What's the problem with diplomatic victory

I can't win by domination. On the few tries I focused for this win, always gone with tradition + honor, finish tradition with only honor opening for early barb control and CS quests, then I go commerce until I plow into autocracy. Even I don't touch patronage, there's a point you will win most of the CS quests, and with the spare money you end allying most of the CSs.

I my last two games, I totally ignored a diplomatic victory, and in both I won by it without even trying. Even on my last game, I needed 33 votes to win, used 30 but a revived civ did the rest. Is quite annoying, I tell you. At least before you had to build the UN wonder to win by diplomatic victory. I don't know what firaxis were thinking.

Disable diplo victory or increase difficulty. Or put Greece and Siam into the game.

Diplo victory simply comes too easily, and too soon compared to other VC.

i disagree with the 'increase difficulty' thinking as it assumed it was easy getting to a diplo VC condition. It could well be a challenging game up until you hit the diplo-hump and suddenly find yourself with 10 city states, and 30 votes in the UN.

I have made various suggestions to fixing it (see my signature) and the focus should always be on 'fun' gaming that 99% of the Civ players out there is on, not elitist win by turn 120 type gameplay.

Extending the diplomatic victory condition to make it harder to achieve will ultimately let people see more of the late game, and make Space and culture more viable as alternatives.

This was already discussed elsewhere to death, but yes, consensus seems to be the diplomatic victory is too easy at the moment and you need to make sure you don't win it by default of too easy it is, so that you can enjoy more of the later game. They definitely need to balance this better. This on Emperor. I'm playing on Immortal now. Hope it's a tad more difficult in this difficulty level.

FrostK said:

Disable diplo victory or increase difficulty. Or put Greece and Siam into the game.

Click to expand...

None of those things will fix the imbalanced victory conditions and should not be necessary. You should at least have to research a certain late game tech and then build the UN to enable the diplomatic victory condition.

bonafide11 said:

None of those things will fix the imbalanced victory conditions and should not be necessary. You should at least have to research a certain late game tech and then build the UN to enable the diplomatic victory condition.

Click to expand...

Globalization is my pick. Until then there shouldn't even be any UN votes for world leader.

dexters said:

Globalization is my pick. Until then there shouldn't even be any UN votes for world leader.

Click to expand...

I agree (in a way). On the one hand, it's unlikely that a civ will actually possess all the required votes at the first voting, on the other hand it just feels to me as if you keep getting a pop-up "space ship parts progress: 0 our of 6. No SV achieved. Will notify you again in 30 turns."

Why not just set all your delegates to abstain.....

I played a few games on immortal with diplo victory disabled - it worked surprisingly well. Diplomatics is still important as it aids your other victories, similar to religion maybe.

In my opinion, they should completely overhaul the diplomatic victory type, or at least change the gift of gold to a GPT-contract tha gradually increases influence.

Actually have the AI give CS money prior to voting; in my last game Attila had like 20,000 gold but list the game to diplomatic vote

bonafide11 said:

None of those things will fix the imbalanced victory conditions and should not be necessary. You should at least have to research a certain late game tech and then build the UN to enable the diplomatic victory condition.

Click to expand...

Vs AI diplo is easy, vs human impossible. do not see any problems

FrostK said:

Vs AI diplo is easy, vs human impossible. do not see any problems

Click to expand...

I won vs humans. It was all too easy as venice. This victory condition needs some serious overhaul.

Gamgee said:

I won vs humans. It was all too easy as venice. This victory condition needs some serious overhaul.

Click to expand...

Then you were either overpowered or played with noobs. No other option.

FrostK said:

Then you were either overpowered or played with noobs. No other option.

Click to expand...

I've won diplomatic vs humans in every single game. It's just way too easy. I don't even do conquest anymore, it's not worth it. All other victories are too time and resource intensive compared to diplomatic victory. It's the most cost efficient one. Everything you do to gain a diplomatic victory benefits you in other ways. You need a lot of gold. So you you can support a vast army. You need a religion to spread faster, so lots of the AI's will help you. Hell I didn't even need to pay for city state allegiance past a certain point. Once that happens you are basically in world congress forever. You can instantly buy armies around the globe to protect your investments. That strong religion will help play into a diplomatic victory. Happiness is soaring as venice so it eliminates that problem from the equation. Since your puppeting states you can have a near monopoly on certain resources and demand premiums for them.

It's I WIN button as Venice, it's easy mode for anyone else. It can also be achieved way faster than science victory. Cultural can leave you too weak in some areas to defend yourself. Where as having tons of gold always helps. Everything you do to earn a diplomatic victory helps your empire in just about every way. All of the other victories have certain downsides to offset them. Not so with easy mode diplomacy.

I am the world congress.

Edit
With diplomacy as good as it is I feel this game is broken. There is no reason to go with any other victory. Playing is tedious now, there's no point to other victories than for something to do. Conquest is downright broken and impossible in multiplayer. Hours played of Gods and Kings 257. Hours of Brave New World 20-30. I think that speaks for itself.

Edit2
Expanding too much can be crippling in this game with the lack of funds available. Having a tall empire with a few cities 3-4 on Standard is all you want to do to the lack of funds. Gold is king, so do whatever it takes to get as much gold and win the game. Having a smaller empire also means your much easier to defend yourself. Leaving you able to focus your navy on protecting city states.

Edi3
Killing people doesn't make any sense when they are valuable trade partners that can be bullied into submission with world congress.

Vence's significant Gold advantage is a problem.

A big issue is making sure that other players know about the situation and compete for CS allegiance. (if everyone is trying to take a single CS from you, you need to make more money than all of them combined)... Venice's MoV does allow you to do this.. I would argue for strengthening the normal Merchant's Trade mission (while leaving MoV at the same level as a solution.. and also allowing CS liberation of MOV'd cities)

Well if you play Venice and no human came for your cargo ships... It is at least strange.
If u think that tall is better then wide... Wide will always have more gold and stronger religion. Wide is better for war. And if u go wide u can not do it peacefully. If u do not exp your units, then they are kindly useless. Also you hardly can do something in war if your opponent have 3 GG and you have none. If it is Pangea game is usually done on composites or crossbowmens. If it is sea map, then on frigates.

So in fact I do not understand what are you talking about.

Xger said:

Why not just set all your delegates to abstain.....

Click to expand...

That shouldn't be necessary, nor is it fun to intentionally have to throw the game because you've worked the entire time to win a different victory condition. It kills the immersion.

FrostK said:

Vs AI diplo is easy, vs human impossible. do not see any problems

Click to expand...

Single player and multiplayer games can't really be compared. The strategies are completely different. Of course it's going to be much more difficult against humans, who are aware of the fact that one player is trying to win by bribing all the CS's, but the AI completely ignores it and lets the player win that way. The problem is the AI shouldn't sit back and watch the player win in a way that the player didn't even have to try for, it just came by accident because it's so easy.

FrostK said:

Well if you play Venice and no human came for your cargo ships... It is at least strange.
If u think that tall is better then wide... Wide will always have more gold and stronger religion. Wide is better for war. And if u go wide u can not do it peacefully. If u do not exp your units, then they are kindly useless. Also you hardly can do something in war if your opponent have 3 GG and you have none. If it is Pangea game is usually done on composites or crossbowmens. If it is sea map, then on frigates.

So in fact I do not understand what are you talking about.

Click to expand...

I had a larger army than everyone in the world combined as Venice. It didn't even dent my income, pocket change.

bonafide11 said:

That shouldn't be necessary, nor is it fun to intentionally have to throw the game because you've worked the entire time to win a different victory condition. It kills the immersion.

Click to expand...

I frequently have this problem with Domination; I sit on my army because I don't want to simply kill everyone AGAIN.

Perhaps they should bump the vote for diplomatic victory when half the Civs enter the Information Age?