ggmoyang
Emperor
T63 science victory, with standard speed and standard age length, deity difficulty.
This was done with some exploits, I'll explain them.
Leader: Catherine, for her ability 'Cities settled in tundra gain science equal to 25% of their culture per turn.' This synergizes well with my other choices.
Civilization: Han, to use the great wall exploit. When you replace normal improvement to a great wall, the settlement loses a pop. If you keep replacing a newly grown pop's improvement into a great wall, the settlement's food needed to grow stays at the biggest size the settlement ever had been. So you can quickly make all those tiles to a rural, great wall improvements.
Mementos:
1. Chalcedony Seal (+3 culture and gold for UB and UI if you have 3 or more UB or UI, unlocks with Xerxes, the Achaemenid level 9). I am spamming great wall and this will give me huge amount of yield. +3 culture per wall is also +0.75 science with Catherine's ability.
2. Garuda statue (+1 population to smallest settlement on celebration, unlocks with foundation level 39). To grow the city. In retrospect, it doesn't look too good as I don't really need bonus pop in great walling phase.
Actual gameplay:
Antiquity: Started to researching Zhi right after chiefdom. I need to get great wall ASAP before the capital grows too big. Cahterine can use cultural exchange endeavor, and it helps a lot. City growth needed a plan to maximize benefit of great wall exploit. I wanted to replace all rural tiles in first and second rings to urban tiles so I can put those rural tiles on third ring and replace them with great walls.
After researching Zhi I got discipline and dispersed 2 IPs near me for sweet boosts. Then I beelined Philosophy for Angkor wat wonder.
I didn't take screenshot during the game, and this was the earliest save I had. I finished great wall on the third ring, and the Angkor wat is almost finished.
I tried to keep good relations with AI, by supporting endeavors and sending merchants. Himiko didn't really liked that, but I just allied Xerxes whose land were between mine and Himiko's, so there wasn't much problem.
Still I built some units and fought some battles for XP. Who knows, Xerxes might turn hostile in exploration age and then those commander level would come handy.
The crisis was happiness one and when the age was almost ended, one of Xerxes's settlement revolted and wanted to join me. I accepted and gave it to Himiko in peace deal, hoping for more tension between Xerxes and Himiko in exploration age.
At the end of age, my legacy points were 2 culture, 1 economic and 2 science.
Exploration: Chose the Ming, seems like a no-brainer for the challenge. I kept the same mementos, as I wanted to grow more and place specialists. Legacy points were spent for leader attributes.
For civic research, I went piety first and got the religion first. Took Brahmanism and successfully converted 3 capitals, getting more relics than I could display. Then I researched economics for merchant and then went for reformation for religious policies. My only city is holy city which means it's immune to conversions, so why not?
For science research, went Astronomy as it unlocks the essential wonder Serpent mound. Then I beelined Education both university and increased specialist limit is nice. I built Shwedagon too, as it adds science to Han great walls. But in the end I replaced Han walls to Ming walls, not sure if this was the right decision.
My tech and civic research were very fast and I could get multiple level of future techs and future civics. I put all of those wildcard attribute to science tree. At the end of the age, I had 5 levels of +5% total science.
In the middle of the age I got declared war. I built some navy and I could capture some settlements. While I razed all of them, at one point I had 2 distant land settlements which unlocked first milestone of military legacy path.
I suzerained scientific CS for '+1 pop in capital when becoming the suzerain of a CS' bonus, then befriended more IPs for more pop in the capital. Later, I got another scientific CS and choose free tech bonus. I could get 2 levels of future tech with that.
At the end of the age, my legacy points were 2 culture, 1 military and 2 science.
I think I could get science golden age if I distributed my specialists carefully, and that would been quite nice. A mistake from me.
Modern: Chose Russia. There isn't much choice, as unlocking civ is hard with just one settlement. Russia has quite nice traditions (+15% production and -15% growth / +15% science and -15% culture), so no complaints.
I replaced both mementos for these(both unlocked with Catherine level):
BTW, aren't they just have the same effect?
At the start of the age, my gold income is tanked as I no longer have Chalcedony Seal. I just disbanded most land army, I felt safe with my navy and high level fleet commander.
First civic research is Natural History to dig artifact which will boost science with memento. Bought 2 Explorers and they dug up enough artifacts for me. And then I beelined for fascism for bonus production from specialist policy. And then I went for Russian traditions.
Tech research order was Academics, Steam engine, Electricity. And then beelined for industrialization, mass production then flight. After that there's not much choice. Masteries should be ignored, obviously.
Ater building some essential buildings, I used force end turn exploit to save production, and finished legacy path projects in 1 turn.
But it took 9 turns for the final victory project. I think the overflow didn't resister properly, but I can't really complain when using an exploit.
The capital city just before the victory. The city's science output is just 639.5, but with multiple bonuses I'm getting more than double amount of science!
I actually played the modern age twice, with Chalcedony Seal + Eagle Banner mementos. The end result was T67 win - it looks slower, but I didn't used force end turn exploit in that game.
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