Need some advice on getting each victory type

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Warlord
Joined
Feb 25, 2003
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So I'm a longtime Civ2/3/4 player and starting to get going on Civ 5 now. I'm starting to moonlight in some of the higher difficulty levels, and I could use some advice/answers on how to acheive each victory type.

Last night I was able to pull off an Egyptian OCC cultural win on Emperor difficulty, so I'm fairly comfortable with that strategy. Still, could use more advice if it's there to be had.

Cultural win

- Stay small. 3 cities max, with maybe a puppet or two if you really get bored, or need a resource.
- Big enough army to defend yourself, but not too big. I found that rangers/ships were a pretty good defense force. I could usually work down most units with archers, and pick off a bunch of embarked units with the caravels/frigates. You can also bombard the land units with the boats and help out your rangers.
- Which wonders are a MUST? I had Egypt with Marble in my OCC win, so it was pretty easy to get a couple of wonders. I try to get some of the Engineer biased wonders early, and then GE spam a few wonders when I get them. I went with the Great Library, Oracle, Hagia Sophia, Porc Tower, Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House and Christo. In other games I was able to get the Pyramids too .. which is nice for the Engineer slots and free workers.
- For Policies, I usually go with Tradition over Freedom. I don't know if this is prefered or not? Mostly to get the bonus for wonder building, then the bonuses for the capital. Next I usually go with Piety, and then Freedom. After that Tradition or Commerce. Commerce seems favorable because I usually need the cash by then, and the free people I get from Tradition by then are pretty worthless.
- City specialization, I tend to make my cities sort of a production/commerce hybrid. Since I only have 3 soon-to-be massive cities, I'm trying to hurry the production of the buildings. Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way? I'm usually hurting for cash early on, but once I get the buildings up, I'm doing okay.


Domination Win
I really have no idea here. I'm not very good at being a full on war-monger and could use the advice. I always seems to hurt pretty hard in the science/happiness department. I can roll through my first couple of Civs with tactics, but it's not long before everyone is unhappy and I'm falling behind in the science department. So rather than tips, I've got some bulletted questions instead.

- Policies? Should I be going with honor or tradition first here? After that, then what? Rationalism, so I can keep up in the tech race?

- City specialization? I tend to just go all-out on the gold here. Make everything a trading post, aside from maybe one or two unit-producers. Should I be going another direction here? I usually try and build any happiness items that come up first.

- Science? How do I keep a tech lead here? This seems to be one of my biggest issues.

- One tip ... I've found that you can "raze" captured cities, and then just plop down your own settler in the hole that was left behind. You sometimes will lose a lot of captured border area, but you won't have to deal with the unhappiness hit of a puppet or annexed city. Doesn't work for capitals though.

- One other tip. Capture the capital, but leave the weakest city. It seems to keep other cities from really getting angry with you ... at least right away.


Science Win
More questions then answers here as well ...

- Okay, biggest question ... how does science work in Civ 5? In C4, it was based strictly on the trading posts/villages around your city. Now it seems to be based more on population of the city? If I want a science specialized city, am I better off building farms everywhere, and just letting the city grow out of control? or am I better off just doing this for maybe one city, and gold-spec'ing the rest, while purchasing research agreements wherever I can?

- Civ size? Obviously, with the tech advantage, I can probably go out and grab some land from some of the weaker civs ... but how much is too much? Unlike the culture win, I don't need to worry about the culture modifier as much, so I'm assuming that more cities is more science, right? Just keep the happiness in the green, and I should be okay?

- Policies ... Freedom followed by Rationalism and Liberty seem to be the obvious choices here. Any disagreements?

- Great scientists ... I would assume I'd want to horde these as much as possible, and then bulb the lights out when I get to the end-game an it takes 40 turns to research the end-tech? Or should I be taking a different approach?

- Anything else?


Diplomatic Win
I'm not sure I've reached the tech level to build the UN to even attempt this, so again ... not sure what I'm talking about here.

- Seems best suited if you have Alex as your starting Civ.

- I imagine Patronage is a must have eventually ... seeing as how having the city states on your side is how you win this way ... who cares about the other Civs.

- City Spec ... my guess is you will want to go full tilt on commerce and money making here. Do everything you can to make cash, and get CS's in your pocket.

- Build a sizeable defense army but nothing too crazy. A good way to ally CS's is to fight off invading rival civs, and retaking captured CS's. They will automatically vote for you.

- I'm guessing you will want to play similar to a Science victory for this one. Get the RA's and tech rolling and bee-line to the UN once you're close enough. Buy off all your CS's when you get close to finishing it, and hope none of the other Civs are finishing off thier space stations.
 
Cultural win: Every wonder that increases culture and/or gives a free policy are key ones.
You'll have plenty of time to build a lot of wonders going this way.

science victory: RAs also important. Use Great Scientists strategically increase value of your RAs.
PT is the key wonder. Use the GS to get Astronomy and pick base Rationalism. Either use the Liberty induced GE for PT or else hard build HS, choose GE and use that to rush PT.

diplomatic victory: Much easier than what you have written. You only need the allies the turn before the vote so you can play as normal and just buy them at the end of the game.
 
So I'm a longtime Civ2/3/4 player and starting to get going on Civ 5 now. I'm starting to moonlight in some of the higher difficulty levels, and I could use some advice/answers on how to acheive each victory type.

Last night I was able to pull off an Egyptian OCC cultural win on Emperor difficulty, so I'm fairly comfortable with that strategy. Still, could use more advice if it's there to be had.

Whoa, that's a little bit harder than I've played, but...


Domination Win
I really have no idea here. I'm not very good at being a full on war-monger and could use the advice. I always seems to hurt pretty hard in the science/happiness department. I can roll through my first couple of Civs with tactics, but it's not long before everyone is unhappy...

My first guess as to the cause of the unhappiness is that you puppet/annex all the cities you conquer, and you hold onto them for the long term.

However, this sounds unlikely, given your distaste for doing so in your previous posts.

Hmmm....

So rather than tips, I've got some bulletted questions instead.

- Policies? Should I be going with honor or tradition first here? After that, then what? Rationalism, so I can keep up in the tech race?

When I'm aiming for Domination, I rarely finish off specific policy trees. Instead, I aim for policies that greatly increase happiness.

Military Caste and Professional Army (Honor), Meritocracy (Liberty), and the Order opener are the ones I like the most, because my production focus on military units for a domination victory gives me additional culture and happiness, and because Meritocracy and Order favor the wide empires that domination tends to produce.

- City specialization? I tend to just go all-out on the gold here. Make everything a trading post, aside from maybe one or two unit-producers. Should I be going another direction here? I usually try and build any happiness items that come up first.

- Science? How do I keep a tech lead here? This seems to be one of my biggest issues.

Can't help you here, given that I really haven't played above King yet.

- One tip ... I've found that you can "raze" captured cities, and then just plop down your own settler in the hole that was left behind. You sometimes will lose a lot of captured border area, but you won't have to deal with the unhappiness hit of a puppet or annexed city. Doesn't work for capitals though.

Ugh, no. I play on difficulties where the unhappiness from captured cities isn't as much of an issue, but even if it was, I've heard that it's more profitable to sell off captured cities for gold...preferably to empires that aren't able to reinforce said captured city with any sort of regularity.

- One other tip. Capture the capital, but leave the weakest city. It seems to keep other cities from really getting angry with you ... at least right away.

I have a mixed opinion about this strategy. Although I appreciate the advantage of having a higher foreign reputation by not finishing a nation off, I don't like the hassle of leaving units around the borders of the worthless last city of a defeated nation to ensure they don't settle new cities....especially if those units are needed in a war far away. And what happens if the crippled nation manages to somehow sneak a Settler through the blockade and settle a new city anyway? Declare war to try to cripple them again? Dedicate even more units to blockade the new expanded boundaries?

Personally, I tend to finish nations off unless their last city is crappy, isolated and isn't anywhere close to unclaimed land to free my units up for actual combat.



Diplomatic Win
I'm not sure I've reached the tech level to build the UN to even attempt this, so again ... not sure what I'm talking about here.

- I'm guessing you will want to play similar to a Science victory for this one. Get the RA's and tech rolling and bee-line to the UN once you're close enough. Buy off all your CS's when you get close to finishing it, and hope none of the other Civs are finishing off thier space stations.


Yeah, most of the guides I've read suggest that a Diplomatic Game plays very similar to a Science Game, due to the necessary survival to the Modern Age for both.

However, my own games tend to favor a Domination/Diplomatic hybrid victory. The cash gained through conquest enables me to purchase City State loyalty, although I doubt it's viable to do this in higher difficulties.

I tend to favor two-three controllable cities to keep my Policy requirements as low as possible, but it also lowers the amount of military units in production at any given time. The free units I get from Militaristic City States take up some of that slack (I wish they also gave me free naval units, but I digress).

I also love the boost to culture that Cultural City States give. I could really care less for the extra food that Maritime City States give me, because growth is going to be slow anyway due to the amount of conquered cities in my empire, but sometimes they have luxuries unavailable elsewhere or additional strategic resources I like.

Finally, I believe your own nation's reputation stays intact if an Allied City State conquers the last city of a civilization. Something to consider, I guess.

One tip I've seen to ensure that rival civilizations can't buy off allied City States before the UN vote is to declare war on all rival nations a few turns before the vote. If you have enough influence in your City States to maintain your Ally status until the vote, the other nations are unable to bribe them, regardless of how much money they have. Faboo!
 
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