Science Victory - too easy/rediculous?

The only time a science victory becomes possible is when there are other people wanting to get a diplomatic victory which makes a diplomatic victory take longer and science victories more possible.
 
reddishrecue said:
The only time a science victory becomes possible is when there are other people wanting to get a diplomatic victory which makes a diplomatic victory take longer and science victories more possible.
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bubububububububububububuerrrr. Wat???
 
Uzael36 said:
If going from a SV from the start, you don't build hardly any culture buildings, nor do you build much military. You get social policies that increase science, and forget about culture/tourism policies. You spend your gold on increasing your science instead of on CS's that aren't necessary to win. It is a very focused victory condition where you focus on getting science only, and other stuff just enough to achieve that goal. It isn't a deal where you just settle on and waste units.
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This sounds like a recipe for disaster:

Building "hardly any cultural buildings" is a surefire way to become overwhelmed by Ideological pressure and slows down your Social Policy acquisition.

Not building "much military" is an invitation to be attacked by neighboring civs looking to seize the opportunity on a weaker foe.

Not spending gold on CS's makes it difficult to pass the resolutions you want (or prevent the passing of resolutions you don't want) in the World Council. I find that other civs tend to dramatically favor Arts Funding over Science Funding.

If you focus too much on SV (or pretty much any VC) rather than a more balanced approach, you're going to have problems popping up in the other areas that you neglected.
 
shaglio said:
This sounds like a recipe for disaster:

Building "hardly any cultural buildings" is a surefire way to become overwhelmed by Ideological pressure and slows down your Social Policy acquisition.

Not building "much military" is an invitation to be attacked by neighboring civs looking to seize the opportunity on a weaker foe.

Not spending gold on CS's makes it difficult to pass the resolutions you want (or prevent the passing of resolutions you don't want) in the World Council. I find that other civs tend to dramatically favor Arts Funding over Science Funding.

If you focus too much on SV (or pretty much any VC) rather than a more balanced approach, you're going to have problems popping up in the other areas that you neglected.
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That is how it is done if you are looking to be efficient. Even if you build a few, it is far less of either than if you went for Culture or Domination.

For your culture needs, you build the guilds only, and ally CS's. You build enough units, or get them for free from allies, so that the AI leaves you alone, and no more.

Edit: my comment on not spending gold on CS's that aren't necessary to win, did not mean to not spend any gold on CS's, only that you go for what you need, rather than all out for all of them to win with diplomacy. Every game requires you to get a minimum of certain features, but depending on your goal, you spend much more on different areas of the game than others.
 
shaglio said:
This sounds like a recipe for disaster:

Building "hardly any cultural buildings" is a surefire way to become overwhelmed by Ideological pressure and slows down your Social Policy acquisition.

Not building "much military" is an invitation to be attacked by neighboring civs looking to seize the opportunity on a weaker foe.

Not spending gold on CS's makes it difficult to pass the resolutions you want (or prevent the passing of resolutions you don't want) in the World Council. I find that other civs tend to dramatically favor Arts Funding over Science Funding.

If you focus too much on SV (or pretty much any VC) rather than a more balanced approach, you're going to have problems popping up in the other areas that you neglected.
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WC - one of the best ways to get yourself in trouble while going for SV is to propose Science funding (that you can hardly make to pass unless you found the WC, have forbidden palace and the CS votes don't count).
CS - you spend gold on CS, but you target the cultural CS. Rest do not matter much after you get the happiness under control.
Ideology pressure - this hardly matters in terms of happiness, as order has everything you need. Even if you get some tourism goin, that will not be enough to get to exotic with the cultural monsters that will pick freedom.

And basicly, you have to focus on a VC at some point (basicly at Education, or not much later than this, except for late game domination, where you follow the SV path first). CV without focus is not gonna happen (unless you go for the cheezy CV, where you take 4-5 capitols full with wonders and great works ...
 
dragonxxx said:
WC - one of the best ways to get yourself in trouble while going for SV is to propose Science funding (that you can hardly make to pass unless you found the WC, have forbidden palace and the CS votes don't count).
CS - you spend gold on CS, but you target the cultural CS. Rest do not matter much after you get the happiness under control.
Ideology pressure - this hardly matters in terms of happiness, as order has everything you need. Even if you get some tourism goin, that will not be enough to get to exotic with the cultural monsters that will pick freedom.

And basicly, you have to focus on a VC at some point (basicly at Education, or not much later than this, except for late game domination, where you follow the SV path first). CV without focus is not gonna happen (unless you go for the cheezy CV, where you take 4-5 capitols full with wonders and great works ...
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I guess I just do my Science Victories in an atypical fashion. I go full Tradition, full Rationalism, and the left 2 Patronage policies (that’s where the CS’s come in handy). I take Tithe and use all my Trade Routes to send Cargo Ships to the cities with the highest gold yields; I ignore Caravans even if I built Petra (I just disband the free one and replace it with a Cargo Ship) and I rarely send food and/or production ships to my own cities (gasp!). Since I’m usually swimming in gold, I have no problem snapping up all the CS’s (barring Alex’s interference of course) and I go Freedom to purchase the SS parts with gold. This is why I have a hard time with SVs unless I intentionally don’t use all my votes for myself when the World Leader vote rolls around, because I can easily win a DiploVic before I can buy all the SS parts. I will say that I’m a King player, so that might factor into the situation.
 
shaglio said:
I guess I just do my Science Victories in an atypical fashion. I go full Tradition, full Rationalism, and the left 2 Patronage policies (that’s where the CS’s come in handy). I take Tithe and use all my Trade Routes to send Cargo Ships to the cities with the highest gold yields; I ignore Caravans even if I built Petra (I just disband the free one and replace it with a Cargo Ship) and I rarely send food and/or production ships to my own cities (gasp!). Since I’m usually swimming in gold, I have no problem snapping up all the CS’s (barring Alex’s interference of course) and I go Freedom to purchase the SS parts with gold. This is why I have a hard time with SVs unless I intentionally don’t use all my votes for myself when the World Leader vote rolls around, because I can easily win a DiploVic before I can buy all the SS parts. I will say that I’m a King player, so that might factor into the situation.
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Your way works, but it is a rounded approach, that puts you into position to win several victory conditions. This is probably how the OP plays to some degree, with less focus on CS's.

If you focus on SV, the game ends much faster. If you focus on CV, the game ends faster, and the same for all conditions.

The higher the difficulty you play, the more being focused is important. Though I still see some who take a rounded approach and make it work. Though if you look more carefully, they usually made it work through conquest.
 
Do you have the fall patch? As basicly, without globalisation its not even possible to win diplo anymore (if I recall correctly). Or I am wrong on this? Never paid too much attention to diplos.
 
dragonxxx said:
Do you have the fall patch? As basicly, without globalisation its not even possible to win diplo anymore (if I recall correctly). Or I am wrong on this? Never paid too much attention to diplos.
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You can still win on the second vote. +2 for world religion +2 for world ideology +2 forbidden palance and +2 for leading the first vote.
 
Vitruvius said:
You can still win on the second vote. +2 for world religion +2 for world ideology +2 forbidden palance and +2 for leading the first vote.
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You beat me to it. Although, I suppose it could be said that if I am able to get all these things, maybe it's time for me to move up to the next difficulty.
 
With my personality/playing preferences, I find that a cultural victory (with or without Sacred Sites) the easiest to attain - up through Immortal, anyway. With Sacred Sites, it can be done before anybody reaches the Industrial Era. Though, on Immortal (and without Sacred Sites) I do need to make use of Archaeology. If I hyper-focus on science, I do well there, too. However, I *like* social policies a bit too much. It is not uncommon for me to get into the Industrial Era and be able to choose between a cultural, science or diplomatic victory.

I do struggle more with Domination - perhaps it's the game settings (Huge, small continents, immortal).... I find that, with these settings, there is almost always someboyd I can't find without caravels and that, if If focus un building an army to take out my immediate neighbors, the one (or more) that are across an ocean completely outpace my technology.... Also, with 11 AI's, it's very difficult to get any wonders and often challenging to get my prefered religious tenets or be the first to an ideology.... Or, there always seems to be some civ with incredible tourism that give me fits late....
 
Vitruvius said:
You can still win on the second vote. +2 for world religion +2 for world ideology +2 forbidden palance and +2 for leading the first vote.
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Right :) But I was talking about the first vote, and if you do the science game right you should win before the second vote for sure.

World ideology is something I'd never propose if I want SV too.
 
Diplo is by far the cheesiest, easiest and least skilled victory type in the game. Ive gotten them by accident. That's one victory condition that can instantly cut a great game short. I usually uncheck that one.

Science I think is fine. It definitely requires some focus and concerted effort. Especially if you constantly have the threat of attack to ward off.

One nice strat is to nuke some one when they finish a part. The part will get destroyed.
 
CraigMak said:
Diplo is by far the cheesiest, easiest and least skilled victory type in the game. Ive gotten them by accident. That's one victory condition that can instantly cut a great game short. I usually uncheck that one. .
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I would suggest that on higher levels (Immortal/Diety), a diplomatic victory isn't that easy - especially if Civs such as Greece, Siam and Venice are in the game....
 
I wouldn't say SV is too easy, but I kind of agree with it feeling like a backdoor. The problem with it is that science is already the most important facet of the game regardless of your VC, so having a VC based around it is a bit redundant. Pursuing the actual SV doesn't really change my strategy much aside from beelining Hubble and the GP I faith-purchase in the Information Era, neither of which are even needed to win. I've had more than one occasion where I've been en route to a committed culture or domination win and aborted at the last second because I could finish the ship 50 turns quicker, so why not just do it.

It also doesn't help matters that the AI is usually stupidly slow with building the parts. I had a game once where 2 AI had 5 of the parts built whereas I hadn't even bothered with the Apollo Program, but they refused to finish the ship. I ended up abandoning the diplo win and won that game via SV. Yes, I built Apollo and all six parts quicker than they finished one. It felt ridiculously cheap.
 
Trackmaster said:
We did that back in the 60's, but yet the world still goes on and nobody thinks that America has dominated the world just because we did it.
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I think you had. If not, why Russia, Europe, China, India or so, try to make such thing ?
As I think you won a military victories with nuclear weapons, and economic one with USSR collapse.

On the game, my board from easiest to hardest :
- Domination.
- Diplomacy.
- Science.
- Culture.

It's not how hard it is. It's more how many times it takes to win so to let AI win. Even Science games can be accelerate with domination.
Only on Deity, warfare is bit tricky (survive to pre T100 attack and if your late reach Xcom and Stealth bombers quickly).
Peaceful games feel more comfortable. But, when you take you first caps, you rules the world at the end. Annoying things with domination is you need to move your troops.
AIs is barely better in culture and in a way science rather than diplo and warfaire.
 
Lanijon said:
I wouldn't say SV is too easy, but I kind of agree with it feeling like a backdoor. The problem with it is that science is already the most important facet of the game regardless of your VC, so having a VC based around it is a bit redundant.
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This. The second problem is that it's the hardest victory to interrupt. You can delay cultural victories in BNW by closing trade routes, open borders and cranking up your culture output. You can delay diplomatic victories by buying votes, conquering city states and be generally obstructive in the World Congress. You block domination victories by, well, not losing.

Science victories? Only way to stop them is to go to all out war. There's basically next to no way to obstruct a science victory if you're aiming for a non-domination victory.
 
Agreed. Assuming you are playing at a challenging level, SV ends up being a race — so its fun and worthy of play.
 
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