Science Victory - too easy/rediculous?

T

Trackmaster

Warlord
Joined
Jul 14, 2014
Messages
258
I'm sorry if this topic has been done to death on here, I think I've read about this before online. But it's just something that irritates me. All of the other victory types require you to do something very hard to do generally measure where you are in the game too. I don't even mind the timed victory (I usually turn it off, but it's fair, because it's a measure of what you accomplish throughout the game). They all even have historic precedent.

However, science is so easy to do, and has little to do with what goes on in the game, it's more of a loophole or a backdoor. It also makes the late game techs pretty meaningless, because by the time you would get to the Apollo space program, you're pretty much only building 6 wonder-like units away from winning. I think it might be smarter if they made it so that you had to colonize on a different planet (simmed, not actually done) or research 10 future techs (with space travel being a world wonder) to get science victory. Victory by space travel isn't even realistic. 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.
 
there is a lot of speculation whether or not we landed on the moon in the 60's as nobody else was able to recreate it for another 30 years. Also, this is about heading to another planet, not the moon.

I do agree though as I hit science wins very easy along with diplomacy, so there are a good amount of games that I leave science unchecked for victory, forcing me to do something else.

And science is easy once you get it, but it still requires a very specific focus throughout the game (immortal and deity). You have to have food growth, you have to have happiness, you have to have money to rush-buy science, you have to hopefully have either money or religion to speed up the space parts, etc.
 
Science may seem to be the simplest goal, but it is not the fastest road to victory. Diplomatic victories are also very simple as well.

Culture victories may require a little more knowledge to win, but they can be won just as fast, and if you exploit sacred sites with a sprawling empire, you can win in ridiculously fast times.

Domination games are also quite fast and just require you to learn to manage your units and build times.

All victory conditions are fairly balanced on how long it takes, with domination and culture being the quickest by the more knowledge crowd and diplomatic victories are simply the easiest.

I think you may feel science is so easy because that is what you learned to do first, and is the base of most victory times, so you are better at it. It isn't the fastest way to win, however.
 
Domination on continents is IMO the hardest one to achieve. I would naturally always play Pangaea, but I feel like I'd be cheating the "naval civs" out by doing so.
 
fallout3dc said:
Domination on continents is IMO the hardest one to achieve. I would naturally always play Pangaea, but I feel like I'd be cheating the "naval civs" out by doing so.
Click to expand...

I used to always play continents maps because I found navy to be OP and it gives you a lot of opportunity to use the navy and land units. At the time, I wasn't focused on victory times, but domination on continents were my fastest victories. I'd pretty much wipe out the world with nothing but a navy and a few units to help take over cities.
 
Science victory is "easy" because it's what people learn to do the most.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
 
I'd actually say science is one of the hardest to win quickly. Against the AI on high difficulties, it requires sound strategy. From easiest to hardest in my opinion (on Immortal):

- Diplomatic
- Domination
- Science
- Time
- Cultural
 
I would love to see some Immortal+ CV walk thrus that don’t look like aborted dom games, which is how I would characterize the GotM and HoF results. At Emperor you can turtle and win a CV. At Immortal and Deity you can turtle and get a Diplo or SV. I agree with DragonXXX about Time VC. What settings make that even possible? Chieftain or Settler maybe?
 
beetle said:
I would love to see some Immortal+ CV walk thrus that don’t look like aborted dom games, which is how I would characterize the GotM and HoF results. At Emperor you can turtle and win a CV. At Immortal and Deity you can turtle and get a Diplo or SV. I agree with DragonXXX about Time VC. What settings make that even possible? Chieftain or Settler maybe?
Click to expand...

BNW CV doesn't remotely look the same as G&K CV.
 
I don't get how you always get a SV. In 90% of my games, I end up with Tithe, lots of money and win a diplomatic victory (using Gunboat diplomacy, the respective Freedom trade thing I forgot the name of, World Religion, World Ideology, Host and this money) as soon as that victory is possible.
 
Uzael36 said:
BNW CV doesn't remotely look the same as G&K CV.
Click to expand...

Sure, Diplo too. But can you (not me) turtle (at Immortal+) and reliably win a CV? The posts I have seen involve beating up a neighbor and/or nuking a late game science runaway.
 
beetle said:
Sure, Diplo too. But can you (not me) turtle (at Immortal+) and reliably win a CV? The posts I have seen involve beating up a neighbor and/or nuking a late game science runaway.
Click to expand...

What part of musicians + internet + int'l games is so difficult you need to ask the question in 3 different threads?

Obviously if you build your musicians guild early you're going to have trouble. But if you build it so your first musician comes out when you hit internet, and you faith buy a couple more, you can have 4-5 in a very short amount of time and dominate ANY civ, I don't care who they are.
 
beetle said:
Sure, Diplo too. But can you (not me) turtle (at Immortal+) and reliably win a CV? The posts I have seen involve beating up a neighbor and/or nuking a late game science runaway.
Click to expand...

I beat it in late 2030's as Siam at King (I am struggling at Emperor), of course I have to invade 4 cities from the guy at second place. But he is Alex so I think it don't count. :D
 
beetle said:
Sure, Diplo too. But can you (not me) turtle (at Immortal+) and reliably win a CV? The posts I have seen involve beating up a neighbor and/or nuking a late game science runaway.
Click to expand...

For those you might actually believe the above here are two recent games that come to mind:

Acken's peaceful CV in the last DC (Persia) (t239):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13340385&postcount=40

Or, from the closed GotM TSG85 game, IronfighterXXX peaceful CV (t254)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13217838&postcount=23

Read some of Deau's posts for detailed info about how to do this. Easy? No not really ... Doable? Heck yes.
 
Some science victories take too long, I've seen diplomatic victories sooner and easier.
 
Maybe but you can always increase your challenge by rolling a map where you have a bad starting position and play a lower tier civ vs warmongers, Alex and Korea on deity. See if it is more difficult to win SV then ;)
 
Uzael36 said:
Science may seem to be the simplest goal, but it is not the fastest road to victory. Diplomatic victories are also very simple as well.

Culture victories may require a little more knowledge to win, but they can be won just as fast, and if you exploit sacred sites with a sprawling empire, you can win in ridiculously fast times.

Domination games are also quite fast and just require you to learn to manage your units and build times.

All victory conditions are fairly balanced on how long it takes, with domination and culture being the quickest by the more knowledge crowd and diplomatic victories are simply the easiest.

I think you may feel science is so easy because that is what you learned to do first, and is the base of most victory times, so you are better at it. It isn't the fastest way to win, however.
Click to expand...

Maybe I should rephrase what my biggest problem with SV is:

By the time you get to the high tech parts of the game where you can use cutting edge technology to accomplish your other goals, you say "well I might as well just build these little things instead of doing all of this other stuff." It just seems like some of the units of the game are pretty much wasted because of this (unless you're playing to explore the game and not to win at all costs).
 
Trackmaster said:
Maybe I should rephrase what my biggest problem with SV is:

By the time you get to the high tech parts of the game where you can use cutting edge technology to accomplish your other goals, you say "well I might as well just build these little things instead of doing all of this other stuff." It just seems like some of the units of the game are pretty much wasted because of this (unless you're playing to explore the game and not to win at all costs).
Click to expand...

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.

If you go CV, you will take policies and build buildings that help culture/tourism, and results in slowing down your science some. By the time you are in position to consider building spaceship parts, you are much closer to winning with culture/tourism.

The same goes for any victory type. The only victory conditions that seem to be a fall back when things go wrong is diplomacy and domination.
 
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