Rank the four victory conditions from hardest to easiest on higher AI difficulties?

[Leucarum]

I am almost convinced that the Modern Era is half-baked, if the Atomic Age is true, then they will probably rework the Modern Age and move some stuff, allowing some Legacy Paths in Modern to be overhauled/updated.

It definitely feels like the modern age could have used more time to cook. At present it plays like there are two complete ages and then a sudden death round. And it's less a pacing issue in the same way that earlier ages need tweaks, the modern era is set up to be a sprint for the finish line.

Honestly, I would love to try it with only score victory enabled. I feel for folks whose favourite civs are in modern - you're so incentivized to race the generic stuff (especially culture) that you hardly get to actually do anything with your civ's uniques!

 

[Taefin]

To balance the victories and require more of the age, I feel like military victory should require the ww2 flight tech and dropping a bomb before starting operation ivy, and culture should have 1-2 additional stages of artifact discovery unlocked later in the tree. And/or limit the number of explorers or make each artifact require a research step. I want Indie flying around claiming artifacts out of war zones.

EDIT: Maybe this is the case, but doing more culture stuff earlier in the game should generate more artifacts in your cities, and thus make it easier to get them. I don’t like the university mechanism at all, it should reveal them slowly and randomly, and maybe give you a 5 turn head start before other empires are alerted to them (hence rewarding having rail and air travel).

 

[tedhebert]

I'm playing at Settler Governor and finding Culture Victory to be impossible because there aren't enough artifacts. I've got eleven, but it seems pretty unlikely I can find four more.

Same here. Got up to 12 and there aren’t any left.

Yeah same here stuck at 11 and all the other ones I'm seeing on the map seem locked (no shovel).

You can also get artifacts randomly for overbuilding over previous era buildings. Its completely random, but I managed to get 2 this way in my cultural victory attempt. That said, I'de agree with you, I think culture victory is poorly handled this game.

I was wondering how this works, since the UI text does mention overbuilding can gve you artifacts. Are you sure it's random ? I'm wondering if by locating the ones on the map that seem locked (no shovel) it might show you what tile to overbuild on ?
seems quite disappointing if it's really just random.

 

[Piranga]

I was wondering how this works, since the UI text does mention overbuilding can gve you artifacts. Are you sure it's random ? I'm wondering if by locating the ones on the map that seem locked (no shovel) it might show you what tile to overbuild on ?
seems quite disappointing if it's really just random.

Actually, I'm not positive it is random. It just seemed so to me. If there is some UI giveaway on which tiles to over build on, specifically for a relic, its not explained well.

 

[Tanel]

Yeah Culture victory is completely busted. I managed to win in 44 turns. It's kind of weird that the first civic unlocks most of what you need just following that up with buying a few museums and tons of explorers. I did need the later civic to get the last couple of artifacts but you can easily just beeline that. I did a ton of overbuilding but only got 1 artifact from that so definitely not a reliable source of artifacts.

The Exploration era culture path with relics is pretty much exactly the same only instead of relics you just target foreign cities.

And yeah the Modern age doesn't really feel like a full age but a short sprint to finish.There isn't much point to do anything else than just focus on your victory condition.

The other paths seem more balanced at least. Science needs you to get to the end of the tech tree. Military requires both war and substantial amount of techs. Economy also requires a few techs to even get started.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

finding Culture Victory to be impossible because there aren't enough artifacts. I've got eleven, but it seems pretty unlikely I can find four more.

You can generate them from overbuilding in your cities.

 

[Xyael]

You can generate them from overbuilding in your cities.

They are a limit of artefact you can have this way.

Actually, wining cultural victory is impossible. You just have to be one competitor and you can't win. Other players only have to create one explorer at the beginning to prevent you from having enough artifacts. The number of artifacts you can have by overbuildings is limited in number. And you can have only one artifact by city-states.


My personal rank:
Science : the easiest
Economic : moderate. Slower than science. Easy against AI, but I think players will give more trouble.
Militaristic : moderate.
Cultural : impossible

 

[Leucarum]

They are a limit of artefact you can have this way.

Actually, wining cultural victory is impossible. You just have to be one competitor and you can't win. Other players only have to create one explorer at the beginning to prevent you from having enough artifacts. The number of artifacts you can have by overbuildings is limited in number. And you can have only one artifact by city-states.


My personal rank:
Science : the easiest
Economic : moderate. Slower than science. Easy against AI, but I think players will give more trouble.
Militaristic : moderate.
Cultural : impossible

I'd agree with the ordering from easiest to hardest. But in terms of speed, culture is lightning fast compared to the others.

The AI doesn't approach the hunt for artefscts in a systematic way, so if you do... You'll be in a good spot. You can also set yourself up for the 2nd hegemony race by positioning your explorers ready.... And build a mountain of them. You really have to commit if you are going culture. But if you do commit, you'l do it far better than the AI. It is probably rhe most competitive, but it is absolutely the fastest.

As for the other victories, science will just happen passively - I have won science in a really quick time as Maya > Abbasids as Ibn Battuta though. So much science on ageless buildings to set me up - I was researching techs every other turn. But that aside it has been much slower for me. Economic and millitary have the most bottlenecks. They're for sure the most finnicky/slowest.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

They are a limit of artefact you can have this way.

Perhaps but I got enough for my cultural victory, which most people seem to think is the easiest path.

 

[Siptah]

I‘ve only played on the third highest option, but I felt culture wasn‘t that hard to get there.

I had three benefits: Napoleon‘s culture from kills, many culture attribute points spent already, good culture output in general. These allowed me to get to explorers very quickly. Not sure if I was faster than any AI to unlock them, but I had 5 explorers running after only few turns into the age. The first AI explorers only turned up 5-10 turns later. Hence, I think it isn‘t that difficult, but it requires to focus on it and your empire/leader to be somewhat prepared for it.

In contrast, it took felt ages to get the first economic milestone… I doubt that I could have won that even if I wanted to.

Edit: I wonder whether limiting explorers to 1 per museum and giving dig sites a chance of failure would be a suitable way to slow the victory down without requiring a complete overhaul.

 

[Sagax]

You definitely need a setup for the cultural victory, and it starts in Exploration:
1. Have at least one settlement on each continent.
2. Have at least one University on each continent - be it your own or from opponents nearby.
3. Save up plenty of gold by the end of the age.
4. (Optional?) Have enough culture buildings, so that even if they go obsolete in Modern, their base yield can still help you in the first few turns to reach Natural History.

In Modern, go for Natural History first. As soon as you unlock it, buy one explorer on each continent close to the nearest Universities. Run research on each continent simultaneously and send each explorer to dig on their respective continents. Buy more explorers if deemed necessary. Continue with other sources of artifacts and beelining to Hegemony for more sites.

 

[Tanel]

So Culture really sound very feast or famine. You either get it done really quickly or get locked out completely. I think what would help is if it would be divided into more steps that unlock artifacts and maybe more alternative ways to gain artifacts.

I don't remember if the cost of Explorers scales but what would help is either making their cost scale steeply or only award them from researching certain civics so the number of explorers you can have would be more limited.

 

[Vahnstad]

You have to play wide/expansionist for culture. That makes it easier. I suspect on higher difficulties culture might be impossible to do.

 

[King of Prussia]

I'm playing at Settler Governor and finding Culture Victory to be impossible because there aren't enough artifacts. I've got eleven, but it seems pretty unlikely I can find four more.

The culture victory is more or less beelining explorers and the other civic. If you arent buying explorers as soon as possible(2-3 for homeland and 2-3 for distant lands) then you are probably already out of the race. If you are lucky you will get a few from random events, overbuilding, and i think IPs. At the very least you can deny the AI a culture victory.

Of the 4, its the easiest to do if you prepare for it, but nearly impossible to pivot to later imo.(peacefully) This one needs to be paced better. The other 3(or 4 if you count score) require you to go a lot deeper into the era.



Economic is just a slow but constant grind. You'll get it eventually if you build factories in most of your settlements.

I havent tried Military yet. Space was too late in the era for me to try it before i win with econ or culture.

 

[Siptah]

The culture victory is more or less beelining explorers and the other civic. If you arent buying explorers as soon as possible(2-3 for homeland and 2-3 for distant lands) then you are probably already out of the race. If you are lucky you will get a few from random events, overbuilding, and i think IPs. At the very least you can deny the AI a culture victory.

Of the 4, its the easiest to do if you prepare for it, but nearly impossible to pivot to later imo.(peacefully) This one needs to be paced better. The other 3(or 4 if you count score) require you to go a lot deeper into the era.



Economic is just a slow but constant grind. You'll get it eventually if you build factories in most of your settlements.

I havent tried Military yet. Space was too late in the era for me to try it before i win with econ or culture.

Military can be very quick as well. Just wait for an ideology and then get going. I completed it around the sam turn as culture.

 

[IceCold1906]

I have only achieved a culture victory so far. I love the legacy paths, but I did beeline in modern age. I was also able to get artifacts from over building. One idea I think would help out a lot is the find a to implement it, is have a conflict tied to each legacy path. Like Trade Wars, Culture Wars, Science Wars....etc. Just don't make so tedious like the culture and releigious warfare was in civ 6. Maybe using diplomacy to negatively affect opponents in other ways. Using influence to host the Olympics or the World Cup but you are competing with other civs for that right, but maybe you can strengthen it at the cost of culture per a turn. Just a thought.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

I only completed economic in my first play through; deity on T80 -- so not as fast as some culture victories I've seen posted, but it was completely non-competitive. At the time, one civ had one of the science projects done, most civs only got an ideology within the prior 10 turns, and while himiko raced out to artifacts lightning fast (6 immediately it felt like) she then didn't get another one.

 

[evonannoredars]

I'm playing at Settler Governor and finding Culture Victory to be impossible because there aren't enough artifacts. I've got eleven, but it seems pretty unlikely I can find four more.

Playing at the second highest difficulty (can't remember the name) and yeah it seems impossible to beat the AI with its enormous stacks of explorers lmao.

I reckon making explorers obey borders, not letting multiple explorers from the same civ occupy the same tile, removing global artifact reveal and allowing a few civs to dig at the same site (not like a single archaelogical dig has the funding to excavate everything!) would be immediate ways to improve it - possibly also an artefact trade/auction system? But like w many legacy paths it could do w alternative ways to get points. Imo a (visual) wonder decay across the eras with (visual) restoration projects that yield artefacts and narrative quests triggerable by more things would be fun.