[GS] Which victory type do you most ENJOY going for?

[Bangau]

I like to do all of them. Sometime going from one into the other is fun as well, combat into culture can be a nice challenge after you've pissed of all the world. I've done diplo only once yet. Somehow it's not something I consider yet when choosing a victory condition. Of all of them I've got the most dom victories I guess. Yes, the AI isn't too great in combat, but they're definitely not too strong in any of the other victory times... I just love building up your army and planning how to conquer your enemies. Every now and then you'll get some interesting challenges, because the combination of the map and the AI's accidentally made it hard to conquer someone. I like those moments.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

I usually start off trying to go for a peaceful victory but then the AI opens its derpy mouth, denounces me for some idiotic reason, such as "They just don't like you", and then I have to slaughter everyone.

 

[MiniatureDeathRobot]

I put down "science", but seriously considered "religion". Scientific victory might not be the most exciting late-game, but it's less tedious than Domination, to the point where I've had several games where I started out heading towards a domination victory but changed course to a scientific victory at the last minute because I was tired of moving around units.

You know what can result in a genuinely exciting late game though IME? Religious victory. On high difficulty levels especially, it's very possible to close in on religious victory while being behind on everything else. And if a civ you haven't converted yet declares war on you and condemns your apostles as heretic you're screwed. But the very things that make the late game potentially exciting end up being a mixed blessing—for example, the fact that you're screwed if all your apostles get condemned as heretics makes it even more salient than usual that your win is based on the AI's stupidity.

 

[Bagfran]

It was a tough choice between Science and Culture for me, but I usually choose Culture over Science in practice, so that's how I voted. I accidentally won a couple of Diplomatic Victories recently, which is rather ironic, given that whenever I've set out to go down that route it's never worked out, but it was strangely satisfying! I cannot be doing with the tedious micromanagement of units that Religion or Domination require, plus I'm a pacifist at heart and the latter just feels wrong to me, even though they're only pixels!

 

[Abaxial]

For enjoyment, probably Domination, as I like moving military units around. But if the map is so large it's hard to bring force to bear on awkwardly placed foes, I may switch to RV.

 

[Isengardtom]

Any except domination

 

[qadams]

Score, I don't like playing for victory states that can end the game early

Do you usually play at a faster speed, like Online, or maybe start at a more recent era than Ancient? Because otherwise it's amazing that anyone would have the patience to go for a Score victory. Doesn't that take a REALLY long time?

 

[CoconutTank]

Elimination is the victory type I pursue most often. An eliminated civ can't compete on victory conditions and can't stymie my progress. It's true that the AI's combat capability leaves much to be desired, but I still find that more interesting than clicking and waiting for buildings/wonders/projects to finish, and still better than sometimes losing out of the blue to another civ that I should've eliminated in the first place.

 

[bengalryan9]

I prefer a diplomatic victory, as getting those last few points to claim the victory when everyone is voting against you can be a fun chase and you usually need to win a competition/emergency or snag certain wonders along the way to get there. It's not perfect by any stretch, but it's not the slog that most other victory conditions can be.

I am of course talking about an actual diplomatic victory and not "domination that I'm going to cheese to get credit for a diplomatic victory". Your mileage may vary though.

 

[Gedemon]

Do you usually play at a faster speed, like Online, or maybe start at a more recent era than Ancient? Because otherwise it's amazing that anyone would have the patience to go for a Score victory. Doesn't that take a REALLY long time?

It was a general civ-like games answer, not a vanilla civ6 specific answer, I think even the devs realized that the civ6 endgame was boring seing how they balanced the victories timing.

But when I "play" civ6, it's actually for testing my overhaul mod's development, and then I play at a lower speed (750 turns), because it's designed this way.

 

[m_mus]

For me its culture.
I kind of like, how going for a CV also lets your realm prosper as a necessary side-effect. Having nationalparks, sea-side-resorts and museums kind of demands not to fall behind neither in science, production nor the military. When I achieve my CV, I have big, prosperous, wonder-filled cities. Yet I should say that I do not belong to the minmaxing deity-class of players (emperor or immortal in fact). I like my games to extend into the last era in order to create an immersive world, so achieving victory by turn X is not my mark for success.

 

[Casualty of war]

I have a tough time finishing games once I've got the game well in hand. Generally by the start of the Medieval I have my infrastructure framed out and just have 100 Turns of fiddling ahead. I wish the AI had better capability to surprise in the late game, turn things around, make a major breakthrough, but they don't.

So I play a lot of 100 turn games, and don't finish the ones I'm doing best at because the conclusion is foregone. Uncertainty creates drama and tension, and this is a snowball, power begets power game.

Cultural would probably be my favorite because I am a builder and want my civilization to be well-regarded. I miss Vassal states and civs just acknowledging that you were the superior leader for their people.

 

[Beaver79]

I usually found a religion, take out my first neighbor or two and then go for whatever victory will be faster after that point. That would usually be science on a larger map size. On a standard size map culture if no Pericles or Dom/Religious if there is.

Diplomacy is a slog. You have to stop yourself from either not taking everyone's capitals, ratcheting down your culture so you don't win that, or intentionally not launching exoplanet because you will win any of those 3 victories before you get a Diplo victory. It's too slow and you have to intentionally not win other conditions in order to get it.

 

[TomeTraveler]

The problem is, as others have pointed out, that the Civ 6 late game is boring. I start each game with enthusiasm, but at some point I just want it to be over. Unfortunately, I still feel compelled to finish all my games. I know this is irrational. The feeling is that if I don't finish the game, it was somehow pointless to play it.

Once it becomes apparent that all I have to do to win is keep going on as I have been, it does become boring and depending on how long I think it will take to complete I will sometimes go ahead and quit the game, other times go into autopilot mode (building fairly randomly aside from the space projects, for example) and discontinuing new settlements--if I had the energy I would continue sending out new settlers at a regular but not rapid rate to occupy all of the marginal or outlying areas that are yet available, but once the game passes the boredom threshold for me, I just want it to be over.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

Wow - culture is at 41%. Earlier Civs it would have been last if on the list at all.

 

[Abaxial]

Wow - culture is at 41%. Earlier Civs it would have been last if on the list at all.

It doesn't surprise me, but Science is 2nd and I find it really tedious compared to Civ V.

 

[qadams]

It doesn't surprise me, but Science is 2nd and I find it really tedious compared to Civ V.

What surprises me is that Religious victory is so low. It may not be the most exciting but it's fairly easy, so I would have expected a few more people to name that as their fave.

 

[Archon_Wing]

RV is the only victory you can be locked out of. Not many civs have faith bonuses.

 

[CoconutTank]

I can grok religious victories, but it's still less interesting to me than elimination. It feels more dependent on windfalls than other victory types, especially within the first 50ish turns. I need to not get locked out of founding a religion, and I need to spread it asap before it gets consumed by another religion. In fact I need to be getting faith before I actually get Holy Sites, so an early religious CS or built-in source of faith (like with Indonesia) is rather imperative.

After that, to conduct a religious victory, I end up only using 2 types of units: Missionaries are only good to round out spare faith for conversions, and Apostles are more tedious to manage than military units. Apostles having random promos means that each Apostle can be fulfilling a unique role, but they all look the same on the map. I'm usually dealing with multiple other things, so I tend to lose track of promos and charges on Apostles. This is less of a problem with military units because they all look different and have different icons, and even if I split promos for some military units, they usually have the key promos that matter. I'm not sure what kind of UI changes can be made to help with differentiating Apostles better.

To be fair, Gurus and Inquisitors exist, so I'm not using the full diversity of religious units available. I've never felt particularly compelled to get either; it seems much more productive to get Moksha and just roll Apostles as often as possible.

 

[tetley]

Ii like RV. I think I average 1 guru a game, because that's what made mathematical sense. If a guru saves just 1 apostle, it's worth it. The price of apostles can go way up as you buy 8 of them. I only need 1 guru. And Moksha can only be at one place at a time.

The problem with inquisitors is you have to burn an apostle (even if a half-used, poorly-promoted one) to even start getting inquisitors, but only like 2 Inqs are needed. But a Dark Age/Heroic age can really turn an RV on its head.

The beauty of both Inqs and gurus is that they are not entirely useless fighting. For fighting, missionaries are crap.

Funnily, what I find the most underrated religious unit? Military engineers! Building out those railroads has worked out well.