Tech Victory not worth it?

I've never had the patience for a tech victory since other victory options seem so much easier. How long did it take?

Hydro

I like tech victory. I find it easiest to get, next to influence victory (some people are good at alliance victory, I'm not one of them). It's less micro than a military victory.

Umm, from the spot I started it took probably 4-5 game years, if not more. Mind you I had to start a war with the altarians just so I didn't get the influence victory. And that was with me pumping as much money into tech as possible.

It's not really that difficult, you just have to research down that one line. Though it might not be as easy now with the tech trading. When I won it, it was just a case of hitting Enter turn after turn. Any techs I needed for other things I just traded for. Really quite boring.

Thing is though, once the other races realize what you're doing, they may try to band together to stop you before you acquire the technology victory, so it's not exactly all smooth sailing.

The deal is that winning this game one way or another is too easy anyway.

Perhaps 'easier' was the wrong word. The right word is tedious. The game is wrapped up, anyway

I can see that it might reduce micromanagement, as long as you have a position of superiority anyway. I'll have to give it a try.

Hydro

It can be quite fast if you're built up for it the right way. This typically means that you're NOT built up for winning it with military might. You'll need lots of economy - lots of money to turn into lots of tech. Then you'll need lots and lots of tech planets - like maybe half your planets.

This kind of setup isn't suicidal. You can keep them off with tech offerings, money, and/or diploimacy while you research the tech. Having lots of tech resource bonuses and bonus research tiles doesn't hurt, either.

Yes tedious would about describe it. When I won it, I was getting bored of the game anyway. Everyone was peaceful, no one was attacking. And I was so far ahead in tech I didn't really have to worry about anyone anyway, I had more and better ships than anyone else. But I decided rather than just quit, that I'd try the tech victory. Like I mentioned earlier, it was just a question of hitting Enter turn after turn.

IMO, tech victory is mostly the victory for "I'm tired of this galaxy, time to play somewhere else."

The tech victory is the only victory you can get that doesn't REQUIRE aggressive expanding or interacting with other races - for military you have to wipe everyone out, for influence you have to expand to the point of controlling 75% of the galaxy, and for diplomatic you need to make the surviving civs love you, but research is something you can do totally within your own shell.

I made it a point (before I realized there were metaverse games) of getting each type of victory just to see the ending movie back in GalCiv1.

I prefer conquest victory. Makes the game longest (and scores the highest points, incidently).

For what it's worth, there is a nice idea for a way to make the Tech victory a tiny bit harder, and perhaps a bit sweeter. Simply make the end-techs a requirement for either a building or a unique spacestation that must be built.

In Master of Magic, researching the Spell of Mastery still required the act of casting it.

In Civ, you researched several techs to build the parts of the rocket. Then you built them, launched them, and then waited to see if it made it there first.

So, picture a galaxy wide race to ascend. The only ways to win would be Military or Tech. Tech up the "useless" tree to build the Racial conversion center, a special starbase that must be fully completed and crewed before you win.

Once you start building the center, the entire galaxy should know where it is. You now need an economy to build the center and the military to defend it.

Tech victory is what happens when I have one or two AI left who keep declaring war and hence prevent an influence victory. Military is all nice, but in gets tedious in the late game when you know you've got a game won and just want to move on. I'm usually at Research Centers by then and have 2-3 additional tech capitols from conquered races. Takes 6months worth of hitting Enter once I go 100% Research.

To get a quick conquest victory out of a game you've already won, try my Spore boom strat.