Why Scientific or Cultural win over Diplomatic?

[walkerjks]

Some background to start - I just started playing Civ5 in the last month and have a few wins (up to King) under my belt. I also helped develop many of the Civ 4 cultural/peaceful ways to win in Civ 4 (I had the earliest deity cultural win in the HoF, afaik). So I'm a Civ5 neophyte with some winning peacefully background.

My question is this - What are the scenarios under which a scientific win or cultural win can happen earlier than a diplomatic win? I've been trying to play the cultural game. I've seen Martin's spectacularly fast science wins on Deity. But it seems to me that there are few cases where a peaceful victory wouldn't be faster as diplomatic. Is this the case? The UN is available far earlier than Spaceship parts. It seems lie the UN is available before you can rack up 30 social policies. RAs combined with blocking (an exploit? Feels like it to me, but the last patch seems to endorse the strategy) is way too powerful and seems to help a slingshot to a poarticular tech rather than developing a reasonable industrial base necessary to support spaceship construction.

What am I missing here? I guess the overall question is, should I decide to play the (mostly) peaceful game, what circumstance would lead me to chase a cultural or scientific win over diplomatic?

Edit to correct some grammar.

 

[MadDjinn]

they can't. Cultural and Technology VCs are longer than Diplomatic ones.


choosing cultural or scientific is your choice. Do them if you want to; else don't.

 

[JJOne]

My only two cultural wins until now happened before the UN became available.

 

[walkerjks]

they can't. Cultural and Technology VCs are longer than Diplomatic ones.


choosing cultural or scientific is your choice. Do them if you want to; else don't.

I appreciate that confirmation. City-states seem to add a ridiculously easy diplomatic victory, assuming you have the proper combination (all relatively low barriers) of tech, cash, and social policies (aka culture).

 

[MadDjinn]

I appreciate that confirmation. City-states seem to add a ridiculously easy diplomatic victory, assuming you have the proper combination (all relatively low barriers) of tech, cash, and social policies (aka culture).

primarily you just need the right RA slingshots/GSs and an engineer to speed up the UN. (you could build it but menh)

If you go that way, cash is pretty easy by settling just near lux and going into Patronage. (though not needed)

then there's the ultimate 'exploit your way to winning' - selling everything, including gpt, to each AI successively, buy off their allies, then declare war. rinse repeat 2 turns before the vote.

 

[_hero_]

There are 2 scenarios. 1 is you have just your capital and a ton of puppets and have done everything in your power to get culture. I have gotten Utopia built before discovering Globalization with this method so don't believe it isn't possible.

The second is when the AI has taken out so many City states that a diplomatic victory is no longer possible due to lack of votes. It's rare but it does happen.

 

[MadDjinn]

There are 2 scenarios. 1 is you have just your capital and a ton of puppets and have done everything in your power to get culture. I have gotten Utopia built before discovering Globalization with this method so don't believe it isn't possible.

The second is when the AI has taken out so many City states that a diplomatic victory is no longer possible due to lack of votes. It's rare but it does happen.

and what turn was that? + difficulty?

Just because you yourself didn't bother going to Globalization, doesn't mean going culture was 'faster'. That proves nothing.

Given, actually shown, a sub-200 turn Science victory, which requires by far more RAs/GSs than a diplomatic victory and has to go through Globalization, can occur on Deity. Then, it is easy to assume that for ~10 less techs (RAs/GSs) and one more GE, You can get a sub-150 turn Diplo victory. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sub-130 Diplo victory if the particular game setup is 'lucky'.

Given that, there is 0 chance for someone to fill out all of the policy trees required to even start the Utopia Project by then.

edit: oh, and if the AI goes and kills enough CSs to prevent a diplo victory, you just liberate them.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Given, actually shown, a sub-200 turn Science victory, which requires by far more RAs/GSs than a diplomatic victory and has to go through Globalization, can occur on Deity. Then, it is easy to assume that for ~10 less techs (RAs/GSs) and one more GE, You can get a sub-150 turn Diplo victory. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sub-130 Diplo victory if the particular game setup is 'lucky'.

Fastest I've done was turn 156 with Babylon in the original release. One of the HoF Betas was completed in the 70s on Quick IIRC using Siam.

Siam's going to be the fastest by a pretty wide margin. It'll be easier to scoop up the necessary policies and still push Meritocracy for the GE. GS production isn't quite so important, since you don't need a boatload of techs.

I'm thinking that sub-130 is a reach, but sub-140 should be doable if everything breaks right.

 

[_hero_]

and what turn was that? + difficulty?

Just because you yourself didn't bother going to Globalization, doesn't mean going culture was 'faster'. That proves nothing.

Given, actually shown, a sub-200 turn Science victory, which requires by far more RAs/GSs than a diplomatic victory and has to go through Globalization, can occur on Deity. Then, it is easy to assume that for ~10 less techs (RAs/GSs) and one more GE, You can get a sub-150 turn Diplo victory. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sub-130 Diplo victory if the particular game setup is 'lucky'.

Given that, there is 0 chance for someone to fill out all of the policy trees required to even start the Utopia Project by then.

edit: oh, and if the AI goes and kills enough CSs to prevent a diplo victory, you just liberate them.

1. With the new culture boosts in Tradition, accumulating enough culture is faster.
2. It takes turns to go liberating CSs. The bigger the map is the relatively longer diplomatic victories take. It costs more gold, and liberating CSs means more movement and more troops the bigger the map. Also, with the newest patch, gold is more scarce than before early in the game so RAs are at least a little more scarce early on.

Yes, on a standard or smaller map, Diplo is by far the fastest or the 3. On a huge map it evens out a bit more.

 

[joncnunn]

The main time a cultural win will be faster than a diplomatic win is if you never build any settlers; and either do a true OCC or use your city to conquer but leave all your conquests as puppets so they don't increase your social costs.
Also you'll need cultural city states to go that route and have it be faster.

Scientific win requires completion of the tech tree to unlock all the spaceship components; so the only way that can be faster than Diplomatic win is to NOT build markets, mints, etc.

Note that while gold in early to mid game is much lower post patch; that Economics brings it back up to what it was.
And once you throw a Hospital on top of a city that already had a Granary + Aquaduct, your cities popuations will explode making your late game gold higher than pre patch.

My question is this - What are the scenarios under which a scientific win or cultural win can happen earlier than a diplomatic win?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well the main difference of a scientific or cultural win from a diplomatic one is that the AI can theoretically steal a diplomatic win from you with money.

However, AI treasury manipulation seems to be both easy and profitable on Deity level... so Diplomatic is almost always faster than Scientific. "OCC" Culturals can be faster though. (since the only 'tech' required is renaisance era)

 

[vexing]

if you exploit RAs you can definitely get economic win faster than cultural, even occ.
for a fast cultural win you need to get telegraph and radio, for economic you can block those. it's entirely possible to get a sub 200 occ economic victory, prior to patch occ cultural would take at least 240, science even more.

 

[maltz]

Cultural is very different game from Science and Diplomatic in terms of what to do and build.
In general, whatever makes you powerful, you don't do it.

Indeed, Science victory feels stupid when one could win a lot faster diplomatically.