What is your preferred victory to go for?

[AspiringScholar]

While to a good extent, this is a matter of what is feasible or likely in any given situation, what kind of victory do you often like to go for?

I find space and diplomatic to be the most fun. Space, because it's sort of a hybridized "economic" victory, being largely a matter of hammers, beakers and espionage; and its incremental nature makes it more exciting, with event announcements for individual projects, which can get sabotaged and have to be installed modularly.

Diplomatic is interesting to me because of how the relations dynamic is often entailed in the opportunity cost of much of the rest of the game, besides. Things which often cause you to forgo some other benefit or advantage like conceding to demands, not making a worst enemy trade, fighting in a risky war, etc., end up paying dividends once the UN is built. It feels the least "linear" of all of the victories and it's interesting keeping tabs on other civs' votes.

Domination feels rewarding because it's sheerly a victory of scale, but with AI capitulation, a big enough stack with cannons and rifles can see you to this in one continuous march, so this one feels the most like a default win, unlike culture where getting enough points to do so often requires you to make pretty big sacrifices fairly early on in the game, and conquest which sometimes isn't even possible without winning domination along the way unless you're deliberately razing cities. I don't think I've seen a time victory on Monarch, and I imagine that most people haven't at or above this level, unless they've modified it to be the only option.

Thoughts?

 

[Lennier]

Domination or AP diplomation. Generally can get a W faster those ways.

 

[qouigv93027]

Generally science because it's quicker (in real human time). If I try to go for Domination, it takes forever to walk my units everywhere and conquer every little city, including new little ones that pop up. Too much micromanagement. Whereas if I just manage build and research queues and hit end turn, I can get to the science victory way faster.

 

[ArchGhost]

I enjoy Space as it's fun to go into builder mode and get to see just how powerful endgame cities and empires can be...unfortunately it takes a long time (often over 24hr games on Huge maps for me) and there's lots of dead turns just hitting End Turn and waiting for not a lot to happen. And then even after you build the spaceship, you still have to wait more to actually win!

Preference is definitely through Domination though. It's the most consistent and generally quickest way to win outside of the AP (which I don't like, and seems cheesy/random compared to the actual UN win). Taking a war path to the finish also requires you to practice your diplo, teching, and empire management skills throughout the game as well as unit control in the actual wars...many of the other victory types involve a lot of just sitting behind diplo tricks alone I find.

When I was still newer to the game, I practiced cultural victories because I didn't like warring back then. These days they are boring though, but they are great for island heavy maps where you can sit alone until the modern era sometimes without being attacked.

I miss the Economic Victory option in Civ Rev. Great way to directly use the power of your trade (equivalent to commerce in Civ 4) to win.

 

[Absolution]

Time.
Usually I disable all other options.
It makes the players work for all aspects that promote their civilisation and that's it.

It is a richer game, without focusing on a specific anecdote that makes it also less historical.

 

[Snowygerry]

I usually disable all victory conditions, except domination and conquest.

And decide myself when a game is won or lost

 

[phillip1882]

i used to love domination, but now i love space race.
the idea of going to war with 1/3 of all civilizations seems too cruel to me now.
and i have a hard time with the other vics other than space.

 

[danjuno]

Domination, UN Diplo, or Both ("Diplomation").

 

[TheBirdMan]

In the old days - when I only played the "pure" CIV4 [BTS] version - it was almost always a Space victory I won. If I won of course.

So since I restarted some years later with the R:I mod active in every game I play, Space is the only victory-option I do not activate in the setup.

But the is one type of victory I never - EVER - have tried to win, and that is a cultural victory. I just can't get the culture going early enough. The few times I've tried, I've been beaten before half of the turns were used.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Domination (easily my fave) followed by culture. Never get tired of hearing the city capture noises after a hard-fought battle or trolling the AI with borders lol. Usually never go space.