Victory Types

Another area with some changes from previous versions is Victory Types. Of course, some things stay the same. You can always win by building a big military and going on a rampage and wiping out all opposition. This never changes, and it can be a lot of fun. But the existing Victory types have received some modifications, and one brand new one, Religious victory, has been added. In this discussion I will assume you are at least up to the Gathering Storm expansion, since that has the latest Victory rules.

Science Victory

This is still basedon getting out to the stars, but the details have changed, Up to Civ V it was based on building or launching a spaceship, with Building being the major part of it. But in Civ 6 it is more based on achieving certain projects before anyone else. It all starts with researching Rocketry, then building a Spaceport, and then completing the Launch Earth Satellite project. But that is only Phase 1. You then need to research Satellites. And you might wonder why that isn’t necessary to research before you do the Launch Earth Satellite project. Well, the answer is they did it this way, so deal with it. Think of it as the difference between simply achieving a launch, like Sputnik, and developing the advanced satellite technologies like Remote Sensing, Communications, GPS, etc. In any case, once you have researched Satellites, you can do the Launch Moon Landing project.

Then you research Nanotechnology, which lets you complete the Launch Mars Colony project. From there you research Smart Materials, and that lets you finish the Exoplanet Expedition project. This expedition then needs to travel 50 light years, and normally it travels one light year per turn, so you would need to wait 50 turns to win. Meanwhile, any other player could win while you are waiting. But you can speed up your expedition by building Laser facilities, some in orbit, others on Earth.

While you obviously need to do a lot of research to get to these technologies, you also need a lot of Production to build the projects. So make sure you have a high production city and place your Spaceport there for maximum benefit. And make sure your enemies cannot take out your Spaceport.

Culture Victory

Although it is called a Culture victory, it is more technically a Tourism victory in terms of the mechanics. This is a fun Victory type to go after. What you want to do is make all of your cultural offerings so compelling that your own people would stay home rather than travel abroad, and so that you attract tourists from other players. Keeping your tourists home is your defense against other players, and attracting their tourists is your offense. If your number of tourists attracted from other players exceeds any other player’s domestic tourists, you become culturally dominant over them. And when you are culturally dominant over all other players you win a Culture victory. So how do you do this? Mainly by focusing on things tourists like to visit. This can be great works of Art, Writing, and Music, but it can also be things like National Parks and Seaside Resorts. And there are Policy cards that can increase your Tourism.

Domination

This should be simple, just build a lot military units and start laying waste, right? Well, of course isn’t that simple. While you are doing this you don’t want your future victims to gang up on you. The basic criterion for a Domination victory is that you control all of the original capitals of the original players, whether or not they are still in the game. Original capitals cannot be destroyed or plundered, but they can be captured. Now, capturing someone’s original capital is likely to cause harsh feelings on their part. But if Player A has captured player B’s original capital you can then conquer it without the same level of penalties. And there are penalties built in to the process. If you are viewed as a warmonger other players wil start to gang up on you. So what you want to do is never fight a 2-front war, to begin with. Only have one war going on at any time, and ideally allow a cooling off period after you capture the original capital. You want to keep the other empires on your side as much as possible. and a good way to do that is wait until you have a Casus Belli with them. This means they have done something to you that entitles you to righteous reaction. There are a number of them, but one my favorites is when they steal one of your technologies and are identified as the thief. That will give you a Casus Belli. If I would rather be at peace, I will usually ignore that, but if I wanted to go to war I would gratefully sieze the excuse. Also note, your objective is to get original capitals, not to wipe them out totally. Conquering the last city of another empire will give you major warmonger penalties.

Religion

This is another major change in Civilization VI. The whole Religion thing is completely new, and there is a Religion victory you can win. This is another fun victory type to experiment with. The victory condition is simple to state, you just need to have your religion be the majority religion in every empire still in the game. It is how you get there that makes this very interesting. Some of your religion spreads naturally from your cities to other cities nearby, but you can also create Missionary and Apostle units to speed up the process. But there is a defense to this as well. The other empire can create their own Missionary and Apostle units to evangelize against you. And they can engage in Theological Combat. This can only be initiated by Apostles and Inquisitors, but it can result in the losing unit being killed. Think of it as if they are calling on God to smite the devilish heathens and it actually happens. And in some circumstances when an Apostle is killed in theological combat a Holy Relic is created, and this can add to your Culture and Tourism.

We’ll talk more about Religion and Theological Combat in a more detailed look at Religion in this game.

Diplomatic

This is a bit different from the Civ V Diplomatic victory. Instead of winning a vote in the World Congress/United Nations, you accumulate Diplomatic Victory Points. If you accumulate 20 Diplomatic Vicgtory Points you win the game. So where are these to be gathered?

• The first is that being on the winning side of a vote to Target or to cause an Outcome in the World Congress is worth 1 Diplomatic Victory Point for each such vote.
• Building certain Wonders. The Mahabohdi Temple is worth 2 points, the Potala Palace is worth 1 point, and the Statue of Liberty is worth 4! Since machinations in the World Congress can take away points, a good strategy is to get within 2-3 points of Victory and then complete the Statue of Liberty.
• Seasteads, a Future Era Tech, and Global Warming mitigation, a Future Era Civic, each are worth 1 point.
• Periodically you will get a chance to respond to an aid request from another player in the World Congress. If you provide the most aid, you get 2 points. Having a big Treaasury makes it a lot easier to pull this off.

Score

Should no player win by any of the above Victory types, the winner will be the person with the highest score. This doesn’t happen often, but it can happen.

Changing Horses

You should also be flexible. Circumstances can change as the game goes on, and the original Victory type you were aiming for is looking like bad bet. When that happens you should re-evaluate your options and perhaps pursue a different Victory type. And I have played games where a different Victory type just kind of happened. But any decision you make should be an informed decision, and the game interface is helpful here. In the upper right there are a few buttons, and one of them is called World Rankings. Clicking this button will tell you where you are versus your competitors for each of the Victory types. This is is a popup window that you should consult periodically as the game gets going. One thing you need to watch out for is that you might be leading for your planned Victory, but another player may be moving quickly to a different Victory. It is nice to be heading toward your Diplomatic Victory, but if one of your competitors is doing Space projects for a Science Victory that can be a bad thing for you. Of course, you can just play it for fun and not worry about who is winning, but I suspect most people would like to win a game after they have put in something like 10-12 hours playing