Playing with no victory conditions enabled?

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Oct 25, 2009
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Is it possible to just have no victory conditions enabled and play a pure sandbox game? If so how does the AI behave with there being no game goals?
 
Is it possible to just have no victory conditions enabled and play a pure sandbox game? If so how does the AI behave with there being no game goals?
I have played a time only game. The AI behaves just about the same, except less aggressive. Cultural AIs still likes to mass culture and tourism, science AIs still techs really fast and Alex still loves his city states. But except for the really aggressive warmongers I realize AIs don't usually attack you unless you piss them off diplomatically.
 
The AI would play almost exactly the same way whenever you disable any given victory conditions as the flavor logic is for individual items (units / buildings / wonders / etc.)

If you disable science victory, that just removes the ability to build Apollo and spaceship parts.

If you disable diplomatic victory, that just removes the vote for world leader. The same AIs that want lots of city state allies will still want them.

If you disable cultural victory, that just removes victory upon being influential. The same AIs that try the hardest to get tourism will still do so.

The only place where the AI grand strategy of victory matters is them selecting an ideology. But disabling all three of science, diplomatic, and domination brings you right back to normal on average. (Those wanting culture has no impact as its marked as that victory type is marked as compatible with all three ideologies.) If you only two of those three but leave the other alone, then you would cause one ideology to be a lot less popular than normal with the AIs.
 
The AI would play almost exactly the same way whenever you disable any given victory conditions as the flavor logic is for individual items (units / buildings / wonders / etc.)

If you disable science victory, that just removes the ability to build Apollo and spaceship parts.

If you disable diplomatic victory, that just removes the vote for world leader. The same AIs that want lots of city state allies will still want them.

If you disable cultural victory, that just removes victory upon being influential. The same AIs that try the hardest to get tourism will still do so.

The only place where the AI grand strategy of victory matters is them selecting an ideology. But disabling all three of science, diplomatic, and domination brings you right back to normal on average. (Those wanting culture has no impact as its marked as that victory type is marked as compatible with all three ideologies.) If you only two of those three but leave the other alone, then you would cause one ideology to be a lot less popular than normal with the AIs.
Leaving only one vc available (for example Domination) will heavily bias the AI towards aggression and social policies such as honor.

Likewise if you leave only science on then AIs will all play as if they are Korea and most likely take rationalism and prioritize science buildings.

Likewise for diplo and so on.

Only way to truly sandbox the game is to just enable time victory that way the Ai will just play the way dictated by their flavor scores.
 
I often play past the SV victory screen and the tensions that have been building still play out. I like to see if an aggressively posturing neighbor will finally get up the nerve to DOW me. Does the civ with just one city left get wiped out, thus creating a new scapegoat ? Do I have what it takes for a conquest run? Do I feel like bothering to try? (Win or loose, a player can keep playing to a domination victory screen. You can keep playing after that too.)
 
It is possible to play a game with no Victory Conditions on. Not having done it myself, I'm unsure of how differently from normal the AI will be; I think others in this thread have probably already answered that question. However...
 
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