Science Victory Strategy (and boasting!) Compendium ツ

[RealHuhn]

Nice summary and congrats on the early win

I prefer peaceful games because they do not abuse the weak AI as much but still, a fun read. Sadly, this strategy (even the peaceful variant) works for pretty much every victory type (except religious VC obviously). Only difference is the role of the campus/theatre squares. Unique civ abilities can add an interesting flavor but I hope future patches shake it up a little.
And I still don't like the tech micromanagement. It's quite tedious and doesn't make any sense from a realism perspective.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I think it's too early to tell for sure, but right now I believe deity might allow faster victories than lower difficulties. Of course not always, since you cannot steal early settlers every game, but when you can it is a massive boost. So in a HoF type setting, where you have unlimited attempts to find the best start, deity has potential to outperform the lower difficulties. Even if you don't manage to capture any of the free settlers, it is also an advantage to have more cities available for capture early. The Fall patch, which removed the God of the Forge bug, has significantly reduced the amount of units the AI builds. I haven't played enough with it yet to tell if the AI becomes tougher in the mid game.

It is also possible that some tech boost stealing strategy could help on deity. I haven't experimented with that yet.

I'm still undecided about best Pantheon. Usually I've picked Divine Spark, but I'm not sure about this pick anymore after doing some math. It depends on how fast you can get the Campuses up. Let's say you have 20 campuses and the average build date is turn 120, which I think is an optimistic estimate. Your target victory date is turn 180. In this case Divine Spark yields you a total of 1200 Great Scientist points over the course of the game. Is it worth it? God of the Open Sky gets you through the civics tree a lot faster, unlocking all the key civics earlier. You can also reach Democracy very early without investing at all into Theater Squares, which makes up for a lot of the lost GS points. On the other hand, picking up the earlier era Great Scientists faster is also really good. It's a tough choice.

You actually changed my mind, maybe Divine Spark is actually better than some other Pantheons, like the Growth one. Though I still think GoToS reigns superb if you have more than 2 pastures in your cap and one or two in your first few expos.

 

[DanQuayle]

AFAIK, science overflow gone when you get boosts. Be careful.

I just noticed that while playing 6otM 01.
I was working through the bottom half of the science tree late game. Military Science was at 1 turn to complete (like most of the lower techs). I then bulbed a GS which provided eurekas to random techs. After the bulb, Military Science now took 2 turns to complete. And it was not just a graphical glitch. The next turn, I still had one turn left to Military Science. Ideally you want all these techs to take just one turn, so it can be a big deal.

 

[trojan13]

Deity/quick/standard pangear/random(japan) T143 sv

Spoiler :

I played in Korean this time, but you can see the turn/year number on the upper left corner.

This is not sv oriented playthrough from the beginning. I gave up culture vic when I found not many coastal tiles around me. I was deciding dom vs sci up to industrialization, because only 1 scientific CS, Geneva in this game.
I become lazy and went for sv after factories or power plant.

Few notes from this playthrough:
1. Buy early relic from AI at very cheap price. This faith saved from early turns will help you get key great people before spamming projects.
2. Beelining AI in higher difficulty really helps you get information era key great people faster.
3. Pantheon was God of the opensky, which is all-round number1. The pantheon plus colosseum carried me to enlightment.

I just noticed that while playing 6otM 01.
I was working through the bottom half of the science tree late game. Military Science was at 1 turn to complete (like most of the lower techs). I then bulbed a GS which provided eurekas to random techs. After the bulb, Military Science now took 2 turns to complete. And it was not just a graphical glitch. The next turn, I still had one turn left to Military Science. Ideally you want all these techs to take just one turn, so it can be a big deal.

I noticed it in 6otM01, confirmed post fall patch too. It adds some micormanagement if aiming faster turn sv, but not very hard to manage if one knew it.

 

[elitetroops]

Deity/fast/standard pangear/random(japan) T143 sv

Fast = Quick speed?

 

[trojan13]

Yep quick speed. (corrected)

 

[stormtrooper412]

not bad, that comes down to 210-ish standard, I think

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Man, trojan, that map seems so sweet I wish it was standard speed. I'd replay that for sure!

If anyone has a decent map on standard speed please do post it! I reroll like five to ten maps every day and never, ever get solid ones.

I have yet to see a single spices start for example. Spices on hills sound so incredibly overpowered..

 

[DanQuayle]

I got a good finish in 6otM 01, but it was only on King.

Spoiler Contains 6otM 01 Spoilers :

SV T194
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/6otm-01-after-actions.603444/page-7#post-14579423

 

[trojan13]

Man, trojan, that map seems so sweet I wish it was standard speed. I'd replay that for sure!

If anyone has a decent map on standard speed please do post it! I reroll like five to ten maps every day and never, ever get solid ones.

I have yet to see a single spices start for example. Spices on hills sound so incredibly overpowered..

I tried to regenerate the map with standard speed, it seems working!
I attached T1 save with standard speed setup.

The following is the first scene at T1 if you are interested in.

Spoiler :

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Thank you very much for readjusting the time in that save. I knew it could be done, I just did not know how! I'll play both these maps for sure. Have been wanting to try Japan for a long time anyway

 

[mayhemster]

T200 Deity, Standard size, Standard speed, Pangea, Germany.

Spoiler :

I had no science city states so I needed to get research labs in all my cities or I wouldn't have got through the tech tree quickly enough. I also had terrible luck with the Information age great people so I ended up building the first 3 projects completely and rushed the last 2. With a bit more luck on city states and great people then I could have shaved 20 turns off that time and I'm sure its possible to do it faster still as I was lax micromanaging my cities as I was very hungover today A few points:

• Production is insane when you have Toronto, I could build research labs in 5 turns and projects in most cities in 2 or 3 turns.
• I don't think getting lots of Commercial zones is important. You need 4 trade routes to get the inspiration for medieval fair and you get Mercantilism shortly after that which gets you up 6 trade routes which is more than enough to be growing most of your newly placed cities. I only really build commercial zones If there aren't any industrial or science buildings to build.
• Colosseum is great, but I don't think its worth bothering with any other wonders unless you get one of the Industrial great people that helps you rush them.
• I didn't have any competition at all for great people so had to get them all myself, it might be worth picking opponents who can take a few of more useless ones. On another game I played recently, Sumeria reached the Information age very quickly which would be good for this.
• In this game I pretty much ignored culture and it didn't seem to slow things down too much.

 

[elitetroops]

Nice game!

I've got a science game in progress and I was just thinking the same as you about commercial hubs. I have 7 in 1 AD and I regret a few of them. Especially in captured cities, where the AI usually has built a holy site, the commercial hub makes it way too slow to get Campus and Industrial Zone. Though in your case this wouldn't have been a problem as you were playing Germany.

Picking opponents would be a good idea, haven't done that so far. What I learned in this game is that Russia is a great neighbor. His best ability is the extra land, which becomes your extra land. I also now noticed that when you capture a city, borders expand like if you had just founded the city. So even if Russian cities already have the complete 2nd ring covered, you start gaining 3rd ring tiles as quickly as a fresh settled city with the same culture output would gain tiles. This is kind of weird. It's much easier for the occupier to expand borders than it would have been for the previous owner, since every tile is more expensive than the last one and the occupier gets a fresh start.

Kongo is also a great neighbor, because he cannot build Holy Sites and you might actually get something useful from him. Without Holy Sites he should also be better at competing for relevant great people, if he is further away on the map.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

You make some great points Mayhemster. Personally I also think that Campus should be built before Commerce Hubs in all relevant cities. If you're building campuses at around T120 or later (so as your second or third district) they will likely have close to no impact on your game at all. However I very much disagree on the viability of Trade Routes. All my border cities and the less developed ones get Commerce first, because getting a Commerce district instead of the Industrial Hub actually allows for more centralized hammers. In most of my space games I am running up to 20 TRs from my capital for a boost of about 60-80 production, which is insane paired with modifiers for space race projects and can easily mean shaving off five to ten turns from your victory time!

In general production, while the strongest resource in the game right now, is worth less the later it comes. It has to "pay off", so to speak, so building Industrial Hubs like 30 or 40 turns before victory is essentially useless, while Commerce hubs can improve finishing times.

So, for my core cities the order is: Campus > Indu > Commerce. These cities will first work campus project, then industrial project.
For my regular cities the order will be Campus > Commerce. These cities will work campus project only. I will build a Industrial Hub in cities with plenty of mines or everywhere if Germany.
Border cities and undeveloped cities will build only Commerce Hubs and Commerce Hub buildings plus monuments and general buildings. These cities are usually 6-7 Pop or lower.

 

[elitetroops]

T190 Deity, Fractal, Standard speed, Standard size, random AI, Norway

Game Seed: -303652976
Map seed: -303652975

Spoiler :

I didn't really plan to play this game as a science victory, probably wouldn't have picked Harald "Party Hard Rod" Hardrada for that, but when I saw this sweet start I had to give it a go:

Spoiler :

5 unique luxes visible at the start, a 6th revealed when settler moved NE to settle.

I built one Spaceport, used Goddard, Korolev and Sagan. Didn't get any of the +100% Great People. I was done teching turn 182, so still some improvement to be made there. Could have started spamming district projects earlier. Didn't build any Research Labs at all.

Some benchmarks:

T70: 9 cities (settle 2 more next turn), 27/34 science/culture
T100: 15 cities, 121/102 science/culture. Since t70 I finished lots of Campuses and found and got suzerain status of Geneva. One Russian city had EC built, so I built Colosseum there. Chopped out Pyramids and Hanging Gardens as well while running the policy.
T116, 1AD: 15 cities, unlocked Enlightenment, 189/116 science/culture

The T100 and T116 numbers are the highest so far for me. Especially culture was way ahead of my previous best in a science victory. It was all thanks to Colosseum and GoToS, I never built any Theater Squares and hardly built any monuments either.

The slow GP generation without Divine Spark felt brutal in the early-mid game, probably because in my last science victory I had both Stockholm and Divine Spark. The fast overall tech pace getting rid of Medieval and Renaissance GP helped a lot. I got to Korolev long before Sagan even though I didn't build many IZ projects. Only built IZ projects in 2 cities that didn't have time to build Campus.

Apart from no Research Labs and no Theater Squares, I also built no Harbors and no Banks, only 2 markets for Guilds Eureka. Got Economics Eureka from Great Scientist. I built one neighborhood for Conservation inspiration in a city that didn't need it, but couldn't build Campus projects either. For the first time ever I built an Aqueduct! Peter had settled a city in an awesome area, except one tile off fresh water... In addition Peter had built Holy Site and Entertainment Complex there, so I needed it to grow to become useful.

I built one Encampment in the city I first thought would be my Spaceport city. At that time I was also thinking it would help me get the Civil Engineering inspiration, which I never got. In retrospect, maybe I should have teched Celestial Navigation and replaced one Commerce Hub with a Harbor. The Harbor would have been cheaper and it would have earned me the Civil Engineering inspiration, which is quite a lot of culture.

First war done with Archers, added 5 Horsemen for the next 2 wars. Didn't use any more advanced units than that.

The relevant city states in the game: Geneva, Seoul, Toronto and Hong Kong. I really missed Stockholm, otherwise I had everything I wanted. Kumasi was my closest neighbor. I left them alive since I thought they would help me a lot with culture, but I didn't need that and never bothered investing envoys into them. Should have killed them early.

What could improve on this? Well, obviously playing anyone but Harald. I didn't get any use at all out of his abilities, except some fast embarking/disembarking. Other than that, more cities! I had only 16 at the end. 20-25 is better. Less priority on early Commerce Hubs, took me very long to get campus+IZ in some cities. The map was great for early conquest, but almost completely lacked mountains in my part of the continent. More mountains would have helped. Also, checking the GP screen on T1 tells a lot. Expect to only get one Scientist/Merchant/Engineer of the first available era, the next probably skips 2 eras ahead. So if you want someone like Hypatia, she has to be there from the start. I had to recruit crap like the walls Engineer and the tile+60 gold Merchant. In another game you might have better luck.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

That is absolutely amazing! I will actually go ahead and edit the OP to reflect that we now have a new champion. Kudos to you! The map looks extremely nice so that probably makes up for playing the worst Civ in the game The amount of luxuries sounds insane, I always get problems with amenities starting midgame..

Right now playing my last pre-patch game. I am playing as Sumeria, got 15 cities on T70 and about to upgrade to Knights so will add at least 2 more capitals and a few border cities, also have 2 Settlers still in motion that I caught. Will probably end up with something like 25 cities, 3 of which I got from stealing Settlers early on, around T25-T30. The game is looking promising, but the map is just okay. Few mountains and fresh water is really what is holding me back most of the time.

 

[elitetroops]

Thanks!

Sounds like you have a really nice game going there!

My game was all post-patch. Despite no chopping outside borders, no gold from selling useless Great People and so on, the game might still be easier with the patch. The AI hardly builds any units at all, which makes early conquest a lot easier. I also noticed most of the AI were broke all the time, when pre-patch they usually had tons of gold. Maybe they used to benefit from making unfair deals with each other. For some reason the AI does not pay the gold they should pay for gpt deals. The gold you receive magically appears out of thin air while they keep the gold surplus themselves as well.

 

[Karoq]

This one is so counter-intuitive. If you want to win a science victory fast, you have to avoid researching technologies!

Not sure if I am misunderstanding the conversation here, but to me holding off on finishing a non-critical tech and waiting to pop a eureka gives you the advantage of researching two tech at the at the same time. You have to coordinate you eureka moments, of course.

 

[elitetroops]

Not sure if I am misunderstanding the conversation here, but to me holding off on finishing a non-critical tech and waiting to pop a eureka gives you the advantage of researching two tech at the at the same time. You have to coordinate you eureka moments, of course.

It was more about district cost than eurekas. Your districts get more expensive with every tech you research, which means you should not research techs until the turn you need them. Chop yields also go up with every tech you research, so you can pull shady tactics like teching several techs to 1 turn before completion while placing lots of districts on the map, then complete all the 1 turn techs and chop the districts with much better yields.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

It was more about district cost than eurekas.

Exactly. If you already have the Eureka you stop the research 1 turn before it finishes. If you don't have the Eureka, you stop before reaching middle point so when you get the Eureka you don't get the tech. The entire point is that you want to delay finishing techs as long as you can!
Playing with Eurekas is good play and intended. This is borderline exploit in addition to being terribly tedious.