Strategy for Science Victory in 140 Turns or less

[Lily_Lancer]

I've just finished another game where there were no scientific CS's at all. (they were not conquered, there just weren't any) This was on a small map. I did manage to get a tech lead by building more campuses and commercial districts, and running internal trade routes while working specialist slots. I clobbered all my neighbors, then wiped out the only other civ with any culture for a culture victory while I was researching the last of the Mars project techs. I built my spaceport a lot earlier this time.

I should try that Aztecs GOTM. Is the non-DLC version okay?

If you build a district on a good tile, like 2 hammers and a food or 2 food and a hammer, do your specialists give the base tile yield? I tend to build districts on my worst tiles (desert, snow, tundra, etc) that aren't good for anything else except eventually neighborhoods.

For cities, since the influence of amenity, in fact not more citizens lead to better yields. The best pop for a city is 6 due to my calculation, so for each city, you just have to assign where these 6 citizens will be working, and improve those tiles, the yield of other tiles are useless and you can assign districts freely.

 

[stinkubus]

I had asked you before in that thread, but didn't get an answer so I'll try again. Would it be worth it for Rome to build Baths to get these cities to 7+ pop and get another district + yields from the citizens and worked tiles?

 

[Lily_Lancer]

I had asked you before in that thread, but didn't get an answer so I'll try again. Would it be worth it for Rome to build Baths to get these cities to 7+ pop and get another district + yields from the citizens and worked tiles?

Not for the housing I think, but the amenity may worth. Since amenity is a percent modifier, its good to build them in high-yield cities and not good in low-yield cities.

Also depends on your finishing speed. If you finish after T200 then bath are always a good choice, but if you finish around T150 they're situational.

 

[stinkubus]

My best games are still in the T200 range. I'm not fast enough at conquest to match the speed with which everyone else here seems to be able to conquer, so I never get those 25-30 city empires. I usually stop at 15-20 cities, and try to grow them a little larger to compensate, but my results have plateaued with that approach.

 

[zxcvbob]

What about using a trade route or working just food tiles to get a city to 7 pop to build a third district, then starve it back down to 6?

I never get 30+ cities either until very late in the game if/when I go on a rampage. (and then it's annoying trying to manage them all since Civ6 still doesn't have a build queue)

 

[Lily_Lancer]

What about using a trade route or working just food tiles to get a city to 7 pop to build a third district, then starve it back down to 6?

I never get 30+ cities either until very late in the game if/when I go on a rampage. (and then it's annoying trying to manage them all since Civ6 still doesn't have a build queue)

Why do you want a "third" district? I cannot see any helpful "third" district options.

Also, if you want to rush food, the best option is always harvesting, which ignores the housing limit, thus becomes a very good source, allows you to get the 15 eureka with only 10 housing.

For most self-built, or small captured cities I only build one district--campus. Even a "second" district shall be based on current district discount situations.

Yeah, for captured cities the situation varies. For every large captured city you have to plan it even before you capture it.

For district discount, see https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/district-discount-mechanism.625743/

 

[zxcvbob]

I'll have to study that. The concept of limiting your cities to 6 pop is new and totally foreign to me

I figure every city gets a campus; it may be the first district or it may be the second. Almost every city gets a commercial district or a harbor. At least one theater district somewhere for the culture. And you might need a well-placed industrial district once you can put a factory in it to provide hammers to multiple cities. And one entertainment district if the Coliseum hasn't already been built by an AI. You'll probably capture an encampment somewhere, but if not you might need one if strategic resources are scarce.

So that could work with 2 districts per city, but it still seems like you'd want 3 or 4 districts in some cities.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Almost every city gets a commercial district or a harbor.

What? Only 2 are needed for market eureka I think.

 

[zxcvbob]

What? Only 2 are needed for market eureka I think.

You need 4 trade routes for the Guilds eureka; not sure if that takes 2 districts or 3. But I thought you'd need lots of trade routes for the gold to recruit Great People, plus all the other stuff you spend gold on (unit upgrades, and buying stuff in low production cities that would take too long to build)

 

[zxcvbob]

So, (oversimplified so I can understand it) every city plants a campus district as soon as possible but doesn't necessarily build it until Feudalism, when you start spamming builders. (finishing them raises the production costs in future cities) The first couple of cities also place a commercial district, and might actually build those before the campus for the eurekas.

Delay the sailing techs as long as possible to keep your total number of techs down while advancing the ones that really matter. And eventually when all the good real estate is taken you keep spamming snow cities that just have a monument, a granary, and a campus?

 

[Bebekija]

I like how this thread has become one of the most active of the whole S&T forum... just shows how deep this topic just is.

On another note, i can't help but notice that GOTM 28 is now closed.
So... should we expect civtrader's run to go live soon?

 

[Victoria]

So... should we expect civtrader's run to go live soon?

You need to put a @ in front of the name and that alerts them you are talking about them.. @Bebekija

 

[The Pilgrim]

Hi @The Pilgrim, don't be worried about the ~1.7k science per turn - as that number may be a show off (e.g. perhaps relying on reaching globalisation, and getting +10% science per city state) - so these outputs are only valid for the last few turns. Its also Aztech on a very favourable map - so not really representative of other T140 victories.

So, being around the 1k mark is good for end game for a T140 victory - although - its also important to start generating large amounts of science as quickly as possible.
The obvious key thing is - getting all campuses out as soon as possible. Then getting libs/unis - Now the more you have - the more GPP you get. This will allow you to hit one or two GS that give increased yields to campus district buildings (eg +4 science per university - which doubles to +8). If lucky you can get two. Another thing I do is - once city is considered 'built up' (e.g. has a uni/lib/cd or whatever i was planning to get there) - i assign the citizens to work as specialist (adding +2 or +4 science) per city. Hope this helps.

Hey and thanks. I've also seen someone post a screenshot of 3k+ science output (with the same 35-40 cities), which, quite honestly, blew my mind. I gather placing research labs would do that? I have a feeling there's something very basic I am missing when it comes to science push, or perhaps I am just generally slow. I find labs to be too expensive, so I usually don't bother, unless I can faith purchase them (not even sure if that's worth it). Seems like you don't favor them either, which is reassuring. I also try to gobble up key GS and assign specialists as soon as I have enough pop (often times the cities stagnate at size 4 with campuses and cd's/theaters and that's it). I hit ~t180, but anything below is pretty much mission impossible. There's obvious science bottleneck before I can build a spaceport.
Anyway, I wanted to try 6OTM28 map myself, but haven't got to it yet. So in the meantime I'll keep pestering you about the recording, along with others.

 

[civtrader6]

Hi all,
I'm out of the country (and youtube/google is blocked here) - but I'll try to post the videos as soon as possible.
In relation to the questions in the last few days:

@zxcvbob
You don't really 'delay' districts for the sake of delaying - you delay because for the first <70ish turns (which corresponds to Feudalism) you have other priorities namely: * building your first and second army (mostly I do this exclusively in capital, but sometimes also spread the heavy chariots across 2-3 cities) * finishing monuments in your first few cities (always monuments first) * finishing the builderwave in all available cities.
So districts will come only once the above is completed - and hence, the foundations of your empire are set.
With the exception of maybe one early district (e.g. campus for the state-workforce boost, in case you couldnt capture anything close and fast; or maybe one central city that is building an entertainment complex for colloseum) all other cities should be working on some of the above and not districts. If a city has high enough production then it should be used for settlers (after the monument of course). Once a city has churned all 'reasonable' settlers, has a monument and has almost finished a builder (one turn left) you can switch production to other districts.

Granaries maybe only in capital (or whatever will be your spaceport city) and maybe (just maybe) in the big ben city.
Industrial zone in capital (for the purpose of eureka) - not really to provide production to other cities as this makes very little impact with quick science victories (of course, you can take a different strategy with germany and germany only etc).


As for cities - the question is what districts can they build and build fast. Very often, there is no point in building a 3rd district as it will not have time to provide returns. Similarly, internal trade routes are useless - except for propping up the spaceport & big-ben city.

 

[civtrader6]

Y'all keep talking about getting a large amount of culture early and upping it every chance you get. How do you avoid a culture win before you can get to the spaceport? I have to watch my culture, not get it too high, not build any theatre squares, etc, or I'll win by culture by accident. (I play mid-level difficultly, peaceful games)

Hi @DanaLea,
this is pretty much never a concern with aggressive quick science victories as you will eliminate all your close neighbors - which prevents the victory.

 

[universecreep]

Isn't it easier to get faster science victories on the higher levels since you benefit from the fast research of the AI's?

I thought that it was this way in Civ V.

 

[civtrader6]

Isn't it easier to get faster science victories on the higher levels since you benefit from the fast research of the AI's?

I thought that it was this way in Civ V.

Hi @Unversecreep yes and no.
There are only indirect benefits from fast AI research.
On higher difficulties AI will spam more cities and more districts for you to take, but the conquest may not be as fast and you'll need to invest into better army. Often, it will be prohibitive to attack more than the 2-3 AIs on your home continent. More cities though is not necessarily better - as very often AI will leave you with a very high number of holy sites or encampments for which you have no real use.
On earier difficulties, you will capture less infrastructure, but will have a lower investment in an army and your knights will be relevant longer. Cities you capture will often (mostly) have no districts yet so you can build what you want and not worry about population.

Biggest benefit of playing deity is that you are likely to need way less gold to purchase all the great scientists in the end (due to faster era progressions) and that trading with AI may bring sizeable income.

 

[Sempronius]

Just tried this over the weekend on Emperor level. It started out near perfect, I had Pol. Phil. by T50, and I took over my continent around T80, but I think I hit some limitations of the map, the difficulty, and I made some mistakes. I had tons of rainforest, but very little forest, so my chops were 50% as effective at best, but there were a ton of them, plus stone. I had little production in my capital/space port city which I did not catch early enough to fix (or move to another city). Money worked out well, though Big Ben took longer as well due to the resources. There were only 3 CS on my continent, so I had to embark scouts to find the rest. I ended up with a space port in T168 and finished in T184. I'm happy with the result, but I think I could have gotten that under T160 at least had I not made some mistakes along the way.

 

[civtrader6]

Just tried this over the weekend on Emperor level. It started out near perfect, I had Pol. Phil. by T50, and I took over my continent around T80, but I think I hit some limitations of the map, the difficulty, and I made some mistakes. I had tons of rainforest, but very little forest, so my chops were 50% as effective at best, but there were a ton of them, plus stone. I had little production in my capital/space port city which I did not catch early enough to fix (or move to another city). Money worked out well, though Big Ben took longer as well due to the resources. There were only 3 CS on my continent, so I had to embark scouts to find the rest. I ended up with a space port in T168 and finished in T184. I'm happy with the result, but I think I could have gotten that under T160 at least had I not made some mistakes along the way.

Hi @Sempronius, that's great for a start. Mistakes are inevitable - but also great opportunity to learn.
Its probably explained more in some of my posts in this thread, but virtually from Turn 1 I am on the lookout for the spaceport city (and if it can be capital - I start saving chops) and with equal importance a Big Ben city where I also save chops (sometimes too conservative though) - just to make sure I can definitely get the Big Ben up in time.
Ideal timing is to get the spaceport and the Big Ben done virtually a turn (or a few) before almost all techs are completed. Then purchase all the GS in one turn, and finish the projects in the next. Of course, ideal rarely happens. Cheers.

 

[zxcvbob]

It's amazing how much the map can work against you. I started a game today: emperor, standard-size, standard-speed, continents, Arabia. There are 5 of us on one continent with only 2 CS's; Amsterdam and a religious one. My build order was scout, builder, slinger, settler. I did not tell any of the AI's where my city was when we met. All 4 still settled in my face and I barely found a place for my settler. As soon as I finished Writing I placed my campus districts, but I only built one right away to boost State Workforce. My capital also got a commercial hub, and my expo built an encampment. Eventually (much later) they both built holy sites too.

I beelined Stirrups (got there long before Feudalism because my culture sucks) only taking a few detours when a tech had a eureka and unlocked something important. I declared war on my neighbor Norway and took his capital and 2 or 3 other nice cities. None had campuses; all had holy sites and one had a harbor, so it will take forever to finish the campuses I've started them on. OTOH, my faith output is pretty good and I have 5 cities following my new religion.

Everybody hates me. I'm going to have to kill them all, which will be a trick because I'm in last place for science; 20 techs behind the leader. They have aerodromes already. I have only recently discovered gunpowder and metal casting, and I have no navy. Russia has a whole continent to himself somewhere and a military larger than all the rest of us combined. (I haven't met the last civ yet, they might be dead)

I haven't decided if I'm going to finish the game for the challenge, or just chalk it up as a loss.
It will definitely not be a science victory