Strategy for Science Victory in 140 Turns or less

[Bro]

One trick I learned from the TSE map is that the AI will usually go after a ranged unit. For example if you have 2 cities close to each other, one of your own and one you are about to conquer, you can lure the enemy units towards your own city by moving a ranged unit outside the city center. Then when the AI approaches that ranged unit you will move it back inside the city. Now the AI will go for the units attacking his city and in this point you can again move the ranged unit outside of your own city's center and lure the AI units towards the ranged unit again. Rinse and repeat.

 

[i_imperator]

1. Attack fast, before the AI has Swordmen or walls.
2. You can take a CS out with just a couple of Archers and Warriors, however AI civs usually require a bigger army.
3. Purchase a Battering Ram right away when it is available.
4. Don't be afraid to lose units, just keep building more.
5. Get strategical resources by either trading, settling near them or conquering a city near them.
6. Pillage the enemy strategical resources, a Scout might come handy in here.
7. When the odds are against you, stop the attack and wait for an advantage like getting that Iron, Horses or Knights.
8. Mind the enviroment! It is easier to attack through plains than going through forests, hills and mountain passes.
9. A Great General will come handy.
10. Send Traders to build roads strategically.

Again Thank you very much very good advice, I will try these tips out and practice them a bit. I imagine It will take a bit of experience and practice to get a hang of it.

@civtrader6 what was your policy-path in the Alexander game? I'm currently trying to replicate this but I notice that Military Tradition and the 50% boost to mounted production tends to slow down PP by quite a bit, the earliest I was able to get PP in my current game is T60 and I managed to get Feudalism by T78.

 

[civtrader6]

@civtrader6 what was your policy-path in the Alexander game? I'm currently trying to replicate this but I notice that Military Tradition and the 50% boost to mounted production tends to slow down PP by quite a bit, the earliest I was able to get PP in my current game is T60 and I managed to get Feudalism by T78.[/QUOTE]

Hmm, T60 is definitely too long for PP so you have to speed that up. I remeber there was a gap between Agoge (for slingers/warriors) and Military Tradition - as it took some time to research horses and get all the relevant boosts. The policy/civics choice was consistent with the detailed strategy I've got in one of the other posts.
Essentially, I'd say you have to speed up culture, normally by:
* making sure early settler is out as soon as possible, and start with a monument in your second city (a must)
* there's a gap between boosting archery and researching horseback riding in which you can squeeze a monument in your capital too
* get all of the early civic boosts (a must). Here, early empire will always come naturally with the above settler out. In the Macedon playthrough, the boost to state workforce (just-in-time) came from capturing a city from Greece with 3 archers and 2 warriors.
If possible also get at least one of the following:
* an envoy in a cultural city state
* find a pillage a quarry

 

[Victoria]

3 archers and 2 warriors

I am more and more finding mass slingers is not the best option and say 3 archers 2 warriors and a scout outclasses 5 archers and a warrior.for speed of taking cities. I suspect archers are just seen as OP "look I can shoot stuff easy" while the reality of difficult terrain can really mess them around.

* an envoy in a cultural city state
* find a pillage a quarry

Getting both of these is what you always want to aim for.... A scout can find Yerevan 25 tiles away from your city, declare war on it, pillage a mine and a quarry and get away no problems. The moment I see a culture CS i am clicking on its quest and changing production to match... if its sensible or only slightly insane to do so.

 

[Victoria]

@chazzycat
So here is a good example from todays game (vic deity standard continents) I spent 2 turns to get on the cocoa because I literally had no prod on the coast. I started on the south riverbank on the coast.... I do not restart
Started with a scout, warrior circled from north, scout went south, found france and sold cocoa to them for standard 6 GPT + 3 for the cocoa in cap square, so an additional +9 gold.
My scout finds gold in a hut as well and scouts out Khmer capital so I have a good idea where I am going.
After my scout I build a warrior because I have 2 close neighbours ... I buy 2 slingers start building a settler and steal a builder(3 charges) to start war with my scout.
My scout is FANTASTIC ... it is now causing the seige while holding off a barb and my few other troops take the city
I'm a little behind in culture but that will soon change as I will have 3 cities fast and one will be on a nicely hilly Killkiminjaro with any luck (depends on France)
My scout found neither 3 CS nor a foreign continent but I needed it for my attack and its just so flexible... its turn 24 so taking a city by turn 25 is prerty good... And I forgot to deal with France for 2 turns.
The game is won or lost on the first 50 turns, you really have to make the most use of what you can and not force culture growth/ builder build or whatever if its going to kill you

Turn 30 I get peace because I missed Killimanjaro and I guess Catherine is going to be cross with me. I will Envoy Kmer as this may help in the short term.. Looks like I'll get Bronze working eureka as a bonus and horses so I will likely get an encampment, captured city has already repaired its culture and I am on 4.6 culture with 2 monuments on the way and craftsmenship eureka will be got this turn. Life is good and certainly not dull. I am where I am because of gold not production so as I have said before... production is king but gold is god.

I now think catherine likely can expand North while Khmer may not be able to expand so will come back to attack me. I'll maybe fight a little war with France for fun then come back to Khmer, I am in no rush, just wanna have fun.

 

[chazzycat]

this is pretty hilarious. I'm sure glad I asked! Thank you

 

[Victoria]

this is pretty hilarious. I'm sure glad I asked! Thank you

Np, but you get the idea... if I went scout builder settler I would have neither anywhere left to expand into nor likely survived... for me the main point I push is scouts are underrated.

 

[The Pilgrim]

...

Thanks, Victoria! This is exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to put these insights in practice, but I will as soon as opportunity presents itself. I am struggling with districts placements and general planning. From what I understand it's better to lock them asap than wait to buy/expand into better adjacency tiles later. Is this always true?
Also, you wrote you aim for 15 trade routes by t100, that means many CD's. Do they take priority over Campuses early? What should be the first district in a new city?

Another question: which eurekas are absolute must and which ones could be skipped easily? Sometimes I find myself delaying Archery because I am waiting for that barb that could be killed by a slinger or Foreign Trades because I am yet to find another continent. I know these slow me down, I just don't have a good feel of when it's okay to let go yet.

Last question (for now): is pangaea or continents are better for fast science victories? I am used to pangaeas - more trading partners and you can delay teching all the naval techs. Not sure about Civ6.

 

[Victoria]

From what I understand it's better to lock them asap than wait to buy/expand into better adjacency tiles later. Is this always true?

If you get a good adjacency ... say +4 you may consider building the campus earlier but waiting for the adjacency, not really. If you can get 3 envoys at 2 science city states earlyish that's +4 in every campus, much more powerful and if you can build those campi quickly then you will get better science faster

Also, you wrote you aim for 15 trade routes by t100,

Wow, when did I write that? Must be a while ago. I have gone off commercial districts. Gold is great but at the expense of science... no. I am definitely a campus person now.

Last question (for now): is pangaea or continents are better for fast science victories? I am used to pangaeas - more trading partners and you can delay teching all the naval techs. Not sure about Civ6.

Pangea are better because you can kill more civs faster and wipe out bad tech civs. Trading partners are not that important for science victories, everyone will start hating you for all the warring. For science victories you needs lots of gold at the end and so you should be sending your trade routes to money city states, they give the best return. Great Zimbabwe is fantastic if you have a good spot as an alternative and chopping crabs and copper, looting tiles, peace deals and the neighbourhood swap card is also good.
You should look through the GOTM games for great science advice but what @civtrader6 wrote at the beginning of this is perfect, he is far more practiced than I.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Wow, when did I write that?

You didn't. I am being a fool. You wrote envoys but I somehow remembered trade routes and never bothered to re-read. Sorry about that. Thanks again. I am way off @civtrader6's timeline. Gotta go practice.

 

[Ozbenno]

If anybody wants to try out these strategies in a (somewhat) competitive environment, the latest Civ VI HOF Gauntlet deals with a Science Victory.

 

[casualplayer]

Great stuff, and very helpful in weaning me off my Tall empire impulses. One addition I might make is to use your first few Slingers, or even your 1-charge-remaining Builder, to handle most of the close scouting while your initial unit goes wandering to find those first 3 City States, World Wonder and conquer target.

 

[myclan]

@chazzycat
So here is a good example from todays game (vic deity standard continents) I spent 2 turns to get on the cocoa because I literally had no prod on the coast. I started on the south riverbank on the coast.... I do not restart
Started with a scout, warrior circled from north, scout went south, found france and sold cocoa to them for standard 6 GPT + 3 for the cocoa in cap square, so an additional +9 gold.
My scout finds gold in a hut as well and scouts out Khmer capital so I have a good idea where I am going.
After my scout I build a warrior because I have 2 close neighbours ... I buy 2 slingers start building a settler and steal a builder(3 charges) to start war with my scout.
My scout is FANTASTIC ... it is now causing the seige while holding off a barb and my few other troops take the city
I'm a little behind in culture but that will soon change as I will have 3 cities fast and one will be on a nicely hilly Killkiminjaro with any luck (depends on France)
My scout found neither 3 CS nor a foreign continent but I needed it for my attack and its just so flexible... its turn 24 so taking a city by turn 25 is prerty good... And I forgot to deal with France for 2 turns.
The game is won or lost on the first 50 turns, you really have to make the most use of what you can and not force culture growth/ builder build or whatever if its going to kill you
View attachment 481082

Turn 30 I get peace because I missed Killimanjaro and I guess Catherine is going to be cross with me. I will Envoy Kmer as this may help in the short term.. Looks like I'll get Bronze working eureka as a bonus and horses so I will likely get an encampment, captured city has already repaired its culture and I am on 4.6 culture with 2 monuments on the way and craftsmenship eureka will be got this turn. Life is good and certainly not dull. I am where I am because of gold not production so as I have said before... production is king but gold is god.
View attachment 481083
View attachment 481084
I now think catherine likely can expand North while Khmer may not be able to expand so will come back to attack me. I'll maybe fight a little war with France for fun then come back to Khmer, I am in no rush, just wanna have fun.

First time to know that even slingers can take a city. Just think they are of no use until upgrading to archers. Maybe they are just not able to deal with units because of short range but cities are ok if forming a siege? Also be surprised that warrior can stand to form a siege. Previously I think only heavy chariots even swordmen are able to do that and it certainly will take a lot of time to get the technology. If I choose to go an early war I will produce 3~4 archers after craftmanship and 2 warrior if there are no resource to mine or 2 heavy chariots if there are any. It seems that in your situation with 1 or even 2 near neighbour (actually I often that situation too) it will be just too slow to start the war.

 

[Victoria]

Also be surprised that warrior can stand to form a siege.

Sure 3 warriors is plenty, especially with a scout. Remember that the AI is kind enough to farm around cities and so attack then heal is a good option. When we say do not forget to pillage around cities, this is one of the things you cannot forget to pillage, even knights and horsemen, its often better to wait a turn before taking a city if it means a lot of your troops get their health back.
Also remember, slingers are at 50% reduced damage so you need to attack more times, more war weariness

 

[Bro]

The cities only have 10 strength in the beginning so a couple of warriors at that point can definitely take out a city. Even a scout can siege the city at that point.

 

[i_imperator]

I'm finding it really hard to do scout>settler> 3 slingers the barbarians are really giving me a hard time on emperor. I am trying my best to get the encampment up asap too.

 

[Victoria]

I'm finding it really hard to do scout>settler> 3 slingers the barbarians are really giving me a hard time on emperor. I am trying my best to get the encampment up asap too

So if you are being attacked by barbs bronze working should be an early eureka and so animal husbandry, mining, bronze working would be a good path and make the encampment cheap if placed immediately (maybe buying a tile to do so.

With regard to the barbs, my warrior goes 1 way, my scout goes another, if barbs start appearing the last thing you want to do is keep building a settler. If I am playing without a coast or mountain range I would be tempted to drop the scout. Warrior settler can also be good. Warriors make great defence... for a start barbs will attack you even if you are entrenched in +6 terrain for +12. The enemy will chase scouts or choose a warrior over water rather than a city, it's learning how they react and deal accordingly... early barb archers are a pain

 

[chazzycat]

what do you smart people think about the new Korean civ?

I'm having a hard time convincing folks in that thread they are going to be ridiculously OP

 

[Lily_Lancer]

what do you smart people think about the new Korean civ?

I'm having a hard time convincing folks in that thread they are going to be ridiculously OP

The civ is ridiculously strong on the current patch. (maybe still second to Aztec, maybe even stronger)

But no one can tell what Rise and Fall itself will be like...

 

[chazzycat]

that's a good point. we shouldn't assume the current strategies will still be ideal with all the changes we don't know about yet.