Unanswered question from the live stream

[Daganev]

During the modern era Livestream a question was asked about winning with culture while trying for a science victory. I think the designers misunderstood the question.
They answered that the victory conditions were balanced or will eventually be balanced. However in my experience and it's happened more than a few times, Im playing my game and am surprised to learn that I just won a cultural victory. Sometimes this happens when I'm aiming for a military victory and sometimes when going for science.

Is there any indication that they have "fixed" this problem? That you won't accidentally win in another category than what you are aiming for?

[Lëgënd]

Granted we don't know everything yet, and I am by far no expert, but the victory conditions require more specific conditions. From what I've seen/read, the requirements are very specific, and won't be achieved without actually focusing on progressing them a bit further. It's set-up differently than just accruing tourism which in Civ6 comes from various things that most people commonly build no matter which of the victories they're focused on.

If you look closely at the modern livestream, you can see exactly what the requirements are, and that the "accidental" victories will be a lot more unlikely, if possible at all like in 6.

[Daganev]

That's a good point. What were the specific things?
I know the military one requires taking cities for the first time (a great improvement over capital destruction)
What were the others?

[plaguepenguin]

What I recall without reviewing the Modern Age livestream is that there are four victory types, corresponding to the four categories of legacy paths that every age has. You achieve milestones along each path in the Modern Age, just as in previous ages, only now at the end, if you achieve all three milestones, instead of getting a golden age benefit for the next age, you unlock a project whose completion awards victory.

I do remember that the Modern Age military milestones are achieved by conquering settlements, with more points for settlements you take from opposing ideologies. Once you pass the third milestone, you can start the special project for military victory, Operation Ivy (historically, this was the US project to figure out how to make H-bombs).

Again, for the specifics on all the victory conditions, you have to review the livestream, but as to your initial question, you can't trigger any of the victories inadvertently, while trying to do something else. Victory requires a special project. Maybe you could get many of the requirements for all the different type milestones, because those require you to do things that are generally beneficial to you, so maybe you would get all the way past the third milestone without really intending that victory type. But you still need to finish the project, and I can't see you doing that accidentally.

[Steve]

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

What I recall without reviewing the Modern Age livestream is that there are four victory types, corresponding to the four categories of legacy paths that every age has. You achieve milestones along each path in the Modern Age, just as in previous ages, only now at the end, if you achieve all three milestones, instead of getting a golden age benefit for the next age, you unlock a project whose completion awards victory.

I do remember that the Modern Age military milestones are achieved by conquering settlements, with more points for settlements you take from opposing ideologies. Once you pass the third milestone, you can start the special project for military victory, Operation Ivy (historically, this was the US project to figure out how to make H-bombs).

Again, for the specifics on all the victory conditions, you have to review the livestream, but as to your initial question, you can't trigger any of the victories inadvertently, while trying to do something else. Victory requires a special project. Maybe you could get many of the requirements for all the different type milestones, because those require you to do things that are generally beneficial to you, so maybe you would get all the way past the third milestone without really intending that victory type. But you still need to finish the project, and I can't see you doing that accidentally.

Fair enough, but that seems kind of kludged. What kind of "project" would a civilization work on to secure a cultural victory?

I definitely get that it's an easy "fix", but for the price tag I'd expect actual balancing. This doesn't at all sound like that. It sounds like they got tired of trying to balance win conditions and just imposed an "invisible walls" solution -- instead of actually putting work into crafting a better set of win conditions, it seems the win conditions were given a "one size fits most" band-aid.

I expect better for a AAAA price tag, regardless of the publisher being Ubisoft or not. Console might be fine paying $70 for a $50 effort, but IDK of too many PC players that share that sentiment. Speaking for myself, I expect a AAAA experience for a AAAA price tag.

Ham-fisted management of win conditions isn't a AAAA experience.

[plaguepenguin]

Originally posted by Steve:

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

What I recall without reviewing the Modern Age livestream is that there are four victory types, corresponding to the four categories of legacy paths that every age has. You achieve milestones along each path in the Modern Age, just as in previous ages, only now at the end, if you achieve all three milestones, instead of getting a golden age benefit for the next age, you unlock a project whose completion awards victory.

I do remember that the Modern Age military milestones are achieved by conquering settlements, with more points for settlements you take from opposing ideologies. Once you pass the third milestone, you can start the special project for military victory, Operation Ivy (historically, this was the US project to figure out how to make H-bombs).

Again, for the specifics on all the victory conditions, you have to review the livestream, but as to your initial question, you can't trigger any of the victories inadvertently, while trying to do something else. Victory requires a special project. Maybe you could get many of the requirements for all the different type milestones, because those require you to do things that are generally beneficial to you, so maybe you would get all the way past the third milestone without really intending that victory type. But you still need to finish the project, and I can't see you doing that accidentally.

Fair enough, but that seems kind of kludged. What kind of "project" would a civilization work on to secure a cultural victory?

I definitely get that it's an easy "fix", but for the price tag I'd expect actual balancing. This doesn't at all sound like that. It sounds like they got tired of trying to balance win conditions and just imposed an "invisible walls" solution -- instead of actually putting work into crafting a better set of win conditions, it seems the win conditions were given a "one size fits most" band-aid.

I expect better for a AAAA price tag, regardless of the publisher being Ubisoft or not. Console might be fine paying $70 for a $50 effort, but IDK of too many PC players that share that sentiment. Speaking for myself, I expect a AAAA experience for a AAAA price tag.

Ham-fisted management of win conditions isn't a AAAA experience.

i'm not sure what you're looking for in a non-kludged victory condition.

There's a victory project at the end of all the four pathways in the Modern,and sure, that's one-size-fits-all. But, the project is only at the end. You can't start it until you have got past the third milestone in one of the four pathways, and each of those milestones are achieved in very different ways from the other three

What the devs have told us repeatedly is that they are trying to keep the game interesting to the end so that players will actually finish an entire game, rather than most of them most of the time stopping in the middle. Because the victory conditions determine how the end game is played, and whether or not it is still interesting to play the end game, what the devs were looking for in setting up how victory is achieved was how to keep up interest in all the game areas right up to the end.

This is the point of having achievement of milestones speed up the end of the age. In the Modern, this is the same as speeding up the end of the game. So, as you get to any of the third milestones on the four pathways, and start on that victory project, it is still worth your while to keep working on the other three pathways, because finishing more of those cuts the legs out from under your competitors. You make the game end sooner, get to the crisis sooner, before they have time to reach any third milestone and start their projects.

In Civ 6, my usual path to victory includes clawing my way to the top in climbing the tech and civics trees, then coasting towards a science victory. Domination is way kludgy, because you have to get all the capitals, and that requires a ton of very repetitive clicks -- long after you're so far ahead you couldn't lose a war if you tried. Science takes a while, but you can spare yourself almost all of the clicks by starting to ignore everything but the space projects. Stop creating or moving units (except maybe builders to yeat into spaceports), put all your cities on queued projects of whatever type, and the only clicks required are on the "end turn" button.

That was how the devs defined kludgy, end-game futility is what they wanted to remedy, and it looks like they did. Tell me what your definition of kludgy is.

[Daganev]

Originally posted by Steve:

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

What I recall without reviewing the Modern Age livestream is that there are four victory types, corresponding to the four categories of legacy paths that every age has. You achieve milestones along each path in the Modern Age, just as in previous ages, only now at the end, if you achieve all three milestones, instead of getting a golden age benefit for the next age, you unlock a project whose completion awards victory.

I do remember that the Modern Age military milestones are achieved by conquering settlements, with more points for settlements you take from opposing ideologies. Once you pass the third milestone, you can start the special project for military victory, Operation Ivy (historically, this was the US project to figure out how to make H-bombs).

Again, for the specifics on all the victory conditions, you have to review the livestream, but as to your initial question, you can't trigger any of the victories inadvertently, while trying to do something else. Victory requires a special project. Maybe you could get many of the requirements for all the different type milestones, because those require you to do things that are generally beneficial to you, so maybe you would get all the way past the third milestone without really intending that victory type. But you still need to finish the project, and I can't see you doing that accidentally.

Fair enough, but that seems kind of kludged. What kind of "project" would a civilization work on to secure a cultural victory?

I definitely get that it's an easy "fix", but for the price tag I'd expect actual balancing. This doesn't at all sound like that. It sounds like they got tired of trying to balance win conditions and just imposed an "invisible walls" solution -- instead of actually putting work into crafting a better set of win conditions, it seems the win conditions were given a "one size fits most" band-aid.

I expect better for a AAAA price tag, regardless of the publisher being Ubisoft or not. Console might be fine paying $70 for a $50 effort, but IDK of too many PC players that share that sentiment. Speaking for myself, I expect a AAAA experience for a AAAA price tag.

Ham-fisted management of win conditions isn't a AAAA experience.

The four victory projects are:
Project ivy - military
Worl bank - economy
Manned space flight - science
World fair - culture.

[Steve]

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

That was how the devs defined kludgy, end-game futility is what they wanted to remedy, and it looks like they did. Tell me what your definition of kludgy is.

KLUDGE (inf.) - noun - an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose.

In a sentence: "Firaxis apparently realized the complexity of concepts like cultural and religious victories, and so kludged together a system using concepts that work for science conditions but make zero sense when applied to culture and religion."

What project, in your mind, can reasonably translate to a cultural win? It literally makes more sense to win a cultural victory by spamming rock bands a la Civ VI. That's truer to life (though not by much -- it takes a lot more than just Taylor Swift to bend the world to one's will and whim!) than the idea that one project, or even a few massive projects in concert, would be enough to become culturally dominant over the entire planet.

For all its flaws, VI had a system that was truer to reality. This smells like a pure PvP change.

[Steve]

Originally posted by Daganev:

The four victory projects are:
Project ivy - military
Worl bank - economy
Manned space flight - science
World fair - culture.

World Fair? REALLY?! XD My city had one of those once. We got a landmark out of it. That's it. I assure you, we won no cultural wars. We won only a place on a Simpsons episode! XD

(EDIT: What the hell, let's judge the rest:

Project Ivy did not win many hearts and minds. In fact, nuclear/H-bomb testing is widely credited with helping foment 1960s counterculture.

We already have a World Bank and it, too, has done ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ as far as win conditions go. If anything, it's more a man-made wonder -- the wonder being that anything gets done in there.

Manned space flight, in and of itself, ain't enough to win anything. I much liked VI's win condition there -- a series of projects that led to another exoplanet and one giant waste of opportunity for an exoplanet-themed expac map. )

[Daganev]

Please name a country which is not culturally dominant across the globe that has succeeded in hosting a world's fair.

[Daganev]

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

What I recall without reviewing the Modern Age livestream is that there are four victory types, corresponding to the four categories of legacy paths that every age has. You achieve milestones along each path in the Modern Age, just as in previous ages, only now at the end, if you achieve all three milestones, instead of getting a golden age benefit for the next age, you unlock a project whose completion awards victory.

I do remember that the Modern Age military milestones are achieved by conquering settlements, with more points for settlements you take from opposing ideologies. Once you pass the third milestone, you can start the special project for military victory, Operation Ivy (historically, this was the US project to figure out how to make H-bombs).

Again, for the specifics on all the victory conditions, you have to review the livestream, but as to your initial question, you can't trigger any of the victories inadvertently, while trying to do something else. Victory requires a special project. Maybe you could get many of the requirements for all the different type milestones, because those require you to do things that are generally beneficial to you, so maybe you would get all the way past the third milestone without really intending that victory type. But you still need to finish the project, and I can't see you doing that accidentally.

I noticed in the stream that for economic victory you needed to build factories and railroads, but I didn't notice what the conditions for science and culture were.

And are you certain you have to set a city to build the project for the win condition. It doesn't automatically happen as soon as you get the points?

[Daganev]

I see they have released all the details for the victory conditions, and indeed no more accidental victories.

[plaguepenguin]

Originally posted by Daganev:

And are you certain you have to set a city to build the project for the win condition. It doesn't automatically happen as soon as you get the points?

We don't know for certain if projects in 7 are going to work as they do in 6, but projects exist in 6, where they are one of the things a city can build using its production points.

While there is no certainty, the devs tend to be pretty careful about the game's peculiar technical vocabulary, so if "project" already has an established meaning from 6, I am reasonably confident that they would have called these tasks you have to accomplish to win some word other than "projects" if they worked very differently than projects in 6.

[plaguepenguin]

Originally posted by Steve:

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

That was how the devs defined kludgy, end-game futility is what they wanted to remedy, and it looks like they did. Tell me what your definition of kludgy is.

KLUDGE (inf.) - noun - an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose.

In a sentence: "Firaxis apparently realized the complexity of concepts like cultural and religious victories, and so kludged together a system using concepts that work for science conditions but make zero sense when applied to culture and religion."

What project, in your mind, can reasonably translate to a cultural win? It literally makes more sense to win a cultural victory by spamming rock bands a la Civ VI. That's truer to life (though not by much -- it takes a lot more than just Taylor Swift to bend the world to one's will and whim!) than the idea that one project, or even a few massive projects in concert, would be enough to become culturally dominant over the entire planet.

For all its flaws, VI had a system that was truer to reality. This smells like a pure PvP change.

Art and faith are life, not a game. You don't beat people at life, you only beat them in games. Some people live their lives as if they were playing a game, but they are confused. One therapeutic reason to play a god-game like Civ is that it tends to release any latent desires you might have to mistake yourself for god, and try to conquer the world, or amass a great fortune, as if that's actually the goal of life, a goal whose achievement makes you a winner.

It's not some poverty of imagination of the developers, it's the format of a game that makes the very concept of a culture victory inherently a kludge. Conquest victory, or production/wealth victory, are kludges as well, if you want to insist that games follow reality. Rome did a ton of conquering and amassed huge wealth, and look where that got them. But, those types of victory can at least be reduced readily to a competition in which civs fight each other directly in war, or engage in indirect competition by outproducing their rivals. So, you put in a culture or religious victory, and of course it ends up looking like a kludge, with the same contours as conquest and economic victories. You spend resources building up bigger numbers in culture, or tourism, or faith than your rivals, then spend those numbers in culture, or diplomatic, or religious warfare. Theological combat, or the battle of rock bands, gives a certain distinctive color to these other kinds of war, but, it's really just war, which doesn't really fit what culture and faith in real life are like.

These different outputs -- production, food, gold, science, culture, faith, etc. -- are there to make this a good strategy game. It's all amazingly unrealistic. It's a game. It has to have winners, and it has to give players the tools they need to use strategically to achieve victory conditions. I judge all of these features of the game solely by whether or not including them in the game makes it a better game, and not at all by grounding in reality. You're playing as some sort of god who lives 6,000+ years and controls all sorts of levers in a civ (now a series of civs) that no human has ever controlled, in order to "win", which really is not a civilizational thing, but can make for a great game, if the game is well-designed.

The great drawback to culture victory in 6 was that it was only distinct from conquest or science, or any of the other victory types, in its particular mechanics. Those mechanics may have been a bit inventive, and that's nice, but, unfortunately, pursuing culture victory didn't make you play the game any differently than if you were playing for any other victory type until the late game, and even end game. The late/end-game increase in base tourism, plus the late-game multipliers, gave late game tourism such a huge lever arm that what you did in the early game specifically to pump up tourism was pretty much irrelevant. Yes, tourism was cumulative, so any bit you could start to accumulate early was helpful, but you could only get tourism yields early that in the long run were going to be swamped, so you were much better off prioritizing just about every mechanic in the game except theater squares. You would expand, peacefully, or by conquest if necessary, in order to allow yourself more districts for higher output in science, gold, and production, as the basic plan for all victory types. Maybe you would build some theater squares reasonably early, but that mainly to move up the civics tree quickly, also important for any victory type. On higher difficulty you would never snag any great works early on, because the AI civs were all so juiced on their bonuses that you couldn't keep up. That's alright. You would instead wait until moving up the tech and civics trees and expanding to a lot of cities would let you build theater squares and their buildings, plus the great works warehouse wonders, and fill them with great works you purchased from the AI. Those great works, plus the greatly expanded tourism base and multipliers you got earlier than the competition from being ahead of them in moving up the tech and civics trees, would bring home the culture victory. Maybe on higher difficulty you would only claw your way to the top of the culture and tech trees later than at lower difficulty, and then you had to bring in rock bands and national parks for the final push, but really, that's the end-game. In 6, the game became uninteresting after the point at which you clawed your way to the top, so however nice you found the tourism mechanics in the end game, the game was already over by then. I won at culture many times, but, if the game is already over, nice mechanics don't get you very far in satisfaction, so I almost always defaulted to science victory, as it involved the fewest mouse clicks in an end-game I could no longer lose if I tried.

Well, the devs had the goal for 7 to minimize if not completely avoid, that problem of the game being over, as a good challenging game, long before you can achieve a victory condition. That looks like a safe bet just from what we know. What is not going to be clear until we have the actual game in hand and can play it a few times, is whether they have also succeeded in making the four victory types distinctive in creating different priorities throughout the game. That is going to all be down to whether the mechanics for civ succession create those differences.

[Steve]

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

Originally posted by Steve:

KLUDGE (inf.) - noun - an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose.

In a sentence: "Firaxis apparently realized the complexity of concepts like cultural and religious victories, and so kludged together a system using concepts that work for science conditions but make zero sense when applied to culture and religion."

What project, in your mind, can reasonably translate to a cultural win? It literally makes more sense to win a cultural victory by spamming rock bands a la Civ VI. That's truer to life (though not by much -- it takes a lot more than just Taylor Swift to bend the world to one's will and whim!) than the idea that one project, or even a few massive projects in concert, would be enough to become culturally dominant over the entire planet.

For all its flaws, VI had a system that was truer to reality. This smells like a pure PvP change.

Art and faith are life, not a game. You don't beat people at life, you only beat them in games. Some people live their lives as if they were playing a game, but they are confused. One therapeutic reason to play a god-game like Civ is that it tends to release any latent desires you might have to mistake yourself for god, and try to conquer the world, or amass a great fortune, as if that's actually the goal of life, a goal whose achievement makes you a winner.

It's not some poverty of imagination of the developers, it's the format of a game that makes the very concept of a culture victory inherently a kludge. Conquest victory, or production/wealth victory, are kludges as well, if you want to insist that games follow reality. Rome did a ton of conquering and amassed huge wealth, and look where that got them. But, those types of victory can at least be reduced readily to a competition in which civs fight each other directly in war, or engage in indirect competition by outproducing their rivals. So, you put in a culture or religious victory, and of course it ends up looking like a kludge, with the same contours as conquest and economic victories. You spend resources building up bigger numbers in culture, or tourism, or faith than your rivals, then spend those numbers in culture, or diplomatic, or religious warfare. Theological combat, or the battle of rock bands, gives a certain distinctive color to these other kinds of war, but, it's really just war, which doesn't really fit what culture and faith in real life are like.

These different outputs -- production, food, gold, science, culture, faith, etc. -- are there to make this a good strategy game. It's all amazingly unrealistic. It's a game. It has to have winners, and it has to give players the tools they need to use strategically to achieve victory conditions. I judge all of these features of the game solely by whether or not including them in the game makes it a better game, and not at all by grounding in reality. You're playing as some sort of god who lives 6,000+ years and controls all sorts of levers in a civ (now a series of civs) that no human has ever controlled, in order to "win", which really is not a civilizational thing, but can make for a great game, if the game is well-designed.

The great drawback to culture victory in 6 was that it was only distinct from conquest or science, or any of the other victory types, in its particular mechanics. Those mechanics may have been a bit inventive, and that's nice, but, unfortunately, pursuing culture victory didn't make you play the game any differently than if you were playing for any other victory type until the late game, and even end game. The late/end-game increase in base tourism, plus the late-game multipliers, gave late game tourism such a huge lever arm that what you did in the early game specifically to pump up tourism was pretty much irrelevant. Yes, tourism was cumulative, so any bit you could start to accumulate early was helpful, but you could only get tourism yields early that in the long run were going to be swamped, so you were much better off prioritizing just about every mechanic in the game except theater squares. You would expand, peacefully, or by conquest if necessary, in order to allow yourself more districts for higher output in science, gold, and production, as the basic plan for all victory types. Maybe you would build some theater squares reasonably early, but that mainly to move up the civics tree quickly, also important for any victory type. On higher difficulty you would never snag any great works early on, because the AI civs were all so juiced on their bonuses that you couldn't keep up. That's alright. You would instead wait until moving up the tech and civics trees and expanding to a lot of cities would let you build theater squares and their buildings, plus the great works warehouse wonders, and fill them with great works you purchased from the AI. Those great works, plus the greatly expanded tourism base and multipliers you got earlier than the competition from being ahead of them in moving up the tech and civics trees, would bring home the culture victory. Maybe on higher difficulty you would only claw your way to the top of the culture and tech trees later than at lower difficulty, and then you had to bring in rock bands and national parks for the final push, but really, that's the end-game. In 6, the game became uninteresting after the point at which you clawed your way to the top, so however nice you found the tourism mechanics in the end game, the game was already over by then. I won at culture many times, but, if the game is already over, nice mechanics don't get you very far in satisfaction, so I almost always defaulted to science victory, as it involved the fewest mouse clicks in an end-game I could no longer lose if I tried.

Well, the devs had the goal for 7 to minimize if not completely avoid, that problem of the game being over, as a good challenging game, long before you can achieve a victory condition. That looks like a safe bet just from what we know. What is not going to be clear until we have the actual game in hand and can play it a few times, is whether they have also succeeded in making the four victory types distinctive in creating different priorities throughout the game. That is going to all be down to whether the mechanics for civ succession create those differences.

Bro. Come on. You gotta edit this down. Being concise is just as important as being thorough.

You asked, I delivered. Can't dominate anyone off just one project. If those are the win conditions in 7, it's gonna be pretty boring.

Winning the space race? Rocking the faces off other civs in their own arenas? Love it. Gimme more of that.

Operation Ivy as a win condition?! Pft. I'm just getting STARTED then!

[Seekrt]

Originally posted by Steve:

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

Art and faith are life, not a game. You don't beat people at life, you only beat them in games. Some people live their lives as if they were playing a game, but they are confused. One therapeutic reason to play a god-game like Civ is that it tends to release any latent desires you might have to mistake yourself for god, and try to conquer the world, or amass a great fortune, as if that's actually the goal of life, a goal whose achievement makes you a winner.

It's not some poverty of imagination of the developers, it's the format of a game that makes the very concept of a culture victory inherently a kludge. Conquest victory, or production/wealth victory, are kludges as well, if you want to insist that games follow reality. Rome did a ton of conquering and amassed huge wealth, and look where that got them. But, those types of victory can at least be reduced readily to a competition in which civs fight each other directly in war, or engage in indirect competition by outproducing their rivals. So, you put in a culture or religious victory, and of course it ends up looking like a kludge, with the same contours as conquest and economic victories. You spend resources building up bigger numbers in culture, or tourism, or faith than your rivals, then spend those numbers in culture, or diplomatic, or religious warfare. Theological combat, or the battle of rock bands, gives a certain distinctive color to these other kinds of war, but, it's really just war, which doesn't really fit what culture and faith in real life are like.

These different outputs -- production, food, gold, science, culture, faith, etc. -- are there to make this a good strategy game. It's all amazingly unrealistic. It's a game. It has to have winners, and it has to give players the tools they need to use strategically to achieve victory conditions. I judge all of these features of the game solely by whether or not including them in the game makes it a better game, and not at all by grounding in reality. You're playing as some sort of god who lives 6,000+ years and controls all sorts of levers in a civ (now a series of civs) that no human has ever controlled, in order to "win", which really is not a civilizational thing, but can make for a great game, if the game is well-designed.

The great drawback to culture victory in 6 was that it was only distinct from conquest or science, or any of the other victory types, in its particular mechanics. Those mechanics may have been a bit inventive, and that's nice, but, unfortunately, pursuing culture victory didn't make you play the game any differently than if you were playing for any other victory type until the late game, and even end game. The late/end-game increase in base tourism, plus the late-game multipliers, gave late game tourism such a huge lever arm that what you did in the early game specifically to pump up tourism was pretty much irrelevant. Yes, tourism was cumulative, so any bit you could start to accumulate early was helpful, but you could only get tourism yields early that in the long run were going to be swamped, so you were much better off prioritizing just about every mechanic in the game except theater squares. You would expand, peacefully, or by conquest if necessary, in order to allow yourself more districts for higher output in science, gold, and production, as the basic plan for all victory types. Maybe you would build some theater squares reasonably early, but that mainly to move up the civics tree quickly, also important for any victory type. On higher difficulty you would never snag any great works early on, because the AI civs were all so juiced on their bonuses that you couldn't keep up. That's alright. You would instead wait until moving up the tech and civics trees and expanding to a lot of cities would let you build theater squares and their buildings, plus the great works warehouse wonders, and fill them with great works you purchased from the AI. Those great works, plus the greatly expanded tourism base and multipliers you got earlier than the competition from being ahead of them in moving up the tech and civics trees, would bring home the culture victory. Maybe on higher difficulty you would only claw your way to the top of the culture and tech trees later than at lower difficulty, and then you had to bring in rock bands and national parks for the final push, but really, that's the end-game. In 6, the game became uninteresting after the point at which you clawed your way to the top, so however nice you found the tourism mechanics in the end game, the game was already over by then. I won at culture many times, but, if the game is already over, nice mechanics don't get you very far in satisfaction, so I almost always defaulted to science victory, as it involved the fewest mouse clicks in an end-game I could no longer lose if I tried.

Well, the devs had the goal for 7 to minimize if not completely avoid, that problem of the game being over, as a good challenging game, long before you can achieve a victory condition. That looks like a safe bet just from what we know. What is not going to be clear until we have the actual game in hand and can play it a few times, is whether they have also succeeded in making the four victory types distinctive in creating different priorities throughout the game. That is going to all be down to whether the mechanics for civ succession create those differences.

Bro. Come on. You gotta edit this down. Being concise is just as important as being thorough.

You asked, I delivered. Can't dominate anyone off just one project. If those are the win conditions in 7, it's gonna be pretty boring.

Winning the space race? Rocking the faces off other civs in their own arenas? Love it. Gimme more of that.

Operation Ivy as a win condition?! Pft. I'm just getting STARTED then!

They decided to end the game in the modern era, just after WW2.
So, they gave you a goal that mirrors what happened just before the end of the war.
The game is truncated, so it will most likely feel odd winning a game with those conditions.

They still are odd winning conditions. A world fair? Belgium had a world fair and they are better known for their excellent fries and beer.