Diplo Question?

So I'm now a full convert. I've switched to standard settings and have just finished my first game on Deity. I lost at 1900 AD to Portugal due to a diplo victory. I'm Inca (probably my best civ) had a less then stellar start (capital only grew to size 30), but had 5 spaceship parts built and would have had the 6th before the next World Leader vote if I'd made it that far. Egypt was going cultural, but they weren't going to sway me or Portugal to their silly fashion. Other remaining civs were afterthoughts.

Sweden had a strong civ, but decided to be a warmonger and never once used a GP to get a single ally and help the cause. I had the 3 CS closest to me allied, DoW'd Portugal before the prior World Leader vote so they couldn't buy my allies (they had over 40k in the bank and I couldn't outbid them). The geography made it almost impossible for me to wipe out one of their allies (I was down to 0 oil and had an air force consisting of 1 fighter and 6 bombers….not exactly a recipe for a quick blitz). Portugal was on the opposite side of the initial continent and dominated the 2nd continent….military persuasion was out of the question.

With an upcoming vote, they needed 40 votes to win and they had 41 in the bag. I made peace and used up the last of my gold to buy Brussels' alliance. Of course Maria just buys them right back, and I lose.

So here's my question: What turn do I need to make the alliance so that the vote counts for me? 5 turns prior? 4? 2 didn't work.

When is the official count to determine vote count?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

(PS. I had been playing on Immortal, and had some discussions here regarding the differences between Immortal and Deity…..I now see what you all were talking about…totally different game.)

Shark Diver said:

So here's my question: What turn do I need to make the alliance so that the vote counts for me? 5 turns prior? 4? 2 didn't work.

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The turn immediately before the vote, but the AI still has a chance to switch them back on their turn unless you DOW the AI.

Thanks, that's what I needed to know.

In other words, I was screwed. I did DoW before the previous WL vote (after securing my 3rd ally back from Portugal). I made peace because I needed to buy a 4th to prevent them from winning the next WL vote, but, as I said, they had pretty deep pockets and there was no way to sustain an alliance for even 1 turn.

In retrospect, I should have spent every red cent I had before the 1st DoW and gotten a 4th or even 5th ally. Live and learn…..or in this case, die and learn.

Shark Diver said:

In retrospect, I should have spent every red cent I had before the 1st DoW and gotten a 4th or even 5th ally. Live and learn…..or in this case, die and learn.

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I have not tried deity yet, been scared. I would very much appreciate learning, if you reload, can you turn this near-win into a win? If you are successful, what exactly did you have to do differently? What if you turn back the clock ~30 turns, can you tweak out that last SS part sooner enough to make the difference? Please remind me about what turn is 1900. I am pretty sure I need to speed up my Immortal games before trying Deity...

Had I saved the game and replayed it, I'd have to go back 1 World Vote and dump all of my money into 2 more CS. That would have bought me enough time, I think. There are others here more qualified to answer, even given the lack of a screen shot (one of these days I'm going to figure out how to do this).

As for turns/date, 1900 is around t280, but I could be off by 10-20. Until I made my transition to trying to play like the experts here, I always marked my game by years and not turns, and I haven't bothered with figuring out the exact correlation (I always think of it terms of building factories in the 1300's or airplanes in the 1600's). I'm just trying to win my first game on standard settings and not worried about time.

beetle said:

I am pretty sure I need to speed up my Immortal games before trying Deity...

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If you are succeeding on Immortal, go ahead and try Deity. You'll be in for a bit of a shock, as the chances of a runaway civ seem to be much greater (I state this as one who has now played all of 5 games at deity, all Inca until I can win with them). Try it, expect a learning curve, but I will say the games go quicker and you'll learn fast (especially if you try some of the strategies posted here).

My current game is a fun one. I rolled a beautiful Inca start (Cows and Wheat for early and a boatload of future terrace farms), found Japan early, then found Shaka. Given the mountains and Mount Kalish adjacent second city (coming soon), I'm taking Shaka's workers/settlers early and often, and may be able to bottleneck him. We'll see.

Lesson learned from my early Deity attempts is to dismantle strong neighbors early and then try to become BFF.

We'll see how this one goes, as I don't think two Civs can be more natural opponents than Shaka and my science loving Incans.

I got my first deity win. T313 with a SV. It could have been a bit quicker, but I got cocky about my tech lead and finished up a GWB before starting the Statue of Liberty and Korea snaked it with a GE 3 turns before I did. It was a bit satisfying to see that #$%^& get wiped out the turn before I launched my spaceship.

Shaka, even after some very successful early harassment, produced a pretty scary army mid-game, but I was able to bribe him off and I had to do so little fighting I never even generated a Great General.

Time to try to win with another civ.