AI keeps winning Diplomatic Victory

[sparkyal]

Well, the is the second game on King level and both time i lost on the UN vote...why? Well, for a simple reason, an AI civ bought UN votes. They just threw a lot of gold at my city states and after hundreds of turns at my side, the left me because of gold. then a bit later, America has 16 UN votes. Nevermind that everyone denounced America, they had most of the city states.

so, I'm not here to complain, but i'm wondering what to do to stop it....do i attack former allies? What do you guys do to deal with it?

[gdijedi7]

Buy the city states yourself.

Run Commerce and Patronage, and make sure you have a lot of money towards the end of the game. Don't build many nukes, because they seem to cost a LOT of maintenance and suck up your income.

Keep your eye on the countdown to the UN vote, and snipe the computer. Buy as many city states as you can the turn before the vote.

[sparkyal]

So basically it is all about money. You are right about the nukes, the eat up a lot of maintenance. How do you all make sure you have a lot of money, even when i have max'ed out every city with stock markets and such i seem to be barely covering costs.

And when do you annex cities?

[Boracks]

So basically it is all about money. ...
And when do you annex cities?

Yes, I do not consider it a diplomatic victory so much as an economic victory. Remember the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules (or in this case, wins).

As for annexing a city, there are a couple considerations. If you are buying a courthouse right away, it does increase happiness a point or two, and you do get to control production. But it also increases the cost for culture traits, which can be fairly significant, especially early to mid game. Early on I hesitate unless I really need the happiness. Later, I may annex so I can buy specific buildings and/or units.

[Burticus]

I don't build nukes. But I do make sure I have the technology and enough gold laying around to build them in case the AI goes nuts.

Yeah for diplo victory it is all about the benjamins.

Don't annex cities unless you're a warmonger and don't care about the social policies. You can puppet but you take a happiness hit and have to live with the fact the city will never build what you want. Honestly I only annex when I have the cash to buy the courthouse right away, followed up with some culture/happiness improvements (monument/temple/colosseum etc etc)