Most Difficult Victory Type?

[bcaiko]

What victory type do you think is the most difficult to achieve?

Poll is above and leave your thoughts below. Why is it the most difficult for you/in general?

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In my mind it's almost certainly a cultural victory. A successful cultural victory strategy forces you into a smaller, tall city empire, which will almost certainly force you behind on science and leave you vulnerable as a military target. There's no easy way to pump up culture (unlike science), and completing five policy trees takes an inordinantly long time.

I know I've never been able to win a culture victory before I could win a Science or Diplomatic victory. IMHO it's the most difficult victory style by far.

 

[vexing]

time for sure.
not that it's tactically any harder to achieve than domination (which is what it boils down to anyway), but needing to sit through 500 turns is difficult.

 

[fmlizard2]

Tossing out Time, which I have never won by and basically boils down to domination on any level in which the AI can reliably complete a VC before 2050 (you would have to scorch the Earth and sit there on purpose to win an Immortal/Deity Time game), I would call Cultural the toughest.

Even the swiftest, most perfectly played culture game will take longer to finish than a pedestrian science, diplo, or domination bid. Plus, the nature of a cultural game often precludes you from making a truly credible science and military base - meaning that a culture game tends to always be a tightrope walk into from turn 0 into the 1800s and beyond.

 

[Glassmage]

Uh Domination on Diety with 22 Civs..... good luck

 

[Rpger29]

I always take poll questions as "... for you"

I thus picked science. The current science win is just so boring for me that I usually end up choosing it as a second option if my culture win won't come soon enough.

The most technically difficult win while pursuing anything other than dom is obviously a time victory. You can be superior to an AI in every measure that matters and be behind on score.

 

[Aldor]

Personally, I find domination the most difficult (in terms of effort/tediousness). For all others, you basically can build cities and then just sit there, defend if neccessary or grab some extra cities if you want. But domination really requires you to work for the win.

 

[The_Quasar]

Uh Domination on Diety with 22 Civs..... good luck

This is it, realistically there is no answer to this question until you say what level/map/speed you are referring to, as the difficulty of different VCs changes considerably according to it.

 

[Becomedeath]

Culture for me, without doubt.

While I do make decide on how I want to win before I start, I do invariably change my mind. A good tech lead, an early military victory a good starting area etc all can change my mind.

Culture victories IMO require a complete focus from the start without distraction, I find it hard sometimes to not let the environment lead me and my people to victory.

EDIT - Clearly that should have read "make decisions"

 

[wcbarney]

Culture for me, without doubt.

While I do make decide on how I want to win before I start, I do invariably change my mind. A good tech lead, an early military victory a good starting area etc all can change my mind.

Culture victories IMO require a complete focus from the start without distraction, I find it hard sometimes to not let the environment lead me and my people to victory.

Yeah, what he said!

 

[Becomedeath]

It should also be noted that I don't consider it a victory unless I've nuked someone. And culture victories are extremely difficult to justify nuclear war over.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Tossing out Time, which I have never won by and basically boils down to domination on any level in which the AI can reliably complete a VC before 2050 (you would have to scorch the Earth and sit there on purpose to win an Immortal/Deity Time game), I would call Cultural the toughest.

Even the swiftest, most perfectly played culture game will take longer to finish than a pedestrian science, diplo, or domination bid. Plus, the nature of a cultural game often precludes you from making a truly credible science and military base - meaning that a culture game tends to always be a tightrope walk into from turn 0 into the 1800s and beyond.

This. Clicking next turn for 100+ turns, nervously biting lips and praying that nothing bad happens is not my cup of tea. Boredom is a big big factor. No offense to anyone.

 

[binhthuy71]

Above King level I'd say that a Cultural victory is the most difficult for me. You have to decide to go for it from the very beginning and the choices of techs along with having to luck into building at least three World Wonders quickly walls off any other VC.

If you're going for Science then you're signing RA's and teching madly. You can, if circumstances dictate, switch to Domination because your military techs will be in the ballpark and, despite the AI's advantages in pumping units, the combat AI is still weak enough that you can often win - especially if you can bribe one or two other civs into DoWing on your target.

I consider Diplo to be a non-victory victory. Nerf one or two of your weakest neighbors (Don't take their capitol, just everything else and puppet it) early then stay alive long enough to build the UN. Bribe every CS and voila.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Culture puts far more constraints on the player than any other victory condition. It's also slow, which increases the likelihood of getting turned into a mushroom cloud before you can finish.

 

[Becomedeath]

I consider Diplo to be a non-victory victory. Nerf one or two of your weakest neighbors (Don't take their capitol, just everything else and puppet it) early then stay alive long enough to build the UN. Bribe every CS and voila.

Diplo VC has to be broken. It takes absolutely no effort to get it and you can pretty much just sit back and hit "Next Turn" until someone builds the UN, quickly sell off everything and then bribe your way to victory. That doesn't even count as a game let alone winning.

 

[HammerandSickle]

Domination is sooo tedious and boring, unless I get it "accidentally", like I only declare one war when I notice that only the runaway civ on the other continent still holds it's capital.

 

[binhthuy71]

Culture puts far more constraints on the player than any other victory condition. It's also slow, which increases the likelihood of getting turned into a mushroom cloud before you can finish.

Funny you should mention that. In a recent game Monty was on another continent. Okay so far; I bribed, traded, every trick in the book, to keep the other civs off of my back and impede Monty while I inched toward a Cultural victory. Meanwhile, Monty was rolling up his continent. I gifted units to City States in distress just to slow him down but, inevitably he was coast to coast. Then he started rolling up my continent. I was getting close on SP's so I thought that I still had a chance. Utopia Project at last! Monty was busy hammering one of my neighbors. All of a sudden he noticed me and nuked me so comprehensively that I got sunburn from my monitor. He finished rolling up the neighbor and then he rolled me up as well.

 

[bcaiko]

Funny you should mention that. In a recent game Monty was on another continent. Okay so far; I bribed, traded, every trick in the book, to keep the other civs off of my back and impede Monty while I inched toward a Cultural victory. Meanwhile, Monty was rolling up his continent. I gifted units to City States in distress just to slow him down but, inevitably he was coast to coast. Then he started rolling up my continent. I was getting close on SP's so I thought that I still had a chance. Utopia Project at last! Monty was busy hammering one of my neighbors. All of a sudden he noticed me and nuked me so comprehensively that I got sunburn from my monitor. He finished rolling up the neighbor and then he rolled me up as well.

All those deaths...he must've gotten a good deal of zombie culture points from destorying your Utopia.

 

[binhthuy71]

All those deaths...he must've gotten a good deal of zombie culture points from destorying your Utopia.

After the nukeage it was over so quickly that I didn't feel a thing.

 

[chazzycat]

my vote is for culture...it just seems the slowest, and also requires the most effort. You can get any of the other VCs with a solid general start but culture requires careful planning from day 1.

 

[TomeTraveler]

I chose time for reasons others have mostly already mentioned: boredom, the likely need to achieve almost-but-not-quite domination conditions to keep the other civs from winning, the also likely need to purposely avoid fulfilling victory conditions one could otherwise easily achieve.

A few posts have commented on the slowness of a cultural victory, but a time victory is by definition slower. Also as noted, unlike the other conditions, for a cultural victory one must pretty much pursue it rigorously from the outset to the exclusion of most possibility of switching tracks to another VC midstream. I've never had particular difficulty gaining a cultural victory on the levels at which I have beaten the game (up to King, that is) and I suspect that a cultural victory becomes relatively harder to achieve at the levels beyond due to increasing AI aggressiveness, so my opinion may change once I am more experienced at the higher levels.