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Fastest Science Victory

Time for the annual bump!

Just submitted a turn 200 SV as the Zulu. The key selling point here is that Impis are on the tech path to Education anyway, so you don't have to choose between Machinery/Chivalry and Education. Catapults (yes I actually used catapults) damage cities, Impis and CBs kill units, then after Education you upgrade to XBs and Trebuchets.

I missed that Arts Funding had been proposed and of course it got passed, which definitely cost me at least one turn, as in the end I was timing Hubble and PT with the final natural GS spawn. Another thing that hurt me was that William beelined Muskets and had Great Wall + Himeji + Defender of the Faith. This slowed me down and made capturing Amsterdam, the best AI city on the map, pretty difficult.

3 self-founded cities + 4 conquered capitals, standard Tradition / Commerce / Rationalism / Freedom. Couldn't make 5000 faith unfortunately so had to settle for 1 GE and 2 GSs.

I think it's evident that early dominant UUs can carry you to a sub-200 science victory, and this speaks volumes as to how balanced warlike and peaceful approaches to this game are, which to me is a thing of beauty.
 

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Are there any videos of a quick warring SV? I would like to see how people manage their armies while still managing to upkeep everything else. It is about the only avenue I haven't gotten around to learning and the saves on HoF only show so much.
 
I've managed to complete a 173-turn deity science victory with Spain on a truly exceptional small, lakes map. This option was inspired by the fastest HOF-style (T181) and absolute fastest (T149) wins on a similar standard-size map that comprised nice nearby natural wonders, many maritime city-states and the possibility of sea trade routes, all guaranteeing fast city growth. I've deliberately re-rolled this new map aiming even better conditions.

Although I reloaded sometimes to secure desired wonders or to avoid being attacked, other parts of the playthrough were not optimized. I played almost completely peacefully (except the first two city-states from whom I stole workers), played very basic espionage (diplomats only, no coups, etc.), and was usually short on gold and thus hard-built the majority of essential buildings and all but the last spaceship parts. To my opinion, more experienced top players could improve these aspects, and beat the long-standing fastest deity science victory records on this unparallelled map.

Highlights:
  • Madrid founded in T2, two more cities in T10. Built Great Library in T27, National College in T44. Settled the 7th, last city in T49.
  • T62: Education, T77: Astronomy, T78: Rationalism, T79: Oracle for Secularism
  • Debated on how to unlock ideologies fast... finally it became a mixture. T107: Industrialization, T111-112 (2 bulbs): Scientific Theory, Electricity and Radio.
  • T130: Plastics (bulb), T131: Statue of Liberty (GE), T147: Research Labs hard-built, T148: Rocketry (3 bulbs), T156: Apollo

My last, 10th natural great scientists popped in T172. The Porcelain Tower gave one and Hubble two more (which were never used) in the same turn. A great artist came from Pisa Tower earlier, as it would have delayed the natural scientists otherwise. With him, I had five golden ages, the last three continuously from T131.

I founded a pantheon in T4 and a religion in T13, and selected One with Nature, Initiation Rites, Pagodas, and later Mosques and Reliquary. My missionaries collected gold roughly before Renaissance, then I purchased Pagodas and Mosques, and great people after Renaissance. Had two Great Engineers, two Great Scientist and a prophet for late city-state quests, but other choices would have made also sense.

Compared to other timelines here, I'd expect that with enough gold, the mid-game might be improved by 5-10 turns, and the end-game by further 15-20 turns by veteran playes. (This was just my fourth overall deity science victory, and the second sub-200, after all :) )

The screenshot of the starting position and the initial save file are attached. So are the T10 and final screenshots that reveal almost everything, don't open them if you'd like to try a blind run.
 

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I've optimized the endgame of the previous post (less than 50 turns), and completed the game in only 165 turns. This is the third fastest deity science victory on standard speed to my knowledge after T149 and T159 ones.

In the previous attempt, production of spaceship parts was the bottleneck, as I had two unused great scientists at the end. Now I stopped at the ninth natural scientist - one less - in T163 after some speedup, and used the other for more aggressive bulb to get Rocketry earlier in T143. Apollo was completed in T150 (6 turns earlier), and I hard-built only 3 spaceship parts and Hubble in top four production cities.

Due to the shorter timeframe, windmills were not built in most cities, somewhere not even factories. Hammers went into banks and stock exchanges wherever possible to make money, as it was needed for the last 3 spaceship parts. It turned out to be much more effective to buy them instead of hard building, but I didn't have Mercantilism policy to buy all six parts. That would have needed different approach starting from much earlier.

In this game, science and hammers/money were perfectly matched to have everything ready in T165. I checked that the generation of the great scientists could have been significantly improved further by completing universities, public schools and research labs earlier. Most of them were still hard built (except 3 labs with this new endgame, for example), as I was usually short on money. Espionage was also improved by managing few coups in city states, and I also started few wars for only strategic goals.
 

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Got a settler victory on T144 under hof conditions. Some notes:

- 7 cities, other than settler worker from ruins it was culture, upgrades, religion.

- Social Policy, liberty 4 -> trad 2-> lib ga -> comm 3-> finish rat, 6 freedom -> complete liberty for GE. Overflow of cuture with 2 additional policies. 3 GW + 1 Globe, 2 GA.

- WC: culture heritage sites. With 4x culture CS, maybe sci funding was better. Spent my excess luxuries to bribe it to pass.

- GL on edu for T69.

- Lucky with Sweden DOF. Else, would have declared war to steal worker -> feed to barb -> make peace and liberate worker.

- used gold for city state alliances after barb camp quests. Maritime, then culture after rein.

- got 3 faith scientists, built ltop as early as i could to maximise gpp.

- 1x bulb for ST and 2x into plastics. Had problems completing big ben before plastics so 3 labs with 25% and 4 with 40% in order to get scientist gpp

- originally aimed for T146 until I realised at T142 that i did not need the extra scientist. Perhaps could have finished 1/2 turns earlier but gold/faith as a bit limiting.

- Biggest area for improvement is from Edu -> ST. Went for astro due to culture, but didnt build obs until after aqueducts and workshops. Gold is also limiting, not sure what to spent it on early, hoarded a lot of monies until ST and bought 3/4 schools with merc discount. I dont see any other way of hitting plastics pre T120 which is needed for a sub T140 win.

- the worst thing about highlands is that not all city states can be found; I think that some spawn on mountains and hence cannot settle.
 

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