How do you defend against the different victory conditions?

[whiskers]

I have played Civ V, Beyond earth, and a small amount of VI, but I still consider myself pretty noobish at this game. I've always had a problem of not being able to figure out how to counter other civ's progress towards victory. I understand how to obtain victory conditions, but I can't figure out how to slow down another civ from obtaining victory before me.

Defending against domination is straightfoward enough - just don't get taken over.

But how do you slow down another civ's progress towards culture, science, or religion victory? (I always play with turn-limits disabled so score victory is never an issue)

For example, say I am attempting a science victory but it seems like another civ will get culture victory before I can finish. What should I do to slow them down so I can obtain science victory? Same question goes for the other victory types.

Thanks in advance for any tips.

[Docsis]

great question. I would like some insight to this as well.
I am trying to win a science victory, and I am in 2nd place, just barely behind another civ. It looks like he launched his satellite about 10 or so turns before me, and I am trying to catch up and pass him... trying to figure out what to do to slow him down so I can get ahead.

[Sartarius]

For science - blow up his spaceport with nuclear strike, f.e. Or capture the city with it.

For religion keep up at least your cities under your religion. If you dont have a religion - you cant do anything

For culture - the most tricky part. You can outrun AI with your culture (pretty simple) or just again raze\capture half of his cities. As culture comes from artifacts\etc and from specific district - you can only raze\capture it to prevent progression. Or buy those items via diplomacy though it will cost you about 4000 gold\piece.

Game vs AI is awful after nuclear weapon. IMHO it should have some counters like anti-nuclear missiles. Now If you have 5-6 nuclear bobs - you can do anything with anyone. And prevent any victory.

[whiskers]

Originally posted by Sartarius:

For science - blow up his spaceport with nuclear strike, f.e. Or capture the city with it.

For religion keep up at least your cities under your religion. If you dont have a religion - you cant do anything

For culture - the most tricky part. You can outrun AI with your culture (pretty simple) or just again raze\capture half of his cities. As culture comes from artifacts\etc and from specific district - you can only raze\capture it to prevent progression. Or buy those items via diplomacy though it will cost you about 4000 gold\piece.

Game vs AI is awful after nuclear weapon. IMHO it should have some counters like anti-nuclear missiles. Now If you have 5-6 nuclear bobs - you can do anything with anyone. And prevent any victory.

Damn. If it's only possible to defend with nukes, thats pretty dark lol. That sucks though I usually try to play peacefully unless other civs start something first, but if it is necessary for defending against victories, then looks like I gotta start stockpiling nukes.

[Zervo⭐]

simple, straight out answer is "crush their empire" >:)

becareful with religious victory tho.
if your empire is the last converted empire, you might want to be careful when capturing enemy cities.

If you capture too many of their cities under the enemy religion. and that makes your empire pass the 50% dominant religion, they will automatically win the religious victory (happen to me once, fk)

Originally posted by Sartarius:

For religion keep up at least your cities under your religion. If you dont have a religion - you cant do anything

can still fight it if there is at least 1 city under another religion.
build holysite with temple, and spam apostle (if you can afford it).

If you are a kongo, not much you can do thogh, lol.

Originally posted by Sartarius:

For culture - the most tricky part. You can outrun AI with your culture (pretty simple) or just again raze\capture half of his cities. As culture comes from artifacts\etc and from specific district - you can only raze\capture it to prevent progression. Or buy those items via diplomacy though it will cost you about 4000 gold\piece.

yeah, this one is tricky one.
the simple answer is, try to create as many culture as you can per turn.
create theater distrirct and all of their building, use civic card also if needed.

The more culture (tourism) on your empire, the more tourist that they need to win the culture victory.

Originally posted by Sartarius:

Game vs AI is awful after nuclear weapon. IMHO it should have some counters like anti-nuclear missiles. Now If you have 5-6 nuclear bobs - you can do anything with anyone. And prevent any victory.

current version is missing a lot of techs (units & buildings).
I'm guessing, it's either will be updated in a patch/dlc.

i assume, they at least already got a complete/full draft design for the tech, but cutting some of it off.

[ugafan]

War.

That will put an end to their victory chances.

[FlashXAron ☕ (Alex)]

Originally posted by ugafan:

War.

That will put an end to their victory chances.

Everyone is telling us, if the game is too easy increase the difficult level,
WHAT GARBAGE,
as higher as Prince setting the ONLY VICTORYKONDITION left is TOTAL WAR (Domination Victory) nothing else ...

so of course, you could win with that at every level, as the combat AI is helpless ... how many armies (around 10 units) you need depends how big the map is :-)

[katzenkrimis]

This game is a science race no matter what victory condition you want. You need a modern military.

Once your science is taken care of, your secondary objective is to pursue the victory condition of your choice.

If you look in the victory panel, you'll always see one really strong culture Civ, running away with the game. You'll also see one really strong science civ, running away with the game.

If you want a culture victory, then you need to attack the culture civ and steal his cities. They are full great works. You need to own those.

At the same time, you'll need to wipe out the science civ. At least slow him down, or kill him.

After that, you're all set to beat down anybody else that appears to be a threat.

I've never lost to religion, so I can't help you there. It just seems like a useless victory condition to me.

[Sir Clavius]

War solves all problems, like eagles.

[Scoundrel]

The answer is war.

The political system in CIV games is not nearly sophisticated enough to allow for 'sanctioning' or cultural alliance making that could somehow restrain an 'enemy' civ from pushing on to their victory objective.

So if you have failed to outpace you opponents in peacetime and you realize they are closing in on winning the game, you will have to go to war to stop them. If you are at least competitive with technology, you should be able to handle any of the AI Civs in an armed conflict.

With this in mind, SCIENCE must ALWAYS be a priority no matter which civ you are playing or what victory you intend to pursue. If you fall too far behind in science you will have a very hard time winning.

[Zervo⭐]

Originally posted by katzenkrimis:

If you want a culture victory, then you need to attack the culture civ and steal his cities. They are full great works. You need to own those.

if i'm not mistaken, in Civ3 or 4 there is a penalty in toursim for empire that currently at war.
toursim will decrease or completly stop.
previously, tourism only act as a gold income so it is a different gameplay mechanic/purpose.

but if we can bring that mechanic to civ 6, it will put an interesting gameplay for culture victory.
where war is not just an easy & simple way out.

yeah, war will stop other from winning the game.
but by going to war, we also delay or even decrease our victory condition.

[Urchin]

An excellent counter to a culture victory is the SPY.

Someone said take their cities that hold their great works. Why go to that trouble and expense when you can just send one spy in to STEAL their great works.

I've only done it once so far, but it was very effective. I was fortunate to have a fully levelled spy with a works stealing bonus by the time I realized they were easliy out-culturing me. Spy had close to a 90% chance of success. Did a lot of his levelling via counterspying in my capital.

I was going for culture as well, and was disappointed that the stolen works did not get placed into my great work slots (kind of makes sense, If I put the stolen works on display, they would likely declare war on me), but it definitely reduced their tourism and slowed them enough for me to catch up and get the win.

I got caught twice, but the spy escaped. I promised to never do it again, and sent the spy right back in.

[Kronock]

Use a spy. You can nick great works, destroy industrial zones and disrupt rocketry. So many people on these forums are very one dimensional and can only solve problems via war. Those who say only domination is possible on high difficulties, it's really not. It's just as possible to beat immortal or deity with any other condition.