What's the hardest Victory Condition to get?

[manu-fan]

Hi,

For fun, I'm playing with Settler difficulty on a Small Map to get plenty of achievements. I am now way ahead of everyone else, am raking in money, science, and culture, and can basically win any way I choose.

So, which is the hardest victory condition to get? I'm thinking Cultural probably is, and I should go for that. Anyone have any opinions?

Cheers.

 

[elthrasher]

I would say it depends on the current game state. Starting off with the intent of a culture victory on settler is probably very easy, but if your game is developed and you have several cities, it might be more challenging.

Time victory is probably the hardest because you have to hit end turn so many times.

 

[biohazard72]

Culture, because on higher difficulties, you sacrifice much of your ability to tech efficiently by having so few non-puppet cities. Furthermore, getting wonders for the 100% culture bonus is much harder, including The Oracle, Sistine Chapel, etc...

I'd imagine that the only civ that could reliably do Deity culture is France, with a large puppet empire from conquest.

 

[elthrasher]

Culture, because on higher difficulties, you sacrifice much of your ability to tech efficiently by having so few non-puppet cities. Furthermore, getting wonders for the 100% culture bonus is much harder, including The Oracle, Sistine Chapel, etc...

I'd imagine that the only civ that could reliably do Deity culture is France, with a large puppet empire from conquest.

He was talking about Settler.

Anyway, if you can win dominion on any difficulty, you can also win culture. Just leave one guy with his cap and take every other city on the map (burn 'em down if you don't want 'em). Now go for culture. That one guy with one city won't stop you, even on Deity.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I'd imagine that the only civ that could reliably do Deity culture is France, with a large puppet empire from conquest.

Songhai is more effective than France, because the buff to Temples doesn't expire. Siam can also do a good job if you manipulate the options available to the puppets with research and pick up Communism. Doing that permits getting Wats up in a timely fashion.

 

[HermannLombard]

So, which is the hardest victory condition to get? I'm thinking Cultural probably is, and I should go for that.

To me, it's clearly Cultural if you did not originally set out to do so, meaning that you settled a lot of cities and then changed course.

[Meanwhile, Settler? Even for a beer & pretzels game that's awfully easy.]

 

[manu-fan]

I know. I'm ashamed to be playing on Settler. But I got really fed up after wasting 600 turns of my Prince game only for it to drag to a halt because of lagginess that I wanted something easy.

I have about 20 of my own cities, and about 20 Puppet cities. Each SP is about 9 turns. I think I'll probably go for Culture because that will also give me several other achievements.

Also - Timed victory isn't an achievement, so that's out.

Cheers.

 

[Civsassin]

If you didn't plan early enough for a cultural, it may be too late. You need to limit the number of cities you have to no more than three, and you need to have many of your cultural buildings already built. A cultural victory is one that you really need to plan for from the beginning. If you have a lot of cities, you can give them away and leave yourself one or two, but you likely have wasted too much culture on the policies you've already adopted to make it viable at this point. BTW, Siam is the best civ for a cultural victory because of their UB and passive trait.

 

[bobshiznit]

Time victory is the hardest, haha.

I would rank the difficulty - Diplo, Domination, Space, Cultural with diplo being the easiest, up to emperor.
On immortal I have won by diplo and space the most. Space is probably easier than domination on immortal, but it depends on the map. I play continents.

 

[biohazard72]

Haha. Time victory then. On Settler, the game is dreadfully boring and every turn will be agonizing.

 

[stormerne]

What's the hardest Victory Condition to get?

A satisfying one.

 

[futurehermit]

They're all pretty much the same. You just go to war, eliminating a bunch of AIs. If you play continents, wipe out the AIs on your continent. Puppet everything and keep your own cities to a minimum. From there, you choose: go rationalism SPs and head for space; go hard on culture; continue conquering for domination; buy out CSs for diplo. All set up by conquering though really.

 

[elthrasher]

If you didn't plan early enough for a cultural, it may be too late. You need to limit the number of cities you have to no more than three, and you need to have many of your cultural buildings already built. A cultural victory is one that you really need to plan for from the beginning. If you have a lot of cities, you can give them away and leave yourself one or two, but you likely have wasted too much culture on the policies you've already adopted to make it viable at this point. BTW, Siam is the best civ for a cultural victory because of their UB and passive trait.

Again, it may not be a cultural playstyle but any game that could wind up a dominion victory could also be a culture victory. Kill everyone except leave one capital. Wait. Build culture victory thingie. It's no harder than dominion, but will obviously take a little longer.

Or you could play the Songhai with a small base of real cities and go conquering. Puppets love to build that UB and the culture will come rolling in. You can easily have more than three real cities because your puppets will produce so much culture you'll make up the difference. Any civ can do this, but the Songhai are the best. Their UA means they have lots of gold to rush more military, so the beatings are easy and, like I said, the puppets all will go right for that awesome UB. The advantage here is you don't have to kill everyone. Just try to grab a bunch of puppets. ~20 should do the job in a jiffy.

 

[manu-fan]

Well, a happy ending guys.

I got a Cultural victory in about 2010 AD.

The achievements I got in this game.

Win as El-Rashid
Win on Settler diff
Win on Pagea
Win a Cultural victory
City with 100 Culture
City with 100 Science
Fully Explore Tech Tree
Fully Explore Liberty
Fully Explore Tradition
Fully Explore Order
Fully Explore Rationalisim
Fully Explore Freedom
Drop a Nuke

Quite a productive game

BTW: My next game is Montezuma/Tiny Map/Earth Map/Quick Play/Chieftan. I'll be going for a Science or Diplomatic Victory.

Cheers.

 

[LordTC]

Culture, because on higher difficulties, you sacrifice much of your ability to tech efficiently by having so few non-puppet cities. Furthermore, getting wonders for the 100% culture bonus is much harder, including The Oracle, Sistine Chapel, etc...

I'd imagine that the only civ that could reliably do Deity culture is France, with a large puppet empire from conquest.

Just expand normally save up all your culture till you have enough for all the policies you need at the 1 city cost, then trade all your cities to the AI except your capital.. buy all your policies and great engineer the utopia project. Screw that staying small crap

 

[manu-fan]

Umm....I actually had a Great Engineer that I moved over to my Utopia city. It wasn't able to rush it IIRC.

Cheers.

 

[JudgeDeath]

May I say that it's typical of a Manu fan to want to get achievements in such a way. Must be all those favourable refereeing decisions that make them take the easy route...

 

[Yzman]

You actually do need to win a time victory some 2 achievements.

 

[alpaca]

Songhai is more effective than France, because the buff to Temples doesn't expire. Siam can also do a good job if you manipulate the options available to the puppets with research and pick up Communism. Doing that permits getting Wats up in a timely fashion.

I think Siam might actually be better unless you go very heavy on the puppets. The boost for city state allies is very significant for smaller empires. 30 instead of 20 is quite powerful, 10 culture per city state per turn. And, as you mention, the bonus from Wat is as good as the one from the Mud Pyramid. Songhai probably has a better deal when getting more puppets, though. Extra money is always nice.

On topic: They are all easy. On settler, you'll probably win a time victory or diplomatic by accident. On higher difficulties, cultural is probably the most challenging.

 

[Slowpoke]

Just expand normally save up all your culture till you have enough for all the policies you need at the 1 city cost, then trade all your cities to the AI except your capital.. buy all your policies and great engineer the utopia project. Screw that staying small crap

Not anymore! check the new patch notes. Everything changes when the patch gets released