Fastest Science Victory

[Blatc]

Manpanzee, what would you consider the breaking point (T180, T190, T200?) at which Scientific Theory before Astronomy makes sense? I'm reluctant to try it, as I'm playing mostly mountain cities, but am looking to boost GS production to hit 10 (or 11) ASAP and considering alternate strategies, such as using GW earlier than normal.

I've been playing Poland lately and am curious what others have done with Tradition-Liberty combinations and social policy order. Ideally I'd like to get 11 social policies before Renaissance, meaning 8 normal policies plus 3 free from UA and Oracle; this would require CS help. In my most recent HoF submission, I put 3 in Tradition (monuments), then 3 in Liberty (reduced policy costs), before finishing Tradition with the 9th policy. I did not get the Oracle and I had 10 policies before Renaissance.

 

[Manpanzee]

I think it's probably correct as soon as you're down into the t200 range. To some extent you can do the math by just calculating out the expected per-turn beaker gains from Observatories versus the combined beaker costs of Optics + Compass + Astronomy. You can then figure out how many turns of Observatories it takes to pay back the beakers.

But it's complicated by the fact that you're building other things, and by the fact that delaying Astronomy will make you quicker to other stuff like Physics/Printing Press/Banking. These days I really appreciate trying to get Banks out early, especially if I think I might need to immediately take Capitalism at Ideology.

 

[Blatc]

Delaying Astronomy and going to Printing Press would also delay Rationalism policies, but if including warmongering with your SV it would give you XBows much sooner which could be all the difference with capturing a key city. I think I'll give it a try. I expect I will Oxford Radio for Ideology before going to Astronomy.

 

[Blatc]

Scientific Theory (& Radio) before Astronomy Comparison
For anyone willing to compare researching Astronomy after Education vs. delaying it until after Scientific Theory (and presumably Radio for Ideology), here is a T96 save of a T200 SV game - following HoF rules and submitted, but won't displace my previous submission. We're Polish with 5 cities (4-city NC + a 5th recently founded). It's a Tradition-Liberty mix that finished Tradition first then put 2 into Liberty; the intention is to finish Liberty after the final natural GS, selecting another GS. Religion is strong (Desert Folklore, Tithe, Mosques, SiP, Reliquary). There is an excellent adjacent city (Delhi) that I suggest conquering; didn't renew DoF with them for this purpose.

 

[T-hawk]

Hey, realized I forgot to post this here. http://dos486.com/civ5/bnw22/

Got a Poland science victory down to 179 turns on Emperor. Policies were Liberty to Collective Rule, Piety for Jesuit Education, Liberty to Meritocracy, then Rationalism and Freedom and Commerce to Mercantilism as usual.

Jesuit Education powered by Desert Folklore saves a ton of turns on getting the science buildings going.

 

[Spino]

I got a T168 SV on Settler using T-Hawk's policies.
Was 9-city NC with Pocatello on Highlands.
I could have saved 3-4 turns on end, I'm not an expert or anything.

I uploaded the starting save. Curious if anyone can do like sub 160 win

 

[Spino]

I got T181 SV on Spanish vadalaz's map of HOF.
I loaded a few times on that one as my first attempt was T198. I also used map knowledge on natural wonder locations.
Pretty impressive to see someone go to T177 though and valdalaz himself with HOF rules.

 

[Blatc]

Finished up my 2nd fastest Deity/Standard SV (T195) and, if anyone is still checking this thread, am posting the main issues:

Single bulbs completing a tech but not finishing on that turn.
This happens to me sometimes when single-bulbing Plastics and I still don't understand why it's costing me a turn. In short, I tech Replaceable Parts naturally over ~6 turns and have, for example, 300 beakers overflow. Let's say Plastics costs 5,800 and my GS value is 5,600, so I bulb and have 5,900 beakers in Plastics but it does not finish on that turn. Anyone know why this happens? Seems to occur most often at Plastics for me. There are no RAs involved.

Completing Big Ben before Plastics.
In this game, I wanted to double-bulb into Plastics at T160, but had 6 more turns on Big Ben. I struggle to get it done this fast with World's Fair, which I need to get full Trad/Liberty and Mercantilism as Poland. Anyone willing to share capital build order between Scientific Theory and Plastics from a comparable game. In the absence of an excellent expo that can build more for me, my best guess is to save up a bit to buy the School in my capital and perhaps build Artists Guild in an expo, so my capital doesn't fall behind on buildings and can start on Big Ben immediately.

 

[T-hawk]

That is normal behavior for the bulbing. Overflow doesn't count towards seeing whether a bulb has completed a tech. Because that overflow isn't actually spent on any tech until end-of-turn processing. The UI doesn't really make this clear since "floating" overflow and "sunk" spent beakers are indistinguishable in being crammed into the same displayed number. (You can only really tell what's overflow by selecting a different tech and seeing what beakers seem to switch over to it instead.)

Definitely build all the guilds in side cities, not the capital. They have the worst opportunity cost in the capital. The food supporting them could be supporting Petra hills instead, or at least growing pop to receive the capital-specific multiplier modifiers (Landed Elite, Monarchy, Commerce opener, the NC.)

I don't have much trouble with the capital build order then, usually it's doing its market and bank before or after the school and Big Ben. I offload these wonders to side cities because they don't need to complete quickly: Globe Theater, Porcelain Tower, Taj Mahal, and also Oxford (which you save for a last column tech of course, but it's nice to not have that clogging the capital's build queue at the time of Apollo and Hubble.)

 

[Spino]

T195 on Deity with Poland is already great.

I'm not an excellent player but here's my advice :
It's usually a bad idea to double bulb into Plastics unless you have ALOT of scientists.
It's better to pop the scientists the lastest possible so you can have all your cities working all specialists and building research, and converting some improvements to trading posts if you can.
I usually buy at least 2 public schools and 2 factories when going for fast SV and most of the time the capital will get 1 each.
I usually buy all the research labs if I can.
I also find that getting ideology with factories seems a better build if you have a left over Prophet to take the coal, but it can fail miserably if you have bad map luck.
I'll use a GE for Hubble and hard build the Apollo.
After Scientific Theory, I'm usually gonna build in my capital :
- Big Ben
- Observatory
- stock exchange and bank if it isn't already built
- Start on Statue of Liberty if I have strong enough capital

 

[Blatc]

Thanks T-hawk, your first paragraph is exactly what I needed explained to me (not spent until end-of-turn). I think the rest of your advice differs from my approach from some combination of playing on a different map size, map type, or difficulty level. Petra, for example, is rarely available.

I've been working towards a sub-T190 on Deity/standard with Poland and feel I'm getting close, having completed HoF-eligible games of T192, T195, and just now T194.

 

[Spino]

I got T162 SV on Settler with Pocatello. I went 9 cities again but I think the right number is probably 8.
I got lucky with the coal which was under a built mine.
It seems to be a very close call whether to bulb 1 scientist for plastics or not.

 

[Blatc]

I've submitted a T188 SV on Deity, standard conditions with Poland; really happy to have broken the T190 barrier. The only notable set-back was the lack of Religious CS - only 1, and Venice nabbed it early. I only hit 3,500 faith, so I wasn't able to get Statue of Liberty from faith GE as I would in games where I hit 5,000+.
Some key turn #s
T69 or 70 4-city NC (founded 1 more and conquered 1 for 6 total)
T89 Education
T102 Astronomy. No tech steals on the way to Scientific Theory, just Steel
~T139 Scientific Theory
T163 Plastics, following double bulb. Bought 5/6 labs immediately and 6th on T164

 

[Blatc]

I got a T168 SV on Settler using T-Hawk's policies.
Was 9-city NC with Pocatello on Highlands.
I could have saved 3-4 turns on end, I'm not an expert or anything.

I uploaded the starting save. Curious if anyone can do like sub 160 win

I've experimented on Settler a bit and submitted a T163 SV to the HoF, taking a single turn off the current fastest. My game was Shoshone, Highlands, Tradition with 5 cities.

I'm pretty sure sub-T160 is possible, as there was room for improvement in a few areas, including an error with social policies which cost me 2 turns at the end.

 

[Spino]

I've experimented on Settler a bit and submitted a T163 SV to the HoF, taking a single turn off the current fastest. My game was Shoshone, Highlands, Tradition with 5 cities.

I'm pretty sure sub-T160 is possible, as there was room for improvement in a few areas, including an error with social policies which cost me 2 turns at the end.

Nice.
I don't know how you do it with 5 cities.
I got Shoshone down to 162 on 9 cities but without HOF rules (loaded 5-6 times to replay some turns).

I got Isabella down to T154 by using New Random Seed and choosing settlers from goody huts (basically cheating ).

I find it helps to play a bit in Settler to understand how to maximize growth without thinking too much about deity diplomacy.

 

[Blatc]

What did you learn about maximizing growth on Settler that you couldn't learn at Deity? I've played exclusively Deity for a while, only dropping to Settler recently in order to attempt the fastest HoF SV, and I can't say that I've learned anything new that would help back at Deity.

How many GS are you producing with 9 cities, and what are your turn #s for key techs?

I've submitted a T160 (Settler, Shoshone) SV. Also had an awesome game where I would have hit 9,000 faith for 4x GS, but I messed up on Congress, letting Arts Funding through and rage quit.

 

[Spino]

What did you learn about maximizing growth on Settler that you couldn't learn at Deity? I've played exclusively Deity for a while, only dropping to Settler recently in order to attempt the fastest HoF SV, and I can't say that I've learned anything new that would help back at Deity.

How many GS are you producing with 9 cities, and what are your turn #s for key techs?

I've submitted a T160 (Settler, Shoshone) SV. Also had an awesome game where I would have hit 9,000 faith for 4x GS, but I messed up on Congress, letting Arts Funding through and rage quit.

I find that in Settler, as you don't juggle with happiness + diplomacy, you almost only focus on growth.
You can also experiment more easily without having to worry about upsetting your warmongering neighbour.
Some deity games, I overexpand early and having too many cities too early upsets AI or I have to delay growth a little by trading a luxury so Attila attacks someone other than me.

On my Shoshone game I was Education T78, NC T83, ST T117, Plastics T139 with 1 scientist used and 4 remaining.
The number of scientists is kinda map dependant.
I bought 2 scientists from faith and used pisa for a great engineer and the Telescope at the end.
I initially did T164 without using a scientist before plastics and replayed the end for T162, by using 1 scientist before plastics.
I kept 2 great prophets for coal (on that game i was lucky it appeared under a mine) and bought the 3 factories for fast ideology.

By playing with Piety, you scarifice quite alot of growth and Faith for the end game (although you can buy RL with gold if you develop the economy enough) for instant access to universities, and schools, and extra faith. Combining with Liberty is very useful for the Shoshone workers to upgrade all your free tiles fast. This only makes sense with a wide empire though.
The wide empire helps you reach Education early and gives you alot of beakers in the end game.

 

[Blatc]

But what specifically did you learn about maximizing growth on Settler that you could then use to your benefit on Deity?

I should have asked more specifically how many natural GS are you producing with 9 cities: do you have some cities that do not produce a GS or are you getting 9+ GS (before wonders, faith, policies).

I'm curious to try Jesuit, but my games have been Tradition and the trade-off in growth/population is daunting. I should try some Liberty-Piety games.

 

[Spino]

Mostly basics but which I did not fully realise by playing higher difficulties :
- the power of internal trade routes compared to external, focusing on capital and low food cities
- placing your cities with growth (river, wheat, ...) and trade routes in mind (which cities will connect with others)
- locking every tile constantly and choosing food over hammers and gold
- growth is more important than National College, so building granaries everywhere should be priority over libraries

About the GS I'm not sure. It is map dependant because some cities will have gardens while others do not and it depends on when you reach education.
On that specific game I had "built" 5 scientists naturally at T139 when I hit Plastics and got 2 more I think after that. Definitely not more than 9 I would say.

If you want to try Jesuit, you need more conditions on the map, specifically high faith.
With anything other than Isabella it is better to have alot of desert tiles.
A Petra capital really works well with this strategy because of the faith and the increased production for natural wonders (higher cost going wide).
With Isabella you don't need the deserts and I think the strategy is stronger than Tradition.
That being said, I would definitely stick to Tradition on Deity.

 

[Blatc]

I'm having an interesting time experimenting on Settler, in part because the 'best' route to the fastest SV seems so wide open. I've had finishes between T155-T165 that included:
*primary emphasis on cargo ships (5/7 coastal cities)
*exclusive emphasis on caravans (0 coastal cities)
*only 2 Observatories vs. up to 100% of cities with Observatories
*Liberty-Piety (Jesuit)
*Liberty-Mercantilism (with 2 in Tradition for Wonder boost)
*Tradition-Mercantilism
*5, 6, and 7 city Tradition
*8, 9, and (I think) 10 city Liberty
*Radio before Astronomy; Astronomy after Education; Aqueducts and Workshops before Astronomy

My quickest game at T155 wasn't the strongest map I'd played, but it was my best executed. The lower tech costs requires some adjustments to bulbing vs. Deity, so some of my previous games had wasted 1-2 GS.

Sub-T150 might be possible on a legit map.