When do you decide your victory condition?

[ridjack]

Setting aside extremely focused civs like Babylon or Korea, how early in the game do you decide what victory condition you're pushing for? It feels like it's gotten a lot harder to decide that too early in the game, and I'm wondering if I'm missing something or if more generalist development is how it goes now.

 

[Stalker0]

So most games I start with at least some idea of what VC I'm going for. To me it tends to crystalize around Industrial, as that is when I need to go "alright I'm on track for my VC" or "ok time to switch gears and go a different route"

 

[Kevun1]

Depends on the victory type. You can decide whether you're going for science or culture victory pretty late, and you can switch between the two pretty late as well. Since and increase exponentially throughout the game, early / really doesn't matter too much to victory (unless you fall like really behind on techs). All of the medieval/industrial policy choices also can work well for both science/culture victory, so I find that you should generally pick what is the strongest in the moment rather than what is better for eventual victory. It also helps that for both victory types, you want to focus on the top of the tech tree, with key techs for both science/cultural victory like Architecture, Scientific Theory, Archaeology, Plastics, Radio being on the top. I find that a good time to have a general idea by is Industrial, since if you want to go for tourism, being aggressive with archaeologists is pretty important. Definitely by ideologies you should know what you are going for, but even then all of the ideologies have enough flexibility to go for any victory condition, even if they may be more suited to some.

However, I find that for diplomatic victory, you need to commit slightly earlier, since early game decisions have a greater impact. You really want Statecraft if you are going diplomatic, since it just gives so many extra votes if you get Palace of Westminster. Your belief choices are also much more important for diplomatic than for science/culture, since Way of Noble Truths is a huge source of influence late game that lets you compete for heavily contested city-states even without spheres of influence. You also really want to pick an aggressive spreading religion to get the extra votes from religious authority. Going for Great Diplomats to get embassies early is also a key decision you have to make early on.

As for domination, I never really go for it formally, as I find if you conquer enough you can win by any other method faster. War can usually be a key part of any strategy, even if you're not going domination, so I feel like you never specifically focus on domination victory. If you do, generally going for imperialism/autocracy is the key decision here.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you often need to change your victory condition depending on the other civs in the game. If there are many strong cultural civs like Netherlands, Brazil, etc. then cultural victory is much harder, same for diplomatic victory if Austria is in the game, etc.

But yeah, generally I don't go all in on a victory condition until pretty late, and just try to focus on getting into a strong position, with the exception of diplomatic victory. This is on standard diety, but I'd imagine it would be even more true for other difficulties/settings.

 

[looorg]

I click the randomize victory condition box when I setup the game. It will tell me when the time comes.

 

[James Ryle]

I click the randomize victory condition box when I setup the game. It will tell me when the time comes.

I'd like to play on randomize but I was just wondering on your thoughts...

Why do you do this? What makes it more... fun, interesting, engaging?

When you randomize do you feel the AI is at more of a disadvantage because it already has a 'purpose' in mind from the beginning because of its inbuilt mechanics. As in it would then find it harder to shift later to a different victory condition? Where as if you are balancing everything to see what victory condition arises you have an advantage on the rest of the Civs that were already going for that victory condition. The Civs already going for the Victory condition would have the advantage on you.

I'm just wondering have I got that right?

 

[looorg]

I'd like to play on randomize but I was just wondering on your thoughts...

Why do you do this? What makes it more... fun, interesting, engaging?

When you randomize do you feel the AI is at more of a disadvantage because it already has a 'purpose' in mind from the beginning because of its inbuilt mechanics. As in it would then find it harder to shift later to a different victory condition? Where as if you are balancing everything to see what victory condition arises you have an advantage on the rest of the Civs that were already going for that victory condition. The Civs already going for the Victory condition would have the advantage on you.

I'm just wondering have I got that right?

I mostly do it so that I can't plan for a specific victory condition, except score and domination that are always available. But I don't tend to plan for either of those. Instead I have to be "ready" for anything. So in some way an advantage for the player I guess in that it promotes building a good an solid foundation that you can when revealed swing in the wining direction. In some regard it promotes better play if you ask me instead of someone in a way earlier era somehow starts to plan for their space race victory which is just silly, but totally viable.

Does it hurt or harm the AI more then me? I don't think so. Naturally it can be devastating I guess if some AI is ahead by a lot and then the randomization just pulls the rug out from them and their current victory condition by setting them in another direction. That said if they are ahead they can usually swing it in the right direction to. Still the same could happen to me to so it's not unfair in that regard. But I still find that it is rare that such a thing happens, it could also just as well swing the other way since it's only three options that it totally aligns with your preset goal and then war is the only way to stop the AI. In some regard it probably actually hurt me, the player, more as I can technically long term plan on a level the AI can only dream about only to then get pulled in another direction at the late game.

That said I don't think the randomized victory condition is really that big a deal. It's more that I just random more or less anything that can be put on random as far as the map is concerned so I figured I might as well just randomize the victory condition to and it turned out that I kind of liked it. Not for the AI but for myself, as I think or have come to think that it promotes a better civilization building. Building a strong core and be ready for anything instead of somehow early just decide that this is an X game and then plan for that since ancient times.

 

[James Ryle]

I mostly do it so that I can't plan for a specific victory condition, except score and domination that are always available. But I don't tend to plan for either of those. Instead I have to be "ready" for anything. So in some way an advantage for the player I guess in that it promotes building a good an solid foundation that you can when revealed swing in the wining direction. In some regard it promotes better play if you ask me instead of someone in a way earlier era somehow starts to plan for their space race victory which is just silly, but totally viable.

Does it hurt or harm the AI more then me? I don't think so. Naturally it can be devastating I guess if some AI is ahead by a lot and then the randomization just pulls the rug out from them and their current victory condition by setting them in another direction. That said if they are ahead they can usually swing it in the right direction to. Still the same could happen to me to so it's not unfair in that regard. But I still find that it is rare that such a thing happens, it could also just as well swing the other way since it's only three options that it totally aligns with your preset goal and then war is the only way to stop the AI. In some regard it probably actually hurt me, the player, more as I can technically long term plan on a level the AI can only dream about only to then get pulled in another direction at the late game.

That said I don't think the randomized victory condition is really that big a deal. It's more that I just random more or less anything that can be put on random as far as the map is concerned so I figured I might as well just randomize the victory condition to and it turned out that I kind of liked it. Not for the AI but for myself, as I think or have come to think that it promotes a better civilization building. Building a strong core and be ready for anything instead of somehow early just decide that this is an X game and then plan for that since ancient times.

Thanks for the excellent answer, Looorg! I'm definitely looking forward to giving random victory a try.

Also, I'll random it all up as much as possible including my starting Civ. I'm used to playing Comunitas maps for ages and I know some of the other map types are not optimally balanced but that can bring back more of the fun factor again of the unknown.

 

[looorg]

Also, I'll random it all up as much as possible including my starting Civ. I'm used to playing Comunitas maps for ages and I know some of the other map types are not optimally balanced but that can bring back more of the fun factor again of the unknown.

I mostly play with the included communitas map to. I forget the number now but it's the one that it's included so I didn't download it special or anything. You can random up a lot of things as noted; age, temperature, rain, shape, oceans, gaps and so forth. The one I would sort of stay away from (or not) is the luxury and strategic resources once. It can get a bit weird if you have abundant legendary starts etc. But everyone will have it. I'm just not totally into that one. It is also somewhat tilted on one random as there are more good options then bad, as I recall it there is sparse and then normal and then two good options. So it's only one in four it will get sparse but 3 in 4 that it will be normal or better. For some reason I kind of like it when it is a bit worse in that regard. Less luxuries, less strategics and less of them when you find them. More of a struggle for resources which as I mentioned I kind of like. In some regard it makes me plan a bit more -- where to settle, do I go war over that Iron etc. Even with a sparse world tho you still tend to have a good capital location and then you can usually build a decent core of cities.

 

[azum4roll]

It is also somewhat tilted on one random as there are more good options then bad, as I recall it there is sparse and then normal and then two good options. So it's only one in four it will get sparse but 3 in 4 that it will be normal or better.

For resource density, there's a linearly distributed chance of getting a multiplier between 0.5x and 1x, and then the multiplier is inverted (1/x) 50% of the time, which makes sparse and dense equally possible.

 

[looorg]

For resource density, there's a linearly distributed chance of getting a multiplier between 0.5x and 1x, and then the multiplier is inverted (1/x) 50% of the time, which makes sparse and dense equally possible.

I was partially wrong, I had a recollection of there being four options and random, but the fourth option was random. Don't know or recall now if it has always been like that or if it changed someplace along the way. Or I just imagined it. Anyway, it's how it is now anyway with Communitu 79a v233.

So it's small-normal-large or sparse-normal-abundant for most of the density options. Still either way if put on random it's a 2/3 choice that it stays the same or becomes what you don't want. Or if you will I would assume it's 1/3 that you get whatever option that you randomly select. Either way I still prefer to just set them to small and sparse instead of going all random with them. I really don't like the abundant large density option. But as noted it's a personal preference.

I guess you could get some interesting combinations of spare amounts of deposits but those few deposits all have abundant yields and vice versa. But as mentioned it's not really to my liking.

It's a bit odd that luxuries doesn't have size like strategics -- like you can get multiple horses or iron or whatnot but you don't get multiple Whales or Gold or whatever from the one plot. So in that regard all luxuries are created equal. I guess it makes up for it by instead having multiple or more plots of them. But it's odd that there isn't both. Like this is a really large Gold deposit that then grants 2-3 points of it.