Granted, it was a Time Victory, which I regard as the least desirable, but a victory of any kind is pretty damn cool. Last weekend, I was way ahead on points when one of the other civilizations snagged a Space Race victory with less than 30 turns left.
Behold my brilliance! The computer tells me that my leadership was comparable to that of … er, uh, Nero’s.
I beat it on prince the other day with some ridiculously high score. I wish I could take credit, but all of a sudden I had a diplomatic victory and had no idea how it happened.
Do you actually aim for the victory conditions? I tend to just try to expand and conquer and figure victory will follow. It doesn’t tend to work.
Grats mate. Checked out any mods? I’m fooling around with Fall from Heaven II and Total Realism (not sure if I’m accurate on those names).
I guess I’m always kind of aimed at a Conquest Victory or Domination Victory, because those are going to involve lots of warfare, which is what I like. If I see a chance to win the space race, I’ll give it a shot. I just don’t see myself winning a Cultural Victory, and the way I play most certainly does not lend itself to a Diplomatic Victory.
Never have fiddled around much with mods, no.
Time to move up to Prince. 
I typically play on Prince level now, but I usually don’t win. Or rather, I give up when things start looking bad and start a new game. I should probably work on that.
Recently, I decided I wanted an easy game, so I started one at Noble. I got into the modern age while the computer opponents were in the Renaissance. Ah, tanks vs. riflemen. Good times.
Uncheck domination, and when you control enough of the world, you can win a diplomatic victory with only your own votes.
I can win a time or space race victory on Noble about 50% of the time now. Or something like that. I tend to start games then abandon them if they’re not going well. Plus I get mad when other Civs take over one of my cities and I quit in a snit.
One thing I know I’m not doing well is using specialists. It just always seems better to let my cities grow. Also, they seem to go stagnant on me unless I go fast for technologies that allow them to grow - the one that lets irrigation spread, and Biology which gives the farms one more food. Any hints here? Am I putting too much effort into making cities big?
Oh, and another question -
Does it seem like sometimes it’s just impossible to win at all? Like in situations where even though you have several hoppin’ cities, there’s no iron or copper anywhere in your borders. I tend to just give up in situations like that. Maybe I should be trying diplomacy to talk someone into trading me iron/copper? Or is it best to just start over.
I know that going against my neighbors with warriors and archers when they have axemen and swordsmen doesn’t work. Yup, I know that one really well.
I think any poker player would tell you that if you’ve got a bad hand, fold and try again the next time. Me, if I don’t see some horses within reach in the early going, I’m outta there.
What I have been doing lately as an opening strategy – and this hinges upon selecting an Industrious civilization – is directing my research such that when I build The Oracle, I can choose feudalism as my free technology. That way, I’m already packing longbowmen, which don’t have any resource requirement, long before I’m likely to be fighting anybody.
As with every Civ game I have played, I tend to “turtle”. I’ll build 3 of the highest defensive military units I can, make cities until I run out of frontier, and then just build all the buildings I can and climb the tech tree like an ancient sumarian with an ibook (fast).
Once I have the “perfect” civilization (all tech, all cities at max, all territory terriformed), I go start razing cities. Never won anything except a space race victory.
Oh, and I turn time and diplomacy off (those diplomacy popups get reaaaaally annoying really quick).
I’ve yet to win a game yet (I got it for Christmas). Everytime I’ve built my military up to a strength where I think I can take someone on, they get some sort of victory! It’s infuriating! I spend eight hours building up a massive nation and just as I’m about to dominate the world I lose to a “cultural victory” :rolleyes:
To each his own. I have the warlords expansion pack; I think it makes the game focus far too much on war, which I don’t enjoy very much. After playing a few games with it I went back to “regular” civ, and enjoy it much more.
Also curious as to why you think Culture, domination, and diplomacy victories such so much?
Mostly becuase it comes out of nowhere. I get monumentally pissed if I have just geared up for a big war, or building the space ship, and the message pops up saying: “You have achieved a domination victory” so I turn off those options.
Warlords can be played without much war.
I like playing on Archipeligo maps. That way, the Martini Empire can rule the seas with superior Naval units, destroying all those who dare oppose me before they even hit the beaches.
As has been mentioned, Vassal States can be more trouble than they’re worth- you get a negative reaction penalty from all other Civs each time you acquire a Vassal State.
This can cause serious problems later on in the game when you discover you’ve got no oil/uranium/aluminium- and the Civ that does is pissed at you because half the continent are Vassal States of yours.
If you can get to Tanks, Infantry, Marines, and Modern Armour first, though, your military victories are generally assured, although Archers can sometimes take out Tanks if sufficiently fortified, defending a high culture/well developed city, with some level bonuses…
As I do anytime Civ comes up, I simply refer everyone to the Apolyton website, for all things Civ.
That explains why I keep getting the “Dan Quayle Award” when I win sometime in
the 1900’s/2000’s. Last night I beat that tho-got the Warren G. Harding Award.
I’m curious, have you tried the latest Warlords patch which significantly changes the AI of the game?