How do you win a Science Victory...?

[Navelgazer]

...Before winning a Culture Victory, I mean?

Maybe it's just the level I play at (Emperor) but every time I set out for a Science Victory, just playing as a general "builder" sort I end up winning by Culture before I'm anywhere near Science.

In these games, I tend to press science hard, but also build theatre squares and their associated buildings to keep my civics up to speed. Generally I will also have a high faith build-up without much to do with it aside from buying settlers/builders/traders with Monumentality in the earlier eras, and maybe buying land units with the Grand Master building in the later eras, though usually by that point I'm not at war with anybody nor have any reason to be unless they have the only Uranium spots.

In mid-to-late eras, with a lot of cities, Wonders seem like the best source of Era score, but most of them don't directly help with SciVic and do help with religious or cultural victories (often with both).

What do I need to do differently?

Thanks

 

[Troy Bruckner]

...Before winning a Culture Victory, I mean?

Maybe it's just the level I play at (Emperor) but every time I set out for a Science Victory, just playing as a general "builder" sort I end up winning by Culture before I'm anywhere near Science.

In these games, I tend to press science hard, but also build theatre squares and their associated buildings to keep my civics up to speed. Generally I will also have a high faith build-up without much to do with it aside from buying settlers/builders/traders with Monumentality in the earlier eras, and maybe buying land units with the Grand Master building in the later eras, though usually by that point I'm not at war with anybody nor have any reason to be unless they have the only Uranium spots.

In mid-to-late eras, with a lot of cities, Wonders seem like the best source of Era score, but most of them don't directly help with SciVic and do help with religious or cultural victories (often with both).

What do I need to do differently?

Thanks

It's tough. Try playing as the Aztecs. Can use builders to rush build Spaceports in multiple cities. Pull back on the culture building once you get democracy and make a beeline for the culture advance that gives you a bonus to science from each CS you have suzerain with. (Social media or the other one?).

 

[Tech Osen]

I play at emperor but I never accidentally win on culture. When I I do try I really have to push for it with rockbands and all the tourism cards. Guess I must be doing something wrong.

 

[Abaxial]

You really have to throttle back on culture to get through the long grind to a SV. I think it was better managed in Civ V, where you could set several cities to building rocket parts.

 

[jozef57]

this sounds familiair, am trying to work it out, ill come back to you when i figurred it out lol.. just keep trying, i am working trough playing every civ in Gs and working out the best way to get sv.. i hope to tell you soon, but just keep trying and trying work out new strategies. that for me is the fun of civ troy his advice seems wise. maybe try to workout a way to do this a level lower?/ why not it isa way to stry out something new to get the win you want

 

[Victoria]

Fast science victories (sub 200) are possible but you have to be dedicated. There are tricks.
Just playing a general game as you state @Navelgazer before going into it means things are much slower and a CV is a much shorter victory unless there is a runaway. Some things that really help a science CS.

1. Get pyramids as the extra builder charge is quite important for the rocket projects.
2. Get Coliseum as you need to get your culture high without too many theaters (because you should be building campus everywhere)
3. Beeline rocketry using as many eurekas on the way as you can get, Eurekas are so important to any game but the ones to rocketry really help rocket your times.
4. At rocketry you need to be able to get the spaceport out and the moon landing done ASAP. This will probably be a combination of buying the spaceport and chopping the projects for the fastest path. Having Big Ben helps a lot in this regard.
5. On the turn of moon landing get as much extra science as possible (chop projects and firing off scientists) because this gets multiplied up as a one time culture slingshot to get you to the international space station, which give 5% science per suzerain. A very big bonus.
6. You then should be at at least 1500 science per turn and finishing a tech pretty much every turn.
7. When you get to tier 3 government get the royal society ASAP as you can then use builders to rush projects (where Pingala and pyramids help)

Of course if you need to be at about 1500 science per turn that means you needed at least 12-15 cities all with universities, 2 science city states and Kilwa Kisiwani, ideally with science specialists working your science buildings also. Best way to do this (and any fast victory) is a pha seed approach of expand until Feudalism not finishing any but a few campuses and then when you have good many charge workers chop in your campuses and buildings between T80-120 when you are planning out the finishing phase of the game.

Other things help, Oxford uni, Ruhr valley, Amundsen-Scott and we have not talked about speeding up the final flight but it’s a lot to get right without discussing finer points.

 

[MrRadar]

Also, if you see that you start approaching a CV, sell your books, artifacts etc., and buy some relevant GS or GE for the cash. If you have too much of them and the AI has limited slots for storing them, you could try to steal them back via spies and resell them again, but stealing money outright might be more profitable Only for fast SV spying business probably is too slow.
If you have high faith or are playing religious civ and don't use faith much for buying great people, consider promoting Moksha and buy spaceports with faith. You won't be spending it on Rock Bands or religious units much, if going for a SV. Again, I don't know though, if using faith for spaceports goes well with a very fast SV.

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

One of the thing you can also do to relay culture victory is to look at the other civilizations. The one (or th ones, depending on the size of the map) with the most culture production are to stay alive, even if you need to bash some of their ennemies to make them behave. a civ that churms enough culture will be dificult to influence if you don't create natural parks or rock bands^^. If possible, make it your cultural ally if that civ is close to you, Arsenal of Democracy and democraty are a blast for projects.

Otherwise, get a spatioport fast in the most productive of you city (spam internal trade routes, or to an ally with the correct card) to do the first science project, and make sure to protect it with a spy, the IA will wreck it every 6 turns otherwise... But make a few other spatioports to boost the travel time of the colony ship as soon as possible (the electricity or aluminium ones).

 

[Tech Osen]

4. At rocketry you need to be able to get the spaceport out and the moon landing done ASAP. This will probably be a combination of buying the spaceport and chopping the projects for the fastest path. Having Big Ben helps a lot in this regard.

Just a note: buying the spaceport with faith through Moksha is about 3600 faith. Last time I checked Reyna it was 18000 gold iirc.

 

[schondette]

I always have the opposite case. I end up getting science first despite focusing on culture because there is always at least one civ with ridiculous culture that would otherwise get me a win had that civ not exist. I play on the same difficulty

 

[MrRadar]

Last time I checked Reyna it was 18000 gold iirc.

It's 7200 gold, 4x production cost (1800 cogs), only 2x in faith.

 

[Vizurok]

Just a note: buying the spaceport with faith through Moksha is about 3600 faith. Last time I checked Reyna it was 18000 gold iirc.

I am 99% sure that the Reyna purchase price is currently 7200 gold on normal speed.

As for OP's concerns, I think that there's a very simple way to avoid CV: simply do not build that much culture. @Victoria's advice is absolutely solid, however I feel that they are rather suited for the Deity speedruns, while a simple Emperor SV is not that complicated. My approach would be something like this:

1. Expand to 10 cities and build a Campus, a CH and maybe an IZ or a Holy Site in each of them. Obviously, you need to focus on building the science infrastructure first.
2. You don't need more than 3 or 4 Theatre Squares as culture is not that important for a laid back science run - you only have to reach T3 government and you can forget about culture.
3. Spaceports should be purchased using gold or faith - prioritize your governor promotions on Reyna and Moksha accordingly.
4. Do NOT build any culture-focused wonders and do not slot in any culture / tourism cards. You don't really need golden ages so you won't need to chase era score that much, but if you absolutely have to build wonders, you should turn to Kilwa, Oxford, Big Ben, Ruhr Valley and Forbidden Palace in the first place as they contribute directly to your science efforts. Taj Mahal can help with the era score concerns.
5. You should switch to research projects in all cities expect for the capital after building an University and the core districts and keep spamming science projects until the end of the game.
6. Try to locate ideal chop zones for space projects - 6ish woods equal to one completed projects if you use Magnus. You should send out Settlers in the mid-game to found cities only for the chop value and then use Reyna or Moksha to purchase a Spaceport and Magnus to clear the woods.

 

[Victoria]

... I give em the lot and they can choose what to do.
Do not like giving people half the information

 

[Minou]

Some tips for avoiding accidental CV:

1. No need to avoid culture itself, tourism is what you want to limit.

2. Kill off a few AIs completely (if not playing peaceful). They will no longer send tourists but the victory cap stays the same.

3. Close borders and avoid trade routes to AIs as each bumps tourism 25%.

4. You can recruit Great Writers and Artists but just leave them idle to keep tourism low.

5. Leave the AI leading in culture (not tourism) alive and consider gifting them extra great works to boost culture.

6. Don’t spam unneeded wonders or things that give tourism at Flight like Moai or Chateaus.

7. Higher difficulties make it easier to avoid accidentally CV since AIs produce more culture.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

The fastest SV I have ever had I did not avoid culture and I was playing Russia. In all honesty a high culture is the best way to a science victory because you get to the policies that advance science at a much quicker pace. Culture feeds science, but not so much the other way around.

 

[jprc]

Just finished a game with Trajan (Rome), epic, emperor, and science victory (space race).
You can have an idea of what it takes, cities, culture, etc,
And for the fun (or a missing achievement?), you can trigger the space/science victory by using the Great Scientist sleeping on the space district building the last module.

Actually, rather low culture throughout the game. It hurts.
Exactly as says Troy Bruckner above : good culture is a comfortable path for science victory, but there are other ways in this very complex game...
But I used a lot of spies for destroying productions, and used the legions for taking over "my" land asap. (I kept 1 legion as I wanted to used it for cleaning fallouts, but was never nuked...)
The military/naval/nukes I built toward the end-game it totally useless. I managed to be allied rather quickly with Greece then England, and the total power discouraged potential attackers.

I really put the emphasize on Trajan's abilities for trading, and being the master of a maximum of city-states (especially toward the end, using the wildcard giving 3 envoys if current suzerain has a different gov).

And if you want to try with the same map/leader/settings, I also attach my start on day 1 with Trajan:
No cheat/tuner used, pure and legit game from start to finish.
It requires Indonesian and Polish civs dlc.
Resources : sparse. (I like Resources wars ...)
You fight versus the 7 Angry Females of the game, i.e.Indonesia, Poland, England, Greece, France, Egypt, Nubia.
You are warned...

 

[jprc]

Some info, and 1 file
The file has 11 saved games, at different times of the game for showing the evolution (so then I can delete them from my hdd and have them here for archive!! ).

Added infos :

1. Only 1 war at start for getting my main living-room tidy, then peaceful game. I prepared myself for a dirty war that never came... and lost a lot of resources building up an army of veterans, at the cost of the nice development of my cities
   
2. The Science Victory was not planned! I expected more a domination victory but discovered that some other civs were well advanced with the space race. It is when I saw the message telling me that a satellite was launched that I shifted to the science race i.e. building spaceports).
3. Don't be afraid to pass on great people for keeping the points for a really important one. The great engineers and scientists are the best, especially Von Braun and Carl Sagan (+ Stephanie Kwolek) . Forget military/admiral great people, I got too many generals for nothing. Making too many wars is not good for science and culture (beware of war weariness...).
4. Spies should be sent asap. And doing 1st the 100% success mission for after that gaining +2 levels during 36 turns. If promotion available, sabotage is the top choice. Otherwise steal art: you do not want a culture victory from an opponent before you end your space race. It is why I place culture as 2nd choice and not 1st: better to steal art (and gain culture) than doing it yourself ! (bad bad boy, I know...). Don't forget to have a spy protecting your space port as you have also naughty opponents...
   
5. Trade : as soon as you start the space race, i.e. build module, change most of your traders for linking the city producing a module with a city giving your added production. it can save you a couple of turns for producing, and it is a race...

Of course, if you want to play from my saved game from day 1, do not spoil the discovery of the World by opening the other saved games...