Sir Bugsy
Civ.D.
I have searched for an article on how to win a time victory, but seeing none, I shall endeavor to write my own. Please note that I do not have BTS and have only played Vanilla and Warlords. There may be some aspects of BTS that I do not understand including the Apostolic Palace and Space Colony.
Basic Stuff
While many people, including a former version of myself, believe that a time victory is quite simple and merely a matter of getting the highest score and hitting enter until the calendar hits 2050 AD, time victory is actually quite difficult. I think this is partially from the moniker that GOTM uses to describe it, namely the cow. The idea is that you milk a victory. You can put that idea right out of your head. Essentially you must prevent all other civs from attaining every other victory condition while racking up the most points. That can be quite difficult realizing that nearly every civilization can win a space race victory even at settler.
First, as with other victory conditions, if you are going to go for a time victory, you need to be thinking this way from the start. I have two reasons. One, I do not accept vassal states, even in the early game. Even a vassal can launch a spaceship, especially at the higher difficulty levels. Since you can't go to war with a vassal, your life has just gotten that much more difficult. Two, you need to try and control the AI’s tech pace. Depending on how I am positioned tech-wise with the other civs, I will make selective trades in the early part of the game. Once you have a tech advantage, DO NOT TRADE. You are only accelerating the AI towards a SS victory that you will have to prevent. Plan on researching nearly everything yourself.
Preventing Other Victory Conditions
I am not going to go through early strategies in this article. Suffice it to say that you will want to be approaching about 50% of the land ownership about halfway through the game. There are other five victory conditions that you will want to prevent: conquest, domination, cultural, diplomatic, and space race. If you are going to be losing to conquest or domination, you probably weren’t going to make it to 2050 AD anyway. Cultural losses can be a concern at the higher levels although most civs will go for a space victory first. The AI can’t seem to organize its builds in order to get three cities to legendary status. Diplomatic losses can be an issue if you have less population. You will want to have at least 50% of the population so that you can win the Secretary-General job each time. Do not pass any resolutions other than non-nuclear proliferation. Resolutions will only give your opponents an advantage. Usually you will be fighting against a space race loss. I will go into this at greater length below.
Ideally the best way to prevent the other civs from attaining these victory conditions is if they don’t exist. At the lower difficulty levels, that is exactly what you do. You eliminate all but one civ, leave that civ with one city, remain at war with that civ for most of the game, and place a spy in the capitol to keep an eye on their activity.
At the higher difficulty levels, it is tougher because you are usually playing technological catch-up. Late game warmongering is only one part of a plan to keep a civilization from launching their spaceship. Espionage is extremely important. Since you are limited to four spies, you need to try and keep all your opponents under observation. Even with a civ down to one city, it may be necessary to initiate some sabotage to keep their spaceship from being built. Occupying all available production squares may be necessary. For instructional purposes, I will relate a game experience that has influenced my play in preventing a SS launch.
I was playing as Genghis Khan on a large highlands map at Warlord difficulty (trying to get a check in the box for HOF). The domination limit was 60%, so I stopped expanding at about 50%. I built or controlled every wonder except one religious city. Please note that having the Eiffel Tower had my land area close to 58% by the end of the game. I had four opponents left, one was Mansa as a vassal. I placed a spy in each civ, roaming around and keeping track of their progress. Asoka was the tech leader and with about 50 turns left in the game, he was down to two spaceship parts to build. I began sabotage to keep him from getting the parts necessary to win. Only Catherine had even completed Apollo, so as my spies were “caught and held for questioning,” I pulled spies from the other civs. The victory screen will only give you information on the civ that is closest to winning. As I received messages that various civs either completed Apollo or various parts I wasn’t concerned. I had Asoka under control. With four turns remaining, India had six turns left to complete the SS Engine when I received notice that Catherine had won a SS victory. Four turns!
I did a post mortem using the replay and spies after the game was lost and I found that Louis was within two parts of victory and Mansa, my vassal, was also working on his last part!
So now I keep track of every civ’s progress. I keep a notepad next to my laptop with a little grid and check off as each civ completes each part. One thing I have noticed is that a civ at war will still continue to build wonders, projects, and SS parts. Use your spies to identify which cities are building critical parts (cockpit, engine, stasis chamber, docking bay, and life support). Since five casings and three thrusters are required, I don’t worry about those cities. I then try and capture then raze those cities. Of course if you have that civ down to only a few cities or ideally one city, it makes your job that much easier. You may need to pillage and occupy all available squares in order to keep production down.
Scoring
There are four methods to attain points: population, land, technology, and wonders. The idea is to have maximized each of these four as much as possible at 2050 AD. In the late game, there isn’t anything else that will give you points.
In the end game, you may want to re-landscape your civilization. The key will be finding a balance between production, finance, and food. Let’s say you have a lower or medium tier city that has become stagnant because of a lack of food. You may want to trade some cottages for farms or some hillside lumber mills for windmills. Do not destroy production or financial output needlessly though. Cash will be needed for research, military upgrades, and sabotage. Hammers will be needed for military units, buildings, and research (when selecting research in the build queue).
Remember that you don’t want to trigger the domination limit. Stop expanding your land when you hit about 10% under the domination number. When you have the Eiffel Tower you will be expanding your borders without using the cultural slider (by the way, keep this at 0% unless you need the happiness.)
The key here is future techs. In the end game, optimize your civilization for maximum research. Remember that you can only get one future tech per turn so beaker overflow only goes so far. Instead optimize your science slider to pile up gold. You may need it for espionage and sabotage. Make sure each one of your cities has all available science buildings and try and maximize your GP points for scientists. Use the great scientists to build an academy in as many cities as possible. You will find that you can get one future tech per turn with your science slider at 50%. That gives you cash for sabotage.
Remember you don’t have to build the wonder; you just have to control the city where it was built in 2050 AD. At lower difficulty levels it is certainly easier to build as many wonders as possible. Just remember that you will want to spread them out over several cities, or just one, because you don’t want to have three cities generating enough culture to trigger a cultural victory. At higher levels, you will probably have to capture the cities. It is probably best to spend your hammers on military and seize control the old-fashioned way.
As always, all comments, criticisms, suggestions, and omissions are welcome.
Basic Stuff
While many people, including a former version of myself, believe that a time victory is quite simple and merely a matter of getting the highest score and hitting enter until the calendar hits 2050 AD, time victory is actually quite difficult. I think this is partially from the moniker that GOTM uses to describe it, namely the cow. The idea is that you milk a victory. You can put that idea right out of your head. Essentially you must prevent all other civs from attaining every other victory condition while racking up the most points. That can be quite difficult realizing that nearly every civilization can win a space race victory even at settler.
First, as with other victory conditions, if you are going to go for a time victory, you need to be thinking this way from the start. I have two reasons. One, I do not accept vassal states, even in the early game. Even a vassal can launch a spaceship, especially at the higher difficulty levels. Since you can't go to war with a vassal, your life has just gotten that much more difficult. Two, you need to try and control the AI’s tech pace. Depending on how I am positioned tech-wise with the other civs, I will make selective trades in the early part of the game. Once you have a tech advantage, DO NOT TRADE. You are only accelerating the AI towards a SS victory that you will have to prevent. Plan on researching nearly everything yourself.
Preventing Other Victory Conditions
I am not going to go through early strategies in this article. Suffice it to say that you will want to be approaching about 50% of the land ownership about halfway through the game. There are other five victory conditions that you will want to prevent: conquest, domination, cultural, diplomatic, and space race. If you are going to be losing to conquest or domination, you probably weren’t going to make it to 2050 AD anyway. Cultural losses can be a concern at the higher levels although most civs will go for a space victory first. The AI can’t seem to organize its builds in order to get three cities to legendary status. Diplomatic losses can be an issue if you have less population. You will want to have at least 50% of the population so that you can win the Secretary-General job each time. Do not pass any resolutions other than non-nuclear proliferation. Resolutions will only give your opponents an advantage. Usually you will be fighting against a space race loss. I will go into this at greater length below.
Ideally the best way to prevent the other civs from attaining these victory conditions is if they don’t exist. At the lower difficulty levels, that is exactly what you do. You eliminate all but one civ, leave that civ with one city, remain at war with that civ for most of the game, and place a spy in the capitol to keep an eye on their activity.
Preventing a Space Launch
At the higher difficulty levels, it is tougher because you are usually playing technological catch-up. Late game warmongering is only one part of a plan to keep a civilization from launching their spaceship. Espionage is extremely important. Since you are limited to four spies, you need to try and keep all your opponents under observation. Even with a civ down to one city, it may be necessary to initiate some sabotage to keep their spaceship from being built. Occupying all available production squares may be necessary. For instructional purposes, I will relate a game experience that has influenced my play in preventing a SS launch.
I was playing as Genghis Khan on a large highlands map at Warlord difficulty (trying to get a check in the box for HOF). The domination limit was 60%, so I stopped expanding at about 50%. I built or controlled every wonder except one religious city. Please note that having the Eiffel Tower had my land area close to 58% by the end of the game. I had four opponents left, one was Mansa as a vassal. I placed a spy in each civ, roaming around and keeping track of their progress. Asoka was the tech leader and with about 50 turns left in the game, he was down to two spaceship parts to build. I began sabotage to keep him from getting the parts necessary to win. Only Catherine had even completed Apollo, so as my spies were “caught and held for questioning,” I pulled spies from the other civs. The victory screen will only give you information on the civ that is closest to winning. As I received messages that various civs either completed Apollo or various parts I wasn’t concerned. I had Asoka under control. With four turns remaining, India had six turns left to complete the SS Engine when I received notice that Catherine had won a SS victory. Four turns!
I did a post mortem using the replay and spies after the game was lost and I found that Louis was within two parts of victory and Mansa, my vassal, was also working on his last part!
So now I keep track of every civ’s progress. I keep a notepad next to my laptop with a little grid and check off as each civ completes each part. One thing I have noticed is that a civ at war will still continue to build wonders, projects, and SS parts. Use your spies to identify which cities are building critical parts (cockpit, engine, stasis chamber, docking bay, and life support). Since five casings and three thrusters are required, I don’t worry about those cities. I then try and capture then raze those cities. Of course if you have that civ down to only a few cities or ideally one city, it makes your job that much easier. You may need to pillage and occupy all available squares in order to keep production down.
Scoring
There are four methods to attain points: population, land, technology, and wonders. The idea is to have maximized each of these four as much as possible at 2050 AD. In the late game, there isn’t anything else that will give you points.
Population
In the end game, you may want to re-landscape your civilization. The key will be finding a balance between production, finance, and food. Let’s say you have a lower or medium tier city that has become stagnant because of a lack of food. You may want to trade some cottages for farms or some hillside lumber mills for windmills. Do not destroy production or financial output needlessly though. Cash will be needed for research, military upgrades, and sabotage. Hammers will be needed for military units, buildings, and research (when selecting research in the build queue).
Land
Remember that you don’t want to trigger the domination limit. Stop expanding your land when you hit about 10% under the domination number. When you have the Eiffel Tower you will be expanding your borders without using the cultural slider (by the way, keep this at 0% unless you need the happiness.)
Technology
The key here is future techs. In the end game, optimize your civilization for maximum research. Remember that you can only get one future tech per turn so beaker overflow only goes so far. Instead optimize your science slider to pile up gold. You may need it for espionage and sabotage. Make sure each one of your cities has all available science buildings and try and maximize your GP points for scientists. Use the great scientists to build an academy in as many cities as possible. You will find that you can get one future tech per turn with your science slider at 50%. That gives you cash for sabotage.
Wonders
Remember you don’t have to build the wonder; you just have to control the city where it was built in 2050 AD. At lower difficulty levels it is certainly easier to build as many wonders as possible. Just remember that you will want to spread them out over several cities, or just one, because you don’t want to have three cities generating enough culture to trigger a cultural victory. At higher levels, you will probably have to capture the cities. It is probably best to spend your hammers on military and seize control the old-fashioned way.
As always, all comments, criticisms, suggestions, and omissions are welcome.
