Scientific victory?

[Anthony]

I'm playing an Easy game as the Vaulters and I've built about four towns, focusing on building science-centric improvements and devoting lots of resources (both workers and my empire plan) to science. I finally made it to research era V. I'm at around turn 150, however, and even with all of my workers and resources pushing toward science, every era V research is going to take like 35 turns. If I need to get five of the six era V researches completed before the end of the game at turn 300, my current trajectory is not sufficient.

What should I be doing? Waging war and stealing cities from other people? I didn't build for war, obviously, so that seems untenable. Can I trade for science?

[DragonFang]

You can trade for science stockpiles. Make sure all your cities have trade routes set up with the science boosting trade route building. Also make sure you have expended at least a little by late game. More cities = more science. My military game where every city is built for industry I'm researching T-4 Tech in 6-8 turns since I have 9 cities, without really trying each is pulling in 50+ science a turn.

[Tropix]

Hero governers with science skills wearing science trinkets could help too. like you, I'm near the end of a game and recently discovered that a science vicory is out of reach.

[rabureta]

Technology self-catalyzes. Make sure you're grabbing the research improvements and building them. Combined with science focus and governers you end up snowballing.

Not building for war isn't really a problem; grab the weapon techs when you have a moment, outfit an army and go steamroll the nearest empire.

[Imperium]

Research increases by a decent ammount with each tech you complete so choosing selectively will help you in a long run if you want to be peaceful, I have done science victory as custom cultists on hard at about turn 230ish (game set to 300 turns) But i was far from peacefull, enemies kept declaring war on me, damn dragons and necrophages...

Watch out for the bonuses you can get, you get 50% extra science from your empire plan, I am also pretty sure there is a strategic/luxury resourse that increases it another 100/50% on use.

Governer heroes - you can buy them and they are very effective, all have some skills for govening, cultist heroes have the skill that increases every main resourse (food, dust, etd) by 1 per citizen and has 3 level. They also have as a bunch of +% values, including science by 15%/15%/15% at some point. You can give your governor heroes items that increase poduction, there is one that gives 2 science per citizen and one that gives 2 dust per citizen.

Another trick is to go to your empire screen and look over your cities, it has an AI function, Its alot of micromanagement to build in every one of your cities, especially if you have alot. That option allows you to set AI control for city with a focus on food/industry/science/influence and so on. Setting all your cities on science would transfer all the workers to work for science and force it to build science related things while you concentrate on the capital.

Its worth mentioning that you get a small science boost from trade routes, but even with my neighbors friendly/allied and comercial/research pacts, i was only getting about 500 dust and 500 science a turn which is at that turn about a city worth. They really should improve trade routes or allow manual civ style trading.