What type of victory do you find hardest to obtain?

[Cyberstar]

What type of victory do you find hardest to obtain? For me I think it would have to be the diplomatic and cultural, if I could vote twice.

 

[Vaiks]

Conquest on huge maps with lots of civs. I've being playing for a month now, the same game. To manage hundreds os units attacking vast territories are complicated.

 

[Gr3yL3gion]

Time, and conquest.

 

[BubbaYeti]

Cultural seems to be leading the vote. I dont think cultural is all that hard if you plan for it from the start. I got two cultural victories, one on noble and one on prince, I was french both times (Louis) he is the best leader by far for this type of win imho. it will be more challenging with another leader. One noble I did it with only four cities, the three going for culture and a production city to make military units for defence/deterence.

 

[Desert-Fox]

Culture is not so hard as people think... perhaps they compare it with civ3 one where it was too easy. You just need to go for it, not surprisingly find that oh yeah, I got it.

1) Conquest
2) Domination
3) Diplomacy
4) Culture
5) Time
6) Spaceship

1) Hardest, 6) Easiest.

 

[Xarlak]

Culture win really isn't that hard, if you know that you're going from the start. Make a rush for a large number of relgions, and get the cathedrals ASAP. And then build as many cultural buildings in your 3 main cities as you can, using the rest of your cities to build up a defense and infrastructure. Once you get to the endgame (usually around the time you get Riflemen or so), switch your culture slider up to 90-100%, and just turtle until you win. I've done it several times on noble (and it's much easier on an archipeligo map). I think the earliest I got it was 1914 or so.

Overall, I think conquest and diplomacy are the hardest, at least on Noble - conquest because you so often win by domination before conquest happens, and diplomacy because it's difficult to keep the right people happy (you can spend all game buttering up someone only to find they're your actual opponent, or they get bombed back into the stone age shortly before you win). (I'm ignoring the "conquer your way to diplomacy strategy, since it's not really what they had in mind for it)

 

[Kolyana]

I guess my "problem" with a culture win is that it seems to suggest that you have to absolutely forgo technology and research and it goes against my nature to let myself slide that far down the score-pole.

I guess I'll have to take a deep breath one day and just try it out.

 

[Yzman]

I disagree with most people in this...I think it goes...

1.spaceship
2.time
3.diplo
4.cultural
5.domination
6.conquest

I don't see why people find diplo so hard...I have won with it like 3 times, not even being very warlike.

 

[Adam7Eight]

Conquest is definately the hardest, especially on large/huge maps with over 10 civs. I mean, it ain't even close.

 

[Efexeye]

I'll let you know my answer when I beat the game some other way than the Space Race...

 

[kingpenguin]

Seriously. I've only had space race so far, one culture game I almost won, but for some reason large maps make that victory harder to obtain (?). I was India, not France, I knew France would be easier. Also, some wars seriously destroyed me halfway through the game, but I never lost one of my four cities. It would be easy on a standard sized map.

 

[josephstalin]

Conquest is almost impossible to achieve for me with reasonable # of AI.

 

[Zevus]

I have never won a game via a 'time' victory.

 

[Instant_Cereal]

Conquest is the hardest. Wars in Civ4 are not very rewarding.

 

[gilfan]

Diplo is very, very easy. All you have to do is form your own "faction" by spreading your religion extensively to 2-3 other civs. You'll eventually get around +5-7 from sharing religion, another 2-4 from open borders and long term peace, give them a resource of any type and that's another +2, plus many other ways to get positive mods on relations. Plus there's the inherhent advantage of having a block of countries that like each other. Someone declares war on you, and you just turn to your faction members and ask them to declare war as a favor.

 

[Mad2rix]

Most people would say Diplomatic Victory was the hardest to obtain. For me, the difficult victory to acquire was not known as I'm still new at Civ4.

 

[Efexeye]

Seriouisly, though, am I doing something wrong? The computer always seems to have SO many more units than me (on Noble) to the point where they are always starting wars because I am weak. In 8 player games, I'm usually 6th or 7th in terms of number of soldiers, even if I dedicate 2 cities to doing nothing but building units for the whole game...

I had this problem in Civ3, too...the only ways I could ever win were the wussy ways. What can I do to improve my warmongering?

 

[Xarlak]

Seriously. I've only had space race so far, one culture game I almost won, but for some reason large maps make that victory harder to obtain (?). I was India, not France, I knew France would be easier. Also, some wars seriously destroyed me halfway through the game, but I never lost one of my four cities. It would be easy on a standard sized map.

For culture, I generally try for 9 cities, minimum, preferably a few more. 9 cities is the minimum that allows you to create cathedrals (and stupas, synogogues, mosques, etc) in each of your three focus cities (since each cathedral requires three temples in the games I've played - it might be two in smaller maps or time frames), plus being larger means you're gonna get more research done and can get the culture wonders faster.

 

[Agraza]

Space race ought to be a lot harder imo. I don't think arriving at the moon, mars, or alpha centauri will give any nation any kind of tangible benefit for at least a hundred years. Make it more like, be the first to maintain a colony on alpha centauri for 20 turns alone, 30 if someone else is also up there, 40 if two others, etc. It could quickly become impossible for space to be a victory route if you don't get up there fast as hell. The entire idea that this is a victory route is that of exclusivity. If your competition follows you, what have you gained?

 

[Willowmound]

Where's the option for "all of them"?

I thought my very first three games were pretty easy, and so went up a notch in difficulty. I haven't won since. It's been a month!