What is the fastest victory?

[Chaleb]

Specifically for single-player diety play?

My fastest win time so far has been turn 297 on Diety, Continents, Rome, 8 players. I think I could cut down hopefully 40 turns or something if I had a better start location and more room to expand with cities.

So what I'm wondering is, how fast is the Science Victory (the only one I've done so far) in comparison to the Culture and Domination victories on Diety? I've heard some say that Culture vic is faster than science but what does everybody think about this? I also going out on a limb and saying the religious vic will be the slowest since Diety AI is ridiculous with religion, but I dunno maybe it's possible with Arabia?

 

[kampori]

Science is the longest victory. I haven't finished a science victory before T300 yet. Usually around 350. But then I get way too into building late game wonders. I'm a big wonder maniac.

Religious victory is probably the quickest if you get a religion. You can start spamming out missionaries as soon as you have a shrine. On smaller maps it's obviously even faster. Think I won my religious victory on a standard Pangea map on immortal on turn 150-200.

Culture victory also incredibly easy and fast. Many attempts for a science victory have ended up a culture victory around T200-250. Too many wonders, theatre districts and archaeological relics are a killer.

Im not much of a warmonger but I image that would also be next to religion in the quickest victories. If you build a large ancient army, you can just swing them around at any capital in sight. The more promotions and back up troops you get the stronger you'll be until the AI just can't keep up. Current game as Germany- Aztecs settled right up in my face. I got oligarchy government (more troop xp), 2 encampments with barracks, and 20 turns later I'm spamming out archers catapults and spearmen every 2-5 turns, who get promotions every 2-3 actions. I now have an army of 4 catapults (1 being an army due to a great general), all at 5 promotions, 10 archers with 4 promotions each, and 5 spearmen with 4 promotions. I took Aztec capital (not gonna attempt to spell it) in 2 turns, wiped out his horde of 30-40 eagle warriors without a care in the world. Made peace and the very next turn I invaded China. Razed 3 cities and took his capital 5 turns later. Spain is my next neighbour and he's about to go down.

 

[Chaleb]

Please keep this thread diety only please!

And anyway, I feel like you're underrating the science vic. My first science victory on diety I played like you and I won on turn 360-ish. Next game I figured out what I was doing by spamming Commercial Districts/trade routes first, then focusing on Industrial Districts and Factories, and then spamming Campuses, and got my turn count down by like ~70 turns. I have no idea what you're saying when you say "too many wonders and theatre districts and archeological relics are killer", those shouldn't be things you are focusing on when you got for the science vic. Sure, you can build Theatre Squares to boost up your culture, but only after you have all your production, science, and commercial districts down and fully developed. The only wonders you should be building for a science game are Ruhr Valley, Oxford University, Forbidden Palace, and Hanging Gardens. I don't know what to tell you if you're going for a science victory and building other wonders, they're not helping you at all. It's also extremely good in the late game to spam campus research grants to get the great people that can boost/immediately let you build a spaceship part, which shaves turns off immensely.

Diety play also seems very hard for the religious victory, in my experience religions go very quickly. Maybe I'm just being unlucky though and Arabia is always in my games?

 

[kampori]

Sorry but deity isn't hard enough to warrant its own thread. Everything I said I did on immortal or deity

And you really don't need to focus and skip on wonders or districts etc if you don't want to. I already said in my post that I'm a wonder maniac. So obviously I'm gonna build all the ones I can. As said, deity isn't hard enough that I have to focus. Once I've got factories set up and overlapping you can do what you want. The AI is too bad to be able to catch up at this point.

 

[Chaleb]

You're misunderstanding the fundamental point of the thread. We all know beating Diety AI isn't particularly hard. From there, the other "challenge" of playing single-player is "how fast can I win?" and other self-imposed challenges that aren't fundamentally part of the base game. So sure, knowing you're going to win you can spam wonders at the end of the game if you want, but it's not going to help you get your turn count down as much as possible. I've created this thread to see what other people think is the quickest way to win on fairly standard settings (8 players, Continents/Pangaea, Diety).

 

[DanQuayle]

1. Religious victory (if you're not playing against AIs which can get insane faith bonuses and you can found a religion early, warmonger AIs also help)
2. Domination victory (clearing carpets can take some time though)
3. Cultural victory
4. Science victory

Getting the right CS alliances early however is key.

 

[elitetroops]

The only wonders you should be building for a science game are Ruhr Valley, Oxford University, Forbidden Palace, and Hanging Gardens. I don't know what to tell you if you're going for a science victory and building other wonders, they're not helping you at all.

I'm not so sure about Forbidden Palace and I'm also starting to question Ruhr Valley. For some reason Ruhr Valley only seems to give a 20% boost, not 30% as advertised. And unlike all other production bonuses it does not boost production from chops, harvesting resources or the Great People who give production towards Space Projects, which makes it a lot less valuable. Unless you have a spot with tons of mines and quarries it will have a hard time paying back. In my current game I'm mainly building it because I happened to have a Great Engineer to do most of the work and I want the Eureka for Flight. One wonder I do find extremely valuable is the Pyramids. On deity they can go very early, but if you're lucky none of the AI have a desert start and you can grab them later.

 

[Chaleb]

I'm not so sure about Forbidden Palace and I'm also starting to question Ruhr Valley. For some reason Ruhr Valley only seems to give a 20% boost, not 30% as advertised. And unlike all other production bonuses it does not boost production from chops, harvesting resources or the Great People who give production towards Space Projects, which makes it a lot less valuable. Unless you have a spot with tons of mines and quarries it will have a hard time paying back. In my current game I'm mainly building it because I happened to have a Great Engineer to do most of the work and I want the Eureka for Flight. One wonder I do find extremely valuable is the Pyramids. On deity they can go very early, but if you're lucky none of the AI have a desert start and you can grab them later.

I really like Ruhr Valley, because +30% production is really really really good. I don't like Forbidden City too much either but it's effects are pretty solid. Both are great because they're in nice places on the tech tree and can be built in the mid-game after you get your factories and campuses up since there's not too many high-priority things to build at that point.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

1 turn on deity with Rome. 297 is good for a science victory, though. gj.

 

[elitetroops]

I really like Ruhr Valley, because +30% production is really really really good. I don't like Forbidden City too much either but it's effects are pretty solid. Both are great because they're in nice places on the tech tree and can be built in the mid-game after you get your factories and campuses up since there's not too many high-priority things to build at that point.

At least in my game Ruhr Valley was set to 20%. The bonus is shown by the interface as "from modifiers":

Spoiler :

In buildings.xml:
<ModifierId>RUHRVALLEY_ADDPRODUCTIONYIELD</ModifierId>
<Name>Amount</Name>
<Value>20</Value>

I think that's a mistake and it should be 30.

As for the Forbidden City, it does indeed often feel like I would want that extra wild card slot, but I'm still having a hard time justifying it. There are always things to build that seem to pay back better. If you aim for a t200 victory, there really is no mid-game and FC has a very short time to pay back. It's so expensive that you can't really build it before power plants are up, and by then it's already time to build spaceports and spam district projects to get to the Information era Great Scientists.

 

[Esperr]

on a standard map had a t157 domination win, continents. It was a special game though, my start was really good, had nice flat open terrain to my first victim,and nobody was isolated so there were no runaways. Fastest science win is like 313 I think, but just barely got it by sabotaging kongo's spaceport last second.

(OFC playing as germany)

 

[Chaleb]

At least in my game Ruhr Valley was set to 20%. The bonus is shown by the interface as "from modifiers":

Spoiler :

In buildings.xml:
<ModifierId>RUHRVALLEY_ADDPRODUCTIONYIELD</ModifierId>
<Name>Amount</Name>
<Value>20</Value>

I think that's a mistake and it should be 30.

As for the Forbidden City, it does indeed often feel like I would want that extra wild card slot, but I'm still having a hard time justifying it. There are always things to build that seem to pay back better. If you aim for a t200 victory, there really is no mid-game and FC has a very short time to pay back. It's so expensive that you can't really build it before power plants are up, and by then it's already time to build spaceports and spam district projects to get to the Information era Great Scientists.

I don't think t200 is possible for a science victory, unless I'm playing horribly, so don't exaggerate. And I don't know about you, but the science tree has never gone THAT fast for me where I didn't have free time to build less important buildings. And whatever % Ruhr Valley is, it's still a really good production bonus when there's nothing much else to build. In my latest game which I haven't finished yet, I have my capital city with over 140 production after Ruhr and able to crank out Oxford right after that, and after that I was able to go right into power plants and Spaceports.

 

[Esperr]

I don't think t200 is possible for a science victory, unless I'm playing horribly, so don't exaggerate. And I don't know about you, but the science tree has never gone THAT fast for me where I didn't have free time to build less important buildings. And whatever % Ruhr Valley is, it's still a really good production bonus when there's nothing much else to build. In my latest game which I haven't finished yet, I have my capital city with over 140 production after Ruhr and able to crank out Oxford right after that, and after that I was able to go right into power plants and Spaceports.

I second that, i havnt tried to maximum micromanage speed run it yet, but even with nut starts the fastest I could do was 290. I think 250ish might be the limit without any cheese balling.

 

[civplay]

I would think using chinas ability to rush stonehenge might get you in line for a reaaallly fast RV. basically ignore science and culture. Get missions out and go.

 

[God of Kings]

I wrote a guide on beating Deity as quickly as possible: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-beat-deity-difficulty-with-zero-effort.600964/

 

[King Jason]

Religion is definitely the quickest if you know what you're doing. It's like going to war but not all of the civs are playing. If you pick a civ like russia, forget about it; my last Deity win was turn 162 with russia and I only had 3 cities and none of them got above pop 10.

The U.I. tells you which A.I. are closest to founding a religion - So when you found yours and recruit your missionaries you literally just go down that list targeting any A.I. that you have access to that have founded/are closest to founding a religion next.

Spread yours and/or clear their religion from the typically 1 or 2 cities that will have it and they'll never get it back. Plus, it's pretty straightforward exactly how many missionaries you'll need for the task so you can go after multiple targets at once before they can even construct apostles.

 

[Acken]

My fastest with science is in the 260 standard, no exploit. And that was my second game.

Pretty sure someone putting the effort can cut down this number by a lot. And even further if you go with the exploits. Not that interested in pushing it myself though.

 

[civplay]

I would think using chinas ability to rush stonehenge might get you in line for a reaaallly fast RV. basically ignore science and culture. Get missions out and go.

Just did it. Won on turn 84 as china vs pericles (random) on new world duel legendary start. I happened to get a naty by my cap. built a builder then rushed SH. rushed archery. massed archers. he declared war on me and i was able to keep him at bay really easily with 3/4 archers and a warrior. I probably could have won much sooner, but there was a spot was like 4 mountains hiting one tile, so I built a city there thinking i could build an HS, but that was a total fail. Also I mixed in another 2 builders to chop build everything. THere was 2 woods by me.

Tbh, I see no reason why someone couldn't beat deity china SH rush before turn 60. The naty only really helped a little bit, since I need a worker. (I skipped the slinger b/c of early boost) If I wasn't stupid and didn't build a second city, I see no reason why I couldn't get below 60-65 turns. Btw i didn't realize it rounds down. Meaning if you have 2 cities you need both. 3 citites you need 2. 4 cities 3 religious. 5 3. SO don't expand lol. I also wasted a few turns because I didn't know that and ended up converting all of his cities like (5 or 6).

 

[esco_]

this thread is about standard maps tbh... beating duel map doesnt really count here

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Religious and Domination can both be done really quickly. I haven't tried this myself, but I bet Scythia could race over a standard Pangaea map in no time. Religion is probably more luck-dependent, you'd need to start near Yerevan and have the right AIs (no Spain, no Gandhi), but maybe even faster. I'd use Russia for that.

I just got a T256 Deity Cultural Victory with Tomyris (didn't use the selling exploit). Going super-wide and spamming seaside resorts can be really strong. I was breaking 1600 tourism at the end. My play was very sloppy at times (I even had a city razed by barbs at one point, lol), so I'm sure I could have shaved 30+ turns off.

I'm not sure if Science or Culture is faster. It's a good question. I've certainly been able to get much, much better times going Culturally, but I don't think that says much about what the min-maxers could do. <T200 Cultural Victories are definitely possible though. And maybe not even that hard.