What do you mean ? If you think DiploV and CV policies are different then CV and SV are different. DiploV policies are even more the same as SV. Only difference is that some SV won't be interested in Patronage... which you won't invest more than 3 policies for a diploV.
The difference between DiploV and CV policies and greater than the difference between SV and CV policies. For DiploV, you'll invest a few policy points into Patronage and maybe a few into Commerce. For CV, you'll go full Aesthetics. For SV, your pre-Rationalism policies are wildcards, though I usually tend to go Commerce. The bigger difference is solely because you can make Aesthetics work for SV, while you really cannot for DiploV. It's a stretch, which is why I said "maybe", but the differences between CV vs. SV policies are still nothing compared to SV vs. DomV policies.
Yes but that is in response to the OP. Considering Diplo to be LESS like SV compared to CV is nonsense.
Whether or not they could be both even further apart is another question.
Ah, right, post #4. DiploV is definitely redundant. OP might have used bad arguments, but the original idea still stands: CV is redundant, roughly just as redundant as DiploV IMO.
You really do need more hammers. You simply have more to build and the midgame archeo spam + wonders is a production bottleneck. SV rushbuys only needs its gold in the last 2 turns and the endgame surprisingly coincide very well with when you start to bring in a huge amount of GPT due to TP spam.
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War gives different bonuses to different victories. So we agree there ? Differences
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To be fair I'd like CV to be more scattered in the tech tree for example rather than all the relevant stuff coming in the last third of the game. And finally the exponential aspect of science costs coupled with only a handful of tech allowing you to ramp up is a complaint I also have of Civ5 in general but not really with the CV directly, which I think, relative to the other victories is not more redundant.
CV is not identical to SV, but it is still redundant. Lategame hammers are vital for both victory conditions, even if CV can make use of an excessive amount of hammers better than SV. War can greatly hurt both victory conditions, even if CV will have a slightly harder time defending themselves after Modern Era because they'll be getting defensive techs slower. Think about the Domination and Conquest victory conditions in Civ4: they were definitely different, and had both had their nuances, but I think it's safe to say that they were redundant relative to each other. Any position that strengthened your chances at Domination almost always strengthened your chances at Conquest and vice versa. They were basically just two sides of the same coin. This is what I would consider both CV and DiploV to be compared to SV in Civ5: you basically follow the same path for 75% of the game, and while your paths diverge in the last 25% or so, the overall gameplay pattern is extremely similar in singleplayer (CV and multiplayer don't mix well and you really cannot rely on DiploV in multiplayer because your opponents can and will stop you easily, so I'm using singleplayer as the benchmark this once).
The problem you're encountering is the fact that science is extremely important to your game no matter what victory type you are going for. You can't dominate the world if your units are too out of date, you can't win a culture victory if you get the key techs after the wonders are already built.
The fact that science is important isn't necessarily the issue, it's the fact that science is important coupled with the fact that you can only excel in the science game with a set of strategies whose facets all feed into the three peaceful victory conditions identically: specialists and GPs. As one of my colleagues put it, Firaxis basically took the GP farms from Civ4 and made them mandatory for all peaceful strategies in Civ5, with the added bonus that these GP farms are now also your main source of science (and production later in the game).
But like was said earlier, once you obtain the tech you need for victory you can then ignore science and focus only on your desired victory condition. At that point it then stops being a science race.
The point at which it stops being a science race is the point after which all techs are truly optional in singleplayer (and vice versa), which removes the significance of the science "identity": you're all just gathering points in a global yield using the same methods, with negligible effects along the way other than to help achieve the chosen victory condition. I'll continue this thought in the next paragraph.
Although if you try to win a CV using sacred sites city spam, science is pretty much irrelevant. All you need is a ton of cities and religious buildings to win. Although you will need to defend them in some way so you can't be sporting warriors the entire game.
You still need to meet all civs to win early with Sacred Sites, since you only generate tourism against civs you've already met; on Continents or any map type where some civs can start on another continent, this means you'll need to get Astronomy ASAP (or spawn a Great Admiral and use him to cross the oceans and meet everyone).
Still, Sacred Sites is one the more interesting cases for CV, as it's the one that highlights *true* choice between science and culture. When you start getting your Sacred Sites rolling, there are still plenty of key techs you may want to get down the tech tree: Renassiance-era wonders, Oxford into Radio for Ideology, Industrialization for Factories, Archaeology for dig sites, techs needed to unlock guilds, Metal Casting for workshops, techs that increase improvement yields, etc. The method to generate more tourism (faith production from beliefs and settling cities with settlers produced primarily with hammers because there's a significant falloff to production generated from food) also does not directly overlap with the method to generate science (growth from food tiles). As a result, opting to sacrifice science production to instead go for tourism is a true choice, since you can win either way, but you will need to play quite differently depending on the choice you make. By contrast, you lose extremely little by forgoing science production in favor of tourism after you get Research Labs: there are very few techs that you actually need, and you can still get those at a reasonable pace simply from the remnants of your efforts to get Research Labs ASAP (high population, all science buildings built, all specialists generating science yield from Secularism). Even in the worst case scenario, you'll only need one more tech than usual, Rocketry, because nothing unlocked after Mobile SAMs and Rocket Artillery is a better defender and Rocketry's only prerequisite is a tech you'll already be getting for Airports.