The main Victory progress screen
There are five victory types in Galactic Civilizations III: Conquest, Influence,Technology, Ascension, and Diplomatic. Each has its own specific goals that must be met before a player is crowned absolute ruler of the galaxy.
Conquest Victory[ | ]
This is the classic 'murder everyone' victory.
Conditions[ | ]
You must defeat all other major races to win.
Strategies[ | ]
- Don't ignore your cash flow. Invasion Tactics like Biological Warfare make a huge difference when conquering enemy worlds, but they cost money. Population growth can be a major limiting factor, and limiting your battle casualties helps mitigate that.
- Get Galactic resources! Well, everyone should get resources, but prototype ships make an enormous difference early on, and quickly establishing a mining starbase or two can make all the difference in the space war.
- Watch your approval. You'll probably always be fighting to keep your people happy to some extent as a warmonger, and it's not the end of the world if they're grumpy, but population growth and wealth can be more important to an aggressive empire than to others.
- You don't have to go to war early and often to win by conquest. It's perfectly viable to "turtle up" and explode out of your worlds with devastating effect later in the game -- you'll probably want to time that alongside an important new warfare discovery. Even better if you can build up a big warchest, research your fancy new lasers or whatever, then mass-upgrade right before launching the offensive.
- If you research warfare techs early, make them work for you either by bullying your way into tribute or favorable treaties, or by outright conquest. Remember, if you get better lasers and the other guy gets better laboratories, you're on the clock -- he'll outrace you unless you can use those lasers to make him pay before he passes you in technology.
Influence Victory[ | ]
This is the 'shining city on the hill' victory, also referred to as the 'cultural' victory.
Conditions[ | ]
- Have 76% of the galaxy under your
Influence. - You must hold that control for 10 turns once achieved.
Strategies[ | ]
- Build Influence improvements. As if it needed to be said.
- Starbases are obvious candidates to spread influence, and their placement can be crucial.
- As with all the peaceful victories, managing how much war aggressive neighbors declare on you is key. Diplomatic technologies can help with this.
- Influence victories are also well-suited to aggressive players. Taking enemy planets denies them that
Influence while adding to yours.
Research Victory[ | ]
This is the 'we are unto gods' victory. You don't have to control the map like you do for an Ascension Victory, but you do have to research a whole lotta tech.
Conditions[ | ]
- You must unlock Beyond Mortality.
- You must unlock Precursor Understanding.
- You must unlock Cultural Affinity.
- Complete construction of Ascension Gate.
The game uses 
Tech Victory Points to track progress towards a research victory.
Strategies[ | ]
- Few empires will research this much technology in a single game. You'll likely want to prioritize research throughout all stages of the game.
- Tech Victories are well-suited to players who want to expand as far as possible and then "turtle up" in their perfect empire. Your (presumed) tech lead will give you excellent starships, but you may not be able to afford the additional manufacturing, monetary, and population costs of offensive war. Smaller but high-tech defensive fleets can be extremely effective at keeping the bad guys off your turf -- or even considering starting a war to begin with.
- Don't be afraid to fill a planet up with laboratories and switch it to maximum science in its planetary Govern screen. Planetary specialization is always important for advanced play, but particularly so when gunning for a tech victory.
Ascension Victory[ | ]
This is the 'control point' victory. Also it makes your people godlike beings that transcend the mortal universe, so that's pretty cool.
Conditions[ | ]
- You must reach the Ascension Points threshold designated on the Victory screen. The threshold depends on the size of the galaxy size.
- Ascension Points are gained by controlling Ascension Crystals.
- Control Ascension Crystals by building a starbase nearby and adding a Xeno Archeology Lab.
Strategies[ | ]
- The Ascension victory is a "softer" warlike victory than the genocidal goals of Conquest. But it still requires military power as you have to capture the Ascension crystal starbases from other races.
- Be ready to defend your Crystals once you start making significant progress toward the threshold.
- The difficulty of achieving an Ascension victory is tightly tied to the map layout. If you have a crystal or two in your natural sphere of influence, think about gunning for this victory type.
- Some maps lend themselves to early Ascension victories. Don't just look at your own territory -- if a rival empire is primed for an early Ascension run, take steps to prevent it.
Alliance Victory[ | ]
This is the 'can't we all just be friends' victory.
Conditions[ | ]
- You must form alliances with all remaining major races.
Strategies[ | ]
- Diplomacy technology is your best friend. Use it to dominate the United Planets, get peace from the warlike, trade from the friendly, and alliances whenever you can.
- Trade is a cash cow. You should have plenty of friends -- take advantage of that by building freighters and establishing trade routes. Remember to research techs that increase your max trade licenses!
- If a rival (cough, Drengin, cough, Yor, cough) simply refuses to entertain the thought of friendly relations, well, you only have to ally with all *remaining* major races to win. Just sayin'.
- Don't get complacent just because nobody is invading you. You still need to constantly grow your power, through infrastructure development, expansion, or more and better treaties and trades.
- Holocall softly and carry a big particle beam. If rivals see you as strong but not directly threatening them, that's the best diplomatic position you can be in.
Turn Victory[ | ]
Congrats, you ran out the clock!
Conditions[ | ]
- You must have the highest score when the turn limit is reached.
Strategies[ | ]
- Be the biggest and the strongest -- every facet of your empire counts toward your score.
- Generally you wouldn't want to try specifically for a Turn Victory -- it's more of a fallback for if the typical win conditions become untenable for whatever reason.
Coming Soon: United Planets Victory[ | ]
The United Planets Victory was deemed too easy in beta, and requires additional development time. It will be reintroduced in a future patch but it seems to be scrapped after the announced final expansion patch.