A Diplomatic Victory?

[trev]

Playing as the chinese on Monarch level on a pangaea, standard map I was well ahead in technology and militarily, steadily crushing all enemies, but was given the chance as I built the Un to put forward resolutions. I requested a diplomatic victory and gained it with my votes alone, all others abstained or voted against me. A Victory YES, but not the general idea of a diplomatic victory I am sure even though that is what I was given. I was well over the domination limit for population, but my newly captured cities still needed pacification and border expansion before a domination victory could be achieved. I still had around 6 cities needing pacification at the time victory was achieved

[Virtual Alex]

I thought you needed a majority vote?

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Virtual Alex
I thought you needed a majority vote?

You do, but when you have a lot more votes, than all the enemies together, then it's you who decides who wins

IMHO diplomacy victory should only give each civ one vote, so that you need friends to win. I disabled diplomacy victory because it's just a shortcut to win for those who shot for a conquest victory, but failed. Whenever I won a diplomacy victory I actually felt like I lost, because it's too easy to win. No AI has ever been close winning it

[LordShiva]

Ah, yes, Diplomatic victory. The poor man's Domination.

[dregor]

I've been trying to get a legit Diplomatic victory not brought about by me having an overwhelming percentage of the votes... it's tough, silly AI.

[Blake]

Any diplomatic victory when you have more than 40% of the population is colloquially known as a "Back door domination".
The 40% is because a civ needs a 60% majority to win, so if you have more than 40% another civ can't possibly win.

Back-door Dom is my most common victory type. I've won a few true diplomatic victories though, such as an OCC diplomatic victory on Monarch difficulty.

[-SafaN-]

so domination victory is a weak conquest,
and diplomacy is a weak domination victory?

[drsparnum]

Diplomacy is actually the only type of victory I've never one at any difficulty levels. I don't usually build the UN but if it gets built somewhere else I'll surely vote for myself.

I think it is too tough to win the true diplomatic victory (one that you get by any method other than stuffing the vote box yourself).

Especially since a simple flow chart could govern the AI voting. The AI could ask itself the following questions:

1. Am I able to vote for myself?
If yes, vote for self. If no, go to 2.

2. Am I able to vote for someone else who I'm either pleased or friendly with?
If yes go to 3. If no, abstain.

3. Is there only one possible candidate I'm pleased or friendly with?
If yes, vote for that candidate. If no, go to 4.

4. Vote for candidate I have a greater relationship + with (you know, that +10 relations or something).

In the unlikely event there is an exact tie in the plusses, just vote for whichever candidate civ is smaller.


I also think a true diplomatic victory is difficult to come by because you have to sort of walk into it. You don't control it like building the spaceship, taking land or even trying to muscle in alot of culture. If this flow chart was in place, it would at least be predictable and more readily understandable as a strategy. As it is now, I'm sometimes left wondering why civ X who I've gotten along with all game and share a religion with and give (just give) some movies and musicals to isn't voting for me.

[ScreamingCube]

Here again the SMAC model was far cooler, allowing for negotiations during the voting, instead of you merely being informed of who you can vote for and deciding based on that. Oh well

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by -SafaN-
so domination victory is a weak conquest,
and diplomacy is a weak domination victory?

Exactly.

On a lameness scale of one to ten, with ten being the lamest type of victory, here's how the victory conditions rank:

Conquest: 1
Domination: 4
Culture: 7
Diplomatic: 9
Time: 10
Space Race: for hippies

[Nugog]

Originally posted by LordShiva


Exactly.

On a lameness scale of one to ten, with ten being the lamest type of victory, here's how the victory conditions rank:

Conquest: 1
Domination: 4
Culture: 7
Diplomatic: 9
Time: 10
Space Race: for hippies

Exactly

[Qwertqwert]

I've changed the votes needed for everything because I thought it was too easy for laws and such to get passed. 51% to become the UN leader, 66% to pass a law, 80% to win diplomatic victory. Unless you have almost all of that 80% of the votes it's incredably hard to win the diplomatic victory. You really need to be a good diplomat to win.

Also, I've never personally won diplomatic victory, but there was 1 game of 16 civilizations, I was the biggest, and controlled enough votes to stop any other civilization for getting diplomatic victory, but just barely. But the cities of my opponents grew and EVERY civilization voted for Cyrus except for me (nobody abstained, no one else voted for me) when it came up, and I was 3 votes too short to stop him from winning. This was before I edited it to those numbers.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Qwertqwert
But the cities of my opponents grew

I find razing their cities a good way of stopping this from happening

[Vince278]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Space Race: for hippies

Been there, done that.

[Nikolai]

Space victory is way cool, man.


And btw, I once opted for diplomatic victory and got it, but it was a good victory where I had only the second most votes myself or perhaps it was even less, so I had to rely on my great friends.