(1-NS) Domination Victory

[Recursive]

Strongly opposed to asymmetric victory requirements. That would be very difficult to communicate to the player, especially for new players, and I don't think it would be fun.

DomV oriented AI should expose every neighbours, win opportunities, but it does not.

This is an AI problem. We're working on it, but it's tricky.

 

[nekokon]

If you put all capital requirement as advance option for DomV then there won't be any issue. New player can play the game with symmetrical rule, and if they accidently win DomV too easily they can toggle the capital requirement to prevent that.
Similar to "allow human vassalization", a toggle to allow asymmetrical rule if the player wants it.

 

[Fluffball]

While i understand the idea behind an asymmetric victory the more i think about it the more i conclude it is not a great idea as it is both potentially confusing and also an overt advantage for the AI which makes it unattractive.

 

[KlHannibal2]

CV gets this going since they benefit the more influence they got, so the closer to victory the easier they can win. However DomV is the completel opposite, the closer you're to victory the harder it becomes (due to a lot of warmonger penalties stacking on top of each other, thus the need to reverse scaling it down).

In my experience from many domination games on deity, it also gets easier the more you have conquered. Warmonger penalty rises, but you have so many factors that more than compenaste:
- Bigger military due to unit cap, strat. resources and economy to build and support it
- Fewer people who can attack you and slow you down
- Support and yields from vassals
- More bonuses from monopolies (including combat bonuses)
- scaling effects of big empires (orders, factories, corporations, some civ specific stuff)
- highly promoted units (more dependent on turns played than conquered land)

Maybe not for AIs, but for humans domination definitely becomes easier the more you have conquered.

 

[CppMaster]

Yeah, I Agree, warmongering is definitely easier and easier the more you conquer.

 

[nekokon]

In my experience from many domination games on deity, it also gets easier the more you have conquered. Warmonger penalty rises, but you have so many factors that more than compenaste:
- Bigger military due to unit cap, strat. resources and economy to build and support it
- Fewer people who can attack you and slow you down
- Support and yields from vassals
- More bonuses from monopolies (including combat bonuses)
- scaling effects of big empires (orders, factories, corporations, some civ specific stuff)
- highly promoted units (more dependent on turns played than conquered land)

Maybe not for AIs, but for humans domination definitely becomes easier the more you have conquered.

For human, maybe, that's why there's a need for optional asymmetrical rule to make it harder for human players.
The whole point of this proposal is so that warmongering AI can be a threat to you. Human player warmongering is already good enough.

 

[Zanteogo]

For human, maybe, that's why there's a need for optional asymmetrical rule to make it harder for human players.
The whole point of this proposal is so that warmongering AI can be a threat to you. Human player warmongering is already good enough.

Again, I will almost always oppose rules that are different for the player than to the AI.

However, it might be sellable if this change is kept to the highest difficultly levels, as the AI already gets crazy bonuses on these levels.

 

[Zanteogo]

Yeah, I Agree, warmongering is definitely easier and easier the more you conquer.

Depends I think.

The AI bonus becomes crazy noticeable in the late eras as it scales with era. If I go early aggressive and I can manage to survive my first couple wars I am usually good on my home continent, and usually able to vassal the entire of it.

The issue is when I decide to go overseas. Due to the delay of replacing units and being unable to heal damaged units as fast, it can be difficult. By the time I am able to move my units across the sea the AI is getting some crazy bonus, even on mid difficultly level.

This is of course until airports become a thing, after this you only need to establish a beachhead city then you can fly everything back and fourth.

 

[balparmak]

I'm definitely in favor of having this as a new, symmetrical, but optional win condition. There's also a precedence in earlier games, in Civ4 you win by domination when you have 30% **lead** in population and control 65% of the land, of course numbers can be refined through feedback (sidenote: Civ4's conquest victory is closer to Civ5's domination).
As the OP pointed out, there are countless benefits. AI can actually achieve this, it makes nukes (and razing) a very strong tool in winning the game, the military civs can still be threatening when they're on the other continent etc. etc.
I would also like it as a fellow human (needs citation), opens up a less-grindy, let's bring in the apocalypse path to victory.
It seems a whole lot easier than making AI properly follow a domination victory, just make them more nuke-happy and that's it? (aside from coding in a new condition, which may or may not be harcoded. in that case this can replace the domination victory/or co exist under the same condition, still optional)

 

[pineappledan]

Some results are back from this version and it sounds like the AI is much more dangerous and aggressive this version. LVern is working on a new set of AI test games, but the results so far already indicate a lot more player eliminations.

I think that puts this to bed for me.

I'm definitely in favor of having this as a new, symmetrical, but optional win condition. There's also a precedence in earlier games, in Civ4 you win by domination when you have 30% **lead** in population and control 65% of the land, of course numbers can be refined through feedback (sidenote: Civ4's conquest victory is closer to Civ5's domination).
As the OP pointed out, there are countless benefits. AI can actually achieve this, it makes nukes (and razing) a very strong tool in winning the game, the military civs can still be threatening when they're on the other continent etc. etc.
I would also like it as a fellow human (needs citation), opens up a less-grindy, let's bring in the apocalypse path to victory.
It seems a whole lot easier than making AI properly follow a domination victory, just make them more nuke-happy and that's it? (aside from coding in a new condition, which may or may not be harcoded. in that case this can replace the domination victory/or co exist under the same condition, still optional)

A % map or population control win condition is 80% similar to what I envisioned for the religious victory. If you were serious about wanting to add 1-2 new victories you should check out that project proposal. It would be great to have some dev muscle on board for it.

 

[balparmak]

I don't see the AI ever getting a dom, increased aggression&tactical competence are good yet capital sniping requires a wholr other skillset I don't see in the AI, but no harm in waiting for more data.
RV would indeed be nice, but I'm away for a long time and the coding needed for the AI would be beyond me even when I return. One can dream though

 

[Jdoug312]

If the objective is having a domination victory condition that the AI can actually win, why the hurry to kill this idea? Yes, the AI is good again in this version. But they aren't back to winning domination victories. If they're winning DVs now, it's for essentially the first time. "Good enough" to dissuade changes should be a label that we give this after we have proof that the AI can win domination victories in games with a human.

Edit - And it'd be an optional setting, so I really don't get the enthusiasm in killing this idea.

 

[Jdoug312]

Further data linked here shows that in a sample size of 119 AI-only games, domination victory was won a whopping 0.008% of the time.

 

[Stalker0]

Further data linked here shows that in a sample size of 119 AI-only games, domination victory was won a whopping 0.008% of the time.

Its actually .8%, still low, but not quite as low as that

 

[Recursive]

Proposal failed due to lack of sponsorship on October 19, 2022.