Easiest victory condition

[Spoonwood]

But if you are so small that resources are scarce, they are cheaper for you to buy. I find space victories hard though. I can't make it that far up the tech tree without destroying everything first.

True, but the AIs have to have them available to trade. You don't need resources in a diplomatic game.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

True, but the AIs have to have them available to trade. You don't need resources in a diplomatic game.

What you do is connect their extra resources for them(sign ROP and gift required techs if necessary). I also found out the hard way that if you do this be sure to make it so that the road completes on your turn and not the inter-turn or else the AI might trade away the resource to someone else before you have a change to buy it. Also you only need the resources to start the shuttle parts so you can do the whole buy resource for gpt and then cut the connection exploit if you are desperate.

I am not saying that a space victory is the easiest to win(although I would say it is the easiest to not lose) but I don't think the resource requirements increase the difficulty that much.

 

[Spoonwood]

What you do is connect their extra resources for them(sign ROP and gift required techs if necessary).

Yes, that holds. However,

1. There has to exist *extra* resources in their territory somewhere... not necessarily likely on a tiny map imo.

2. You have to have the goods to trade for them, which might not come as all too easy if you've spoiled your reputation. Trading reputation doesn't matter so much in a diplomatic election, as things like AI attitude and current wars matter more.

3. You have to get your units there, which could pose a problem on an 80% archipelago map.

4. The resources have to become available to trade to you. As you point out, the AIs could trade those extra resources among themselves before you can get a chance to trade for them.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Yes, that holds. However,

1. There has to exist *extra* resources in their territory somewhere... not necessarily likely on a tiny map imo.

The vast majority of the time there is an extra resource somewhere thanks to the Birthday Paradox. In fact the very issue that you lack a resource suggests it is in a greater concentration elsewhere.

2. You have to have the goods to trade for them, which might not come as all too easy if you've spoiled your reputation. Trading reputation doesn't matter so much in a diplomatic election, as things like AI attitude and current wars matter more.

True, but it goes the other way too. The AI's are quite willing to trade with you no matter how much they hate you but good luck trying to get them to vote you in for secretary general if you have razed their cities. I am a wimp and play with culture conversions off so I usually don't have to do any razing but this can be a problem otherwise.

3. You have to get your units there, which could pose a problem on an 80% archipelago map.

The only thing more you need is a transport ship. Anyway I think that when constrained to an island, the AI seems to to dependable at improving all possible tiles.

4. The resources have to become available to trade to you. As you point out, the AIs could trade those extra resources among themselves before you can get a chance to trade for them.

In this case there are many clever ways for the human player to instigate wars for the sole purpose of freeing up spare resources even if he is not able to capture them outright.

 

[Spoonwood]

The vast majority of the time there is an extra resource somewhere thanks to the Birthday Paradox. In fact the very issue that you lack a resource suggests it is in a greater concentration elsewhere.

I agree that such usually happens. But, it doesn't always, so there exist SOME such problem situations. Diplomatic games have ZERO such problem situations.

Can you clarify as to how the birthday paradox relates?

True, but it goes the other way too. The AI's are quite willing to trade with you no matter how much they hate you but good luck trying to get them to vote you in for secretary general if you have razed their cities.

Surprisingly easy once you know how. Check the victory screen to figure out your opponent, or even gift someone cities to ensure them as your opponent. Declare war on them, and then sign everyone else in against them. They'll vote for you, since they won't vote for a tribe they're at war at. True that might come as costly with a bad reputation, but you only need to do so once, while for building parts you need to get the resource each time you start a new part.

I disagree that cultural conversions come as such a problem. The AI only gets 1 or 2 defenders in a city that converts, and you can rather quickly take it back usually... even on Sid. They also don't happen all that frequently if you focus on one opponent and exterminate them ASAP, even on a Huge map with minimum opponents where the AIs drastically outdo you in culture.

The only thing more you need is a transport ship.

No, you also need a spot to land. That's not always possible, or makes for a task in itself. A transport ship also takes time to move. And you might need an RoP too.

In this case there are many clever ways for the human player to instigate wars for the sole purpose of freeing up spare resources even if he is not able to capture them outright.

Sure, but you might actually have to fight a war until you can make peace for a few turns with a neighbor if you do this. With a diplomatic victory, either that possiblity doesn't exist or you'll have to "fight" a war for a single turn.

I really think you have excellent points about roading up AI resources to trade for them, instigating wars to trade for resources, etc. but most of that seems more along the lines of "how to get resources in a tough situation" than "space vs. diplomatic".

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

I agree that such usually happens. But, it doesn't always, so there exist SOME such problem situations. Diplomatic games have ZERO such problem situations.

Can you clarify as to how the birthday paradox relates?

The birthday paradox is about how the mathematics about if you have n bins and m items that are each placed in a random bin how surprisingly small m has to be for there to be a high probability that more than one item is in at least one bin. The bins could be days of the year or the empire territories and the items could be birthdays or resources.

For examples let us imagine a game in which there are 6 equal sized empires with the same terrain distributions with only 4 randomly distributed aluminium resources. This means aluminium is scarce but let us see what the chance is that the human player does not have aluminium and no AI has more than one resource so that the human player cannot achieve the resources via peaceful methods. For this to happen the first resource must be placed in any AI territory(5/6 chance), the second, third, and fourth resources must be placed in any AI territory that does not already have that resource(4/6, 3/6, and 2/6 chance). So there is only a (5/6)*(4/6)*(3/6)*(2/6)~=9% chance of this happening even under such an unfavorable scenario. Even if this does happen you can still war for the territory as you would have to anyway for a conquest or domination victory.

Surprisingly easy once you know how. Check the victory screen to figure out your opponent, or even gift someone cities to ensure them as your opponent. Declare war on them, and then sign everyone else in against them. They'll vote for you, since they won't vote for a tribe they're at war at. True that might come as costly with a bad reputation, but you only need to do so once, while for building parts you need to get the resource each time you start a new part.

In my limited experience(I am not a fan of UN victories) the AI will not vote for you merely because they are allied with you. If they don't like you they will simply abstain and while an abstention helps you not lose it doesn't help you win.

I disagree that cultural conversions come as such a problem. The AI only gets 1 or 2 defenders in a city that converts, and you can rather quickly take it back usually... even on Sid. They also don't happen all that frequently if you focus on one opponent and exterminate them ASAP, even on a Huge map with minimum opponents where the AIs drastically outdo you in culture.

I find cultural conversions more annoying than anything. Also I like channeling Genghis Khan...

No, you also need a spot to land. That's not always possible, or makes for a task in itself. A transport ship also takes time to move. And you might need an RoP too.

If the AI has all their tiles covered then all their tiles will be improved as well.

Sure, but you might actually have to fight a war until you can make peace for a few turns with a neighbor if you do this. With a diplomatic victory, either that possiblity doesn't exist or you'll have to "fight" a war for a single turn.

Not necessarily. Depending on the situation you can make an alliance that breaks a trade connection somewhere, buy the resource, swap a prebuild or two, and launch the next turn. And the war doesn't have to be real either.

I really think you have excellent points about roading up AI resources to trade for them, instigating wars to trade for resources, etc. but most of that seems more along the lines of "how to get resources in a tough situation" than "space vs. diplomatic".

My point is even in a tough situation(which should be rare) you have options with a space victory. A tough UN victory is if you could not build the UN building and you are not eligible for secretary general you might be out of luck. I don't think space victory is the easier but I think that you are overestimating its difficulty.

 

[Daeron]

I voted diplomatic, because mutual protection pacts make it quite easy to isolate the other opponents. But if it really comes down to it, histographic is the easiest. Simply because you have the maximum amount of turns to attain your victory condition. It really depends on how you look at it, since I think most players, including me, consider something easier when there's less menial work involved, such as spending 100 turns cleaning pollution.

It is why I generally favor diplomatic, 20k, domination and space victories over conquest, 100k and histographic. Histographic is low on the list simply by it being boring and tiresome IMO.

 

[Lanzelot]

I was undecided between Diplomatic and Space for a long time, but then in the end I voted for Diplomatic, because of COTM55. That game was Sid, and despite huge advantages for the human player turned out to be "almost unwinnable". Many excellent people tried, but all failed, except for Yilar and Neo666. And both of them did the trick with a UN victory. Here's the full story: COTM55 Final Spoiler

In many Sid games the strategy used by Yilar and Neo666 may in fact be the only way to win the game.

Lanzelot

 

[Spoonwood]

I was undecided between Diplomatic and Space for a long time, but then in the end I voted for Diplomatic, because of COTM55. That game was Sid, and despite huge advantages for the human player turned out to be "almost unwinnable". Many excellent people tried, but all failed, except for Yilar and Neo666. And both of them did the trick with a UN victory. Here's the full story: COTM55 Final Spoiler

In many Sid games the strategy used by Yilar and Neo666 may in fact be the only way to win the game.

Yilar and Neo666 both played great games. For many COTM-type Sid games the only way to win may come as that used by Yilar and Neo666. But, if we change the rules for a Sid game from COTM to rules to HoF rules, or just throw out any rulebook, MANY different ways become possible.

 

[madviking]

Most of my games could end with conquest or domination. There's not really a lot of difference. In conquest you just burn cities, in domination you keep them. But in domination you actually have to pop borders and achieve a certain number of tiles, so that is just a bit harder.