The Highwayman
King
@Oberinspektor Derrick I don't 1 turn techs in the first half of the game. It's really not until the modern era (my tech, not world era) when the scientific slingshot occurs.
It depends on the Civ, but a 3-5 theater square opening w/ Colosseum is often a good setup. Certain Civs don't need to go hard on early theaters, such as the Khmer with the Prasat and its excellent pop scaling, or China and its vastly underrated Great Wall UI. I get Colosseum every science game. Boshoi Theater can be manipulated to grant 2 fairly predictable civics and is always considered. I prefer the civics that don't or rarely get boosted like scorched earth and either urbanization or conservation.
I start adding campuses to my first handful of cities as my expands get online, where I primarily go campus first. I'll try and get a scientific alliance around this time if my neighbor isn't being a DB. As a note, the 3 spaceport cities don't need a campus, only a spaceport and IZ for power and preferably an encampment/harbor for the +15% space project boost. Those can be settled relatively late.
With all this said, I'm still tinkering with early mid and mid game return on investment. It's nice to shoot for x cities by y number of turns, but the fastest science games seem to rely on timing and the efficiency of the Magnus tour. How fast does each city provide the ROI? Should I faith buy two or three builders to chop the campus/library/uni and get the second and third districts in one city, or buy a settler that won't really ramp up for another 25ish turns?
It depends on the Civ, but a 3-5 theater square opening w/ Colosseum is often a good setup. Certain Civs don't need to go hard on early theaters, such as the Khmer with the Prasat and its excellent pop scaling, or China and its vastly underrated Great Wall UI. I get Colosseum every science game. Boshoi Theater can be manipulated to grant 2 fairly predictable civics and is always considered. I prefer the civics that don't or rarely get boosted like scorched earth and either urbanization or conservation.
I start adding campuses to my first handful of cities as my expands get online, where I primarily go campus first. I'll try and get a scientific alliance around this time if my neighbor isn't being a DB. As a note, the 3 spaceport cities don't need a campus, only a spaceport and IZ for power and preferably an encampment/harbor for the +15% space project boost. Those can be settled relatively late.
With all this said, I'm still tinkering with early mid and mid game return on investment. It's nice to shoot for x cities by y number of turns, but the fastest science games seem to rely on timing and the efficiency of the Magnus tour. How fast does each city provide the ROI? Should I faith buy two or three builders to chop the campus/library/uni and get the second and third districts in one city, or buy a settler that won't really ramp up for another 25ish turns?