Victory conditions?

[void_genesis]

Thanks to all the team working on this great new modpack. I have been playing along in the background, testing out new leaders etc and enjoying the work.

The one thing that bothers me most about the game is the terribly anticlimactic victory conditions. The move away from exponential models is one big step toward making the long game more playable (no more quitting after 100 turns if everything doesn't go right, or pressing "next turn" and shuffling troops the last 100 turns if it does go right).

I do wonder if the victory conditions can be made more interesting. Would a more responsive points system be a possibility where the cumulative science/culture/faith/gold/conquest/expansion etc activities of each civ are recorded for each era, contributing to a final score to determine victory? You could make each era more valuable than the one before, so the victory could easily depend on the last 30 turns. It would also allow a civ to change focus during different eras if there was an aggregate all-rounder score.

Hope I'm not being too presumptuous to make this suggestion as a lurker......

 

[Gazebo]

To be clear, no one has any more 'right' to post stuff here than anyone else. We're all in this together.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I've always viewed civ as more about the journey than the destination. In other words, the victory conditions of civ are an end-point, sure, but they are very much the culmination of a journey, rather than a climactic end. Compared to previous entries in the civ series, the victory conditions in civ 5 are fairly 'dynamic' (at least with BNW). We'd have to heavily brainstorm and refine the existing victory conditions before I could deem it necessary to move on creating an entirely new 'end-game.' That said, stranger things have happened...

G

 

[void_genesis]

I was actually hoping we can figure out a way to make the victory condition more dependent on the journey in a way that still makes the end game essential and exciting. The current victory mechanisms like apollo and the world congress could be re-incorporated as giving unique bonuses to different victory metrics. My big idea would be to find a way to make the end of the game the most important, so that a good start is useful but even a bad start is worth persisting with to the end, and even a healthy lead can be overtaken by another civ in the late game if you aren't careful. You could even add an advanced game option to make the victory metric depend on a combination any number of other metrics like science, culture, faith, gold, conquest etc. It also would allow you to run your own race to some extent, just tracking your accumulated science ranking if you were aiming for a science victory.

It could also make the advanced game set up feature with variable start and end eras more useful and interesting (allowing shorter or era focused games to still be interesting) if the scaling between consecutive eras is kept in proportion.

 

[Funak]

My problem with victoryconditions at the moment is that the last part of the game feels so extremely trivial that I mostly never actually bother to finish games.

Once you've caught up to the AI, and got your economy rolling the game just kinda dies down.
I spend all my money bribing neighbors and buying soldiers so no one bothers to attack me. Then I just sit there and press end turn until I win.

 

[void_genesis]

If the victory system worked by awarding points for dominance each era, and allocating more points for the latter eras in a way that losing your dominance in a focus area in a later era could quite easily see you lose overall. Couple that with various rubber banding (or even slingshotting) mechanisms where trailing AI are given different advantages over the leader and you could make for a much more compelling game.

 

[void_genesis]

My other ultimate vision would be a system where approaching a victory condition is dangerous, and if you stuff up the final stages then it all collapses around you. Is there a way to tweak the diplomacy AI to make the other civs or even CS make your life more difficult as you approach victory?

 

[Gazebo]

My other ultimate vision would be a system where approaching a victory condition is dangerous, and if you stuff up the final stages then it all collapses around you. Is there a way to tweak the diplomacy AI to make the other civs or even CS make your life more difficult as you approach victory?

That's already a thing, though we can dial it up and down in the xml. The competitiveness of the AI affects the AI's hostility towards players/other AI if they're reaching a victory condition. I've also done a lot of AI work on this as well.
G

 

[Lord Tirian]

Personally, I think the cultural victory works fairly well at the moment and doesn't need much else, similarly the diplomatic victory (assuming CSD is in play). Tweaks, at best.

Domination, I think, is hard to make more interesting, it's inherently bound to snowball. The only thing I can think of is building in a stronger "catch-up" mechanic: whenever a capital gets captured, enemies of the capturing nation get some free population/gold/units (think refugees) to make the steamrolling a bit harder (ideally, it'd tie in with ideologies, plus warmonger penalties partially fulfil this role already).

Finally... the science victory. I think moving the parts to the end of the tech tree has made it harder but not the slightest more interesting (in fact, I think it makes it a bit less interesting in some ways). Two ideas I had for the science victory were:

• Make it location dependent, simulating the need for good launch sites (closer to the equator) - but that sounds like a pain to implement.
• Require an extra international project (that's always available after a certain tech): "Exo-planet Search" - which would be "built" with science instead of production. Once it's finished, any player can launch space ships - that would at least a little bit of a dilemma to the process: the more you commit to it, the sooner your opponents get it, too - and potentially a free ride as well (and as it enables launches not building space ship parts, it means you divert resources from actually building the space ship).

 

[Deluxe]

I personnally have the feeling that the diplomatic victory is too easy to achieve with CSD and CPP.
The religious bonus, the reformation bonus, the same ideology bonus, the research agreement bonus, etc.

All those bonuses can be, for a large part, cumulated easily, without sacrifying much. In my last 3 games an AI always manages to get this diplomatic victory, and the other AIs don't move a finger (I try to switch some CS and to revoke a "majority religion" decisions as much as I can, but alone it's almost impossible).

 

[Lord Tirian]

All those bonuses can be, for a large part, cumulated easily, without sacrifying much. In my last 3 games an AI always manages to get this diplomatic victory, and the other AIs don't move a finger (I try to switch some CS and to revoke a "majority religion" decisions as much as I can, but alone it's almost impossible).

I think the extra sources of votes are a bit too plentiful, overall, and might need some tweaking, but they are a lot more interesting and interactive than dumping a lot of money on city-states to buy your victory.

By the way, regarding the science victory: What I really want, is the Civ2/Civ4:BtS-style spaceship where the arrival of the spaceship wins the game - meaning the number of engines determines when you win (which means that if you invest a bit more, you can overtake another spaceship). That's a dimension to the science victory I quite miss in Civ 5... but I assume that might be too complex to be modded in.

 

[Lord Oden]

On top of making the AI more competitive near the end of the game, I would add more flavor, aka "hail mary pass"

If you are near a culture victory, some the heathen uncultured civs, will declare war loot the cultural artifacts.

or

Change the space victory to an comet destroy mission. Event triggers a notice that comet will hit earth in a set year. You must launch before that year to stop the comet. As you get closer to launch, large meteorites begin to strike the earth destroying tiles, units cities at random.

We need more creative ends that involve risk of some sort.

If you chose diplomacy, it needs to have a chance to fail into a cold war standoff that could turn hot.

Even go random, Alien invasion forces diplomacy vote to elect your nation head of the defense force. New alien units land/spawn all over the map. Civs that vote for you fight with you, those that vote against you join the aliens. Last final battle.

What I am saying, there is no suspense at the end. You know you will win.

 

[Deluxe]

I think the extra sources of votes are a bit too plentiful, overall, and might need some tweaking, but they are a lot more interesting and interactive than dumping a lot of money on city-states to buy your victory.

By the way, regarding the science victory: What I really want, is the Civ2/Civ4:BtS-style spaceship where the arrival of the spaceship wins the game - meaning the number of engines determines when you win (which means that if you invest a bit more, you can overtake another spaceship). That's a dimension to the science victory I quite miss in Civ 5... but I assume that might be too complex to be modded in.

I agree totally : CSD is way funnier than gold dumping. Some bonuses would need a downscale however.

On top of making the AI more competitive near the end of the game, I would add more flavor, aka "hail mary pass"

If you are near a culture victory, some the heathen uncultured civs, will declare war loot the cultural artifacts.

or

Change the space victory to an comet destroy mission. Event triggers a notice that comet will hit earth in a set year. You must launch before that year to stop the comet. As you get closer to launch, large meteorites begin to strike the earth destroying tiles, units cities at random.

We need more creative ends that involve risk of some sort.

If you chose diplomacy, it needs to have a chance to fail into a cold war standoff that could turn hot.

Even go random, Alien invasion forces diplomacy vote to elect your nation head of the defense force. New alien units land/spawn all over the map. Civs that vote for you fight with you, those that vote against you join the aliens. Last final battle.

What I am saying, there is no suspense at the end. You know you will win.

Haha, love those ideas. I also think that Civ5 lacks flavor (compared to Civ2, imo). Games are pretty straightforward (I loved the climate changes due to nuclear weapons from Civ2, the empire splitting and the creation of a new civ in Civ4, etc).

Those may be a bit too ambitious for a mod though.

 

[void_genesis]

Absolutely agree with Lord Odons general ideas. There has to be some danger in approaching a victory condition, some gamble that you need to manage to make it pay off, and if you don't do it right it blows up in your face. Getting the other AI involved is absolutely critical I think in making the end game a glorious scramble for victory. Done right it will mean that the best part of each game is the last.

So to summarise possibilities in my mind:

Science- Overdevelopment of technology is destroying the environment, gradually making Earth uninhabitable. Humans need to leave Earth to colonise other planets before it is too late. A civ that starts Apollo will experience random pollution of tiles close to its cities dependent on their science output that decrease food and production and damage luxury resources (could use fallout graphics). Add in extra high tech buildings that restore some happiness, food and production, but putting them in the build queue delays building the space shuttle, so you have to juggle the two priorities. The pollution spreads also into nearby territory of other civs, causing negative diplomatic consequences and increasing the chance of war over time.

Diplomacy- Building a large block of alliances is required to unify the Earth under one world government, leading to endless peace and prosperity. Unfortunately not everyone is so keen on the idea. As a civ accumulates more AI and CS allies the remaining AI and CS become increasingly threatened. Formation of alliances between the remaining civs experience lower thresholds until they become unavoidable, splitting the world into two main power blocs. The smaller group use the only tools at their disposal- being granted double the number of spies to fight back (could include extra active damaging spy abilities for the weaker bloc).

Culture- One civilisation alone plumbs the depths of human creativity to lead world opinion through their unparalleled magnificence. They are so wonderful, how could anyone begrudge them? Being the beacon of the world has its downsides however, with scores of tourists clogging its cities. Prices rise and soon the government itself cannot afford to purchase the basics, with troop and building maintenance and purchase prices skyrocketing, weakening the economy. Meanwhile other civs enviously eye the buildings stuffed with wonders and antiquities, inducing them to declare war unexpectedly to grab what they can.

Domination- The march of boots across the land seems unstoppable. Soon they will swallow everything in sight. But hidden from view the people are whispering. No one likes to be pushed around, and eventually the people will rise up and rebel (if unhappiness drop below X for Y turns then a city has a chance of reverting to its previous owner, larger cities are more likely to rebel). Troops tire of the endless war and desert and turn on their masters (units turn into barbarians when their health becomes too low that get double health from pillaging). Scientists and artists and all great people refuse to be sucked into the maelstrom of violence, often choosing to leave (puppeted and annexed cities generate great people at random for your enemies).

Faith?- Are we considering a faith based victory?

 

[Kennan]

Just throwing in a radical idéa for changching the victories and end-game:

Only have one victory condition and make all the existing ones powerfull tools to reach it.

Aims:
-Merge all 4 victory conditions into one ultimate victory
-A more fun and chaotic late game
-A balance play style not streamlining any specific victory condition will be viable
-When a civ becomes totaly dominat he will get an even more redicolus snowball effect and end the game faster
-No passive victories
-Massive endgame war

How to do it:
Disable all victory conditions except conquest. Completing one of the other victories will give massive bonuses towards a domination victory. You can be a warmonger all game or play peacefully small civ until the very late game and then kick the warmongers with your powerful bonuses.

Science victory
Each spaceship part = 1 uranium
Launch spaceship = half cost and double range for nuclear missile & player is not effected by the nuclear ban resolution
Each future tec. = +5 happiness & +1 uranium & +5% production in all cities

Diplomatic victory
World leader = +1000 influence with all city states & 100% combat bonus for city states and city states are more aggressive when at war
New resolutions opens:
-Permanent war between all players
-Extra movement for units
-All civs declare war against one other civ (like the embargo)
-Reduce all cities combat strength 50%
-Massive happiness bost for all players
-Massive unhappiness bost for all players

Cultural victory
Additional bonuses against civs based on your influence:
Popular: Combat bonus of 25%
Influential: Combat bonus of 50% & 20% of their gold income (they lose the 20%) & +100% gold for capturing their cities
Dominant: Combat bonus of 75% & 40% of their gold income (they lose the 40%) & +200% gold for capturing their cities
If several civs are Influential or more with a civ, only the civ with the highest influence gets the gold income.

These bonuses are all highly unbalanced but i think you get the idéa...

 

[Lord Tirian]

Disable all victory conditions except conquest.

That sounds terrible, way better to disable all victories apart from cultural victories and all other victories give you bonuses to that, so you cannot win by conquest any longer. Joking, of course.

Getting rid of different victories sounds a lot more boring than making the existing ones more interesting. If you like domination victories more than others, just turn other victories off in the options.

Principally, I kind of like the idea of getting rid of victories and make them count towards an "ultimate" victory, much like Sevo's Mastery Victory... bit I think it's better off being its own mod (though I'd love a Civ5 version of it).

 

[Gazebo]

I don't want to be a wet blanket, however let's remember that this is a balance project, not a total conversion mod.

I'm all for updating the victory conditions to make them more compelling, but let's treat the base game as the canvas we must touch-up, not as something to throw out the window.

Also, don't forget the my golden rule: if the AI can't easily figure it out, it won't happen.

G

 

[void_genesis]

Id be very happy with a master victory system- just a matter of taking existing metrics and combining them into a more nuanced total score for each civ (Id like to see it as an aggregate score across time rather than a final score to reward leading in an area for a time period). It would also then be simple and optional- just an add on to give a more rewarding total final victory.

The only downside is that you still end up with much of the late game being pointless if you have amassed a big lead. Some form of rubber banding or leader penalty (ideally via AI behaviour) would be nice so they don't just sit there blinking as you "next turn" the last 100 times to victory. I want the AI civs to throw everything they have at me to stop me winning, even if it means their own doom.