Who plays for stability as much as victory?

I don't know if I'm alone, but I always consider myself to have won a game only if I achieve one of the victory conditions, and in addition judge that my Empire is sustainable. This means I may quit the game once I've launched the spaceship, etc., or I may continue playing, sometimes for hundreds of turns.

For example, if I am on the winning side of history, sharing the world ideology, being hated by only 2-3 civs and being friends or friendly with the rest, then I stop playing once I have achieved one of the victory conditions.

On the other extreme, once as Venice, I was able to launch the spaceship, but I was one of only two Freedom empires, there was another AI following Order, and the rest were all Autocracy and because of Gunboat diplomacy they were dominating the UN. Trade embargo on me (ouch) and on city states (ouch) as well as three of my luxury resources (ouch again). This was on Immortal, BNW, standard speed. Probably the best game the AI has pulled off, of the games I have played. So despite having won the science race (6 turns before the Shoshone would have won the UN vote), I continued playing until I could tell my Venitian empire was stable. What followed was about 150 turns of modern warfare (although not a single nuke!), where I would take out the Shoshone's main cities, rush to another continent to defend Arabia (the other Freedom empire) against Askia (another Autocrat superpower). Until they embargoed the city states, I had my vast navy of 20-something missile cruisers patrolling my shipping lanes, etc etc. The most immersive military game I have played. After 150 turns, I could claim a Pyrrhic victory. Despite the difficulties and military upkeep costs, my happiness was low but stable, my economy was doing okay and my military could defend me and Arabia. So I called it a game and considered myself truly victorious.

Anyone else obsessing with long-term stability?

I've been thinking about this.

I think compared to previous Civ games, Civ5 is harder to play beyond the "end date" (2050 in standard settings) because of certain things that get harder to do as the game progresses. For example, Faith costs go up per era, unit maintenance goes up per era, Great Person costs get higher and higher, and Golden Ages get more costly with each successive one. Although, once you've won the game, that shouldn't matter. More important is that cities' populations will keep growing, while happiness sources are limited. Also, the amount of influence gained from gold gifts to city-states goes down with every gift, making it harder to continually maintain alliances with them in the late game.

Of course, the fact that CS quests are so common in BNW means that you don't actually have to give gold to CS that often (I've won diplo victory without giving gold a single time), which partially mitigates the problem. And population growth of your cities can be halted, I suppose, it's just that Civ5's mechanic of requiring more and more food for every successive citizen keeps cities growing well into the late game. I dunno, it just seemed like playing past 2050 was easier in Civ 3, but then again, I only played that game on Chieftain because I was still a kid back then.

volisas said:

After 150 turns, I could claim a Pyrrhic victory. Despite the difficulties and military upkeep costs, my happiness was low but stable, my economy was doing okay and my military could defend me and Arabia. So I called it a game and considered myself truly victorious.

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That's not a Pyrrhic victory. A Pyrrhic victory is a victory where your losses have been so great that you can't actually capitalize on it and get any of the objectives you were after. Named after the Greek general Pyrrhus who won every battle against the Romans, but each time suffering huge losses, which meant that the war basically ended in a draw.

A Pyrrhic victory in Civ would be to capture the science runaway's capital, only to see him complete the spaceship a few turns later anyway, for example.

As for your question, I don't, although that Venice game seems like a cool experience. I actually struggle with that a bit : I'm playing a TSL Giant Earth Map as Assyria right now, where I decided that I would conquer all of my immediate neighbors : Arabia, Persia, Ottomans and Egypt (I'm playing with 22 civs, so Babylon isn't here among others). Now that I've done that, I'm kind of lost : I could try to conquer some more but my "neighbors" are either far away (India, the Arabian cities that Harun settled in southern India, Poland), my friends (Ethiopia), or both (Songhai, Russia). At the same time, I do want to win the game, if only to get to see the replay, which means I have to grind away to a science victory for a few hudred turns (playing on Epic). So it's kind of the reverse of what you described : I'm happy with what I've accomplished, but I haven't technically won the game. What would you do then ?

Teproc said:

A Pyrrhic victory in Civ would be to capture the science runaway's capital, only to see him complete the spaceship a few turns later anyway, for example.

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If we're being pedantic that's not necessarily a Pyrric victory because you didn't mention any losses. A Pyrric victory in Civ would be waging war on another player and wiping them out, but in the process losing all but one of your cities and units.

Charlie_B said:

If we're being pedantic that's not necessarily a Pyrric victory because you didn't mention any losses. A Pyrric victory in Civ would be waging war on another player and wiping them out, but in the process losing all but one of your cities and units.

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You're right, that's a much better example. Pedantry FTW !

Charlie_B said:

If we're being pedantic that's not necessarily a Pyrric victory because you didn't mention any losses. A Pyrric victory in Civ would be waging war on another player and wiping them out, but in the process losing all but one of your cities and units.

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That would be pretty near MAD

Pyrrhic victory as I understand it isn't so much the absolute amount of losses suffered by the winning side needing to be equivalent or near equivalent to the losing side, but basically winning in a war or battle but 'losing' in the end.

This requires hindsight of course. I think if the Romans has imploded from some externalities while Pyrrus was winning his victories, history may have judged him differently.

So the term pyrrhic victory as used these days is basically a worthless victory. winning, but gaining nothing of value, even if your own losses are minimal. Some descriptions would also require large unsistainable losses, in this case, you can envisage a situation where you're boxed in on all sides. You muster your entire army to try and break out, achieve your initial objectives, but your army is wiped out in the process.

LoneRebel said:

it's just that Civ5's mechanic of requiring more and more food for every successive citizen keeps cities growing well into the late game

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afaik food for next pop equation is the same in all civ and smac titles

Magma_Dragoon said:

afaik food for next pop equation is the same in all civ and smac titles

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Not true...it has even changed in civ 5 vanilla (the update with aqueducts, and then a few times later)

Higher pops have always needed more food... but the equation is continually changing.

However on OP I usually like to play to complete stability... ie elimination of all other empires.... at least in theory, I end up trying a new game once I'm "
set up" to do that.

It wasn't always x+2n?

Magma_Dragoon said:

It wasn't always x+2n?

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No and its not now.

Now it is
15+ 8 n + n^1.4?

(The exponent has changed several times... I think it was originally 2)

Original question: I've always had a tech lead in Civ V when I won any form of victory.
Normally I've been at peace on the turn I won but even when at war I was clearing winning it.
(And even when not #1 in troops; I could easily defend myself from AI)

Pyrrhic victory: In its purest form; a tactical victory in which from a strategic standpoint the other side is actually the one better off for the duration of the war.
There have been cases where one side had reserves in which the other didn't that a 3:1 loss ratio was a Pyrrhic one to the one inflicting more causalities.
Examples of this:
Both of the namesakes themselves "In both of Pyrrhus's victories, the Romans suffered greater casualties than Pyrrhus did"
To the C.S. for any battle during the Lee vs Grant campaign; but Battle of the Wilderness comes to mind in particular)

This term though has also been extended to cases in which the winner of a war itself was fell victim to a 3rd party that wasn't even on the horizon during the initial war even if it achieved total victory during that initial war. And so it would be fair in Civ V to call a situation where you conquered your opponent but fail so far behind in the tech race that you ended up losing the tech race a Pyrrhic victory.

Possible example of this:
Most of the alliance in WWI, but special mention for Italy: Being on the winning side of the war didn't seem to give them much in the peace treaty.

I do something similar sometimes. After winning a peaceful victory, I'll make a 180 and pointlessly take over the world with GDRs, nukes and stealth bombers.

I do try to extend my city connections everywhere, and repair the most important tiles, so I suppose my absolute rule is just a different kind of sustainable future for the planet.

I always understood "Pyrrhic victory" to mean one in which the side that won only did so with enormous losses. In Pyrrhus's victories against the Romans, the Epirote casualties were by no means low. Although he inflicted more casualties on the Romans overall, his own casualties formed a larger percentage of his army. As we all know, one of Rome's greatest strengths in those times was a seemingly bottomless manpower pool compared to its enemies.

To be honest, I play for victory. I have even lowered the difficulty and kept it simple. Or in other words, I used to follow many people here. However, I couldn't get the domination victory on 6 - 8. I kind of feel like a one hit wonder with a Pacal (but he was a king) win and a ashurbanipal win which were both in Immortal but these wins weren't domination like i used to. However, I did get a dominant win with wu zetian but in emperor difficulty. I used to get domination wins in civilization 1 in emperor difficulty often, but now I could only dominate in the lower difficulties. I have dominated in lower difficulties with Germany, Greece and the Shoshone (he was a chief). I have failed with other civilizations on emperor difficulty in civilization 5. I have gone to civilization 1, but it seems so difficult now.