Diplomatic Victory and War

I am Ethiopia in my current game and I am aiming towards a diplomatic victory with science as a backup.

My ideology is Order and managed to make it the world ideology along with Sikhism as the world religion. Japan borders me and is also Sikh, but runs autocracy. Portugal, Aztecs, and Ottomans are running Order.

I am technically friendly with Venice, but he keeps stealing my CS alliances and Monty keeps asking me to join him in a war against Venice. I plan to say yes to please Monty and hopefully improve relations further since we have the same ideology, but not actually fight Venice since they are on another continent. By going to war, would I get the warmonger penalty, or is that only when I attack cities?


Also, Japan has a DOF with Venice and I have been best friends with Japan for most of the game. He hasn't shown aggression towards me the entire game but lately has warned me not to get too close to the Ottomans. Japan and Venice are also friends with Egypt, who is guarded towards me because I killed Spain earlier in the game so I could have a coastal city for which I could launch my exploration of the world. I have another coastal city I built myself, but it is blocked by ice tiles.

Is war with Venice a good move?

Never go to war unless you actually want to. If you're pushing for DiploV, you ought to not want to.

To win DiploV, all you need to do is get to that era and have enough gold to buy all the CS. Being at war only complicates things.

Thanks!

Japan and Venice are trying to take CS from me by allying them but I am gradually taking them back.

It's a good idea to pay someone to take out Venice, since The Nipple-Headed One can actually buy the CS from you completely, not just ally them.

The Aztecs are already at war with Venice, and they were several times in the past, but for some reason Monty never bothered to kill Venice even though they border each other. I might persuade one of the other Order civs to do it.

It's probably enough that Ricky be at constant war, which means the enemy will be killing his GMoVs. Another thing to do, which is surprisingly gold efficient, is to have 3 units that block the GMoV wherever he goes, so he can never reach the CS.

Praise the word. Blocking is such an underrated strategy. I block Prophets, I block Settlers, I block Scouts..

Sometimes I dow in the very early game just to zone of control enemy units in order to get ruins, hinder their advancement et cetera.

Well, I have 3 turns until the World Leader election and Russia stole an ally and I am about to lose influence with another and cannot get both back before the election.

A few turns before the vote, it's best to DoW whoever is stealing CS. That blocks them from stealing CS. However you have to careful not to let them conquer those CS.

Your GPT should be much, much higher if you can't buy 2 CS at this stage.

I usually finish Diplomatic victories with 1000s in reserve. If you want to post a savegame, I can give you tips on how you might improve for next time

Also, next time, go Freedom if you want a better Diplomatic victory. Maybe you went Order to befriend the AI, but Freedom makes it so much easier. Were you first to Ideologies?

A nice little tip that came up not too long ago - when you coup a CS, or pay enough to get Ally status, put another 500g into it. Apparently the AI won't buy it if it costs more than that.

consentient said:

Your GPT should be much, much higher if you can't buy 2 CS at this stage.

I usually finish Diplomatic victories with 1000s in reserve. If you want to post a savegame, I can give you tips on how you might improve for next time

Also, next time, go Freedom if you want a better Diplomatic victory. Maybe you went Order to befriend the AI, but Freedom makes it so much easier. Were you first to Ideologies?

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I won a science victory. I gave up trying to become World Leader since Oda stole my CS allies and it got really annoying trying to buy them back while simultaneously holding on to the alliance that were declining.

I was thr first to ideology but don't remember why I adopted it.

Darth Tribble said:

Well, I have 3 turns until the World Leader election and Russia stole an ally and I am about to lose influence with another and cannot get both back before the election.

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If you are short of money and victory is only matter of money you can sell your buildings. Its also underrated strategy.

If you are 100% sure you wil win with money you can also sell all your cities except capital!

Edit: And dont forget deleting all your units

BlackWizard said:

If you are short of money and victory is only matter of money you can sell your buildings. Its also underrated strategy.

If you are 100% sure you wil win with money you can also sell all your cities except capital!

Edit: And dont forget deleting all your units

Click to expand...

I wish I thought of that sooner. I was not originally going to keep the cities I conquered. I took them because I needed a coastal city and it was a bit late (1500) to settle one and wait for it to build up and someone could have beaten me at discovering the other civs. I ended up keeping them since I needed to stop Japan's expansion and all the other civs I could give the city to would not be able to repel Japan's army.