Going to Mars in 76 turns!

one more thing... if you happen to find a mammoth on the second turn with your initial unit, you can "suicide" by attacking and lossing deliverately

a stack of 4 tribes will spawn nearby for you on the next turn

damaged mammoth will still provide full food and INF for you, a single tribe should be used to collect it
 
What! Those are some really “pro” tips for the early game, thanks for sharing! The “die on turn 2” approach sounds exploity, but that must surely be the fastest way to 4 tribes? How much inf and food from an enemy scout? I just run from those maybe need to reconsider
 
The “die on turn 2” approach sounds exploity, but that must surely be the fastest way to 4 tribes?

You need some luck for this though. I tried to kill myself for the achievement and didnt find any mammoth early. In the end I even ran my tribe into enemy scouts to die (dont forget you heal every turn so you need multiple deer or a bad position to fight one as well).
 
i can't take credit for that one, if i may, i'd suggest you have a look at the worthiness of setting egyptian cities to land raiser mode too early as i may get you a negligible boost in industry but hurt a lot in research
 
So I finished my copy-cat game, and i launched mars colony project on turn 87, while making tons of mistakes, and not even going modern! Can definitely subscribe to the effectiveness of this strategy then by own experience. Pretty sure I could get this down to ~80 turns with some tighter play, obviously finishing the mars project in 1 turn with landraiser/Australia is very attractive to shave off ~5 turns.

The reason I missed modern is due to going collective minds too early (needed a few more district stars but was locked in collective minds) and I just didn't bother with the cheaper techs that I would have gotten a lot of science stars for. Being lazy, I could not be bothered to reload a save to fix this.

I also deviated from the strategy on 1 key point, which seemed honestly like it didn't matter much: I picked Mauryans instead of Persians and never bothered with conquest. The Mauryan ED is slightly better than the Persian one, and the culture bonus is actually quite nice, meaning all things equal, you will have slightly more attached territories to somewhat make up for the lack of +2 cities (but of course not really, since those cities can have cheap territories attached...)

I stole a few neutral, undefended cities early (stupid that they don't guard them) and assimilated a few due to the Mauryans cheap options of doing just that. It seemed to work well. Ended the game with only 7 cities, it did not matter much, even forgot to research one of the early +1 city cap techs. Barring the few steals and a few raids, it was an allmost 100% peaceful game...

I also had all the resources needed in my territories, I had rather a lot of territories... I allways go for the -50% outpost cost civic so that I can grab a lot of them early.

One thing not mentioned by the originator of the strategy which is worth mentioning is that the forge and the stables are key infrastructure buildings. +5 prod and +5 food per copper/horse is usually +50 prod +50 food early in the game (you trade the AI resources cheaply, it's worth it and very easy to get ~10 horse and ~10 copper from your own territories and trade). In some ways, these resources are comparable to the much rarer production heavy luxuries, and buildings are easy to rush in new cities for an instant boost.
 
The Mars mission should be ~10 x more expensive, and actually researching technologies should be much more expensive (with more free technology spreading of old technologies)
 
that sounds like a cool variant, EG. it's particularly interesting to me the low number of cities... i'm all about efficiency and would love to move away from the 12+ cities ifound myself tangled up currently

could you comment on the number of territories and districts?

i fully agree on barns and forges being always a must
 
it's particularly interesting to me the low number of cities... i'm all about efficiency and would love to move away from the 12+ cities ifound myself tangled up currently

could you comment on the number of territories and districts?

From memory, 4-5 territories attached for the cap, 3-4 for the second city, 2-3 for the others - so nothing very special or outrageous. I did capture a lot of territories early with the-50% outpost civic - I usually try to "wall" off the AI by forward outposting the territories on his border, then backfilling.

I built ALL the ED in ALL the cities as far as I could immediately upon entering a new age (some cities were obviously taken "too late" to get pyramids up for example). I believe i missed 2-3 of the Joseon districts because I wanted to go French and didn't want to wait for the last straggler city. In terms of "other" districts, i built a few makers quarters when it made sense to do so, but relied mostly on EDs and smart infrastructure picks like the aforementioned stables, forges, irrigation, water-wheel industry thing... I did start building science districts just after building the Mauryan stupas, as that coincided pretty well with +5 science on science district and didn't really stop building them until I built the french ED and after that went full collective minds (which surely prevented me from going modern, as I did not get enough builder stars). I got the "middle" era" science infrastructure, but not the "early modern" stuff, as per the guide probably the payback-time would have been too long.

Believe when I started going full collective minds, the science output was ~20K-25K(?), which was plenty to get the final techs I needed. Because I had a lot of territories, I did not need to go anywhere to secure oil, aluminium or uranium. I also got all the science tenets for all the religious tiers. Not sure how impactful this is, but suspect actually a lot as it adds up during the game.

I think the reason the strategy also works with less cities than the persian +2 is that the last cities you found/steal/capture will not significantly impact such an early "end date" for the game. But then again, my game was not a turn 76 game, maybe more cities is needed for that. The Mauryan bonuses are also, excluding the obviously great +2 cities, overall better than the Persian ones (IMO). better ED, cheaper territory attachment and a bit more influence. It also allows you to buy-out independent peoples that are hard to reach militarily, as it is cheaper for asthete civs. The actual asthete ability (buy influence on territory) seems like a lot of nonsense though, but correct me if I am wrong.

I am also now just starting a humankind-level game, so I rerolled for a mammoth-heavy start and can confirm that it is possible to get 260 influence by turn 10 as the original game claims, it does takes a bit of save scumming though to correct some risky solo-mammoth plays, must admit that :D but we should not be naive and think these crazy fast games are played under "purist" rules like no map knowledge or no reloading early mistakes.
 
One thing I wonder as this strategy is so dependent on mammoths: would it make the game more interesting to give mammoths +1 or +2 CS to prevent single tribes from killing them/requiring 3 tribes in unfavorable terrain?
 
One thing I wonder as this strategy is so dependent on mammoths: would it make the game more interesting to give mammoths +1 or +2 CS to prevent single tribes from killing them/requiring 3 tribes in unfavorable terrain?
That does seem like a good idea, make Mammoths less likely to engage, but more dangerous if the player engages them.
 
that sounds like a great start, egoat... i just bailed out of seed 1030 in normal, large pangea.... got 18 units by turn 10 but just 140inf. built HG on dyes but greys showed up so late that i could only get a promising 3rd city in turn 29

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i'm not part of the "nerf all the things" bandwagon, but getting influence from mammoths never made sense to me... to me, it should be linked to population in neolithic

outposts needing industry to get going but requiring inf to build extractors and even move is another non-sensical rule IMO

or the inflation on civics

i can't wait for proper tools or a il2cpp based hack to work on some game mechanics that were great not that long ago and now seem to have been hurt badly by constant meddling
 
The Mars mission should be ~10 x more expensive, and actually researching technologies should be much more expensive (with more free technology spreading of old technologies)

Agreed. I'm also confused why Mars Colony tech is achievable in the industrial era. This is quite insane and is too easily reachable by the French with CM. The game would be much different if this tech was contemporary era only. I love the game but the mid game civs of Kymer->(Joseon or Mughal)->French->Australia sequence is a no brainer. Land Raiser and Collective Minds are 100x better than Agrarian/Expansionist for teching up fast.

I've stayed away from the early 20 tribe exploit and pick my civ ASAP but even on HK the game is too easy on a Normal size map at least. Egypt is always available and if you get lucky Harappans can be snatched at T9. My best this route is a T199 victory and I want to shave that down but at the same time I like to see games not end too early lol. I would like to see fixes enough so that at least 150T victory is minimum and 200-250 is typical.
 
that sounds like a great start, egoat... i just bailed out of seed 1030 in normal, large pangea.... got 18 units by turn 10 but just 140inf. built HG on dyes but greys showed up so late that i could only get a promising 3rd city in turn 29

Not enough mammoths :) It’s also real hit and miss with these independent People, if they show up on your doorstep or in your back yard it’s an immediate free city, if you are unlucky they spawn somewhere you haven’t even explored, behind an AI… do you know when they spawn at humankind level (turn) and what the placement rules are? I was keeping a scout in each unsettled territory close by and I suspect this made cities not spawn there… which meant they all basically spawned across the map where it was most remote and untouched land. Getting these at mid/late 20s or mid/late 30s is a huge difference for progress
 
i've seen them both as early as turn 18 and later than 25. it's just one more of those variables that favor/impede a strong run and are probably linked to some rubber banding equalizer


i believe encampments need fog to spawn and that their units objective is the highest nominal yield tile of a random territory. so much so that if they're peaceful, you may leave a unit stationed on that tile and they won't claim another one instead


i aim to move greys away from my cities by gifting them a valuable distant outpost, say on a wonder plot and then conquering them later, some times even using armies i rentend from them. closer territories are best to attach in the mid-late game IMO

one exploit to milk their ability to build instant quarters: capture city and liberate it. rebels will build one or more quarters instantly, usually a makers one. wait for a turn. retake the city. don't know how far can this be pushed though
 
I am a bit cconfused here. Contributors are saying they are capturing multiple independent cities. I had 5 cities, which was 2 over my limit. As was noted above, 1 doesn't mattter as it is only a -10 influence penalty, but 2 takes that penalty up to -140 if I remember correctly. I can't imagine what the penalty must be like picking off a bunch of independent cities.
 
you can liberate or ransack them in just 1 turn. keep only the good ones. during ancient, going 3 over the limit is sustainable with EQs, civics and a natural wonder or 2
 
In classical if you go Persians you get +2 city cap and then you can get +1 from civic for a total of 5. 6/5 is ok but if I'm 7/5 I just ransack one and create an outpost over it and attach to nearby city.
 
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Wow some good tips here :) it also seems the algorithm for placing independent cities favors unsettled parts of the map. In my current game I first could not find a single independent city - they were all clustered in a quadrant of the map with no major opponent Civ AI, so I found them too late. I reloaded my game to around turn 18, sent a few scouts there and there were litterally 5-6 of them squeezed into that area (again). They had moved slightly between territories but not much, indicating new placement calculation triggered, but still favoring only this remote area. They were ripe for picking around turn 25 (sweet spot after turning into a city but still pop zero). For independents for a fast game, IMO their location is not that critical - give them 2-3 territories and fill them with EDs and science quarters, that’s their only purpose. If they catch some resources, great, if not, no biggie either as you can just outpost those. Don’t need to plan for the long term in a short game.
 
So I finished my humankind level game with a launch at 81 turns (based on that great start posted earlier), still playing with Mauryans instead of Persians. I was clearly handicapped by the city limit, so Persians are obviously a stronger play and I believe I could have reached also 76 turns with Persians. This time I did go Australians/Modern, and that was a good move as it made Mars expedition basically take 1 turn to complete, which is awesome (landraiser in all cities). Science again "peaked" right after picking French and completing the ED, going full collective minds in 7 cities (20K-25K-ish science) for about 5 turns.

The highest difficulty level posed no real challenge at all, I bought non-agression pacts early on for 70-80 gold per AI and was basically allied and trading with everyone all game after that (denied open borders at start to grab all the territory for myself). Believe the AI was stuck a good 2-3 ages behind me at the end. They might want to tweak that a bit for a little more challenge! :)

Again just want to highlight how great the original strategy is for finishing very fast. I fail to see much room for optimization, so this is probably pretty close to "optimal" play for now. Hopefully some patches will shake things up a bit :)
 
Congrats @EscapedGoat!

I wonder with how much fame you ended. I don't think the AI can/should necessary compete with going to Mars in 80 turns (as this would certainly annoy slower players like me), but I think it should compete in terms of fame even around that time frame. So, I'm curious if your fame lead was a decisive one or if it could have been a lost game if the AI would have just collected 1000 more fame somewhere.

I hope we'll see a Game of the Month kind of challenge with specific maps/starting settings to make this run for the fastest finish a bit more balanced between players.
 
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