Play all the way to victory ?

Just curious if others play each game to completion ?

I usually find myself playing only up to the point where victory seems inevitable. The only games I'm considering reloading to play to the bitter end are the ones where victory for the AI is academic. Curious to see how the AI ends it as they have multiple options in some cases.

Also, would be interested to know of any late game surprises you have encountered that would make me see the light and play games all the way through.

I had one just the other day. Playing as England, I was going for domination on Small Continents. Had a huge fleet going on and sent it across the planet to conquer everyone. At least the capitols. Having taken down 9 of the 15 enemy capitols, it seemed like a matter of time until I'd steamroll everyone to victory.
Then Pachacuti and William suddenly finished the Apollo Program. I rush my naval fleet to them, splitting it up (They were on opposite sides of the world), and while I take Cusco without a problem, William had built Hubble and had a fleet waiting for me near Amsterdam. Once I had punched through that fleet, I suddenly saw pieces of the spaceship transported from Groningen, Rotterdam and Utrecht into Amsterdam. Went in recklessly...but too late, couldn't take down Amsterdam before the rocket flew off.
That was pretty intense. If it had been ONLY Pachacuti or ONLY William, I would've won. But nope.

I haven't finished a G&K game yet. Turn times get rediculously long at the end game (huge or large maps). And since I usually know how I'm going to win, it stops being fun.

hobbsyoyo said:

I haven't finished a G&K game yet. Turn times get rediculously long at the end game (huge or large maps). And since I usually know how I'm going to win, it stops being fun.

Click to expand...

This is the first iteration of Civ that has me playing on small/standard maps. Turns take too long and my system starts to have issues re-drawing tiles in modern age.

Loucypher said:

I had one just the other day. Playing as England, I was going for domination on Small Continents. Had a huge fleet going on and sent it across the planet to conquer everyone. At least the capitols. Having taken down 9 of the 15 enemy capitols, it seemed like a matter of time until I'd steamroll everyone to victory.
Then Pachacuti and William suddenly finished the Apollo Program. I rush my naval fleet to them, splitting it up (They were on opposite sides of the world), and while I take Cusco without a problem, William had built Hubble and had a fleet waiting for me near Amsterdam. Once I had punched through that fleet, I suddenly saw pieces of the spaceship transported from Groningen, Rotterdam and Utrecht into Amsterdam. Went in recklessly...but too late, couldn't take down Amsterdam before the rocket flew off.
That was pretty intense. If it had been ONLY Pachacuti or ONLY William, I would've won. But nope.

Click to expand...

Thats awesome. Those are the types of events that have me re-thinking my current play style. I'm guessing I'd need to bump up AI level though, what level are you playing on ?

whyidie said:

This is the first iteration of Civ that has me playing on small/standard maps. Turns take too long and my system starts to have issues re-drawing tiles in modern age.

Click to expand...

Bummer. I literally built my computer to be able to play this game. Hex core, 3 gig processor, 2 video cards in crossfire, like 12 or 16 gig of ram....and it still has issues. This game is worse than crysis, IMO.

whyidie said:

Thats awesome. Those are the types of events that have me re-thinking my current play style. I'm guessing I'd need to bump up AI level though, what level are you playing on ?

Click to expand...

Emperor. I'm too much of a roleplayer to really care about min-maxing and all that, I just build whatever I please and generally am competitive enough that way.

Loucypher said:

Emperor. I'm too much of a roleplayer to really care about min-maxing and all that, I just build whatever I please and generally am competitive enough that way.

Click to expand...

I play the same way, but still finding a challenge on King as I get a little too unfocused at times. May make the step up to Emperor after a couple more games on King.

Loucypher said:

I had one just the other day. Playing as England, I was going for domination on Small Continents. Had a huge fleet going on and sent it across the planet to conquer everyone. At least the capitols. Having taken down 9 of the 15 enemy capitols, it seemed like a matter of time until I'd steamroll everyone to victory.
Then Pachacuti and William suddenly finished the Apollo Program. I rush my naval fleet to them, splitting it up (They were on opposite sides of the world), and while I take Cusco without a problem, William had built Hubble and had a fleet waiting for me near Amsterdam. Once I had punched through that fleet, I suddenly saw pieces of the spaceship transported from Groningen, Rotterdam and Utrecht into Amsterdam. Went in recklessly...but too late, couldn't take down Amsterdam before the rocket flew off.
That was pretty intense. If it had been ONLY Pachacuti or ONLY William, I would've won. But nope.

Click to expand...

A game like that would certainly hold my attention...as long as it doesn't become hopeless.... I've had a few games similar to that, where I've had to suddenly rush over to some AI to try to seize their capital...mostly though I've left things too late....

Also late in the game if you aren't paying enough attention, the AI can sneak past you with a cultural win...I had one, Bismarck I think, do that...I was well on track for a science victory and suddenly the game was over...

But it seems most games just get tiresome if my eventual win is inevitable...especially since the turn wait times start to get a bit too long...

So as the OP suggests once a win becomes inevitable, I usually can't be bothered to play on.... After all, for me anyway, it's merely entertainment...nothing else turns on it.

The fun part of most of my games seems to be early on...finding good cty sites....seeing which AIs I'm likely going to have attack me, whether I have enough "Horses", and other productive tiles, building up some wonders, and some military units...Crossbow and later, usually, to deal first of all with attacks, then getting units to go on the offensive with....Keshiks, Berserkers, Janissaries, and such....

Every. Single. Game.

I consider it extremely obsessive behavior. And I do not offer it as any sort of "norm" to establish or compare against. It just works for me.

I always try to finish a game when I start it, unless it starts going horribly wrong...

BlackMoon450 said:

I always try to finish a game when I start it, unless it starts going horribly wrong...

Click to expand...

A noble objective...but sometimes the games just get too tedious...

I've just given up on one game...I was way ahead...in just about everything...except "gold flow" and until late in the game, soldiers .....no one ever attacked me...only one civ was "Guarded"....I decided to liven things up by attacking two different civs... One attack was kind of "strategic"...[I reasoned that if I was going to be attacked, the battleground may as well be a puppeted city, rather than one of my own cities.] But when peace returned, one of the AI immediately became "Friendly" again.... Sometimes it really is difficult to figure out why the AI becomes "Hostile" and why they are "Friendly"....

Prior to my build-up for the attacks I didn't even have much of a military... A weak military usually seems to "invite" some sort of hostility from the AI...