2 - Settlers. I think that works quite well.

 

[Blatc]

Hmm, with Mayans you could go 5-6 city Tradition (1st expo helps with settlers), GE the NC and build Oracle to coincide with Theology, aiming to get down to Mercantilism. Would also let you start building guilds earlier.
Vadalaz, where have you included pyramids (super-shrines) in your Mayan BO?

 

[vadalaz]

Vadalaz, where have you included pyramids (super-shrines) in your Mayan BO?

I got Pottery from a ruin so I went Scout-Pyramid-Monument-Scout in the capital, Monument-Pyramid in expos pre-Piety opener, Pyramid-Monument afterwards. I got Theology on turn 81 with a Construction detour, perhaps with pyramids first in every city and no tech detours I could've gotten the T72 Great Person. Not sure how to get the T62 one.

 

[Blatc]

I'm considering if it's worthwhile to buy (~T40) and send a caravan to AI for earlier Theology; haven't done that in a while. You'd get good value if you really beeline it.