Fastest Science Victory

[Iamteehee]

Ok well I did a turn 197 with NO OBSERVATORIES ( haha ) with Order with this modded civ, the halfings.
Their ability is basically to start with a medical lab in every city. They also have a water mill that gives +1 food and +1 culture to every river tile, and it counts as a culture building for tradition purposes ( so if you build monument first, then you get free water mills.

I just tried a random liberty/tradition mix type game to see how I could abuse this and it randomly finished at less than 200 with no observatories.
I gotta say, this is a pretty good civ yep

Says turn 198 no pic because dumb AI jammed an automated worker into my capital to prevent me from adding spaceship parts. Wow, just wow.

Spoiler :

1559 bpt with 167 pop seems a bit low to me. Why weren't you working science in all your cities?

Also, why not just dow the civ to force their worker out?

This was a super bad game too, no observatories is obviously awful.
But also, Greece and Kamehameha nearby always DoWing me, and all the AIs hating me right away for spamming 6 cities in the early game. So almost no RAs until late game.

But my cities were insane. I went for workshops before universities, don't know if that's a mistake. I did get Leaning Tower and Sistine Chapel and crushed World Fair solidly, but I still didn't even finish Rationalism. I finished Liberty though, to get a great scientist. No idea how much culture I would be having late-game.

My counterspy only got 1 guy, none of my spies managed to get any techs and basically I couldn't even attempt a single city-state coup all game and as a result had only CS friends, not allies, because Greece was in the game dumping 50 quadrillion gold on them all.

You should play with only the friendly civs (portugal, venice, arabia, morocco, byzantium, brazil, netherlands)

Workshops before universities seems like a mistake to me.

How many social policies did you have at the end?

 

[vadalaz]

With uniques like that, I think putting trading posts on every single tile at some point would be a good idea. Good gpt really helps, and with Free thought you aren't gimping yourself that much science-wise (if at all) by having less endgame pop.

 

[poxpower]

Modded civ = cheating since they are way out of balance, so T197 doesn't mean anything.

I know, it was just amusing to me that it randomly ended up sub-200 without even observatories or even doing a concerted effort to do it.

I definitely think this civ is OP, no questions.
I wonder what you could do on a good map with picked opponents.

1559 bpt with 167 pop seems a bit low to me. Why weren't you working science in all your cities?

Oh this was the later stage of the game where I had all the science already and was just trying to finish the spaceship parts.
With all cities working science and trading posts the science was probably around 1650-1700. I wasn't even working scientist slots in most of my cities in that screenshot.

How many social policies did you have at the end?

I had full tradition, full liberty, 6 order, 5 rationalism ( everything but the finisher ).

My plan for that game was just to test what a liberty / tradition mix would look like with this civ, since you get a free OP watermill from tradition if you get a monument first.
So I opened tradition, then went 2 into liberty, then finished tradition. I'm not convinced it was the best idea ever, but it was really good lands with tons of luxuries and I stole workers very quickly so I could trade with all the AIs.

As for tech, I did go to workshops before universities, and factories before public schools ( for order ).
I bought 3 factories for cash, but I did have to wait 6 turns to get stupid coal online. At least I HAD coal. Like half the game you don't even get coal on 6-7 cities, it's ridiculous...

With uniques like that, I think putting trading posts on every single tile at some point would be a good idea. Good gpt really helps, and with Free thought you aren't gimping yourself that much science-wise (if at all) by having less endgame pop.

I did start converting my tiles relatively late to trading posts but I did build like 20-30 of them plus I had a lot of jungles so that's sweet. Great cities on rivers with just a couple jungle tiles.
I still had a stupid amount of gold anyway, bought 6 labs and 6 hospitals with cash.
Hospitals probably were useless, should have bought CS instead but they wouldn't have mattered in the end either.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

A few words of advice:

If you decide to go with the fast Industrialization strategy you should always make sure to spawn a Great Prophet and have him on your road network / close to unimproved Hill tiles as soon as you get the Indu. tech. That way you can plant and get coal online instantly. Or just pay the 200 to have a CS ally improve coal. Those 6 turns of having 2 free tenets are always useful, esp if we are talking about Order.

If you really want to time it properly then save a Great Writer, too, so you don't have to wait for Worker's Faculties and can start building your Factories at double speed right away! After finishing Lib / Trad there's very few things worth investing into anyway and every social policy you get after closing Lib / Trad will make every policy in Rationalism / Ideology more expensive because of the way it scales. Burn the Great Writer the turn you get your Ideology online.

I'm not one of the best players around, but from countless games I would say that you can for sure achieve sub t200 science victories by going Workshops first and Industrialization before Scientific Theory. Is it ideal though? No idea, even though this game is old not enough testing has been done.

 

[poxpower]

Ah yeah that's true you can just plant prophets. I didn't think of that.

I did try again with observatories + liberty/patronage/commerce/freedom instead of liberty/tradition/order.
Finished turn 205 ish. All allied CS in the game = 10% science boost only. Fairly weak for having to use 4 social policies :O

Also had 5 cities instead of 6 this time ( was making 1700-1750bpt late game only, comparable to the liberty no observatories game). I think liberty / tradition mix is just the best for a civ with tons of extra free culture like that. Maybe same for poland? I don't know.

What I don't know is if freedom or order is better.
That 25% science boost from factories is just insanely huge and not having to waste oxford on garbage like radio for your ideology is also really powerful, but building the parts is much slower....

 

[Blatc]

What is the fastest HoF SV using Order?

You only need 3 social policies to get Scholasticism, not 4. In a recent attempt with Siam, I built Oracle and was able to get Scholasticism shortly before Renaissance; the boost from Scholasticism was >10% for the rest of the game (until I quit ~T190), so I just viewed it as an extra Rationalism policy. Unfortunately, there was only 1 cultural CS and AI reached Printing Press T108, so no LToP and sub-T200 wasn't in the cards.

 

[Iamteehee]

Is Scholasticism before rationalism as not Poland even worth the delay of Secularism?

I got full tradition and scholasticism before rationalism on this map but that meant I didn't get secularism until somewhere around t140 (I think it was after scientific theory actually). Getting secularism faster would have meant at least 3 turns off my win time. I guess it could work as Siam though.

here is an order t190 science victory on latest patch which may or may not be HoF legal. I would think so because the player made a few mistakes that could have been avoided with a replay. I think it would have been faster with freedom though, extra GS and +25% factory science is completely unnecessary with 2250 bpt. 11 city tradition tho :O

 

[IronfighterXXX]

here is an order t190 science victory on latest patch which may or may not be HoF legal. 11 city tradition tho :O

Huge maps with less science penalty per city and more costly technologies kinda force to plant many cities and are hard to compare with standard maps.

 

[Blatc]

Is Scholasticism before rationalism as not Poland even worth the delay of Secularism?

Are you factoring in that the delay in Secularism is offset by a science boost pre-Renaissance from Scholasticism, as well as additional science from policies when you have all 3 of Scholasticism/Rationalism Opener/Secularism?

If your culture is strong enough to get 9 policies before Renaissance, and you maintain cultural CS alliances, then you'll get through Rationalism decently fast.

here is an order t190 science victory on latest patch which may or may not be HoF legal. I would think so because the player made a few mistakes that could have been avoided with a replay. I think it would have been faster with freedom though, extra GS and +25% factory science is completely unnecessary with 2250 bpt. 11 city tradition tho :O

Fastest Huge map in HoF is T245 by Acken.
The poster mentions reloading autosaves, so it wouldn't be HoF eligible.

 

[Maxattack]

I have a question for you fast science guys :
How much and how early do you build troops (if any) ? What kind of units ? Is getting declared on in the early game a catastrophe ?

In my experience, even with "peaceful" neighbours I often end up declared on and only have like a warrior and a couple archers when they swarm me with swordsmen and CBs because I beelined Philosophy into CS and Education... Or maybe my diplomacy game is lacking ?

 

[Acken]

Are you factoring in that the delay in Secularism is offset by a science boost pre-Renaissance from Scholasticism, as well as additional science from policies when you have all 3 of Scholasticism/Rationalism Opener/Secularism?

If your culture is strong enough to get 9 policies before Renaissance, and you maintain cultural CS alliances, then you'll get through Rationalism decently fast.



Fastest Huge map in HoF is T245 by Acken.
The poster mentions reloading autosaves, so it wouldn't be HoF eligible.

Lol I dont even remember it.

Should be rasy to beat.

 

[Iamteehee]

I have a question for you fast science guys :
How much and how early do you build troops (if any) ? What kind of units ? Is getting declared on in the early game a catastrophe ?

In my experience, even with "peaceful" neighbours I often end up declared on and only have like a warrior and a couple archers when they swarm me with swordsmen and CBs because I beelined Philosophy into CS and Education... Or maybe my diplomacy game is lacking ?

I usually build 3 or 4 and occasionally an archer. Getting declared war on early can usually be pretty bad but sometimes the AI declares war on you and then does absolutely nothing. You want to try and establish declarations of friendship early so the AI won't DoW you (this is rather luck based, unfortunately).

To minimize your chance being DoW'd early game, play with friendly and non aggressive civilizations. I recommend India, Byzantium, Portugal, Netherlands, Venice, Morocco, Arabia

 

[vadalaz]

T181 Spain/Lakes, HOF rules

Highlights:

- T5 settle next to Mt Kili. Found two more NWs shortly after for tons of gold
- Fast 3-city NC, settled one more right after. Finished Tradition on T65 IIRC
- I went Patronage and got Scholasticism pre-Renaissance. In the end I couldn't get enough culture to get Mercantilism because Venice bought one cultural CS and Attila conquered another, leaving just one cultural CS for the World's Fair
- CB rush to take Marrakech and Adrianople (razed), settled one more city near GBR
- Education T87, Machinery ~T100, took Constantinople and Amsterdam with XBs for a total of 8 cities by T120 or so
- Religion: Tithe/Mosques/faith from WWs/IP, faith-bought 2 GS and 2 GE. This was a mistake, the correct play was 3 GS + 1 GE here. Though had I played the science correctly, I wouldn't have gotten the gold in time anyway. A sub-180 is doable on this map with more optimal play
- Diplo: hug-fest at first, followed by a ton of backstabs (my bribes), and in the end all AIs hated each other. I got a ton of money out of peace deals, not quite as much as I wanted, but I can't complain. For some reason in the mid-game Attila was just amassing gold and never spent it on anything, around T140 he had over 4k gold in treasury. I've seen Ashurbanipal do the same in a different game, he actually had over 10k there at one point. Not sure what makes the AIs do this... Anyway, throughout the game I probably got well over 6000 gold from Attila alone, so that helped a lot
- Tried yung.carl.jung's strategy with fast Industrialization and a Great Prophet for instant Coal. Got Freedom on t131, same turn as Sci Theory. Plastics T152 with a double bulb. Fast Universal Suffrage was very nice

I attached the map, the save requires all DLC

 

[Iamteehee]

Woah, that's amazing! Congratulations on your victory.

What do you get out of Industrialization before Scientific Theory? Did you really need the happiness? Did you build or buy factories? Was spy in capital really worth it? Seems like it just reduces scholasticism science.

Edit: Imagine if Old Faithful and KSM switched places. Would sub t170 be possible?

 

[vadalaz]

Woah, that's amazing! Congratulations on your victory.

What do you get out of Industrialization before Scientific Theory? Did you really need the happiness? Did you build or buy factories? Was spy in capital really worth it? Seems like it just reduces scholasticism science.

Edit: Imagine if Old Faithful and KSM switched places. Would sub t170 be possible?

Thanks!

I never tried fast Indu before, but it made a lot of sense on paper and I had a spare GG and GP, so I went for it. I thought it was a neat strategy, but better suited for Order games. With Freedom you basically get to pick either very fast Universal Suffrage or very fast Foreign Legions. Originally I was planning to do the latter to get #1 military and further abuse peace deals, but it turned out I could get good deals without it, so I went for US and instantly popped a GA which helped with public schools.

I bought 2 factories and built one in the capital. Maybe it would've been better to buy 3 and build Big Ben in the capital while teching up to Public Schools? Perhaps I should've done that and also gone for early Mercantilism instead of Patronage. I wasn't really impressed by Scholasticism's science boost anyway.

I kept a spy in the capital to level him up and go for coups, but by the time he reached level 3, I'd already allied all CSs I think... Also I didn't want anyone (Pedro) to steal Architecture and randomly build Porcelain Tower.

Not sure about sub-170. Part of me wants to say it's doable, but it's really hard to meet all the requirements that early. Maybe with a faith mountain or two for 3 GS + 2 GE and more observatories...

 

[poxpower]

Man you should really record one of those crazy games
Turn 181 including domination, dayum.

 

[Blatc]

T181 Spain/Lakes, HOF rules

This is incredibly impressive.

I've been fooling around with the Spain DCL recently, curious to see what can happen by shifting the early game focus to fast 4-city NC (instead of Temple of Artemis) and some mid-game conquering. One of my concerns is late-game gold/borrowing (assuming major diplo hits) - how did you plan to deal with this? Do you think Ideology via Industrialization makes for a faster finish? Why the double bulb to Plastics, do you normally do this?

 

[vadalaz]

This is incredibly impressive.

I've been fooling around with the Spain DCL recently, curious to see what can happen by shifting the early game focus to fast 4-city NC (instead of Temple of Artemis) and some mid-game conquering. One of my concerns is late-game gold/borrowing (assuming major diplo hits) - how did you plan to deal with this? Do you think Ideology via Industrialization makes for a faster finish? Why the double bulb to Plastics, do you normally do this?

If borrowing doesn't work, try getting some peace deals. Late-game militaristic CS gifts plus Foreign Legions will boost your army score significantly. Foreign legions are also pretty good for demanding tribute from CSs, and in the end you can just delete them for a bit of gold.

To be honest, I don't know if fast industrialization/ideology gives a faster finish than the Radio slingshot. It has some minor benefits, but I'm not sure those really shave any turns off the victory time, at least for Freedom games. Freedom doesn't really have any tenets you need to rush, unless you have happiness/growth issues.

Double-bulbing into Plastics is very strong if you're confident you can get very high bpt and enough GSs for the endgame bulb-fest. Also I usually hard-build all public schools and save most of the T120-T160 gold for labs to capitalize on getting fast Plastics. In this particular game I had over 7000 gold saved up and 300+ gpt thanks to a couple of really good peace deals.

 

[Iamteehee]

This is incredibly impressive.

I've been fooling around with the Spain DCL recently, curious to see what can happen by shifting the early game focus to fast 4-city NC (instead of Temple of Artemis) and some mid-game conquering. One of my concerns is late-game gold/borrowing (assuming major diplo hits) - how did you plan to deal with this? Do you think Ideology via Industrialization makes for a faster finish? Why the double bulb to Plastics, do you normally do this?

Gold doesn't seem like a problem to me. With no friends you need an average of around 500 gpt over 30 turns (assuming SS parts are the only thing you buy post plastics) to get SS parts. Selling schools and labs in 8 cities is 1600 gold (and it's not like you can't sell more buildings), disbanding army will be at least 540 (6 90 gold foreign legions) so you can usually get like 3k or so off that. In both games, vadalaz had 800gpt working science so it should be fine.

On double bulbing, I can usually get away with double bulbing plastics on peaceful 5 city with a decent amount of observatories (1350-1500 bpt) with RAs. Double bulbing should be fine with 2000-2200 bpt without RAs but with 8 cities (tech penalty for 8 cities is 150%, tech penalty for 5 cities is 135%, so 2000-2200 bpt converted to 5 city would be about 1800-2000bpt).

Spoiler :

Edit: I have to say, this map is by far the craziest map I have ever played. poxpowder's spain was pretty good, but there are definitely a few challenges to it. This map feels effortless (as long as no one DoWs me..) I got 2200 gold from natural wonders in all (500 from one gbr 100 from other how does that work lol). I got 5 cities settled by t35 only being in unhappiness for 2 turns. It is currently t42, I am making 35bpt, my capital has 8 pop and I might be able to build great library

Edit2: no GL but it's t49, my cap is 10 pop, i'm at 55bpt, 40 gpt, 25fpt, 14 happiness, finish tradition in 9 turns, finish nc in 12

edit3: last edit for today: i got t75 (!!!) education

Spoiler :

image

I'm pretty sure you could get away with 7 city tradition on this map (city spots would be between tyre and seville and immediately to the right of the bottom left corner lake, there's a mountain there, possibly also utretch if you rush it)
t170 might actually be possible. With 7 cities, 4/7 including capital are observatory and there is quite a bit of jungle. I also expect really early secularism (as in like t90 with prebuild oracle) to be possible.

 

[vadalaz]

Spoiler :

Edit: I have to say, this map is by far the craziest map I have ever played. poxpowder's spain was pretty good, but there are definitely a few challenges to it. This map feels effortless (as long as no one DoWs me..) I got 2200 gold from natural wonders in all (500 from one gbr 100 from other how does that work lol). I got 5 cities settled by t35 only being in unhappiness for 2 turns. It is currently t42, I am making 35bpt, my capital has 8 pop and I might be able to build great library

Spoiler :

Sounds like you're having an amazing start, my early game numbers weren't nearly as good:

What did you buy with the gold? If I remember correctly, I bought 2 settlers, a scout or two, a monument in Madrid and 2 shrines in the expos, and the first build in Madrid was a worker. I didn't find GBR until around T60-70, I suppose that's where you settled your 5th city? How's your diplo so far, did you manage to get any DoFs before the reckless expander penalty kicked in?