Ada Lovelace Leader Guide for Civilization 7

Civilization 7‘s “Crossroads of the World” DLC adds new leaders and civilizations to the game. In the first part of this DLC Ada Lovelace was added to the game, a Cultural/Scientific Leader who was known for her work on Babbage’s Difference Engine and Analytic Engine. Called “Enchantress of Number” by Babbage, her ideas about the use of computers beyond mere calculation and number crunching were hugely influential in the field of computer science.

In Civilization 7, Ada Lovelace is a Cultural/Scientific Leader whose Leader Bonus, “Analytic Engine,” allows her to boost science per turn per age every time she unlocks a Civic Mastery, while also providing a huge culture boost whenever she unlocks a Research Mastery.

Ada Lovelace Leader Overview

Ada Lovelace is a Cultural/Scientific Leader, who is often cited as the first computer programmer due to her work on Babbage’s Difference Engine and Analytic Engine. In Civilization 7, Ada Lovelace’s Leader Bonus, “Analytic Engine”, has two main effects.

Firstly, whenever she unlocks a Civic Mastery, her cities gain +2 Science per turn per age. This means that unlocking Civic Masteries will quickly increase city science generation considerably, especially in the age of exploration (where it becomes +4 Science) and the modern age (+6 science), though the bonus resets at the start of each age, so there is a limit to how high it can get.

Secondly, whenever she unlocks a Research Mastery, she’ll immediately gain Culture equal to 50% of her Science per turn, accelerating her Civic Unlocks considerably. By using these two effects, Ada can quickly gain the lead in Science and Culture, making her well-suited to Cultural and Scientific Legacy Paths. Ada Lovelace does not have any starting bias.

Ada Lovelace Leader Natural Civ Unlocks

How To Win With Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace Leader Strategy & Walkthrough

Best Ada Lovelace Victory Path:

Ada Lovelace performs well at both Scientific and Cultural Strategies, but I recommend going for a Scientific Victory by launching a Manned Spaceflight during the Modern Age.

Ada Lovelace Antiquity Age Strategy

Maurya is an excellent Civilization choice for the Age of Antiquity here. Their unique buildings offer science and culture adjacency bonuses to quarters and wonders, while also offering a decent boost to happiness. Their unique settler provides +2 Happiness on City Halls, too, and these bonuses combined make it easy to unlock extra Policy Slots more quickly by triggering celebrations. Their unique traditions will also prove useful in generating extra gold and science later on via excess happiness, and their associated Wonder, Sanchi Stupa, does the same for culture.

Starting out, you’ll want to grab a scout and use them to locate and visit camps, cairns, and other bonus-granting tiles in the vicinity of your city. You’ll want to prioritize Pottery, then Writing, then Sailing as your first three technologies. This will help you to build up a science advantage early on while gaining access to buildings that get you extra food, improving the growth speed of your city.

As your scout collects bonuses, you’ll want to look for a good location to set up a town, which will eventually become a second city, since you’ll need two cities to slot enough Codices to complete the Great Library Legacy Path. This will be your main objective during the Age of Antiquity.

You’ll want to unlock Mysticism, then Discipline, and then Code of Law as your first three Civics. This will allow you to establish a Pantheon and benefit from Maurya’s double Pantheon bonuses, get you access to Army Commanders to better manage and strengthen your armies, and unlock Merchants to set up trade routes with other Civilizations and Independent Powers. Speaking of other Civilizations, you’ll want to run Research Collaborations and Cultural Exchanges with them to enhance your Science and Culture output.

Once you’re well-established, and you’ve begun to build up steam with your Science and Culture, you’ll want to aim for the following pieces of research as your next priorities: Writing II/Mastery, Currency, Bronzeworking, Mathematics, and Mathematics II/Mastery. Your Civic priorities should be: Acharya, Literacy, Philosophy, and Mantriparishad.

While the research and civics mentioned above are the most valuable to your strategy, you’ll want to pick up as many masteries as possible just to activate Ada’s ability and reap the science and culture benefits. If you can find the resources, establish a third city so you can receive even more science from this. As always, when following the Great Library Legacy Path, your priority should be obtaining 10 codices and displaying them in your academies and palace/city centers to complete the path.

Ada Lovelace Exploration Age Strategy

Entering the Age of Exploration, our Civilization of choice is Majapahit. This is an Economic/Cultural Civilization with some very helpful benefits for Ada’s strategy. Here’s the plan:

When starting out, you’ll want to research the following technologies: Cartography, Astronomy, Guilds, and Feudalism. You’ll need cartography to embark with civilian units and thus gain access to distant lands. Astronomy unlocks Observatories, which are a crucial new science building, and also unlocks Fleet Commanders. (If you’re quick you can also build the Serpent Mound for a nice bonus.) Guilds will get you access to Kilns to up your culture generation, and Feudalism is surprisingly crucial due to Inns providing food and happiness, which we’ll need a lot of.

In terms of Civics, you’ll want to prioritize: Economics, Wayang, Piety, and Inspiration. Economics is important for getting access to merchants, since strong trade relations will give you access to valuable resources and help your cities to grow. Wayang is a Majapahit-exclusive Civic that unlocks the Panji Tradition and the Candi Bentar unique building. The former provides a +1 Culture Bonus to specialists you place anywhere except in your capital, while the latter is a Happiness Building with a Culture Adjacency bonus for Rivers and Coasts.

Piety is mostly a stepping stone to reach Inspiration in this strategy, though temples are great for boosting happiness and religion can be helpful. Inspiration itself is mainly a stepping stone to reach Society later, but if you can manage to build the Hale o Keawe, that will be quite helpful for your Culture generation.

Your strategy early on will be to establish a small foothold in the Distant Lands, which you can use to claim new resources and strengthen your civilization as a whole. While doing this, your goal back at home should be to strengthen your Culture, Science, and Happiness generation as much as possible.

Our goal is to complete the Science Legacy Path: Enlightenment, which requires you to have five districts with a total yield of 40, which aren’t City Centers. The best way to do this is by taking advantage of Adjacency Bonuses from other tiles and buildings, assigning multiple specialists to Urban Districts, and unlocking any technologies or civics that increase the yield of tiles.

Your next set of research priorities should be: Education, Education II/Mastery, Shipbuilding, Shipbuilding II/Mastery, Architecture. Education and Education Mastery should be self-explanatory, since we’re going for a scientific victory overall and boosts to science are crucial (Universities are a huge boost here).

Your next set of Civic Priorities should be: Society, Society II/Mastery, and Bureaucracy. Patronage and Uposatha from Society will empower culture and happiness adjacencies, which is handy, while Society Mastery unlocks the House of Wisdom Wonder (which you should build if you’re able) and provides some other helpful benefits. Bureaucracy offers the tremendously useful Constitution Policy, which provides +50% food and happiness towards maintaining specialists. This policy will make it much easier to get those high district yields you need, without losing too much growth or progress toward celebrations.

Overall, your goals in this age are pretty simple. You need to increase those tile yields to achieve Enlightenment, and if you can shore up your gold production and complete some of the Treasure Fleet objectives too, all the better.

Ada Lovelace Modern Age Strategy

In the Modern Age, we’ll be picking Meiji Japan so we can make the most of their science bonus from overbuilding. We can also take advantage of their “Oath of Five Articles” tradition to get a +50% Production Bonus on all Science Buildings, which will prove invaluable when completing projects for a Scientific Victory.

You’ll want to speed towards Flight as soon as possible, then focus on getting Industrialisation, Mass Production, and Aerodynamics. These will help you establish a strong economy and improve the production per turn in your towns and cities, which will allow you to more easily complete the projects needed to achieve a Staffed Space Flight.

You’ll want to get the Social Question Civic as soon as possible, allowing you to get Humanism and Social Science traditions to increase the output of your specialists. Once that’s done, other important civics you’ll need are Modernization (to get Civil Engineering for bigger Overbulding Bonuses), Political Theory (so you can use Free Speech to reduce Specialist Upkeep costs), and both tiers of Capitalism to help with your gold per turn.

You’ll want to overbuild with an eye for increasing your science and culture generation as much as possible, taking advantage of the huge returns from Meiji Japan’s unique ability while snagging Science Masteries and Civic Masteries whenever possible to speed you along with Ada’s ability.

Build Factories and Train Stations to keep your economy strong, build anything you can that’ll boost science and culture, and take advantage of Meiji Japan’s Ginkō, Jukogyo, and the Zaibatsu quarter they form to further strengthen your production and gold per turn. Complete the projects: “Trans-Oceanic Flight”, “Break the Sound Barrier”, “Launch a Satellite”, and finally “First Staffed Space Flight.”

That final project is the one that’ll win you the game, and you get production bonuses towards completing it from every scientific legacy point you earned in previous ages, so all that hard work will pay off here.