Calling all CE enthusiasts

[Agent Cooper]

Well, I'm well into the AD's and finished my first war with Russia, earning me Moscow and two core cities. Actually, Catherine attacked me a couple of turns before I would declare on her and soon afterwards, Ghandhi declared on me too! That came from nowhere and he almost overran my border cities, but I outmanouvered him succesfully and took one of his core cities. I was a bit lucky not to loose a couple of my smaller cities...

One thing is crystalclear at this time though - I suck at standard speed.

I'm 'later developed/advanced' than usually when playing a SE at epic and I made some mistakes when moving my military forces around between wars. I'll go into deeper detail about this and the prospect of my game in a future post, when I get the time to play some more and grab a couple of screenshots.

 

[futurehermit]

Standard speed is much less forgiving than epic/marathon and warmongering is less of a power strategy because the AI gets longbows/rifles sooner than you would often like

 

[uberfish]

Personally i think that generally a domination win is about one level more difficult than space (at least for my general playing style and also depending on the map and the other AIs), so IMO immortal space win should equal emperor domination and so on.

More difficult? No, in fact I'd say it's quite a bit easier on pangaea/fractal. More time consuming? Yes.

 

[uberfish]

Uber, very nice write up, thanks!!! I was wondering if you could provide a few more details on your post-wartime space approach?

lots of grassland = democracy before biology
mediocre production cities = assembly line and rocketry before computers

I don't bother with Kremlin rushing or State Property so no communism. I don't think it pays off when you are finishing research in the 1700s. I don't think it is worth conquering more AIs after a certain time either so I just left Cathy alone as a trading partner.

 

[Dirk1302]

More difficult? No, in fact I'd say it's quite a bit easier on pangaea/fractal. More time consuming? Yes.

True, but i always play continents standard speed, invading on the other continent takes quite a bit of preparing. It might well be a personal thing, from Civ1-4 i always played space and only sometimes the last 6 months i tried domination. So probably i have better sight on the timeline to do things when going space than when doing domination.

I'd be very interested to see how other players feel the 2 victory conditions compare with the understanding that we're talking continents, standard speed.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

True, but i always play continents standard speed, invading on the other continent takes quite a bit of preparing. It might well be a personal thing, from Civ1-4 i always played space and only sometimes the last 6 months i tried domination. So probably i have better sight on the timeline to do things when going space than when doing domination.

I'd be very interested to see how other players feel the 2 victory conditions compare with the understanding that we're talking continents, standard speed.

I think the difficulty ranks:
- Conquest (hardest)
- Culture
- Diplomacy (peace style)
- Domination
- Diplomacy (conquer the world and vote yourself in style)
- Space (easiest)

The reason I rank them this way is the order in which you have to commit to the victory condition and rule out other options.

- Conquest is very hard because (a) you often get domination instead so you have to commit to very early war and razing everything in sight and (b) its often impossible on some maps.

- Culture requires a commitment that distracts from the other types of victory conditions. Once you commit to it you commit totally making this a fairly hard option too.

- Diplomacy peace style can be played similar to a space race up until the end but requires much more careful management of allies and enemies.

- Domination requires a commitment to warring and therefore the risks of extensive warring including a lack of allies in the end game.

- Diplomacy conquest style is easier because the pop requirement is easier than the land requirement.

- Space is the easiest because conquering land and research are things you want to do anyway and always help a space victory too. You can fallback to this fairly safely from anything other than culture and its never really ruled out until the very late endgame.

But I don't say that spaceship wins are less impressive. They may be strategically easier, but excellent tactical play is required to pull one off on the higher levels, especially if recovering from a failed attempt at another victory condition.

 

[uberfish]

If you conquered 2 opponents by renaissance and still have a decent economy, converting it into whichever victory condition you prefer is equally easy.

If you're going for a specific victory condition from the beginning:

Culture is easiest because it's non-interactive. Just suck up to the AI enough to avoid being invaded and you win.

Domination is relatively easy at all levels below deity because the AI is poor at military tactics, and you don't have to bother building a good economy (game over in renaissance), care about diplomatic relations (you have mercantilism and a huge army to punish invaders), or even properly specialize your cities (since drafting is overpowered.)

Peaceful diplo can be either easy or hard depending on random factors like which opponents you get dealt and the worst-enemy relationships that develop.

Peaceful space is probably the most difficult way to play at high levels because you're taking the AI with its economic bonuses on at the one victory condition it knows how to play decently.

 

[UncleJJ]

If you conquered 2 opponents by renaissance and still have a decent economy, converting it into whichever victory condition you prefer is equally easy.

If you're going for a specific victory condition from the beginning:

Culture is easiest because it's non-interactive. Just suck up to the AI enough to avoid being invaded and you win.

Domination is relatively easy at all levels below deity because the AI is poor at military tactics, and you don't have to bother building a good economy (game over in renaissance), care about diplomatic relations (you have mercantilism and a huge army to punish invaders), or even properly specialize your cities (since drafting is overpowered.)

Peaceful diplo can be either easy or hard depending on random factors like which opponents you get dealt and the worst-enemy relationships that develop.

Peaceful space is probably the most difficult way to play at high levels because you're taking the AI with its economic bonuses on at the one victory condition it knows how to play decently.

I agree with part of what you say about Domination, but I think you are underestimating the difficulty of winning with it. It has a set of problems to solve as well as the strengths you mention. Dealing with culture, unhappiness (motherland, WW and emanicipation) and poor research rates along with the problems of diplomacy and vassals (yours and other civs). A big underdeveloped empire with many of its cities (recently conquered ones especially) is expensive to run, as is a large army so the research slider is permanently low. That means you need to build gold buildings (for happiness, health and money) as well as science buildings (for culture as well) in the new cities. Then there is the ever present need for more troops for future conquests and garrisons and money to upgrade your veterans.

I don't think drafting is overpowered. The conversion rate of food to hammers is very good but the other restrictions (unhappiness and low exp) compensate for its benefits. One of the main advantages of Nationhood is the basic +2 in all cities, without that Bureaucracy or Free Speech would usually be superior civics. For a large unhappy empire like you often get in Domination games Nationhood is good for that reason rather than drafting.

 

[futurehermit]

If you conquered 2 opponents by renaissance and still have a decent economy, converting it into whichever victory condition you prefer is equally easy.

100% agree. That is the mantra I follow pretty much. My goal is to have 2 enemies conquered with a respectable economy at the latest at 1500AD, but preferably earlier (asap). From there, if I am on a large continent or pangaea and have nice supporting traits (agg/cha/phi/imp/pro/etc.) then I will go dom. Otherwise, and esp if fin, I will go space.

I agree that in higher levels space becomes a lot more difficult because the AI is such a threat to win space earlier than you can.

 

[Dirk1302]

I played an emperor game sometime ago (with 6 civs on 1 continent, Toku on another), i did conquer 2 civs then decided i'd play domination at a time that a space win looked pretty easy, i was equal in tech with my rival Churchill and had a lot of good land.

Thereafter I conquerered Peter, was some 3 techs behind Churchill now, then MM. At this point i was a lot of techs behind Churchill who also had build a lot of very modern units (so there was no chance to attack him successfully). I still won the game by sailing to Toku's island but it was really close, Churchill had finished research and was building the last parts (around 1880 iirc).

I didn't feel that the wars went badly, especially MM was down pretty fast, but time seems to be flying on standard speed and you lose a lot of research when preparing to war (upgrade money, units instead of infra building) and also while warring. Still domination was a very close game while i think a space win wouldn't have been.

 

[cabert]

I agree with Uberfish. Culture is easier than most other victory conditions, because you have a lot less to worry about.
It requires some diplo and planning skills, but you don't need to worry about late science, loads of cities, super large armies and war tactics, happiness, ...

Conquest is a lot easier now in warlords than it was in vanilla.
Then again, I'm not playing speciffically for conquest and I don't cry when I get domination instead.

 

[Indiansmoke]

Domination is the easiest in my opinion. Just build armies and focus on war. No one will threaten you because you will have such a big army!
Space is second and is always easy to get if you see domination will take a bit longer.
Cultural is difficult to get early in Warlords, by early I mean before 1850 normal speed. You always have to be ready for war and balancing that with religions, shrines and the culture slider is not so easy. However if everything goes well you should be at a point around 1700 that you just press enter!

 

[cabert]

Domination is the easiest in my opinion. Just build armies and focus on war. No one will threaten you because you will have such a big army!
Space is second and is always easy to get if you see domination will take a bit longer.
Cultural is difficult to get early in Warlords, by early I mean before 1850 normal speed. You always have to be ready for war and balancing that with religions, shrines and the culture slider is not so easy. However if everything goes well you should be at a point around 1700 that you just press enter!

seems we agree on the game, but not on what "easy" means .
I manage a war where I'm defending with obsolete troops quite easily, while I have a hard time (= it requires some planning) going for conquest with just up-to-date troops.
Of course, if I go for domination, I'll try to have some kind of military advantage at some point and the snowball effect will make the rest, but having this advantage is depending on the AIs, so it's not entirely in your hands to begin with, unlike the cultural rush.

 

[fed1943]

I think domination is easy and "natural" because you always need to care with
something that fits well to domination.
( I mean if one goes domination don't need to care culture, but if goes culture
must still have some armies, population and land).
Best regards,

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I prefer space over domination because I prefer hitting "enter" to moving a hundred units around. Peaceful space is alright on all levels but deity, as long as the map is somewhat conductive to it (chokes, barbarian islands, etc).

I haven't finished my two games here yet; culprit: Europa Universalis III. Stay tuned!