Is science victory broken?

[Unexpected]

This is something that me and a friend have been wondering for a very long time now.

We play this game very often (now with the Gathering Storm DLC too), but we get the impression it's impossible to get a victory other than science. We usually play on immortal difficulty, on large maps, with 6 AI empires, and every single time, and I mean every, the game was won by science. If not by us, then by the AI.

We thought maybe it was our playstyles that weren't working for other types of victories, but what really gets to us is that even the AI always wins by science too, and no one ever even comes close to getting another kind of victory in the game. By the time someone has already sent the exoplanet expedition, the culture victory screen will say, if anything at all, that X player will win by culture in over 150 turns or some crazy number like that. No one comes close at all.

Religious victory also seems impossible. I've never seen the AI getting even remotely close to it and if my friend and I try to focus on religion, the difficulty buffs make the AI's apostles too powerful for us to have a fair chance in religious combat.

Diplomacy victory takes too long too. Even after building key wonders, my last game with my friend was the first one where he got close to a diplomatic victory, but the exoplanet expedition was faster.

Domination seems impossible to do before someone gets a science victory too. It takes too long.

We are really confused. We'd like to think we just have to change our playstyles, but like I said, even the AI never gets any kind of victory that isn't science. Can someone shed any light on why this keeps happening? We're tired of always seeing science victories. We've thought of just turning it off, but when we did that, the game simply took way too unbearably long and seemed like it was never going to end.

Things we have tried: changing the map size, changing the number of bots, but the same thing keeps happening.

[EpicCoinFlip]

I think a lot of it has to do with your playstyle. You sorta have to get cauge early on about what other victory types the other players/ai is going for. So you can halt their progress to allow you to reach yours.

My last game on immortal as Korea I went hard for a science victory, but I accidentally won diplomacy victory. Somehow I just missed the fact I had been racking up points in the global votes. It kinda pissed me off to be honest :D

I do agree on religious victory being pretty hard on the higher difficulties. But everything is doable with the right strategy and some luck of the draw.

[LextheMighty]

You have to work towards these victories from the beginning.

I saw an AI get a surprise religious victory once. I just wasn't paying attention to religion. If you want to win a RV you have to build up your faith a turn from the start. Build lots of holy sites and choose beliefs that help towards the victory.

I've also seen an AI almost win a culture victory (I conquered them to stop them). You have to build lots of wonders and collect great works. Build lots of theater squares and culture giving things as well. Religious and cultural victories are hard because if you focus too much on them you may get behind in science.

Domination is arguably the easiest victory. Start conquering early and you will snowball fast. Just build units early, you can get science and culture from the cities you conquer. It's harder when your fighting against humanity opponents. So if there are any AI in the game conquer them first.

I agree with you about diplomatic though. It comes way too late to be a reasonable option in multiplayer.

Science is usually the easiest to get in multiplayer so it makes sense why you keep getting that. Try some new strategies and see what you can do.

[Literally Me]

Originally posted by Unexpected:

This is something that me and a friend have been wondering for a very long time now.

We play this game very often (now with the Gathering Storm DLC too), but we get the impression it's impossible to get a victory other than science. We usually play on immortal difficulty, on large maps, with 6 AI empires, and every single time, and I mean every, the game was won by science. If not by us, then by the AI.

We thought maybe it was our playstyles that weren't working for other types of victories, but what really gets to us is that even the AI always wins by science too, and no one ever even comes close to getting another kind of victory in the game. By the time someone has already sent the exoplanet expedition, the culture victory screen will say, if anything at all, that X player will win by culture in over 150 turns or some crazy number like that. No one comes close at all.

Religious victory also seems impossible. I've never seen the AI getting even remotely close to it and if my friend and I try to focus on religion, the difficulty buffs make the AI's apostles too powerful for us to have a fair chance in religious combat.

Diplomacy victory takes too long too. Even after building key wonders, my last game with my friend was the first one where he got close to a diplomatic victory, but the exoplanet expedition was faster.

Domination seems impossible to do before someone gets a science victory too. It takes too long.

We are really confused. We'd like to think we just have to change our playstyles, but like I said, even the AI never gets any kind of victory that isn't science. Can someone shed any light on why this keeps happening? We're tired of always seeing science victories. We've thought of just turning it off, but when we did that, the game simply took way too unbearably long and seemed like it was never going to end.

Things we have tried: changing the map size, changing the number of bots, but the same thing keeps happening.

The religious victory is easy if you play on a small duel sized map

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Science victory has the advantage of being inevitable. Eventually you are going to unlock all of the techs necessary for that victory, as will everyone else. If you don't build the Spaceport(s) and projects associated with science victory, they will, and the final step is a countdown that is easy to accelerate. So effectively you are racing toward a concrete finish line.

The other victory types are not so equal. Only some of the civs in the game even have the option of a religious victory. A diplomatic victory requires finesse that the AI is probably incapable of (in a timeframe competitive with scientific victory). Cultural victory is biased toward certain civs, and if many civs or no civs are concentrating on it then it becomes much more difficult to achieve. And so on.

Your playstyle and civ choice is definitely a big influence on how easy any given victory type is for you to achieve. If you like to build a lot of campus districts then science victory is going to come naturally. If you find domination difficult then you are probably playing defensively, and again science victory, because of its passive nature, is going to be easier than some of the alternatives.

-------------

If you want to refocus yourself on other victory types, here are some suggestions:

Religious Victory: Scythia or Russia work well. The selections you make when creating your religion have a big influence on how easy religious victory is to achieve. Spreading your religion with charges is important, but your strongest weapon is religious combat (because it affects an area and ideally spreads religion without consuming the unit - ie for free). Don't spend the last charge on your apostles and over time you will end up with a wave of them that can use your opponents' religious units to spread your religion. After your apostles have eliminated all of their religious units, your missionaries can move in and finish the job.

Cultural Victory: I like Gorgo for this, but there are several civs that do this well, including Russia, France, Sweden, Kongo, and Japan. The key is building theater districts in all of your cities, and building them early. Target other civs that focus on culture as your enemies, and use your military to pillage their theater squares to slow down their great person progress. Getting great works is key. When possible, force your enemies to give you their great works as part of peace deals. Remember to explore; you want to contact every other civ as quickly as possible because you don't start accumulating tourism against a civ until you have met it. Later in the game, rock bands can be important. Make sure you use them well, concentrating on the opponent that has the most culture (since this will typically be the last one to succumb to your tourism pressure). Don't forget to choose policy cards that boost your tourism output when they become available, and choose a government that will give you enough slots to use all of those that will accelerate you toward your goal.

Diplomatic Victory: The key here is diplomatic points. You can get more of them by adopting advanced governments, but that is a minor source. Alliances are also a source, but they also give points to your "allies", which may be good in some situations but also can make winning key votes difficult. The best source is from city state suzerainity, because being suzerain means you get a boost and also block everyone else from getting it at the same time. In order for this to pay off you need to out-envoy every other civ in the game and also protect the city state from military aggression by every other civ in the game. This can be challenging or impossible depending on map layout. All of these factors make diplomatic victory unreliable. I don't recommend choosing it as your primary victory type; rather, it is a fall-back victory in a case where you happen to have a lot of influence in the world congress and your opponents haven't advanced well toward any other victory type. Getting diplomatic victory points hinges on late-game world congress votes, so there isn't a lot that you can do to accelerate it. (There are a couple of wonders you can build, and if you get them both then that's one less vote you have to win, but getting them both isn't necessarily something you should focus on unless that comes naturally to your particular situation.) If you happen to be in a position to win those votes then you may be able to delay other civs other victories (typically by timely pillaging, spy actions, or even outright burning of cities) long enough to pull off a diplomatic victory.

Domination Victory: For this I recommend the archipelago style of map. The AI does better at land combat than it does at naval warfare, and having every enemy capitol accessible by water gives you a big advantage over them. Build a massive navy and take advantage of the fact that your AI enemies won't have massive navies to counter you. Snipe an enemy capitol, make peace, and move on to the next target. If you will have trouble holding an enemy capitol due to loyalty pressure then capture and/or burn cities as necessary to stabilize your control. Save the most difficult to hold capitols until the end, and hit them all at once, to take advantage of the fact that the game will end when you control all the capitols (which eliminates loyalty pressure from consideration). Naturally this is easier with a civ that has a naval affinity (bonuses to coastal cities and special naval units), and easier still when your opponents do not have such affinities. It is also easier when all of your opponents are AIs, because a human will probably do a better job of responding to the threat your large navy represents.

-------------

Those suggestions may be helpful to you, but they won't do much for the AI. The other victory types require focused gameplay and delicate strategies that the AI has trouble enacting, and so in most games they will end up blocking each other out of achieving any of them... which is why a science victory comes up so often.

[Gentlest Giant]

Yeah, no. Domination and religious are both potentially way faster than any other, domination being the easier one.
Culture is also easier than science imo - the games where I've tried to go for a science victory I got culture victories instead almost by accident by using rock bands. They generate obscene amounts of tourism.
I can't imagine ever winning a diplomatic victory without really really trying hard not to win any other way first though.

[JuiceDay]

I have seen the AI get close to cultural, religious and science victory multiple times. I don't know what to tell you, honestly. It depends on the civs, but I think they have an easier time with cultural than science even.

I have never seen an AI get close to domination, ever. I have no idea if the AI can win diplo victory, I've never seen them gain a lot of points.

As for the easiest victory? It's certainly science, but you should be focusing your games toward a particular victory from the beginning. District order is going to be important, as is AI relationships for cultural and diplo. Domination is the most tedious but also the easiest. Religious is tedious and sometimes difficult to really feel like you're steamrolling the enemy like in other victories, so that's probably the hardest. Gaining a ton of followers isn't as strong as, say, gaining a ton of cities. However, the AI's Apostle spam can get pretty insane and they are definitely capable of winning religious if you are ignoring it. Granted if you're an experienced player you'll never let the AI get very close but if you drag out a long game you'll see them approach it.

I agree that it is *possible* to win domination the fastest, I've never been good enough to pull it off very fast. I think my fastest game was indeed a cultural victory. The science one has so many steps it just takes too long.

[gimmethegepgun]

A lot of value in religious victory comes from the early game rush. If you can get some missionaries up and running before all of the religions are online, you can potentially wipe out a fledgling religion right after it's founded by converting the cities that are that religion (remember, when a player founds a religion, all of their cities that have a holy site or Stonehenge will instantly convert to their religion, removing all built up pressure from other religions). It's a heck of a lot easier to win religious victory when there's only 2 religions to contend with rather than 3.
In GS it is possible for the religion to get revived late game by rock bands though.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

A lot of value in religious victory comes from the early game rush. If you can get some missionaries up and running before all of the religions are online, you can potentially wipe out a fledgling religion right after it's founded by converting the cities that are that religion (remember, when a player founds a religion, all of their cities that have a holy site or Stonehenge will instantly convert to their religion, removing all built up pressure from other religions). It's a heck of a lot easier to win religious victory when there's only 2 religions to contend with rather than 3.
In GS it is possible for the religion to get revived late game by rock bands though.

I'll expand on this to add that in addition to knocking out an early religion, going after the civs that don't get a religion is also a valuable play. They may not make their own units to aid you, but they will become very helpful in terms of the religious pressure aspect of the game. Once you have several dozen cities under your sway, the AI is very bad at picking targets to convert back. They will happily waste charges on a high population city surrounded by your religion, while you can go in later and undo the damage with just a charge or two.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

I mean.. a lot depends on how many opponents you have.

Science Victory can be completed in roughly the same time regardless of opponents.
Others require directly countering or taking over someone.

For example I'm sure if there were only 3 people a domination or faith victory would be quite easy to do before anything else had a chance.

2 People on a duel map might very well pull off a domination victory before even a religion could be founded.

[leandrombraz]

The AI have a hard time winning other victories, so you're right on that to an extent. Cultural can happen depending on the leader and how the match develop but it's unlikely. Religious can happen depending on map size and it's common for players that like to destroy other Civs to end up helping the AI to win religious (each destroyed Civ is one less that need to be converted). Domination is pretty much impossible for the AI, it just don't know how to do that. Diplomatic I guess the AI can win eventually but it certainly take too long.

As for the player, it's equally possible to win any victory. Your problem is definitely because of your playstyle. A common mistake that will make other victories look way more hard than they actually are is to try to play Civ VI using Civ V strategies, specifically trying to play tall (4-6 cities). Civ VI favors wide, unlike in Civ V, more is more. More cities = more districts, more trade routes, more yields, faster and easier victories. Meanwhile, having tall cities is good but doesn't win games.

You gonna win cultural faster if you have more theater squares and more room for national parks, resorts and so on. Religious is all about how much faith you generate and how effectively you use it, so you want as much holy sites as you can get. Domination you will inevitably go wide, you just need to build a nice army and be effective with it. Diplomatic does take too long to be worth it but it's winnable.

Cultural is not only winnable but also the fastest way to win, aside from cheesing the game in a 1vs1 Domination. If you know how to boost your tourism, you can get some ridiculously early victories because the AI doesn't offer much of a cultural defense.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

A lot of value in religious victory comes from the early game rush. If you can get some missionaries up and running before all of the religions are online, you can potentially wipe out a fledgling religion right after it's founded by converting the cities that are that religion.

Forgot to add that, as with most things, violence makes it easier too. Wiping out an opposing religion by murdering them before they can spread it anywhere works too.

[Unexpected]

Thanks for all the replies, people! It's great to finally hear some opinions and suggestions about this :D