[GS] SV Discussion for Gathering Storm

[Stamson]

What things have changed from R&F to GS when it comes to SV?

What tech tree path is optimal?

What civic tree path is optimal?

Which districts to focus on?

Are there any must have great people or wonders like they've have been previously? (ie. Big Ben)

 

[100games100days]

Can you speed up the Exoplanet Expedition at all? That's a new addition to the Science Victory. It takes 50 'light years' which is 50 turns. Seems too long.

Edit: There are 2 projects you can run after researching the Offworld Mission tech in the Future era that help speed it along. Unfortunately in my game it was the 2nd last tech I researched. Not sure if there's anything else that helps speed it up?

 

[Boyan_Sun]

Not much has changed from RF, just a little slower, refer to this post https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-quick-sv-share-your-view.628174/
We already have several peaceful SV (NO PILLAGE because that's too OP), one is even before T150. 50 ly can be completed in 5 turns - basically two space centers (Purchased by Gold and Faith), one for Magnus and one for Pingala. When tech
OFFWORLD MISSION finished, chop that 5-electricity project 5~6 times in both cities, and wait for 4~5 turns. No must GPs or wonders, just better to have them: Newton, Pyramids, Colosseum, Forbidden City, Polar Station. Oxford(only for 2 free techs).
The most lucky item is the shape of the future tech tree. A good shape only requires 2~3 additional techs to get OFFWORLD MISSION.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

So far the best record in Chinese forums: T134 peaceful SV WITHOUT PILLAGE. As overflow fixed, Qin may be one of the best leaders for easily getting some key wonders like Pyramids.

Spoiler :

 

[Sklez]

Thats truly amazing. I just got a turn 195 Peaceful (bar some late game defensive war) with Hungary and I can't imagine how you could shave 60 turns from that. I was even cheating with a city state walls mod! To be fair it was must first time through to the end of a game with the expansion and I can definitely see how two spaceports would speed things up.

@Boyan_Sun Could you elaborate on the general strategy? Here's a summary of what I did.

• All standard setting, level 2 disasters, Pangaea
  
• Goddess of the Harvest
• 3 straight Monumentality Golden Ages.
• 14 Cities by turn 100
• Wonders: Pyramids, Colosseum, Kilwa, Potala, Forbidden City, St Basils, Oxford, Big Ben, Amundsen-Scott.
• Abuse Raven King levying to be Suzerain of all 12 city states.

Things that slowed me down

• No Political Philosopy Inspiration as 10/12 city states were on other side of continent. Had it the civic T49 I believe.
  
• Unfamiliarity with the late game, I would have 2 Industrial zone power hubs with spaceports as you said. How do you buy a district with faith?
• How annoying it is to trade for gold with the AI. I definitely could have got some more gold but couldnt be bothered.

If I could get a better understanding of the strategy Id really love to do a video showcasing it.

Heres the data for my game if you have any tips. I have a few other saves if it helps.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

This record is by an experienced player who had managed to achieve SV before Christ in R&F. There's a lot of luck here, but the key idea is to follow the same pattern of moonlanding-globalization that I mentioned in that thread.
Besides, he uses some thoughts in OCC like Oracle + Pingala to generate writer points, with Babylon it generate huge science. And TURN OFF CULTURE VICTORY or you will win CV first.
This is not the first time to play a map. He made detailed planning for the location of cities and districts before playing. Tech tree shape is really good, only need 62 tech to get OFFWORLD MISSION.
Others are the same as yours: Harvest + Monumentality; Ensure at least 2 science and 2 culture CS alive (include Babylon and Antananarivo); Mass theaters, campuses and CHs; Control populations at 10 to avoid any waste; Each turn check AI's cash to trade.
Some different: no need to build Potala & St Basils, Bolshoi is the better choice (yes, only for 2 free civics); Not really need IZ in this fast actually(only for GPs from Oracle city), though he built 3.

How do you buy a district with faith?

In GS the religion governor has new promotion to purchase districts with faith.

 

[Sklez]

Thanks very much! I see that the time you are mentioning comes from absolutely optimising a known map, rather than on a completely blind map. It makes me feel a bit better. I have a few more questions before trying for a blind sub T180:

1. How to deal with aggressive AI toward city states without walls mod? AI are killing multiple city states before turn 20 and theres absolutely no chance yet to get any blocking units. It would be easy enough, for example with Hungary to liberate the city states but is that allowed in a peaceful strategy?
   
2. Are there any inspirations or eurekas that should not be bothered with? For example is it recommended to get Advanced Flight (3 Biplanes) or Advanced Ballistics (2 Oil Plants)?
   
3. Is the bug/feature where science and culture overflow are removed with inspirations and eurakas fixed? Im pretty sure it didnt happen in my last game.
4. New chop overflow mechanics: From what I read by you in another thread, I gather it is best to chop out things boosted by policy cards at the start of production, rather than the end, so as not to waste production. So for example you want to chop settlers with Colonization with more turns left than it would take to complete.

Thanks again for bringing us strategies created by Chinese speaking players.

 

[kb27787]

Quite surprised that the fast SVs I see farms everywhere... I would have thought it would be something like alcazar spam with Eiffel Tower strategy...

 

[Boyan_Sun]

How to deal with aggressive AI toward city states without walls mod? AI are killing multiple city states before turn 20 and theres absolutely no chance yet to get any blocking units. It would be easy enough, for example with Hungary to liberate the city states but is that allowed in a peaceful strategy?

No good method, depends on luck very much. Try your best to get 8~9 armies early to defend & block AI.

Are there any inspirations or eurekas that should not be bothered with? For example is it recommended to get Advanced Flight (3 Biplanes) or Advanced Ballistics (2 Oil Plants)?

Late game is through high cost - low cost loop cycles on tech tree to ensure 1 tech per turn. Most late eurekas cannot be triggered as you said, because the science per turn is already enough.

Is the bug/feature where science and culture overflow are removed with inspirations and eurakas fixed? Im pretty sure it didnt happen in my last game.

Only Eureka and Inspiration were fixed. Pillage or great scientists that directly generate science points still clear overflow.

New chop overflow mechanics: From what I read by you in another thread, I gather it is best to chop out things boosted by policy cards at the start of production, rather than the end, so as not to waste production. So for example you want to chop settlers with Colonization with more turns left than it would take to complete.

Yes it will slow down the early expansion.

Quite surprised that the fast SVs I see farms everywhere

This is a proved, efficient peaceful SV strategy after R&F. After all, getting the population to 10 is not very easy, many cities have to rely on triangular farms. Eiffel Tower was too late and too expensive to be practical after R&F, it was just a famous Vanilla's strategy for warmongers, already out of date just like the Great Zimbabwe strategy.

If you don't mind reading Chinese (or translate page), you can refer to the original post of the author: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6042225010

 

[Rancio]

With the culture route, what are the key civics/research? Rush TS, Campus, GP, CH in that order? Key wonders Pyramids, Colosseum, Forbidden City, Polar Station? China is now the strongest culture+science civ atleast peaceful?

Google translation from chinese is pretty bad and I don't undestand chinese

 

[Victoria]

Yes you need 10 pop for rationalism.
Things have changed a lot since vanilla

 

[Rancio]

So place ASAP each mandatory district (GP in a city with enough chops for later, Campus and Theater in every city) and don't finish them except for the first of each?

Expand as much as possible and overflow military units to achieve the mandatory wonders (Pyramids, Coliseum?, Oracle?) 10 cities is a good number by turn 100 or so? Is worth choping settlers with policy and Magnus with second promotion?

If I'm correct after enough expansion is time to finish every Theater Square and upgrade it for the GW slots or is better to just go the CV route and finish Theaters ASAP with Apadama, Oracle and Pingala to pump up the culture per turn and sell any excess GW for tons of cash rushing to Globalization and Satellites protecting every science/culture CS near you in the process?

PS: Doing this I managed to win SV in 257 turns, still slow did many errors, was with China, no desert tile for Pyramid and very slow start 9 cities at T120 with low culture/science per turn even with my lucky T7 relic at T100 was 12 spt and 18 cpt, Oracle in capital, forgot Coliseum, did at T180, and my Oracle was to slow forgot to use builder charges on it, only one CS near, atleast science.

 

[Laurencius]

Expand as much as possible and overflow military units to achieve the mandatory wonders (Pyramids, Coliseum?, Oracle?) 10 cities is a good number by turn 100 or so? Is worth choping settlers with policy and Magnus with second promotion?

What does it mean to overflow military units for wonders?

 

[Browd]

Presumably he meant abusing the policy cards that provide bonus production for military units to generate overflow that can be used to quickly bang out wonders. Should no longer be a "thing" with the patch that accompanied the GS expansion.

From the patch notes (under the "Exploits" heading): "Correct production overflow calculation so multipliers (like policy cards) get backed out of overflow."

 

[Furycrab]

So far the best record in Chinese forums: T134 peaceful SV WITHOUT PILLAGE. As overflow fixed, Qin may be one of the best leaders for easily getting some key wonders like Pyramids.

Spoiler :

View attachment 518400

There like video of him doing this? I'm just curious what the hell he abused and what can I learn from it that I'm willing to incorporate into regular play.

 

[hatman5700]

+1 interest @Boyan for any video of this, if it exists.

Last year your helped point me to videos of the Chinese players executing the fast SV peaceful victory with Australia, and it really helped me learn the inner-workings of the game. I realized some of the amazing luck of starting location but also still really good decision making down to the exact turn (i.e. moving Magnus & Liang in a very well-thought out way to ensure that builders always pop with a +1 and that Magnus is already in the right spot at the right time, and then 4-5 builders instantly chop and then magnus is moved again almost instantly).

At that time overflow was a huge part, but also noticed the detailed level at which trades would occur with AI to get exactly enough gold to purchase settlers.

TLDR was a lot of good information I gained only by watching, and would definitely be interested if there is any video similar for games in GS era.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

The modifications of GS are too late to take effect, so its core thinking is nearly as the same as RF if you want to win faster (Just a temporary view).
GS was just released so only a little videos I can find. For reasons that we known, all videos I can provide are in Chinese.
1. Rogue_Star: https://space.bilibili.com/43737610/video, thinking for long time and got better results, like T97 Domination, T149 SV peacefully.
2. Jilin_Jiege: https://space.bilibili.com/76971046/video, he claims that "one deity game one day", playing very fast and rarely S/L.

There are more reports in text (of course in Chinese too)
T134 peaceful SV: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6042225010, this post contains the most thoughts for fastest SV, also the fastest record I know.
T83 peaceful CV: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6042607517, (later Copper_47 win CV on the same map in T69)
OCC T231 SV: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6054416353
OCC T247 Diplomatic victory: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6055651821

 

[Laurencius]

This is my punishment for building the oracle during my SV attempt. I should have focused on more settlers. Notice the location of Kyoto and the extreme forward settling of a single Japanese city that messed up 3 settling spots for me.

 

[Victoria]

Late game is through high cost - low cost loop cycles on tech tree to ensure 1 tech per turn.

sometimes we miss the simplest of tricks.

 

[greenblade]

Someone (@Boyan_Sun) should invite Rogue_Star to share his knowledge and tips on this forum. He shares a lot through video & articles on Chinese forums.

I've watched some of his live broadcasts lately. To be honest, achieve those records is quite painful. It involves a lot of micro-management and save/loading, in addition to exceptional maps. But their understanding of game mechanics is deep and their strategy and tricks are smart and ingenious. And it's not just Rogue_Star, who specializes in SV. There are a group of top players there. @Wandering_Dandelion is the expert on Domination Victory. Many can push Emperor Qin's ability to beyond my imagination. It would help this community a lot if they can communicate more here.