Fastest Science Victory

It's for the science. Secularism gives +2 science from specialists, free thought gives +1 science from trading posts so you spam trading posts late game and work all the specialists to maximize science.
I usually start building trading posts at ideology and start working all specialists at plastics but I think I should start working specialists earlier.
 
Could you elaborate a bit, if you can? I mean, I know that science overflows but there's many instances where I could be working all specialists and make a bit more science with Secularism but even so the turns to research x technology are still the same, only that now my cities are not doing as well growth/hammer wise. Do you add up beforehand to see if the overflow would mean one less turn on the next tech or something? I've never gone for a breakneck fast SV so I'm going to have to give this a shot sometime. Anyway, nice game! You must have loved Ahmad for stealing that salt near Cordoba, eh?
 
Growth isn't that significant when you are 30 turns away from victory. Production doesn't really matter with freedom.
By working 2 merchant slots and an engineer slot, I increase my science by 2*2*3 =12 in a non-observatory city, 2*2.5*3=15 in an observatory city/non-observatory capital, 2*3*3=18 in an observatory capital. In the 7city game, this adds up to an increase in 102*1.1=112.2 bpt and a 102*8=816 beaker increase in a GS bulb. Once stock exchanges are built, this gets up to 187 bpt and 1360 in bulb strength (and then some cities build factories as well). This is more than "a bit" of science and while it might not have an effect on the # of turns for your immediate tech, it'll have an effect on later techs.

On the salt, I could have bought the tile but I forgot to... I don't think it would have mattered though because I think I was already selling salt to everyone.
 
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I'll definitely keep this in mind once I start fine tuning my SVs.

And, I meant because of the yields though as you said, it's likely unimportant.
 
On the salt, I could have bought the tile but I forgot to... I don't think it would have mattered though because I think I was already selling salt to everyone.

If you can buy it, that means you can work it.
 
Growth isn't that significant when you are 30 turns away from victory.
Yeah, pretty much. I hardly ever replay maps, but a couple of days ago I opened one of my old HoF saves, turn 128 of a t192 SV as a 9-city Poland on Prince. I won on turn 185 with 20 less citizens than in the original run. I believe the main difference was that I started ignoring growth and going full-on science 8 turns before Plastics, rather than at Plastics or later. This meant good bulb value (double-bulbed into Plastics as usual, t162) and lots of gold from working all the merchant slots and trading posts to actually buy the labs.

I used to think Fertilizer before Plastics was a good play on some maps, but not anymore. I think I've been overvaluing growth and overestimating the amount of science needed to win the game.

Originally I wanted to replay to compare Order vs Freedom but the map really wasn't good for that - no aluminum in any of my 9 cities or the CSs, and apparently you can only get 5 recycling centers in your empire. That made the endgame really awkward, since Hydro Plants, Spaceship Factories and SS parts all require aluminum.

I'm trying to get a good map on Deity now as the Shoshone on Highlands. Seems like a promising map type, there are tons of ruins to grab, lots of land, and mountains, of course. Luxuries seem scarce though and barbs are actually a pain. Rivers are rare but there are plenty of lakes.
 
I finally put together a great Korea game for a T200 SV, HoF rules (submitted). I struggled with them in the past, not getting off to a fast enough start and then being behind, missing LToP, etc. Instead of using all 'Friendlies', I included Askia and Ottomans (Babylon, India, Sweden, Morocco, Netherlands), which kept things a little more warmongery and helped with wonders. I missed a late attempt on Hanging Gardens, but got Oracle in expo #2 and both Petra and Macchu in expo #3. I had 4 great cities, but no room for a 5th, which I would have built if there was a decent spot. Some quick notes on milestones and GS, given the recent discussion.

T96 Education
T106-108 Astronomy
*I got Mercantilism before Renaissance, which delayed opening Rationalism. I didn't use Merc until Plastics, as I was putting gold into CS, so built 4/4 schools and observatories
T11x planted first GS, which came from Expo #2 as that built the Oracle
Edit: planted it by capital (observatory + NC)
T137 Scientific Theory. I used Oxford on Radio
T164 Plastics, using 1 GS bulb. I timed Big Ben to finish in conjunction and bought 4/4 labs immediately
*built Porcelain Tower in capital as I expected that to be my final GS (and it was); I normally build it in the capital, but in this game I had expos strong enough to consider (ex. Petra expo)
*Science funding was passed at 2nd world congress (Neb proposed), but it did NOT impact my finish time
T189 produced 9th GS; my 10th would have popped T200 (before factoring in Hubble)
T190 Hubble = 10th and 11th GS
T198 finished Rationlism, faith-bought 12th and 13th GS. I had previously faith-bought 2 GE, using on Statue of Liberty and Hubble
*late-game gold was so strong that I kept all my trade routes internal

Although I wanted sub-T200, I'm very happy with this game and can't think of any major errors. Worth mentioning: I didn't get Reliquary with my religion. If I had, I would have built Hubble and faith-bought a 3rd GS instead of 2nd GE. I had an extra policy, used on Wagon Trains.

Next up, I need to decide if I'll pursue a 3rd civ for T200 or faster, or try and get a Korea game with 5-6 cities. Probably Korea...
 
Great job! 6 cities is probably the sweet spot for Korea, but it's tough to roll a map that allows it. My latest experiments were on Highlands as the Shoshone, and while you can get 7-8 decent cities pretty consistently, it's a somewhat slow map otherwise. AIs also seem to do very well on it, I kept losing LToP to T105-110 Printing Press AIs.
 
I have been trying to get sub-180 on lower difficulties and just had a special-seeming Spain game go awry in instructive fashion. Went 10-city Liberty and had extremely fast midgame times: t129 Scientific Theory (one bulb), t151 Plastics (one bulb, Oxforded radio), finish Apollo by t170.

But I simply can't figure out the Order endgame -- spaceship parts take freakin' forever to build. I'm used to just buying them all with Freedom, but getting enough gold is hard without Deity AIs to borrow from. I find winning within 30 turns of Plastics hard enough -- doing it in 20 is just baffling.

In this case, I anticipated being short on hammers from very early on, and even went so far as investing in the possibility of finishing Tradition for extra Engineers (the opener and Aristocracy have good utility, and I also buried one in Oligarchy -- there are some small gold savings there, and the Commerce opener isn't THAT great if you aren't buying the Spaceship and/or pushing to Mercantilism). Ultimately I settled on something I remember seeing Ironfighter mention once: getting an extra two ideology tenets, burning a turn revolting into Freedom, and using Space Procurements. In theory that would let me get the best of both worlds.

Unfortunately, I missed something: you can't change ideologies unless you're getting ideological pressure, and with Prince AIs that just isn't a thing. End result = wasting precious resources on extra policies, desperately selling Research Labs and more for gold, only to discover a few turns from the end that it wouldn't work.

If I had figured this out sooner, finishing Tradition would have actually been the right play: I took an Engineer from Pisa, and taking a Writer would have gotten me all the way up to the THREE extra policies needed to finish Tradition. With enough faith for two Engineers, that would have turned into a net extra Engineer over what I had. Planning around that probably could have gotten me under 185. But I realized too late, and I don't have the heart to click out all those superfluous turns.

I feel like I'm still discovering new things with this game. Will probably keep exploring until Civ 6 is fleshed out enough for me to buy in.
 

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Thanks, I definitely hope to contribute to the Civ 6 thread at some point. Unfortunately, I'll need a new computer before I can play Civ 6, and the base game doesn't look quite fleshed out enough for me to do that yet. I do think the new game mechanics look really promising, so I'll probably dive in once there's an expansion.
 
Manpanzee, have you tried Large or Huge maps? Or is your goal sub-180 on standard settings?

I played a Large/Great Plains Plus game a couple of days ago as the Shoshone on Chieftain and Epic speed, and I thought that large size solved some issues that Great Plains and standard maps in general tend to have (lack of decent city spots, few cultural/maritime CSs). I won on turn 250 (1050 AD, ~t165 Standard equivalent supposedly) with a disastrous endgame: wasted a ton of production on Hubble and Oxford and never finished either of them because I had the science already, forgot to finish Liberty, and I still overshot by 1 scientist. Should've played shorter sessions to stay focused, I think that map could've been won in ~235 turns.

Large also means more AIs to bully/befriend, more CS gold, and a LOT of ruins... I believe Large has 120% base tech costs and a 3% per-city penalty, Standard is 110% and 5% respectively. I'm not sure if those are additive or multiplicative, but either way at 6 cities on a Large map the tech costs actually become cheaper than on a 6-city Standard map. Huge is 130% and 2%, so at 10 cities Huge and Large tech costs get even.

Re: Order vs Freedom, I'd stick to Freedom mostly because I think gold is easier to come by than production. Order finish time is capped by the tech tree and [Apollo + SS part] production, while Freedom is capped by the tech tree, Apollo (or Hubble) and gold for SS parts. What annoys me about Order is that a GE doesn't necessarily finish a spaceship part - you need a pretty big city to 1-turn them. I think an ideal Freedom game would end in 13-15 turns after Plastics, Order closer to 20.
 
Thanks, I definitely hope to contribute to the Civ 6 thread at some point. Unfortunately, I'll need a new computer before I can play Civ 6, and the base game doesn't look quite fleshed out enough for me to do that yet. I do think the new game mechanics look really promising, so I'll probably dive in once there's an expansion.

I'm playing Civ VI on a garbage Laptop that is five years old and has never been intended for gaming, just office stuff :D

Though I understand some people prefer to play on high gfx setting and have a very fluent game. Looking forward to you exploring Civ VI :)
 
Manpanzee, have you tried Large or Huge maps? Or is your goal sub-180 on standard settings?

<snip>

I think large is almost always better, not just because you can get more cultural & maritime CS, better City Spots and so forth, but because there will almost always be a weak, hopefully wonderbuilding AI that can be taken out with minimal effort. Capitals usually have better resources and getting cities that are already develop, getting wonders without investing hammers, or even getting cities in a peace deal (amazing) can reduce finishing times significantly. Wider maps also means more trading partners, easy targets for chain denounces, easier Research Agreements (not sure this even matters tbh..), more ruins, more CS money and many other small benefits that add up!
 
I agree that Large maps are probably better (and Huge even better than that). I still think the cramped map templates (Great Plains, Lakes) are probably better than the more spacious ones, but setting map size to Large/Huge should be the best of both worlds. Epic/Marathon are also probably better than Standard, if you have the patience for them.

Sadly I think even Large/Huge maps might be too much for my computer to handle. I have a low-end Macbook Air, which is a fine computer for many purposes but seems designed specifically to not run games.
 
I hear you. My laptop has problems handling standard maps after Satellites is researched. On Large maps a turn rollover can take up to three minutes, no exaggeration.

Otoh surprisingly I play a ton of Civ VI Large maps and it actually works better than Civ V does. In fact it is significantly faster on any speed. Strange how these things work out!
 
But I simply can't figure out the Order endgame -- spaceship parts take freakin' forever to build.

The biggest secret is to bulb to Rocketry as soon as you can to start Apollo. Don't wait until 8 turns after Plastics for max value on the bulbs. Spend one bulb as soon as you can't research the next tech in 1 turn (after Plastics, usually some of Chemistry, Military Science, and Fertilizer can be 1-turned.) You will then burn the overflow from that bulb into several more 1-turn techs. Then bulb all the way up to Rocketry and Satellites as soon as you have enough scientists to do so.

Adv Ballistics is the next target, which should come about the same time Apollo finishes. You start 4 SS parts then, and the 5th a couple turns later when you get to Nanotechnology (ideally by the Rationalism finisher.) You then have ~8 turns to build these parts while building Hubble and getting up the top line of the tech tree to Particle Physics. Capital rushes the last part with the engineer from Spaceflight Pioneers, of course.

Pick your 5 cities to build SS parts ahead of time. They should all build factories (all Order cities should anyway because of Workers' Faculties), hydro plants, buy SS factories, and buy solar or nuclear plants in the least powerful cities. Also get Five-Year Plan in Order as well and mine all their hills. You'll also want to fit in Kremlin and Hubble somewhere - the specifics vary, but I think most often my Petra city goes Apollo then Hubble, while some other city does the Kremlin, and 5 others do the first five SS parts.

If bulbing to Rocketry ASAP means you don't have enough scientists left to finish the tree afterwards, then you should have built wider so that they do yield enough.
 
I think a lot of the difference comes down to experience and map-related playstyle. In my previous game, I leaned too hard on my major hammer cities -- I thought I could get more spaceship parts out of them than I actually could, and thus didn't develop enough total spaceship-building cities. That's something I can adjust now that I know.

The other thing is map related -- playing on cramped map templates, I tend to spam out cities in low-quality locations. I've looked at some Inland Sea games, and the average dirt quality of the expos seems much higher. I don't really have those options if I'm trying to cram ten cities into a standard Lakes or Great Plains. You can see Zaragoza, Murcia, and Seville in my screenshots for examples of some pretty crappy city locations. It's not quite ICS, but the city-placement philosophy isn't far off.

With Freedom you can get away with this -- long-term city development doesn't matter much beyond your strongest two or three cities, as long as you can get your specialist buildings in. Late game tile shortage isn't a problem, and early benefits of cramped cities (flexibility from tile sharing, cheap road network) may be worth the long-term costs. Order probably requires a different approach, and it starts way earlier than the endgame.
 
You're trying to do multiple parts in one city? That's definitely wrong. You should have 6-7 cities all with roughly equal hammer potential (six or so total mines and lumbermills) that each do one SS part all in parallel. And yeah, that starts in the early game when you found them. And yes, Inland Sea is great for quality city locations, because it has no dead spots of ocean or tundra or desert (the extensive river coverage turns deserts into flood plains.)
 
Spain / Prince / Great Plains / t176

Ok, I got it figured out this time. Freedom really is EZ mode. I made more of an effort to push gold buildings out this game, tributed city-states aggressively starting in the Industrial Era, and ended up with way, way more gold than I needed.

Notes:

--I went for Public Schools before Observatories. Partly this was due to not having many mountain cities, but I now think this is correct regardless. At this speed you aren't going to have much more than 30 turns between Education and Scientific Theory, which means going for Observatories isn't going to pay back the beakers in time to speed you up there. Better to get extra GS points ticking as fast as possible. Medieval-Renaissance build orders are crowded anyway, so you have no shortage of useful things to do neglecting Observatories.

--Civil Society feels very strong. It might seem like a marginal amount of food, but it adds up. I know you aren't growing the whole post-ideology time, but the food is relevant even when you're starving. Extra food = more citizens that can be shifted from food to Trading Posts.

--I finished Liberty early and planted an Academy. I think both planting and rushing the National College are fine plays, depending on the map, and the early game boost is enough that I don't feel too bad about incrementing the Great Person counter. In this case, the Academy got me to Medieval at exactly the turn I needed to open Commerce.
 

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