Domination the Only Way?

[glaciermi]

Embarrassingly I have 602 hours under my belt.. so obviously i'm a CIV freak. I have a single achievement so i'm not playing that way. I play Huge Map, Marathon in a roleplay kind of way victory is in my mind, and I tend to dabble in all and accomplish none.

Anyway my thoughts are and I would love to be shown enlightenment is that the only way to actually "win" is create a small combined arms army and conquer the world. Concentrating on any other victory condition is a mute point as much of the perks come from grabbing the next capital.

So I guess my point with the game is as it stands, is I like being a builder, but it's not feasible without marching troops on the ground.. I want to win by culture, I want to win by religion. But that in my head, i have my little cultural city, but it's not really a plan.. unless Paris, St. Petersburg are provinces under my empire it's pointless.

Can anyone tell me i'm off... if I'm not playing domination... can i really win a victory with little statues?

Thanks!!!

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Certainly you could, if you have the space to expand. Also, you don't always need to conquer everything. Sometimes, conquering only one neighbour using a rather small army might give you enough space to breathe.

If your complaint is about always having to raise an army early, well, you don't have much to do about that. And that makes historical sense, if you think hard enough; even Switzerland, famous nowadays for their neutrality, were once renowned by their pikemen, considered one of the best infantry of the world at their time.

 

[darkace77450]

I don't play on higher difficulties, but King and Emperor you can certainly win a Science, Religious, or Cultural Victory without being militarily aggressive. You'll still need a repsectable force to defend your empire in the early game, but as the eras pass and the AI fails to upgrade its units the threats they pose become inconsequential.

 

[joncnunn]

Both a Conquest induced Cultural victory and Conquest induced Religious victory (if you founded a religion and didn't have it squashed by an AI) can on maps with multiple landmasses be faster than domination.

It's definitely more of a challenge to win peacefully, particularly on the highest difficulty levels where the AI gets huge bonuses to the building aspects (production, food which leads to more science & culture). But I've seen Deity level players who apply a self-imposed rule of can't DOW AI and must accept AI initiated peace deal that grants them at least a city win peacefully.

 

[Victoria]

Wow @glaciermi you certainly like playing.
Most games I play are not agressive or more to the point are passive agressive.
I rarely finish games but tend to play until I have a fair idea of what the outcome is.

You can certainly win with little statues, with zero g or if you have enough belief in yourself

When someone declares war on me I will gladly raid their land for everything they have (blessed is the horseman/knight) but it s very rare for me to take a city but I will often ask for one as punishment. Normally f I have room I do not even bother with that.

Not sure what else you need to know so will leave it there.

 

[Bro]

It sounds like you are playing with a strategy that you have decided before the game had started on a game that's primary challenge lies in the need to be able to adapt.

 

[Arent11]

Embarrassingly I have 602 hours under my belt.. so obviously i'm a CIV freak. I have a single achievement so i'm not playing that way. I play Huge Map, Marathon in a roleplay kind of way victory is in my mind, and I tend to dabble in all and accomplish none.

Anyway my thoughts are and I would love to be shown enlightenment is that the only way to actually "win" is create a small combined arms army and conquer the world. Concentrating on any other victory condition is a mute point as much of the perks come from grabbing the next capital.

So I guess my point with the game is as it stands, is I like being a builder, but it's not feasible without marching troops on the ground.. I want to win by culture, I want to win by religion. But that in my head, i have my little cultural city, but it's not really a plan.. unless Paris, St. Petersburg are provinces under my empire it's pointless.

Can anyone tell me i'm off... if I'm not playing domination... can i really win a victory with little statues?

Thanks!!!

The point is that there is simply no advantage from maintaining peace & no big disadvantage from warmongering. The warmonger penalty, that apparently should discourage warmongering, in fact encourages it, because ai enemies that don't like you constantly declare war & you have to defend yourself. It would be infinitely better if you would have passive trade advantages if you maintain peace, they would refuse to trade tech with you if you are disliked etc. The problem is that all these mechanics don't exist anymore.

I also actually like to play 'passive aggressive' - settling until there is no more space & then lead some short, decisive wars. But on higher difficulty levels you need an army early & when you have an army of course you need to use it. And since it is so easy to kill the ai & conquer a city state, it is simply more efficient to wage war than to settle peacefully.

 

[PendragonWRB]

I don't see how it's possible to win on Deity, and probably Immortal without some amount of war mongering. The AI just gets way to many short cuts so it's almost impossible to get a religion, or many cultural great people. I tried and beat Deity, but I just don't like the feel of the game when the AI is kicking about with Mech Infantry long before I can even research Infantry. Sure I could race for tech, but then my production costs sky rocket. Emperor was just to easy, so Immortal is where I am at to get a reasonable game, although the 'fun' part doesn't last much past half way usually.

 

[Victoria]

I have won peaceful cultural victories on deity... The AI is rubbish and as someone once said, if you can survive past turn 150 you have a chance. The major issue culturally is kongo, china and greece tend to race away with heavy culture meaning a cultural victory will be a slow grind while stopping germany going to space.
The victory is all about tourism and yes you lack pretty much most GP but the AI is useless wth archaeology and that is the mainstay of cultural victory. You may also get lucky with eiffel tower buth those resorts done well pull in what the writers lost, you hever know, once your projects are running the odd GM comes your way and they spread out nicely. The only scientist you really need is Mary B and so jst hold out for her. She comes up fairly fast at deity level.

I rarely get to the end but stop when I can see it will be me that likely ends it... Or if its a lost cause... But do not give up just because they are culturally 3 eras in front, you can still easily pull a culture vctory off because the AI is so bad at it.

Also, someone once asked if there was any reason not to take out everything on their landmass. For cultural victories it can really slow you down taking them all out, 1 in amcient era makes it 10+ cties so an easy win... More does not mean merrier with a CV especially with few GP around.....grabbing good beach space is a much better use of such time.

 

[fortydayweekend]

Until/unless the AI learns how (or gets enough buffs) to attack and defend properly, conquest is just too rewarding to not be part of any optimal strategy. It's too easy to gain cities and space cheaply and there's not enough danger in antagonizing everyone.

That said you can always play with a no-conquest rule, and the game is very forgiving compared to previous titles - there's usually plenty of space to peacefully expand into for the first 120+ turns, and you don't need many units to keep the AI at bay after the early game. The only tough bit really is horse barbs.

 

[DiffSarit]

Playing relatively peaceful is NOT optimal on Diety, but it is possible.

I have won 2 CV on Diety without much warmongering. 1st time with Spain, I erase Roman and capture Paris (but leave Cathy to live on with some cities). 2nd time with Kongo, I only capture only 1 city from Gorgo and Catherine each.

The key is to expand to grab the land with your settlers as fast as possible until you got 10-15 cities while keeping a decent army, so no one gonna DoW you. Or even when they do, you can fend them off easily. Then as @Victoria point out you just race to the civic that allow you to build Archiologist and spam them while teching to get Computer asap.

Grabbing Eiffel Tower and Cristo Redentor if possible, but it's not a must.

 

[PendragonWRB]

So you both describe ONLY taking out a few nearby city's/AIs, but that is warmongering. I seem to be generally trapped in some corner and cannot get enough decent land without going to war. I usually end up taking most of my land mass by force and end up with a science victory because I don't tend to focus on the culture, just enough to keep my culture/science balanced.

My only reward is getting an achievement so I have been slogging it out to the bitter end. Stopping an AI from winning has meant some more war a few times. I always have a nice military so not using it seems a waste, but I generally don't take the time to actually get the domination victory.

 

[Duckfromstatefarm]

I usually don't go peaceful most of the time, I usually try to unseat the first Civ out as early as I can but if its Ghandi I don't try risking taking on his Varus early. I usually though want to remove Ghandi from the game before he even has nukes, However though, if there was 4 players or less I do go for the Domination victory but I usually aim for the Science victory.