Isn't religon victory the most difficult one to acheive?

[myclan]

I don't like to roll my start place a lot, and tend to just play the map whatever the surrounding terrain is. And I find religion victory seem to be one most difficult to acheive.

You can win by any type if having a good start of course, but if it is a so-so start.

Domination Victory: You conquer your neighbour, get more gold then upgrade your army for another, finally you win

Culture Victory: You conquer your neighbour, get more place for TD, grabbing all the coming GW/GA/GM, finally you win

Sciece Victory:You conquer your neighbour, get more place for campus, leading in the techtree, finally you win.

Religion Victory:You conquer your neighbour, get more place for Holy Site……But wait, it seems that all the Great Phophet had been recruited by AI and you can't found a religon!

That's why I also find out that Spain is one of the Civlization that hard to enjoy, though not hard to win.

 

[pablo00]

if you play with arabia you solve all that problems is the best civ for religion and Spain is very weak it is one of the worst civ

 

[Archon_Wing]

It's hard because unless you're Russia or Arabia, you have to pray instead of building an army. Naturally, I prefer my sticks.... and yea you basically said that.

 

[Morningcalm]

After Domination, Religion is the easiest victory IMO, even if getting a great prophet is hard, because you can get it way faster than most other victory types.

 

[myclan]

After Domination, Religion is the easiest victory IMO, even if getting a great prophet is hard, because you can get it way faster than most other victory types.

I think one victory type is easy is because you can acheive it easily instead a faster victory.

 

[Morningcalm]

I think one victory type is easy is because you can acheive it easily instead a faster victory.

Speed is one of the elements that makes victory easy. It means you don't run the risk of say, Kongo overtaking you on science later on, or some Civ you let go unconquered becomes a huge military threat later.

For what it's worth, religion and domination victory are both fast and easy, even if the other civs have strong military forces or religious focus.

 

[Siptah]

it depends a bit on the civ how easy it is, but I think religious victory is actually pretty easy even on deity. I have to admit that I play on 6 or 8 player maps all the time though. I can imagine that it gets harder with 12+ civs. As mentioned, with civs like Arabia or Russia, I would say it is not more difficult than Domination at all. I feel in R&F, it is easier to get a religion though since some AI civs don't go for it. There is a disadvantage for other victory types if you have to go all in on getting a religion, but as long as you don't loose wars against the AI, you can neglect science and troops when going for a RelV. Just pump out holy sites, build religious wonders, get religious city states, and mass apostles. Don't waste faith on gurus or missionaries, except in the very beginning one or two missionaries to convert small foreign cities to increase pressure. Also, go for cities where foreign civs have holy sites with your apostles. If you convert those, their religion doesn't spread, but yours does and they cannot build apostles to convert them back. Keep in mind that you don't need to convert all cities. If you can, pick fights in the middle of foreign territories with Debaters. Never use the last spread ability of those. If you are lucky, an AI civ might even help you actively in this victory.

I actually think that CulV is the hardest victory type on higher difficulties, as there can be a kind of stalemate that is best solved by conquering the competing civ(s) instead of by generating more tourism.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The keys to religious victory are:

(a) Build a Holy Site as your first district and run the Prayers project until you get a Great Prophet. If you prioritize this over expansion, you'll get a religion, even on deity. You don't need a big base to win a religion game. A handful of cities with Holy Sites will do the trick, so the lost early expansion isn't that important.

(b) Hold on to your Great Prophet until you've built a stockpile of Faith. By that time most of your cities should have Holy Sites. When you found your religion, all of your cities with Holy Sites will convert to it.

(c) Create a "wolfpack" of 3, ideally 4, Apostles, at least one of whom should get the Debater promotion. Send your wolfpack into a neighbouring civ with an active religion. They should produce lots of religious units. Kill those units one at a time and you'll soon flip their entire civ. Move on to the next civ. If you haven't converted all of their cities before they run out of religious units, surround one of their Holy Sites. If they're still generating faith, they'll pop out new units to "defend", and you can kill each of them as they appear in one turn. If they're not producing enough faith to create defenders for you to kill fast enough, you may need to follow up with some Missionaries to finish off their last few cities. Save civs without a religion for last. If they haven't flipped to you as a side effect of you beating the other religions, you'll have to convert them the hard way: using faith conversion charges.

(d) Some things to watch for: You'll need a steady stream of Gurus to heal your wolfpack. Convert cities the same way you'd conquer them, i.e. don't leave any behind that cut your supply line, or your Gurus can get taken out on their way to the front. Two wolfpacks finish off the world faster than one, so if you have enough faith to build all the Gurus you need, you can start assembling a second group of Apostles. Your biggest threat will be if your current conversion target declares war on you and kills your wolfpack with their military units. Use the diplomacy system and pick your next conversion target based on who won't declare war on you.

PS the best religious bonus is the one that let's your religious units ignore terrain effects. The AI doesn't prioritize it, so it will likely be available to you. It makes surrounding and killing enemy religious units much easier. Religious units get flanking bonuses during combat.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I think religious is the hardest one to do in muiltiplayer, because human players know they can just declare war on you and kill your religious units. You have to make so many soldiers to guard them that you may as well do domination victory.

Against the AI, I don't think it's very hard. But regardless, I don't think it's very fun. It's basically just a copy of domination victory except you don't kill any enemies so you have to keep fixing cities that convert away from you.

 

[Icicle]

Difficult, no. Tedious, yes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Speed is one of the elements that makes victory easy. It means you don't run the risk of say, Kongo overtaking you on science later on, or some Civ you let go unconquered becomes a huge military threat later.

For what it's worth, religion and domination victory are both fast and easy, even if the other civs have strong military forces or religious focus.

Saying military victories are easy relative to other conditions is not a position that holds up to scrutiny.

For most practical considerations domination is the most challenging victory condition, not the easiest. Nearly every time you can do domination, you can win any of the others aside religion at leisure (religion too, if you founded one). This necessarily means they're equal or easier than domination.

 

[Morningcalm]

Saying military victories are easy relative to other conditions is not a position that holds up to scrutiny.

For most practical considerations domination is the most challenging victory condition, not the easiest. Nearly every time you can do domination, you can win any of the others aside religion at leisure (religion too, if you founded one). This necessarily means they're equal or easier than domination.

Because the AI is a joke in Civ VI, I have to disagree. Domination is the easiest on standard map size and below IMO. The others take way too long and risk being overtaken by the AI, especially on the higher difficulty levels.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Because the AI is a joke in Civ VI, I have to disagree. Domination is the easiest on standard map size and below IMO. The others take way too long and risk being overtaken by the AI, especially on the higher difficulty levels.

No, if you can take all the AI cities but their last capital, you can win any VC you feel like winning.

Do this and you will win space or culture victories trivially. Domination is the objectively more difficult victory, because doing it implies you can do any non-religious VC in nearly every practical case.

 

[Morningcalm]

No, if you can take all the AI cities but their last capital, you can win any VC you feel like winning.

Do this and you will win space or culture victories trivially. Domination is the objectively more difficult victory, because doing it implies you can do any non-religious VC in nearly every practical case.

Or, just take the capitals too, since you can do that anyway. (Especially if you took all their other cities) To me, the triviality of combat means domination is usually faster anyway.

And I would point out that if Kongo was left untouched (but you dominated the others), you could still lose a cultural or scientific victory on higher difficulty levels. I did in some recent Continent games, despite having way more cities (the Deity AI bonuses are nuts).

 

[Josephias]

I don't like to roll my start place a lot, and tend to just play the map whatever the surrounding terrain is. And I find religion victory seem to be one most difficult to acheive.

You can win by any type if having a good start of course, but if it is a so-so start.

Domination Victory: You conquer your neighbour, get more gold then upgrade your army for another, finally you win

Culture Victory: You conquer your neighbour, get more place for TD, grabbing all the coming GW/GA/GM, finally you win

Sciece Victory:You conquer your neighbour, get more place for campus, leading in the techtree, finally you win.

Religion Victory:You conquer your neighbour, get more place for Holy Site……But wait, it seems that all the Great Phophet had been recruited by AI and you can't found a religon!

I've to say you miss there a victory type, that - in my experience, is the hardest to achieve as the game is now -> Score Victory

Score Victory: You need to restraint yourself of becoming too powerful that you push a Culture victory, while at the same time avoiding other civs getting that Culture or -specially Science- victory.

I only have achieved it once, as Brazil (king), playing "relatively" peacefully (Chandra was my neighbourg, so I had my share of "defend and then get another city just for the sake of repayment" wars), It become a madness of micromanaging spies to sabotage spaceports and factories, and I had to reload at the end because Tomrys decided she could launch modules faster than the 6 turns an spy needs to deactivate rocketry and achieved the last two modules in turns 498 and 499. (So I went back and decided to put to an use the arsenal of Nukes I had prepared just in case.... )

It is also boring to spend the last turns just waiting the clock to end.

Maybe due the way I play, I have found Culture victory becomes the easiest if you get the upper hand. (I missed my Arabian Science victory because Culture triggered earlier, and as said, several of my attempts to Score victory also hijacked by a Culture victory)

In that sense I miss the way in Civ V score victory was the "consolation prize" when you were doing well, but not enough to complete other victory type.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Or, just take the capitals too, since you can do that anyway. (Especially if you took all their other cities) To me, the triviality of combat means domination is usually faster anyway.

And I would point out that if Kongo was left untouched (but you dominated the others), you could still lose a cultural or scientific victory on higher difficulty levels. I did in some recent Continent games, despite having way more cities (the Deity AI bonuses are nuts).

Yes, finishing the game earlier by taking the remaining city makes more sense, but there's no reason you can't sit on the target and win other victory conditions.

I've not had any situation yet where I could take all the AI capitals, but somehow couldn't freely take other cities. I can conceive some last ditch capital snipe or something, but I've never actually played or observed a game where taking so many other cities made actual conquest untenable, even on deity. If you've lived that long and have already rolled the other 3-6+ AI up like a blanket, you can probably beat any other AI in 99% of games or more. This suggests that domination is in fact the hardest VC, because attaining it nearly guarantees you can win the others.

 

[Morningcalm]

Yes, finishing the game earlier by taking the remaining city makes more sense, but there's no reason you can't sit on the target and win other victory conditions.

I've not had any situation yet where I could take all the AI capitals, but somehow couldn't freely take other cities. I can conceive some last ditch capital snipe or something, but I've never actually played or observed a game where taking so many other cities made actual conquest untenable, even on deity. If you've lived that long and have already rolled the other 3-6+ AI up like a blanket, you can probably beat any other AI in 99% of games or more. This suggests that domination is in fact the hardest VC, because attaining it nearly guarantees you can win the others.

There's no reason not to sit on the target? I just gave a reason--it means other civs get a chance to win. Better just to kill everyone and be done with it. In Civ VI anyway. Maybe it's different in Civ IV because the AI there can actually sometimes be challenging to beat in combat.

I don't see how domination's helping other victory types necessarily makes it harder than the others. The others take way, way longer* (except, in some cases, religious victory). Why make science or culture when you can just kill everyone and win already? The fact that it's often quite feasible means it's not often that difficult. One need not take all other cities other than the capital to make domination easier, either--while it depends on the map and the civ, I often find capitals in Civ VI surprisingly not that well defended (the frontier cities tend to be more fortified for whatever reason, and sometimes with more population too).

As you say, "I've never actually played or observed a game where taking so many other cities made actual conquest untenable, even on deity". Exactly. Domination is easy--one need only take some cities (if that), and then the capital. Actual conquest is rarely untenable because of how terrible the Civ VI combat AI is.

*And may take longer yet in the new Gathering Storm expansion.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't see how domination's helping other victory types necessarily makes it harder than the others.

When your remaining competition is a single civ with its capital pillaged, you're not going to lose unless you want to lose. You can get any VC you want. You're still not refuting this.

 

[Morningcalm]

Yes, you can get any VC you want (never denied that was the case), but domination is easiest. Why? Because with a few more units you can just march in and take everything. No need to go through that tech-planning for science, or any such other. Thus, with a few clicks (the fewest yet), you can win via Domination. Easy peasy, lemon-squeezy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes, you can get any VC you want (never denied that was the case), but domination is easiest. Why? Because with a few more units you can just march in and take everything. No need to go through that tech-planning for science, or any such other. Thus, with a few clicks (the fewest yet), you can win via Domination. Easy peasy, lemon-squeezy.

• If you can do domination, you can do other VCs
• If you can't do domination, you still might be able to do other VCs

Other VCs don't necessarily require conquering most of the world, so there's no sound basis for concluding that domination is easier in that context. Also, it's a reach to claim that you need "tech planning" to win science or culture in such a scenario. Those wins are just as free as domination, if you're in a position to finish domination in 99% or more of practical games.

Waiting longer for the game to end is not difficulty.