Turn 10 Modern Science Victory

[NoCure]

After seeing an online discussion of the fastest Modern Victory with the current patches, I decided to give the following challenge a try:
Deity difficulty, normal speed, 10 turn warning.
All defaults in place except for Catastrophic disasters.
Goal was to pick up 12 legacy points for both Antiquity and Exploration, and then win the Modern as fast as possible, which I figured would be a Science Victory (I'm not sure this was correct).

I chose Ashoka WR and the Maya for Antiquity. I had to reroll my start quite a few times, but eventually got a winner. I scraped through Antiquity with all of my goals intact, barely eking out the 12 Legacy paths. I did manage to move into Exploration with 7 cities with the Mayan UQ, and 4 commanders, which was my strategic goal.
For Exploration, I chose Bulgaria, and basically went crazy. I built up massive armies, took over my home continent, settled the outlying islands, and invaded the other major continent. I used pillaging to pump production, cranking out troops and settlers, and to pump up town growth as well. I went way over the settlement cap (115/16) but was gloriously happy thanks to gold and other Empire bonuses, as well as Ashoka WR's natural happiness. At the end of the era, I converted almost all of my towns into cities and pillaged to use production to coat the land with monasteries. This took a VERY long time and, in general, made me loath to repeat this challenge.
In Modern, I took Meiji Japan for the Science on overbuilding, and used that as well as a few pillaging spikes to race through the tech tree. I managed to get Factories up around turn 3, but didn't bank enough production for the final project, so had to wait around until turn 10 before launching. I probably could have managed a turn 8 or 7 victory if I'd been smart about it, but, I wasn't. Modern didn't take too long, but it still was a bit of a slog.

Things I learned/should have done differently:
My Antiquity was actually pretty solid. It set me up well for Exploration and I managed to get key wonders and build enough Mayan UQs
Bulgaria is beyond busted. If I'd planned better, I could have taken over the whole globe. However, it's really painful - tons of micromanagement when you have that many armies, cities and towns. I didn't build enough settlers or troops, and it still was painful. I also made the mistake of tearing through the Science tree - when I should have been delaying science and culture to avoid picking up future techs and advancing the age. However, this took a very long time (in real time. The actual Age was quite short because of Future Techs/Civics. This was despite the fact that I didn't build temples to slot any relics past the first 5 (until the end of the Era), and held off on cashing out my treasure fleets until the last few turns.
Send commanders in pairs to loot and take cities. You can split up for towns, but cities with walls take time, and it is easy to get bottled up at chokepoints.
Build a lot of quarters in the Exploration Age in your cities with the Mayan UQ, so you have something to build over
If you are going for a Modern Victory speedrun with anyone, including the Maya, have your biggest production city bank production. The final projects take a while if you don't manage this right.
I still think that Science Victory can be the fastest, but I'm not sure I really nailed it this time.

Thoughts?

 

[uppi]

I still think that Science Victory can be the fastest, but I'm not sure I really nailed it this time.

I think an Ottoman siege train military victory could be faster (in turns, certainly not in playtime). Same basic strategy, but use the production to pump out a huge artillery army and enough culture to get siege train on turn 2 or 3. Then conquer 20 settlements in a turn or two and then pump out the projects with Mayan help.

Though I am not sure whether anyone has tried this or whether anyone is insane enough to try it.

 

[UWHabs]

I think an Ottoman siege train military victory could be faster (in turns, certainly not in playtime). Same basic strategy, but use the production to pump out a huge artillery army and enough culture to get siege train on turn 2 or 3. Then conquer 20 settlements in a turn or two and then pump out the projects with Mayan help.

Though I am not sure whether anyone has tried this or whether anyone is insane enough to try it.

It's probably fastest from when you get it set up, but you do need to carry enough military to run the world, you need the culture to unlock siege train asap, then do the conquering, and then have the science or production to get the projects.

Turn 10 is still insanely fast, I think it would be very hard to get that much faster. Another fast option would be Baroque Fred needing to capture 15 settlements asap, although he would also struggle to have slots for them assuming that you're not buying 15 museums on turn 1.

 

[ValleTomate]

It's probably fastest from when you get it set up, but you do need to carry enough military to run the world, you need the culture to unlock siege train asap, then do the conquering, and then have the science or production to get the projects.

Turn 10 is still insanely fast, I think it would be very hard to get that much faster. Another fast option would be Baroque Fred needing to capture 15 settlements asap, although he would also struggle to have slots for them assuming that you're not buying 15 museums on turn 1.

Nice that you thought of Fred Baroque, I think he could potentially win a Culture Win on turn 3 modern with the right setup. Doing the Bulgaria strat should be doable without Ashoka if the map has enough Coco and by specializing more towns to resort town instead of Minning in modern and you would wanna do it with Melee units instead of cav to use the Ottomans in modern. By getting at least 1 future civic and with enough culture per turn you can potentially have enough culture to instantly finish the museum civic on t1 modern by gaining any amount of culture (for example by pillaging or buying a cav unit with the Explo wonder Erden Zuu build), then you could research the first Ottoman civic, which unlocks siege train, by t2 and capture 15 settlements on the same turn. You'd probably have enough gold saved up to buy 5 museums and display those artifacts in the same turn to unlock the worlds fair. So by researching a tech + civic mastery into t3 you could gain quite a bit production from the NoteG Memento for the world's fair and finish it on t3 by dispersing millitaristic IP's .
Now that's a very idealistic scenario but I think t5-6 should be very doable and faster then a science victory.

 

[incroc]

Have a look at the fast science victory thread, similar strategies posted there.

 

[NoCure]

Nice that you thought of Fred Baroque, I think he could potentially win a Culture Win on turn 3 modern with the right setup. Doing the Bulgaria strat should be doable without Ashoka if the map has enough Coco and by specializing more towns to resort town instead of Minning in modern and you would wanna do it with Melee units instead of cav to use the Ottomans in modern. By getting at least 1 future civic and with enough culture per turn you can potentially have enough culture to instantly finish the museum civic on t1 modern by gaining any amount of culture (for example by pillaging or buying a cav unit with the Explo wonder Erden Zuu build), then you could research the first Ottoman civic, which unlocks siege train, by t2 and capture 15 settlements on the same turn. You'd probably have enough gold saved up to buy 5 museums and display those artifacts in the same turn to unlock the worlds fair. So by researching a tech + civic mastery into t3 you could gain quite a bit production from the NoteG Memento for the world's fair and finish it on t3 by dispersing millitaristic IP's .
Now that's a very idealistic scenario but I think t5-6 should be very doable and faster then a science victory.

I am giving this a try right now!
My plan is Assyria -> Bulgaria -> Mughal. Using Epic speed, catastrophic disasters, otherwise default
Here's the plan:
Antiquity: Assyria is overpowered as it is, will grab Himiko's memento that gives extra culture at the cost of science (this pairs amazingly well with the free techs you get from Assyria) and Sword of Brennus. Basically, the plan is to grab and sell back many settlements from the AI, getting techs, codices and money as I go. Key things are to pick up a fair number of cities and use Golden Age to keep them, and to get some needed wonders, like Theodoric
Exploration: Bulgaria, with Himiko's memento again along with Chalcedony Seal. Take over the world with my commanders and army, spawned by pillaging. Settle way over cap, and use pillaging to pump the population of all my towns. Then, finally, convert them all to cities and spam Stone Heads for massive culture production.
In my last playthrough, I found that creating very small (1-3 tile) towns was very useful. These would lie in between major cities, and, once they took over a few tiles, would rapidly pump out migrants to supply the cities. I'm way over cap anyway, so there is no downside to these tiny towns. I would also either convert them and pillage-build, or just plain buy, two culture buildings in each of these towns. On the last turn of the era, I would give them all away in a peace deal.
Modern: Mughal, with Himiko's memento along with Chalcedony Seal. All those tiny towns, with two culture buildings? Time to pillage them and take them over, getting me culture and an artifact. With 6-7 commanders and 15 such towns, I think I could take them all over by turn 3, netting me 15 artifacts. I would have 5 cities, all building museums, to slot the 15 artifacts, and then use the Mughal tree to buy the World's Fair wonder on turn 3-4. Because my culture production is so high, I can use pillaging culture buildings to trigger more than one culture tech per turn.

How it's going:
Antiquity: I've finally gotten a decent start, and have three cities up and running, along with two commanders. I've taken over one enemy capital, which I generally like to avoid doing, but the location was too good to pass up. I have 3 wonders, and should manage to pick up 7, hopefully including Theodoric. My focus over the rest of the Era is going to be finishing the 7 wonders, building up commanders (it's very helpful to have as many as possible on level 3 or higher before exploration), and getting free techs.
It's not as easy to use Frederick as I'd thought - I'm used to Himiko HS for Assyria/Brennus/Himiko's memento, which is, I believe, the most overpowered Antiquity setup possible. Frederick's free infantry is ok, but the extra codices are just sitting around.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Please double check the requirements for the World's Fair. I had a recent game (granted, a couple patches ago) where I got to 15 artifacts but had not yet discovered Hegemony. I couldn't start building the WF. If learning the Hegemony civic is in fact a hard requirement, that would make ultra-fast Cultural Victories harder to achieve. Perhaps I did something else wrong that game ...

 

[ValleTomate]

I am giving this a try right now!
My plan is Assyria -> Bulgaria -> Mughal. Using Epic speed, catastrophic disasters, otherwise default
Here's the plan:
Antiquity: Assyria is overpowered as it is, will grab Himiko's memento that gives extra culture at the cost of science (this pairs amazingly well with the free techs you get from Assyria) and Sword of Brennus. Basically, the plan is to grab and sell back many settlements from the AI, getting techs, codices and money as I go. Key things are to pick up a fair number of cities and use Golden Age to keep them, and to get some needed wonders, like Theodoric
Exploration: Bulgaria, with Himiko's memento again along with Chalcedony Seal. Take over the world with my commanders and army, spawned by pillaging. Settle way over cap, and use pillaging to pump the population of all my towns. Then, finally, convert them all to cities and spam Stone Heads for massive culture production.
In my last playthrough, I found that creating very small (1-3 tile) towns was very useful. These would lie in between major cities, and, once they took over a few tiles, would rapidly pump out migrants to supply the cities. I'm way over cap anyway, so there is no downside to these tiny towns. I would also either convert them and pillage-build, or just plain buy, two culture buildings in each of these towns. On the last turn of the era, I would give them all away in a peace deal.
Modern: Mughal, with Himiko's memento along with Chalcedony Seal. All those tiny towns, with two culture buildings? Time to pillage them and take them over, getting me culture and an artifact. With 6-7 commanders and 15 such towns, I think I could take them all over by turn 3, netting me 15 artifacts. I would have 5 cities, all building museums, to slot the 15 artifacts, and then use the Mughal tree to buy the World's Fair wonder on turn 3-4. Because my culture production is so high, I can use pillaging culture buildings to trigger more than one culture tech per turn.

How it's going:
Antiquity: I've finally gotten a decent start, and have three cities up and running, along with two commanders. I've taken over one enemy capital, which I generally like to avoid doing, but the location was too good to pass up. I have 3 wonders, and should manage to pick up 7, hopefully including Theodoric. My focus over the rest of the Era is going to be finishing the 7 wonders, building up commanders (it's very helpful to have as many as possible on level 3 or higher before exploration), and getting free techs.
It's not as easy to use Frederick as I'd thought - I'm used to Himiko HS for Assyria/Brennus/Himiko's memento, which is, I believe, the most overpowered Antiquity setup possible. Frederick's free infantry is ok, but the extra codices are just sitting around.

That's such a good idea, I was so used to gifting cities to ai's from civ6 but hadn't come up with a good use for it in 7. Using it with Fritz Barock is perfect, I am just wondering whether using Mughal's to buy the worlds fair is actually faster then just building it with Note G and instead using Buganda/Meji for more culture/science to proc those masteries.

Your idea of gifting small settlements to the ai might also be usefull for Bulgaria science Games, if you buy every Antiquity and Explo prod warehouse building in a settlement, it should pillage for around 2k science (and culture) as Buganda in modern and I think you can easily get like 20 of those settlements set up. Pillaging it all might seem difficult but since you are Bulgaria before it should actually be quite easy to get endless cav and like 6-10 Commanders with at least Maneuver and the + 50% pillage promo. It's completely theoretical but I'd guess that it might be able to end modern sup t10 and be pretty consistent.


Just for fun, the pillage ''math'': I believe with all pillage buffs, apart from the +25% card in facism you should be able to pillage buildings for 900% of their base pillage yield since almost all buffs work multiplicativly with each other except for two +50% buffs that seem to work additivly ( I suspect it's the +50% form Buganda Commander and the +50% promo since they are from the same 'source' ), so that's 1 (base yield) * 2 (theodoric) * 1.5 (Strategems) * (1 + 0.5 + 0.5) (Buganda Commander + Logistics pillage promo) * 1.5 ( Buganda civic that gives + 50%) = 9 , an Antiquity building gives a base yield of 40 an Explo building 80, each of which you have 2 production ones available so the total science you could pillage from one settlement with that setup would be 2 * 9 * (40 + 80) = 2260. In theory you could turn a settlement into a urban town and also buy non warehouse prod and science buildings, however it would just be more efficent to buy more warehouse buildings in other towns and/or building those buildings in a few cities with Bulgarias prod and then gift away and pillage them too, which I'd do with at least one city to get a few extra culture pillages, in order to rush the 50% pillage yield civic in Bugandas tree on t1 before pillaging anything that gives science.

 

[NoCure]

That's such a good idea, I was so used to gifting cities to ai's from civ6 but hadn't come up with a good use for it in 7. Using it with Fritz Barock is perfect, I am just wondering whether using Mughal's to buy the worlds fair is actually faster then just building it with Note G and instead using Buganda/Meji for more culture/science to proc those masteries.

Your idea of gifting small settlements to the ai might also be usefull for Bulgaria science Games, if you buy every Antiquity and Explo prod warehouse building in a settlement, it should pillage for around 2k science (and culture) as Buganda in modern and I think you can easily get like 20 of those settlements set up. Pillaging it all might seem difficult but since you are Bulgaria before it should actually be quite easy to get endless cav and like 6-10 Commanders with at least Maneuver and the + 50% pillage promo. It's completely theoretical but I'd guess that it might be able to end modern sup t10 and be pretty consistent.


Just for fun, the pillage ''math'': I believe with all pillage buffs, apart from the +25% card in facism you should be able to pillage buildings for 900% of their base pillage yield since almost all buffs work multiplicativly with each other except for two +50% buffs that seem to work additivly ( I suspect it's the +50% form Buganda Commander and the +50% promo since they are from the same 'source' ), so that's 1 (base yield) * 2 (theodoric) * 1.5 (Strategems) * (1 + 0.5 + 0.5) (Buganda Commander + Logistics pillage promo) * 1.5 ( Buganda civic that gives + 50%) = 9 , an Antiquity building gives a base yield of 40 an Explo building 80, each of which you have 2 production ones available so the total science you could pillage from one settlement with that setup would be 2 * 9 * (40 + 80) = 2260. In theory you could turn a settlement into a urban town and also buy non warehouse prod and science buildings, however it would just be more efficent to buy more warehouse buildings in other towns and/or building those buildings in a few cities with Bulgarias prod and then gift away and pillage them too, which I'd do with at least one city to get a few extra culture pillages, in order to rush the 50% pillage yield civic in Bugandas tree on t1 before pillaging anything that gives science.

Yeah, I hadn't tried to use these tiny "pump" cities before, and didn't give them away to another civ at the end of Exploration on my Science Victory game. I think if you do that, starting Maya -> Bulgaria -> Buganda, you can get a shockingly early victory. Not sure who I would use - maybe Augustus, Himiko HS (science malus but amazing Antiquity game), Xerxes Achmeneid, Pachacuti? In retrospect, Meiji Japan just isn't that great for triggering extra tech breakthroughs - the game doesn't seem to count overbuilding due to buying.
I may try again later, but the micromanagement on my last effort was a beast. Turns would last 15 minutes in Exploration, and the last 10 turns of the Age were even longer.

 

[ValleTomate]

In retrospect, Meiji Japan just isn't that great for triggering extra tech breakthroughs - the game doesn't seem to count overbuilding due to buying.

Oh no, Japans science from overbuilding 100% works with buying buildings

 

[ValleTomate]

Yeah, I hadn't tried to use these tiny "pump" cities before, and didn't give them away to another civ at the end of Exploration on my Science Victory game. I think if you do that, starting Maya -> Bulgaria -> Buganda, you can get a shockingly early victory. Not sure who I would use - maybe Augustus, Himiko HS (science malus but amazing Antiquity game), Xerxes Achmeneid, Pachacuti? In retrospect, Meiji Japan just isn't that great for triggering extra tech breakthroughs - the game doesn't seem to count overbuilding due to buying.
I may try again later, but the micromanagement on my last effort was a beast. Turns would last 15 minutes in Exploration, and the last 10 turns of the Age were even longer.

It depends a bit, if you mean to minimize just the turns in Modern, then I'd agree that maya is probably best just for that extra bit of prod, however Note G is probably enough anyway. If you wanna minimize the amount of turns in the entire playthrough, then I don't think any civ can compete with Egypt, the prod and tempo is just too insane in Antiquity and once you're in Exploration it's kind of irrelevant which civ you were before, Bulgaria just does everything.

For Leaders I've only done Ashoka with Bulgaria so far, while you don't need their hapiness to stay content, it's still relevent for constant golden ages, but I think Laffayet and Napoleon Rev would be decent alternatives to help with early culture and war bonuses since how well the Explorations goes mostly seems to depend on how fast you can pillage the entire map.

 

[NoCure]

Oh no, Japans science from overbuilding 100% works with buying buildings

It seemed highly variable to me - I had zero turn techs being researched and buying a new building over an old one did not get me a new tech. But maybe the building was being built on the empty half of a tile with only one building - I tried to check on these but wasn't 100%

 

[ValleTomate]

It seemed highly variable to me - I had zero turn techs being researched and buying a new building over an old one did not get me a new tech. But maybe the building was being built on the empty half of a tile with only one building - I tried to check on these but wasn't 100%

yes it only works if there are two buildings already on a tile or if what you are building takes 2 slots like a railroadstation, I've played a few Meji games and it never didn't work for me as long as I Overbuild something