is a diplomatic win possible?

[MasterDave]

The one diplomatic victory I ever had was anything but diplomatic. I took the conquest approach, razed the cities of my rivals, saw them driven them before me, and heard the lamentations of their women.



The last AI I pruned back to two or three cities, and then sat around until I got the UN built. I won the first vote 85-15.

The most disappointing thing was the extraordinary lame victory screen you get for a diplomatic victory. Basically, just your leader picture on the top of a circle with the UN symbol in the middle or some such. No movie, nothing. Also, my score was quite mediocre, it would have been a lot higher if I had completed the conquest victory a couple of hundered years earlier.

[PrinceBimz]

I had won a diplomatic victory before. I was trying for it since game start. What I done, was went straight for the tech needed to build the UN. I am talking right when the game started, beelined directly for it. All the while just gifting techs and everything I could to any nation that asked for it. Once I got the tech, I built the UN, got the votes I needed and voted myself, there it was diplomatic victory. This was on Noble level and I think I got lucky.

[NormB]

This diplomatic victory (DV) thing has been frustrating me to no end! In Civ3 & Conquests, the DV was the easiest I thought. That's all you needed to do was get the UN and suck up toward the end and you had it. It certainly needed to be more challenging. In Civ4 they've made it almost impossible!

I too used the approach of almost conquering the world and thereby amassing enough points to not need anyone else. I agree in being hard pressed to truly call that a DV.

Sucking up and giving away all sorts of things helps but that alone won't quarantee support. At best it will get them to abstain but it won't quarantee their vote.

I'm not sure how having similar civics and religion really helps since by that time in the game, most have similar civics anyway, especially if many of the resolutions have been passed.

Being a nice guy and avoiding war is essentially useless for a DV. Being in a war clearly hurts your chance of support.

The frustrating thing is that the SOB's never seem to forget the slightess thing no matter how long ago it occurred. The "You traded with our worst enemies" penalty is ridiculous. It's almost impossible to avoid especially if the population lead keeps shifting as the result of war.

I've won a couple of true DV's. I one a while ago I was NOT the dominant force. It left me wondering if being less strong was an advantage.

I just completed my second DV. This time I played as Freddy. I quickly got ahead early in the game by wiping out Isabella and Napoleon who are both notorious for being difficult to get along with. This left me as the dominant civ with Genghis, Julius, Mao and Toku remainig. Toku started a war with Mao who I supported. Genghis joined in and Toku was obliterated.

Mao was the early #2 in population and I made the mistake of alienating him by breaking a deal. After the war with Toku, Genghis ended up as #2 and was friendly with Mao. I sucked up major time with Mao and by the end, he was pleased with me and cautious with Genghis. Despite that the SOB would never vote for me. He always abstained. Julius was always in my camp.

The different strategy I tried in this game was to try to manipulate their opinion of me vs Genghis by bribing Julius and Mao to start wars on Gheghis. I also developed Defensive packs with both of them. I had to join in a war against Genghis when Mao asked me to (after I had bribed him to start it) to keep from offending him. I almost blew it when I conquered several of Genghis' cities and the population balance shifted to Julius. After the war I gave Genghis a couple of his cities back and that restored him as #2.

Despite all this maneuvering, a general principle remained constant in this game that I have also found in other games. By the time the DV vote comes up, it's too late to get someone to change their vote. Despite giving Mao several cities, many techs and resources, and despite the fact he had been in a war with Genghis in which I supported Mao, he never did more than abstain (What and ingrate!). Julius always remained in my camp despite my doing a lot less for him. I finally won because my population (votes) increased enough to make Mao irrelevant and Genghis was just a marginal #2. By that time it was 2040, I had held off a space victory I could have achieved much earlier and I was a few turn away from a cultural victory.

It shouldn't have to be this hard! There is way too much emphasis on early insults, and they are way too touchy and unforgiving about minor things like trade.

[Quillan]

I won my last game by diplomatic victory, and while there was a lot of effort and planning that went into it, it was pure luck that made it possible in the first place. The game was huge/continents, and by a stroke of positioning luck, I was able to trade by sea with almost all of the civs in the game with Sailing. I shared an island with Cyrus, just north of us was an island shared by Alex and Ghandi, northeast of that was a large island only populated by Frederick, and east of that (by an archipelago you could sail along via a galley) was a continent inhabited by Qin, Monty and Roosevelt. I developed Confucianism which Cyrus adopted, converted Ghandi and Frederick, and we formed a large voting block. Monty was #2 in population, and they all hated him. It wasn't enough to win the game, though, so I had to fall back on military conquest of Monty's weaker allies to earn enough votes to win.

[SebP]

I've won a real diplomatic victory on a continents map with 11 civs, i wasn' involved in any wars (except for declaring when allies asked me, but no fighting ever happened). So it was a real diplomatic victory, with lots of religion involved, i founded the 4 late religions and could convert everyone but the other 2 founders (saladin and isabella) to christianity (which is odd in itself, i usually don't use that one at all most often it will be an early one or confucianism). in the end i won with 636 of 1015 votes, 629 votes needed. only 5 of my 7 fellow christians voted for me mostly the ones i had converted first.

though it was, so to speak, a real diplovictory, one may argue it was not. it was noble level, so, being washington and having plenty of room, i had by far the biggest, territory ( had 188 votes myself with saladin having 112) consequently lots of luxuries to trade AND obviously a huge tech lead, so most of the diplomatic +es came from giving away stuff.

also, religionwise, there was a lot of luck involved. i was on a continent with saladin bismarck and louis. the other continent had from west to east caesar, peter, genghis, elizabeth, isabella with genghis sitting in between
somehow, when i got there, only the english had been converted to one of isabellas religions, must have been genghis' wars shielded the others from it. it was really simple to convert peter, caesar and genghis, and they all voted for me later. also they were all friendly with each other to begin with, and hated their eastern neighbors. the mongols even took out the english at some point, even less buddhists to worry over in the votes
the greeks and persians were both isolated, i got them as well but only cyrus voted for me.
i could also get bismarck and louis to convert from saladin to me, but only bismarck voted for me

even with all this going on, i only won by seven votes. on the other hand, i pretty much beelined for mass media when i understood the situation, shortly after the first caravels, and when i built the u.n. i held elections for victory as soon as i could

off course, i could have easily won by spaceship. as really always the case on noble. thats why it's not a REAL real diplomatic victory, i guess. is it doable with only the religions and without the +es from giving away (a few, not so many really) cheap techs and unusually many ressources? on monarch, too?

[PaganPaulwhisky]

What is all this "REAL" diplomatic victory stuff?? A diplomatic victory is just that regardless of how you get it done. It sounds to me like people are dissapointed because they have to go to war to get a victory. Do you expect to just sit around and gift everyone techs and resources to get a victory? That seems very unstrategic to me.

I like the way they have set up the diplo victory in this game. You don't neccesarily have to conquer everyone to get it either. Its all about managing everyones population. The few times I have done it I eliminated a few early opponents and built up quite a large population. Then I went after the head honcho. I tried not to take too many cities, mostly just pillaged and annoyed him. Gave some techs away for alliances and spread religion like crazy. I had a huge percentage of the vote, but still needed one other medium size ally to vote for my win.

[axisworks]

I've started to notice a trend. The few times I've actually been able to nab a diplomatic victory without crushing my adversaries first, I put the diplo win to a vote VERY early on after building the UN. Every non-war-based diplo win I've had has been won on either the second or third UN vote.

[NormB]

snafuc4, I've noticed no such trend. I almost always call for a vote early and have been equally frustrated either way.

[Badtz Maru]

I've won a couple of diplomatic victories on Noble, Standard map with 9 civs, with only about 1/3 of the population. The main strategy was having one civilization or pair of civilizations be 'the enemy' while most of the other civs share your religion and your animosity towards the bad guy civs. What's really important on a smaller scale, however, is ALWAYS checking for possible negative repercussions before doing anything diplomatically. If someone is offering you a deal, check the diplomacy screen (in 1.52 you can check your various info screens during diplomacy) and make sure this person is not the enemy of anyone you want to retain friendship with. Remember that 'Worst Enemy' does not mean they are Furious or even Annoyed with that civ, just that they are the least liked. It's tricky, and can make a game drag out a LOT longer, but if you play it that way you are guaranteed to have several civs that will like you enough to vote for you - not having a single negative modifier ("You traded with our worst enemy!") ever counts for a lot.

[fed1943]

I call,to my own games,a Real diplomatic victory(I never had it)or Fake diplomatic victory;my fake has nothing to do with diplomacy;it's just a domination victory,without the necessary terrain,but with the population and the UN.I am the only one voting for myself.
Best regards,

[cal_01]

I once won a diplomatic victory on Monarch with Isabella on a Pangaea map. Founded Buddhism early, then I cut the continent in half. Strangely enough, almost all of the civs adopted Buddhism until relatively late in the game, and all of the civs on my Eastern front tended to be civs like Cyrus.

Anyhoo, I manged to prop up the Americans and French on my west front against China for a while. China converted, so I waited a few turns to attack. Eventually, I got into a stalemate, so I tried the diplo vote for the heck of it. Surprisingly, I won!