I have made two attempts at a Scientific Victory (both with Vaulters). The first I ran out of time (300 turns) with 5 turns left on the last tech; the second, I won with only five turns left up my sleeve. I achieved a Wonder Victory with the Wild Walkers with more than 50 turns to spare, so presumably I should be able to attain a scientific victory a lot faster than I am.



I am not sure where I can improve, however. I prioritise science-based technologies and improvements, I pick my city locations and districts based on optimising science exploitation, and later in the game (once a town is self-sufficient) I put all my pop onto science. When I have spare production later in the game, I spend it all on making science stockpiles, which only reduce the final tier techs by one turn each stockpile. I also use any luxury resource (and strategic, being Vaulters) that improves science. In my last game, I had close to 8000 science per turn through the last four technologies, but it still took 15 turns per tech! The +100% Science tech took 25 turns :,(



How can I improve my attempts at Scientific Victories, for when I try playing the Ardent Mages?

The last era techs are dificult to achieve since, as you say, the first tech usually takes about 25-30 turns, while the rest require about half that amount of time (If you research the +100% tech first) That means you need around 80-100 turns (on normal speed) worth of research to get that victory.



I got the achievement with Broken Lords actually, but most army-based compositions may easily net you a scientific victory.



1-. At first play a military heavy empire, mostly industry or dust based, with science as secondary. Don't go early on for science buildings, concentrate on the ones that net you population and industry production. Also, research all luxury mines from each research era and the Era 2 access to market stockpiles.



2-. Get good science heroes as governors for most important cities, you'll use them later on, but you'll want to build levels somewhat early. Depending on the city location, a mix of Cultists, Mages and Vaulters is the best choice.



3-. Expand safely around your starting location, and play as if you were going for an ELIMINATION victory. The idea here is to start capping region after region. This will hinder your aproval rating early on, but you'll recover later. You may raze poorly located buildings to resettle in a better place, focus on basic buildings and mines.



4-. By turn 150 or so you should be either dead, or controlling most of the regions along with some annihilated empires.



5-. Once you're close to an elimination or expansion victory, cap all regions but the last capital and lay siege to it. When their fortification drops to zero and they force a battle, dispatch their troops but don't attack, just keep that capital perma-sieged (so you don't win buy elimination) and ignore their cries for freedom.



6-. Order your cities by science gains and check the population size to find the best spot for the one-time scientific buildingsbuildings



7-. Use ALL your stockpiled luxury resources as a whole, don't just pop one or two at a time. That should allow you to skyrocket your city and empire aproval status to Fervent no matter how bad they where before.



8-. Save your game here (if you pointing for achievements) and get whatever win/achievements you want. You only have to focus-build the wanted buildings and switch your population around for scientific/economic/wonder/score victories.

Haha, Q: "How do I win a non-elimination victory?" A: "First, win an elimination victory." (Not that it's not good advice, it is, it's just funny.)

natev wrote:
Haha, Q: "How do I win a non-elimination victory?" A: "First, win an elimination victory." (Not that it's not good advice, it is, it's just funny.)

Nope... A: First... "almost" win an elimination victory.



Since militaristic victories are usually the "fastest" to achieve (Game of Factions... you win or you are defeated), if you "almost" win (as I said, keep the last capital permasieged), once you "almost" get that win, you may achieve any other victory you want just by switching buildings and production, just save before you decide which one so you can reload and get all achievements in a single game. You have the regions and the production, so your FIDSI generation will just skyrocket at that point.



Problems come when you try to achieve any victory other than militaristic without keeping a decent military force (and to keep a decent military force you must switch towards or generation, not ...). If you don't expand other factions can outgrow the production just by region control, and if you don't keep a good enough army, other factions will declare war the moment they consider you for an easy prey. So, if you spend time trying to "win" scientific/dust/score victory since turn 1, chances are you won't reach endgame (or you'll reach endgame in a bad shape).