question from a warmonger

I started playing mostly domination games:

1. Because I enjoy that style of play;
2. Because it seems that with a peaceful style of play, once you reach #1 in tech, it is pretty much turn after turn of hitting the next turn button, except for the rare case when an AI gets close to a cultural victory.

As such, the peaceful style of play just seems boring.

Am I missing something?

No, I agree with you.

war is what spices up the later ages. If you are only gunning for tech it is boring until you've got spaceship parts to build as there's nothing to do but world congress every few decades.

The expansion/infrastructure phase is my favorite, but when I run out of that and get bored I start welcoming war. I've found I don't need a domination game though, having a group of mortal enemies that periodically try to take me down or tag-teaming another civ for extra territory to incorporate is a fun way to liven things up. It may slow down your science a bit if you do it too late, but by that time you'll probably win anyway and it's a nice diversion. I had a tech game where I became so bored and was so outstripping the AI that I started a world war and switched to domination to relieve the tedium. It was fun.

That's my point. How often do you lose the tech lead once you have it? If you are just starting a war to keep you busy until the inevitable happens 500 years later, something is broken. At least if you are going domination, you have real choices, and you might get DOWed by multiple AIs, which is fun.

I would prefer if there was a way where the lead just wasn't determined so early, so that nothing was so set in stone so early.

Bulldog Bats said:

That's my point. How often do you lose the tech lead once you have it? If you are just starting a war to keep you busy until the inevitable happens 500 years later, something is broken. At least if you are going domination, you have real choices, and you might get DOWed by multiple AIs, which is fun.

I would prefer if there was a way where the lead just wasn't determined so early, so that nothing was so set in stone so early.

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I agree. If you are playing AI's then domination is the most challenging path the pick and the most engaging.
As far as reducing juggernaut tech momentum: It's still better than civ III/IV tech leads though. There are several ways to upset tech leaders:

1. Spies
2. RA's
3. trading embargoes to eliminate RA's for the leader and passing the WC proposal that reduces already researched techs by 20% for behind civs
4. double/triple DOWs on tech leader

All these are supposed to break the tech leads, but the AI just sucks at using them properly so any human with experience knows how to tweak the system to keep himself ahead. if you are frustrated with this, then I suspect it's that you've learned the AI all too well. Try some multiplayer if you want better players.

If the AI used multiple spies in your territory and picked cities other than your capital so they won't so predictable and avoided Const/PS they might be able to keep up even when a human is killing it in science but they aren't that smart. The few times I've seen AI really utilize all these tools to catch up though they've not done badly so it's not as inevitable as you say. All this is rhetoric though, as the fact of the matter remains that the AI is not good at breaking tech leads. In multiplayer, however, other humans can do it easily. The one game I went autocracy I could not be stopped from stealing all the world's tech with the double-acquisition policy. Ridiculous. At one point I was stealing really expensive mid-industrial tech every 7 turns effectively doubling my science. And Indonesia's plans to keep from being overrun by researching aircraft and infantry (as he was quite a bit ahead in tech at the beginning of the war) were naught as I just got them for free. I reduced his tech lead to dust in the ashes of war and espionage.

Domination is the only way you can get spanked and lose your lead. In my present game (Pangea), other than the first AI I took (once city civ who was a wonder-hog, including Great Wall). After I took him down, there was nothing more than single file paths through mountains and CSs to get to the other civs. I got called on my movement, and had to DOW before I had enough units in place, so I am having trouble.

I mean in real life, look at the US and Japan. In less than 100 years, look how their civs have bounced up and down in the eyes of world leadership, be it economic/science (Japan) or cultural/economic (US). Just two examples of how a better civ game should act.

I would like to try multi-player, but I only have G&K right now, and I usually don't have huge blocks of time to play.

Bulldog Bats said:

Domination is the only way you can get spanked and lose your lead.

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Are you already at deity? I seem to be playing at the upper end of my ability (GnK immortal) and I am consistently having to ward off DOWs, and only rarely initiate the DOW. It certainly keeps the game interesting!

Yeah, the problem with the Science victory is you're often needing to make sacrifices to military in order to keep up the pace. Sure, you have better units, but your army needs to be lean. That can get scary in certain circumstances.

Still, I tend to agree with OP. Though Culture has gotten a lot more interesting, generally if you're winning a Science victory, your biggest concern is accidentally winning a Diplomatic victory instead.