Kinda noob here, but is the strategy of the game all down to a race to certain militarily-focused technologies?

[TaPele]

I have played a couple of games and the best performance I had was a culture victory in Prince difficulty, so I'm still a noob. Lately I've been watching a lot of playthroughs on YouTube as well as reading some games here and something I've noticed is that a lot of players seem to simply kinda play as if the game was a race to certain militar technologies (e.g: getting to cavalry and destroy the other empires with cuirassiers

Does the game really work like that? In other words, is getting to those technologies a kinda safe way to play? I feel it destroys the strategy part of the game if that's the most safe and easy way to win.

 

[AcaMetis]

Successfully waging war is definitely the most consistent way to win the game, since in waging war successfully you're gaining while your opponents are losing rather than you gaining while they're gaining. That said waging war successfully is by no means a simple task, especially on higher difficulties, and you can end up in a scenario where a conquest or domination victory simply isn't the optimal solution (or even just a solution). More rarely, for sure, but it can happen.

 

[crashmon]

I have played a couple of games and the best performance I had was a culture victory in Prince difficulty, so I'm still a noob. Lately I've been watching a lot of playthroughs on YouTube as well as reading some games here and something I've noticed is that a lot of players seem to simply kinda play as if the game was a race to certain militar technologies (e.g: getting to cavalry and destroy the other empires with cuirassiers

Does the game really work like that? In other words, is getting to those technologies a kinda safe way to play? I feel it destroys the strategy part of the game if that's the most safe and easy way to win.

On the harder difficulties (Imm or higher), the map you draw will in most cases determine how you win, and your starting position. You don't have to win by conquest / Domination but you will need to have wars and conquer other civs even if you want to win by Space or Diplo, just to stop the AI running away.
Above Prince the AI gets bonuses vs the Human, and once you get to Immortal + its going to be pretty hard to win without at least 1 or 2 wars and conquest of near neighbours

 

[Fippy]

It's just one way to play, you can win even deity without any wars via UN, AP or culture..no worries.
Immortal Space should also be nps without wars, if you have a fast landgrab phase.

 

[Nick723]

It's just one way to play, you can win even deity without any wars via UN, AP or culture..no worries.
Immortal Space should also be nps without wars, if you have a fast landgrab phase.

I went through a phase last year of playing peaceful space race games, and can confirm it’s doable on immortal with decent regularity.

I didn’t win any deity games, but then I don’t win many deity games whatever approach I take I’m sure better players could win peaceful deity space at least 33% of the time.

It’s fun to try these sort of games, because the norms you get used to go out of the window. Eg. city placement, use of great people, tech trading, infrastructure builds all change dramatically if you know you’re going the distance and not going to war.

 

[johnfloyd27]

There are a many many many ways to win. What’s best is dictated by the map. Rushing cuirs isn’t the best move on an island or archipeligo map, etc. and even on a great land map, cuirs is just one popular and fun strategy. There’s nothing wrong with rifles + cannons or slowly expanding your empire through earlier technologies. I often enjoy playing the perfect world script with continents, starting everyone in “the old world” and then rushing to colonize the “new world” before the AI’s do.

It’s whatever floats your boat

 

[crashmon]

Yea, building priorites change significantly if your aiming for peace

 

[TaPele]

I went through a phase last year of playing peaceful space race games, and can confirm it’s doable on immortal with decent regularity.

Oh great! So it was just a prejudice or a feeling I had. Nice to see all strategies are doable then!