Science victory in 428 turns, help!

@joshua43214: What? This is my thread, how am I hijacking my own thread?
@past redemption: Sorry I'm still confused, so if I already built mines on hills, than just replace that with the academies?
 
@past redemption: Sorry I'm still confused, so if I already built mines on hills, than just replace that with the academies?

Yes, exactly. Mines don't help much until chemistry, which is on the opposite end of the tech tree from your priorities. You can also found them on plains, but you typically won't work plains until you have no other tiles.

Also, Skip, don't underestimate wide science. You don't have to play specifically tall with science, especially if you play Maya/Inca or anyone else who suitably offsets the inherent disadvantages of a wide empire science-wise. China in particular is excellent at doing an early wide science rush followed by a conquering spree at machinery and the riding the momentum into an easy science victory.
 
Hmmm, guess u are right. Still after that discussion, I made some experiment, to see where I am actually wrong with the numbers.

I managed to get 4 cities at turn 52. Going scout - scout - monument - liberty - republic - collective rule. Started a settler just before I got the collective rule, purchased the other at the same time. screenshot attached (its damn hard to make those things ... )

@skip11 - sorry for highjacking your thread ;)
 

Attachments

  • Civ5Screen0001.jpg
    Civ5Screen0001.jpg
    340.3 KB · Views: 129
Please don't hijack the thread. this topic has been covered extensively, start a new thread if you can't find an answer with search.

Well, as far as I know he was getting his question ignored, so I was just answering it.
 
AShh, Siam...The well-known tech masters.

While your getting the hang of faster teching, at least try to play leaders who have some bonuses in it. Even without DLC, you should still try Maya or China.
 
Hmmm, guess u are right. Still after that discussion, I made some experiment, to see where I am actually wrong with the numbers.

I managed to get 4 cities at turn 52. Going scout - scout - monument - liberty - republic - collective rule. Started a settler just before I got the collective rule, purchased the other at the same time. screenshot attached (its damn hard to make those things ... )

@skip11 - sorry for highjacking your thread ;)

not trying to be harsh, but why do you expand if you cannot manage your happiness? what is the point of having more cities if you hit like -10 happy? it seems that you don't understand when to expo and why you need expo. having size 1 cities that won't grow for ages and losing hammers due to unhappiness is... just not good at all.
 
not trying to be harsh, but why do you expand if you cannot manage your happiness? what is the point of having more cities if you hit like -10 happy? it seems that you don't understand when to expo and why you need expo. having size 1 cities that won't grow for ages and losing hammers due to unhappiness is... just not good at all.

lol :) Seriously, do you think that I am an idiot or what ?

I was at -10 this turn only. 3 or 4 turns later I was at positive. I had a wine deal ending, because I had sold it completely off before that. Also, the silk on the top city is almost ready. And there are 3 more unimproved luxes (cotton, marble and dyas). So I guess I can live with -10 for a single turn, when the next one I am at -2 ...

Anyway, this is how this developed. The only thing I regret is the lack of ocean access ... Now I am exploring the sea with the workers :) As I still have not met 1-2 CS's

I decided this time to try a CV, so I am not really sure if I am doing it right, but I guess it was not a bad idea to put some stuff in the Aestetics before the Ideology comes.
 

Attachments

  • Civ5Screen0005.jpg
    Civ5Screen0005.jpg
    476.2 KB · Views: 101
  • Civ5Screen0006.jpg
    Civ5Screen0006.jpg
    215.3 KB · Views: 74
  • Civ5Screen0007.jpg
    Civ5Screen0007.jpg
    267.7 KB · Views: 86
All this advice is great, but (imo) as long as you are winning at a difficulty you find suitably challenging the turn when you win doesn't matter. Some games I focus pure science and win earlier and some I put more into military and end up crippling my opponents, so despite winning much later (usually around turn 400) I am still far ahead of the science rate.

In short, I don't think its WHEN you win that matters, but when you win in relativity to your opponents. But once again, my opinion and others peoples advice here is useful if you really wanna go for turn 300ish stuff (which is fun too).
 
lol :) Seriously, do you think that I am an idiot or what ?

I was at -10 this turn only. 3 or 4 turns later I was at positive. I had a wine deal ending, because I had sold it completely off before that. Also, the silk on the top city is almost ready. And there are 3 more unimproved luxes (cotton, marble and dyas). So I guess I can live with -10 for a single turn, when the next one I am at -2 ...

Anyway, this is how this developed. The only thing I regret is the lack of ocean access ... Now I am exploring the sea with the workers :) As I still have not met 1-2 CS's

I decided this time to try a CV, so I am not really sure if I am doing it right, but I guess it was not a bad idea to put some stuff in the Aestetics before the Ideology comes.

Liberty and 3-4 cities = bad strategy. You do not get reall benefit from liberty until you hit 6 or 7 cities. 3-4 cities means tradition. The free worker and settler are junk for a small empire. Also a small 3-4 city empire needs to be more growth focused, your pops are all on the low side.

You can see in your cap the huge problem with taking liberty. Two of Greece's crappy little cities pushed their borders and choked your cap to one tile on the west. I am guessing you did not build monuments or you waited until you had noting else to build before they got up. Monuments need to go up quickly when you have a neighbor that spams cities or you end up a crappy capitol.

Lastly, for a CV, you need more land (you lost it to Greece), more culture, and a lot more pop.
 
Back to my original question

1) "So started a new game with Babylon again, this time on Kind difficulty following this guide http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503647 and also some of you guys' advices. I managed to get NC at turn 60 is that reasonable? Or should I be aiming even faster maybe turn 50-55?"

2) How many military units should I build? I think I managed to avoid war so far (or war vs weak AI) that I only make like I think 3-5 units up until late game.
 
Back to my original question

1) "So started a new game with Babylon again, this time on Kind difficulty following this guide http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503647 and also some of you guys' advices. I managed to get NC at turn 60 is that reasonable? Or should I be aiming even faster maybe turn 50-55?"

2) How many military units should I build? I think I managed to avoid war so far (or war vs weak AI) that I only make like I think 3-5 units up until late game.

anything before T60 is fine as long as you don't sacrifice growth if going tall. You will find that most starts will pop the NC T60ish very naturally even when working nothing but food tiles for a 1 city NC start.

I usually try to squeeze archery in before I tech for the NC, and build 3ish archers while researching for the NC. If you have one city, you do not need lux's if going with tradition since that policy tree will give you all the happiness you need and you can steal the worker around T25 in higher difficulties.
 
I see thanks.

So I just finished the game. Babylon. King difficulty. won science at 409 turns. However my beaker is only at +841 I think. I see other guys posting screenshot and they have like +1800 beaker, how am I suppose to get that much science? I don't get it. Even getting to 800ish I find it a bit hard.
 
The early game probably isn't your main problem if you need 408 turns to finish a game. If you can't finish a game before t300 consistantly you need to work on your science output. I'm not talking about short term science output but long term. Most of the science comes from city size and science buildings, and the specialists. Your game focus should be growth. Farm everything, try to do quests for allying maritime city states, get granaries, use the internal trade routes to boost your food output. You should grow as much as your happiness allows, but plan ahead, so you don't get happiness blocked. Your second priority should be key science techs (Education, Scientific Theory, Plastics) and buildings.

You need 30-40 population cities to get a high science output, and you'll need the Rationalism tree opened quickly. Research Agreement also help. If you can get them, do so. Unless you are Poland you shouldn't go Tradition and Liberty. Choose one. After that put points into Patronage until you can open Rationalism.

Likely your biggest problem is just lack of city growth.
 
Yeah that's true my city size is small, at the end of the game I think the biggest city is still under 30 pop. Regarding tradition then rationalism, I get more culture than I should so I have to pick 1 more policy because I haven't reached the era needed to open rationalism (after I finish tradition). So in the end I have to pick starter liberty which makes me get rationalism a bit longer.
 
Liberty and 3-4 cities = bad strategy. You do not get reall benefit from liberty until you hit 6 or 7 cities. 3-4 cities means tradition. The free worker and settler are junk for a small empire. Also a small 3-4 city empire needs to be more growth focused, your pops are all on the low side.

You can see in your cap the huge problem with taking liberty. Two of Greece's crappy little cities pushed their borders and choked your cap to one tile on the west. I am guessing you did not build monuments or you waited until you had noting else to build before they got up. Monuments need to go up quickly when you have a neighbor that spams cities or you end up a crappy capitol.

Lastly, for a CV, you need more land (you lost it to Greece), more culture, and a lot more pop.

Hm, dunno what to say here. WTF ?
My capital is the biggest city in the game at that point (by far).
My population is highest , even with 4 cities and without tradition.
About the monument - of course I had monument since t18 or something, how exactly would I get teh culture otherway?

The small greek city was settled near me, and my cap was growing in the other direction. I bought the useful tiles anyway. There was no problem with this, I had more than enough tiles to work the whole game. It would be nice if you suggest how to avoid that.

And lastly, did you even look at the demografic screenshot before posting this ?
It was quite clear that I can take whatever win condition I want this game.

And I kinda find that CV somewhat meh. To win it, I had to clear Poland and decimate Greece as they DOW me at some point. Because of that, I delayed the tech to the internet a bit, as I needed some more military stuff, and at the end I could win by science at least 15-20 turns earlier, if I had bothered to make the apolo program.

Or the other option was to wipe everyone out, as they were too far behind. Bismark entered the Atomic 1-2 turns before the end, and I had the internet since 20 turns or something ...

I also ended with like 15k unspent faith ...
 
Hm, dunno what to say here. WTF ?
My capital is the biggest city in the game at that point (by far).
My population is highest , even with 4 cities and without tradition.
About the monument - of course I had monument since t18 or something, how exactly would I get teh culture otherway?

The small greek city was settled near me, and my cap was growing in the other direction. I bought the useful tiles anyway. There was no problem with this, I had more than enough tiles to work the whole game. It would be nice if you suggest how to avoid that.

And lastly, did you even look at the demografic screenshot before posting this ?
It was quite clear that I can take whatever win condition I want this game.

And I kinda find that CV somewhat meh. To win it, I had to clear Poland and decimate Greece as they DOW me at some point. Because of that, I delayed the tech to the internet a bit, as I needed some more military stuff, and at the end I could win by science at least 15-20 turns earlier, if I had bothered to make the apolo program.

Or the other option was to wipe everyone out, as they were too far behind. Bismark entered the Atomic 1-2 turns before the end, and I had the internet since 20 turns or something ...

I also ended with like 15k unspent faith ...

After re-reading my post, I realized my tone was a bit gruff, sorry about that. No offense was intended.

I know that CV's have been made much easier in BNW, but you need to be making a lot more culture at that point in the game, you still have a lot of policies to go and the last few will take a very long time. You need to be under 10 turns a policy.

There is no simple quick answer to your questions, it is all about the synergy between cities, policies, religion, and tech. A 4 city empire is a tall empire. At that difficulty level, you should have all cities over 20 and the cap pushing 30 at that point in the game. For this many citizens, you need all of your 3ring. Tradition gives the extra boost to border growth to ensure that. Tradition scales for the entire game for small empires the same way liberty scales for large empires.

You have 70 citizens in 4 non-occupied cites, liberty gave you 4 happiness and -3.5 unhappiness for a total of 7.5, plus 4 gold. Tradition would give you -10 unhappiness and 10 gold. Liberty starts have more cities with lower pop. So say you have 15 in the cap and 15 in a settled city, and 5 more cities at 8 pop. For this you get the same 7.5 to happiness plus 7 gold, with tradition you would get 7.5 to happy and 7.5 gold. Liberty also gives a huge bonus to settler production which adds up when you crank out a lot of settlers and do so for a large part of the game. With 4 cities you stop using the bonus after three settlers and the policy is wasted from that point on. The "free" worker is nice, but you get them for free by DoWing a CS anyway, you can even get two if you don't make peace and wait for the CS to pop a second one. With a wide empire you tend to hold pops down to manage happiness so aqueducts are not desirable early if at all. With a tall empire you want the majority of your growth to happen before the hard to make buildings come on line, so you need aqueducts early. You really want at the min 12 pop when you get universities, and you really need aqueducts to continue to grow at that point.

Settling 3 cities with tradition increases policy cost by 45%, settling 3 with liberty increases it by 30%, this difference is compensated for by getting the free culture buildings early when they have the greatest impact. By contrast settling 6 cities with tradition increases policy cost by 90 instead of the 60 with liberty.

In every way liberty scales if your empire is at the least 6-7 cities and its best benefits are lost if you are less than 5. In the same way, tradition scales for empires of 4 or less cities.

Ok, for the rest.

15k unspent faith means you wasted a lot of hammers or something getting it. 15K faith = 6 great people. Sometimes this just happens though, it has happened to me at times. Getting religion on immortal or deity is something you usually have to work at, and its easy to keep working at it when you should be working at something else.

Hitting ~1000 beakers with 4 cities is pretty standard for a science game. You get this by simply having a high pop, run all specialists, and plant ~6 or more GS's. So you need universities up as first priority, and you have to work the specialists the moment they go up. 8 turns after the last lab is up and you are running at max science, just buld each GS as they pop to get through the modern/info era. You should also always settle next to fresh water and get gardens up as soon as possible. Its also not uncommon to win games with under 800 bpt on deity, but not on lower levels.

I grant you are #1 in most everything, but this only means you need to step up to another difficulty level. Not meaning to offend, but in this case its like the one eyed man being king in the land of the blind. Keep moving up in difficulty until you don't steam roll the game any more.
 
I just wanted to try liberty start mate :) If you look closer at the capital, you will see that there are not many hammers there. If I went tradition, I'd never have these 4 cities 100%.

And also, how do you get that many citizens (cap 30, rest over 20?), working food only all the time?? In flat grounds like the capital, that would mean every building will take forever ...

About religion - I had a very nice religion, that got me these 15k faith actually :) Had goddes of festivals & monasteries (with all that wine around), cathedrals, tithe and something else. I probably had the wrong assumption, that I need musicians or something like that. If I had spent it on scientists, I could have the internet many turns earlier I guess. But then again ... I could win with science before the culture even then :)

And about the difficulty - well, I play since a bit more than 2 weeks. So far, I won all 5-6 emperor games I played. Think its not bad for a starter, eh ? :)
 
Top Bottom