best way to win on higher difficulties

[Nature]

This is for Civilization 5 Gods and Kings.

Hi, I played my first emperor game last night and won a cultural victory by maybe a margin of 2-4 turns. I was able to keep up with the top ai for science until the modern era and then it left me in the dust. It was going for a science victory and completed 5 of the parts for the ship and I can only assume it was working on the 6th as I finished the Utopia Project.

I only had one city whos borders spanned across of all Africa, while it controlled all of Europe, Eurasia, and Americas. The other two civs controlled the middle east and asia.

Score were:
Hiawatha: ~3000
Me (Egypt): ~1000
China: ~800
Babylon: ~800

So, I'm wondering what is the best way to win on higher difficulties as this was close as hell and I do not think I could win culturally on immortal or deity?

Thanks

Nature

 

[qyll]

There's really no best way. You have to play to the map and other civs.

Are you relatively isolated and well defended? Go for culture. Very possible on immortal/deity.

Are you ahead in tech but can't really launch an offensive? Go for science.

Are you behind in tech but have a huge army? Go for conquest.

Are you ahead in everything? Go for whatever you want.

Of course, some players prefer one victory condition over another. Try each one and see which one you like.

If you want to maximize score, then that's a different story. Conquest usually gets you there.

 

[stii]

Culture is the hardest way to win. The simplest way I've found to win at the higher levels is to abuse the fact the AI hates bombers and builds lots of them and beat up any A that is close to winning.

 

[Itstrucktwice]

Culture is hardest way to win at higher levels. Science is the easiest. Domination is somewhere in between but requires patience.

 

[smallfish]

Go to war with Hiawatha. Make sure by the time you are done with him, the Iroquois are a blasted radiated wasteland (and confined to some really spam city, or none at all) and you have over 4000 points under your belt.

 

[Veneke]

Culture is the hardest way to win. The simplest way I've found to win at the higher levels is to abuse the fact the AI hates bombers and builds lots of them and beat up any A that is close to winning.

What difficulty level is this? On Immortal the AI constantly and consistently goes for Bombers, particularly Great War Bombers, early on. I don't tend to see Fighters until the Atomic Era or later.

@ OP: The easiest way to win is whatever suits your play-style. If you like going OCC then Culture will actually probably work out pretty well for you. As far as I'm aware it's considered the hardest because it requires you to forgo taking advantage of the AI's poor military skills and compete with it on terms it has the advantage over you in - building things.

I think Domination is the easiest, on account of the fact that once you get Artillery it becomes very difficult for the AI to beat you until it can find nukes.

Science is a chore - you have to pretty much research everything! Then you have to build everything and ship it back to your capital. It's easily the most rewarding though, seeing the ship actually take off is pretty sweet.

Diplomatic is actually not that difficult if you focus on it and watch your culture growth - getting to the end of Patronage is key, as is keeping up with the Espionage and diplomatic games.

 

[stii]

What difficulty level is this? On Immortal the AI constantly and consistently goes for Bombers, particularly Great War Bombers, early on. I don't tend to see Fighters until the Atomic Era or later.

@ OP: The easiest way to win is whatever suits your play-style. If you like going OCC then Culture will actually probably work out pretty well for you. As far as I'm aware it's considered the hardest because it requires you to forgo taking advantage of the AI's poor military skills and compete with it on terms it has the advantage over you in - building things.

I think Domination is the easiest, on account of the fact that once you get Artillery it becomes very difficult for the AI to beat you until it can find nukes.

Science is a chore - you have to pretty much research everything! Then you have to build everything and ship it back to your capital. It's easily the most rewarding though, seeing the ship actually take off is pretty sweet.

Diplomatic is actually not that difficult if you focus on it and watch your culture growth - getting to the end of Patronage is key, as is keeping up with the Espionage and diplomatic games.

This is on Deity. The AI builds a few bombers but rarely seems to have more than about 3. And then it runs them into your fighters until they are all dead. When you have 10 bombers and 3 fighters you can slaughter their waves of units and knock their cites down very rapidly.

Artillery while very good suffers from lack of space you can't focus fire things down as easily.

 

[pollock]

Playing really well seems to do it.

 

[smallfish]

DON'T ever let Catherine get enough ICBMs.

Just don't.

I watched poor Deity Sejong, who was a city away from a uranium tile, getting hammered repeatedly by her every other turn. Like, every tile a unit and all, but they kept disappearing under a rain of Russian thermonukes.