XCOMM, Stealth, and Giant Death Robots

I was just wondering if anybody had ever actually used any of these units in a real game without mods, to legitimately pursue a victory condition. It just seems to me that by that you get to these units the game is practically over, or you could just much more easily get what you need for the science victory. It's just disappointing because it sounds like it would be a lot of fun to use these units for legitimate purposes.

XCOM are used quite regularly to win domination games.

Also, once you have XCOM, the game ends in a handful of turns (as fast as you can take each capital).

Depends what map size you are playing on, I could see huge maps taking longer to achieve a DV. On a normal map, domination victories can be achieved faster than SV & you can build XCOM to win the game before you get all the techs to achieve a SV.

In multiplayer, Domination wins nearly all games as SV is a lot slower and means you need a large army because you'll be fighting off everyone's XCOM's as they land around your cities to try and stop you.

Maybe if you disable the victory conditions? Then the game will only end at the last turn...

To tell you the truth, I've never built a Giant Death Robot, or even Stealth Bombers... Playing games in marathon speeds make these all but useless... Even more if you consider how stupid the civ5 AI is...

While there is certainly a culture of 'Good play wins long before end game units' in civ 5; there is also something to be said for kicking back and running the game out once in a while to play around with the end game units imho.

So a couple of months back I was playing a game which was headed nicely towards a diplomatic victory, until the Ottomans finished conquering half the world's civs and declared on me, wiping out so many of the world's city states in the next few turns that diplo victory became essentially impossible.

I ended up switching to science production, and did manage to crank out an ultra-late science victory (this was on Immortal, and I'm amazed that nobody else had won by this point, it was so late, probably my highest turn count since I first started learning the game - I think everyone was too busy engaging in all war, all the time to bother actually winning).

Anyway, the only way I managed to survive this was by actually going for all the military techs that I never bother with and engaging in a massive protracted (sometimes nuclear) war until eventually half the world was nothing but dust and ash and the Ottomans stopped demanding all of my cities in exchange for peace. The AI never understands when it is getting utterly devastated, so I had all of my cities stacked with stealth bombers, GDRs all over the damn place, plus most of their cities gone before we managed to reach that point.

It was pretty fun, actually.

Waywocket said:

So a couple of months back I was playing a game which was headed nicely towards a diplomatic victory, until the Ottomans finished conquering half the world's civs and declared on me, wiping out so many of the world's city states in the next few turns that diplo victory became essentially impossible.

I ended up switching to science production, and did manage to crank out an ultra-late science victory (this was on Immortal, and I'm amazed that nobody else had won by this point, it was so late, probably my highest turn count since I first started learning the game - I think everyone was too busy engaging in all war, all the time to bother actually winning).

Anyway, the only way I managed to survive this was by actually going for all the military techs that I never bother with and engaging in a massive protracted (sometimes nuclear) war until eventually half the world was nothing but dust and ash and the Ottomans stopped demanding all of my cities in exchange for peace. The AI never understands when it is getting utterly devastated, so I had all of my cities stacked with stealth bombers, GDRs all over the damn place, plus most of their cities gone before we managed to reach that point.

It was pretty fun, actually.

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Yeah, I'd imagine that if you're doing slash and burn and dominating the game that other VC's for other Civ's might be unlikely anyway. I'm just wondering if the fact that I rarely get to these units reflects that fact that I don't do enough science when I'm going for DoV.

Trackmaster said:

I was just wondering if anybody had ever actually used any of these units in a real game without mods, to legitimately pursue a victory condition. It just seems to me that by that you get to these units the game is practically over, or you could just much more easily get what you need for the science victory. It's just disappointing because it sounds like it would be a lot of fun to use these units for legitimate purposes.

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Yes, if the game seeking domination lasts that long then science victory would have taken fewer turns.
Science victory would have no use for those units unless needed to prevent an AI from winning its own victory.

Cultural victory could get some use out of them if they capture a city with great works to relocate to their own own lands. (Another case where science victory would have been faster though)

Similar Diplomatic Victory can use those to liberate city states. (Yet another case where science victory would have been faster and you also would seriously wonder what the player was doing to be seeking diplomatic victory but not have won yet.)

I just got finished with a Domination Victory tonight and didn't even make it into the Atomic Era. I agree that if the game takes too long the chances of actually pulling off a Domination Victory get harder and harder.

I see them being used quite often by players on deity that need it for their last conquests in the 300+ area.

People should understand by now that victory conditions aren't balanced anyway. Players usually choose them and stick to it, this make these units useful when the last conquests are proving difficult.

If something was judged on whether or not another victory condition can give you a faster win then everything not leading to a diplo victory would be useless (or early units for when it's possible to win domination with them).

I have to smirk at the idea of briefing an XCom Squad and telling them their super critical mission is to retrieve a Book from Venice

I never really saw the last column of units as being designed to help you win, at least not "legitimately" as you describe. To me, they're more for some wild post-game romps, or just for quickly wrapping up a domination victory if you don't want to change plans and launch the spaceship. That's why they're so OP.

Also, I'm guessing they might serve more of an actual purpose in later-era starts.

stealth does not come too late to be useful, x-coms or gdr are.

paratropers do x-com job

I replayed one my earliest saves on Prince difficulty, a game i'd abandoned as unwinnable two years ago. As I meandered through the tech tree, intervening in wars that were none of my business, an Isolated Bismark became runaway and attacked me with nukes late game. I came back to this save and managed to beat him back without using nukes of my own, with Jet Fighters, Stealth Bombers, Mechanised Infantry and Giant Death Robots.

b7fanatix said:

I replayed one my earliest saves on Prince difficulty, a game i'd abandoned as unwinnable two years ago. As I meandered through the tech tree, intervening in wars that were none of my business, an Isolated Bismark became runaway and attacked me with nukes late game. I came back to this save and managed to beat him back without using nukes of my own, with Jet Fighters, Stealth Bombers, Mechanised Infantry and Giant Death Robots.

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I've done something similar once or twice, and it's quite weird how one's perspective has changed in the intervening time.

when you start a late game domination on deity, stealth bombers are actually needed, as you cannot get the huge tech lead so you can conquer everyone with regular bombers, especially now after you have limit for planes in a city.

Acken said:

If something was judged on whether or not another victory condition can give you a faster win then everything not leading to a diplo victory would be useless (or early units for when it's possible to win domination with them).

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While this is true at the default 2:1 ratio on standard map size with espionage on, if you either cut the ratio down to 1:1 on the advanced setup screen OR turn off espionage (again on the advanced setup), then there are many cases in which Cultural would actually be faster on standard map size than diplomatic. Using both in combination has the effect of making diplomatic slower than science.

In fact, I find it's a better game at 1:1 but with espionage on than at the default 2:1 ratio.

I am new to BWN, but aren't XCOM unlocked with next-to-last spaceship part? That is how it has gone with my two Immortal SV anyway. I build a couple XCOM in the spare turns while waiting to unlock the Engine. I have not had a chance to put them to good effect though.

beetle said:

I am new to BWN, but aren't XCOM unlocked with next-to-last spaceship part? That is how it has gone with my two Immortal SV anyway. I build a couple XCOM in the spare turns while waiting to unlock the Engine. I have not had a chance to put them to good effect though.

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Depends upon which order you go for the parts. XCOM is indeed blocking one of the two last row techs you need for space race victory, but you can go for the spaceship techs in any order.
Note that both those that went Freedom and those that went Order will be able to make the very last part the turn they get the tech via saved gold (Freedom) or saved GE (Order)

I find that its quite easy to mass enough culture to win way before a science victory. Science victory seems to be the slowest for some reason. Its also rather easy to win with diplomatic victory just by spamming infinite gold on city states.

Depends on how I play. If I only play to win asap then a SV or CV have been achieve long before those units have any effect. But some time it is fun just to play the game with all options open and those games tend to be a lot longer and you can then enjoy the power of the stealth. A couple of days ago I had a really fun save with Babylon (Emperor mind you) when I decided I would use some turns to find a NW or an even better spot then the ones you start on to settle Babylon. Kind of how you often do with Spain. And I found KSM 3 moves south! The original starting position turned out to be a good spot for Akkad. And even do I missed 4-5 turns by doing so I still managed to get the GL and from there on I was pretty much in the tech lead or at least up there and had all options open for me. But I did not want to pursuit the usual SV with Babylon so I decided to get a CV instead. Even do I did not found any religion and did not get all the wonders needed with the internet and some friendly ass licking along with diplomats in every capital I managed to spread my culture to every civ except to Russia. I how ever won a diplomatic victory even managing to unluck the "Dark horse" achievement since I had not been the leader of the congress once before I won. Anyway, since I was Babylon and had a very high tech army I eventually upgraded all my bombers to Stealth and rather easily took 3 Japanese cities (my northern neighbor) before he offered me peace and another 3 cities. One of the more fun game I had played in a while and just because I did not try to use a strategy early on (other then to get new tech asap) but just going with the flow. It is often in those games I end up using both X-Com and Stealth and even the robots if I have uranium.

Japan is btw my civ . I always get invaded early on when playing as them and I always manage to kick his ass when I play against him. The game I played before the Babylon save I played as Brazil and had managed to block Oda containing him to only 1 city. CS, ocean me and mountains surrounding him. And I even managed to steal 3, yes 3 settlers from him. When he eventually managed to get one past me and settle a crappy little coastal city with one luxury I razed it 10 turns later.