How do I learn to finish games faster?

[modus_ataraxia]

My most recent game was a science win on quick king at turn 261. I'm not sure how many turns that equates to on a standard speed game, but it sure isn't 300 turns.

I went tall with Poland, had three (I assume) mostly thriving cities (41 pop in capital, 32-ish in the other two) Nobody went to war with me to slow me down, and I rarely had opportunities to build anything that wasn't directly influential on my victory condition. Wonders were built sparingly, and only the important few. Policies were Tradition/Patronage/Rationalism, and I had plenty of science-based ideology tenants. I had enough gold to buy crucial buildings at the right times, and was allied with a few city states that generously gifted me units and bonuses. By the middle of the game, I had 5 academies, and by the mid-to-late game, I used the rest on bulbs. I even had two Great Engineers to help rush build the rocket parts.

So, why am I still taking so long to win the game? I'm ending the game on similar turns with the other victory conditions as well, where the game plays out similarly in scope, just with a different VC. I primarily focus on growth, yet I still feel slow.

 

[szieker]

I'm in the same boat as you. I just started my first Emperor game, but I don't think I've ever finished a game before 300, maybe even 350, since BNW came out.

 

[Jaybe]

WHY do you want to win faster? It is only a game to see how fast you can win if YOU choose to do so.

Personally, I like to stretch them out (large continents/epic or marathon), but I play a modified Prince difficulty.

 

[modus_ataraxia]

WHY do you want to win faster?

Perhaps I phrased it wrong. What I mean is, by learning how to win faster, I become a better, more efficient player. My goal is to understand how to improve my skills and understanding of the game past the point I am at, which is good enough to achieve victory against an AI that has minor advantages, but not as efficient as I could be.

 

[joshua43214]

T261 win is quite nice.

There are a few min turn hawks over in the strategy section, you should read through some of the more recent threads there. There as been some very nice discussion about getting those super fast wins.

I myself do not play for min turns, I just play to win and have fun

 

[kb27787]

T261 win is quite nice.

There are a few min turn hawks over in the strategy section, you should read through some of the more recent threads there. There as been some very nice discussion about getting those super fast wins.

I myself do not play for min turns, I just play to win and have fun

that's on quick though...
I've seen ppl do that (win on the same number of turns) on standard though...
I think luck plays a considerable part... and by far, you HAVE to play Babylon or Korea to get the best times

 

[modus_ataraxia]

that's on quick though...
I've seen ppl do that (win on the same number of turns) on standard though...
I think luck plays a considerable part... and by far, you HAVE to play Babylon or Korea to get the best times

Yeah, that's what I mean... it's on quick. I don't need much advice in the way of trying a speed run with a specific civ and victory condition. I just want to learn how to be more efficient all-around.

I'm finding a lot of information on how to learn the basics, and some information on how to break the game on the higher difficulty modes, but not much in the way of improving from a beginner with knowledge of the game into an intermediate/advanced player.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Maintain wltkd at all times in your capital?

 

[Socratatus]

lol.

I must be so different to most people here. I pay no attention to time or most of the `victory` conditions. I lose only if my Civ is wiped out. I just click one...more..turn... If someone wins some condition. It`s around the year 2190 and I`m still playing to be the world`s policeman.

I take my time.

 

[Martin Alvito]

It boils down to this:

is the limiting condition. Minimizing completion times requires maximizing output throughout the game. Since is more or less a function of population and it's impossible to Settler spam the map on higher difficulties due to the AIs, this more or less implies growing an extremely tall empire.

Focus on learning how to have several cities north of 10 :c5population: by turn 100, which is around when you should hit Education in a fast game. This isn't easy. It requires carefully selecting city sites with both growth and potential, and getting them up and running early enough that they have time to grow. Getting Aqueducts in quickly via Tradition and leveraging WLTKD as you can helps with this proposition. Finally, you're going to need enough output via GPT and luxury sales to fund city-state luxury purchases.

You're also going to need enough output to push through Rationalism rapidly. In general, your comes from city-states until well after Education.

Having Mountains for Observatories and Desert for additional doesn't hurt either. Once you beeline your way up to Industrial, you can start buying Great Scientists and use them for the standard bulb push up to Hubble after Research Labs are in.

 

[Jaybe]

Getting Aqueducts in quickly via Tradition ...

But NOT in BNW (at present). The 4 free aqueducts become totally non-functional.

 

[Arachnofiend]

But NOT in BNW (at present). The 4 free aqueducts become totally non-functional.

What are you talking about? If you're talking about the bug featured on MD's recent India Let's Play, I thought that only happened if you hard built the aqueducts and then got the free versions later (thereby removing your old aqueducts and all of their stored food).

 

[z284pwr]

Having Mountains for Observatories and Desert for additional doesn't hurt either. Once you beeline your way up to Industrial, you can start buying Great Scientists and use them for the standard bulb push up to Hubble after Research Labs are in.

Having just one mountain for observatory per city is the best. 3-4 mountain tiles kills any other possible good tiles. Struggled to get to 30 population in my last Korea game because I had 3 mountain tiles against a flat coast so I lost a lot of production. Finished at turn 270 with pretty bad production and didn't get to the 3rd level Freedom tenant to buy Spaceship parts, probably could have been 260 if so

 

[Walter R]

...and leveraging WLTKD as you can helps with this proposition.

for those of us who don't recognise this abbreviation, what is WLTKD?

 

[Unresolved]

for those of us who don't recognise this abbreviation, what is WLTKD?

We love the king day

 

[Walter R]

We love the king day

Thanks - seems obvious now!

 

[FrostK]

How many RA u usually have? On standard speed only several civs like Korea can (ok, I can do it only with several civs) win SV around 250 turn. So, for example, if u have only 1-2 RA at the same time 300 turn SV sounds not bad to me.

 

[z284pwr]

How many RA u usually have? On standard speed only several civs like Korea can (ok, I can do it only with several civs) win SV around 250 turn. So, for example, if u have only 1-2 RA at the same time 300 turn SV sounds not bad to me.

On Emperor and below the problem I kept running into was the AI not having the gold to actually sign them. I was funding pretty much everyone I could in my last game. 5-6 is all I was able to get with the 2 Civs that made any money. The rest were <100 gold and in the red on GPT.

 

[Karmah]

My most recent game was a science win on quick king at turn 261. I'm not sure how many turns that equates to on a standard speed game, but it sure isn't 300 turns.

I went tall with Poland, had three (I assume) mostly thriving cities (41 pop in capital, 32-ish in the other two) Nobody went to war with me to slow me down, and I rarely had opportunities to build anything that wasn't directly influential on my victory condition. Wonders were built sparingly, and only the important few. Policies were Tradition/Patronage/Rationalism, and I had plenty of science-based ideology tenants. I had enough gold to buy crucial buildings at the right times, and was allied with a few city states that generously gifted me units and bonuses. By the middle of the game, I had 5 academies, and by the mid-to-late game, I used the rest on bulbs. I even had two Great Engineers to help rush build the rocket parts.

So, why am I still taking so long to win the game? I'm ending the game on similar turns with the other victory conditions as well, where the game plays out similarly in scope, just with a different VC. I primarily focus on growth, yet I still feel slow.

Nobody seemed to adressed the fact that it s for king. Most people running times are playing harder difficulties. It s a bit different , I know there is a "no trade tech modifier" that is increasing cost of techs , not that I really knows what it does but it does something to the cost , then you get barbarian that are somewhat less annoying (and a barb horse can really be a pain to a early city growth if not caught ) as a plus side for your tech victory.
Also the AI is quite easy to take on , so you might consider grabbing a capital and a good city as your 5th and 6th city during classical/medevial, only having the minor investment of 5 units and a few turns of war, so you can get more science out of it. It is something I do on a peacefull game on kings. At higher diff , you don t get to skirmish a few turns with few units and snatch two good cities in 10 turns

On the minus side , AIs have almost zero gold so it s gonna be hard to sign RAs , and they will be so low on science , that if you do you won t get much out of it...
Actually the whole trading game is affected, poor AIs means that even friends can't really finance city-state buying early (and cultural/maritimes are really good early since you suck at science , and any CS that can give you a WLTKD-luxury is also worth buying) ... I find Oracle to be quite good now with this +3 culture early for science victory where I can't allow myself to invest too much on culture. It ain't rushed so you can even delay building it after your NC.

So basically , you need to take the very good advices of this thread rather carefully is my point , they are not really 'calibrated' to king difficulty. Especially CS buying (which is the very true advice ,and well explained by martino, but most suitable for higher difficulties) , I find it by far harder on king to get CSes before medieval so I usually compensate with a flash war Altough getting two patronage policies can also do early on if you can crunch them without getting tradition slowed down. In case of oracle and maybe a cultural ruins early that kind of things.Circumstancial but it can work.

The crossdifficulties advices have already been given : it all comes down to early growth and city placement, to achieve optimum speed, you need to play a korea/baby/pacha_restart game for optimum location start.

 

[Jaybe]

What are you talking about? If you're talking about the bug featured on MD's recent India Let's Play, I thought that only happened if you hard built the aqueducts and then got the free versions later (thereby removing your old aqueducts and all of their stored food).

Alas, my finishing Tradition has NEVER occurred before hard building them in my 1st 4 cities.

I'm too distracted by the short-term needs of other various policies, and would never consider delaying building those water-delivery systems that much.

Other than that, I had no idea that my problem was my hard-building the aqueducts.