Developing the other VCs?

[Falconiano]

Now that the new Cultural Victory system is out, I was meditating on how poorly-thought and underdeveloped Science victory (and pre-bnw Cultural Victory) is compared to the new BNW Cultural victory.

Science Victory is basically a rush where you win by piling up blue numbers, regardless if other civs are much better than you in every sector.
You spam as many RAs as possible, pile bakkers, and that's about it.

The NEW Cultural Victory is deeply developed, opponents need to beat you by culture, not just pile up some purple numbers until magically that number makes them win.
This VC has both an offense and defense department, and has whole systems inside it: 3 types of GPs, theming, the whole archeology thing, tourism system as offense and culture system as defense, ideology systems, world congress.
There is a whole lot to it.

Now imagine if Science victory was actually well-thought as BNW cultural is.
Just some brainstorming:
- Great Scientist working as usual
- Great Medics that can increase Healthcare (defensive Science resource) and can be used to develop Vaccines, Cures and Therapies (pretty much like the 3 writing/art/music)
- Great Ecologists counter Pollution (offensive Science resource) which is the offensive part of the Science victory.
All the various civs could, offensively, increase your level of pollution by unloading wastes into your waters/lands, razing, pillaging and all that creates pollutions and disease.
If not countered properly it would greatly undermine your chance to win by Science - still, a civ that has developed ecologically and in the healthcare sector is much less affected by pollution.

Think about it.
Russia launched first in space, yet they have super-low life expectancy and schooling isn't very good.
Is Russia the best scientific civ in the world? I doubt so.

 

[Anhellia]

I don't think science victory needs a rework at all.

Some new World Congress resolution refresh good old science victory, I think International Space Station is awesome.

Also Order and Freedom ideologies add new possibilities in there (rush buying and rushing with great engineers).

I don't think ecology has anything to do with science victory. As you've mentioned Russia was the first to launch into space, do you think they care about any pollution or enviromental damage? Russia schools maybe aren't/weren't great. But with Russian great population there is a lot of chance for great scientist to be born, and that's exactly how it was in Russia, governament was supporting great scientist to win space race versus U.S.

BNW introduced a lot of new great mechanics and civilizations into the game. For some reason it has become trend on forums to change every old civilization and vicory in the game, while in my opinion it is unnecessary.

They should fix existing bugs like invisible units (sometimes) and air sweep, before adding new features, that could very well imbalance or bug the game even more.

 

[Falconiano]

Well in comparison to other VCs science is still too simple.
There was no love for it this expansion, nor in the previous one... I miss Pollution and Health factors, and they would fit into the Science field in my opinion.

 

[Catan_Settler]

What is not fleshed out about it? It has you chasing 3 different branches of the tech tree, building various production heavy parts (that don't need beakers!) and escorting them to your capital. Now granted escorting's easy if you've managed to keep the peace, but that is in fact part of how you win science cause in all the games I've played the AI gets very invasion happy when you start building parts.

So umm, yeah it's for sure quite fleshed out and there's clearly more to it than just stacking beakers until the game ends. There's the tactic of rushing hubble and all the various approaches to pushing huge science (wide vs tall), or keeping the peace to allow the ship to launch safely.. or at least having a strong enough defense to hold the invasion off before it reaches the capital....

Anyways, yeah, what are you even talking about? If anything I'd like to see more meat on diplo victories but again... I mean, what exactly do you want here? The game is quite complicated as it is and there are multiple paths to victory and mutliple paths that lead to those paths of victory.

 

[player1 fanatic]

It's weird how old Civ1 and Civ2 were games were science victory was mostly fleshed out.


From Civ3 and forward all we get is simplifications regarding Space victory.

 

[VainoValkea]

It's weird how old Civ1 and Civ2 were games were science victory was mostly fleshed out.


From Civ3 and forward all we get is simplifications regarding Space victory.

Civ II science victory is a trial-and-error minmaxing with a random chance of failure, not really that good.


I agree that science victory is the worst of the current victory types. Cultural victory and diplomatic victory will force the player to adapt often - either to another high culture or someone else trying to lodge themselves in a good position in the WC. For science victory, there is no need to adapt - the victory just rumbles closer turn by turn, and can only be prevented by someone being quicker at it than you or blasting you with armies. It's just so passive, and so uninteractive. Nothing the other civs do, save for open warfare, will have much lasting impact on it.

 

[joncnunn]

Civ II Space victory: I simply built all the parts and then launched the ship.

Which is pretty much exactly what is done for a space victory in Civ III, IV, and V only its not optional to skip a part.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Or you build less parts and more motors to get faster to AC then AI that already launched the spaceship before you, in order to catch up (sacrificing the score, but gaining the victory).

Or capture enemy capitol, before his ship arrives to AC, to prevent enemy victory.

That whole part of Space Victory dynamic, that was cut from Civ3 and forward actually made this victory type pretty bland in my opinion. It became way way too much simplified and streamlined.

Never understood why was ship customization removed. Such a great feature, instead build exactly X, Y and Z parts and instant win.



I guess, that since it was only other victory condition then conquest in Civ1/Civ2, that it was necessary for it to have some depth.

 

[Chiatroll]

Or you build less parts and more motors to get faster to AC then AI that already launched the spaceship before you, in order to catch up (sacrificing the score, but gaining the victory).

Or capture enemy capitol, before his ship arrives to AC, to prevent enemy victory.

That whole part of Space Victory dynamic, that was cut from Civ3 and forward actually made this victory type pretty bland in my opinion. It became way way too much simplified and streamlined.

Never understood why was ship customization removed. Such a great feature, instead build exactly X, Y and Z parts and instant win.

If they improve the science victory I'd like it to stay about space as it has always been. it could move a bit more back in this direction and I'd be cool with it.

 

[ExtermicideN7]

That's very good suggestion indeed.
SV looks really bland in comparison to others and is not justified either. Cultural victory means everyone is greatly affected by your opinion, that's why you win, dimplomatic - everyone is basically forced to follow your decisions and domination is obvious. The only "bad" one is science. "Hey, our people are currently flying to Alpha Centauri, they may die halfway or even forget about us, but we are kinda the first, despite our cities in ruins and our civilization is basically barbaric, so we win, yeah?" The scenario, where your civilization becomes Eden with green technologies, where no harm is done to both people's and nature's stability, sounds much more appealing.
And I also would like to see that health parameter back, since I didn't play Civ IV. Although it would need a lot of tweaks and fixes (because by the time those technologies will be available, AI will be dangerously close to UN and cultural invasion). And it would make big influnce on other mechanics as well. It would be logical for advance, hi-tech civilization to have more weight on both cultural and dimplomatic arenas, not just simply to have a little time advantage in building wonders and cultural buildings.
So yeah, it would be great if Firaxis took note of your idea.

 

[gigaagig]

I love the idea. I especially enjoy how, like tourism, pollution would increase in later techs. In real life technologically advanced civilizations dump their waste in undeveloped countries so it has a real life basis. Maybe pollution can take the form of corporations that exploit countries that don't take care of their citizens' health and education.

Maybe we can split the Space Victory from Eden Victory?

 

[Rohili]

Now imagine if Science victory was actually well-thought as BNW cultural is.
Just some brainstorming:
- Great Scientist working as usual
- Great Medics that can increase Healthcare (defensive Science resource) and can be used to develop Vaccines, Cures and Therapies (pretty much like the 3 writing/art/music)
- Great Ecologists counter Pollution (offensive Science resource) which is the offensive part of the Science victory.
All the various civs could, offensively, increase your level of pollution by unloading wastes into your waters/lands, razing, pillaging and all that creates pollutions and disease.
If not countered properly it would greatly undermine your chance to win by Science - still, a civ that has developed ecologically and in the healthcare sector is much less affected by pollution.

Think about it.
Russia launched first in space, yet they have super-low life expectancy and schooling isn't very good.
Is Russia the best scientific civ in the world? I doubt so.

That would make a Science Victory a clone of the Culture Victory. It would play exactly the same way, just with different buildings and great people. I don't see that as an improvement - I think the victory conditions should be as varied as possible.

I think the Science Victory could use a few tweaks to make it more involving (the inclusion of spies whose main purpose is to steal technology is a good example), but its fundamental mechanic of trying to research as fast as possible to build spaceship parts shouldn't change.