Victory Condition additions and sundry suggestions

[Solver]

The trigger is described as 75 % "towards one of the national ambitions". It doesn't say that it's exactly that ambition that will be offered.

The national ambition offer event will offer the ambition that you reached 75% towards, and also two other national ambitions. So you can accept the one you've made significant progress on, or pick another if that better aligns with your plans. It's still an option to refuse the offer altogether.

 

[eqn]

Reading through this thread after seeing the test branch notes was definitely a ride. Excited to be triggering some National Ambitions. I need to spend some time on the test branch to try it out. Looks absolutely fantastic!

I will say, now that targeting ambition victories will be a lot more timely I suspect this will inevitably greatly speed up the path to victory for most players. Not that that is a bad thing, though it does put the AI in a rather disadvantageous spot if it doesn't hard focus National Ambitions too!

As mentioned in this thread I'm still holding out hope for additional ways to win the game, especially for the AI to use in light of this. A religious victory around spreading religion for example, and the AI pursuing this super aggressively, would definitely be one of many new avenues to spice things up, for example.

 

[Leyrann]

I will say, now that targeting ambition victories will be a lot more timely I suspect this will inevitably greatly speed up the path to victory for most players. Not that that is a bad thing, though it does put the AI in a rather disadvantageous spot if it doesn't hard focus National Ambitions too!

Ambition Victory is player-only.

And note that achieving your crowning ambition is no longer your point of victory - you still need to complete 9 regular ambitions to go with it, it's just that the timing where you unlock them changes.

 

[eqn]

Certainly! Apologies, I should've phrased that better.

What I mean is if the AI continues to be incapable of Ambition victories then their Score victory is likely to be much more easily outpaced now. From my understanding National Ambition makes it much easier for players to lock in on what used to be the most difficult part of an Ambition victory (your final Ambition). Hence, I think introducing more victory types beyond score victories that the AI *can* focus would help them 'keep up'. Not to mention, more victory conditions naturally also gives human players more options in regards to gameplay and strategy, both in pursuance of those victory types and in denying the AI of them.

 

[Leyrann]

Certainly! Apologies, I should've phrased that better.

What I mean is if the AI continues to be incapable of Ambition victories then their Score victory is likely to be much more easily outpaced now. From my understanding National Ambition makes it much easier for players to lock in on what used to be the most difficult part of an Ambition victory (your final Ambition). Hence, I think introducing more victory types beyond score victories that the AI *can* focus would help them 'keep up'. Not to mention, more victory conditions naturally also gives human players more options in regards to gameplay and strategy, both in pursuance of those victory types and in denying the AI of them.

I mean, it could also be adjusted by changing the number of required ambitions to 12, or changing the ambitions themselves to be more difficult.

I'm sure the devs will keep an eye out.

And personally I'm currently in the click-through phase of the game and I'm a bit bored with it atm, I wouldn't really want it to be longer. Score victory is 10 points away, ambition victory is one good roll (that means: not making me bother with conquering half the map just to win) away from happening, and my economy is through the roof (and ascending, as I've currently got some 50 workers running around building stuff while also hurrying productions left, right and center).

 

[King Jason]

Generally speaking at that stage I'd say the game is already over usually. Not every player likes to win via conquest so waiting out those final ambitions can indeed take a some time, and I think this new change is going to go a long way in resolving what I think was a core issue with the ambition track. We'll see how it plays out but I suspect in a game like the one above, based on the new rules, a national ambition would have already been delivered and completed by that stage and the game would be over.

But it's also worth mentioning I guess that past a certain point there's no real need to keep using your workers. Some people like hitting the insane numbers and that's cool but in my experience if you're not specifically trying to close out an ambition win, then the momentum forces the game to end because there's so much economy you can overwhelm the nearest opponent.

I think habits from civilization have a lot of players playing the game a bit beyond the point it "should" be over.

"Should" being subjective, some players like a longer game, OW is kind of a short game as far as the 4x genre goes; in terms of game time it's similar but I think that's because individual turns take longer rather than the actual game length being as long as something like civ.

Some players even play up to turn 200 and beyond and around that benchmark the game really starts to unravel. Not that there's anything wrong with the game, it's just not designed as a 200+ turn game.

 

[Leyrann]

But it's also worth mentioning I guess that past a certain point there's no real need to keep using your workers. Some people like hitting the insane numbers and that's cool but in my experience if you're not specifically trying to close out an ambition win, then the momentum forces the game to end because there's so much economy you can overwhelm the nearest opponent.

If I stop using them, that may delay my score victory. After all, continuing to build stuff means more culture, more Estates, et cetera.

Also, I did have a lot of trouble with a few wars earlier on, if I end up being DoW'd again I would appreciate having a very strong economy to pump out more units immediately, rather than first having to build the mines to keep up with increased demand.

 

[Verrucosus]

And note that achieving your crowning ambition is no longer your point of victory - you still need to complete 9 regular ambitions to go with it, it's just that the timing where you unlock them changes.

I suspect in a game like the one above, based on the new rules, a national ambition would have already been delivered and completed by that stage and the game would be over.

This sounds like there's still uncertainy about whether completing the national ambition results in immediate victory. The name change (from "final") seemed to imply that it does not, but that might be reading to much into it. It could feel slightly anti-climactic to achieve the national ambition early and win the game decades later with a less awesome ambition because it's the tenth. With this thread in mind, the changes look like an attempt to tweak the ambitions victory into something that can be treated like a thematic victory by players who want to approach the game with a clear plan to trigger and complete a specific goal. If that's the case, the national ambition might be intended to offer an early exit.

As a matter of personal preference (and that may really be a side-effect of having played Civilization), I rather enjoy the late game as a way of spending some more time in that big empire I created. Characters and events keep creating problems that need to be fixed, but because serious challenges usually have faded at that stage, it's all the more important to have ever more demanding ambitions to work towards. That's what I enjoy about the ambitions system in its current form, so I'm really glad that it will be still be possible to delay the national ambition either by carefully avoiding the trigger conditions or by simply declining it. Another option would be to pick one of the national ambitions (with much less than 70 % completion) on offer and keep it as a long-term goal (though that might not work if they can get turned into legacies and expire).

 

[King Jason]

I wasn't confused, it's just true that if you get the 10th ambition on turn 70 or 90 the game is going to be shorter because it will end when you finish the 9th ambition on turn 120 instead of waiting around for the crown to show up and have the first 4 options you can pick be 30-turn asks. Devs have confirmed that the Ambition victory still requires all 10 ambitions. You're right though, sometimes the game feels like it's over once the empire is fully set up and ready to be a major player in the world. This happens with points too. The problem I had with ambitions was that points always seemed to supersede it. So this change feels like they're both more in line with each other now. There a lots of settings to increase endgame play though, increasing the VP point total or disable ambition victory altogether both help (you still get offered ambitions if the victory is disabled).

 

[Verrucosus]

My mistake, I missed that clarification. (I'm not playing the test version itself; too busy with the Greece and Egypt campaigns.)

It's my experience as well that it's quite easy to win by points before finishing the final ambition. It doesn't happen always, but a lot more often than the other way around. I don't actually mind winning by points. I just don't want to plan winning by points, because it distracts from the roleplay. The ambitions help to keep things immersive. If I stumble into a points victory along the way, that's just fine. Sometimes a competitor is actually ahead of me in points, maybe because they got lucky with wonders or swallowed another empire or a very large tribe. It's great fun trying to beat them by getting the 10th ambition finished first as opposed to racing them to the points target.

 

[King Jason]

I think this system is going to be better, but it might have the side effect of making that end game crunch a little easier. It's hard to say because some of the 7th, 8th, and 9th ambitions can already take a bit of time anyway and then the difficulty spread of these end ambitions is kind of all across the map. 6 happy cities feels incredibly different than 6 legendary cities. So I think what will happen is that players will often end up being offered the easier ones just because those are what they get close to first, so it might be the case that it feels easier. However, if you'd rather win the game by having all 4 holy cities instead of sending 20 luxuries, at least now you can make that choice. You can decide if you want to do one of the harder ones if it's more interesting/cool or one of the easier ones if you're just trying to end the game. Players who understood the old system could already do that... but basically by doing what felt like cheating.

Although as someone pointed out, under the old system if you try and game it you could be stuck waiting for the right ambition to come up. Now if you get close to the ambition it'll come up.

It's an interesting shift. I think it's ultimately for the better but it's possible that time could reveal some issues with this idea as well. Either way I'm happy to see this area getting some attention.