Fastest Science Victory

As nice as that would be, I have to think it's not kosher when playing by HoF guidelines, basically the quote from the text box you need to check off when submitting: "I had no prior knowledge of the map or conditions in the game." I would think that knowing what CSes were there would be "conditions" that might change the way you plan your game to some degree. If you are just gunning to push the envelope on winning times, it is a great tool though!

 

The HoF allows selecting specific AI. The player can know all opponents, including their flavours/traits, and that does not count as prior knowledge of the map or conditions. The CS are closer to opponent AI than any other map factor and, unless specified somewhere, wouldn't necessarily be included of the definition of 'map or conditions' if the opponent AI aren't. Would be good to get clarification on that.

I made several adjustments, some from Vadalaz's input. Luck factors including # of nearby ruins and the direction the AI decide to scout in have huge impact! Out of what we can control:
*I've been more careful in selection of ruins, delaying popping a nearby ruin if it won't be worker/settler and a pathfinder further away can pop one first
*sometimes my 3rd ruin choice is unit upgrade, and that unit then kills or scares off AI units, so they don't take my precious ruins
*now build a worker in at least my first 4 cities; if 5th city (meaning 4th expo) gets a strong start, that'll build a worker as well. As vadalaz wrote about previously, I'm aiming for ~2 workers per city fairly early on.
*I think my T149 game included several Maritime allies, 7 cities total and high end game pop, whereas my T147 game was (I believe) 6 cities, zero or one early maritime ally, and several Uni purchases. The former included more barb camp requests/opportunities than the latter, so it was partly a result of the circumstances.

Other thoughts, specific to Settler and sub-T150 SV
*as good as cargo ships are, coastal cities normally have weaker tiles overall while having to put out more production for work boats, lighthouse, and cargo ships. Keep in mind we're comparing the very best games possible, not the average game. It's more and more difficult to get non-essential production back the faster the game goes
*playing Tradition-Merc only now
*always going to Astronomy after Education
*1 GS bulb for Schools, Oxford Radio, 1 GS for Plastics is my norm now
*finally convinced that the +100 gold founder belief is best, so long as there's enough early faith. This does make the game take longer, as sending them across the highlands takes a while, especially once the barbs have horsemen
*more emphasis on having more units that can clear barb camps for gold. I've never really done CS tributes, so that's something to get into in future attempts
*getting DoF with Sweden around Education is helpful, though some luck involved in terms of their willingness and the order in which you meet AI (re: early war)
*my first congress proposal is usually science funding. However, if I'm not DoF with Sweden and they dislike that proposal, I'll look for something they'll like

 

It's deliberately not compliant to HOF rules/settings, but I got Poland down to 156 turns on Prince: http://dos486.com/civ5/bnwx/

 

Anyone still playing this game? I just started playing a month or two ago, and am getting into fast science victories (and fast victories in general). It would be helpful to have some discussion with you pros that are still here

 

I'm still checking in from time to time. I made attempts following T-hawk's non-HOF compliant post to see what that could do on Settler. I have a T99 Scientific Theory save, but haven't bothered to finish it off.

 

Damn that's impressive. How do you handle the game from education to scientific theory? I believe this is the weakest part of my game right now, I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Do you tech education->astronomy->printing press->architecture->scientific theory? Are you able to rush-buy any public schools?

 

Yes, that is the tech order. Bought several unis, used Great library on Astronomy, then to Printing Press, then Scientific Theory - no bulbs yet. I forget how much gold I had, but I expect I'll be able to buy several schools, as spreading for 100 gold/city is going well. I don't believe I've put any gold anything since buying Unis.
Consider that what you do pre-Education will impact that Edu to Sci Theory stretch. Fast start and good growth is key; having 1-2 more pop once Unis are up usually means faster growth after Education, which keeps things rolling. Look through this thread and see if there are early game tips you're not doing, ex. lots of workers early? Ask specific questions and try lots of different things in-game, examining the difference they make.

Edit: continuing the T99 Sci Theory game (non-HOF compliant). Looks like I had enough gold to purchase 7/7 schools immediately. Will aim for T130s finish.

 

Wow that is really impressive. I am interested in hearing how that game goes.

I have read this whole thread, but I will go through it again and write down specific notes (30 pages, might take a few days!). I will also watch garmeth's game of the babinski map to get a better idea of what I can do. I think you're right, a faster start is a weakness of mine, and that may be limiting my mid game speed. I think most of my problems come from worker steals and not getting improvements on tiles fast enough. On deity and immortal, I can really only get maybe 1-2 workers from neighboring civs and 1 from city-state. I think this is too low, optimal seems to be 5-6 (for 4-5 cities). I'll look through the forums for tips on worker stealing. As far as specific question: do you spend early gold on a settler? I used to hard build 2 settlers and then rush buy a third to get cities out faster, but then have to hard build at least 2 libraries, delaying nc. I tried hard building 2 settlers and then using the gold to rush buy both their libraries to start nc at around turn 70, however this leaves less time for the fourth and fifth cities to ramp up. Thoughts?

 

On Deity:
Aim for 1.5+ workers per city, so 6+ for 4 cities. You need tile improvement to keep up with city growth, while building roads reasonably soon. Think carefully on your worker actions: is this a tile the city will work immediately? If moving towards a different tile, or one your borders are about to expand to, look for situations where you can squeeze in a turn of tile improvement while moving (i.e. move 1 tile and improve, then next turn move 1 tile and start the important improvement).

Yes, spend early gold on a settler. Use your first worker to improve 1-2 luxuries right away, which you will sell in your earliest peace deals. If you have additional gold (but buying 2nd settler isn't an option or necessity), consider spending it on a worker or even granary rather than library. Plan both your build orders and worker actions to line up your final Library - do some cities have forest you can chop? Be willing to build Library before Granary if a city if it'll make a big difference on NC timing.

 

T125 SV finish on Settler! This is non-HOF compliant, with significant replays; it's also the most detailed I've planned out details relating to GS generation, tracking/projecting GS points in all 7 cities and making decisions re: Garden, National Epic, etc. based on projected turn of 7th natural GS.
T3 found capital and expo #1 by Mt. Kilimanjaro
T69 Education, bought 4/7 and built 3
T74 Great Library - Astronomy, 3 Rationalism policies right away, 4th next turn with Oracle completion
T92 Sci Theory (1 GS bulb), bought 7/7, Oxford Radio
T107 Plastics bought 6/7 with 7th next turn
T122 7th natural GS (in Expo #1), PT, and LToP
T123 Hubble
T124 finished final tech
T125 finish!

The quicker the game the less time there is to build. As such, I treated workshops the way I would normally treat factories, building only 2 workshops and only 1 factory (Capital, for Apollo). I didn't build any Stock Exchanges. I actually didn't build a market in the capital, but had banks in most cities. The 100 gold per city from religion x 52 cities helped ensure there was enough money; I held off on founding, continuing to collect faith from every 3rd ruin, until I had 3 prophets and >500 faith (got 2 ruins at 260 faith).

 

Wow, T125 is amazing. I was thinking about doing the Shoshone on Settler too, but you've probably perfected it about as far as it can go.

Yes, every time you cut off a chunk of turns, something falls out of the build order. I never get to watermills now - no time before university/aqueduct/garden, and not enough time after for the payback to be worth it. I could definitely see workshops as the next to get squeezed out.

Was this on a huge map? 7 cities was enough? I still find that 10-11 cities are necessary for enough beakers to reach the end of the tech tree with ~7 natural scientists plus the endgame ones.

 

This was on a standard size, Highlands map, same as my T147 HoF Settler game.
I think 7 cities was enough on Tradition; difficult for Plastics to finish to go much faster.

 

Wow, t125 is incredible. You ever record your games?

I tried out poxpower's Spain map from one of the earlier pages. Played about 70 turns to find out where the NWs were and then started over and played through. Got a win on T216. I missed out on a great scientist from Porcelain Tower (Catherine built it t155 lol), that would have save at least 4 turns. I took your advice Blatc and stole 5 workers, bought 1, and built 1, which really made a huge difference. But I think I messed up the opening. I bought two early settlers and a worker and had three cities by turn 15 or something. But I couldn't get the two other cities settled for 20+ turns because of happiness issues, which felt like it was delaying the early game. Went 5 city NC, not sure how I feel about it. I don't have a feeling for which is more important: settling all cities as soon as possible or getting nc earlier, then settling 1 to 2 more cities. Mid game went fine, except I could only afford to buy two universities/public schools/labs, so that delayed the end game. Post-plastics went alright (except for that missing PT scientist), the bulbs weren't quite strong enough to complete the last two column techs though. After going down the rabbit hole that is T-hawk's website, I think I will try a wide, 10-11 city game, just to play something different. Those write ups are awesome, seems like you've nailed down the strategy pretty well.

 

Notacop, you've got over 9,000 gold left in that photo - that shouldn't be the case.
Were you friends with anyone and did you trade gold per turn for lump sums, to help build science buildings?

 

The last 12 turns or so, I saw I wasn't going to get a great finish date, so I just kept hitting next turn to try and finish quickly (it was late and I was pretty tired). Normally I would have put that gold into cs, but the faith cs weren't going to get me another scientist in time so I just let the alliances go. That game was strange, I had under 100 gpt the whole game until about turn 180, then it started to jump up. I was friends with 6 ai's, but I had to constantly pay ethiopia and japan to war with other civs as they constantly bunched military at my borders. Arabia and siam kept stealing my cs alliances so the spare gold I had went to getting those back (also essential for their luxuries). I could only afford to get loans for 2-3 science buildings each time, it was rough. I wasn't really happy with the game so I played too relax just to try and finish quicker.

I kept thinking about a different start, so I ended up replaying it going for 3 city nc. It's going a lot better, and I stole workers from ethiopia this time to keep them in check (they were a huge runaway in previous game). Turn counts:
nc t58
5 cities t62? (forgot exact turn but had to kill a barb camp before planting)
education t86
printing press t110
astronomy t117

I'm hoping this game goes better, but so far I'm struggling with keeping cs alliances, might have to make more culture/religion buildings than normal.

 

I found across many games that an early National College feels good, but doesn't help. Any city founded after the NC gets started so much later than the others (even 10 turns is a lot) that it never really catches up on size and strength. It feels good to get the NC done fast to speed through the classical era... but the research doesn't really help. You end up reaching Civil Service before you've built farms, and Education before you're ready to build/buy universities. Also the NC requires Philosophy, which is a diversion from getting to Civil Service faster.

I like building the NC after all cities are founded. Most cities start with granary-library builds. The last 2-3 cities get a food caravan and build library first. Those libraries complete a few turns before Education, and the capital does the NC right before its university.

 

I feel the same, that it is better to settle cities as soon as possible. In practice though, it is not always ideal. On standard map size and deity difficulty, anytime I try to settle 5 or more cities right away, I get angry ai and multiple DOW in turns 50-60. On lower difficulties this is not a problem, but on deity getting caught up in an early war can ruin a good start (at least for me, I'm not pro).

The early NC boost does fade pretty quickly though. I ended up getting research labs around turn 167 and buying them right away. That seems too slow for a pre-200 victory though. I had gold issues, and wasn't able to afford to buy all public schools and universities right away, and didn't sign any ra's. I also couldn't get the ninth policy to mercantilism before rationalism opened, had to wait until right before research labs. Bummer.

Also, how exactly do you guys decide what/when to bulb after getting to satellites? I have always just counted the number of great scientists that I expect to get and then use them to bulb that number of last and second to last column techs. Not sure if that's the right way. From reading your site T-hawk, it seems like you get a tech pretty much every turn. Are your bulbs strong enough to cover multiple last and second to last column techs?

 

Whew finally did it, third time's the charm. t195 on the spain map. Left some turns on the table, there was a point where I was waiting ~6 turns for the next gs to spawn (it was the 1100 point one). I bought two faith scientists and a faith engineer to rush hubble, but I think I could have bought 3 faith scientists and just built hubble normally. I reached scientific theory on t133, radio turn 140, plastics turn 161 and bought all research labs right away. Still think I'm losing some turns in between scientific theory and plastics, but maybe that's due to only having 5 cities and only buying 2 public schools. 34 turns from plastics to victory isn't great either, but some of those turns can be attributed to waiting for the last gs to spawn. I also could have signed 1-2 more research agreements (signed 2 that completed around turns 184 and 186) and then wouldn't have to wait for the last gs to spawn. Going to try out a wider build on a huge map for something new

 

@Notacop, T-Hawk has this interesting read on the number of cities, too.

http://www.dos486.com/civ5/index/science.shtml

 

Yes, I mostly get a tech every turn after Satellites. I start by filling in whatever cheapest techs are available (Navigation - Biology) which are 1-turn by themselves. I spend a bulb on any turn when I don't have enough beakers to finish a tech, and overflow from the bulb usually carries through 1-3 more turns of 1-turn techs. The bulb value maxes at about 14k beakers, which is enough to cover a second-to-last column tech (about 12k) and overflow to something cheaper as well. (The last column isn't really important; you only actually research one of them; you only need two for the spaceship and Oxford claims one.)

City count is essential for that to work. 5 cities isn't enough. I prefer 10-12 cities on a huge map. Waiting for the 1100 GPP great scientist is too long. I aim for 700 or 800, and for that plus all the endgame GScis (Porcelain, Hubble, faith, Liberty finisher) to be enough to finish the tech tree. To finish the tech tree on that requires getting the bulb value up to about 14k, which requires 10-12 cities.

I now always spend exactly two bulbs between Sci Theory and Plastics. To have enough surplus scientists to do that again depends on getting that beaker count way up, with more cities.