Victory Conditions

[Gelvan]

It was mentioned that the victory conditions could use some work. I don't know if this is true, most often I don't finish a game anyway, because there is a new patch, or I just loose.

But I remember there was once a modmod, that enabled a victory condition labeled "all" or something like that, where you got points for each victory condition, that you "enabled", say if you had a cultural victory that was one point, building the Altar was another point, building any Tower was one point.

Maybe that Modmod ist not exactly the thing the Veteran Deity Winners have in mind, but maybe, somewhere along the lines of this modmod there could be something like a global victory condition, that maybe also regards the lore (lets say, if you found the Order and then destroy the holy city of the Ashen Veil, this gives a point).

What do you think about the victory conditions? Are they good as they are, should there be something labelled "all" like in the mentioned modmod, or do you have an even better idea for improving the system?

thanks for your opinions. In case the design team already answered that, sorry for not reading it.

 

[slowcar]

hmm, how many points is conquest?

 

[Jessant]

They definitely cant be described as 'good' as they are. Only Conquest, Domination and Tower of Mastery (If the map generation isnt too generous and then its perhaps too easy) are where they should be.
Altar requires too much sacrifice in giving up almost all your great people AND going right too the end of the mage tech line (hello tower of mastery) AND a big build/spend at the end.
Religious victory only happens by avoiding winning by domination or annoying coincidence when two civs get the same religion on opposite sides of the map and cut the whole game short because the AI cant think 'hmmmmm am I giving them the victory by switching too leaves because one of my cities got it through a trade route?' (yet).
Cultural may or may not be possible and currently the best way too achieve it seems too be by capturing and imprisoning slaves which doesn't really fit the flavor cultural victories represent. Though two (or more) flavors of 'culture' would be really neat so long as they aren't too cross compatible with each other.

Although too be fair most of the dissatisfaction comes from the AI not yet being able too mount any kind of mid or late game challenge, let alone actually win by anything but coincidence. Which as we all know by now is something we have too wait for and hopefully scenarios will tide us over until then.

 

[Ahriman]

The problem with the victory conditions as it stands is that they take too *long* to achieve even one of them. Creating a grand victory condition that gives points for multiple instances of existing victory conditions would just make the problem worse; the game stops being fun long before you get close to even completing a single victory condition.

I would prefer much easier to reach victory conditions that the AI actually had a decent change of fulfilling.

 

[cabbagemeister]

One issue I have with the victories is that in almost all cases, you know you're going to win well before you actually do, which makes the endgame a slog even if there's lots of exciting war going on. Though this issue is present in Tower and Altar victories, I'm thinking mostly about conquest/dom here, where you've out-teched everyone and have an unstoppable army that no one can touch.

FFH does a better job of avoiding this issue than vanilla Civ, as in many games the AC provides for some interesting moments when the horsemen attack. But the horsemen do not reliably spice up an endgame, as they can appear in enemy territory on different continents (in which case you can ignore them completely), or they might not even show up at all.

What then is needed? I think that the dom/conquest victories are fine as they are, but I'd like to see another victory that requires a truly heroic military effort with a massive, powerful army--a victory whose difficulty does not depend on how the other civs in the game are doing. For instance: in the game Master of Orion II, one of the victory conditions was teleporting your huge end-game fleet to another dimension to invade the Antarans, who had far better technology than was available to the player at any stage. You COULD use your huge fleet to conquer the galaxy, but it was far more rewarding to beat the Antarans because they put up such a good fight (and at that point the computer civs usually could not).

So, what if one victory condition allowed you to do something like summon Agares onto the map and try to kill him? He could be something along the lines of Base Strength 50, Combat V, blitz, 5-move--it would be a true accomplishment to take him out (and if you want to make it really hard, give him Cannibalize). More importantly, it would be something to do with that huge army you've spent so long nurturing. And it would be a reason to pursue a lot of the end-game techs (for the additional national units they enable).

 

[cyther]

Personally domination is achievable and you still can have fun. I have done it quite many times by accident

 

[Blackmantle]

The key thing here is that the AI doesn't know how to accomplish those yet! (and by that i mean any of them save time-victory. Save by accident.). Imo currently its the biggest AI issue of them all. And really whould spice up the late-game / higher difficulties alot if changed. Plus it whould make multi-landmass maps much more interesting i reckon.

Expect that to change though. Im confident the team will get that done one way or the other as it has done in the past with anything else they have tried.

And i can't really agree with Altar or Cultural taking to long.
If you really aim for them they can be rather fast. Plus you get some really hefty benefits from Altar 3 up (and from Altar 2 up you get more slots for getting greath Priests faster...)
Altar 5 turns your Priests into real powerhouses + gives rather insane benefits for the economy.. And its not all that late.

All it really takes it to planfully aim for them which is not all that hard honestly... And its not all that hard to indeed aim for them. (I actually find an AI for a domitation / religious target the hardest of the lot to imagine. The rest should not be all that heavy to do by giving the AI the right directions to head for.)

As with all things certain civs have serious advantages / drawbacks regarding certain kind of victories naturally... (religious V. as Grigori or altar V. as Infernal beeing the extremes in beeing more or less impossible...)
So a certain weight depending on civ / leader seems very much to be in order.

The only one i do find really hard to acheive is religious. But that can be much different if you set up a 2-religion fight (by disabling the other options) or the likes so its not all that useless / unneded and can make a fun scenario indeed. Just not for a free for all custom game.


ToM of course can be achived amazingly fast. On bigger maps beeing by far the easiest to get if you aim for it. (in terms of real-time as well as in-game terms.)

 

[westamastaflash]

And i can't really agree with Altar or Cultural taking to long.
If you really aim for them they can be rather fast. Plus you get some really hefty benefits from Altar 3 up (and from Altar 2 up you get more slots for getting greath Priests faster...)
Altar 5 turns your Priests into real powerhouses + gives rather insane benefits for the economy.. And its not all that late.

With a holy city, temple of your religion, pagan temple, and Altar lvl 1, you've got at least 5 priests. Tack on pacifism, philosophical, national epic, and republic (arete too if you are ROK) and its trivial to win altar victories on lower difficulty levels...

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Just for stats: I have won a cultural wictory [with Sindar] and ToM [balsep]

I always turn the altar victory off cause the AI can win by it very easy when I am not even capable of getting to it, definitely not able to conquest it and stop from building the last one.

For me almost all the victory conditions are fine. Lets face it, they are meant for the human player, not for the AI to be aimed at.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

The only victory conditions I rather dislike (other than Time, of course), are Cultural and Religious. Religious mainly because of the tendency for FoL/RoK to spread like wildfire early on, and Cultural because it really doesn't fit FfH in my opinion. Conquest and Domination are fine, Altar is mostly about surviving long enough to get Omniscience. The preliminary altars are amazing boosts to your economy though. The first 2-3 aren't worth much, but once you get to the point where you get +1 for priests, it becomes a positive feedback loop. Priests become worthwhile specialists, and give more Great Prophets for further Altar-building. The + in all cities also helps a lot. Bonus XP for disciples is just icing on the cake. It's amazingly useful for RoK or Order though, since Paramanders and Crusaders get the boost. I rarely aim for an Altar Victory, per se, but almost always go for as many levels of the altar as I can get for the boosts.

I've NEVER had a problem with the AI beating me via Altar victory. They simply don't reach the final tech. I play only on Emperor though.

 

[slowcar]

on bigger deity games i sometimes have the problem that some AI reaches some victory by accident, especially if i want to play some late game features and astain from going for a quick conquest.

i would love a system where different victory steps would be published and efforts of the enemies joined to hinder the most advanced.

building the 4th or 5th phase of the altar, for example, having evil civs declaring war - or at least raising the chance to do so by a significant amount, maybe with a big hit on the relations.

buidling the second or third of the magic towers would be followed by a big hit on the relations and war declarations from the whole world after building the 4th.

similar with domination, when reaching a certain treshold the world should unite against it - except the people who rather want to live as vassals.

if conquest is the only victory all remaining civs should be aware of being a possible target of the biggest fish next.

imo some rather small logical changes could increase the fun of late games a lot

 

[xienwolf]

I've had the AI achieve Altar Victories during AutoPlay games before. Was shocking the first time as I never thought they would be capable of it.

 

[Valerarren]

Actually, the first game of FFH I ever played the AI won with an alter victory (probably on prince difficulty, and this was pre-shadow).

At the end I was probably winning in terms of land conquered (I discovered mages with fireball were quite strong, maybe I even had archmages with meteor), but I didn't realize the danger I was in of losing due to the altars (I noticed the announcements, but somehow I didn't realize what they signified.

Since I've seen the AI get close a couple times, but they havn't repeated the feat. I've never seen the AI get a tower victory though.

One comment on the altar, I wish that it's location was listed somewhere easily accessible. If an AI builds a couple, it'd be nice if I could find it (and take it out). Maybe there is an easy way to do this?