Do you play to win?

[Ekmek]

Out of curiosity, how many people start a game and always go for a victory condition and how many start a game and could care less about the victory conditions and instead just want to build an empire and play some strategies (a few wars, see how strong you can make your empire etc)?

 

[CoolLizy]

I went with "just want a good game experience", but I'm really somewhere between the two. Yes, I play primarily because I like building up my civilization from a single city to a vast empire through expansion, conquest, and diplomacy.

But at the same time I do want to win the game (and beat Augustus Caesar's head in with a baseball bat after the third time he's declared war me in a single game) and I will rage quit if there's absolutely no possibility of me catching up to the leaders (I miss going into the cheat menu and dropping an army of modern armor outside their cities first like in Civ IV, though).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm curious on the players who don't try to win. Are they simply indifferent about whether they win the game, or are they actively ignoring the victory conditions entirely?

There's a difference between "not taking a game seriously" and "playing a completely different game", for example, and while I'd be willing to play with people of the former category in MP, people in the latter category ruin games outright unless they're the only ones in them (where it's fine to do anything you want. Sometimes I experiment with crazy nonsense in SP to see how viable/not viable something unorthodox is).

 

[Liegence]

When I play MP it's always to win.

In SP, I rarely play till the victory screen, even if I can win or not. I love the early game and trying new strats, and often find myself wanting to start a new game before finishing the current one.

 

[qalsip1977]

In SP, I rarely play till the victory screen, even if I can win or not. I love the early game and trying new strats, and often find myself wanting to start a new game before finishing the current one.

This.

 

[JWAT44]

i play to win but i dont plan my condition. i just try to build the most powerful empire and then take whatever victory condition i want (or need if the ai is getting close to winning)

 

[nte]

I always play to finish, because I am still learning on king. Only my fifth game at this level. Yet to get nuked, so alot more surprises to come.

 

[apocalypse105]

Well I do play to win but olso want a good gameplay experience that means that there must be actually diplomacy so i am not forced to go militarly ....

And thats my main problem with civ 5 it lacks gameplay experience because diplomacy is non existent AI just atacks everyone
Moderator Action: Let your main problem out of this thread and just stay on topic.

 

[binhthuy71]

I'm curious on the players who don't try to win. Are they simply indifferent about whether they win the game, or are they actively ignoring the victory conditions entirely?

There's a difference between "not taking a game seriously" and "playing a completely different game", for example, and while I'd be willing to play with people of the former category in MP, people in the latter category ruin games outright unless they're the only ones in them (where it's fine to do anything you want. Sometimes I experiment with crazy nonsense in SP to see how viable/not viable something unorthodox is).

Interesting perspective as always, TMIT. I have far, far, less time to spend on Civ than I did when I first started playing it (In 1991). For my part, I try to win although my ability is such that playing to win is sometimes beyond me. Because my time to play is very limited I usually play with random/random on King and play whatever start I'm dealt. That is obviously less conducive to winning than focusing on one or two civs and/or map types with the goal of integrating SP's, tech tree, diplo, etc., into optimized strategies. I have played the game all this time because it makes me think, win or lose. That alone makes Civ, to me, worth whatever time I can spare to play it.

 

[Ellye]

I play to win, but sometimes I add some "flavorful goals" for myself to complete in SP.

For example, I might decide that I will complete the Order Social Policy and make good use it, or that I'll make a "colony" in other continent, or that I'll only play defensive wars, etcetera. Just a little something to vary my game formula a bit.

 

[danieladler]

I always play to win ofc, like in any game. Almost every time it is clear that you have a victory looong before you actually get the victory screen, so therefore i seldom finish the game. Looks bad in stats perhaps but its just too dull to continue when everything is clear. And this is one of the way too many weaknesses that our loved/hated bastard of the family of Civ games has....

 

[Proximus]

I play just for the hell of it. I have a fairly good imagination and every game has it's own story if you choose to create one. I love Civ V, but I was somewhat disappointed in the approach they took to the AI, making them "play to win" with limited diplomacy and no empathy rather than making them play along. But, I also understand the game needs to be challenging and you can't appease anyone. Overall, the game did a hell of a lot more right than wrong, imo.

I'm playing as Rome, 5th largest military, 4th place culturally, 3 techs behind and competing against an aggressive runaway Spanish empire which continues to eat up smaller civs. It's an interesting game, I probably won't win (this time) but I'm still having fun.

 

[dagriggstar]

Just play because I like playing. I also do tend to mod the game abit as well which also adds replay value.

 

[XRW175P6MQ4]

I definitely try to win. I don't necessarily go about it in the most organized fashion. The typical game entails murdering some AI's and winning by whatever VC is considered most expedient after I get bored.

 

[qemist]

Ohow many start a game and could care less about the victory conditions

I think you mean "could NOT care less...".

 

[Mercade]

I'm curious on the players who don't try to win. Are they simply indifferent about whether they win the game, or are they actively ignoring the victory conditions entirely?

There's a difference between "not taking a game seriously" and "playing a completely different game", for example, and while I'd be willing to play with people of the former category in MP, people in the latter category ruin games outright unless they're the only ones in them (where it's fine to do anything you want. Sometimes I experiment with crazy nonsense in SP to see how viable/not viable something unorthodox is).

Clearly when the poll says "only go for victory conditions" that's a narrowly defined option. Of course I like to win my games, but it's not that from turn 1 I'm focussed on which paricular victory condition is best achievable and how to get there. Only for cultural you really have to make that choice early on and not expand much. Otherwise later it becomes obvious which way the game runs.

Many of my games seem to end with a clear path to a domination in the industrial area, so I'm trying to find a way to make the game run to modern times for a science victory without just unchecking the domination box. Another time I just like to with Elizabeth on an island map. Does that put me in the 1st or the 2nd category?

 

[wannabewarlord]

Some interesting answers to an interesting question.

When I start a game, I do intend to win, yes. My games take about 3-4 hours and I would like to be rewarded with a victory screen of my chosen victory (which I define from the start) after I invested so much time in a session (my play time is very limited, 1, maybe 2 full games a week max).

However, having said that, it is not about winning just for the sake of winning. I do find it much more rewarding to have created and built up a nice civilization or achieved the goals I wanted to (be the first to reach this or that, wipe out this civ, absolutely build that wonder, have x population, etc.).

 

[Aldor]

If things don't go as I want, I often find myself quitting that game and starting another. That probably puts me into the category "just want to have a good fun game".

For myself, I think the most fun comes from keeping all victory conditions open (with the exception of domination, which I simply don't enjoy), and being able to choose which one I like in the end. Definitely not deciding at the start of a game which way I'm going to win it.

 

[Becomedeath]

To be honest I stopped playing for victory conditions a long time ago. Aiming for the games idea of victory is annoyingly easy so I play to my own victory conditions.

To get 3 cities with +50 pop by 1800, to get 20 techs ahead of the nearest competitor, to destroy all other cities except the capitals and dominate the map etc.

Like any other game, once you've worked out how your computer opponents think, it can get pretty stale pretty fast so I tend to jazz it up myself.

I tend to avoid MP as the human players are more erratic, less focused and easier to manipulate that the AI players I find.

Civ has enough in it that you can make it your own game, which is part of it's charm I think.

 

[TPQ]

Civ1, 2, 3, 4 were all "Just want a good game experience".
Civ5 is "Play to win each time".

Civ5 doesn't really play well as anything other than a "play to win" war game. It's a little sad, but it's just one of those things. Hopefully Civ6 will go back to being more of a Civ Sim game than a Civ Win game, or at least get the balance back to something like it was with pre-Civ5 iterations.