I understand that there are many esteemed people who play Civ that can win the game (without conquering) by as early as 1400's to 1800's.
How is that possible!?
Do they beeline for a certain tech and forget about all the others and buy them off of other Civs? Do they put libraries/universities/observatories in every single city? Do they abuse the Representation civic with specialists? A combination of these? Using certain leaders?
Please tell me how this is possible.
Thank you!

my biggest advice: play whatever way is fun for you, and don't worry about how you compare to others! :) if you like comparing to others and it interests you, go for it, but don't take it to a level that you don't have fun any more

it very much depends on what you aim for, and difficulty level of course.

the CFC Hall of Fame had competitions (no prizes, just for fun) recently aiming for earliest possible diplomatic win. we could pick our opponents, and we knew what we were aiming for from the start. mass media is a fairly quick path to beeline to, watch your diplomatic relationships all along the way, and there you have it!

earliest date on settler difficulty was 550 BC :eek:

earliest date on deity difficulty was 770 AD :eek:

cultural victory is another one that, if you aim for it from the start, and select your opponents and which leader you'll be, that can be done in the timeframe you gave.

a nifty resource if you're very curious: you can look up games by difficulty, map size, victory condition, game speed, and see the list of high scoring games that have been submitted. all of them have the start file, and the file from the turn after the win, available for download. it can be really interesting to see how some of those games turned out. you get a chance to "spy" on another person's style, check out their entire empire, at the very end.

here's an example (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/index.php?show=cond&difficulty=Deity&pubID=32&mapSize=Standard&speed=Any&submit=Go) of one table, cultural deity victory on standard map size ... 1365 AD :eek:

then again we're all crazy there ;)

Well i've seen the table, and i'm surprised to see almost everyone used Huayna Capac! Why would that be?

Well i've seen the table, and i'm surprised to see almost everyone used Huayna Capac! Why would that be?

That guy kicks some serious hiney..... Ive never played competition or any of these game like that. I just play for fun. When Im playing for fun, I like the Incans cause they can (and may) end up with the world. Give the whole world a boot to the head, now thats entertainment!!

Well i've seen the table, and i'm surprised to see almost everyone used Huayna Capac! Why would that be?

Maybe there's a correlation between the earliest Unique Unit and the earliest victory.


I'm with KMAdCandy on this one, don't let comparisons get in the way of your
enjoyment of the game.

Huayna Capac is actually my favorite Leader right now, however, I play only conquest/domination games on Immortal (at the moment). I like financial for tech lead, quecha's to steal workers and defend easily against barbs, and industrial helps me always get stonehenge/oracle, and in many many games, the great wall too (making barbs obsolete). It's very easy to set up a nearly flawless start and simply compound your advantage as the game progresses. He is very easy to play. Huge early cities with populations ranging from 10-16 (before CS finishes) which lets you get more commerce/production/tech/and of course, units. Gogo incans! It's very important in Civilization to get an early lead so you can compound that advantage as the game wears on. The better the start you have the better finish you will get.

when you play HC, you have your UU (quecha) from the opening turn, and his traits are good for some playstyles. they changed from vanilla to warlords, but he's financial in both, and that's a very popular trait.

playing as Huayna is kind of weird, in that the higher level you're on, the *better* his UU is. it's a warrior with 100% vs archery units. strength only 2, but they're quick to make, and the bonus vs. archers is amazing if your enemy has archers that early. on deity the computer starts out with a settler, 2 workers, and 3 archers i think it is. so if you find an enemy early, and concentrate your efforts on making a lot of quecha ... results can be good!

but on the easiest levels, the computer doesn't start out with archery, and they tech so slowly. by the time they're using archers as their main defense, you generally have a better offensive unit to build than warriors. so that's part of why he's popular on those tables.