Not so dominating victories

[snarzberry]

Domination Victory in civ 5 is a strange beast. The way it works lends itself to some odd endings where a player wins a DV while hardly being in any kind of dominating position. This is, of course, due to the single victory condition of being the last civ in control of your initial capital city.

It is technically possible, though it's unlikely enough to have never happened to my knowledge, to win a DV without conquering at all. If you were alone on an island and the opponent civs took each others capitals then you could theoretically win without being involved in combat of any kind. Now, that's going to be extremely rare. But what isn't so rare is a number of AI civs being conquered reducing the targeted capitals required for victory down to a small number. Snipe attacks can often take these cities out from under the AIs nose resulting in a DV while controlling an absurdly small amount of the map.

What do you think about domination games in civ 5? Would you prefer some further conditions that need to be met before you qualify for a DV?

There could be a requirement like a certain percentage of the map, or the land hexs or even the culturally claimed hexes must be controlled by the winning civ. I'm sure others could come up with more ideas or refinements.

Personally I'd prefer a little more domination in my domination victories. I'd also like to severely nerf the power of selling cities in the late game, it grates on my nerves and seems to violate what a DV should be all about.

 

[Tabarnak]

Domination victory : Hold all capitals in a same turn to make it legit. No more easy cities selling. There should be a law that don't allow you to sell capitals.

 

[Ranos]

I think the reason for the Domination being the way it is is due to the OCC option. Since you can't control any other cities in OCC, it would be impossible to have control of all of the capitals. This is why I don't understand why there isn't a domination and a conquest victory. One victory to control all capitals, the other victory to conquer all other civs, just like in IV.

As it is now, the Domination victory is absolutely absurd.

 

[Tabarnak]

I think the reason for the Domination being the way it is is due to the OCC option. Since you can't control any other cities in OCC, it would be impossible to have control of all of the capitals. This is why I don't understand why there isn't a domination and a conquest victory. One victory to control all capitals, the other victory to conquer all other civs, just like in IV.

As it is now, the Domination victory is absolutely absurd.

OCC domination is already tough for an obvious reason. This should be the only exception.

 

[headcase]

Maybe there should be a toggle for "full domination" in which a civ must be totally conquered to be taken out of the domination race.

 

[Camikaze]

I would be happy with a dual requirement; last civ in possession of your capital and more that 60% of cities (or alternatively, population; would allow greater freedom for city razing). Either that or just make it so that you must hold all capitals.

 

[snarzberry]

Population requirement could be problematic as the AI's get all the extra happiness so their cities are naturally going to be much more populous, but they need that bonus to compete so it has to stay. Tab's idea is simple and would be a massive improvement but you'd still be able to sell loads of non capital cities which is something I'd like to see penalized, or totally removed as viable, by having a requirement like a percent of cities or tiles controlled.

It could be a recipe for long boring finishes to games though if not done properly.

 

[Derpy Hooves]

Personally I would like some added requirements like having to hold all capitols for 10-20 turns so you can't Blitzkrieg an isolated capitol without having to deal with the army.

The 60% of cities might run into trouble with insane expanders like Cathy, the population variety might work though, as the AI might be able to grow their cities a lot bigger due to extra happiness, they are seldom good at actually getting them big, at most I will find 2 cities with more pop then my heartland cities, and those often have either the HG or some UB.
Perhaps another constraint that you need a military unit in every city to consolidate your power?

In light of difficulties messing with the relevant numbers though you'd need to adapt all for specific difficulties, say 60% for prince and 40% for deity.
As far as I'm concerned they should remove the city selling option, much like being able to trade GPT, the only real purpose it serves is allowing crude cheats.

 

[headcase]

The current VC is ok; being the only one with their original capital shows some military strength. However, the AI should not take a capital if it would result in another civ winning (I'm just assuming this isn't programmed). At least then the player would have to take the last capital that isn't theirs. I'm not adverse to changes to this though.

 

[Ranos]

The current VC is ok; being the only one with their original capital shows some military strength. However, the AI should not take a capital if it would result in another civ winning (I'm just assuming this isn't programmed). At least then the player would have to take the last capital that isn't theirs. I'm not adverse to changes to this though.

It doesn't show military strength. I could build up enough military to defend my territory and spend most of the game watching and waiting while the AI civs go at eachother. Then whe it's down to only a few civs, I could go and take their capitals while they have done most of the work.

I have seen it posted where players were going for a Science or Diplo vic, had taken a couple of capitals but that's it. Then the AI handed them a Domination vic by capturing eachother's capitals leaving the player the only one in control of their own capital.

It is possible, however unlikely, to not capture a single AI capital and still win a Dom vic due to the AIs capturing eachother's capitals.

That's why the Domination vic needs to be changed.

 

[headcase]

It doesn't show military strength. I could build up enough military to defend my territory and spend most of the game watching and waiting while the AI civs go at eachother. Then whe it's down to only a few civs, I could go and take their capitals while they have done most of the work.

If the AI civs are going at each-other, then in my experience they are going to go for the player as well, unless the player has a dominating military.

If the AI civs are taking capitals and the player is just expanding peacefully, and then takes the capital of the last AI (who has probably steamrolled a couple of other AIs to get to that point), then yeah, the player is dominating.

In any case, I see the current VC as more of an AI problem and less of a condition problem. In an all-human match where all players understand the VC, the weak player is unlikely to stumble into the domination victory.

VC stands for victory condition, btw to anyone who might be wondering.

Players getting domination wins without trying to wouldn't happen if:

The AI should not take a capital if it would result in another civ winning.

 

[krc]

However, the AI should not take a capital if it would result in another civ winning.

I have won at least one (very surprising) domination victory when a city-state captured the last remaining enemy capital. Since they were at "permanent war" with that civ, there wasn't much I could do to prevent winning that way. And I suspect it would get really complicated trying to program around this situation.