Diplomatic Victory

[wodan11]

All that doesn't mean it's broken, just that you don't like it. Clearly it can be improved, and I'd love to see some of the changes you suggest.

[Ming]

It depends on what your definition of broken is.
There are a lot of things that just aren't right in the current Diplomacy system. Rah points out many, and there are many other examples as well. It needs to be fixed

[wodan11]

Fair enough and agreed.

[Ming]

Hopefully, Civ V will have a more realistic system.

[wodan11]

I don't mind so much about realism, to me the most important aspect is gameplay. e.g., I dislike the UN more because it's bad game design than because it's unrealistic.

[rah]

That, I can totally agree with.

[Blaupanzer]

As to the AP, if the civ that heads the AP can place the AP religion in at least one city of every other survivng civ, then a vote to elect that civ as head of the religion is binding for leader of the world. Game over. Each civ only gets votes for the cities with the AP religion, so the builder and his close friends can easily outnumber all the votes from the other civs combined. However, he usually doesn't have to worry as so many civs measure whether they like the AP holder based on them being the same religion and he sees to that with missionaries.

So, if the AP builder is rather central, beats his nearest neighbors to a religion, and converts them, then spreads or has them spread his religion to at least one city in each civ (i.e., Japan isn't in the game), THEN the second vote of the AP will give that civ an instant victory.

The player can exploit this as well, going so far as to concede a city to the one civ without the AP religion. However, you can hold up your own honor; you cannot prevent the "jackpot" win by the AI.

[wodan11]

However, you can hold up your own honor; you cannot prevent the "jackpot" win by the AI.

You can adopt Theology or you can spread the AP religion yourself (which is quite beneficial to you so worth-while in its own regard).

[joncnunn]

I've done so several times on Prince & Monarch, mostly with the UN, but also once with the AP, as mentioned above they all amounted to a domination victory without the land requirement. (The AP one was before the change was made to prohibit giving missionaries to those under Theology.)

Never managed a Diplomatic victory above "noble" difficulty. Has anyone ?
I don't pay enough attention to the mutual relationships among AI civ and have a tendency to be greedy and trade with everybody that agrees to it. Invariably, I get negative points for "trading with worst enemy" ... Which btw I think is kinda disproportionate : most european countries trade with Cuba and Iran, US "worst enemies" yet that only damages their relationships with the US a little bit ... In BtS it is easily the biggest drag on diplomatic relations

[joncnunn]

SMAC's planetary council almost amounted to a domination victory without the land requirement.

Civ IIIs UN though was much worse, every civ that wasn't eliminated had the same number of votes so it really was needed to build the UN just to filibuster the motion to have an AI win. [The alternate was to figure out who the other choice for victory would be and then bribe the whole world to DOW him.]

I really don't see any other model possible for UN than pop based or equal vote based.

[rah]

They could do what happens in the real world. No one pays attention to the UN and there are no consequences.

[Blaupanzer]

UN resolutions usually involve trade sanctions. The game has a trade mechanism or two that would affect the player without getting weird, as happens now. Perhaps, if you violate a UN resolution for more than 10 turns, the other members initially close their borders. That would hurt if you have a lot of resource trade. Then, all income from corporations earned outside your borders is cut off. This is thinking out loud, so use your imagination. Maybe religious income from beyond your borders is next. If only the effects of the real UN sanctions was so clear and escalatory, they would be a genuine hindrance instead of the noisemaker they are today. Not saying that's a good thing, necessarily.

[joncnunn]

Above I was referring to modeling a vote on who wins the game; not the other resolutions.

On your idea above, about the only resolution I ever defy is the Global Enviormenalism civic to keep my corporate civic costs from going from the roof so I think your provisions are a bit harsh. The population based extra happiness is plenty when you have Sushi's and a lot of sea resources already. (I had to go on a Temple buying and Missonary spreading spree for a few turns while having a cultural tax of 20% to mitigate and I tend to build a bunch of spare happiness improvements and spread extra religions [primarily my own] in times of peace when possible.)

[prelynmax]

My first diplomatic win was an accident. It was a 1280 A.D. Dip Vic, and I had all 11 of 11 AI leaderheads vote for me, and before I knew it, I had been voted the world leader.

[Blaupanzer]

If you made it to 1280 AD without gaining any enemies, you probably deserve to rule.