Is there any way to prevent diplomatic victory?

[Blaupanzer]

So taking another path, if you're first to Theocracy, build the AP, switch to Christianity before it's done (you can switch back to another religion later), spread Christianity to all your cities, but only to one city in other civs - and the lowest pop/worst producing city they have. That will ensure you have the most votes.

This is an exploit that I really regard as unfair. ("Unfair to the AI, they are not people, why be fair?") This will, if it works, guarantee victory independently of how well you played. No challenge = broken game mechanism.

[Blaupanzer]

It's been a looong while since I last started near flood plains, I most often than not have to make do with a corn or rice that I cannot irrigate till Civil Service ...

You can farm such sites from turn one. The extra food item for irrigation must wait but most such resources add one or two food when farmed even with no irrigation. (Or you already knew that?)

[sorinache]

You can farm such sites from turn one. The extra food item for irrigation must wait but most such resources add one or two food when farmed even with no irrigation. (Or you already knew that?)

I did I was saying this simply because I noticed my starting positions became much less juicy with BtS (compared with vanilla) for the same diff level.

[Dis]

my last game I built it with a great engineer. Kind of a waste though. It's obvious I don't know much about this (I should check civpedia I guess ). As nothing came up to vote aside from the elections. But that may be because only 2 people shared the religion- judaism. And the other was my vassal.

anyways I don't mind the strategy as long as I know the rules. It can make things more interesting.

This game I didn't want to be the odd man out. On a previous failed game I didn't build any religion, but there does seem to be a noticeable effect not having your own religion. So I missed on the first 2 but went for judaism. But the egyptians converted to the religoin of the 3rd civ on our continent (arabs with hinduism). But they only had one city with hinduism. So I rushed some missionaries and converted all 3 of their cities to judaism. They were my friends and later willing vassal for the entire game. It's so nice not having to worry about them attacking me. As their cities were intermixed with mine, and defending would have been a nightmare.

[Blaupanzer]

Intermixed cities means war, should for the human, will for the AI. Vassalizing them was a nice alternative.

[rah]

Unless they're working culture better and stealing resources from you.
Usually upping the culture slider or working artists is not what I want to do.
Then having them as a vassal sucks since you can't just eliminate them.

[Dis]

Intermixed cities means war, should for the human, will for the AI. Vassalizing them was a nice alternative.

yup, and my culture overtook them in time. Even their capitol (actually a secondary capitol after the arabs took their main one- which I took for myself )

After their capitol fell due to my culture, they ceded two more cities to me that were intertwined in my empire. I never seen this in a game, where they just gave me two cities. I think what happened is their capitol was moved to their cities on another continent (largish island north of ours), and the maintenance was high on those cities, especially since they couldn't work too many tiles because of my culture.

I don't like to mess with the culture slider. But I do often quickly build culture improvements in cities adjacent to other civs. So I do tend to build libraries and universities early.

[rah]

I depend how the cities are mixed. If there's pressure on one of my "BUILD UNITS ONLY" cities, I really don't want to waste hammers on culture building.

[Blaupanzer]

Vassals will not encroach on the BFC of any of the master's cities. Not sure how they could "steal" resources. What am I missing here?

[rah]

Steal through culture. Example. You have a city where horses are 3 squares out. The AI comes along and builds a city 1 square away from the horses so their culture will usually take the horses away from you eventually if you don't do culture escalation in that city.

[slnz]

Vassals will not encroach on the BFC of any of the master's cities. Not sure how they could "steal" resources. What am I missing here?

They can, however, flip your cities even though the "encroaching" culture does not show before there's a revolt. This can be a major PITA if you have a culture-loving vassal with nearby cities. Though at this point you probably care more about the actual city than the resources

[sorinache]

Intermixed cities means war, should for the human, will for the AI. Vassalizing them was a nice alternative.

That is not necessarily so, as I recounted here the story of one of my first emperor games with BtS, playing Elizabeth of the english - my only 6 main cities (before I got to the modern era and went to build a few more on different continents) were intermixed with Hannibals'. I was for almost all the game length the weakest civ (militarily speaking) while Hannibal was one of the strongest. Yet we shared the same religion - he never attacked me for the whole game (Isabella did when we met - normal, she had a different religion). None of us was the vassal of anybody.

[Dis]

lost to diplomatic victory again. I hate this thing!!

It seems to require few votes to win. Only 112, needed, he got 120.

Anyways this was on a great plains map. A very difficult map type, and I was losing anyways. The carthagians kept attacking and making other civs capitulate and become their vassals. I saw them rising in power, I should have attacked them instead of my nearest neighbor (who was my only friend at the time).

Regardless it wasn't the Carthagians who won, but their vassal which I don't get. Saladin got the diplomatic vote with apost. palace. I could only vote for him or abstain. Stupid system. What do I care about the palace, I'm running free religion.

Like I said tough game, I eventually did attack the carthagians, but they had a huge stack of doom. I took over 3 cities, one was their capitol. I had to raze it, I knew I couldn't hold it. as by that time their stack of doom arrived (I assume it was near Pacal whom they just subjugated). I lost one city, and had to sue for peace! Even though I took over 3 cities, I had to pay for a peace treaty. I needed time to rebuild. I think I could have pulled off a victory. I did have a tech advantage, and think I could have done it with tanks. I was in the cavalry age at the time. Even though his units were old, he had lots of them.

[Hauptman]

Votes are added up by the population of each city that has that religion. So if you conquer a 1 pop city and that gets you into the apo vote because it has that religion. You will then have an emipre run by a single pop vote count... so be weary, as far as diplo victory, i do believe it requires EVERY civ to contain the religion. Far easier to pull off on pangea maps i suppose.

How do you avoid losing? Ummm well. have you tried beeing nice?

Spread that religion into every one of your cities, to maximize your vote count. Be nice to the other civs. and before you know it, they will vote for you.

Beeing nice is not the absence of a war declaration. beeing nice is joining them in thier wars when they ask, ponnying up a tech once in a while, trading resources, civ maps, even cash. anything that gives you bonuses to likes, and avoiding dislikes. Obviosly you cant do this for everyone, but if say, you always side with like religioned civs over those evil pagan civs, your next post here will be titled "How do i make them stop voting diplo victory for me? I wanted to play this game longer..."

Have fun.