What's your preferred Civ5 victory? Which would you create?

[Blue3]

It's not an option, but I actually prefer when there was a Conquest victory, which meant "dominating" every city on the planet.

Will our political/military/social/economic problems end when we build a base on Mars, or in Alpha Centauri?
Nope.

Will they end if there's "one culture"?
Nope
(that basically has happened with Western culture, and if you think it hasn't, then that shows how impossible this would even be, without some world dictator).

Will they end if one government was "elected" as the first among equals at the UN?
Lol nope.

Will they end if you conquer every current capital in the world and hold it for a few years?
Lol nope.

Will they end based on who has the "high score" once we reach the year 2050?
Lol.

They wouldn't end if one nation were to conquer everyone else either, but it would seem more like "winning the game" or "end of history" than just having the UN stacked for you, or some vague notion of your cultural norms becoming widespread or building a base on Mars.

If I have to choose diplomatic would be the best to live-in if it were real life even though I'm definitely more left-libertarian (though it actually "working" in real life is probably impossible), but the most fun to play is either science or domination/conquest.



So my second question... what would you create as a "victory scenario"?

[John Dule]

Can confirm accuracy of this political compass. I mostly go for diplomatic victories. Domination is easily the most fun, but I normally try to at least start the game by being peaceful. Inevitably though, I settle a city somewhere or start an alliance that pisses off half the world, and then the Blitz is on.

Only done science once. Never bothered with a cultural victory; that's hippie sh**t.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

Religion Victory. Or if you're old school,  zerg-rush conquest with catapults.

Oh specifically Civ5. Quit and play civ4.

[PPT Spiral]

Oh specifically Civ5. Quit and play civ4.

Sound advice right here.

[7,052,770]

Cultural or science usually. Maybe one of the others if a viable path exists.

I tried to get into Civ6 a few months ago and it just didn't grab me. Felt like a total conversion mod for Civ5 that's still in Beta. I would like to give it another shot some time though.

[Cokeland Saxton]

Science. I usually disable Time, Culture takes too long, diplomatic is too difficult to do, and domination just isn't the way I play

[Santander]

Science. I usually disable Time, Culture takes too long, diplomatic is too difficult to do, and domination just isn't the way I play

Diplo is considered the easiest VC by far because it requires zero skill and can be achieved solely by hanging around until the end and hoarding gold. In even friendly semi-serious play, it is considered a "bail out" VC or a worthy challenge only if you try for fast Deity Diplo.(i.e. tech Info Age as fast as possible to trigger WL vote and win before T200) I literally won by Diplo on Deity on my third game of BNW with a mediocre civ (France or some sh**t) on Standard/Standard/Pangaea starting from zero Civ experience.

Obviously, the first thing I mastered was the T250 Deity Science Victory, which is also the backbone of a peaceful Deity Internet Culture Victory. I could work on refining it to try for Sub-T220 times (if I had time to play Civ), but that's really not my play style and not appealing to me.

Game styles I prefer are:

- Sacred Sites CV on Continents - The only really memorable game I've done below Deity (was on Immortal), much harder than it looks, and a far cry from the cheese that is Sacred Sites below Deity. Requires founding a fast religion, getting at least 2 faith buildings, and generating a Great Admiral (unless you're Polynesia or the Maya) through naval combat in the early game to scout the world and meet all civs to start building tourism influence well before Astronomy.

- Honor/Commerce/(Autocracy) Domination - By far the most fun and stylish way to play Deity. This is the reason why I consider Sweden extremely strong. Landships/Tanks/Modern Armor sweeps are stupidly strong and fun with Lightning Warfare.

- Medieval Domination - Crossbows, Cannons, Knights. A purist's Domination game. Anyone who tells you Cannons aren't good have no idea what they're doing.

- Horse Archer rush - waaaaaaaaay more fun than Keshik or Camel Archer games.

- Violent Culture - Steal the AI's wonders, and win by Culture. Satisfying, and fast.

- Polynesia Galleass Domination - Abuse Polynesia's ability to enter ocean immediately, rush Compass, and dominate with what are basically Medieval Frigates. Not unfair on Continents, OP on Archipelago.

[Lechasseur]

I've never really played Civ5 but I definitely played Civ4 and Civilization Revolution alot when I was younger and my favorite trype of victory was the CULTURE victory. I liked that one, I liked developing my country's culture by building World Wonders and other stuff like that.

I have also won Science, Time (the one I usually won with) and Diplomacy (the least common, it's the hardest one other than Domination for me) victories, but never a Domination victory (sometimes war is necessary in the game, but I wasn't interested enough in it to try to conquer everyone).

Civ4 and Civilization Revolution were easy enough, on the other hand I never managed to win in Civ3, that one was definitely the hardest out of the Civilization games I played.

[Lechasseur]

Cultural or science usually. Maybe one of the others if a viable path exists.

I tried to get into Civ6 a few months ago and it just didn't grab me. Felt like a total conversion mod for Civ5 that's still in Beta. I would like to give it another shot some time though.

That was me with Civ5. You had to buy all the extensions in order to be able to have all the functionalities and stuff you had in Civ4. I figured I had better stuff to do with my money so I just continued playing Civ4 instead.

Civ4 was the best Civilization game imo. The only things I preferred with Civ5 were the quality of the graphics and the larger offer of civilizations.

I've never, ever played Civ6.

[Meclazine for Israel]

With Civ 5, I play KING with 4 teams of 2, and I let the computer decide who my partner is, as long as it is not Venice.

Then I wind the time down and go to the oldest time. I like the basic beginnings of that game as it is simple, elegant, and the PC does not slow down with the number of turns.

The only bug I have found is that when I have finally got 2 Cargo Ships saved up from two cities trading with the same City State (Bulk income $$$), my partner picks a fight with them and I lose the ships because he is my ally.

21st century problem, but so annoying as they are $900 each, and you get them at a stage in the game when you are only earning around $20 a year. So it takes 100 years to get them back every time your partner picks a fight.

And you cannot communicate to your partner to tell him to stop doing it.

As for the end game, I always turn it off when the music has revolved too many times.

They should just provide music updates to change the classical background music to freshen the same game up. I am sure someone has done that.

[Alben Barkley]

Guess I’m auth-right then, cause domination is easily the best. Half the fun in the game is nuking what’s left of the unconquered world into submission. It’s the only truly satisfying ending. As you say, the rest don’t even make sense. Science victory? Build a rocket and go to space? By that logic, the USSR “won” civilization! And the US has already “won” by most of the other metrics. Obviously our culture is very much dominant around the world, we have the most diplomatic influence, etc. We also are militarily dominant, but we haven’t actually outright conquered the world. Civ lets you do that, and it’s easily the most fun. Very satisfying to annex cities or just destroy them.

[John Dule]

(Sanders wins diplomacy victory by running errands for city-states, whereas Bloomberg just plays for gold.)

[Santander]

I'd let Tulsi get Domination Victory over me.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Culture victory is the one I prefer because I like that one the most, but I also think it's the most difficult one (except for Time because Time is boring), although in my latest games i've become better at culture victories, and I believe my first Deity victory was perhaps a culture victory? (or was it science?).

Science victory is the easiest, but they have increased the difficulty of it in expansions / patches, and it's probably the victory i have earned the most.

Diplomatic victory is also quite easy to be honest, if you learn to get to know the AI.

Domination and Time victories are tedious and not fun, esp. if you play on larger maps or with more AI players.

OH LOL. This is about Civ 5...

I actually think Civ 5 is weaker than Civ 6, sorry. I'm not a fan of Civ 5, because of it's focus on tall gameplay and it being incredibly hard to play wide. I'm also much better in Civ 6.

I don't think I exaggerate when i have trouble winning on King difficulty (the 5th one), while on Civ 6 i can win on Deity, but I understand the AI of Civ 6 much better (and the mechanics and gameplay).

[LAKISYLVANIA]

That being said Civ 6 is also not perfect, and for the fans, next month civ will get some competition with Humankind, which is new civ-like game which is going to be very good as well, i believe.

The issue with civ 6 is indeed the AI that is lacking, and also that the end-game is very often boring, because of the AI being too weak, and usually the player requiring on higher difficulties to have some kind of challenge, but because of the bonuses they receive the early game is extremely hard on harder difficulties, while if you survive that and your empire is starting to build up, developing and sprawling the end-game is still quite easy, even on the highest difficulty. But it's not always possible to survive the early game, and it's quite luck-based.

Many AI civs focus too much on competing for early wonders, as well as competing for religions and gathering lots of faith which is not very useful compared to other districts (as well as the AI unable to buy things with money or faith).

Unless you want to go for a religious victory, it's generally not worth it to go for a religion on higher difficulties and it's also not worth it to go for early wonders, unless if they change the game dramatically (beeline towards it than) or if the AI prioritizes them less. I believe that's the case for the Oracle and Colosseum, but almost not for all the other classical era wonders (and earlier). When you get in the Medieval era, more wonders are worth consider going for (but the religions one not), and in the end game you are usually first with whichever wonder what to build and if not, you should start again, because you're not likely to win that game than.