One of my problems with the Civ game line has been achieving victory conditions. In many instances, the game's result has been decided well before an official victory can be achieved. Instead of spending hours working towards a meaningless victory screen, I prefer to simply start a fresh game.
I've now played several games of FfH, but have yet to achieve an official victory in a single one. I decided to open a thread to see if others are experiencing the same situation, and if so, to discuss whether the victory conditions might benefit from a little modification. Or if I'm just an impatient crank.
As an informal poll, I'd like to know how often other players finish games, and what victory conditions they achieve. I tend to play standard size maps at normal speed with 10 civs, playing a random civ. Here's my take on the current victory conditions:
Conquest
Nothing wrong with this one; I was about 10 turns away from a conquest victory with Hyborem when my graphics turned sluggish and the program started locking up.
Domination
My default Vanilla Civ victory; I've found that the flavor of FfH has affected my play style here; in Vanilla I had no problems attacking an ally to achieve a quick domination victory, but launching a sneak attack against the Elohim while playing the Bannor just seems wrong.
I've got no problems with the 58% land mass needed, though.
Tower of Mastery
I've only gone for this once, in my very first game while playing Grigori. I had the game well in hand and was only missing three mana types, despite not realizing what the Rites of Oghma did. But then version .20 came out and I scrapped it.
Appears to be a nice science/builder hybrid victory.
Altar of the Luonnotar
The change in tech requirements in version .20 has made this victory more challenging. However, it's strange that you can acquire all of the required techs by beelining the Religious tree except for the last one, Omniscience, which then requires you to research nearly all of the Magic tree. Since the Tower of Mastery already focuses on a magic-based science victory, it might be nice to see the altar requirements stick to the Religious tree, with some expensive new techs at the top. Or perhaps spreading the requirements for the Altar a little more evenly among the other trees; we're creative people, there has to be some good reason for need Mithril Working to make a stone slab, right?
Cultural Victory
Haven't tried this one yet, though it seems the smaller number of culture-producing buildings might make it more difficult than Vanilla. I have gotten a couple Balseraph starts, but the Barrows made short work of me both times.
Religious Victory
This approach is the most flawed, in my opinion. It has great potential as a diplomatic\builder victory, but ends up being a military one with the current rules, and not much different than a Conquest or Domination victory. The 80% religious influence is a steep number, but manageable except that the only effective tools you have for spreading your religion above, say, 60% are conquest followed by inquisition or city razing.
The big problems appear to be the flat manner in which Religious Influence is calculated (total % of population, with equal split between cities with multiple religions). How about giving more RI weight to cities with religious buildings? Or weighting a city's population split towards the state religion? Those two items alone would allow for a peaceful approach to religious victory, without damaging the Crusader methodology.
Time
I think that Neutral civs should receive a big Balance bonus at the end of game if no one has achieved any victory conditions.
That's all of them. I think the Armageddon counter will eventually make the late game a bit more interesting, but so far it hasn't played much of a factor in my games. Hyborem has either been quickly dispatched, or failed to appear due to the AV research bug in the latest version.
I've now played several games of FfH, but have yet to achieve an official victory in a single one. I decided to open a thread to see if others are experiencing the same situation, and if so, to discuss whether the victory conditions might benefit from a little modification. Or if I'm just an impatient crank.
As an informal poll, I'd like to know how often other players finish games, and what victory conditions they achieve. I tend to play standard size maps at normal speed with 10 civs, playing a random civ. Here's my take on the current victory conditions:
Conquest
Nothing wrong with this one; I was about 10 turns away from a conquest victory with Hyborem when my graphics turned sluggish and the program started locking up.
Domination
My default Vanilla Civ victory; I've found that the flavor of FfH has affected my play style here; in Vanilla I had no problems attacking an ally to achieve a quick domination victory, but launching a sneak attack against the Elohim while playing the Bannor just seems wrong.
I've got no problems with the 58% land mass needed, though. Tower of Mastery
I've only gone for this once, in my very first game while playing Grigori. I had the game well in hand and was only missing three mana types, despite not realizing what the Rites of Oghma did. But then version .20 came out and I scrapped it.
Appears to be a nice science/builder hybrid victory. Altar of the Luonnotar
The change in tech requirements in version .20 has made this victory more challenging. However, it's strange that you can acquire all of the required techs by beelining the Religious tree except for the last one, Omniscience, which then requires you to research nearly all of the Magic tree. Since the Tower of Mastery already focuses on a magic-based science victory, it might be nice to see the altar requirements stick to the Religious tree, with some expensive new techs at the top. Or perhaps spreading the requirements for the Altar a little more evenly among the other trees; we're creative people, there has to be some good reason for need Mithril Working to make a stone slab, right?
Cultural Victory
Haven't tried this one yet, though it seems the smaller number of culture-producing buildings might make it more difficult than Vanilla. I have gotten a couple Balseraph starts, but the Barrows made short work of me both times.
Religious Victory
This approach is the most flawed, in my opinion. It has great potential as a diplomatic\builder victory, but ends up being a military one with the current rules, and not much different than a Conquest or Domination victory. The 80% religious influence is a steep number, but manageable except that the only effective tools you have for spreading your religion above, say, 60% are conquest followed by inquisition or city razing.
The big problems appear to be the flat manner in which Religious Influence is calculated (total % of population, with equal split between cities with multiple religions). How about giving more RI weight to cities with religious buildings? Or weighting a city's population split towards the state religion? Those two items alone would allow for a peaceful approach to religious victory, without damaging the Crusader methodology.
Time
I think that Neutral civs should receive a big Balance bonus at the end of game if no one has achieved any victory conditions.
That's all of them. I think the Armageddon counter will eventually make the late game a bit more interesting, but so far it hasn't played much of a factor in my games. Hyborem has either been quickly dispatched, or failed to appear due to the AV research bug in the latest version.
