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[RoboEmperor]

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[MrRadar]

Look to maximise various available modifiers. One of the first ones - Natural Philosophy policy card for doubling adjacency bonuses of campus districts, if you managed to place them with good adjacency. Then envoys to the scientific city states to boost your libraries and unis. Kilwa Kisiwani wonder may be nice if you get a couple of suzerainties in scientific city states. Isaac Newton for a free library and uni and further boost to unies. Rationalism policy card when your cities reach 10 pop. Oxford uni maybe. Scientific alliance with an AI and trade routes to them. And so on. Running science projects if you have nothing vital to build.

Also, chop and harvest (with Magnus preferably) to complete things and grow your cities to 10 pop faster.
And get more cities. Take that 8 and double it.

 

[Tech Osen]

Put Pingala in the city with the highest science output. If your cities are big enough you can also put citizens to work in your science buildings. It's not much but it helps. And traderoutes to a science ally.
But most of all, like MrRadar said: more cities.

 

[Tech Osen]

It should never take 40 turns to build a campus on normal speed. Especially not ax Korea since their special district is half price.
Improve your tiles and use traderoutes to improve production early on. Internal if you don't have allies, international if you have allies + wisselbanken/democracy.

From your first post it sounds like you're not building theatre squares. You will want to build a few since you want to get the science boosting cards and higher government types (more slots) sooner rather than later.

 

[MrRadar]

I've done 0 city state and other AI stuff. Does this stuff really make a 600 beaker difference by turn 270?

Doubling 8 cities sound nice at first but i found that it takes like 40 turns to build even one campus after 8 cities so I figured what's the point if it's gonna take 200 turns to get it producing decent science.

Already using Pingala.

3 envoys in scientific city state means all your libraries get +2 science. Get another three in another scientific CS - that's another +2 for all libraries. Get envoy count to 6 in that kind of CS - that's another +2 science in all your universities. Get Kilwa and a couple of suzerainties, slot in Rationalism and see the effects for yourself. Pingala now is nice little additional touch, but it is only one city, and it better be a very populous one. He can't be responsible for majority of your science. Unless, of course, there are no scientific CSs on the map. But if they are, but occupied, consider going to war and liberating them.

If you're taking 40 turns to build campus that tells me you have issues with micromanaging your citizens in your city screen, chopping and helping new cities grow by sending a few trade routes out of them. Improve tiles, lock your citizens into proper tiles to work them, discover chopping/harvesting and concentrating trade routes to jump-start new cities.

 

[MrRadar]

I have been neglecting builders. I will give that a try. Traders, builders, and Industrial Zone AoE

Frankly, you can skip IZ, as things are now, it's worth is very dubious and building it will only slow you down. Get right what you need instead. Unless you find a super-nice adjacency or play Germany.
Also, browse these forums for locking in district costs - placing a district but switching to build something else for the moment and completing the district later saves lots of production.
And yes, builders are essential. Consider getting Pyramids, if you can. And Liang.

 

[incroc]

I've done 0 city state and other AI stuff. Does this stuff really make a 600 beaker difference by turn 270?

Doubling 8 cities sound nice at first but i found that it takes like 40 turns to build even one campus after 8 cities so I figured what's the point if it's gonna take 200 turns to get it producing decent science.

Already using Pingala.

Seems like you might get your cities too late if it takes that long. Use the policy that gives 50% production and build the Ancestral Hall for another 50%. Then get a builder to chop down stuff and you should be able to settle 8 cities by turn 100 without any problems, by turn 80 if you have a good map.

 

[MrRadar]

Ok! So my new build order is

Campus->Campus Buildings->Commercial Hub->Commercial Hub Buildings->Theatre District->Theatre District Buildings for every city, and if everything is built or not unlocked yet go Builder until all the workable tiles are improved and then move onto traders and settlers.

Food/Production ratio is 1:1 ideally for every city. I neglected food too so my cap city was 5 pop the entire game while the ones around him were 10.

I think I will build IZs though. I did notice a significant difference in production in a city with the IZ.

For the record, my goal isn't science victory. It's turbo Giant Death Robot and kill everyone with a big of a tech gap as possible. So I'm saving some of my trees to build him asap.

Have a look at this series by Civtrader, if you can spare some time. It is pre-R&F even, but main elements are still valid. He shows how to fast SV, but you'll also get to GDRs faster as well
Of all what's there on YT, this and other stuff he posted is worth the watching time.

 

[cvb]

If you're taking 40 turns to build campus that tells me you have issues with micromanaging your citizens in your city screen

go Builder until all the workable tiles are improved
[...]
my cap city was 5 pop the entire game while the ones around him were 10.

Contemplate.

Also: why so much hurry??! Maybe you find the game boring after you "mastered" it ...

.

 

[incroc]

It wasn't 8 by 100, but it was like 6 by 100. I built settlers when I had no buildings to build. I probably will stick to my way for now cause I think expanding before getting an IZ out might be a mistake due to district cost and such. And I don't want to do that district locking thing.

Districts increase in cost from new techs and civics, it doesn't matter how many cities you have. Delaying expansion only makes them costlier.

 

[Tech Osen]

Getting some holy sites to gain faith even when you don't found a religion is a good idea so you can buy great persons with faith.

 

[BTSeven7]

1. You should build monuments first and campus second if you like that route. I don’t deal with the micromanagement of locking districts costs but I do lock the first district when I found a new city. Use your production queue to drop the campus and slot the monument in front of it.

2. 8 cities is low. You really want to push for 11-12 if you are going passive and building settlers yourself. Gold and faith are your best bet for finding those extra 2 or 3. Don’t worry about building more than 1 or 2 campuses early.

3. You need theater squares as your second district and you should focus on great writers. They are +8 culture every time your recruit one and you need policy cards to boost science. You really can’t underestimate the power of culture when pushing science.

4. Everyone is right about CS bonuses. If you have blue CS you need to get 3 and 6 envoys there. It makes a huge difference. Don’t worry so much about suzerian unless it’s too good pass up. Meaning don’t put 12 envoys into a bonus that increases growth. Geneva might be worth pushing suzerian bc the science boost is massive.

5. Chop and improve workable tiles. Learn to do the Magnus grand tour. It’s not hard and I can still blaze a 280 turn game in 2 hours managing it. Chopping in those districts is how you get the technological advantage.

6. Build your GDRs with gold or maybe faith if you build the second GP building that lets you buy land units with faith, but that’s only effective if you got a sweet pantheon like earth goddess or goddess of the harvest . You should have plenty to gold to buy a few GDR by the late game. Don’t save trees to chop GDR.

7. Lastly the monster jump from 300-500 to 800-1100 science happens when you get to the 5% science per suzerian policy card. That’s why culture is important. You can easily be suz of more than half the CS, and almost all of them on Emperor or below.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Getting some holy sites to gain faith even when you don't found a religion is a good idea so you can buy great persons with faith.

or settlers/builders if you get a golden age

 

[MrRadar]

and then have them all start constructing campus and campus buildings and then culture.

Try a mix with culture districts first in some cities. You'll get faster to better governments with more cards.

One question though, how do you handle gold? I build commercial 2nd because I need it for my gold upkeep.

Sell luxuries to AI, even strategic ones, if they're fighting among each other, chop bonus resources (copper, crabs). Take lump sum loans from AI for gpt if you have what to buy now. Little but now is more than more but later. And when you get to commercial hubs/harbours and trade routes, you start swimming in gold. Envoys in Commercial CS help as well. And if you find a target AI, you can slot in Raid card and go pillaging. You don't even need to conquer, just get some horses and pillage them blind. That will solve all your science, gold and faith problems. Or most of them. Pillage and raid. And when you're done, make peace and ask for whatever gold and gpt is left for them.

Goddamn Civ and their stupid city states. What do city states got that my cities don't? I hate relying on city states.

Don't underestimate the power of the City States!

Bonuses is not the only thing they can give you. If war comes, don't hate them, become their Suze, levy their troops and go pillaging to make profit on your investment.

Whats a magnus grand tour?

Moving Magnus into a city, getting an army of builders prepared so, that on the turn he's established they chop/harvest everything available for pop growth/production/gold, moving him out to another city on the same turn, the builders following or other builders already waiting there, and so on for every city of your empire.

 

[Victoria]

what am I missing?

The most I have got was about 2500 science per turn at about T200 but that is with a very good run.The secret to this is as follows

Get 20 or so cities. Both conquer and spam is the best approach or it takes too long. 15-20 cities by T120 perhaps.
The +1 scientist is OK but the +2/+4 ones for universities really shine. So no biggie if you miss Hypatia but keep a good eye on great scientists and try and keep some gold/faith spare, normally faith.
You really need 2 science CS for this level or higher, Kilwa Wonder is a very handy if you do get 2+
Double adjacency card helps but is not critical
Pingala only later with regard to science, earlier Magnus is much more useful or even Pingala culture, or both.
Then there are 2 major ones
At rationalism +50% science for 3 adjacency and +50% for 10 pop means you really need to push city growth and coliseum helps and also encourages +5/10% through happiness
At globalisation you get +10% science per CS you are suzerain of and when playing well you can get 10 suzerain. There is a way to get to globalisation fast through a moon landing but that is another discussion.
Even Raj and trade routes helps, squeezing every ounce of science makes a difference when you start hitting these % increases.

Library 2 science
Uni 4 science
2 CS bonuses 8 science
10 pop 5 science
Adjacency 3 science
2 specialists 4 science
So that’s 26 science in a city
If we consider science luxuries and bonuses, natural wonders and Harbor specialists...as well as great scientists bonuses 30+ science per city.
With 75% bonus , 50+ per city

20 cities = 1000 science

50% for suzerain of 10 as well and you are 1350 which is perfectly fine, more is just excessive but feels nice getting.

Big things are 2 science CS
20+ cities
+3 adjacency and 10 pop bonuses
Kilwa
International space agency (5% per suze)
Feel free to squeeze in research labs but they get no CS bonus and need tricity. You just do not need them.

I've done 0 city state and other AI stuff. Does this stuff really make a 600 beaker difference by turn 270?

Look at the stats above and tell me CS are not a big impact.

All pointed out by @MrRadar already but the stats help. The trouble is to get bigger you have to micromanage more

 

[Victoria]

I play on small maps and the 2 science CS just doesn't happen reliably.

Great attitude, even on a big map so many things can just slow you down... the biggest tips I guess are pillaging campuses late game can give you more than 500 science, and that is for each building.
Also eurekas can really shorten that 276 turns, especially later ones worth 500 science just for the eureka.
I am not big on micro and it hurts my head when I try too often so am with ya on that.

 

[Tech Osen]

About the CS: if you don't go for suzerain but just for the building bonuses it's really quite easy. You'll get those envoys anyway over time, you just have to put them in the "right" city states. And chasing some exact number of beakers per turn isn't really the goal, the goal is just to have considerably more than your competitors. If your competitors have all their envoys in three different science CS it will be hard to keep up if you neglect them.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I didn't notice if anyone mentioned this (apologies for the double post if they did), but run external trade routes for their science and culture (and gold and faith) boosts. Almost always more efficient than running internal trade routes in order to eventually some day down the road generate science and culture (and gold and faith).

My simple rule of thumb is: if it generates science or culture or gold, do it. If it doesn't generate science or culture or gold, don't. Faith is basically pseudo-gold, but I often ignored it just because it was kind of on the bubble of usefulness. Eurekas and inspirations are extremely valuable and should be a priority. If you can't build something that generates s/c/g (excluding Tier 3 buildings) and can't build something that will trigger a eureka / inspiration, run a project to generate s/c/g. These rules of thumbs won't always be the most optimal approach in any given circumstance, but they'll rarely be too far from optimal for a peaceful game, as long as you've built an ancient Warrior/Slinger army that you can upgrade through the ages for defence.

 

[Sostratus]

Frankly, you can skip IZ, as things are now, it's worth is very dubious and building it will only slow you down. Get right what you need instead. Unless you find a super-nice adjacency or play Germany.

The only saving grace of the IZ is the coal plant. The coal plant is OP if you have decent adjacencies at all since you can crank out so much production with it. Also, to the OP, germany is extremely strong if you use hansa placement strategies (see my signature.) Production is a powerful yield and you can use it to run campus projects to get more great scientists and research.

Most wonders are worthless, though. At least for a "time to win" perspective. Definitely learn to resist the urge to build wonders you do not need.

You need theater squares as your second district and you should focus on great writers. They are +8 culture every time your recruit one and you need policy cards to boost science. You really can’t underestimate the power of culture when pushing science.

No one in this thread can emphasize enough how important culture is. Culture is a second tech tree in civ6. Governments and policy cards are absurdly powerful things.

How do you intentionally trigger eureka's? All I know of is just Great Scientists.

Every eureka has a condition to trigger it. You can see them in the tech tree on the techs themselves. After you play a few games, you get used to what they are - most of them are pretty easy, so this means that you can sort of form plans around them. Build a niter mine (eureka), build or promote 3 muskets (eureka) kill a unit with one of those muskets (eureka) etc. Since, as victoria points out, a eureka can be worth many hundreds of science, investing a little production on something you don't really need (like building a military engineer to lay down 2 forts) is still worthwhile.

If you're playing korea as you mentioned earlier, take note that the Seowon gives +1 science to mines that are next to it. This is a huge, understated bonus.

 

[Tech Osen]

The problem is that I only had science CS on my continent 1 out of 4 games now. Becoming Suzerain is easy. Finding a science CS is completely out of my control.

That's what I meant with the goal thing: you don't need those CS to win but if there are one or more in the game you will want to put envoys there.

Going back to your original post about wanting to win with GDR's: they need 3 uranium per turn as upkeep or they get a severe strength penalty. This is another good reason to want more than 8 cities: to increase the likeliness of getting all the resources you want/need. Should Sweden be in the game then you really want to win the Nobel Prize in Physics (+1 uranium per university).