yung.carl.jung
Hey Bird! I'm Morose & Lugubrious
Mimicking this absolute gem of a thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/fastest-science-victory.563022/ I wanted to have a space where everyone can come together and exchange strategies, tips, share savegames, share victory times and just have fun colonizing mars.
The goal is, of course, to play optimally and acquire the lowest finishing times possible. However I do not expect all players to abide HOF rule. If you have to reload twenty times to get perfect finishing times, go ahead. Speaking for me personally reloading has definitely helped me become a better player. I want to give a huge shoutout to this following thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-return-to-nibiru-diety-turn-100-science-challenge.603285/
Our current post-patch Champion is whacker, sporting the first sub t200 win since the update, t165 as Rome!
Even after the patch there are still minor and major exploits in the game. Whether you use them or not is up to you really, this thread works on an honor basis meaning everyone is given the benefit of the doubt.
That being said, I want to provide you guys with some very obvious and some less obvious things that helped me achieve a sub T200 science victory without any "exploits". I will later on be posting my t1 savegame and the t198 finish save. Certainly, going back to that game, I could have finished t175 or t180 easily. I did not even get the most relevant Great Engineer because the game ended before that!
A little write-up would be appropriate I guess so here we go. I was playing Rome on what I believe was a large map, could have been standard as well. Standard speed of course and the difficulty was emperor. My capital was good, but not great. Expansion space seemed plenty, but I met my first neighbor at around t5 or t6, which is never good. Did not get a settler from him either because it was mostly jungle. Built double scout, lots of slingers because barbs were particularly bad this game. Stole a settler from England, then decimated her with upgraded warriors and slingers. I had to settle far away for iron, there was none nearby. After England I took to Congo. Got his first city rather fast with legions and crossbows. I had 13 cities up at around ~t70, took two more of Congos cities and kicked him out of the game. At this point everyone hates me, unsurprisingly. First I get declared on by Monty, southern nieghbor. Then I get declared on by Germany, eastern neighbor, but only need few legions to hold them off. Get declared on by Teddy, northern neighbor to Congo. I first take Frederick's capital, then use all my troops to fight off America, take three of his cities and peace out, leaving him at two. I peace out with Germany after taking and selling his second strongest city. At this point we are at almost 20 cities and culture is going insane from all the free monuments, same for science. Though most of my cities are lacking in hammers and I took too long to get trade routes up. I also have barely any wonders built or conquered. After peacing out with everybody I focus on developing tiles, build districts everywhere and prepare for spaceport. I got research labs very early, around t120 I believe. Too early in fact, they were too hammer intensive to build in most cities. Get declared on by Sumeria to the east and decimate them with a few crossbow, later field cannon corps. Take back all the cities I sold him for gpt and refresh the deals, this time also taking all his luxuries. After that it is safely cruising to victory. I got to spaceports super early, but it took me forever to build them. Cities were not developed enough. Made a lot of tiny mistakes late game and a few big ones. Focussed too much on science when I should have focused on engineers. In this game most of the great scientists were not even needed. Still, I am fairly happy with t198 science victory. It is my personal record so far.
Screenshot 1 turn before winning~
Resources
The Basics
Civics
- Agoge (production to builders)
- Foreign Trade (trader unit)
- Mysticism (great scientist points)
- Early Empire (production to settlers)
- Political Philosophy (government)
- Recorded History (campus district adjacency bonus doubled)
- Guilds (district adjacency boni)
- Feudalism (charges for builders)
- Rationalism (double science yield from buildings)
- Free Market (double gold yield from buildings)
- Civil Engineers (charges and production to builders)
- Globalization (science from suzerain status, generally comes too late)
- Space Race (production towards space projects)
Techs
- Writing (placing campus districts as soon as possible)
- Irrigation (clearing marshes, hanging gardens is a mediocre to strong wonder)
- Currency (trade routes allows for higher growth and production)
- Apprenticeship (industrial district for production, factories and city project, boost to all mines)
- Education (universities)
- Printing (Forbidden Palace is a very strong wonder)
- Industrialization (factories, additional production to mines, Ruhr Valley is a gamechanging wonder)
- Scientific Theory (additional food from plantations, research agreements, Oxford University is a gamechanging wonder)
- Economics (Big Ben is a very strong wonder)
- Electricity (power plants)
- Chemistry (research lab)
- Rocketry (spaceport district, earth satellite)
- Robotics (mars habitation)
- Nanotechnology (mars plantation)
Misc
City States
Geneva (gamechanging)
Toronto (incredibly strong)
Hong Kong (incredibly strong)
Stockholm (mediocre)
Seoul (rather weak)
Pantheons (all terrain dependent of course)
God of the Open Sky (incredibly strong)
Fertility Rights (strong)
Goddess of Festivals (strong)
Lady of the Reeds and marshes (strong)
Oral Tradition (mediocre)
General Strategy
- In the early game prioritize meeting city states, getting villages and producing units over everything.
- Try to settle as many cities as possible.
- Discard buildings, focus on builders, districts and military units.
- Head straight for the important techs and civics while keeping eurekas in mind.
- Even research labs only need very little prior techs, one could probably reach them ~t100 with a sound start.
- As soon as key tiles are improved, focus on the campus, commerce hub and industrial zone districts.
- You should not stop settling until roughly ~t100.
- Science falls off after some time. Investing in science buildings late game will yield little results, same for production. Therefore I always try to get libraries and universities, then workshops and factories out as soon as possible. After that markets, research labs, followed by power plants. Only then do I usually build banks and or stock exchanges, if ever.
- Working the respective district projects early is usually better than building any food or production in far away or underdeveloped cities. The later in the game the less important those yields get.
- Set up your three cities (or two) for the spaceport district, improve all the tiles, switch tiles over from other cities.
- Centralize all the trade routes in your highest production city, make sure you have the encampment in that district.
Advanced or indirect advantages
Civics
- Games and Recreation (Colosseum is a very strong wonder)
- Civil Service (culture from specialty districs)
- Medieval Faires (housing from specialty districs)
- Mercantilism (gold from trade routes)
- Class Struggle (merging of district adjacency cards)
- Collectivizations (food from trade routes, generally comes too late)
- Gunboat Diplomacy (more envoys per turn, generally comes too late)
Techs
- Celestial Navigation (harbors for trade routes, harvesting of fish)
- Masonry (harvesting of stone, Pyramids is a strong wonder)
- Bronze Working (reveals Iron for production boost and trades, chopping of rainforests)
- Wheel (relevant for cities high in rice or wheat)
- Engineering (aqueducts to get around the housing cap)
- Astronomy (Potala Palace is a strong wonder)
- Sanitation (sewers to get around the housing cap, inspiration for democracy government)
- Replacable Parts (bonus food for farms)
- Steel (bonus production to lumber mills)
- Advanced Flight (aluminium for production bonuses, also gives needed Eureka for building an alu mine)
General Strategy
- Harvest early on, especially harvesting food when at the housing cap is a strong strategy.
- Make sure to think of district adjacency and area of effect boni when settling.
- Take more advanced things into account: Farm triangles, eurekas for certain ressources, strategics for timed unit pushes.
- Never finish technologies unless you need them to advance, same for civics. Keep a lot of technologies around 1 turn or around 1 turn before half if the eureka is missing. This helps a ton with district cost.
- Strategically evaluate which cities need which districts. Place them instantly as soon as you hit the population cap, then switch production.
- Build an army early on and conquer at least one or two neighbors.
- Alternative position scouts to steal settlers and or builders, kill some of their units and take a big peace deal, then turn to another neighbor. Rinse and repeat to improve economy drastically.
- After conquering cities make sure to sell artifacts. Often times it can also be worth it to sell conquered cities, especially if you have around fifteen to twenty cities yourself anyway. Only accept deals around 100gpt.
- Be sure to take advantage of the feudalism wave strategy. There is a separate thread on this forum.
- Strategically pick out one or two cities that will be used mainly for trade routes and build all the highest yield districts, meaning theater square, holy site and entertainment districts for all the food in addition to your regular districts. Send all the trade routes to these cities with priority to maximize yields.
- The Conservation civic can be used to plant trees and build lumber mills on tiles that would otherwise be farms, increasing lategame production in spaceport cities.
- Remove improvements from luxury tiles on forests or rainforests to chop them.
- Take proper advantage of science overflow. In the later stages of the game, research a 1 turn technology, then a longer one, then a one turn technology and so forth.
- Save Oxford until very late and build it after all the 1 turn technologies are gone.
Hoping for some contributions from the players that actually helped myself get good at this game, such as Acken and IronFighter
The goal is, of course, to play optimally and acquire the lowest finishing times possible. However I do not expect all players to abide HOF rule. If you have to reload twenty times to get perfect finishing times, go ahead. Speaking for me personally reloading has definitely helped me become a better player. I want to give a huge shoutout to this following thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-return-to-nibiru-diety-turn-100-science-challenge.603285/
Our current post-patch Champion is whacker, sporting the first sub t200 win since the update, t165 as Rome!
Even after the patch there are still minor and major exploits in the game. Whether you use them or not is up to you really, this thread works on an honor basis meaning everyone is given the benefit of the doubt.
That being said, I want to provide you guys with some very obvious and some less obvious things that helped me achieve a sub T200 science victory without any "exploits". I will later on be posting my t1 savegame and the t198 finish save. Certainly, going back to that game, I could have finished t175 or t180 easily. I did not even get the most relevant Great Engineer because the game ended before that!
A little write-up would be appropriate I guess so here we go. I was playing Rome on what I believe was a large map, could have been standard as well. Standard speed of course and the difficulty was emperor. My capital was good, but not great. Expansion space seemed plenty, but I met my first neighbor at around t5 or t6, which is never good. Did not get a settler from him either because it was mostly jungle. Built double scout, lots of slingers because barbs were particularly bad this game. Stole a settler from England, then decimated her with upgraded warriors and slingers. I had to settle far away for iron, there was none nearby. After England I took to Congo. Got his first city rather fast with legions and crossbows. I had 13 cities up at around ~t70, took two more of Congos cities and kicked him out of the game. At this point everyone hates me, unsurprisingly. First I get declared on by Monty, southern nieghbor. Then I get declared on by Germany, eastern neighbor, but only need few legions to hold them off. Get declared on by Teddy, northern neighbor to Congo. I first take Frederick's capital, then use all my troops to fight off America, take three of his cities and peace out, leaving him at two. I peace out with Germany after taking and selling his second strongest city. At this point we are at almost 20 cities and culture is going insane from all the free monuments, same for science. Though most of my cities are lacking in hammers and I took too long to get trade routes up. I also have barely any wonders built or conquered. After peacing out with everybody I focus on developing tiles, build districts everywhere and prepare for spaceport. I got research labs very early, around t120 I believe. Too early in fact, they were too hammer intensive to build in most cities. Get declared on by Sumeria to the east and decimate them with a few crossbow, later field cannon corps. Take back all the cities I sold him for gpt and refresh the deals, this time also taking all his luxuries. After that it is safely cruising to victory. I got to spaceports super early, but it took me forever to build them. Cities were not developed enough. Made a lot of tiny mistakes late game and a few big ones. Focussed too much on science when I should have focused on engineers. In this game most of the great scientists were not even needed. Still, I am fairly happy with t198 science victory. It is my personal record so far.
Screenshot 1 turn before winning~
Spoiler :
Resources
The Basics
Civics
Spoiler :
- Agoge (production to builders)
- Foreign Trade (trader unit)
- Mysticism (great scientist points)
- Early Empire (production to settlers)
- Political Philosophy (government)
- Recorded History (campus district adjacency bonus doubled)
- Guilds (district adjacency boni)
- Feudalism (charges for builders)
- Rationalism (double science yield from buildings)
- Free Market (double gold yield from buildings)
- Civil Engineers (charges and production to builders)
- Globalization (science from suzerain status, generally comes too late)
- Space Race (production towards space projects)
Techs
Spoiler :
- Writing (placing campus districts as soon as possible)
- Irrigation (clearing marshes, hanging gardens is a mediocre to strong wonder)
- Currency (trade routes allows for higher growth and production)
- Apprenticeship (industrial district for production, factories and city project, boost to all mines)
- Education (universities)
- Printing (Forbidden Palace is a very strong wonder)
- Industrialization (factories, additional production to mines, Ruhr Valley is a gamechanging wonder)
- Scientific Theory (additional food from plantations, research agreements, Oxford University is a gamechanging wonder)
- Economics (Big Ben is a very strong wonder)
- Electricity (power plants)
- Chemistry (research lab)
- Rocketry (spaceport district, earth satellite)
- Robotics (mars habitation)
- Nanotechnology (mars plantation)
Misc
Spoiler :
City States
Geneva (gamechanging)
Toronto (incredibly strong)
Hong Kong (incredibly strong)
Stockholm (mediocre)
Seoul (rather weak)
Pantheons (all terrain dependent of course)
God of the Open Sky (incredibly strong)
Fertility Rights (strong)
Goddess of Festivals (strong)
Lady of the Reeds and marshes (strong)
Oral Tradition (mediocre)
General Strategy
Spoiler :
- In the early game prioritize meeting city states, getting villages and producing units over everything.
- Try to settle as many cities as possible.
- Discard buildings, focus on builders, districts and military units.
- Head straight for the important techs and civics while keeping eurekas in mind.
- Even research labs only need very little prior techs, one could probably reach them ~t100 with a sound start.
- As soon as key tiles are improved, focus on the campus, commerce hub and industrial zone districts.
- You should not stop settling until roughly ~t100.
- Science falls off after some time. Investing in science buildings late game will yield little results, same for production. Therefore I always try to get libraries and universities, then workshops and factories out as soon as possible. After that markets, research labs, followed by power plants. Only then do I usually build banks and or stock exchanges, if ever.
- Working the respective district projects early is usually better than building any food or production in far away or underdeveloped cities. The later in the game the less important those yields get.
- Set up your three cities (or two) for the spaceport district, improve all the tiles, switch tiles over from other cities.
- Centralize all the trade routes in your highest production city, make sure you have the encampment in that district.
Advanced or indirect advantages
Civics
Spoiler :
- Games and Recreation (Colosseum is a very strong wonder)
- Civil Service (culture from specialty districs)
- Medieval Faires (housing from specialty districs)
- Mercantilism (gold from trade routes)
- Class Struggle (merging of district adjacency cards)
- Collectivizations (food from trade routes, generally comes too late)
- Gunboat Diplomacy (more envoys per turn, generally comes too late)
Techs
Spoiler :
- Celestial Navigation (harbors for trade routes, harvesting of fish)
- Masonry (harvesting of stone, Pyramids is a strong wonder)
- Bronze Working (reveals Iron for production boost and trades, chopping of rainforests)
- Wheel (relevant for cities high in rice or wheat)
- Engineering (aqueducts to get around the housing cap)
- Astronomy (Potala Palace is a strong wonder)
- Sanitation (sewers to get around the housing cap, inspiration for democracy government)
- Replacable Parts (bonus food for farms)
- Steel (bonus production to lumber mills)
- Advanced Flight (aluminium for production bonuses, also gives needed Eureka for building an alu mine)
General Strategy
Spoiler :
- Harvest early on, especially harvesting food when at the housing cap is a strong strategy.
- Make sure to think of district adjacency and area of effect boni when settling.
- Take more advanced things into account: Farm triangles, eurekas for certain ressources, strategics for timed unit pushes.
- Never finish technologies unless you need them to advance, same for civics. Keep a lot of technologies around 1 turn or around 1 turn before half if the eureka is missing. This helps a ton with district cost.
- Strategically evaluate which cities need which districts. Place them instantly as soon as you hit the population cap, then switch production.
- Build an army early on and conquer at least one or two neighbors.
- Alternative position scouts to steal settlers and or builders, kill some of their units and take a big peace deal, then turn to another neighbor. Rinse and repeat to improve economy drastically.
- After conquering cities make sure to sell artifacts. Often times it can also be worth it to sell conquered cities, especially if you have around fifteen to twenty cities yourself anyway. Only accept deals around 100gpt.
- Be sure to take advantage of the feudalism wave strategy. There is a separate thread on this forum.
- Strategically pick out one or two cities that will be used mainly for trade routes and build all the highest yield districts, meaning theater square, holy site and entertainment districts for all the food in addition to your regular districts. Send all the trade routes to these cities with priority to maximize yields.
- The Conservation civic can be used to plant trees and build lumber mills on tiles that would otherwise be farms, increasing lategame production in spaceport cities.
- Remove improvements from luxury tiles on forests or rainforests to chop them.
- Take proper advantage of science overflow. In the later stages of the game, research a 1 turn technology, then a longer one, then a one turn technology and so forth.
- Save Oxford until very late and build it after all the 1 turn technologies are gone.
Hoping for some contributions from the players that actually helped myself get good at this game, such as Acken and IronFighter
I'm gonna make challenges in purpose to establish optimal strategies for fastest finish times (after some time from release), but only if there won't be any obvious one dimensional 'strategies'- like spamming trade routes in BE.
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