How to proceed higher difficulty with victory options?

[beetle]

I maintain that the easiest and most effective (though admittedly not the quickest) way of getting a domination victory on Deity is to play peaceful, 4-city tradition (or 6-city liberty if that's your cup of tea) all game, with a focus on infrastructure, specifically getting as strong of a tech lead (multiple RA's) and as high GPT as you possibly can, and then backstab everyone by throwing a spy into each capital, and then drop a bunch of XCOMs around each capital on the same turn you dow them.

Have you done this with any of the DCL or CDG maps? Don't get me wrong, it sounds feasible enough, I just would love to see it demonstrated! Seems like you would need about 35 paratroopers the turn before unlocking Nanotech?

 

[inthesomeday]

I think it's definitely not the most effective though it might be the easiest.

 

[beetle]

My Deity Dom VC have all been pretty much by the skin of my teeth -- and late game. But I mostly start warring ASAP, and it is just a long grind. They end up feeling more tedious than engaging. So if there an easier (albeit less effective) method, I might as well see if I can’t at least master that. I would have to be teching faster than I already am though because otherwise 4-5 XCOM will not be enough to take a city on their own. And I am not actually confident that my game-long warmongering is really slowing my science progress. I still prioritize science buildings and rationalism -- so the units come secondary. Of course, since I am not “all-in” with warfare, that slows my conquering.

I guess I should try it, but turtleing until Nanotech does not really appeal to me. Not unless I think my XCOM would only be facing GWI.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Without atomic bombs or stealth bombers you will definitely need between six and ten xcom for each capital. That goes up if the AI has defensive wonders or something among those lines. Also not all of your xcom will be able to attack next turn because some will die before they get a hit off. It's not "easy" per se, but it can't really fail either.

Essentially, it's just a lazy excuse for a win condition. You might aswell be going to space, there is barely a difference both in turn times and in gameplay.

 

[donkeyfish]

I like the principle of collecting data to support an argument, but I have a quarrel with using the CDG games. I´ve never tried a DCL map, so can't make an opinion there.

CDG are, essentially by design, "not optimal". E.g. #1 & #10 ban the use of archery-units. Not very good examples to study the viability of a composite bowman rush.

If "optimal" or "efficient" is some kind of risk-reward tuple, then its probably dependant on how good you are. It doesn't take much digging on these forums to discover that some people are insanely good, hence have low/zero risk, when using Archer, Composite Bowman or Chariot Archer.

If instead it assumes "perfect" play, then risk is probably 0 in all cases, since (as Chum correctly points out) the best players win every game. Finally, if by "risk" one means a distribution of finishing times conditional on strategy, it has to be specified to be meaningful.

 

[Wild_Woojsha]

There's another issue here.

Tradition is always going to be the safe bet doing anything in this game. It's really hard to mess it up, honestly. People all over this forum advocate doing everything with Tradition because it's almost impossible to fail. I personally have never, not once done a tradition turtle to XCom domination. Nor have I ever built a stealth bomber for anything other than novelty. And yet, if you look around the internet you will find that exact strategy being touted as a "domination victory."

I completely disagree. While it's technically a domination victory and gets you the pop up at the end of the game that says so, it's anything but. It's like calling the same thing a culture victory, while true, it's disingenuous to speak about the victory in those terms. You're not doing anything different than a normal science/diplo game except altering the tech path slightly and finishing around the same time.

Furthermore, if we accept the claim that many people make, if you're any good at the game at all it's impossible to lose even on deity, then we must then make the claim that a tradition win, no matter the method or timeframe is pointless. You could win it with your eyes closed just by spamming Xcoms and stealth bombers right? Right, so then it becomes nothing more than a fallback for bad play, and a safe bet.

For a lot of people with many, many hours into the game (such as myself, and Carl up here), this is an unacceptable way to play the game anymore. I know I'm going to win every game I start, the only question is how much effort I'm going to put into it. The trouble is that people like us are underrepresented on the board, and you can see why historically. The people that are bored with the game and switch to fast domination tended to master that and then quit posting. tommynt posted some unbelievable domination finish times, Ironfighter was around in the early days just kicking over tables and having his way with the game. Cromagnus posited you could clear a deity map in 100 turns with Attila and very nearly did it. Some other people, inspired by his words got pretty close as well. And just off the top of my head, Consentient turned into a pretty pro player who did a great service for everyone reading this thread and put together a ranking of civs to use if you plan on NOT turtling your way to a boring victory. Peddroelm proved HCA is not only viable, but extremely effective.

What's the common theme of the above? None of them post here frequently anymore. By and large, people thinking outside of the box and forcing new strategies are done posting here. Thankfully, their posts still exist so that people can learn from it, but the echo chamber that is the "tradition turtle your way to victory" is just loud and obnoxious. If you've been posting here for any amount of time you can see that there are many better ways to do things that have cropped up over the years, they just don't have vocal proponents anymore. And I don't have a dog in the fight, since I wasn't part of the crew leading the charge on innovative strategies that challenged the established tradition > all crew, I just came in at the right time to learn from it.

So really it comes down to this - you can do things the safe, and boring way, and that's fine. It's still going to get you a W. I don't really care how you do it, but it's pretty disingenuous to say that nothing else works, or there's not a better way. Like hell there's not - I'd love to see your tradition empire clear a deity pangaea in 113 turns - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13239792&postcount=75

I really improved my game as a result of reading almost everything on these forums for years, and it really irks me when people try to downplay one strategy that's nearly impossible for a monkey to fail at as being the fastest and best way of doing things when there have been so many people who have proven it wrong, and just aren't around to show you how to do it anymore.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=545231 Valadaz pulled off a turn 69 win on page 3, and I have not found anything like it. Yes, its the Huns, but still, 8 civs getting ramrolled on a lakes map that quickly is not easy on Deity, and I'd love to know if someone else pulled it off faster.

Anyways, if the OP wants to move up to Deity, you can try the CDG 11, its probably the easiest Deity map ever created: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=565231. Naval Domination is still domination. If you want another good one, the Austria map by Ironfighter is also fantastic: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=563063, but it is not domination.

Cookie-cutter strategies don't work on this game, there are a few pointers to take things in the easy direction but the real skill is in reading the map, controlling the enemy's behavior, building what you need in the correct order for that specific game, and placing your units in the right spots. This is a skill I lack, which is why I've only got wins on those two "very easy" maps. I'm working on it, kind of, but still, I've found that every game is so different that the winning strategies touted on here are nothing more than buffs and nudges in the right direction and a fast victory is found by good decisions. To learn those, I'd go to youtube, and check out marbozir, filthyrobot, Rezoacken, Madjinn, and Peddroelm. Filthy just put up a video on Air domination that has helped me significantly. If anyone knows of any other masters on there, let me know so I can add them to my watchlist.

 

[inthesomeday]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=545231 Valadaz pulled off a turn 69 win on page 3, and I have not found anything like it. Yes, its the Huns, but still, 8 civs getting ramrolled on a lakes map that quickly is not easy on Deity, and I'd love to know if someone else pulled it off faster.

Anyways, if the OP wants to move up to Deity, you can try the CDG 11, its probably the easiest Deity map ever created: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=565231. Naval Domination is still domination. If you want another good one, the Austria map by Ironfighter is also fantastic: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=563063, but it is not domination.

Cookie-cutter strategies don't work on this game, there are a few pointers to take things in the easy direction but the real skill is in reading the map, controlling the enemy's behavior, building what you need in the correct order for that specific game, and placing your units in the right spots. This is a skill I lack, which is why I've only got wins on those two "very easy" maps. I'm working on it, kind of, but still, I've found that every game is so different that the winning strategies touted on here are nothing more than buffs and nudges in the right direction and a fast victory is found by good decisions. To learn those, I'd go to youtube, and check out marbozir, filthyrobot, Rezoacken, Madjinn, and Peddroelm. Filthy just put up a video on Air domination that has helped me significantly. If anyone knows of any other masters on there, let me know so I can add them to my watchlist.

About the cited victory, he went Liberty.

And moving up to deity I'd advise against a cooked map, it's bad practice for the most part.

About the YouTube videos, absolutely. I was making T250 victories on quick every game on prince until I started watching other people play. It's one thing reading strategies off a wall of text, but for me at least, it was a whole new help to see people employ them in actual games.