Victory Conditions

[stealth_nsk]

It still may be back.

It may be back in future expansions, but I don't see any reasons for its inclusion. It's like tech trading - the thing which is just bad mechanics.

 

[King Jason]

Domination should have nothing to do with capitals in the first place. Civ4 had the better system of percentage of world control as that allows you to dominate through expansive means in addition to military means. Furthermore, it almost inevitably means you need to fight actual wars in order to achieve the domination - wars that you conquer the entirety of at least a couple of civs, and then the majority of the rest.

With the capital condition you can simply ignore everything and beeline for the capitals so long as they're not in particularly tough spots. So basically, any coastal capital equates to a cheese victory. Because you can target that specifically without worrying about the rest of the civ's empire. The amount of times I've secured a domination by beating 2-4 A.I. simultaneously because I was able to plan coastal assaults and acquire all 4 capitals within the same amount of turns is ludicrously stupid.

Domination should actually require world domination. This would allow for the "alliance" complaint that makenshi has to be satisfied since you can conquer most of the world but won't need to bother the ally.

Control over something like 70% of the world's territory should be the satisfying condition; not capitals. Or, perhaps mix the two; 70% of the world's territory and half the capitals of total number of civs.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Domination should have nothing to do with capitals in the first place. Civ4 had the better system of percentage of world control as that allows you to dominate through expansive means in addition to military means. Furthermore, it almost inevitably means you need to fight actual wars in order to achieve the domination - wars that you conquer the entirety of at least a couple of civs, and then the majority of the rest.

First civs versions domination required conquering every city. This leaded to ugly city-hunting.

Civ4 system of world domination % has a big drawback - it allows winning over tall civ you hadn't war with at all. And similarly, losing the domination victory to a civ you never had war with.

Yes, in Civ 5-6 it's possible to win domination victory without actually dominating the world, but it's not possible to win it without hitting hard each of the opponents. If you let your capital to be conquered (even coastal capital) you really did something wrong or is just loosing.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I just noticed this preview from the German site GameStar explains the new victory conditions in Civ6: http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/civilization-6/artikel/civilization_6,53802,3276699,2.html. I haven't seen this posted anywhere here. What follows is my rough translation (sorry to any native speakers, my German's a bit rusty).

"Tourism is Mightier than the Sword

But how do we finish off our opponents now? Civilization 6 has five victory conditions again, but they run differently than before. The domination victory throws the revision of Brave New World overboard: We have to be the last player who keeps their original capital--but you don't have to have conquered all other capitals as in Brave New World. It is enough that everyone but us has lost theirs, no matter who the new owner.

For the science victory we must first send a satellite into space, then land on the moon, and finally establish a colony on Mars. Each of these steps requires first the necessary technology, and then the components must be built and launched into space.

The cultural victory returned to tourism, but should be less complicated. There are two types of tourists: those who go on holiday in their own country, and those who travel from abroad. We need to attract more foreign tourists to us, as all the other civs have home tourists. Things like wonders, great works of art, and trade routes make our country the number one civilization. In addition, each hex now has its own attractiveness value: a beautiful beach attracts more tourists than muddy marshland. We can transform particularly attractive areas into beach resorts or national parks and thereby inspire the masses. Other things also have their influence: The Eiffel Tower transmits the attractiveness of our lands, but next to an industrial district no one will now visit there. This makes the cultural victory into a strategically demanding task, in which the structure of our empire will figure.

The diplomatic victory is gone, replaced by the religious victory. The developers don't want to reveal yet how it works. And finally there remains the points victory. If by a certain year, if no other victory has been won, the player with the most points wins."

My hope is that Diplomatic Victory will make a re-appearance with a re-vamped World Congress, in a future expansion.

 

[stealth_nsk]

My hope is that Diplomatic Victory will make a re-appearance with a re-vamped World Congress, in a future expansion.

Hmm... Why do you need a diplomatic victory?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hmm... Why do you need a diplomatic victory?

It made a nice alternative to the other victory types.

The problem with Civ5 Diplomatic Victory was more in how you gained alliances with City States (in effect it became more of a de-facto "economic" victory). Playing Civ5 with with Gazebo's "City State Diplomacy" mod made it a much better experience.

If the diplomatic victory is also more tied in with passing things through the World Congress-over time-rather than relying on a single vote, then I think it could be a very satisfying experience.

 

[King Jason]

Civ4 system of world domination % has a big drawback - it allows winning over tall civ you hadn't war with at all. And similarly, losing the domination victory to a civ you never had war with.

This is no different than a science victory winning out over a civ that has never really interacted with the victor either.

The obvious solution in both cases is to go to war with the player about to the win the game. If you're a tall empire with about 10% of the map and you see one of your enemies creeping up to or beyond 50% then it's your responsibility to stop them from winning. No different than if you notice someone is about to win a science victory and you are unable to beat them to it; You have to attack them.

If you can't beat the player who is about to win the game... then you've legitimately lost. Better luck next time.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It made a nice alternative to the other victory types.

I'd say there are more than enough alternatives, covering most of the game aspects. But that's subjective of course.

The problem with Civ5 Diplomatic Victory was more in how you gained alliances with City States (in effect it became more of a de-facto "economic" victory). Playing Civ5 with with Gazebo's "City State Diplomacy" mod made it a much better experience.

If the diplomatic victory is also more tied in with passing things through the World Congress-over time-rather than relying on a single vote, then I think it could be a very satisfying experience.

The diplomatic victory itself is very weird as any method of your opponents to crowning you as world leaders is weird. Diplomatic victory could work if:

1. Leader decisions are separated from public opinion. In this case diplomatic victory could be tied to public opinion of the countries. But:
- It would require completely different direction of diplomacy.
- It would make this victory too close to the culture victory.

2. The victory is based on minor civilization votes, like in Civ5, but:
- In Civ6 the city-states look much better and as a side effect it's nearly impossible to dominate them.
- In Civ5 the necessity to keep significant amount o city-states till late game leaded to ugly rule what you can't destroy city-states and prohibitive warmonger penalties on conquering them. Civ6 seems to avoid this, so we could expect in many games the significant share of city-states to not survive.

That's the only solutions I could see. Attaching diplomatic victory points to decisions made in world congress makes already weak mechanic of world congress even weaker. You could expect your opponents to try to stop you from winning, right (that's what they do with other victory conditions)? So they'll have to vote against your proposals even if they make sense.

In short - I hardly see any interesting and not broken implementation of diplomatic victory.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Sorry, double post.

This is no different than a science victory winning out over a civ that has never really interacted with the victor either.

The obvious solution in both cases is to go to war with the player about to the win the game. If you're a tall empire with about 10% of the map and you see one of your enemies creeping up to or beyond 50% then it's your responsibility to stop them from winning. No different than if you notice someone is about to win a science victory and you are unable to beat them to it; You have to attack them.

If you can't beat the player who is about to win the game... then you've legitimately lost. Better luck next time.

I'm not saying Civ4 system is ultimately bad. I'm just saying it has its problems and it's a matter of preference which approach is better. From my point of view, if you're playing tall and don't want another civ to win domination, defending your lands should be enough, you shouldn't be required to actually take lands for this.

On a side note, I believe that's a big problem of science victory - lack of counterplay. I really hope it has technological and production requirements so high to become an earlier version of time victory - if no other victory is achieved in time, someone could win scientific.

 

[Navelgazer]

I think a potential economic/diplomatic victory model (and obviously this would have to be playtested and worked out with this idea in mind) could be built around being in a position where every other civ could be plunged into either negative gold or negative happiness if you cut off trade relations.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think a potential economic/diplomatic victory model (and obviously this would have to be playtested and worked out with this idea in mind) could be built around being in a position where every other civ could be plunged into either negative gold or negative happiness if you cut off trade relations.

It's interesting concept, but I'd make it more obvious. For example, there could be something like "pledge of support" which you could by through diplomatic negotiations for a high price. It could be used as additional voice in World Congress and if you gather it from everyone, you win.

Of course, it will not work in multiplayer, but since most of Civ6 diplomacy don't work in MP, this should be ok.

The only point is - while this could work, it's still more economical than diplomatic victory.

 

[m15a]

This is no different than a science victory winning out over a civ that has never really interacted with the victor either.

The obvious solution in both cases is to go to war with the player about to the win the game. If you're a tall empire with about 10% of the map and you see one of your enemies creeping up to or beyond 50% then it's your responsibility to stop them from winning. No different than if you notice someone is about to win a science victory and you are unable to beat them to it; You have to attack them.

If you can't beat the player who is about to win the game... then you've legitimately lost. Better luck next time.

Earlier, you said, "domination [victory] should actually require world domination". So if there's a civ with 20% of the map (or whatever) that you've never fought (and let's say you can't easily defeat), are you really dominating the world?

 

[King Jason]

Earlier, you said, "domination [victory] should actually require world domination". So if there's a civ with 20% of the map (or whatever) that you've never fought (and let's say you can't easily defeat), are you really dominating the world?

If you control 70% of the world, then yes. While I'm sure it'd be technically possible; I'd find it to be an incredibly rare circumstance for a player to gain control over 70% of a map without ever fighting or winning a single war. Even still I would consider it a dominant victory, no more so than the victory of science is implied over the other players - as your ability to expand and defend that expansion clearly outclassed your opponents.

All a science victory is, is proving that you managed your empire better than everyone else. In effect, every victory is an extension of that. So if you rule the vast majority of the world, a feat that I think is far more meaningful than capturing 7 cities - then you've clearly managed your empire better.

Also, as I'd previously pointed out; If you're about to dominate the world and there is a remaining "super power" that only has 20% of the world under it's control but, as you claim, is a threat to the would-be victor, then the natural course of action is for that opponent to prevent the victory by attacking the winner. This is exactly what players do when opponents are about to win science or culture victories, rarely do they sit by and just let it happen.

 

[Ulthwithian]

(Developers can use this if they want. I relinquish all rights to this IP.)

Well, then create a sliding scale for Domination. Balancing it correctly would be important, but something like...

if (DomVPs > x)
{
winGame();
}

DomVPs calculated thusly:

1) 1 point for every 1% of map you control (by cultural borders, and seas count)
2) 100 / n points for every capital you control (even yours), where n is the number of players in the game.

Sum 1) and 2).

x might be ( n + 1 / n ) * 100 as a place to start testing. If you are in an 8-player game, then if you control:

1 capital, you must control every tile. This is impossible.

This makes sense. If a Domination Victory is supposed to be the War Victory Condition, it needs to require you to go to war. That is the Achilles Heel of simple x% of map conditions: it doesn't require you to go to war.

2 capital, you must control 87.5%of the map. Difficult, to say the least.
3 capitals, you must control 75% of the map. Not likely.
4 capitals, you must control 62.5% of the map. That is... fairly balanced.
5 capitals, you must control 50% of the map. Fair, I think.

Of course, if you own all of the capitals, you only have to own 1/n tiles in the game to win, which is... well, likely.

Personally, I think they should decouple the Expansion and War VCs.

As a Domination VC, you should force everyone into tributary states, and that is only possible by peace terms. Thus, to win, you have to go to war.

The tricky part there is to gauge the Diplomatic AI so that it doesn't give away the capital too quickly.

 

[stealth_nsk]

If we take poll here, I believe more people like the system where you just need to take original capitals and not the one where you need to control % of territory. As I said it's a matter of personal preference. To me the requirement to counter other player domination by attacking him and taking his land, removes all fun of peaceful gameplay and just unacceptable.

(Developers can use this if they want. I relinquish all rights to this IP.)

Well, then create a sliding scale for Domination. Balancing it correctly would be important, but something like...

Taking worst from both worlds The concern about being able to win without fighting each civ is still here. And the concern what you could win by taking generally capitals only is here too. Not to mention what it has relatively complex math for such system.

 

[m15a]

If you control 70% of the world, then yes. While I'm sure it'd be technically possible; I'd find it to be an incredibly rare circumstance for a player to gain control over 70% of a map without ever fighting or winning a single war. Even still I would consider it a dominant victory, no more so than the victory of science is implied over the other players - as your ability to expand and defend that expansion clearly outclassed your opponents.

All a science victory is, is proving that you managed your empire better than everyone else. In effect, every victory is an extension of that. So if you rule the vast majority of the world, a feat that I think is far more meaningful than capturing 7 cities - then you've clearly managed your empire better.

Also, as I'd previously pointed out; If you're about to dominate the world and there is a remaining "super power" that only has 20% of the world under it's control but, as you claim, is a threat to the would-be victor, then the natural course of action is for that opponent to prevent the victory by attacking the winner. This is exactly what players do when opponents are about to win science or culture victories, rarely do they sit by and just let it happen.

The Civ V-style domination victory is preventable by any civ that is a big threat just like the Civ IV style, since the civ just needs to protect their capital (or better yet, declare war and take any of the other capitals). In that respect, I think both victory conditions are pretty acceptable.

That's why I went back to the question of what counts as world domination. Both conditions have situations where world domination is debatable, so both of them can be said to have "issues". It seems like combining both - requiring a certain percentage of the land and *all* capitals - would fix most cases... But then you're running into the issue of tedium.

 

[VainApocalypse]

I hate that diplomatic victory was removed. Yes it had problems, but it fit my favorite playstyle.

Being a small, but invincibly wealthy spider at the center of a massive web of trade routes is how I like to play (obviously, Venice is my favorite in V). The only victory condition that this play style naturally translates into is a diplomatic one.

Wealth lets be punch above my weight militarily, but I still can't compete with a dedicated warmongerer. Having spent all game building economic buildings and not cultural, scientific or religious ones, I can't win at tourism, science or religion. Where's the niche for dedicated trader civs?

I'm hoping that the first expansion reinstates either a reworked diplomatic victory or an economic victory.

 

[Fernando III]

Domination should be more about the % of the population controlled.If a civ has more than 80% of the world's population,the civ should have a domination victory.Controlling a 4 pop capital shouldn't be more valueable for a domination victory than controlling a 22 pop city

 

[stealth_nsk]

I hate that diplomatic victory was removed. Yes it had problems, but it fit my favorite playstyle.

Being a small, but invincibly wealthy spider at the center of a massive web of trade routes is how I like to play (obviously, Venice is my favorite in V). The only victory condition that this play style naturally translates into is a diplomatic one.

Wealth lets be punch above my weight militarily, but I still can't compete with a dedicated warmongerer. Having spent all game building economic buildings and not cultural, scientific or religious ones, I can't win at tourism, science or religion. Where's the niche for dedicated trader civs?

I'm hoping that the first expansion reinstates either a reworked diplomatic victory or an economic victory.

Economic victory, yes, but not diplomatic one (unless diplomatic is economic victory in disguise as it was in Civ5).

Also, gold is designed to be spent. You could direct it towards winning science, for example.

 

[LDiCesare]

If we take poll here, I believe more people like the system where you just need to take original capitals and not the one where you need to control % of territory. As I said it's a matter of personal preference. To me the requirement to counter other player domination by attacking him and taking his land, removes all fun of peaceful gameplay and just unacceptable.

Take a poll, then
I prefer the %.
I've won cultural victories in IV by rushing into Mansa Musa's land and razing one of his cities.
I've won space victories by sabotaging the enemy's spaceship.
If you want to play tall and don't want to go to war to defend yourself agaisnt it, then in my opinion, don't tick the domination victory in the victory conditions screen.
It is important for me that domination do not turn into a conquest of each and every but also of each and every small civ out there. Otherwise, you're jsut turning the endgame into a rehearsal of uninteresting move to mop up the map.