How to Win Civilization V — A Noob's Guide

(I originally wrote this guide eight years ago, and it wasn't very informative. I now know more about the victory conditions, and decided to randomly rewrite the guide out of boredom. Enjoy!)

Civilization V has four (technically five) victory types, all with their own set of victory conditions:

• Domination — Potentially the most well-known victory type, and certainly the easiest one to understand, all you need to do is wipe out the original capital city of all the other civilizations.
  
• Science (Space) — Requires the player to go down specific technology trees and then build the Apollo Project, which will make it possible to build rocket parts.
  
• Cultural — In the base game, all you need to do is focus on getting a lot of culture and then adopt all five policy trees all the way, making it possible to build the Utopia project. The Brave New World DLC added an entirely different culture victory that's a bit more complicated, involving the new mechanic tourism.
  
• Diplomatic (United Nations) — Once you enter the Information Era, you'll be able to build the United Nations. Whenever a Civilization builds it, it will trigger the United Nations and the possibility to get a diplomatic victory. They key is getting as many votes as possible.
  
• Time/Score — Finally, if none of the civilizations meets one of the above victory conditions (including yourself) when time runs out, the civilization with the biggest score will automatically win.

All of these might seem daunting to new civilization players! With enough patience, though, you'll be able to win all victory types. Below, I'll be explaining how to win every victory type in a simple and easy to understand way.

Remember, that you should always know before you start a new game what victory condition you're going for (if you want to win), so that you know in advance what things to focus on. For instance, if you're going for a domination victory, you'd want to focus on troops and military buildings, science for a science victory, etc. Of course, if there's an opportunity, you can decide to change what victory type you're going for, but it's always good to have a general idea.

Out of all the victory types, the domination victory is definitely the easiest the understand — capture all the other civilizations original capital city. Just because it's a simple premise, though, doesn't mean it's easy, though. Unlike some of the other victory types, there isn't exactly a precise set of things you do (research this, build this, etc).

Generally, though, here are some tips that should help you get a domination victory without any troubles:

1. Choose a domination-centered civilization — Choosing civilizations like the Aztecs, or Zulu will give you a higher chance of winning a domination victory. Scroll through your own list of civilizations and pick ones which have a high focus on domination and military.

2. Start Early — War gets more and more complicated the further into the game you are. To win a domination victory easily, you'll want to declare war almost as soon as you meet another civilization. A good way to know if you're ready to declare war on another civilization is to go to your military advisor. If he says that the civilization in question would be crushed by your army and doesn't stand a chance, you can probably safely declare war.
3. Troops — While you'll obviously need a lot of troops to win a domination victory, it's easy to get carried away and make too many troops. Keep an eye on your gold amount, since you'll still be wanting to earn gold, so that you can upgrade your units. As for types of troops, always have a good balance of melee and siege units. Melee units are good for attacking other civilizations' units and going in for the final capture. Siege units are great for wearing down a city. Keep an eye on your units health, and if it gets too low, exit them from the enemy city to heal, and replace them with a full health unit. (The little indicators that tell you the likelihood of victory when attacking are also useful!) Units will die during this process, but that's okay.

(Keep an eye on these!)

4. Buildings — Definitely build military-focused buildings and wonders (Terracotta army is especially nice if you need more troops and Statue of Zeus is particularly nice, too), but don't forget to build other ones too. While your focus IS military and domination, you don't want to be severely behind on your science, culture, gold, etc. You'll still need all of those things to give yourself a boost.

(Insanely good wonder for domination!)

5. Culture/Religion — Culture and religion can have several perks to help you with domination. The Honor culture tree is especially helpful, and certain religious perks can help too.
6. Capturing Cities — It's not necessary to capture every city from each civilization to win a domination victory, only their capital cities. This being said, you'll still want to capture important cities. Make sure to puppet then annex cities, and keep a close eye on your happiness! (Building happiness-focused buildings like the circus is very important for captured cities.)

Before declaring war, make sure you're completely ready. Surround the other civilization with important troops. Later on in the game, focus on getting a good navy for dealing with faraway civilizations on different islands.

It might take you a couple of tries, but with these tips, you should be able to eventually win a domination victory.

The science victory requires (a lot!) of researching, and as the name suggests, a big focus on science production. To win, you'll need to focus on building science-based buildings and wonders. Like other victories, it's important to pick a civilization that's good for this particular victory (science). Korea is a really amazing civilization for this, but it is locked behind a DLC. Babylon is a great base game civilization for science. Some people get confused over the exact technologies and rocket parts you need to build, so let's cover that step-by-step.

The ability to start work on your rocket starts at the information era with the following technologies and steps:

1. Rocketry — Researching rocketry in the information era gives you the ability to build the Apollo Project. Every civilization can build the Apollo Project, and you'll get an alert when other players finish theirs. Ideally, you'll want to be one of the first to finish the Apollo Project. It gives you the ability to build spaceship parts.

2. Spaceship/Rocket Parts — To actually build the rocket, you will need the following technologies:

• Advanced Ballistics — Unlocks SS Booster (Need to build 3x)
  
• Particle Physics — Unlocks SS Engine (Need to build 1x)
  
• Satellites — Unlocks SS Cockpit (Need to build 1x)
  
• Nanotechnology — Unlocks SS Stasis Chamber (Need to build 1x)

(3... 2... 1... We have lift off!)

Any city has the ability to make spaceship parts, but focus on choosing cities with lots of production to speed up the process, since other civilizations will probably be racing to finish the spaceship like you! Great engineers and great scientists can be very helpful at this time! Once you have all the parts built, you will need to bring them all to your capital to build. Also keep in mind that each rocket part will need one piece of aluminum while being built, so try to build some recycling centers.

Some quick tips for science production... Choose science-focused wonders, policies, and ideologies. There are a couple of these, so keep an eye out, but the main policy tree you'll need is rationalism, which unlocks during the Renascence area. Research agreements and espionage can also help, but aren't necessary, and espionage may be a bit difficult to grasp for new players.

Sometimes you might find that another civilization just barely beat you to it, or annoyingly, won the United Nations vote before you finished building the spaceship... With enough patience, games, planning, and luck, you'll eventually get it.

First, start by making buildings and researching stuff that gets you Culture. When you have enough culture to adopt a policy I recommend going with Liberty. After a while, you will be able to build Wonders. Make sure to choose wonders that give you culture.

When you adopted five policies (not just little parts but the whole thing) then you will get the option to build the Utopia project. This will take a few turns. After you're done with the project you won!

To win the United Nations way, you will need most of the civilizations to vote for you. I don't know much about how to get the civs to vote for you. You will need the research the United Nations to build them. Building it will trigger the voting. If you build it you will get one extra vote. Good Luck!

Here's a quick summary of all the victory types with just the bare-bones information:

1. Domination — Capture every civilizations original capital. Choose a military-based civilization, like Zulu. Build military-based buildings, wonders, and policy trees, but still keep your science, culture, and other things up. Keep an eye on your gold and start early. Declare war as soon as you can, since war is easier early game.
2. Science — Research rocketry and then build the Apollo Project. Keep researching technologies for all the spaceship parts. You will need 3x SS Booster, and one of everything else. Once the parts are done, assemble them in your capital. Korea or Babylon are good science civilizations.
3. Culture — Really easy in the base game. Just pick culture-heavy buildings and a culture-based civilization. Adopt all policy trees and then build the Utopia project.
4. Diplomatic — Starts when the United Nations wonder is made. Build it yourself for one extra vote. Get as many ally city states as possible to get the most votes. Greece is great for this.

This guide isn't meant to provide any high-level strategies, only to give you enough information to be able to beat the game if you're a new player struggling. When I first started playing, I had no idea what certain victory conditions were, so hopefully this helps out a bit.

If any part of this guide confuses you, feel free to leave your questions below!

When I originally wrote this guide eight years ago, I recommended basically using "save scumming" to win multiple victory types in one game. (Working on one victory, saving the game right before you win, and then reloading it and start working on the next victory.) This is how I originally won most of the victories, but I don't recommend it anymore. It's very important to know from the start what victory you want. While you can chance your victory depending on what thing you're doing really well at, it's not a great idea to randomly switch right before another win.