is a diplomatic win possible?

[kwyncee]

settings = noble, random, standard, continents, 12 AI oponents, marathon, all victory conditions off except diplomatic.

i wanted to win a diplomatic victory because that's the only way i haven't won yet... well there have been times on my way to a conquest or domination victory where i could have won diplomatic victories due to overwhelming population, but i don't consider that a diplomatic victory.

my latest game i drew alexander and started on a continent with elizabeth, qin, cyrus, louis and catherine. it soon became obvious that i was not going to thrive without going to war as my super capital site was surrounded by dessert. cath and liz were my closest neighbors and boxed me in after sparta was founded. thankfully i had ivory, copper and iron and everyone else had horses... that's what the biggest part of their armies were for a long time. (between my elephants and phalanx i killed 96 horse archers in this game)

anyway, fairly early liz asked me to help her fight louis. as that war ended, cyrus attacked me i brought catherine in to help... liz asks me to stop trading with cath, i refuse, later i find out that no one else in the world likes cath, and to make a long story short, by 1344 the whole continent was greek.

by this time i've met everyone else in the game (america, egypt, arabia, spain, japan, mongolia) except rome. they are all buddhists except japan so i become buddhist. eventually i sign a defensive pact with america and later arabia and there is world peace from 1600 until the end of the game. score-wise it is me, america, japan, mogolia, spain, arabia, rome, egypt.

so that's the background. i build the united nations around 1850 and get elected... everyone votes for me except mongolia and japan. for the rest of the game i try to win diplomatically. no luck. america always votes for me (japan is the other person running and mongolia always votes for japan) and i need either spain or arabia or both rome and egypt to have enough votes. no matter what i do for the rest of the game (gift all resources, gift all techs, gold up to 150/turn) spain, arabia, rome and egypt always abstain.

so i go back to a previous save and do not pass free religion, we all stay buddhist and i still play santa claus with resources, techs and gold. no change, still everyone abstains.

i go back and just concentrate all my good will on america and arabia. arabia abstains every vote.

i go back again, keeping buddhism, and pay arabia to attack japan and then enter the war when they ask. when japan sues for peace i engineer a war with mongolia, then japan again so that from ~1900 through the end arabia and i are fighting wars together. they still abstain every vote. they are +18 and friendly, the only negative is a -2 you declared war on our friend (they were friends with qin or liz i think) from 600 years ago.

i go back once again and try the war ally routine with spain. together "we" reduce both japan and mongolia to their island cities and i gift her all of the continental cities and still... abstain every vote. (spain was a rival w/ america so there was a -2 or 3 you have defensive pact with rival along with the -2 for declaring war on our friend, but she was still +14 and friendly)

is a true diplomatic victory possible in civ iv? in this game for 500-600 years (1344 - 2050) i was close religious allies, trading partners and had defensive pacts with two countries and was religious allies and trading partners with three more and i could only get one of them to vote for me. the only reason i was even close in this game was because i conquered a whole continent... much less "diplomatic" than i wanted to be when i started.

has anyone won a diplomatic victory in which you had 25% of the world population or less? if so, how?

-k

[axisworks]

I've won a few diplomatic victories on Noble, but they're pretty difficult. Throughout one game that stands out in my mind, I was never at war with anyone, and that seemed to help substantially. There were only 5 AI's, however.

[Quillan]

Yes, and it was by luck. It is possible to win through diplomacy, but it is very difficult, because you have to be extremely well liked by most (if not all) of the AI factions in the game. There have been times when I thought I had it handled, only to find out the number 2 population civ (who was a thorough friend of mine in that game) was more popular with everyone else than I was. Needless to say, he voted for himself and most of the others voted for him instead of me. There's a really interesting thread down in this forum someplace titled "Diplomatic victory through global thermonuclear war" which is funny to read through. It was accidental in the author's case (IIRC), but the upshot was a massive nuclear exchange severely reduced the population of the world at large, giving him such an edge in the voting that even though everyone hated him he was able to win through the UN.

[SandMonkey]

If you turn on permanent alliances in custom games you can pair up with another civ and make a voting block. I used this effectively in one game for war and the UN.

You do run the chance of the AI forming voting blocks as well, though, so I guess this option comes with its risks.

[kwyncee]

so is it just a matter of luck in who you pick to be friends with very early in the game... they grow large enough to have votes, but that they still have good enough relations with others that your other allies aren't mad at you for being friends with them?

do you just pick 2-5 civs and give them everything they ask for all game (this didn't seem to work for me... although i am basing this on one game of trying diplomatic win)

is there a strategy to use for diplomatic wins?

every other victory type has been manageable sometimes easy sometimes just barely squeaking out a win on random, noble, standard, continents, 12 AI civs (i usually turn off all but one or two victory conditions at the start of the game, and try to avoid wars unless i'm trying to conquer/dominate the world.)

it would be disappointing to find out that diplomatic victories are actually just a different form of conquest/domination victories or are mostly due to luck.

-k

[raguas]

I suspect it may be the fact that you have Diplomatic Victory as the only available victory option.

The AI, "knowing" that, thus won't vote for you (at least not all of them at the same time?)

In the same way that the AI can "smell" your spaceship and/or cultural victory and declare war on you, even if they're using grenadiers or longbowmen against your modern armor...

Just speculation on my part

[axisworks]

Again, the best way I've found to get a diplomatic win is to never be at war with anyone. The -2 you'd get for not joining an ally in war is a lot better than the -4 or -6 you'd get for declaring war against someone, or razing a city.

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by axisworks
The -2 you'd get for not joining an ally in war is a lot better than the -4 or -6 you'd get for declaring war against someone, or razing a city.

How does that apply WRT pacts? If you have a defesive pact with someone & your pact partner is warred upon, does that still affect you the same way as if you declared war unilaterally?

[Blake]

I've won OCC diplomatic victories on Monarch, so I can't imagine noble would be too hard. The important thing is religion, found as many of them as possible, switch everyone to your religion, cultivate an antagonist.
The last concept is important, you want your opponent to be public enemy #1, or at least to be more popular than them. Don't leave it up to chance. You can always do devious things like converting them to another of your religions to put them at odds with everyone else.

On founding religion.
There's a good chance that one AI will found both Hinduism and Juadism, or both Conf and Tao. So decide which 2 you want the AI's to get, then found the other 5. Figuring out how to do this is something of an exercise for the reader, but I'll say that the Oracle and great prophet lightbulbs are key.
Something like:
Research Meditation (Buddhism), research Code of Laws (Conf), build Oracle and pick Philosophy (Tao), generate prophet and lightbulb Theology (Christ), generate another and lightbulb Divine Right, research the remaining beakers (Islam).

[axisworks]

If you have a defesive pact with someone & your pact partner is warred upon, does that still affect you the same way as if you declared war unilaterally?

Having a defensive pact would, in itself, automatically piss off probably about half the nations in your world, but the -2 you'd get for this diplomatically would disappear as soon as you ever decided to cancel the pact. If you declared war unilaterally on someone, you'd probably pick up a -1 or -2 for "declaring war on our friend!" from some neighbors. I don't believe this would happen if you were declared war upon... in fact, the first diplomatic victory I received for a game was after several long wars with Peter the Great, who constantly declared them on me. Obviously, it's best diplomatically to have war brought to your doorstep, but not necessarily the best thing regarding military strategy.

[MoonWolf]

Re: is a diplomatic win possible?

I find it relative easy to win a diplomatic victory on noble (my level: I've just started on "prince). Just go warmongereing.

Originally posted by kwyncee
i gift her all of the continental cities and still...

What if you kept those cities yourself? Most of the times I've one a victory like this is when I have enough population to do so and maybe have one "friendly" AI voting for me. Of course, I've been close to win a domination, but I've used diplomatic a way to end the game when I'm powerful enough to take the entire world I'd I want anyway.

Or if you do as suggested here, leave other victories open as well. Time and conquest are two good one to pair with the victory you actually want.

[eluciv]

Re: Re: is a diplomatic win possible?

Originally posted by MoonWolf
Most of the times I've one a victory like this is when I have enough population to do so and maybe have one "friendly" AI voting for me. Of course, I've been close to win a domination, but I've used diplomatic a way to end the game when I'm powerful enough to take the entire world I'd I want anyway.

This is exactly how I've done it. The end game cleanup gets monotonous to me, so if I can end it early I will - I assume at the expense of a higher score. It's easy to get the pop requirement for domination, but depending on the map, it just takes too long (IMO) to hit the total land area mark.

[Common Sensei]

It also depends on who the other leaders are. One game, in a field of seven, I was among Frederick, Elizabeth, Roosevelt and Ghandi. It was merely a matter of civics. Universal Suffrage and Free Religion turned them to Friendly with little effort and it was a fairly early Diplomatic win by beelining to Mass Media.

[kwyncee]

I suspect it may be the fact that you have Diplomatic Victory as the only available victory option.I suspect it may be the fact that you have Diplomatic Victory as the only available victory option.

The AI, "knowing" that, thus won't vote for you (at least not all of them at the same time?)

In the same way that the AI can "smell" your spaceship and/or cultural victory and declare war on you, even if they're using grenadiers or longbowmen against your modern armor...

Just speculation on my part

this could be possible since everyone voted for me as secretary general except japan and mongolia but always abstained in the diplomatic victory voting. well, that would be disappointing since it would mean that a diplomatic victory would be the only victory condition that would become impossible by picking it from the start as the only possible way to win.

The important thing is religion, found as many of them as possible, switch everyone to your religion, cultivate an antagonist.

has this religious strategy worked consistently for you? what civs were you playing? what civs and how many were in each game, if you remember?

in this game after taking the continent (1344 AD) i had five holy cities, everything but buddhism(spain) and christianity(japan.) does it make a difference if you found the religion or take the holy city? i became buddhist in the game because everyone but japan was buddhist (mongolia later converted to christianity with japan) and when i replayed without passing the free religion resolution both spain and arabia stayed buddhist with me the whole game but still wouldn't vote for me while america eventually went free religion and voted for me every time (for the record rome and egypt also went free religion and abstained every vote.) we had antagonists in the evil christian mongols and japanese even going to war with them in some replays.

eluciv and moonwolf: you describe exactly the kind of "diplomatic" victory i'm trying to avoid. i don't want to win because i conquered so much of the world that my population gives me enough votes to win on my own... that's just a conquest or dominion victory under a different name.

It also depends on who the other leaders are. One game, in a field of seven, I was among Frederick, Elizabeth, Roosevelt and Ghandi. It was merely a matter of civics. Universal Suffrage and Free Religion turned them to Friendly with little effort and it was a fairly early Diplomatic win by beelining to Mass Media.

this is what i am beginning to think myself... diplomatic victories are a matter of luck in what civs are in the game... and since i want to play with 13 total civs i'm likely out of luck trying to win diplomatically... unless i manually pick several of the civs in the game.

i cant' decide if i'm disappointed in the game for practically eliminating what i consider to be the most interesting way to win or if i'm impressed with the game for mirroring how difficult it is for different cultures in the real world to get along... and how difficult it would probably be to get a true world leader elected.

thanks everyone for your replies.

i think i'll go try a few more games and see what happens.

-k

[gdgrimm]

Playing with lots of civs may make diplomacy tough.

I've only done 1 diplo vict., and it was the old 'just about big enough to vote myself in' type.

I had one other game where I could have won it the 'real' way, but finished with a cultural victory instead. It worked like this....

I (Cyrus) was never the dominate civilization. Alexander was the dominate, with Washington 2nd, me 3rd, and Elizabeth bringing up the rear. From very early on, the world split along the lines of Alexander against everybody else. Our group even got to the point that we had Defensive Pacts with each other, and did have them triggered. That, BTW, saved my butt, since Alex. started the war on my island continent, and I barely had enough military to fend him off (lost a couple of cities and many improvements). Any subsequent attack would have finished me off. But Wash. and Lizzy coming into the fray sunk Alex's Navy, and kept his troops away from me until the Peace broke out again. That war lead to both Lizzy and Wash getting a city planted on my continent, too, though both ended up flipping as my culture engulfed them.

Anyhow, the point being that if I had built the UN, the vote would have been between Alex and me, and I'm confident that I would have won it.

So I think the keys are....
Figure out how to get the world to split into 2 blocks.
Be sure that the 'enemy' block has the biggest civ.
Maintain your block large enough that it can survive the test of time with enough votes to put you over the top.

And that becomes the real trick. You have to want some enemy AI to become really powerful, then work to ensure your block is almost as strong, but not quite. Because as soon as one of your block gets top billing, then the UN vote is between you and an ally, and that won't work. The vote has to be between you and the enemy.