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@Lily_Lancer If you managed to stumble across a +20 faith and get goddess of the harvest would you consider building a holy site if there is not one lying around? Jesuit education seems to go fast.
Strategy for Science Victory in 140 Turns or less
- Thread starter civtrader6
- Start date
Lily_Lancer
Deity
No. In fact it doesn't go fast since you have to spread your religion then purchase. The aim for a religion is always Papal Primacy. If you get a religion the first thing is to choose Papal Primacy and spread the religion to city-states instead of your own cities.
Goddess of Harvest basically saves you lots of money in the endgame when purchasing GPs, and also helps you to conquer faster by faith-purchasing soldiers.
But if I get a Holy Site captured and also Goddess of Harvest I'll spread my religion to make Jesuit. The idea is that never building Holy Sites yourself (unless for Russia or Arabia), but to capture them.
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civtrader6
Warlord
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Spot on. All the advice given always has an exception. Never, means never, unless its a must
If you look at the Gorgo T141 game, I've built a campus (with the help of horses chop overflow) to hit that eureka as delaying PP is not acceptable, there were no CS/districts to capture close by. Especially not with horses upkeep coming.As for the holy sites - never build one. In fact, in all my quick science games, I never research astrology regularly (in some not at all, while in some, only through using one of lump-sum science GS much later. My preferred first district to capture is always a CS with a holy site.
And this as well. Plus, Papal Primacy is almost always available.
civtrader6
Warlord
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Well, I'd say 12-15 cities could be enough for a T150 finish if all cities were 'proper', which means equipped with a campus (lib/uni) and CD at ~T100ish. But this is hardly possible to achieve (e.g. some cities will just not have enough chops available timely), your builder rush may be ineffective, you won't have good spots to get all things you need: quick traders, Colosseum, other eurekas.
Most importantly, if you let AI expand, you will get stuck with holy sites in cities that are not viable to get to 7pop to get CD/campus timely, and very often with cities without fresh water further exacerbating the problem.
So I'd say, to improve your victory time, aim at ~20 cities which means more capture. Have your horses (lower difficulties) or your knights (higher difficulties) ready to rush a foreign continent at T80-90.
Bad_Viceroy
Chieftain
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Those damn holy sites the AI builds, what is up with that! You describe my problems exactly. I will try gearing for either a longer initial war that uses horseman or a second push using knights and see if I can get to 20 in a viable timeframe. T80-90 sounds like a challenge though.
Brutus2
Prince
Well, I gave this strategy a try and I guess it was ok for a first attempt but obviously several things i could have done better. Finished researching Rocketry on turn 145 and completed a spaceport on turn 165 with a lot of chopping. Unfortunately I am all out of things to chop and still have to complete all the space projects.
In the early game I used my war cart, slinger, warrior army to wipe out England and France. Unfortunately England did not have a Holy Site or an Encampment but she did have two campus districts. Went after France next and got a Holy Site from Paris. Founded a religion and went with Goddess of Harvest and Jesuit Education. I spread the religion to all my cities and ended up buying nearly all library and university buildings with Faith. Only ever found one science city state and they were closest to my capital so not an option for early conquest. On the same turn I completed Rocketry, Egypt and Persia declared a joint war against me and I had to burn some gold upgrading my units to fight them off and protect my only science city state which wasn't a problem except for the gold cost even with 50% discount card.
When I started building the spaceport it was 80 turns to build even with an IZ and factory in the capital. I completed it in 20 turns with a lot of chopping but I was only getting like 1-3 turns from each chop. Would be nice to find the GE who boost space projects but I don't have enough gold, faith or GE points to find them. Having only 1 science CS and 1 Merchant CS was disappointing.
Oh well, still was fun and always learning new strategies!
In the early game I used my war cart, slinger, warrior army to wipe out England and France. Unfortunately England did not have a Holy Site or an Encampment but she did have two campus districts. Went after France next and got a Holy Site from Paris. Founded a religion and went with Goddess of Harvest and Jesuit Education. I spread the religion to all my cities and ended up buying nearly all library and university buildings with Faith. Only ever found one science city state and they were closest to my capital so not an option for early conquest. On the same turn I completed Rocketry, Egypt and Persia declared a joint war against me and I had to burn some gold upgrading my units to fight them off and protect my only science city state which wasn't a problem except for the gold cost even with 50% discount card.
When I started building the spaceport it was 80 turns to build even with an IZ and factory in the capital. I completed it in 20 turns with a lot of chopping but I was only getting like 1-3 turns from each chop. Would be nice to find the GE who boost space projects but I don't have enough gold, faith or GE points to find them. Having only 1 science CS and 1 Merchant CS was disappointing.
Oh well, still was fun and always learning new strategies!
stinkubus
Emperor
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Goddard doesn't appear until modern era, and it's 50/50 whether you'll get him or Telsa once you're there. I've been playing around with a GE-fueled space win using Barbarossa and trying to leverage Hansas, but I haven't gotten a decently fast win with it yet. It really only works if you get multiple industrial city states as you can then hard build your buildings quickly and save your faith for great people, as you'll need scientists and engineers to get there.
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Maybe you only need one Hanza and goddess of the harvest?
You don't need the earlier engineers surely? Just the ability to buy them.
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Thanks for all the strategy and tactics from @civtrader6 , @Lily_Lancer, and @Victoria. I replayed GOTM25 and managed to get to a T163 victory, which is a best for me. I still started with a scout/builder/setter/slingers & Encampment was my first district. I did an Archer/Horseman 'rush', but since it wasn't a super early rush I didn't complete taking the continent until ~T100. No war after that and held back meeting anyone until after - hard to conceive as I like to explore early and often. I used Monarchy/Wall chops to help districts - huge impact. I was much more balanced at the end on gold for GP, science, and culture. Eiffel Tower/Neighborhoods T156 (over 3K gold from this) and Big Ben T157 led to purchasing 8 remaining GS by T158. Space Port T158. All tech needed T162. Final launch T163.
Bad_Viceroy
Chieftain
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Very impressive, might give that GOTM a go myself if I can wean myself off sniping Russians in MGS5
Nice guide, I really didn't have this much focus on chopping and harvesting before, at all.
However, in most deity games, using your opening strategy (e.g. scout->builder->settler->3x slinger->1-2 warrior), if I can manage not to be overrun by barbarians or a closeby aggressive civ, I can't quite see how going to war at around turn 30 would work. At turn 30, I'm usually sitting on 1 warrior, 1 scout and 1-2 slingers. If I wait until 3 slingers and 2 warriors are done and in front of a city state or another civ's city, it's already around turn 40~50 dependent on amount of hills, and the CS / AI usually already have archers which makes taking the city near impossible. Holding back my slingers until they can be archers sometimes works, but then it's like turn 55-60 until I conquered my first city.
Like @Hactar, I'd also be interested in seeing a YT video on this, at least for the first 80~100 or so turns.
However, in most deity games, using your opening strategy (e.g. scout->builder->settler->3x slinger->1-2 warrior), if I can manage not to be overrun by barbarians or a closeby aggressive civ, I can't quite see how going to war at around turn 30 would work. At turn 30, I'm usually sitting on 1 warrior, 1 scout and 1-2 slingers. If I wait until 3 slingers and 2 warriors are done and in front of a city state or another civ's city, it's already around turn 40~50 dependent on amount of hills, and the CS / AI usually already have archers which makes taking the city near impossible. Holding back my slingers until they can be archers sometimes works, but then it's like turn 55-60 until I conquered my first city.
Like @Hactar, I'd also be interested in seeing a YT video on this, at least for the first 80~100 or so turns.
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Yes the first half of the game is the interesting part.
T30 is a guideline and you can chop in troops which give a good advantage. Early chops for troops with a 1.5 card means you go to war earlier than the opposition can defend. It's all a lot more complicated than just that, you need to push culture as much as you can. Before political philosophy your main aims are (in no particular order)
1. Push culture
2. Get 1 settler out
3 Get all eurekas you can, especially for culture meaning early builder.
4 understand the environment around you... scout maybe even chopped galleys (easier than you think)
5 decide your army strategy as you ideally must take civs, you need 15-25 cities, you need to fight fairly early. Archers are OK but do not underestimate warriors, scouts, swords men, hoplites, immortals... get the right army for the resources... the best army is a knight one with a general... good players have a foot army and a knight army later as it just eats up the opposition. This is one of the key things to push culture for... feudalism and mercenaries.
6. Finding science and money CS and getting their quests.
Aim for political philosophy by turn 50, earlier is better, it can be easy with Gorgo or hard with Elizabeth so if you go over a bit like I do it's not the end of the earth.
At political philosophy getting the 50% settler card in and getting those settlers out is key, you may be taking lots of cities at the time but you need more, chopping helps. Naturally with new cities place relevant districts asap but do not build them... push settlers, and one more thing, more settlers.
At around T80-100 once you get the cities you need or most of them, you should be at feudalism 5 charge builders) Swap to workers and chop chop chop. Save most 1 charge builders until you have pyramids.
You need a city for Big Ben, a city for pyramids, a city for coliseum possibly, great Zimbabwe possibly and Eiffel possibly...and a city with lots of chop (at least 15) for your spaceport. Chopping in those districts and buildings and getting science projects going and pushing pop into science buildings and money squares helps a lot... you will start finishing techs in 1-3 turns which means your chop value starts to escalate to the point where you hold off until the last minute before chopping bronze and crabs for money and the spaceport. You can place the spaceport and finish it in one turn with enough... chops will be giving near 200 production so a spaceport roughly 10 forest chops, less for stone, more for jungle but save a few chops for your projects.
The most important thing as @civtrader6 said was be flexible, things change but if you do everything roughly correct getting under 200 turns is fine.
Do nI t expect your first attempt to be perfect, it takes a few games to understand how quickly your science snowballs once you start chopping in universities.
T30 is a guideline and you can chop in troops which give a good advantage. Early chops for troops with a 1.5 card means you go to war earlier than the opposition can defend. It's all a lot more complicated than just that, you need to push culture as much as you can. Before political philosophy your main aims are (in no particular order)
1. Push culture
2. Get 1 settler out
3 Get all eurekas you can, especially for culture meaning early builder.
4 understand the environment around you... scout maybe even chopped galleys (easier than you think)
5 decide your army strategy as you ideally must take civs, you need 15-25 cities, you need to fight fairly early. Archers are OK but do not underestimate warriors, scouts, swords men, hoplites, immortals... get the right army for the resources... the best army is a knight one with a general... good players have a foot army and a knight army later as it just eats up the opposition. This is one of the key things to push culture for... feudalism and mercenaries.
6. Finding science and money CS and getting their quests.
Aim for political philosophy by turn 50, earlier is better, it can be easy with Gorgo or hard with Elizabeth so if you go over a bit like I do it's not the end of the earth.
At political philosophy getting the 50% settler card in and getting those settlers out is key, you may be taking lots of cities at the time but you need more, chopping helps. Naturally with new cities place relevant districts asap but do not build them... push settlers, and one more thing, more settlers.
At around T80-100 once you get the cities you need or most of them, you should be at feudalism 5 charge builders) Swap to workers and chop chop chop. Save most 1 charge builders until you have pyramids.
You need a city for Big Ben, a city for pyramids, a city for coliseum possibly, great Zimbabwe possibly and Eiffel possibly...and a city with lots of chop (at least 15) for your spaceport. Chopping in those districts and buildings and getting science projects going and pushing pop into science buildings and money squares helps a lot... you will start finishing techs in 1-3 turns which means your chop value starts to escalate to the point where you hold off until the last minute before chopping bronze and crabs for money and the spaceport. You can place the spaceport and finish it in one turn with enough... chops will be giving near 200 production so a spaceport roughly 10 forest chops, less for stone, more for jungle but save a few chops for your projects.
The most important thing as @civtrader6 said was be flexible, things change but if you do everything roughly correct getting under 200 turns is fine.
Do nI t expect your first attempt to be perfect, it takes a few games to understand how quickly your science snowballs once you start chopping in universities.
remconius
Deity
This is really a great thread. I had a few questions though.
You are talking about A wave of builders, but which cities actually produce these builders. And what is the bill order of the other cities if I understand correctly only three cities build a commercial zone. All the rest build momument campus with library and University. And then? Do they go straight into projects or builders for the rest of the game?
Another question what is the purpose of leaving builders with one charge? And and do use industrial zone buildings to Boost spaceport city productions?
You are talking about A wave of builders, but which cities actually produce these builders. And what is the bill order of the other cities if I understand correctly only three cities build a commercial zone. All the rest build momument campus with library and University. And then? Do they go straight into projects or builders for the rest of the game?
Another question what is the purpose of leaving builders with one charge? And and do use industrial zone buildings to Boost spaceport city productions?
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Building builders to chop them in is faster and cheaper than building them
Building builders and projects, yes.
You can build more CH traders, things that get money which can be quite tight at the end.
You also have to build CS quest stuff
Leaving builders with 1 charge for 2 reasons.
1 is when you get pyramids every existing builder gets an extra charge.
1 is at the end of the game you want to chop things in as late as possible so having a bunch of 1 shot builders in place saves a 6 shot builder 11 turns. I'll have a one shot builder on every crab and bronze to chop it the turn before big bennis built and I will hold off on Big Ben until the turn before I need to buy GP. Every turn you delay chop it gets stronger, including for gold.
Well I used to build an IZ in my spaceport city until some great advice from lily said just chop the spaceport in, this means I do not have to rush to spaceport but instead get more lower techs to help mid game chopping.
Maybe I record GOTM 25 as an example. I am not the best player but get the idea, I just struggle with micromanagement.
Building builders and projects, yes.
You can build more CH traders, things that get money which can be quite tight at the end.
You also have to build CS quest stuff
Leaving builders with 1 charge for 2 reasons.
1 is when you get pyramids every existing builder gets an extra charge.
1 is at the end of the game you want to chop things in as late as possible so having a bunch of 1 shot builders in place saves a 6 shot builder 11 turns. I'll have a one shot builder on every crab and bronze to chop it the turn before big bennis built and I will hold off on Big Ben until the turn before I need to buy GP. Every turn you delay chop it gets stronger, including for gold.
Well I used to build an IZ in my spaceport city until some great advice from lily said just chop the spaceport in, this means I do not have to rush to spaceport but instead get more lower techs to help mid game chopping.
Maybe I record GOTM 25 as an example. I am not the best player but get the idea, I just struggle with micromanagement.
What are the things you consider for settling all of these rather early cities: Do you solely base that on amount of things to chop? Or do you factor in other things like forward settling an AI as much as possible so they don't take the space, etc?
I guess having at least some kind of water access to support the 4 population is worth getting if you have the option?
I guess having at least some kind of water access to support the 4 population is worth getting if you have the option?
civtrader6
Warlord
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@timmeeey86,
for quick science (or any victory) early and fast war is vital. For science victory however, you also need to set up your early culture properly. Lagging on culture early will not allow you to reach Suffrage (Democracy) in time later, will delay feudalism and mercenaries etc.
The general guide there is lower difficulty. For deity, my first adaptation is as follows: in general, open with a builder not a scout. Then settler. Scout only when the capital grows (half the time there's one in a goody hut). I believe @Lily_Lancer does this too. Carefully plan your first city settlement (which often requires moving) - you want a capital that has good production. With this said, some starts are really not suitable for quick victories (or I am not good enough), such as: overall too isolated starts or starts where there is neither enough food nor production around the capital.
As for the army building, the trick is to keep your warrior close and delay building your first army until: you capital has grown enough, you have hit the eureka's (e.g. in a regular game - craftmanship) and are able to slot in Agoge. At this point, in general, a reasonable capital will be able to churn out a sligner every 3 turns (sometimes 4), and a good capital will do it in 2-3 turns. Its also important to adapt, so for example sometimes (you either hit a builder in a good-hut (after the patch)) or make another one, or steal one etc, and bring him to chop your army. In general, delaying your army also means barbs will come to give you the archery boost. This approach means that you can build a sizeable full army in 10-15 turns.
Very rarely, if ever will I attack with slingers. But may have slingers trailing the few archers/warriors and waiting for their turn to upgrade.
Turn 30ish attacks are possible with a reasonable production capital with the help of either a scientific or cultural city state boost and usually a city state neighbour nearby. Otherwise 30-40 is more reasonable.
Turn 55 is however very slow - and most likely you need to work on better opening moves. Maybe try some of the great GoTM maps as they are really good.
civtrader6
Warlord
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Not that I know. Sadly, in my opinion, even the most well known civ6 singleplayer streamers either play a game that is usually not optimal and some even keep making the worst moves possible (but have a large following ?). Charisma I guess.
remconius
Deity
Thanks for the answers.
I had a go at it yesterday, but unfortunately did not manage before turn 200. Standard speed, small continents map, Emperor. This is how it went:
-> I was in the corner of a continent with Poland and Australia approx 15+ tiles away. I rushed them with War-karts->knights, leaving them both with 1-2 cities by turn 100. Capturing petra etc.
-> I got the pantheon for 1st district production bonus. Unfortunately Poland just produced a prophet and founded a religion as I was steam rolling them.
-> In the meantime I settled approx. 8-10 cities myself giving me 20 cities.
-> There was one commercial and one science city state.
-> I built the colosseum, but had more than enough amenities.
-> I had 5-6 commercial zones and campuses everywhere with lib/uni running projects and building builders chopping like mad. All trade routes went to commercial CS.
-> I was a little slow on culture and did not make it to democracy
-> I was producing Great scientists every few turns. I delayed big ben till turn 190 or so when I had 18K (even with 4 copper/crabs at 400+) doubling it to 36K gold, which then allowed me to buy two GS, but only got the rainforest and artefact ones. I did get the 11 GS before that, but not the key ones yet that were up next.
-> My capital was strong with 3 rainforest bananas (3F,2P, 2G) but had more rainforest than woods and only 4-5 hills. Production 40 orso at the end.
-> I started spaceport by turn 140. Took me 35 turns to build the spaceport and chopping rainforest only scraped off 1-2 turns each. I had little to chop left for other projects. I was at turn 195 and still had to start on the mars projects.
My own take-aways were:
-> Settle 5-6 more cities in the open space between me and Poland before going into district development.
-> Develop production of the capital more and save woods till end game. Get a start for a capital with 10+ woods.
-> Focus more on getting a religion from capture of holy site to get papal primacy and Jesuit education.
-> Build/chop the pyramids.
But I am not sure what is the key factor that makes a step-change in finish time.
I would love some pointers / watch-outs for my next attempt.
I had a go at it yesterday, but unfortunately did not manage before turn 200. Standard speed, small continents map, Emperor. This is how it went:
-> I was in the corner of a continent with Poland and Australia approx 15+ tiles away. I rushed them with War-karts->knights, leaving them both with 1-2 cities by turn 100. Capturing petra etc.
-> I got the pantheon for 1st district production bonus. Unfortunately Poland just produced a prophet and founded a religion as I was steam rolling them.
-> In the meantime I settled approx. 8-10 cities myself giving me 20 cities.
-> There was one commercial and one science city state.
-> I built the colosseum, but had more than enough amenities.
-> I had 5-6 commercial zones and campuses everywhere with lib/uni running projects and building builders chopping like mad. All trade routes went to commercial CS.
-> I was a little slow on culture and did not make it to democracy
-> I was producing Great scientists every few turns. I delayed big ben till turn 190 or so when I had 18K (even with 4 copper/crabs at 400+) doubling it to 36K gold, which then allowed me to buy two GS, but only got the rainforest and artefact ones. I did get the 11 GS before that, but not the key ones yet that were up next.
-> My capital was strong with 3 rainforest bananas (3F,2P, 2G) but had more rainforest than woods and only 4-5 hills. Production 40 orso at the end.
-> I started spaceport by turn 140. Took me 35 turns to build the spaceport and chopping rainforest only scraped off 1-2 turns each. I had little to chop left for other projects. I was at turn 195 and still had to start on the mars projects.
My own take-aways were:
-> Settle 5-6 more cities in the open space between me and Poland before going into district development.
-> Develop production of the capital more and save woods till end game. Get a start for a capital with 10+ woods.
-> Focus more on getting a religion from capture of holy site to get papal primacy and Jesuit education.
-> Build/chop the pyramids.
But I am not sure what is the key factor that makes a step-change in finish time.
I would love some pointers / watch-outs for my next attempt.
