GOTM 03 - results & congratulations!

[karmina]

Some people have fun seeking to achieve the highest possible score, but many others get really tired of that quite fast.

In civ2 and civ3 I generally avoided domination, but in civ4 I more and more tend to favor it (with the exception of large/huge maps).

But not because I think it's easier or more rewarding than other victory types, or that the military approach in civ2/3 was more difficult - simply because it's less tedious than other victories, imo less boring, and most importantly makes the game much shorter. At least on my PC the performance becomes horrible around the time the AI gets Gunpowder; around the same time MM becomes overwhelming - even if I don't concentrate on military.

I hope the performance issues in the late game get better with the next patch; it's the main reason why I prefer early dom/conquest. Even a cultural victory approach takes too long for me in the last 50-100 turns, not to speak of the endless boredom sending missionaries and choppers around...

 

[jar2574]

In civ2 and civ3 I generally avoided domination, but in civ4 I more and more tend to favor it (with the exception of large/huge maps).

I hope the performance issues in the late game get better with the next patch; it's the main reason why I prefer early dom/conquest. Even a cultural victory approach takes too long for me in the last 50-100 turns, not to speak of the endless boredom sending missionaries and choppers around...

Try diplo. Beeline for communism, then mass media after you beeline for liberalism and democracy.

If you don't adopt a state religion you only have to conquer one or at most two other civs before the vote, to guarentee enough votes.

In my experience, these are the fastest games in real time. The other civs don't have gunpowder yet. And I didn't have to send hundreds of units rampaging across the map in a time consuming world war.

 

[karmina]

Try diplo. [...]In my experience, these are the fastest games in real time. The other civs don't have gunpowder yet.

Even on monarch and above? I'm not a diplomatic genius, but guess that you need start trading & gifting techs to most AIs quite early.

About the scoring issue, I too think that population and domination victories weigh too much. The scaling by turn number should be generally different for the peaceful victory types, based on some "normal" turn number at which a specific victory type is likely to occur in most games. Also, it might make sense to not award score for your population at all in diplo & space race victories (maybe even scale inversely, since these victory type are harder too achieve with less population). A 1600AD space race victory should always score higher than a 1400AD domination victory - regardless of population.

 

[jar2574]

Even on monarch and above? I'm not a diplomatic genius, but guess that you need start trading & gifting techs to most AIs quite early.

Yeah, my opponents don't get gunpowder, at least on emperor and below. But I should add that I don't research gunpowder and mil tradition til the end, right before I take out just enough population to win the vote.

 

[akots]

... And what's the point ... because everyone is winning every game by conquest long before the modern era? ...

I cannot say for everyone out there. But for me the point is that you are NOT going to win by space race or diplomacy or culture against another human opponent of approximately equal strength. So, in Civ3 experience, largely (there are some notable exceptions), those players who can play via the military route (which also requires superfast research and if continued can lead to space victory in the game against the AI), are usually better against other human opponents.

Also, experience again in Civ3 shows that whoever can win the game via a military route and be good at that, can do usually even better with other victory conditions. I fail to see how this can be different in Civ4 with even more obstacles built in the game against domination type of victories. But really, there is little point in arguing about it. Everyone plays how they see fit and like it so that everyone may have the most fun out of the GOTM.

 

[akots]

... My experience of conquest is ...

Now, the GOTM would be a good place to re-evaluate your experience regarding conquest and whether you can do it right.

As for me and my impression from other victory conditions and scoring system, getting to high score and military victory conditions is really a challenge even against the AI in Civ4. On the other hand, beating AI to diplomatic, cultural, or space victories is somewhat easy. May be because there is a big difference between building inefficient small empire and efficient large empire. Based on the built-in Civ4 scoring and victory bonus, you can pretty reliably distinguish between these two.

Of course, the system has flaws but the basics of the system are not so bad and imho, complete re-working of the system would be not a very good idea. Like score based on culture or score based on science beakers generated per turn or something else.

Again, I'm not trying to argue here with anyone specifically.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I cannot say for everyone out there. But for me the point is that you are NOT going to win by space race or diplomacy or culture against another human opponent of approximately equal strength. So, in Civ3 experience, largely (there are some notable exceptions), those players who can play via the military route (which also requires superfast research and if continued can lead to space victory in the game against the AI), are usually better against other human opponents.

The thread is about GOTM, not multiplayer Civ. The latter does strongly favor military strategies, and that is unavoidable as you can't just "decide not to do that"---your enemy will just beat you. That's imho the major weakness of multiplayer.

Also, experience again in Civ3 shows that whoever can win the game via a military route and be good at that, can do usually even better with other victory conditions.

I agree that the same people tend to be good at winning one way or another. But previously you claimed that if someone is not playing an aggressive military strategy, it must mean they aren't so good at that. And that's not true. The converse is true: the people who are obtaining the quickest and highest-scoring space race wins and diplomatic wins and cultural wins, could all get fast, high-scoring domination wins if they wanted to.

 

[akots]

... But previously you claimed that if someone is not playing an aggressive military strategy, it must mean they aren't so good at that. ...

No, I did not say that. I think you either over-interpreted of misunderstood my post.

All I wanted to say that whoever is thinking that military win is easier than any other type of win (without ever trying to go for it at a "suitable" level of difficulty) might be wrong.

... That's imho the major weakness of multiplayer. ...

I think it is the major strength of the multiplayer. Everyone has his own opinion.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Now, the GOTM would be a good place to re-evaluate your experience regarding conquest and whether you can do it right.

You mean there is a single 'right' way to do conquest??? If so then Civ is a lot more limiting than I thought it was

As for me and my impression from other victory conditions and scoring system, getting to high score and military victory conditions is really a challenge even against the AI in Civ4. On the other hand, beating AI to diplomatic, cultural, or space victories is somewhat easy. May be because there is a big difference between building inefficient small empire and efficient large empire. Based on the built-in Civ4 scoring and victory bonus, you can pretty reliably distinguish between these two.

That's a pretty loaded set of remarks. And I'm not sure on what basis you deem an empire to be 'inefficient' or 'efficient'. I'd suggest - more neutrally - that there is some difference between our tastes, methods of thinking, habits and playing styles etc., which leads you to regard conquest victories as harder than other victory types and me to regard them as easier (although less enjoyable) than other victory types.

 

[DaviddesJ]

No, I did not say that. I think you either over-interpreted of misunderstood my post.

You did say that, if domination were easy then everyone would do it. In other words, that the only reason anyone would pursue some other victory condition is that military domination is too hard for them.

And I don't think this is right. E.g., in Civ3, military domination was always the easiest way to win. Yet people did a whole variety of different things.

Maybe you didn't really intend such a strong statement.

 

[jar2574]

I've enjoyed this discussion, but think there's some confusion.

You [akots] did say that, if domination were easy then everyone would do it.

akots said was that if conquest was as easy as DynamicSpirt claimed then everyone would be doing it. I haven't seen him argue that if domination were easy then everyone would do it.

Here's the relevant exchange:

[changing the scoring system] would mean that the score would much more reward the people who played most cleverly, handled their economy well, etc. as opposed to the current situation where the score to a good approximation just rewards people for building the most military units and throwing them at the AI.

Now, that is a very peculiar point of view. I'd suggest you try the "less intelligent" way to see how it works for you. It seems, that if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. Indeed, it might be rather difficult, especially in Civ4 and especially with Domination victories.

"if it were that easy" seems to be refering to DynamicSpirit's view on how easy it is. That is significantly different than simply claiming that "if it were easy everyone would do it."

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Anyway, I tend to think that conquest and domination are a little boring. They also take too much time out of my 'real life.' I can play diplo games much more quickly. But I've enjoyed reading the different viewpoints.