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If you’re like us, there’s no better victory path in any Civilization game than science. There are perks to them all, but being the first to achieve orbit, or head to Mars, or even Alpha Centauri - that’s just plaincool. InCivilization 7, the long-standing accomplishment is back.
Yet, you’ll have fun little markers along the way, via the Legacy Paths available in the Antiquity and Exploration Ages. Whether you pull them off is up to you, but they’ll both assist you in the Modern Age’s grand finale. We’re covering best practices for Civilization 7’s scientific win, from start to finish, with flourish.
Conduct Your Research
As with Civilization 7’s other victory paths, you’ll be gaining momentum onotherpotential victory paths while you’re working on the science one.Don’t discount the usefulness of making milestones in the alternative Legacy Pathsbetween the ages, as they can help you out along the way.
The Antiquity Age’s Scientific Legacy Pathis fairly straightforward. Your goal here is togather and display ten codices. That second part is crucial, becauseyou not only require ten codices; you have to find the means to find “slots” to place them in.
Your first order of business is toresearch Writing. Should you beeline it? Honestly, not really. Youcan, butit would behoove you to learn all three of the prior techsrather than just the two that are necessary for it. This stuff is all rudimentary, but despite its simplicity,it’ll help you throughout the age.
While you await the Writing tech,temporarily ignore the culture and especially gold tiles during your settlements' population-based expansions. The former, while highly useful, will slow us down a bit for now; the latter is just not as important early on for scientifically-minded players.
What you should instead be doing isfocusing on the food you’ll need for more growth and the production you’ll need for constructing science buildings, the first of which is theLibrary, Build these immediately in any of your cities (though at this point, you may still have just the one).
Get some experience withspecialistsonce you can place them in cities. This won’t happen until later into the Antiquity Age, but not only are theyhighly valuable in any age;specialist know-how will aid you in the Exploration Age.
Collect Your Codices
The Writing tech, in and of itself, won’t snag you your first codex.Research its mastery before moving onso that you have that.You’ll automatically slot it in, as any available slots will do that for you at any time, andLibraries contain codex slots.
We can’t emphasize this enough:don’t forget unslotted codices if you acquire any while lacking spare slots. The game will not notify you when that changes. Maybe you have a sterling memory, but we’ve totally forgotten to open up theGreat Works taband do so for a few turns, and that meansless science outputuntil we did so.
You’ll not reach it for quite some time, but theMathematicstech will allow you to buildAcademies, which will helpgreatlyin acquiring slots - andextra science to keep propelling you forward.
Don’t rest on your laurels;check your tech and civics tabs routinely and research any that offer codices and/or slots. you may find these at several points along the way. You probably won’t get to ten of either resource until you get those Academies, but nor would you get all ten codices without these “detours”.
If you happen to botch getting all ten,you’ll still gain Science Legacy Pointsfor theage transitionthanks to each milestone you’ve achieved. But do aim for ten, as theScientific Golden Agecard willenable you to continue your Academy science yieldin theExploration Age- a major boon.
Ramp Up Those Yields
TheExploration Age Scientific Legacy path is more complicated. In theory, it’s simple:you need five tiles with an output of 40 or greater. In practice, however, it can be a terribly daunting task.
Before you can really get going, you’ll need theEducationtech, as its research ispart of the first milestone. Keep an eye out for any and allPolicy Cardsthat improve your science yieldwhile you’re at it, because we’re going to want these at all times.
Also, keep tabs onhappiness-related Policy Cards, asyour specialists are going to partly nuke your happinesswhen placed. Besides which,crises affect happiness,so it’s good practice to ensure your settlements have as much as possible in preparation for that phase.
Buildings and wonders provide adjacency bonuses to scientist-infused tiles- add as many of those as you can before or after you place those specialists.Add them to the tileswiththe specialists, too,since, you know, that’ll clearly add to that specific tile’s output.
Another good idea is togrow rural tiles next to areas that are potentially impacted by floods and eruptions.
These regularly-occuring disasters can be a real nuisance, butyou won’t have to spend as much on repairing rural improvements, andthey’ll gain increased outputthe first several times they’re impacted.Place urban tiles in safe spots just behind the rural tilesto reap adjacency rewards.
If you happen to have been fortunate enough tosettle near any Natural Wonders, these fantastic tiles will continue to be a great boon to you, especially when placing urban tiles for specialists.
Take To The Skies
Oddly enough,despite requiring quite a few steps, the Modern Age isn’t so bad for scientific victories. Frankly, all you need to do is tofollow the directions for each milestone,constructing the requisite buildings for each project.
We’re not entirely sure yet whether the AI gets more hostile toward you when you’re nearing a victory condition, as was the case in at least Civilization 5. For good measure,build up your armyas well. This is easier once you haveFlight, anyway, and that’s an early milestone objective.
In Civ 7,you don’t need to plan a trip to Mars or Alpha Centauri. You “just” need toget into space en route to the moon. As we said earlier, this does take several projects, butso long as you’ve maintained a sturdy science yield in past ages, your opponents will be less likely to get to the finish lineahead of you!
