Can you win without nuking the world?

[Kilo_60]

Seems like the biggest complaint?

[GlamorousPegasus]

Yep, if you capture all regions or all other players surrender then the game ends.

[dounttron]

If you set the contamination speed to 25% in the configure menu and disable the countdown timer, you can detonate 4x as many nukes before the game ends.

[Autumn]

You can at least in Conquest. Push really hard with pure conventional weaponry, stuff like planes, ships, and armies. Never use nukes, using nukes encourages the AI to respond in kind as far as I can tell. Even nuclear artillery should be off the table, if you need the extra punch just go for chemical weapons instead. Using bioweapons and getting a permanent ally through diplomacy will also help you out a ton. It's a given that two AIs are eventually going to decide they've had enough of each other and start dropping nukes, so you are on a time limit.

[HeadHunter]

I just did.... posted pic of final score. Not a nuke fired by me.
Was in SP game vs. 9 A.I.

[HeadHunter]

I should add that the victory condition was set to the population survival level.
Also point out that I used the "equalize populations and GDP setting" to equalize the positions.

[HeadHunter]

Originally posted by Autumn:

You can at least in Conquest. Push really hard with pure conventional weaponry, stuff like planes, ships, and armies. Never use nukes, using nukes encourages the AI to respond in kind as far as I can tell. Even nuclear artillery should be off the table, if you need the extra punch just go for chemical weapons instead. Using bioweapons and getting a permanent ally through diplomacy will also help you out a ton. It's a given that two AIs are eventually going to decide they've had enough of each other and start dropping nukes, so you are on a time limit.

That is exactly what I did. Played North America... Allied with Europe and swapped intel and research... Secured peace agreement with Central America (until they broke it and attacked and took Texas.) When they did that I waged conventional warfare south until I reached South America and forced Central America to surrender. I did use 5 bio weapons on Central America to slow their economy. When it was all over North America's score was number one position.

Check the Screenshots for the final.