How do experienced players pick win condition?

[luckyshuffle]

So I have been playing Civ V for several years and Civ 4 before that...
I kinda just fooled around on chieftan but am ready to enjoy the fun of " upping my game"
So I am on King for now and prolly moving up one more soon.

I have been learning a lot from these forums, and thanks to everyone who takes time to share and teach others.

ANYWAY, the topic at hand. I see that experienced, successful players don't have a predetermined win condition in mind when picking their leader and starting the game.
They react to what they learn in the opening of the game to choose the best easiest win scenario for that particular set up.

So what data do you use to make that choice?

Weak neighbors = domination ?
Ability to settle many cities and wheat or other food luxeries = science cause of population?
what?

Thanks.

 

[Acken]

No, most experienced/top players chose one pretty early if not before the game.
I don't look at the path of least resistance. I say "I wanna play Morocco and win by culture ! weeeee...." then click start.

Otherwise I'd just play science every game on my isolated 4 cities. And fall asleep along the way.

This may not sound very useful to you but really that's what happens most of the time... If you want to find what is the easiest way to win a specific game that's another question. And there I'm tempted to say that on Deity Science and Diplomacy are the easy ones. Domination and culture are usually more difficult and also are harder on bigger maps.

 

[komodowaran]

in multiplayers expirienced players normaly go for eco victory
thats when u got 700 production since thats a way to win the game to

 

[MightySpice]

What do you mean by 'pick'? Once the game is started or before?

 

[chuckh89]

That is why I like the HOF,...predetermined goals, and then you can see how you rank among other players.

If you don't want to play Gauntlets,...Fine. If you don't want to submit games,...Fine.

Instead of just going completely random,...just look at a HOF board, and pick one of the setups.


-

 

[luckyshuffle]

I like what you all are saying. Having a goal in mind before "beginning my journey" just makes more sense. Leader choice being appropriate for one thing. Early game strategy for another. This is how I have been playing. This is how I wanted to keep playing.

FYI what derailed me was during my studying here I seen people valuing the versatility of poland or others. Maybe they were just trying to rank, but if u pick a win condition u wanna go for and then pick a leader who is good at that style.... who cares if they are also a good leader at other styles? It seemed irrelevent unless u maybe switched victory goals often and therefore the leader being good at plan b also was a benefit.

Then there was also this :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=550130

Not my thread
But look at shakakhan's post
It is number six in the thread I think
That should really explain my confusion to you all
Thanks

 

[MightySpice]

That's why i play with random leaders. That is what makes things interesting. I have no clue what to do untill i see the the starting screen wich tells me who i will be.

 

[Acken]

Well I strongly disagree with the post you linked to then.
If you want to win then yes please just find the easiest win and do that.
If you want to learn then no, please focus on a goal and keep losing until you get it.

As an alternative you can always pick a game and try different ways from the same save file.

 

[Kin]

I usually play conquer the world. Poland is the most powerful for me or G Con. Build a city and start pumping out units. Get a bunch and attack and pause only to heal.

 

[redwings1340]

if u pick a win condition u wanna go for and then pick a leader who is good at that style.... who cares if they are also a good leader at other styles? It seemed irrelevent unless u maybe switched victory goals often and therefore the leader being good at plan b also was a benefit.

Well, the thing is that no game only deals with one part of civ. Like, if you play a warmonger, you can use all your conquered cities, especially conquered capitals to get additional wonders other civs built and then get ahead in science, culture, and tourism. If you're a good science civilization, you can use that science advantage to have a more advanced military, letting you more easily defend your empire. If you get a lot of gold, you're better equipped for a diplo victory, but you also can just buy things and improve whatever part of your empire you want that way.

My general strategy is that I want to get a good empire capable of beating the game in any way should I choose to do that. That's why science is considered so important, because good science allows you to get better military units, get more wonders for tourism/culture, and just generally a more solid empire altogether. I view the game as each civilization has certain tools that you can use to get a better empire, and the best empire can usually win, regardless of what victory you're going for.

As to your initial question, I tend to think of it less in terms of victory conditions and more about empire building. Weak neighbors in great spots? Denounce them and conquer them. Ability to settle many cities in great places? Maybe go liberty and get a great scientific empire. Amazing capital? Go tradition and go for a fast national college. Ally a few city states early and have a lot around you? Maybe go patronage and get a lot of money. Then go from there, based on what you think is the right move.

In terms of victory conditions, there are only a few things I change. If I'm going for culture I tend to get my guilds a bit earlier while going aesthetics, if I'm not I wait on them and sometimes ignore tourism altogether. For everything else though, go patronage if you have city states, go rationalism if you want to play optimally, and take it scenario by scenario while focusing on science unless you want to rush a specific military tech.

 

[beetle]

No, most experienced/top players chose one pretty early if not before the game.
I don't look at the path of least resistance. I say "I wanna play Morocco and win by culture ! weeeee...." then click start.

Otherwise I'd just play science every game on my isolated 4 cities. And fall asleep along the way.

@OP, I very much think this is pattern. Once you have played every civ, and worked your way up to Deity, then you know what setup configurations are most likely to be challenging (or, at the very least, interesting).

The more you leave up to RNG, the more aspects of the game will be mediocre.

 

[inthesomeday]

In multiplayer it's quite different, and it's 95% of the time science, but I doubt you were wondering about multiplayer.

 

[ShakaKhan]

Once you've acquired even a novice-level of understanding of the strategy of the game, all victory conditions are attainable with any civ on any difficulty level below deity on almost any map. Certain maps essentially bump the difficulty level up a notch meaning that you could be playing, what I consider, a deity-level game on immortal (the opposite of this is true as well.)

As such, I never pick a victory condition based on leader choice. Brazil is a great example: they're a civ VERY heavily weighted towards one victory condition. But learning how to play them for other VCs can advance your understanding of the game. The UI can lead to a building a civilization with a strong economy, which lends itself well to diplomatic victory, or even domination using a purchasing strategy. The UI in conjunction with the UA (particularly the extra writers) allow the player to pick more (and/or earlier) SPs than a civ without this bonus, and this helps all victory conditions as well. The extra GAs from the UA increases the percentage of mid- to late-game turns spent in golden age, which also helps all victory conditions.

As for picking a victory condition, any level below deity you can decide whenever you want. If you pick it before the game starts, you'll make decisions which will facilitate the VC and probably enable you to achieve it earlier. You could also sandbox a game at least until filling your first SP tree and decide then. You'll probably be a little later in finishing the game, but may note some events along the way which increase the viability of one VC, such as:

-my direct neighbor built G-library, Parthenon, and Oracle in his capital and Petra in his second city. I can conquer him and a culture victory is smooth sailing.
-half my empire is going to be growing slower but producing more. I can have some good rushes and go for a domination victory.
-Attila is wiping out everyone. I can get a tech lead on him and get half the capitals in the game while liberating tons of cities en route to a domination game.
-Venice and Austria have permanently removed half the CSs in the game, and Mongolia is temporarily removing the others. Diplo is out.

For deity level, I think of Space race as the default back-up plan because you can get it every game. If the deity AI has done something that's stopping a space-race, it's stopping every other VC as well (pretty much just threatening to eliminate you or getting a victory condition before you can.) Domination I consider the hardest without XCOMs, so if I can progress well early I'll stick to that plan. Culture I consider the second hardest on deity, so I'll go with that if I think I'll be able to surpass everyone except the culture leader and am confident I can take him/her out. Diplo is probably easier than Space, but unlike space, there's something the AI can do to prevent you from winning other than threatening to annihilate you or win before you- some games they are very competitive over CS alliances, others they don't seem to care as much. Games with multiple civs investing heavily in CS alliances (so Greece and Siam, sometimes others), I'll go for something else.