Sid Meier's Civilization Series (Main Titles)

Mostly it takes a lot of patience.

Granted, I've never actually tried to get a domination victory in a Civ game. Why can't we all be friends, I say. The occasional pruning off jerkass expansionist neighbors aside.

edited 21st Aug '16 11:49:22 PM by KnownUnknown

Domination just gets boring after awhile because it's completely obvious that you're going to win but you just have to keep on trudging through enemy territory and cities.

Agreed that unless you're playing on small maps with like two or three players, Domination victories are boring. Too grindy. I'm not adviser to warfare, but that's generally more of a case of putting Monty out of everyone's misery when he gets in over his head.

All types of victories become boring when you reach the endgame honestly. With Diplomatic it's usually a matter of waiting until you reach the vote for World Leader while you are allied with every city-state (or, if Alexander is here, killing him then doing that). Cultural wins usually pit you against a single opponent that has 5 times as much culture as everyone else, and you end up winning because you rush the great firewall. And Science wins force you to go to the end of the tech tree which takes a long time.

Honestly, might as well warfare. With some civs it is super fun - Mongolia and Arabia first and foremost, but Zulu, Hunnic, England, China or Carthage all make wars fun to go through. And if you play in difficulty 6+ then the AI will have a massive troop advantage to counteract its helplessness with tactics.

I also recommend playing the Future Worlds mod. It makes the endgame much less boring by dramatically increasing the options during the Information era. It also adds a couple of nifty wonders that can really tip the scale in the favor of whoever builds them.

Once you are the first to build Hotels, win the International Games, and/or research Internet, if you can't win a Cultural victory at that point, you might as well give up and go for another type.

The core "problem" with Civ gameplay is that it's an Unstable Equilibrium. The game features very little in the way of catch-up mechanics, so once a player is ahead, they tend to get ahead farther. While a human player can focus down leading civs for pruning off their lead, the AI is notoriously bad at ganging up on whoever's ahead.

Once you have a sufficient strategic lead, the primary obstacle to a Domination victory is Happiness. The core mechanic isn't winning wars, since that's cake; it's, "Do I have enough Happiness to capture this city without throwing my empire into disorder?" This is not inherently fun.

edited 22nd Aug '16 5:07:48 AM by Fighteer

Domination is actually the one victory where you can easily get ganged-up on if so you choose, which balances things out. Make sure you exterminate a civ or two and the hate towards you will always supercede the hate towards your neighbors.

And really, on difficulty 6+, the AI gets enough bonuses to make warfare entertaining. A big enough civ will easily field three or four times as much troops as you do, and while you can still exploit the dumb AI priorities to defeat them, it requires some strategic knowledge. If you play on Immortal or Deity, you might even get a significant tech disadvantage that makes warfare against huge carpets really difficult.

You can be sure to win a culture victory...yet be forced to wait 50+ turns because Casimir produced so much culture you have to wait until your tourism overrides it (even with Great Musicians thrown in the mix).

I love winning "diplomatic" victories via basically be the de facto dictator of the world. If you have enough gold to bribe city states into being allies, you end up having more delegates than all the other civs combined.

Diplomatic victory = Bribing Your Way to Victory.

Science victory is the thing you get if you've somehow manage to avoid any other victory type, but you don't want to win (or lose) by time.

I've played a few games where I wanted to get a Science victory, but failed because the other ones are much more accessible. In particular, getting a Sci victory and not getting into the battle for a Culture victory beforehand is rather difficult.

edited 22nd Aug '16 9:13:04 AM by KnownUnknown

This is, in fact, my major issue with Brave New World — a Science victory is all but impossible unless the game is so balanced that no player has a clear path to any other victory condition, and you're literally racing to get that last spaceship part manufactured and shipped off to your capital.

There's also a sort of inevitability to a Culture victory that other conditions lack. Unlike the other types, you aren't really actively doing anything to make it happen; you just do your thing while some progress bars creep along and, all of a sudden, "You are Influential with 5 out of 6 civilizations..."

It's rather amusing: in a game where you're going for a Domination victory, if you defeat all but one civilization, you immediately get the "Cultural Victory imminent" message for both you and your rival, since there is literally only one civ left for each to become Influential over. I suppose that it would even become possible to spontaneously lose if you are in a weird situation where your last rival is Influential over you and you kill off all the other civs.

edited 22nd Aug '16 9:27:18 AM by Fighteer

It is possible to avoid a Culture victory actually, if you use your great writers for bonus culture and your great artists for golden ages (that's especially true if you are playing as Persia - never ever produce a Great Work of Art). Then use your Great Musicians to get influence over the civs that are going cultural so that you don't get screwed if they choose another ideology. If you need basic tourism, use archaeologists.

Agreed, but it's weird how you have to be deliberately trying to avoid a Cultural victory when you would otherwise be ahead...

Now that I think about it, you can still use Archaeologists while avoiding too much Tourism if you turn all the dig sites in your own territory into Landmarks. I just can't resist the lure of theming bonuses for that juicy, juicy CPT, which also coincidentally gives you lots of Tourism.

What really pushes the Tourism curve up, though, is the building of Hotels and Airports. Unlike every other building in the game, I have to actively decide not to build them if I don't want a Cultural victory; this is particularly annoying in the case of Airports as they are otherwise incredibly useful for transportation. What makes this stand out is that military, scientific, and economic buildings don't win the game just by being built; you still have to do something actively with the resources they provide...

Edit: Do we know yet how the Cultural victory will work in Civ VI? Is it going to be the same deal of spamming Tourism?

edited 22nd Aug '16 9:47:31 AM by Fighteer

It seems the victory conditions are thus:

edited 22nd Aug '16 9:53:37 AM by Blueeyedrat

Huh, I wonder how the Visiting Tourists vs. Domestic Tourists thing will work, and whether it will be distinct from one's normal Culture progression or a side-effect thereof.

Also, the Religious victory sounds very interesting. I wonder if the game will let you use attempted conversion of your citizens as a casus belli, unlike Civ V where you get warmonger penalties for attacking someone who's sending Missionaries and Great Prophets into your territory.

edited 22nd Aug '16 9:55:31 AM by Fighteer

VI's diplomacy actually will have a casus belli system. Supposedly there are six (the only one confirmed is Reconquest, for taking back territory lost in a previous war, which can negate the warmonger penalty entirely), and I'd bet anything there's a Crusade option or some equivalent.

The casus belli idea is straight out of Crusader kings's book,if it works in a similar manner

Interesting to see what other games have influenced them

There's been no information about late game affinities, so am I correct in assuming that the affinity system is gone and/or replaced by Governments?

Huh? Affinities are a part of Beyond Earth, not the main Civ series.

There were late game ones like Autocracy, democracy, communism that were basically affinities in the late game of civ 5. i forget exactly what they were called.

Oh, you mean Ideologies. I'm not sure if they are in Civ VI.

Sure, ideologies, affinities, whatever.

Governments do seem to be replacing the social policy system. You have a deck of policy cards and a set number to fill (Military, Economy, Diplomacy, Wildcard):

I wouldn't be surprised if the last tier of governments affected diplomacy in some way.

It seems likely that having similar government types would confer diplomatic benefits, and vice versa.

Regarding religion, they've mentioned something called Theological Combat which I'd imagine is meant to make the religion spreading game deeper. Like, maybe you could fortify your cities against missionaries by boosting your theological defense somehow.

I mean, I don't think any details have been explained, but they're clearly making the system more complicated somehow.