I have not seen any posts on how to get a good score with a diplomacy win. When I win through the UN it is because I was heading for a domination victory, and couldn't quite get there, or I just took the UN and could finish the game quicker. My score is always low when I do this.

So I figured there must be a way to win quick and with a good score through the UN. Just build the UN quick, get everyone to love me and be queen of the prom. How hard can it be?

First I identified a path. The techs I identified for UN are: Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Agriculture, Fishing, Pottery, Writing, Sailing, Iron Working, Math, Metal Casting, Calendar, Compass, Machinery, Optics, Printing Press, Astronomy, Scientific Method, Physics, Electricity, Radio, and Mass Media.

Then Build the UN.

I would need to grow my population and keep friends with 2 or 3 other civs to get their votes. Once I hit the Medival Age the others would be going down different paths and my research times would increase, but I should be able to handle that. Perhaps this would make a good score and I would have found a whole new way to play.

Here is what happened..............

I started out on Noble Level, Marathon Speed, Great Plains, with Kublai Khan. That starts me with the Wheel, so only 21 techs to go. I build Warrior, Scout, Worker. I hit a hut for Agriculture, kick out a warrior and a settlor and build my 2nd city in 2350 BC, next to copper and start building Axemen and Swordsmen (after I get Iron with 3rd city), just in case. Meanwhile I keep banging out techs. I find that I have Isabella, Qui, HC, JC, Alexander and Julie to deal with. This is not to good, I wanted the Indians, Saladin, Musa or some other peacenik.

At 1630 BC I deviate from my tech plan and go for Alphabet. I need the trading capability, and about that time I found my third city.
I am about 3rd in points but dont feel to bad.

700 BC Isabella (that religious freak!) builds where I want to be. As usual she sends out 1 acher and a settlor. I dont see anything but archers in her cities. Nothing to do but go to war.

This caused my first BIG mistake. War was a good idea. However I kepts all of her cities, and did not raise them. At 70 AD Isabella is dead. I have all of her cities, and the world is all Hindu. At least I can keep everyone happy because we are brothers and sisters of the faith.

But my economy is ruined. Strikes occur, all of my workers are disbanded, all but one unit per city is disbanded, and I can't research anything. I just sit there waiting for someone to finish me off.

Somehow that doesn't happen. In fact the computer gives me the number 1 point total even though I cant reasearch anything or improve my land. At this point I know I have made a horrible mistake.

At 870 AD Louis tossed me some gold in a tech trade. After 800 years of pain I can start getting my land to work again. By 1435 I am up to 40% research and 10% culture. My research times are really long, but maybe I can pull this off and learn from my mistakes.


NAH!!!!!

In 1450 I realize that I have left out 6 needed techs!:eek:
I need paper, and to get that I will need Mysticism, Polyth, Mono, Masonry, and theology. Ok, some of these I got through trades anyway, but if I had planned better I could have kept the research times down and made this work (I think).

To make this short, I get to Mass Media at 1750, which is much later than I hoped. I build the UN. And then the final insult occurs. I have 40 of the worlds population. Everyone else (Alex is dead by this time too) vote for Louis as Sec Gen!!! I am not the prom queen, I don't think I am even a rocket princess!!

Dont let this happen to you!!

Does anyone know a good way to win with the UN??

I haven't figured it out yet. It's just too much work, and even if you do everything "right" they still seem to vote against you. :mad: :mad:

Any time I get a diplomatic victory it's usually because I either have enough votes to win myself (which requires a lot of land and population, which, in turn, means wars and conquest). Or I remain friends with one or two of the largest civs (ones with the most votes). Then again, I've only done this on maps with 5 or 6 rival civs, and by the time the UN comes along, 2 or 3 are long dead.

It's a waste to try and be on everyone's good side. I've read this in another post, but as far as research goes, you really only need to shift click COL, and Mass Media. That will give you all the pre-req. techs. Obviously, you'll want to deviate to get things like Alphabet or military techs (later ones like Gunpowder and Rifling).

It seems like your problem was expanding too quiclkly. Maybe if you razed a couple of Isabella's cities your economy wouldn't have tanked. But, as you've discovered, even for a diplomatic victory war is necessary.

On Noble, you don't need a war to win diplo. Just expand until land runs out, cottage spam, and build the UN.

Dave, you are right, but my goal was to win quickly and get a good score.
Diplomatic victories never bring me a good score, and I think there must be a way to do so.

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Answering previous post--yes the real problem was overexpanding and not razing 3 or 4 of Isabella's cities. If I had those 1000 years back, maybe I could have produced a good score.

I know, the trick is to do this on higher levels, but I just want to see if it will work first. I want a UN victory with Caeser Augustus score.

Ok, still cottage spam and build the UN. But instead of calling the vote, build up a huge advanced army and take over the world. Just before reaching domination, vote yourself the win.

Well I've only won a couple of diplomatic victories, but if I woke up one day and said, "Today, I'm going to win by kissing butt," I'd keep a few things in mind.

-Religion can make or break you. Even if you found a religion and get many other nations to adopt it, this can still backfire if another religion ever overshadows yours.

-Look at your foreign advisor every few turns... obsess over it really.

-Wars should be early, swift, and precise. Who is responsible for the world's problems? Why I think it's those damned Spanish Buddists. Everybody else is our religion (Hindu), and they're all annoyed or cautious with the buddists, so lets all gang up on the buddists and convert the infidels. And if anybody disagrees with us, their cities will be forcibly converted to hinduism as well.

-If anybody you are not going to decimate asks you for favors, give it to them. Some nations will even become happier if you randomly offer them a technology, but I'm not sure what factors contribute to the existence or non-existence of the "You shared your technological secrets with us" bonus... it's only a +1 bonus anyway.

-Predict who will prevail, and who will die. In wars you will be asked to pick sides. Anticipate this, and pick the "popular" side (which will be the winning side with your help), or at least the side that is popular with those nations you can please and don't intend to destroy. Even if your ally fails to destroy their enemy, as they usually do, finish the job for them and kill all of your enemy's friends as well.

-Trade a lot, but selectively. Don't trade with the person everybody hates... at all. The -4 diplomacy from trading with worst enemies is problematic:sad:, and anger has a tendency to snowball with the AI:mad: :mad: :mad: .... yet the +4 diplomacy from "fair and forthright" trading is very good.:goodjob:

-Try to, despite your "generous" nature, keep a substantial tech lead. You'll want to build the UN before all of your allies adopt free religion! Most nations won't adopt free religion immediately after getting liberalism, but as the game goes on more and more will adopt free religion.

-Keep in mind that if you build the UN, the best AI will be in the election, i.e. the rival with the highest score. Obviously you'll have problems if they're more popular than you, and in most cases they'll sooner vote for themselves than you even if they do love you. So don't count on having their votes when you estimate your odds of winning diplomatically. Also, anybody who is at least pleased with you may be willing to elect you to propose bills, but most civs must be friendly with you to vote for you for a diplomatic victory (though I've had a pleased civ vote for me before).

If anybody has more exact information on this or anything else I've said such as the actual, objective standards for diplomacy points, I'd like to know.

Good luckwith this quest - the only thing that may help is to get defensive pacts with other civs

Do a search for the "No military game".

Thats a perfect textbook example of how to get a proper diplomatic victory.

defensive pacts with other civs

Can backfire though, since other civs get pissed off for you "signing defensive pacts with our rivals."

Do a search for the "No military game".

That's one way of doing it, but in most games I think there are annoying civilizations that your allies hate who might as well be forced to give up their UN votes to you by hostile takeover.

I just went and looked at the Hall of Fame to get some clue as to what a good Diplomatic score was. I put in Noble, Standard, any time and got back 8 listings. The quickest was 1100 Ad, then 1428, and the rest were all 1800A.D. or later. The scores were 41K, 2 @ 33K, 1 at 20 K and the rest all lower.

This makes me think that a good diplomatic victory is not as easy as it may seem. By "good" victory I would think that the win would have to occur by 1600 A.D. AND the score should be 25K or above.


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Everything you all have said so far is good advice (I think), and mostly I followed it. Anyone want to brag and tell me what their earliest Diplo win and highest score have been? This might give me a yardstick to measure with.

-Keep in mind that if you build the UN, the best AI will be in the election, i.e. the rival with the highest score.

Not always true. I had a game with 6 remaining civs at UN time. I had the highest score and my rival was Isabella with the 5th highest score. I almost lost the first indecision vote to Isabella. So i started gaving gold and techs away for votes. Most of those i gave stuff to abstained, so Isabella couldn't win, but i still couldn't either.

In a perfect world, you'll be in 1st place, and the 2nd place rival will be someone everyone hates like Montezuma.

I think the trick is to pay attention to who is friendly with who. Some leaders may like you, but they like someone else more, and will vote for them over you. I remember one game, Mansa Musa was second and would've gotten votes from Roosevelt. I was on good terms with Cathy, but neither Mansa or Roosevelt liked her. By a nice stroke of luck, Cathy invaded Elizabeth's territory and ran the English to the sea a few turns before the election. These new Russians were enough to place her in 2nd place pop-wise. So I won a landslide victory.

Not always true. I had a game with 6 remaining civs at UN time. I had the highest score and my rival was Isabella with the 5th highest score. I almost lost the first indecision vote to Isabella. So i started gaving gold and techs away for votes. Most of those i gave stuff to abstained, so Isabella couldn't win, but i still couldn't either.

UN candidates are UN builder and highest population (unless UN builder has highest pop, in which case it is second pop)

Score has nothing to do with it.

To win, it is best to have the world divided into 2 factions.

You can figure out how the 2 factions will align pretty early, and then work to polarize it.

Example: Playing 7 civs. You (Elizabeth), Fredrick, Tokugawa, Isabella, Julius Caesar, Washington, Ghandi.

Start the game normally: explore but do not go after an imediate religion. Isabella founds Buddism and Ghandi founds Hinduism. That is going to be the start of the polarization of the world. Do not imediately switch. Bonus points if both of them spread, and one of them asks you to change to their religion.

Watch the score. You want to be sure you are not going to be on the same team as the person you will be in the vote against.

Once you have picked a team, spread your religion using missionarys to every city on your team. You might can even pick up another team member this way by convincing them to switch sides. Try to stay out of war until the teams are decided.

Fast Forward. Everything has worked right so far.
Ghandi is first in score. His team is Ghandi, Washington, and Fredrick. Your team is Isabella, Elizabeth, and Washington. Tokugawa is not on a team.

Be sure to have open borders with everyone on your team. Leave the trade routes open with the others too. Eventually, Isabella or Washington will ask you to stop trading. Do so. This will give you a +1. You dont get a -1 for trading until they ask you to stop and you dont stop.

Start a war with Tokugawa. Take a few of his cities and keep them. You need the population. Try your best to get Isabella and Washington to join in. This will give you a +x for joining them in the war. Once they start the war, declare peace. Then, wait for them to ask you to fight again. This give you another +x.

If you want to take a few cities from Fredrick on the other team, do so. Try to bring in one of your allies to the war too. You get + points EACH TIME you fight a war together. Even if it the same war (like the tokugawa example)

Pick a resource, and give to your teammates. ANY resource will do. I love gifting stone and marble after their usefullness has run out. Even giving them copper or iron will do because they are your friends. Whatever resource you have chosen to give them, leave it open the whole game. you get a + for this.

Chosen Civic: If they ever ask you to convert to their civic, DO SO! You can always change back. If their chosen civic isn't hurting you too much, stay on it. You are going to want to be running their civic when the vote comes up.

The - modifiers dont matter on the other team. Only the + on your team. You just have to make sure that your team controls enough people to make the vote swing your way. You also have to make sure that the #2 population leader is your sworn enemy. This might even mean gifting them a few cities. If you and Isabella are fighting for the #1 spot, neither of you will take it.

Having the same religion greatly helps, and it is critical in the early game. Once Free Religion comes around, it is still very winable, you just have to work a little harder for it.


I hope some of these tips help.

Probably the reason you get low scores with Diplo victory - I do too - is that it is a fairly late victory condition - 3rd latest, behind space and time. Your score increases quite a bit the earlier the victory, which is why *generally* conquest and domination victories score higher.

Speedy UN win:

The most important thing you can do early on is pick one AI to be the black sheep. Bribe everybody to get in a war with them at some point. Once everybody has the same "worst enemy", you can freely trade with everyone else and get all sorts of brownie points. Never, ever trade with the black sheep, including never taking anything in trade for a peace treaty. Also, make sure they don't die off, so bribe an aggressor to call off a war if needed.

Step Two: get everybody (except the black sheep) to convert to the same religion, preferably one you founded. This bonus goes away with liberalism, but having the religious bonus through much of the game gives you access to alot more bonuses that don't go away.

Step Three: figure out who will be your opponent in the diplomatic race and mess up their relations with everybody else. A good start is to spread a second religion to their cities and bribe them to convert away from the worldwide one. The Spiritual Trait really helps here. Then start bribing other civs to stop trading with them, or even go to war with them. Make sure they stay strong enough to still be the top contender when you build the UN.

Step Four: Build the UN, vote yourself the win.


Also, try to use Liberalism to knock off as big a tech as you can. Astronomy is good, and easily doable. Scientific Method is even better, and getting Electricity from it will save a ton of beakers.