t127 science write up GS/deity/standard

[EscapedGoat]

You keep pushing the boundaries here with turn 127, nice seems like Magnus in cap is the superior start, but it pains me to lose out on the sweet early Pingala culture bonus, guess I have to adjust my thinking a bit there. I guess if your second city has decent growth you put him there? how many promos do you give Magnus? By the way, how did you get a turn 40 PP without Pingala/culture as first governor? Your feudalism is also very early. Is this all nan-madol bonus culture or what?

 

[KKirrin]

Yeah I was pretty happy with that one! This game I actually used Magnus and ping with ping establishing early and Magnus swapping in as the first settler was 5 turns from coming out. I had a lot of gov titles early so I figured I’d squeeze in a bit with ping anyway as Magnus doesn’t really do anything until that first settler pops anyway. Magnus got the first two then eventually got the 20% growth one too though it’s probably not really needed

I think in an optimal game you just use ping until ancestral hall then send him to a second big city with Magnus sliding into the capital to keep you from wrecking your pop but it’s no big deal to lose ~2 or so with decent food tiles

the growth was just terrible this game and thanks to nan my culture was quite good (capital and first city both with multiple districts on lakes for instant) so I felt Magnus was needed

They both seem super valid though, if I had to pick between the two (prob for non ss games) id prob go ping culture too given normal growth mostly because that extra culture pushes you right to more gov titles so you’ll have Magnus for ancestral hall spam if you want him

 

[greenOak]

Are you able to get pyramids because of the map? In my games pyramids usually goes somewhere between turn 30 and turn 35.

 

[KKirrin]

Yup just luck. I don’t even go for it until the 50s or so, by then you usually know if an ai has desert because if so it’ll already be gone. Not a huge fan of that change tbh but it makes sense, so powerful for so little effort. Playing a “wet” map helps a lot with keeping it around but can still easily go way too early

 

[Minou]

Awesome game! I have not played any of the non-standard modes like Apocalypse myself since I like to at least pretend the game is historical (yeah I know, there were no Tanks driving around in 1000AD...). I take it that each special mode has advantages and disadvantages for different victory types. Interested in how much you think Apocalypse helped or hurt your finish time?

 

[KKirrin]

Thank you! I only used apoc for the first game, I think it’s probably a net negative overall. It’s nice because you end up getting a few strong growth tiles from volcanoes prior to expansion but my population kept getting nuked and having amundsen get delayed by several turns thanks to a blizzard was the last straw. Prob cost me ~5 turns overall if I had to guess?

ss though is pretty wild. Having extra space for great works via monuments is handy but pretty weak compared to how powerful the second promo is (20% faith converts into science/culture/gold). Early titles are strong too but that 20% is just so good when used with Kilwa, Geneva and anta. I’d guess using that is shaving 10+, maybe 15

 

[EscapedGoat]

Thanks for the answers to my questions KKirrin, I guess it makes sense to Settler spam in capital as this will net you quite a bit faster expansion (I've been doing pure faith based after the first 2 settlers) and with Magnus and the correct terrrain you can still chop in the wonders you need in between settlers. Maybe I think too statically on Pingala and he can move around a bit also.

Ideally I guess you should get 7 early governor titles: 4 from being invited to all secret societies, 2 from policies, 1 from govt. plaza. First 3 titles should ideally come extremely early (city state, hut, natural wonder) - could get the first title already on turn 1 in principle and 2 more within 5 turns for a cool turn 5 triple promoted Pingala. Putting the 2-3 first ones in Pingala yields tremendous early boosts to culture and science if you are so inclined, and I find it hard to see that investing in Magnus beyond the settler pop thing is worth it (at least early on).

If Magnus is not getting much promotions, his only purpose before chopping in wonders is as you say to save the pop reduction in the capital, I guess it makes sense to start with Pingala then switch them around when starting to chop stuff in capital and hard-building settlers.

 

[KKirrin]

Yeah no worries always happy to answer questions, I love puzzling this stuff out!

you also get an eighth title from ancestral, so my progression usually looks like triple ping > Amani (I’ll get her ASAP if nan is around, sometimes holding a title) > double Magnus > voidslingers and still have a title to burn, so it’s alright if you can’t find a wonder in time or clear a camp, etc.

I def agree it’s worth thinking about moving ping around, often in the early game it costs you like ~15 culture over those 5 turns and you’ve got more titles than things to do with them anyway. At the very least its worth banking 2 promos (1 for Amani and 1 for Void), spending the rest on ping then counting on gov and ancestral for Magnus when you want him anyway. Amani can also just tour for suzerain era points if you’re worried about the first golden age

couple things I still struggle with there though, like Magnus in general. Ie is it worth Magnus chopping settlers from cap instead of wonders as the cost goes up? Imo it kind of depends on the game, apadana plus temple and oracle is really strong and can be chopped in ~6 turns total, but that would probably also be ~3 settlers which would kick start your faith a lot.

I mess with the third or fourth ping promo sometimes too, grants can be really tempting to bring religion on sooner but it feels kinda bad once that’s out if you’re building the gov plaza in capital. Useful again once your third district + oracle hits though, maybe depends on capital growth rate

 

[Palo]

Add Heroes and then see how far you can drop the time. Hercules with 3 free districts every era or Sinbad coming out and giving you 4-6k gold in the classical while also guaranteeing you another golden age with him circling the world, finding wonders, zapping barb camps and ships, and meeting all the civs and most city states. Kimiko gives you 8 envoys to gain suz and/or boat loads of faith, too every era.

 

[ATEX]

I was playing around a bit with an alternative approach to Babylon that requires a good tech tree, so I tried restarting some games, then I saw the post here where someone did the same. Did anyone get results in 30s like this?

 

[KKirrin]

It’s easier to compare if you also select satellites and nano which is 55 techs, otherwise it’s hard to tell because sometimes the future tech era will require those (and obviously you need them anyway) and sometimes it won’t depending on how the tree forms. That’s potentially the best tree though depending on what’s where, can’t say without seeing what else is needed earlier on

 

[ATEX]

It’s easier to compare if you also select satellites and nano which is 55 techs, otherwise it’s hard to tell because sometimes the future tech era will require those (and obviously you need them anyway) and sometimes it won’t depending on how the tree forms. That’s potentially the best tree though depending on what’s where, can’t say without seeing what else is needed earlier on

Guess that is true. (For everyone except Babylon, which is just different!) So this would be a 58 tech tree setup then. I dont like complaining about a game that I get so much fun out of, but I have problems understanding how they think it is a good idea to have such a random effect on how fast your game can be with these tech trees. It just feels not civ... Civ should be more like chess than a dice game in my opinion.

 

[KKirrin]

Yeah true, the earlier reqs don’t really matter when you can just hit the eurekas. Probably be nice to not have to hit electricity and so on if you can avoid it but not as damaging to your win time if you prepare.

I’ll be surprised if they don’t eventually go sub 130 on standard, the malus is annoying but if 4K+ science is doable in the late 110s on Russia even accounting for ss Babylon should get more than enough science to push something like sea steads>exo>lasers at reasonable speed

100% agree on the future tech era randomness, hands down the thing I dislike most about the science victory. If there was a mod out there that could lock it in place every game I’d use it every single time, so frustrating that only certain games are comparable because of a random roll at the very start. Tbh I’m pretty convinced at this point that if you’re rerolling for a quick science win both your start and the city states in game will matter less than your tech tree which is just sad

 

[Lily_Lancer]

This proves that
1: Having more CSs on the map really accelerates the progress by a lot.
2: Secret society accelerates the game by a lot.
3: Having to research only 58 instead of 78 techs accelerates the progress by a lot.

Do this with heroes like Hercules and your progress will be further accelerated by a lot.

 

[DanQuayle]

I was playing around a bit with an alternative approach to Babylon that requires a good tech tree, so I tried restarting some games, then I saw the post here where someone did the same. Did anyone get results in 30s like this?

Some trick I don't think anyone has mentioned yet:
By using the filter options on the left, you can determine with a 50% probability which tech is the Smart Material one at turn 1.

For example, the tech tree you attached in your post seems good since Offworld Mission only requires Nanotechnology, but what if Smart Material has a prerequisite that requires Robotics and/or Nuclear Fusion?

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Some trick I don't think anyone has mentioned yet:
By using the filter options on the left, you can determine with a 50% probability which tech is the Smart Material one at turn 1.

For example, the tech tree you attached in your post seems good since Offworld Mission only requires Nanotechnology, but what if Smart Material has a prerequisite that requires Robotics and/or Nuclear Fusion?

Thanks. I don't know this before. However this works pretty well, especially for tech & civic shuffle mode. No more guessing!

 

[ATEX]

Some trick I don't think anyone has mentioned yet:
By using the filter options on the left, you can determine with a 50% probability which tech is the Smart Material one at turn 1.

For example, the tech tree you attached in your post seems good since Offworld Mission only requires Nanotechnology, but what if Smart Material has a prerequisite that requires Robotics and/or Nuclear Fusion?

Wow! That is an amazing trick. Thanks for sharing. I dont know if you saw this game posted, but it shows that you can have amazingly fast times even without SS, heroes and other modes. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1M7411a7LL?p=5

 

[KKirrin]

Yeah that game is super interesting, I really wish I could follow it more and figure out exactly what’s going on. Like I can’t tell how the t29 poli Phil happens at all, I’ve only been able to get it in the low 30s with bm teddy and that’s with several culture breathtaking tiles right off the bat and hitting every insp

China in particular is really interesting too, especially how much they’re spamming the Great Wall. if that win is even slightly comparable to the current version of civ we’re playing (I wonder about the trade values and the city state boosts?) then we’re nowhere close to the floor for a science victory, ss/heroes games should be pushing sub 110.

the numbers are similar to my games around t100 (which is wild because I’m getting like 20% of my values from faith) but they’re ramping up much earlier. Makes me wonder how much the growth rate in the tundra is really hurting peter. I’ve been wondering for a while now if someone like Pedro might actually be better with jungle adjacency for that reason, you could get your campuses down much earlier and make up a lot of ground in the early tech tree but maybe the work ethic meta is wrong place to be?

Edit: I think it’s mostly the city states change accounting for the super early pp: I rewatched the really early game and it seems like he’s getting +6 total from 3x science city states and +4 from 2 culture, several huts popping 2x early population, a relic, and a free second scout, lot of envoys after that plus craftsmanship eureka. Build order is scout>settler with holy placed but not built, pantheon is religious settlements. Suz of nan madol on ~t22 bought with envoys from huts, relic flipped to the ai for ~250g and 15/t, mostly used for tile buys and builders

Suz of Kandy on ~t25, saving wonder discoveries for relic spam, t29 poli Phil. After holy site cap goes builder, one city starts a slinger other goes holy site with pyr planned. Pretty explosive early game, especially the science. I’m not sure how you’d fully replicate his numbers now that cs are weaker but I’m super excited to dig in a bit deeper and see what’s going on, would love to see China up at the top for science wins

 

[Minou]

That end tech revealer is great. I absolutely hate playing a potential HOF game and then getting screwed by a end game tech tree that takes 8 extra turns. if we screw up badly on T50 you can start a new game without having wasted much time IRL, but the time I hit the hidden part of the tree I've probably spent 20 hours since I play so slow. I am now tempted to check this before ending the first turn if I am playing for a HOF run (in casual games who cares of course).

 

[KKirrin]

Yeah exactly, I just can’t put that much time in only to dead end thanks to rng, takes all the enjoyment out of the game