Some victories are useless?

[GARASHTA]

Namely, Science and Wonder.
Most of my games I win without even trying to, even in endless dificulty, in a supremacy or conquest way. Less common, but sometimes it comes a pop up saying I won an economic victory.
Now I am currenty on a run to win a wonder victory, which I never had.
Thing is, I am fighting to NOT win the game in any other way. Which makes me think that this wonder victory may be a little off.
Update: Just finished my game. I failed to win the wonder victory... because I won other way. Really, the victory conditions of this game are really screwed. This is a one of a kind game, where you need to fight yourself in order to NOT win. Anyway, I won a victory for having enough systems. Fair enough, let me rewind time a bit (reload) and not conquer that last system. But then, in this second try I won by economic means. And now I am getting upset, but reloaded again and deliberately screwed my economy. And again, I won by economic means. Really, that is not a normal thing for a game. The victory conditions need to be adressed ASAP.

[Furry Profile Pic]

Frankly I think the one thing Amplitude has yet to master are its victory conditions. I have accidentally won pretty much every game I've finished in ES, EL, and ES2. I feel their victories need a bit of revision and rework personally.

[CursedPanther]

Stating the obvious but we can choose the specific victory condition we want.

[Danone]

I am not sure, but maybe they changed a but Wonder victory: i remember it was possible to build more obelisks at the same time, which makes perfectly sense, it is happening on another edge of the galaxy. Now if i am building one, i need to wait its completion before starting to build the next.

I almost never go for wonder victory, soi could be wrong, but thought it wasn't so once.

[BlueAuran]

WE got a new DLC you may wanna buy instead tho :) Sure you want basics fixed when you can just add more FLUFF?

[CannyFish]

You can choose what victory conditions will be available in the setup for the game. Just turn off everyting but the victory you are going for.

[patrick]

It depends on map size, player count and if those are AI or real. In pvp especially others might try to stop you from getting a conquest victory and the amount of systems needed increases with map size, the competition for systems increases as player count goes up.

If you use science behemoths you can cut down research costs by up to 95% for everything except the victory techs. Alot of people report quite fast science victories using that, i absolutely think that the science victory is legit.

Wonder victory might be a bit harder to pull off but it depends on your luck/settings. If you have access to the needed strats it‘s not that much effort.

[mourioche]

I play on map size 'normal' or 'big',
I finish most of my games by Science or Wonder, depending on race affinity for these victories conditions.
And when i do these victories, only 1 or 2 races are eliminated,
So militaries victories are always far to be reached.
At this time some races on the other side of map are only visited by some explorers ships from my fleets.

[GARASHTA]

Well, saying that you can turn off the victory conditions is like saying you ca use gum to glue two parts of your ripped curtain.
It does not change the fact that it is broken, and you should not resort to such tactics.

[CursedPanther]

Originally posted by GARASHTA:

you should not resort to such tactics.

What 'tactics' are we talking about seriously? The toggle buttons have always been there for the easiest way to access, not like we have to hack the game or modify half of the game's routines to change anything.

Granted the victory conditions do not always scale perfectly to map sizes or player numbers, they certainly aren't broken either.

[GARASHTA]

I should be able to pursue effectively any of the victory conditions, without resorting to canceling some victories conditions because otherwise I have a very high probability of fulfilling them before I can win with the one I choose.
That is just asinine.

[CursedPanther]

Originally posted by GARASHTA:

I should be able to pursue effectively any of the victory conditions, without resorting to canceling some victories conditions because otherwise I have a very high probability of fulfilling them before I can win with the one I choose.
That is just asinine.

You're just contradicting yourself at this point. So you say that you've chosen to achieve the Wonder victory specifically, but at the same time you ignore the easily accessible toggle feature due to whatever personal reasons and insist in finding 'faults' in the mechanics which the game clearly has already offered a solution to.

Yeah you ain't gonna convince anyone otherwise with that mentality.

[Bozobub]

Seriously?

There exactly TWO reasons that you can select the victory conditions you prefer:

1. User preference varies, and
   
2. Not all victory conditions are appropriate, all the time. Easy example: a "Conquest" victory is pretty silly, without enough factions in the galaxy to support it.

I cannot fathom the thought process that drives you to go for a specific challenge, then complain that it's a challenge. Seriously, WTFL (What The Froot Loop)? If you can't get a specific victory, simply because you keep winning another way, STOP WINNING THAT WAY.

Calling the victory conditions "broken" is silly hyperbole, nothing more. If you suggested possible changes, perhaps you'd get somewhere?

Of note: If you want actual difficult play vs. the AI, you can a) make custom factions specifically designed for AI use, and/or b) Use intentionally "gimped" custom factions or the Nakalim (have fun with that, however; it's a slog). I'd suggest online play but...well...no, not at this time; desyncs run amok, at the moment. You should also keep the Pirates at "Normal", max, if you want the main AI factions to be properly strong.

[ElPrezCBF]

It's simplistic to call certain victories useless as many variables can determine which you get first. Granted science and wonder victories are rather straightforward but that doesn't make them useless.

The thing is there is a huge overlap in how the different conditions are achieved. You can't win conquest and neglect economy to pay for fleet upkeep. You can't win science without deterrent fleets to keep enemies at bay though that depends also on difficulty and map settings. You can't win wonder without investing in science and industry production.

Can science and wonder victories be modified? Perhaps though I haven't given much thought to it. Even economic victory can be modified such that being the richest isn't enough and you also have to own certain "financial hub sustems" which may be owned by other factions and you have to capture/assimilate them. In general, I think non-military conditions are not useless but more thought could be put into making them less staightforward to achieve for greater immersion.

[GARASHTA]

Seriously, I am having a really hard time trying to understand what is the problem here.
Being able to achieve a victory condition basically only by means of disabling the others feels like hacking or cheating, like fixing a broken vase that should not be broken. It may somewhat work in the end, but it does not change the fact that it was broken to begin with, and that it had to be fixed by me. Not only that, it is by no means the same thing as unbroken vase.
Have you guys ever played civilization? With all its flaws, the victory conditions are generally well implemented, certainly much better than in ES. You do not need to disable other victory conditions in order to sucesfully pursue a cultural victory, for instance.
And how is it possible that you do not understand that the fixing of disabling the other victory conditions change the game? The AI will not be able to pursue an economic victory when you are trying a wonder victory, for instance. Everyone will be pursuing this victory condition you set as the only one possible.
How hard it is to understand that a game like this is different from a game where the AI can still win with other victories?
And not only that, have you never ever considered that adaptation to different circunstances is a good thing in a strategy game? In a civ game I may begin trying to win by means of Victory A, and then situation changes so that another victory condition becomes more likely, then I adapt. And then it may change again. And then I may be nearing one victory, while a opponent is nearing another, so I need to fasten mine or slower theirs. This is awesome in strategic games, and if you cancel all victory conditions but one you will destroy this fluidity.
Really, it is unfathomable to me how can you guys not understand some simple things like these.

[ElPrezCBF]

I don't think your post is a response to mine but just to offer my two cents worth. I never ever compare Civ to Endless games because apart from the most basic functions common to all 4x games, they differ in one fundamental aspect, which is that factions truly differ from one another in terms of faction-unique mechanics.

I agree with allowing the AI the option to pursue any condition it wants though I also understand the personal preferences and play styles of other players that they want to disable certain conditions. As mentioned, gameplay here is asymmetric because of the faction-unique mechanics. On one hand, this forces the human player to adapt instead of always using a fixed "tried and tested" path to victory for every faction. On the other, the AI would have a much harder time exploiting some of these mechanics the more complex they are, which may not be the case for the human player who would then have a huge advantage over the AI.

With this in mind, opening up all conditions for the AI would not really make a huge difference if the AI plays factions with more "complicated" unique mechanics and is therefore unable to exploit them effectively. This is a constant challenge for designing Endless games though I wouldn't call it game breaking as the very same unique mechanics offer the player replayability and moderate gameplay to prevent early steamrolling to some extent.