The Modern Economic victory path is my favorite

[thecrazyscot]

I think the Economic victory path is the most fun and interesting in the Modern Age. Setting up Rail Stations + Factories, Factory towns, stacking resource slots - it all synergizes really nicely with just building up your general infrastructure as well as encouraging additional trade and colonization. Factory resources are actually really neat, with their Empire-wide bonuses. Then the World Bank victory tour rewards exploration and is refreshingly straightforward and not just a "build another project". It is also can be achieved pretty early with an efficient setup.

Cultural victory path is very doable but tedious. Hope you beat the AI to the ruins and fill out your pokedex.
Military is, well, pretty standard - as it should be. Conquer!
Science is also very standard - research and build. Makes sense, but much less interesting than the Economic path.

 

[chazzycat]

Agreed. I like how it's actually a combined economic/diplomatic victory. If everyone hates you and you're at war, it gets pretty expensive. So there's big-picture tradeoffs to consider. Do I take an ideology, or play it safe? In my most recent game I took the "Oh yeah? You don't like my communism, what are you gonna do about it?" approach. Soon enough was at war with 4 AIs and carefully considering every spend of gold and influence. Made for a very dynamic and fun end game.

 

[Siptah]

Agreed. I like how it's actually a combined economic/diplomatic victory. If everyone hates you and you're at war, it gets pretty expensive. So there's big-picture tradeoffs to consider. Do I take an ideology, or play it safe? In my most recent game I took the "Oh yeah? You don't like my communism, what are you gonna do about it?" approach. Soon enough was at war with 4 AIs and carefully considering every spend of gold and influence. Made for a very dynamic and fun end game.

That's actually a good point on the side. For Economic victory, you are a less nudged to a specific ideology, while for the others, I consider Fascism to always be the best.

 

[thecrazyscot]

...I consider Fascism to always be the best.

I really love giggling to myself by taking quotes about Civ out of context

 

[Smayo]

I consider Fascism to always be the best.

Those railways won’t be built on time otherwise!

Fascism is definitely the strongest as is, doesn’t help that the middle tech policies for all the ideologies is very much bugged and does far less than it should.

Yeah I’ve been really liking Economic, it feels close to the Domination victory of past Civ’s with more nuance. You hold a lot of land, hold a lot of resources, but you aren’t necessarily killing everyone to do it, and if you did, it gets a lot harder by costing so much more. It and the scientific victory feel like the “inevitable” late win conditions, where Eco is for the wide sprawl and Science is for the focused 3 city civ.

It also helps that Eco is the one that grants you the most bonuses by just doing the path, whereas Military is mostly not worth it except for pillages, and 15 relics are not worth the opportunity cost of 2 explorers

 

[Kwami]

The economic victory is too easy, though. The AI doesn't care how many of their factory resources you collect through trade routes, so you can always fill up as many factories as you can build very quickly. And the cost of setting up the world bank is almost nothing. It's way, way too cheap.

I don't think I've played a game yet where my banker wasn't one click away from winning for a couple dozen turns while I pursued a different victory condition.

 

[Menocchio]

One thing that I found really interesting with the Economic victory is that you don't strictly have to own the factory resources in any of your settlements: you can trade for them and they count all the same, kind of like Antiquity. This is a neat kind of nuance that the Exploration Economic path ought to have, where you can either take a more militaristic stance and conquer/colonise territories that have the resources you need, or you can build strong diplomatic/trade links.

 

[Smayo]

The economic victory is too easy, though. The AI doesn't care how many of their factory resources you collect through trade routes, so you can always fill up as many factories as you can build very quickly. And the cost of setting up the world bank is almost nothing. It's way, way too cheap.

I don't think I've played a game yet where my banker wasn't one click away from winning for a couple dozen turns while I pursued a different victory condition.

I think the cost is scaled down based on if you have won Economic Legacies in prior ages.

But yeah the AI doesn’t really care about you winning for any of the paths.

Personally my games always end up going Military > Econ > Science >Culture in terms of which I get to first.

But then I love a pillage

 

[chazzycat]

The economic victory is too easy, though. The AI doesn't care how many of their factory resources you collect through trade routes, so you can always fill up as many factories as you can build very quickly. And the cost of setting up the world bank is almost nothing. It's way, way too cheap.

I don't think I've played a game yet where my banker wasn't one click away from winning for a couple dozen turns while I pursued a different victory condition.

Despite overall liking it, I do agree that it's typically the quickest victory, ever since the changes to culture. And it's not particularly close, at least not with my playstyle. I would be OK with increasing the requirements by a decent amount.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

Economic has the mini-game of figuring out where everyone's capitol's are. I find myself with traders using their diplomatic immunity to wonder around the distant lands looking for capitols.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I wouldn't adjust it by too much tbh - it is frustrating to have victory paths artificially lengthened simply to force clicking end turn more times.

It requires more empire management and infrastructure planning than the other victories. It requires tons of gold and trade management. Every victory type will be more ideal (aka "easier") for certain play styles.

I think playing around with the 500 required points is justifiable, but not by too much. And potentially increasing the cost scaling for poor or warring relationships. But mechanically I wouldn't mess with it.

 

[UWHabs]

I do wonder as well if there should be more to getting the factory resources online. I mean, I'm sure it's a function of going into the modern age with a massive base to build from, but I've never really felt like it's at all a struggle. I've got 40 or so factory resources just sitting there, and so the moment factories unlock you just buy a factory, shove in 5 or 6 copies of a resource, and can just click end turn to win.

I kind of feel like it should have a few more steps involved, maybe even more towards the Monopolies mode in 6 and the corporations mode in 4. Maybe if it was setup more like a factory is something you build on top of a resource, and then once you construct it, you have to like build a merchant out to connect copies of that resource to the factory to get points? I don't want like a micro setup where you have to manually move around to tiles, but something where you have a little effort to get each factory up and running before churning the points.

 

[chazzycat]

Semi related...is anyone else finding that the AI doesn't really prioritize Oxford? This can really help get factories up ASAP with a little luck on the freebie techs. And who doesn't love a wildcard point. Reminds me of some of the slingshot strategies from older civ games.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Semi related...is anyone else finding that the AI doesn't really prioritize Oxford? This can really help get factories up ASAP with a little luck on the freebie techs. And who doesn't love a wildcard point. Reminds me of some of the slingshot strategies from older civ games.

Yeah, I can regularly grab it without much trouble.

 

[evonannoredars]

The legacy path and victory are deffo both the most fun out of all options. Legacy progress will usually increase exponentially as you get more factories online, then the victory is an interactive countdown as you teleport the banker around, unlike all the other ones where I hit shift+enter repeatedly and watch the wonder progress count down. (Although the militaristic victory at least you can spend lobbing nukes around to see how much of the world you can blanket in radiation before you win.)

I do agree it is definitely the easiest. The AI should def take more notice if you're winning, but even then AI can't really counter it since there's no way to lose progress.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I kind of feel like it should have a few more steps involved, maybe even more towards the Monopolies mode in 6 and the corporations mode in 4

Aslo be establish 1 Monopoly/corporation/trade good in Antiquity and Exploration each, then being able to establish as many as you like in Modern.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Economic has the mini-game of figuring out where everyone's capitol's are. I find myself with traders using their diplomatic immunity to wonder around the distant lands looking for capitols.

I use explorers for that purpose. Once the mad scramble for artifacts is over, they have nothing to do and move around on a different layer.

 

[aelf]

That's actually a good point on the side. For Economic victory, you are a less nudged to a specific ideology, while for the others, I consider Fascism to always be the best.

How is that? I only consider ideological benefits when going for science victory, since for other victories the game ends before ideology matters (and for military, it's more about picking an ideology based on others' picks). And Communism seems superior for science.

 

[Siptah]

How is that? I only consider ideological benefits when going for science victory, since for other victories the game ends before ideology matters (and for military, it's more about picking an ideology based on others' picks). And Communism seems superior for science.

It might come from my usual play style, but for me, science isn't the ultimate bottleneck for science victory. Sure, it takes a while until you can start with the projects, but once you do, I usually need longer to build the necessary buildings and projects than I need to unlock the next. Hence, the science from communism doesn't help me that much. And yes, communism has a policy that helps with projects, but for me, as I usually don't focus on only one aspect, I tend to get this too late to have a big impact (because I go for artifact civics first, get an ideology on the way, and then my civ uniques). Depending on the civ you've been earlier, science can also be quite high from turn 1 (e.g., as Abbasids), but production almost always takes a hit at the transition.

In contrast, fascism gives +3 production and +6 gold to every specialist, which is always helpful. Additionally, the economic and militaristic points can help with resource capacity for the eco victory (getting that +1 in cities/town if you don't have both already) or an extra settlement limit for the military victory. You can also get a policy for combat strength when attacking, which is better boost for the military victory compared to communism's combat strength in home territory - but also, both of these come late.

 

[aelf]

Interesting. I find that I can usually complete the first two projects in my main production city before the next step in tech is researched. Of course, after Rocketry, it's down to the last 2 projects, and by then I've unlocked Communism's +30% production towards completing projects.