Fixing the victory conditions

[Charles Martel]

Thats different to what you originally said. Your first comment was to scrap all victory conditions and have it open-ended, as in goal-less.

Not at all. By “open-ended” it didn't mean “goal-less”, I just meant “without pre-set victory constraints”, pretty much like in Europa Universalis. Not having constraints is entirely compatible with having goals. For example: quests need not be tied to victory conditions, but they can give you goals.

I agree with you that Civ4’s victory conditions are unsatisfactory, and your proposal seems to improve on that, because it appears to give more flexibility and freedom of choice. But what I would really like to see are better quests or even a campaigns (that is, a chain of related quests). Quests should be random but also tailored to each civilization and it current situation (BtS tried to introduce something like that, but it didn’t succeed very well, I think). On a somewhat related note, it’s worth mentioning that Rhye’s mod has Unique Historical Victory Conditions (known “UHVs&#8221. These are civilization-specific goals, but the AI is inept at achieving them. If there must be victory conditions, I’d like something in the spirit of Rhye’s UHVs.

Another interesting question is: should there be better defeat conditions?
In Civ4 a civ loses the game either when their last city is captured (but, depending on game settings, they may survive if they've got some units left) or else when an opponent achieves a victory condition (In the latter case, you still have the option of playing “just one more turn!”, but the game is technically over.)
Now, I don’t want that. I want to play to as Rome, build an empire, watch my empire collapse, and keep on playing as one of Rome’s successor states. Sometimes, being defeated can be fun too! When we talk about historical civilizations the word “defeat” takes on a blurred meaning. In cultural (as opposed to purely militaristic) terms, the conqueror doesn’t always prevail. The conquered may end up assimilating its conqueror (to some extent, Greece did precisely that to Rome ) or a fusion of the two cultures may produces a new one.

Europa Universalis: Rome goes in the right direction. It’s got very loose defeat conditions. For example, if you're run over by a barbarian horde, you don't lose the game: you continue playing as a newly formed barbarian state. Sometimes you may even want to be conquered by barbarians: they tend to give you good military leaders.

EDIT: BTW, EU does have goals, become the strongest nation in the World.

But in EU “become the strongest nation in the World” is not a victory condition, although it may a goal that players may decide to purse. If you’re a very weak country, your goal may be just to survive.

 

[-=Yin=-]

Here's my take: Diplo Victory should take a close look at ACTIONS / FRIENDS and ALLIES (NOT VOTES) taken / achieved during the game.

The basic idea is that we don't need to be stuck between "dogpile and no dogpile" or "good guy vs. bad guy." Rather, it's how effectively you secure and KEEP your Friends and Allies ... and it's the "effectively" part that I outline next:

1. Allied civs should honor their support for your wars of choice (they would join you, of course, in wars of defense automatically) by not extorting or dogpiling when you're stretched thin. They might also give military support, even if token in nature. Think Britain and the U.S. in Iraq.

2. Friendly civs should remain very patient, but if you are conducting a protracted war of choice, particularly one near them, their patience should eventually be tested, and they might ask for "reassurances" that you know what you're doing. This would come in the form of requests for a tech or some gold or resource. If you fail on this, they drop to Cautious.

3. Cautious civs should see the first signs of your going war of choice as potential trouble. Unlike the patience of Friendly civs, these guys should immediately begin to press you to wrap up the war, and if the war is stalling, press further for "reassurances." If you fail on this, they drop to Annoyed.

4. Annoyed civs should take advantage of you both through extortion and through attacks when you are stretched thin in *both* wars of choice and wars of defense.

Currently, I do not see the AI in Civ exhibiting this kind of "grey area" thinking regarding wars of choice and wars of defense. I also don't see Friendly / Allied AIs giving you a chance, as it were, to buy more time from them for you to continue on your war.

What I'm after is for the player to encounter bigger consequence for botching protracted wars of choice. Such wars should begin to worry all but your strongest allies. Such wars should trigger a crisis of confidence and lead, if not to dogpiles, but to calls for "reassurances" that you are up to the task. Those "reassurances" / bribes to those who are worried is, I think, a good way to make wars of choice carry more strategic significance because if you don't execute them well you will be coughing up some valuable possessions in order to keep your critics at bay.

This also would underscore the value of diplomacy, as having Friendly or Allied civs gives you much, much more room to maneuver. Likewise, Cautious or Annoyed civs would be a bit sharper in their reactions.

So whatever else we might put into a Diplomatic Victory, I very much would like to see included consideration of how well you executed wars of choice, how well you placated your critics -- and ultimately how many critics you had and for how long during the game. This is the complementary consideration of how many Friends and Allies you had and for how long. Again, these are actions that lead to points, perhaps on a running timer and perhaps influenced by any number of in-game issues ... but it is NOT a voting mechanism.

And it is NOT about "being nice." You wage any war you want, but it had better be well managed or you'll need to buy some more time lest you lose Friends and Allies.

And I am also dead set against using population for votes. For one thing, it actually rewards the warmonger who can force huge populations under his fist. Hardly a fit for a Diplomatic Victory. Nukes become a veto against the other guys votes. So nuking people helps win a Diplo Victory? Odd. That's why I'm focused on actions, most importantly on how many people you can keep friendly or allied and for how long. That's inherently a very tricky thing to do, so winning a Diplomatic Victory should be a challenging, maybe even somewhat rare, but always sensical, always satisfactory way to win IF you are not slashing and burning with little to no consideration for your Friends and Allies (if you even have any!).

At that point, you're the Conquest Guy. Fair enough. But you shouldn't also be on track to win by Diplo.

Again: I'm not talking about being screwed if you ever have wars of choice. I would hate to always be completely passive and "goody goody" to win a Diplomatic Victory. I just think that such wars, as strategically necessary as they probably will be in most games to securing the land and resources you need to remain competitive, should have a much deeper diplomatic nuance associated with them, and that nuance should be reflected in the Diplo Victory conditions.

Basically, you win a Diplo Victory by DOMINATING world influence WHILE retaining the ability to be fairly ruthless - you just need to be ready and able to grease some wheels. If you can't be bothered, then just go for a Conquest Victory.

 

[bonafide11]

I completely agree with Dale that the victory conditions in Civ IV leave a lot to be desired. I never understood why cultural is so much harder to get than the space race. Diplomatic just seems arbitrary. Why the hell would anyone ever vote for someone else to win the game? That makes no sense at all. It would never work in multiplayer, so it shouldn't work in single player either. I'm confident Civ will completely change diplomatic victories in V. I'm not sure if I like Dale's proposal for changing it though. Honestly I thought Civ Revolution's victory conditions were much improved from Civ IV, so I wouldn't be surprised if use some of those conditions. We've already seen them change the conquest victory conditions to Civ Rev's style.

For those who say scrap victory conditions, fortunately that'll never happen. IT'S A GAME, and Firaxis is well aware of that. Games should end in victory or defeat.

 

[Rowain deWolf]

Then you have cultural victory, which if you don't play a certain way from turn 1 becomes out of reach.

Since when In my experience it is the culture victory you can easily obtain.

 

[Charles Martel]

For those who say scrap victory conditions, fortunately that'll never happen. IT'S A GAME, and Firaxis is well aware of that. Games should end in victory or defeat.

Having victory/defeat conditions is not essential to the concept of “game”. Most role-playing games, for example, have no declared winners nor losers (typically, role-players are tasked with various quests but are not subject to game-rules constraining what constitutes victory). The main purpose of playing games is to have fun. Satisfying a victory condition may be part of that, but doesn't necessarily have to. Like Europa Universalis, Civilization can be played as an open-ended role-playing game; such a playing-style can dispense with victory conditions.

 

[SeptimusOctopus]

I don't think I'd play Civ as much if it were totally open-ended. In EU and the Total War series open-endedness works because they're set in one brief (in Civ terms) time period. This allows you to become more immersed in the game's situation.

Besides, you can disable victory conditions in Civ. I've never tried, but you can disable all of them can't you? Or barring that, you could just play until someone gets a victory, ignore that, then click the one more turn button.

I think Dale is on to something with his suggestion here. It would make for a fun mod I think.

 

[Charles Martel]

I think Dale is on to something with his suggestion here. It would make for a fun mod I think.

Yes, sure. I was just pointing out that victory conditions are not as indispensable as some people think they are.

Personally, I'd prefer modders to work on improving the quest mechanics rather than the overall victory conditions.

 

[Earthling]

I like civ IV's system well enough already and the proposed changes are something I would not want to see - in particular, I HATE the idea of victory/score having to depend on the whole "history" of a game. Just because you were handicapped or whatever at 2000 BC shouldn't make your score/win chances lower (civ III was annoying this way).

I could see having slight changes from civ IV's system but what I'm hearing already isn't good - silly capital conquest, simplified space race perhaps. Changes I would have made would be
-Burn the AP to the ground and never introduce a similar concept again - it could be fixed by a modder but Firaxis blew it.
-eliminate culture victory as it stands. Instead, make culture victory have a vote for victory much like Diplomatic; first unlocked when a city hits Legendary; contenders are anyone with Legendary cities. Then make the AI just less likely to vote until you get more Legendary cities and/or they're good friends with you.
-Diplomatic itself is kinda good actually with the UN, though I would give an option for civs to resist the Diplo victory vote by declaring war on the winner, leading to a certain endgame showdown rather than a fizzle-out
-Space Race should be expanded - require some future tech, make it possible for TWO (or more) civs to win Space Race if there Spaceships launch really close to each other (or, give the civs the option of allying to win/war)

The formula in civ IV and its predecessors works well enough at any rate though - conquest and domination like they've always been are common victories and clearly defined for the player, and Spaceship is a nice default once you've gotten through the whole tech tree. Since open-ended play is already possible by turning on VC's I wouldn't like removing this classical Civ-game victories.

 

[Chopin]

Scale of influence is good idea. But with military/science/culture scale put also:

good/evil scale: reflection of good and bad things you do to the world.

How it works:

Evil scale increases: slavery, kill workers, nuclear bomb, fascism, communism.

Good scale increases: health, good science, ecology (plant trees, idroplant), culture, religion, world peace.

If you win world war but do evil things like Russia (Stalin) or Germany (Hitler) there is increase of evil scale and you lost the game.

If you lost world war but did many good things like Queen Jadwiga (sponsors great artist, spreads religion) there is increase of good scale and you win the game.

 

[snapple232]

The main issue I see with dividing each aspect (conquest/diplomacy/cultural/economic/etc) into different scales, and then giving specific goals that further the scale, is that players will inevitably figure out the most efficient way to win. For example, the "build a bank" thing for economic victory, you'd just see players spamming production cities to get banks out as quickly as possible on every city they own, if that was the most efficient route. For the "win a battle", you'd see players declaring war non-stop with no strategic objective, simply to fight endless battles and win them just to increase the scale. I'm sure there are different formulas and limitations you can add in to try to diversify it, but in the end if you reduce victory down to a set of tasks, then players will do nothing but that, in the most efficient manner, and at the exclusion of anything else.

 

[Ahriman]

I strongly dislike the Europa Universalis type open-ended/lack of victory condition scale. There needs to be a range of clear direct goals to work towards - and which the AI players will also work towards (and try to prevent me, or each other, from achieving).

I'm not sure I like Dale's idea either; I worry it would either be too easy to achieve, or impossible to achieve except until the very late-game, depending on the required "progress level" needed for victory.

If you did something like this, then the victory requirement would have to somehow be scaled to game-turn.
But I don't like that victory comes from being good at only a single narrow thing, which is what this design seems to require. If I am going for an economy victory, I have to keep doing economy, and focusing on economy, to get my economy score really high. There's no scope for a balanced strategy to victory.

My conception of a variant on this would be to have a single overhead "prestige"-type value. Anything you do successfully (grow cities, capture terrain, explore continents, build structures, conquer cities, make favorable diplomatic deals etc.) can help me win prestige points.
Anything that increases my power as a civ, or my importance (like wonder building, or overall culture) can increase my prestige. My success is judged in an overall fashion, not along just a single line. I win by being the best civ in the world, not just by being the best at diplomacy, or best at banking, or whatever.

Then, I win the game if I achieve a total Prestige of X, and X can be a function of game turn, and/or a function of the prestige of other players in the game.
Maybe my prestige has to equal 50% of the total world prestige values, or 3 times the weighted-average prestige value, or similar.

 

[UKScud]

I'm not sure I like Dale's idea either; I worry it would either be too easy to achieve, or impossible to achieve except until the very late-game.

I'm not sure you get the Dale's idea.

You play well enough the victory condition happen...at least that's what I've read into it...

I've never been good enough to win at a very early date, and I like to see my empire progress over an extended period of time, so I think Dale's ideas are a step in the right direction.

 

[Dale]

You play well enough the victory condition happen...at least that's what I've read into it...

Exactly. You don't "play to a victory condition" like you have to in previous Civ's, the victory condition develops during play based on your choices through the game.

 

[Ahriman]

Exactly. You don't "play to a victory condition" like you have to in previous Civ's, the victory condition develops during play based on your choices through the game.

I'm not sure this is coherent. Either you know what the victory condition is - in which case you play to achieve it - or you don't (which would just be horrible design). So if you're trying to win an economic victory, then you change your economy to build markets and banks everywhere and commerce wonders and acquire lots of trade goods and get merchant specialists (whatever advances you down the commerce victory path) - which has the opportunity cost of neglecting (relatively) other aspects of your economy/military.

I think my proposal is not that different from yours, with the exception that I favor a goal where all your successes count towards the goal, rather than yours where (if I understand you correctly) you achieve success by exceling in only a single area.

Maybe some kind of compromise, where all kinds of victory count to prestige, but where there are increasing returns to pursuing a particular path towards prestige.

 

[Dale]

I'm not sure this is coherent. Either you know what the victory condition is - in which case you play to achieve it - or you don't (which would just be horrible design). So if you're trying to win an economic victory, then you change your economy to build markets and banks everywhere and commerce wonders and acquire lots of trade goods and get merchant specialists (whatever advances you down the commerce victory path) - which has the opportunity cost of neglecting (relatively) other aspects of your economy/military.

I think my proposal is not that different from yours, with the exception that I favor a goal where all your successes count towards the goal, rather than yours where (if I understand you correctly) you achieve success by exceling in only a single area.

Maybe some kind of compromise, where all kinds of victory count to prestige, but where there are increasing returns to pursuing a particular path towards prestige.

The goal is the victory conditions you can set at the start of the game (or accept the default levels). Basically, the scales are set with a certain threshold for the win. So if during the game you make economic choices so that the economic scale moves forward a lot, then there may come a time when that scale will go past the threshold set for victory of that type. Thus you win an economic victory.

Same with conquest. During the game if your military campaigns end up pushing that scale over the threshold you win a military victory.

The huge difference is that under my proposal you may (for example) have to score 10,000 economic points over the course of the whole game, by building banks, trade routes, trade deals with other Civs, great merchants, luxuries connected, etc. Under current Civ4 victory types you would only have to have 10 banks built to win (a single state in time victory).

So goals exist, and they are clearly defined, it's just the whole game's actions lead to it, not a single state.

 

[Steve the Noble]

These blended achievement conditions are interesting.

The old game "Jones in the Fast Lane" worked exactly this way - the player set the victory conditions at the start of the game with sliders (for happiness, wealth, education and career achievement IIRC).

 

[bonafide11]

I'm curious if anyone has any ideas of how to fix diplomatic victory? There has to be a better way than taking a vote on it, which seems completely irrational. Why would someone vote for another player to win the game? If they can't think of a better way to do, they should just axe the diplomatic victory and leave the UN to pass resolutions and such.

 

[Dale]

I'm curious if anyone has any ideas of how to fix diplomatic victory? There has to be a better way than taking a vote on it, which seems completely irrational. Why would someone vote for another player to win the game? If they can't think of a better way to do, they should just axe the diplomatic victory and leave the UN to pass resolutions and such.

I believe I describe a solution in the first post of this thread.

 

[UKScud]

So if you're trying to win an economic victory, then you change your economy to build markets and banks everywhere and commerce wonders and acquire lots of trade goods and get merchant specialists (whatever advances you down the commerce victory path) - which has the opportunity cost of neglecting (relatively) other aspects of your economy/military.

I think my proposal is not that different from yours, with the exception that I favor a goal where all your successes count towards the goal, rather than yours where (if I understand you correctly) you achieve success by exceling in only a single area.

And this last is something I've always had a problem with...in order to "win" the game you inevitably end up with an empire that excels in one area but usually sucks at others, or is unsustanable because of your massive expansion.

So the idea of all successes counting towards a goal is my favorite too...but don't we have that already in the form of the Civ Score?

I'd rather have an end-game that stops when there is a clear dominant civ, rather than the current Civ4 victories that make you slog on long beyond where most human players would have worked out that you are the clear victor and resigned.

 

[Ramesses]

I vote yes on proposition Dale.