[Question] Tips on Going Vertical (Science Victory)

[Patriotic_Fool]

Hello, this is my first post here, but I've spent quite a bit of time reading on all the articles here. Very interesting stuff, but I've come across a snag in my gameplay. I was hoping you could help me out!

Also: India/Babylon are my countries, Prince difficulty, huge map, continents or pangea

1) Money
The biggest problem I have when going vertical is money. I usually have to give away what few spare resources I have to trade for gold, to buy research agreements. In my last game, I auctioned off everything I had (minus my cities) to buy a few decent troops to fend off an attack. Throughout the game, I was BARELY surviving through the happiness/money factors.

2) Happiness
I've tried going vertical with Nebuchadnezzar and Gandhi. With Nebby, I had a ridiculous amount of GS's, and I had a hefty science boost in the early game (used scientist for academy). As time went on, I ended up having to constantly trade or buy luxuries to keep my pathetically low pop happy. I'd build a happy building, and gold cost goes in the negative.

3) Population or production
Should I choose to hit the pop button, and focus on farms and such for my 3 or 4 cities, or should I try to crank out buildings? Sometimes I wonder if it's better to get the hospital in 10 turns, rather than the pop in 10 and hospital in 20.

4) Openings
The past few games I've been going tradition (for the opener), and going through the liberty tree, ending with rationalism. Any suggestions?

My strategy is to rush tech and attack later on in the game. Usually around the Industrial era, but sometimes modern times too. If there are no threats, I'll even wait till nukes. It usually works, my handful of high-tech units crush all opposition. An alternative is to just get science victory, but I prefer nukes..

Sorry for the long post, ANYTHING you can contribute to help would be enormously appreciated!

Thank you

 

[The Pilgrim]

Welcome!

1) Money
The biggest problem I have when going vertical is money. I usually have to give away what few spare resources I have to trade for gold, to buy research agreements. In my last game, I auctioned off everything I had (minus my cities) to buy a few decent troops to fend off an attack. Throughout the game, I was BARELY surviving through the happiness/money factors.

That's normal. Wide empires are much easier to maintain money-wise. Since it's only prince and with decent science you are not supposed to be in real militaristic danger at any point I'd recommend to counterattack and puppet several enemy's cities. Harder to do with India early on but if you annex couple and build/buy courthouses you'll be beyond fine.

2) Happiness
I've tried going vertical with Nebuchadnezzar and Gandhi. With Nebby, I had a ridiculous amount of GS's, and I had a hefty science boost in the early game (used scientist for academy). As time went on, I ended up having to constantly trade or buy luxuries to keep my pathetically low pop happy. I'd build a happy building, and gold cost goes in the negative.

It's still related to economy. Buildings maintenance does add up and few cities have a hard time to handle it. Make sure you build only the most necessary buildings and not everything everywhere like barracks in the city that will not produce a single unit.

3) Population or production
Should I choose to hit the pop button, and focus on farms and such for my 3 or 4 cities, or should I try to crank out buildings? Sometimes I wonder if it's better to get the hospital in 10 turns, rather than the pop in 10 and hospital in 20.

In ideal situation you population should be high enough to work all good tiles and support all the specialists you need. Don't go crazy though. You don't want citizens to work some useless water tiles, tundra, deserts etc. It is a trade-off and finding good balance can be tricky sometimes. Usually the growth should be prioritized first and then when most of good tiles are occupied focus on production.

4) Openings
The past few games I've been going tradition (for the opener), and going through the liberty tree, ending with rationalism. Any suggestions?

Skip Tradition opener and finish Liberty faster if you have more than 2 cities. How many cities do you have?

 

[joncnunn]

The real key to a tall science victory is RAs.
Use either the free GE from Liberty or the free one from hard building HS to rush PT. Bulb Astronemy, and choose base Rationalism next. Then go both to your normal path.

Uh, skip Tradition opener; go directly to Liberty since your founding cities. You can come back to it later. (The increase culture per turn is more than offset by increase in social policy cost.)

So something like all of Liberty first; then a Tradition policy or two; then base Rationalism, then rest of Tradition does well for a tall empire.

Money problems going science: often a symptom of building Opera Houses before Marketplaces and/or roads while they are running a big net deficit.

Happiness issues:
After you get a few Universities up; Humanism will help there.
Under tradition, most useful for happiness initially is the one that eliminates half the unhappiness from your capital.

The basic happiness structures though are extremely important (unless you built ND)

 

[joshua43214]

joncnunn's strategy is pretty much identical to what I do.
I like to have all of liberty and the tradition opener when I unlock rationalism so that I get the rationalism finisher as soon as possible. So be careful your science keeps pace with your culture or you will use too many SP's before rationalism opens and the finisher will come very late.

I also crank out population as fast as possible in a tall empire, and make new cities very slowly. The second city comes from liberty, and if I settle a third, it will probably be about turn 100 or more. If you have enough pop to do everything you need, going unhappy for a few turns is not the end of the world, I like to have aqueducts up before then though.

It is also normal to go negative GPT before you get markets up, just sell your extra luxuries and open borders so you have a nice gold stack to get past the rough time. The best source of gold is puppets, and if you spam them with TP's they go along very nicely with rationalism. My science victories usually have a another civ or two puppeted for cash.

 

[vexing]

the tradition opener is worth taking for a science victory. it does slow down your overall policy acquisition, but the border expansion makes it worthwhile.

re pop or production, manually assign your citizens.

 

[Patriotic_Fool]

Skip Tradition opener and finish Liberty faster if you have more than 2 cities. How many cities do you have?

3 cities, I think in one of my games I had 4, for a coastal city.

The game I'm currently in is doing well, but my science is pretty crappy.

3 cities as india, 24/20/16 pop. Making 75 GPT, and 250 beakers. AD 1380, turn 300 (epic length).

When I played as Nebby, I was at least 4-5 techs ahead, with a load of GS's ready to bulb.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Money problems going science: often a symptom of building Opera Houses before Marketplaces and/or roads while they are running a big net deficit.

Why on earth would you build Opera Houses going for science victory?

the tradition opener is worth taking for a science victory. it does slow down your overall policy acquisition, but the border expansion makes it worthwhile.

Well, true. Especially for India, I guess. However, if money deficit is the biggest problem isn't Commerce opener is a more obvious choice for that 'spare' policy before unlocking Rationalism?

3 cities as india, 24/20/16 pop. Making 75 GPT, and 250 beakers. AD 1380, turn 300 (epic length).

When I played as Nebby, I was at least 4-5 techs ahead, with a load of GS's ready to bulb.

Actually, these are good numbers. If you make 75gpt - trust me, you don't have money problems. As for science, I assume in your previous game an early academy helped quite a bit. But don't forgt Babylon probably is the strongest civ for science victory. India is not the most suited for it. So everything makes sense. You need to use as many RA's as you can get and that will help you clean the tech tree. And 250 bpt is decent. Not terrific but decent.

 

[joncnunn]

Why on earth would you build Opera Houses going for science victory?

I was largely addressing what I observe: A lot of times people who have money problems are building every building as it becomes available, including Opera Houses.

Now after you have enough money making buildings and the science buildings if you don't need an army then, Opera Houses will allow additional social policies can help. (Getting thru Rationalism faster)

 

[Patriotic_Fool]

Actually, these are good numbers. If you make 75gpt - trust me, you don't have money problems.

That was my current game, with Gandhi. My game with Babylon was almost constantly at either negative $ or happiness, so I maybe bought one research agreement all game? The games before The babylon one were utter garbage, not even gonna go into those .

I have huge cities with lots of pop (in this game), but not much room for production. I have mines on all the hills, but my one production city is the lowest pop one. I also have workshops and such. Should I just cut off city growth and focus on production? I think I could crank out more stuff that way, seeing as I have enough pop to work all necessary tiles and specialists too.

 

[The Pilgrim]

I was largely addressing what I observe: A lot of times people who have money problems are building every building as it becomes available, including Opera Houses.

Now after you have enough money making buildings and the science buildings if you don't need an army then, Opera Houses will allow additional social policies can help. (Getting thru Rationalism faster)

Or you can concentrate on 2000 production buildings that are available instead of redundant ones. Somehow I never run out of valuable things to build. The opposite is the true. On the other hand, I never had 24 pop in a city either. So maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

That was my current game, with Gandhi. My game with Babylon was almost constantly at either negative $ or happiness, so I maybe bought one research agreement all game? The games before The babylon one were utter garbage, not even gonna go into those .

I have huge cities with lots of pop (in this game), but not much room for production. I have mines on all the hills, but my one production city is the lowest pop one. I also have workshops and such. Should I just cut off city growth and focus on production? I think I could crank out more stuff that way, seeing as I have enough pop to work all necessary tiles and specialists too.

I think they are big enough. Science is the limiting factor only for so much. After certain point you should start thinking about building spaceship parts and thus production. I'm not sure that 10 citizens can work every tile with hammers + all engineer slots but I'm positive that 24 can.

 

[S.K. Ren]

For a science victory you really only need 2-3 mid size cities (10+ pop) and 1 large city (15+ pop) then just spread the parts out. I usually just build 1 large part in my mid size cities and all three boosters in my main city.

 

[Rpger29]

If you're playing on Prince, you can comfortably have Opera houses in a pre-1900 science win. I probably wouldn't bother building them though - I only get them if I use the legalism trick. If you want to win sooner, stop at temples.

Personally, I enjoy finishing my fifth policy tree about 20-30 turns after I win a science victory. The balance between culture and science just feels right. Turns you into an unstoppable late-game behemoth too.

 

[Patriotic_Fool]

If you're playing on Prince, you can comfortably have Opera houses in a pre-1900 science win. I probably wouldn't bother building them though - I only get them if I use the legalism trick. If you want to win sooner, stop at temples.

Personally, I enjoy finishing my fifth policy tree about 20-30 turns after I win a science victory. The balance between culture and science just feels right. Turns you into an unstoppable late-game behemoth too.

how do you manage that ridiculous amount of culture? I usually finish tradition, then rationalism in the beginnings of the modern era. I wait then get the 2 free techs to finish the space race.

I find myself buying a LOT of happy buildings to keep up with unhappiness. Fewer towns = little land = no luxuries. It'd be nice to focus on culture buildings, though.

 

[Rpger29]

Marathon speed is probably the real reason I'm able to do what I call the "everything" victory on difficulties lower than Deity. Buildings might cost more, but you can manage it by spending less of your cash/hammers on military units, since they are relevant for longer.

This isn't really a relevant play style for competitive games (~1600 AD victories). For those types of efforts, a more focused approach is necessary. Especially on Deity, where efficiency is key.

I prefer "sub-optimal" vertical cities. I love getting a 30-32 pop capital with another 1-2 cities in the high 20's. That's what I love about CiV and games like it - almost any player can find an enjoyable style of play and still win the game.

 

[InDubioProReo]

Just won a science victory on Emperor difficulty, Epic speed and on Continents map with France. I won it around 1866 AD. Darius got the entire other continent, making something ridiculous like 1.5k gold a turn, and he was going for a cultural victory. He had completed 3 options from his last policy tree when I won the game. I was relieved that he was not going for a diplomatic victory, because if he was, with that money he would have won, no doubt.

I think overall, I have spent like 230 hours on CiV 5 so far, but in this game I think I played exceptionally well. I managed to get all buildings and tech at the right time, right spot. For example I used a GS to get Theology, and the Liberty finisher for a great engineer and with that engineer I rushed the Haghia Sophia. With that, I got another Great Engineer and saved it for Porcelain Tower, which I got with a GS that popped just around the time I needed it. When you pull that kind of thing off, you really feel good.

Then in late game, I bulbed something like 6 techs back to back, I got all the space ship part technology in one turn. I never did something like that before, but it worked amazingly. Scientific Revolution+Oxford+4 Great Scientists. I got through all those necessary tech in a blink. I had 4 good production cities so building the parts was easy.

Up until Cannons and Muskeeters, I teched heavily. Only Songhai was close enough to threaten me, but he didn't have strong enough tech to go through my heavy Archer focused defense. By this time China conquered Songhai and Hiawatha so she was on her way to continental dominance. So for something like 20-25 turns I produced nothing but units from my 4-5 cities. When I had 4 Cannons and 5-6 Muskeeters I pushed. Poor Zu Weitan did not have the tech power to fight my army, she was still on Chu-Ko-Nu and Longswordsman/Knight tech. I smashed through her defenses and conquered all her lands. liberated a couple cities so that my happiness would not be a problem (and selling 1-2 to Darius). Then I thought about invading Polynesia to stop them from getting the cultural victory, but Darius did that for me, so thanks a lot to him!

One very important tip I can give is that research agreements and Porcelain Tower are a MUST. So is Haghia Sophia, the Great Person generation is crucial for getting GS fast. With Porcelain Tower you tech really really fast and if you do it right as I just did, your army will be far superior to anything you face and you'll be able to achieve military dominance for a long time, enough to conquer nearby civs and establish an economic, continental superiority. After that point you need to keep sighing more Research agreements and saving up your great scientists for the last 5-6 techs you need to get the spaceship parts. Then you need to pray your rival is not going for the diplomatic victory, and defend your lands. That's about it.