Winning differently

I have played over 300 hours of Civ V now and worked out at King level how to win but I am restricted to winning only one way and that is to be leading in points at the end of 500 moves. I have tried so hard to win a cultural victory but end up getting so far BEHIND I have to go out and take over some capital cities to boost my points.
Give me a sea map and frigates etc are so OP that a win is easily guaranteed.

What pointers are there to win by other means? Do people make it a habit to win by other means or do most wins just occur by a similar method that I use. (knocking out a couple of opposition cities which boosts your score and reduces opponents scores.)

If you browse the Strategies & Tips forum, you will find almost no one playing for a time victory. To better understand strategies for other victory conditions, you might browse the posted after-action reports in the various S&T threads (although those are almost always Deity or Immortal games) and/or view save files posted in the Civ V Hall of Fame (all difficulty levels). You can also play old Game of the Month games (which include games ranging from Settler to Deity, and all but one of which has a required victory condition that is not time based) and then review the after-action reports for those games.

You can also watch video LPs posted by expert players. There is a recent thread where folks mention their favorites.

What game speed are you playing on? 500 turns with no victory condition on King is a long time.

I just play standard speed. My games last a few days but I have never looked at videos (surely it would take hours to watch a game) and reading some forum posts on this site can be a little confusing with all the acronyms ( GWoA , SP's etc)and people saying matching bonuses. I have just picked up the game by playing but I now realize that to master it is something else and that is what I am trying to do now. I haven't played any previous games of Civ either so it can be a little over whelming all the little tricks and skills people are talking about.

I'm not sure there's much S&T advice on time only victories. All the advice is about achieving the other victory conditions faster.

But the most important thing in game score is number of cities, so just follow advice on one of the domination victory threads there, but instead of having your last few kills being surgical strikes to original capitals reduce everybody to an involuntary OCC.

For joncnunn,
the idea of "involuntary OCC" is a good one which equates to the "Trading Vassal" theme I've been working towards ... but the problem is that I have to wait until the targeted Bozo (AI) has a few cities, from which I can choose to be the surviving non-capital city; i.e., Trashcity, waay out in the boonies.

So for the first couple of Bozo's, early game, I wipe them out, 2-3 cities each, take the time to properly digest them; puppeting, and standing them up to my operational use (annexation), and by then; my next targeted Bozo will have enough cities to give a clear choice of which Bozocity to let live; for Trading Vassal .

This being done on standard speed, Prince, Time- and Diplo-VCs disabled; my usual settings .
Thoughts/comments ??

Guide to acronyms http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=442106

One of the briefer guides to Cultural Victory http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=505843

Read what Joshua has to say on this about eight posts down. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=517245

The early part of the game is all about getting 3-4 good cities prioritizing food and science.

Grab Wonders with artist slots and fill them, theming as much as possible.

Save Great Musicians for spamming concert tours at the culture leader much later to get you over the finish line. Aim to finish the Asthetics tree and buy musicians with faith.

Keep an eye on the cultural panel (top right of screen) and the tab that shows your progress. Mouse over the stats to get more info.

Open borders gets you +25% influence. When you get some decent tourism pay 2g to get other civs to give you open borders but don't open yours to them.

Trade routes get you +25% too. One caravan or ship per civ is enough.

If a runaway civ is a different ideology from you stick a spy in their capital as a diplomat, but you are right about the neccessity sometimes to simply take them out. Grab their cap and all the goodies!

Skulbow said:

I have played over 300 hours of Civ V now and worked out at King level how to win but I am restricted to winning only one way and that is to be leading in points at the end of 500 moves. I have tried so hard to win a cultural victory but end up getting so far BEHIND I have to go out and take over some capital cities to boost my points.
Give me a sea map and frigates etc are so OP that a win is easily guaranteed.

What pointers are there to win by other means? Do people make it a habit to win by other means or do most wins just occur by a similar method that I use. (knocking out a couple of opposition cities which boosts your score and reduces opponents scores.)

Click to expand...

Thats kind of odd, that 300 hours in you've only ever won a time victory. Experiences vary, I'm sure, but I'm at the opposite extreme: I'm several hundred games in (less than some on this forum by far) and I've never once seen a time victory. Its just never been able to occur, as the means to another victory always presents itself.

If nothing else, the very late game tends to give piles of hold and the opportunity to buy every city state outright for a diplomatic victory.

I'm wondering it you may lack a sense of maintenance of aim, or focusing on a goal. It may well be that your style of play is one of emergent narrative from the simulation, rather than gaming towards a particular goal.

I'd suggest winding it back to Prince, then playing a game with each victory type in mind. Start with Domination, as thats easiest to understand. Pick a civ that is militaristic. Develop an army, then go capture all the capitals.

I would kind of like to see a time victory, so I find this thread encouraging!

wideframehoss said:

500 turns with no victory condition on King is a long time.

Click to expand...

Are you sure about that? Maybe at King the AI civs are really that slow?

It's not that the AI civs are slow, it's that it takes some care for the human player to avoid getting a culture victory before turn 500. You can avoid science victory by refusing to build SS parts, avoid diplo victory by not voting for yourself for world leader, and avoid domination victory by choosing not to dominate, but avoiding an inadvertent culture victory is a bit trickier to manage.

Mahasona said:

One of the briefer guides to Cultural Victory http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=505843

Read what Joshua has to say on this about eight posts down. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=517245

Click to expand...

Those two are new to me, thanks! I am going to repost them to a couple other current threads discussing culture.