BNW Civ Victory Types (Domination, Culture, Diplomacy, Science)

seancolorado

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We all see this question get asked a lot: What Civ should I pursue for what victory type? Well, I decided to find out.

I used a points-based system in determining each Civilization's strengths and weaknesses. Basically, I took a look at the UA, UU, and other Unique of the Civ and gave points depending on what victory type they all favor. For UUs, I looked in particular at the specific traits. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to play the game. Simply put, it looks at the Uniques and states 'on paper' what they would be best for. For the most part, it actually works out.

Some points of interest:
  • If a Civ was 100% flavored in one direction based on all Uniques, they were given extra points for that victory type.
  • I did not take into account Social Policies, AI tendencies, and human player tendencies, etc, so please take it with a grain of salt.
  • No Civs occupy the Science/Diplomacy quadrant.
  • Only two civs received points against a certain victory type: Ethiopia and India. Only one civ has zero victory bias: Inca.
  • Check the Spoilers to see the two best victory types for each civ. (Some just have one.)

Oh, and warning: I'm awful with photo-editing software. So bare with me. Because this is as clean as it gets:



Spoiler :
Getting into the points system is complicated. Instead, if you want to know how I came about the points please ask me about a specific civ. You'll understand much easier that way (but mostly it takes way too much time to write out 43 separate descriptions).

America
Domination [4]

Arabia
Diplomatic [4]
Domination [2]

Assyria
Domination [5]
Science [2]

Austria
Diplomatic [1]
Domination [1]

Aztecs
Domination [2]
Culture [1]

Babylon
Science [4]
Domination [1]

Brazil
Culture [5]
Domination [1]

Byzantium
Domination [3]

Carthage
Domination [3]

Celts
Domination [2]
Culture [1]

China
Domination [3]
Science [1]

Denmark
Domination [5]

Egypt
Domination [1]

England
Domination [3]

Ethiopia
Culture [2]
Domination [-2]

France
Culture [4]
Domination [1]

Germany
Domination [6]

Greece
Diplomatic [2]
Domination [2]

Huns
Domination [7]

Inca
n/a

India
Culture [4]
Domination [-4]

Indonesia
Diplomatic [3]
Domination [2]

Iroquois
Diplomatic [1]
Domination [1]

Japan
Domination [6]

Korea
Science [4]

Maya
Science [2]

Mongolia
Domination [7]

Morocco
Diplomatic [4]
Culture [1]

Netherlands
Diplomatic [2]
Domination [2]

Ottomans
Domination [7]

Persia
Domination [2]
Culture [1]

Poland
Domination [2]

Polynesia
Culture [2]
Diplomatic [1]

Portugal
Diplomatic [4]
Domination [1]

Rome
Domination [3]

Russia
Domination [4]

Shoshone
Domination [1]

Siam
Diplomatic [2]
Culture [2]

Songhai
Domination [4]
Culture [2]

Spain
Domination [3]

Sweden
Diplomatic [2]
Domination [2]

Venice
Diplomatic [3]
Domination [1]
Notes: The only one where I was unsure if my points system worked.

Zulu
Domination [8]
 
Nice work :)
Seems accurate, but I do not agree with India getting negatives for domination. Those elephants, man! :D
I also find it funny that the heavy money-making civs are diplo :lol: After all, a diplo victory = economic victory
 
You probably should have done this with a Venn diagram, but nice work anyway. :)

EDIT: My bad, that would be near impossible. To do it fully your way, you'd need a fourth dimension. Also, please can you explain the Venice points? I'm interested to see how you went about this.

Yeah like I said in the 'Notes' in the Spoilers Venice was the only Civ I wasn't sure about working with my point system.

But I gave Venice Diplo 3, Domination 1.

Basically:
UA
-Cannot gain settler nor annex cities - No pts
-Double the normal number of trade routes available -1 pt diplomacy
-A Merchant of Venice appears after researching Optics - 1 diplomacy because you have the option to use it to gain influence with city-states, but doesn't necessarily mean you will
-May purchase in puppeted cities - No pts
UU
-Great Galleass - 1 pt domination (UUs always get at least 1 pt for domination unless they have an ability that favors defense such as the Mehal Sefari. UUs which have a trait that actively promotes attacking a city such as the Battering Ram get 2 pts. This is why Great Galleass has 1 pt)
UGP
-1 pt diplomacy for +100% more City-State influence than a normal Trade Mission
 
Also, please can you explain the Venice points? I'm interested to see how you went about this.

Not the OP here, but I think Venice makes sense:

Science/Culture -- Nothing about Venice's unique abilities or units helps either of these.

Domination -- the Great Galleas probably explains the +1 to Domination, though I'd have taken the unique ability Trade Route bonus into account here and given them a few more points, perhaps: The absurd amount of gold Venice can generate lets them field a larger army; quickly purchase units (in puppet cities, too); influence other civs to join in DoW's; and forge alliances with City-States for strategic resources (or outright units, in the case of Militaristic CS's). Even their disadvantage has a silver lining, giving them less territory to defend. Venice is a very credible mid-to-late game military threat, and they can come out of nowhere to strike very quickly. The disruption to their trade routes following a DoW is one thing that holds them back, though.

Diplomacy -- Venice should probably have a +7 here. +8? +20? Diplomatic Victory = Economic Victory, and Venice's ability to rake in the gold with double the trade routes is borderline broken. It's hard to compete with a civilization that can buy an alliance with every CS on the map, and still have money to spare.

Edit: Ninja'd :) I think the "Trade Route Bonus" part of Venice's UA is worth FAR more than one point, and not just in Diplomacy.
 
Not the OP here, but I think Venice makes sense:

Science/Culture -- Nothing about Venice's unique abilities or units helps either of these.

Actually that's not true.

The extra trade routes can help with both those things; having a trade-route with another civilization gives you +25% influence over them from tourism, which is the new cultural victory.
Trade-routes also trade science. If the civilization you are trading with has technologies that you don't have; then you get science back in the trade-route.

So if you have twice as many trade-routes you can use them to gain influence over twice as many civilizations, or use them to gain twice as much science in trades. (The ideologies help out even more with the science since you can buy your way to the science victory.)

The problem is that while their UA/UU's can help with all of the victory conditions; they can also hurt you with all the victory conditions.
Domination with Venice is more difficult when you're relying on your trade-routes for money only to lose them all when you go to war; and it's hard to field a large domain of cities when you can never reduce the unhappiness from conquering them since you can never build a courthouse.
Culturally; Venice can gain a lot of tourism but become weak to tourism as well with a smaller empire building less culture for defence and with trade-routes giving your enemies +25% influence over you.
Scientifically; becoming the science leader means you will leak science to everyone you trade with and potentially push them to on par or even ahead of you.
Diplomatically; it's not hard for Venice to find that when they go to be elected the World Leader; there aren't enough votes as half the City-States have been brought under their control through the use of the great merchant.


Venice is a difficult one because their greatest strengths are also their greatest weaknesses.
 
If Steam made more data available you wouldn't need to do much work. I was looking at the rarest earned badges and a lot of them are to do with scenarios and DLC. But looking on the flip side you can totally see which Civilizations are popular and possibly over powered as many, many people have won with them.

For me and my play style I find diplomacy the easiest victory in BNW though I'm actually trying to win Culturally, this time with France. I think for speed assuing you don't go Pangea map and then kill all your neighbors without needing to research naval tech, Science victory may be the easiest/quickest. But I do so well at Diplomatic victory that I can usually vote myself in before reaching Alpha Centauri.

But that seems to be just me.
 
I dont see why 2 victory types contradict each other in the illustration. Also what counts towards what is too simplistic. And what if an ability is good for domination and diplomacy?
 
How does Portugal play out? Does it's UA give it a noticeable increase in gold?

Mare Clausum: 2 diplo pts.
(1 pt for UA due to intl. trade routes. Since there is no 2nd aspect to UA, bigger emphasis on UA hence 1 pt extra)

Nau: 1 diplo pt, 1 domination pt.
(1 diplo pt from having to sell in foreign lands. 1 domination pt from gaining XP for doing so and the fact that it's a unique unit with no attacking penalties.)

Feitoria: 1 diplo pt
(If built while an ally, provides double resources)
 
I dont see why 2 victory types contradict each other in the illustration. Also what counts towards what is too simplistic. And what if an ability is good for domination and diplomacy?

Keep in mind this is meant to be simplistic and just a suggestion for those who want to try a victory type with a civ they don't usually play. No straight lines here. Just how I personally view each civ

Having said that, I take into account abilities for both domination and diplomacy.

Example: Arabia. 4 diplo, 2 dom. They move to 4 points down towards diplomatic victory, but climb back up 2 points due to their domination advantages.

Or another example, Greece. 2 diplo, 2 dom. So they stay square in the very center of the graph
 
I could see India doing well in science just from the high pop (now that there's an expansion city penalty). I think it's just difficult to represent that if a Civ is really good for one and solid for the one on the opposite side of the spectrum (they look like they're just ok at both).
 
Hello Sean, et al.,

Any updates to analysis? It's been a while.:p

Thanks a bunch, BTW...

Regards,

Marc
San Diego
 
The next step would be to visualize the data in 4D rather than 2D. I think the easy way would be to plot Culture, Science and Diplomacy in a 3D graph and then represent Domination using the size of the data point (I.e. the size of the civ logo)

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
 
I think this is a chart of what the AI flavors are.

For your own play:

You need science for everything so it's really pick whatever you want for all civs.
It takes an extreme traight such as Brazil's caraval to push them out of the center as a human.

Civs with direct science boosts are the best at everything,
Civs with direct gold boosts convert them into science / happiness / city influence via cash rushing or granting gold to city states
Civs with direct happiness boosts convert them into gold / science by not paying as much maintenance costs on happiness buildings and not having to cash buy as many happiness buildings.

Greece is still slightly towards Diplomatic since it's more difficult to convert a bonus with city influence into gold than it is converting gold into city influence.
 
Hello,

I have found the Arabian Camel Archers to be either the most powerful military unit during the Medieval era. Now, there maybe something stronger, but I have yet to come across it.

It also has a four movement, which means one can attack a city and bounce far enough away to not get city-bombarded.

Therefore, I think Arabia should have the highest score for a Dominance victory.

Regards,

Marc
 
Really nice job, but I think a rating/star-based overview for each VC per civ could send a clearer message. As pointed out, Arabia is the best example - their UA/UU/UB combo is just too versatile and allows you to be an economic powerhouse just as well as a warring monster - this is hard to show on your graph where Domination and Diplomacy are the opposite axes. So I liked the summary in your spoiler, although it does raise some issues with certain civs (like Inca and Shoshone). What about an overview like this:

Arabia (just some rough numbers, to get the idea)
Domination - 4.5/5
Science - 3.5/5
Culture - 3.5/5
Diplomacy - 4/5

Inca
Domination - 3/5
Science - 4/5
Culture - 3.5/5
Diplomacy - 3.5/5

I used 3 as the average score that means "the civ doesn't have tools that significantly facilitate getting the victory condition, but neither does it have features that work in the opposite direction" (0 in your scoring system). And of course, the scoring process is always a bit subjective and empirical, so a lot is up to discussion.
 
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