easiest/fastest win?

[Hebereke]

So I started playing the game and I'm playing the first map.
I befriended one AI and we both destroyed the other one.
I'm in turn 66 and getting an expansion win is going to take too much time, just like the score victory and probably the magic victory too (research those two spells and defend the wonders for 15 turns, but I don't know exactly how that works).
Is military win the fastest option with few AIs?

[Aurumworks]

Fastest win is playing against a single enemy and surrendering to them as vassal with allied victory enabled.

[Midas]

Fastest NORMAL way is typically military victory, but it depends on map size and number of players. Score victory can happen first potentially in a big enough game.

[TirAsleen]

Rush the A.I. its easier at higher difficulties when it has nearly nothing researched to buff their endless armies with unit enchantments and transformations + higher CP.

[.Master Jiren, The Strongest]

as others have said it depends on your settings. im not sure what the default is for the map you're on, not sure what the campaign settings are. I always play with allied victory enabled because anything else implies you're looking for military victory since you can't win any other way than military because everyone automatically declares war on you if you try to do expansion or magic, so making allies is the only way to not have multiple enemies attacking you at the same time at the end of the game. plus, its more immersive/fun since..well, since its the only time the diplomacy system matters.

so yeah, make sure you always turn on allied victory in the map settings before you start the game.

as far as the actual question, as to what victory is quickest, it depends. if you have a lot of enemy AIs in the game then military isnt going to be faster. in fact the default is 7, i dont think military can ever be faster because you have to go across the entire map which takes time. the quickest way to win is probably always magic, because its the only victory condition you can win without ever having to go anywhere. of course if you dont have 3 golden things near you that doesnt work so well, ive had games where i -never- found the 3rd one. So while its the quickest almost always, its not consistant since its RNG.

That pretty much just leaves expansion, which is also basically military. because the easiest way to win expansion is to kill everyone and vassalize them. but the difference is you dont have to kill -everyone-. but lets say you ally 1 or 2 AI's. maybe 3 if you're great at making friends on that particular run (AI rulers rolled traits that are friendly towards your playstyle for that run), then you just attack the remaining players and vassalize them. This ends up meaning you'd end up getting a military and an expansion victory in roughly the same speed.



some caveats. magic victory takes longer based on your settings. if you chose faster settings then you can research the magic victory spells earlier making it more viable. if the inverse is also true. this could mean that its quicker to take out players than to research magic.

if you make alliances with allied victory enabled, their territory counts towards your expansion victory. this means you dont necessarily have to wage war on -anyone- if you just befriend half the players, you'll pretty much win automatically. For this reason, expansion victory + enable allied victory+ make 3 or 4 alliances= you win with expansion victory easily.

but, since the traits the enemy rulers generate with are RNG, you could potentially get a bunch of people who dont like you, making alliances almost impossible, which means its more practical or will eventually devolve into a military run just to get the expansion victory to even open up. In this way, Expansion Victory is still RNG just like Magic Victory. The only thing that isn't RNG is military, which is why people might prefer it since its easy to just go wipe out a few capital cities and automatically win.


Tl;dr
Depends entirely on RNG and your settings. There's no one fastest/easiest way.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Hebereke:

I befriended one AI and we both destroyed the other one.

It sounds like you are saying there are/were only two AIs, your friend and the one already destroyed. So the fastest victory here would be to ally your friend. Alliance victory is enabled by default on normal maps, once only your allies are left on the map you win a conquest victory.

You also said "the first map" though, which makes me think you mean the campaign. The campaigns have limited/special victory conditions, so "fastest way to win" generally involves following the stated objectives of the map. That said, I'm pretty sure the first campaign map should be an alliance victory map, you should be forming an alliance with your friend and then the map should end once the enemy is defeated. It's been a while since I did it though.

[Hebereke]

thanks fellas, I finally beat the map betraying my "ally" and killing everyone.
The first map was an introductory one that I think has random NPCs.
After beating it I played the next one, marked as chapter 1, and it had predetermined NPCs.
Both had the allied victory enabled, which worked in chapter 1 but not in the introductory one because I forgot to make him my ally lmao