Victory Conditions should be customizable
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2022 5:15 pm
I am coming off an extremely disappointing MP 1v1 (with an additional AI major) that I "lost" despite never having a city threatened or losing a significant battle. My start was isolated geographically and politically, so I sat in my corner controlling the few passes into my nation and building an economy and tech base to eventually explode out from. The other human player meanwhile had the run of the land, and conquered most of the other minors on the map, but didn't mess with the AI major at all. Turn 70, and after a few months of our PBEM game, he is declared the winner due to having the most empty land and lots of barbaric population.
The sole victory condition that a player must have 50% of the VPs and 25% more than another player can lead to situations like this where an interesting, contested game can end in a very unsatisfying way. I think victory conditions should be customizable when setting up a game, and personally I think one of the options should be capturing the High Command palace of the other players/majors. Additionally, VPs should take into account more than just land/populace - perhaps it should be weighted for admin/tech/civ levels as well in order to provide a more accurate snapshot of how the players are doing.
The sole victory condition that a player must have 50% of the VPs and 25% more than another player can lead to situations like this where an interesting, contested game can end in a very unsatisfying way. I think victory conditions should be customizable when setting up a game, and personally I think one of the options should be capturing the High Command palace of the other players/majors. Additionally, VPs should take into account more than just land/populace - perhaps it should be weighted for admin/tech/civ levels as well in order to provide a more accurate snapshot of how the players are doing.