Space Race Victory - Your thoughts? Poll

[smackthewise]

I did a quick thread search, but didn't find any results for this.

When I play off-line games, which is the vast majority of the time. I ALWAYS turn off Space Race Victory. I just don't feel like its a valid sort of win, in fact i've never even built a the space ship.

*Since Civ 2, I'd decided to turn it off. I did win it in Civ2, and played out the game on the other planet. That was weird......

*The main reason I dislike it, is because I like to keep the Civ game on 1 planet, the starting one. It started here, LETS FINISH IT HERE BABY!

*Of all the victory conditions, the takes the least planning and skill, simply production. Before you mention it, I know it is a RACE with the other Civs, so you do still need to out compete them which is 1 redeeming quality.
-A good cultural victory requires planning your 3 cities, keep enemies off your back and pretty good diplomatic relations to avoid conflict in the first place.
-Diplomatic Win takes planning, direction and ability to know your enemy, and your friends.
-Conquest and Domination, is obvious. You need to be a good war monger and have the economy to drive it. Again, skill and planning.
-Time...... Well, this is the same as space for me.....

I'd like to get an idea of other players thoughts on the Space Race Victory! And some reasons for why they like/dislike Space Race, especially if you're a fan of it!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Turning off space removes 1 of the 2 ways that the AI ever truly has a chance of winning in most games.

Space is not a mere production game. You need sufficient tech and production, and it tends to take longer than culture (so if the they're launching the ship before you win culture, you're too slow).

There's a lot of overlap between every VC except apostolic palace cheesing. If you can secure one you can frequently secure several. Turning space off is really arbitrary though, unless you're just trying to prevent the AI from ever seriously threatening a win with anything but culture, and usually only 1-2 go for that, and tend to be backwards.

 

[smackthewise]

Turning space off is really arbitrary though, unless you're just trying to prevent the AI from ever seriously threatening a win.

This is a very good point which I had not considered. While I may not ever try and achieve Space Race win, leaving it on so that AI may use it to try and beat me would be fair game. At least in doing so would allow me to use my espionage game better as well, to destroy their parts and such. As i always use espionage, but late game there are a lot of point going to waste.

I agree its rare for most my games, for the AI to go and steam roll everyone else for a domination or conquest victory. Though they certainly do try and achieve diplo often enough.

 

[JujuLautre]

Space, just need production? You know it's possible to win space race in an OCC right?

That said, I feel that removing space really makes the game a warmonger game. I don't want my CIV to be a warmonger-only game

 

[Bei1052]

IMO, conquest and domination are the easiest. The computer isn't exactly bright when it comes to waging war. I've seen the computer suicide stack after stack trying to kill some machine guns situated on a forested hill before. Though I've only won it once (It was the only time I tried), cultural is also pretty easy, and I did it with only six cities. Just get your neighbors to the point where they won't attack you, sign some defensive pacts, beeline music, build the Sistine Chapel and artist spam. Fairly simple. Diplomatic takes a bit more work, unless you just vassalize the computer and get them to vote for you, which is how I used to win all my games when I started playing Civ 4. Space takes the longest to achieve, and is the only real victory the computer has of winning (Though, I will admit I saw Isabella win a diplomatic victory once. Boy, was I mad). It seems to me to be the the best way to win. That's kind of odd for me, though, because I hated space race victories on Civ 2 so much so that I turned them off.

 

[phungus420]

You're missing the most important option:

Leave it on, only because turning off any victory condition harms the AI far more then it does me

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMO, conquest and domination are the easiest.

This is kind of ridiculous . If you can win conquest, surely you can win any other condition also, given that you can just kick the AI down to 1 city...

Domination is similar...if you get that much land, how would you not out-tech the AI? Conquest and dom are technically the hardest VCs, assuming you allow war in pursuit of others (and you didn't qualify otherwise).

 

[smackthewise]

Hmmmmm, while I definitely still hate the idea of the Space Race, given that the AI apparently does not try (seriously try anyway) to achieve other victory paths, even when its turned off, this is enough of a reason for me to turn it back on.

Though it makes me a little sad that I must do so, in order to bring back some game balance for the AI. I would have previously assumed AI would strive for any of the available Victory conditions enabled.

Maybe the Better AI mod with Space Race off....

 

[DigitalBoy]

I leave space race turned off for the reason stated in the first option of the poll. I dislike disabling victory conditions because I like for the gameplay to seem "standard." And as the others have pointed out, it's one of the few ways the AI can realistically win, and it's kind of unfair to take it away from them.

 

[Rodman49]

IMO, conquest and domination are the easiest.

Yeah, if you're Rome. I find these are the most common types of wins for me as well. But then again I am a warmonger. (I've never actually won a culture victory, I've always thought it was the hardest to get).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah, if you're Rome. I find these are the most common types of wins for me as well. But then again I am a warmonger. (I've never actually won a culture victory, I've always thought it was the hardest to get).

The hardest VC is high-level time, because it means getting the #1 score, beating the AI down enough, and then just sitting there constantly interrupting others from winning.

Whether culture or space is easier depends on land available and the # of religions you had spread into your borders. Note that with 3 religions or more culture is just about always faster than space, even if you don't go for it until after liberalism.

 

[Evya]

It's the easiest win in my opinion. It's always on, just in case.

 

[Hautamaki]

If only the AI was better at warring... =[

But yeah, like everyone else said, if you turn off space race then the AI has no serious way to win other than by making you lose and quit =p

 

[Jedi_Otis]

I couldn't imagine turning off a victory condition. Some of the most exciting games I've ever played have featured me scrambling to prevent 1 or more AIs from reaching space or culture while I'm scrambling to reach my VC.

 

[stethnorun]

I agree leave it. It's f-ing scary to see messages every other turn someone is building more and more SS parts. I can only play on warlord, so SS victory is always a real threat to me.

 

[r_rolo1]

Space is probably the hardest way to win in Civ IV in high levels. Not only you have to survive and prosper in a highly handicapped enviroment, but you also have to beat the AI that actually try to win the game by culture or by space and that with the buildup of the bonuses all over most of the game ( they start with more stuff and most of the things are cheaper to them, so things have the tendency of coumpounding against you )

And the argument of production.... space victory is 300-400 turns of technological progress with 50 turns of heavy production . Military victories , OTOH are 80-85% production and the rest is technological advances, diplomacy and tactics in most cases

 

[Dragonxander PR]

I like the space race victory, because I can use it as my "emergency escape pod" (heh, it's a spaceship you can launch when needed, which happens to be a giant pod). I usually go for cultural victory, but if the AI is starting the space race, I already have highly productive & improved cities to switch temporarily from culture to space.

On my typical Noble games, I head for the culture victory but remain prepared to join the space race. My last win was by culture, & after my 2nd culture factory reached Legendary, I decided to start the Apollo Program because an AI rival did so. I had most of my spaceship ready by the time I won the cultural victory, but if necessary, I would have won via space race.

 

[katipunero]

Options are incomplete. I voted first but the reason why I leave space race victory condition ON is simply because I want my SMAC games to make sense. The last time I won the space race, I continued my civ's greatness by playing SMAC.

hmmm...

 

[Iranon]

I rarely go for space myself; late cultural victory (i.e.: fueled mostly by the modern entertainment wonders and corporations, not a rush to Liberalism and then turning research off) is often more practical if I'm in no position to just take over the world.

Since the AIs are already quite poor at playing for victory, and preventing a culture victory tends to be easier, it would feel like cheating if I disabled the option for space though.

 

[ChiefTonfa]

space race is my favorite victory bscause of the way i play. i like to war little, focusing on buildings and teching ahead. so space race is the natural win for me. i always think that the reason is that if one civ got advanced enough to do that it would form like a star trek world and that civ is the one that did it so they win.