When do you decide upon Victory type?

ackoman

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 8, 2016
Messages
75
Hello all,

Just getting into the game again having not played for years - I was just wondering at what point in the game do you guys decide what sort of Victory you are going to go for? You read posts which say things like "I was playing as Brazil, and was going for a Culture Victory" but was this the aim from the outset, or did a Culture victory seem like the best option after a certain number of moves?

I've started a game in which I was going to try a culture victory, have got to move 200 or so and am now thinking that Science might be the best option because one of the AI players appears to be so ahead in the culture stakes. Is it normal to not decide upon the victory type this late into the game?

Thanks,
Ackoman
 
All civs can achieve all victory conditions, and playing some towards victory conditions other than what they are tailored for can be fun and a refreshing change of pace. Consequently, I don't subscribe to the logic of, "I'm Brazil so going for culture" or "I'm Shaka so going for domination."

My quick answer is I usually decide what my intended victory condition is (and what the backup plan VC is) when I complete the opening social policy tree.

There are, however, a few situations that often sway me earlier than this, though. The two that come to mind off the top of my head are 1.) if I can monopolize all the wine or incense on the map and get at least a few of the other and I'm likely to get a religion, I'll often go for culture victory, and more definitively 2.) If I can get Kilimanjaro in my borders, I'll probably take advantage and go for domination which, in my experience, is the least practical victory condition on deity.
 
Well, Science and Diplomatic victories are highly changeable.
Peaceful Culture path diverges early for those two (no later than first policy after completing the first tree) and so weather or not to go for peaceful culture needs to be made fairly early, but you can wait a very long time to decide between science & diplomatic.

The warmongering variation of Culture though is a branch off the Domination strategy, and so the decision between Domination & Culture can be made later.

Brazil (and France) though have Unique abilities greatly increasing their effectiveness at a Culture victory compared to most other civs though, and so its extremely common to hear someone playing either or these two civs has committed to Cultural victory on turn 0.

In fact, there is even a Sacred Sites gambit designed around going for Cultural victory, which works best as Brazil. That is effectively a turn 0 decision.
 
Thank you for your replies.
You speak about there being different branches for the different victory types - are these branches explained anywhere?

Thanks.
 
Yep, I'm on BNW. Thanks for the link, although I didn't see any mention of "Branches" so I'm guessing that joncnunn is either using his own terminology or has followed a different guide.
 
^^I'm guessing he's talking about how the game starts the same, but then you follow a different tech path for your intended victory.
 
I would think most people, when they are new, want to get each one of the victory types, and that decision would be made when setting up the game. If you still have the compulsion to play after accomplishing this, maybe then you might set up random conditions and choose the victory type based on how things turn out early on in the game. Personally, I have always decided what my goal was before starting the game.
 
^^I'm guessing he's talking about how the game starts the same, but then you follow a different tech path for your intended victory.

Hum, in context of between Science & Diplomatic, yup, this tech path is the same up until Modern era before splitting.

In context of peaceful culture (non sacred sites) and the others though I was referring to how you'd still pick the same first tree for any victory type but following that would pick a different policy for peaceful culture than if you were going science or diplomatic.

In context of Domination vs warmongering culture though, I was more referring to how initially you'd just pick the same targets first, but later your target order would sometimes be different.

A branch is anytime that before it happens you make the same moves, but after which you make different ones.
 
If I roll Brazil, then I would probably be aiming for Culture from the outset. Otherwise I just go with the flow and see how the game progresses before deciding.
 
As I was working through the difficulty levels and the different civs, I would always aim for SV so that I could feel like I was making relevant comparisons. SV is a nice benchmark because you have to unlock most of the tech tree, so it feels like a full game. Tech being as important as it is, SV plays out is reasonably similar way to CV, Diplo, and late game domination runs.

Certain civ UA/UB/UU point strongly to particular VC, so I made exceptions of course.

If I am not doing well with an SV run, bailing for a Diplo VC is okay, and better than losing!
 
I usually try to role-play may chosen civ so if it is aggressive I may do domination - etc.
But sometimes if I can win a vote-for-victory I do that anyways as victory is probably inevitable if I am in the position where I control most city states
 
If you're doing RP and delaying victory for something else, you don't have to win diplomatic even if you control ALL CS. you don't need to put in all your votes. In each of the CDG series games, I could've won diplo 3-4 times before the actual victory.
 
Turn 1 I decide on Domination victory. Then I play the game out and decide how feasible it is to have everyone flying my banner or not. If not, I switch to other victory types.
 
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