Diplomatic victory question

[Polonius]

Hi everybody,

Can anybody tell me how the Diplomatic victory works after the patch please? Pre-patch you got a prompt every turn after building the UN and could choose when you wished to run the vote. Now if you say “No” the first time it comes up it seems to vanish for good. Is there a way to choose when you want to hold a vote? I can’t find any sort of tag or button anywhere.

I’m also having trouble figuring out how the voting pattern works. In general, the rules seem to be that anybody who has either a) made the UN b) Got 25% of the world’s population OR c) controls 25% of the territory, can stand for election. So in games with lots of civs there are less likely to be more than a couple of candidates. I won an 8 civ game like this when only one other candidate stood.

However, on the first vote my current (4 civ) game, 3 of us qualified for the vote and no clear winner emerged. I got a flat 50% of the vote. So I reloaded back 50 turns or so and spent the intervening time furiously buttering everyone up with trades, gifts, free techs etc. This time the vote came slightly earlier and there were only 2 candidates.

This time Bismark (who voted FOR me the first time through, (when he was my enemy and annoyed with me) voted AGAINST me, even though he was now my friend (thanks to all that greasing up to him.). The vote was tied again – so still no result. I’m having trouble figuring out the logic here! Anybody have any info please?

[quinalla]

If you say no the first time, it will ask you if you want to take a vote again. I don't know how many turns in between votes now, but enough people complained about it asking every turn that they changed it. I have no idea how you get people to vote for you, I was playing a game with only four civs, one got wiped out early. I built the UN and the remaining three of us each got a vote and every time everyone voted for themselves, so I won by the spaceship instead. Maybe someone else has more insight on how to get others to vote for you.

-quinalla

[Polonius]

Thanks quinalla. I'll try reloading, saying no, and then moving on 10 or 20 turns and seeing if it pops up again.

I had the same thought about the spaceship, but this game seems to be my "unlucky day". When I got to the point where I need to build the Apollo program I have no Aluminium so can't start it. I give/trade all 3 other civs the techs to find it and when they do not one of them has any spare to trade!

I also went past 100,000 culture points but couldn't meet the "double your nearest opponest points" condition. Babylon was one of the other civs and they do very well in culture races.

And I have a pretty mediocre army and nowhere near enough time to achieve anything militarily, even a grab for aluminium. So if I can't "influence" the vote I'm doomed this time round. Fortunately, it's been a great 'edge of the seat' type game with stacks of interest and I've enjoyed it more than some of my victories (and it scored better than some of them too, even though I lost).

[Polonius]

I WON!!!

Thanks to some tips from eyrei and Ioduke over at the civfanatics forum I was able to swing the vote by putting a Mutual Protection Pact in place with Bismark (who had voted against me before).

The general idea is that if you can identify the civ who will be your main (or only) rival in the vote, then influence the others against them. E.g. by getting Mutual Protection Pacts with the others, and then marching a soldier into the target civ's territory. The target civ decalare war on you, your MPP friends have to come to your aid. Along comes the vote and you win!