Diplomatic Victory too easy.

Simplicity2 said:

The major problem in my opinion is that the most powerful Patronage ability (+20 resting influence) is way at the beginning of the Patronage tree. Combine that with Pledges to Protect and/or that religious ability and you have City States easily locked up almost without spending any gold at all.

Pledges to Protect are also too powerful.

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Great points. Even with less gold, it's still too easy to have a near-permanent stream of CS benefits coming your way. PtP doesn't have enough of a penalty - changing this would make taking this path less obvious.

Agreed. I've played 3 games so far and all three won diplomatic.

Zulu - totally by accident. I wasn't aware I was going to win haha. I was actually going for a Culture win (yeah I know that's odd with Zulu but the map kind of pushed me in that direction) and built up too many CS allys.

England - wanted to win a science victory but had all city states allied / close to ally so decided to grab a quick win rather than drag the game out another 50 turns.

England - won by diplomacy - but I 'played one more turn' so I technically won by Domination which is what I was going for

Brazil - this one's in process. I'm trying for a culture win but not doing well...again it looks like an easy Diplomacy win is coming. I think I went too 'tall' since I started well but now falling behind in everything but money.


With trade routes it's too easy to get money / influence. I suppose I should up the difficulty level but before I do that I really want to win a culture game - I can't figure out a good strategy yet

Great points all. There is way too much gold income in the game, esp at higher levels where the AI are swimming in gold...and very willing to trade and be friends so you can use them as ATMs.

I will repeat my previous point. At the end of the day, the current system of "buying" City State Influence is extremely *game-y* & doesn't reward skill or good game-play. I'm not saying that influence buying should be entirely removed, but it should be the "option of last resort"-usually garnering a very small "benefit to cost" ratio, unless said City-State is seeking investors. The bulk of all influence should come from City-State Quests, Trade, Use of Spies &-yes-a unit based similar akin to that in Gazebo's "City-State Diplomacy" mod.

I believe that these changes would make the Diplomacy Victory part of the game *much* more fun. So too would be a change in which the AI *might* vote for you-but *only* if (a) it knows it can't win itself & (b) if it is on the *very* best terms with you at the time!

Aussie.

I agree. Space victory is my favorite victory condition, and I tried my hardest to win by science in my last game, but ended up winning diplomatic by accident.

I was playing Rome, and had an epic capital location (marble, lots of salt, adjacent to a single mountain). I was able to get my trade routes up early, build markets and banks quickly, build Machu Picchu, and make friends to sell my resources to, so the cash was rolling in. I wasn't even focused on city states. For most of the game I was pumping that money into building my empire, letting the others worry about the city states. I didn't open Patronage until I built the Sydney Opera House.

When I discovered the last civilization hidden on the other side of the map and triggered the World Congress, I decided it was in my best interest to start spending my gold on city states so I could get a resolution or two passed. And I passed a couple resolutions I wanted. But then about 30 turns or so before I could finish my spaceship, the election for world leader came up and I had just enough delegates to win. It was a rather unsatisfying end to my game, though I ended up with a great score.

I never really understood the whole concept anyways. I buy enough city states to get just over half of the "world leader" vote, and the 45% who voted against me just acquiesce and accept my sovereignty over their empires? Even if they hate me? I might just disable it from now on. It makes sense to have an economic-based victory condition, but the premise behind the current Diplomatic Victory is just strange, and I don't like that I can accidentally trigger it just by having a decent economy and wanting some influence in the World Congress.

sennomulo said:

I agree. Space victory is my favorite victory condition, and I tried my hardest to win by science in my last game, but ended up winning diplomatic by accident.

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While I certainly can't say I won my last game "by accident" (I was making sure to keep or grab city-states, and ensuring that proposals favouring me were passed), I have now found several times that diplo victory can just come too early on smaller maps (when it's quick for half the civs to reach the Modern Era). I was making very good progress towards a science victory on Immortal, but ended up having 22 votes for World Leader (needing 20 to win) before I'd reached Particle Physics. I could always have refrained from voting for myself with all my votes, I suppose (I don't like the fact that the spaceship is disabled after you win, so you can't carry on to build it with Just One More Turn).

While I think there probably is an issue with the diplo victory being too easy on certain map sizes or without civs that actively compete for city-states, I still don't recognise the gold-farming description. In that whole game I spent money on CSes perhaps three times at most, and not one of those purchases caused me to become allied with that CS (even the one I paid 1,000 gold while it had a gold quest underway). Since I won with two votes to spare, even the extra influence towards alliance (which I did eventually achieve) with that CS wasn't game-changing.

My victory might have been too easy, but it did require me to actively play for CS favour and delegates - I needed to get Forbidden Palace, I proposed (and won) the International Games for the boost in CS influence, I proposed (and secured) a World Ideology, I took Patronage and Papal Primacy, I had to focus on both science and faith to meet periodic quest requirements, my spies were on full-time election-rigging duty and in one case orchestrated a successful coup. It was very far from an economic victory (although I did capture Cahokia with a Merchant of Venice Zanzibar kindly gave me just in time to buy the CS before the final leader vote).

I never really understood the whole concept anyways. I buy enough city states to get just over half of the "world leader" vote, and the 45% who voted against me just acquiesce and accept my sovereignty over their empires? Even if they hate me? I might just disable it from now on. It makes sense to have an economic-based victory condition, but the premise behind the current Diplomatic Victory is just strange, and I don't like that I can accidentally trigger it just by having a decent economy and wanting some influence in the World Congress.

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None of the victory conditions make any sense in that context. Everyone bows down before you when you have all of their capitals, even though all the surviving civs hate you? You win a space race and suddenly you're the world's greatest leader (even in cases where, as in one of my games, my capital was a turn from being captured when the spaceship launched - more a desperate exodus than a great triumph of world civilization) etc.

I will repeat my previous point. At the end of the day, the current system of "buying" City State Influence is extremely *game-y* & doesn't reward skill or good game-play. I'm not saying that influence buying should be entirely removed, but it should be the "option of last resort"-usually garnering a very small "benefit to cost" ratio, unless said City-State is seeking investors. The bulk of all influence should come from City-State Quests, Trade, Use of Spies

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Which exactly matches my experience of the way it does work.

Diplomatic Victory is too easy - I have found myself lately actually eliminating all but maybe 2 city states altogether and adding more AI to make the World Congress more dynamic and to negate the Diplomatic Victory (although I simply could turn it off, I don't really want to )

It's not that Diplomatic victory is too easy, it's that it comes way too early to my personal liking It's literally the first possible victory most can achieve. While beelining for Culture, I've once won a Diplomatic victory without having even researched Industrialization. It felt pretty cheap.

Agreed. To get a science victory I wound up having to abstain from voting myself world leader...

Qbone said:

It's not that Diplomatic victory is too easy, it's that it comes way too early to my personal liking It's literally the first possible victory most can achieve. While beelining for Culture, I've once won a Diplomatic victory without having even researched Industrialization. It felt pretty cheap.

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Maybe they should reinstate a specific tech (rather than era) requirement for the UN, in the same way that someone has to have reached Printing Press for the World Congress to be founded? Globalization might be too late, but the way it develops now it can be too early by far, and it's very map size dependent (it typically takes a lot longer for 6 civs to enter the same era on a 12-civ map than for 2 on a 4-civ map).

I seriously think that in the World Leader vote, players should not only be able to vote for themselves, but vote AGAINST others.

As in, you can put in a vote to make sure someone DOES NOT win. A negative vote, in other words.

Well, when there's too much gold in a game, it's usually because there's not enough to spend it on. Really, the solution is too come with better money sinks.

That aside, I'd specifically say that there should be diminishing returns. The more allies you have, the less influence money should buy.

Also, the "demand tribute" should be expanded so that you can force a city-state to withhold its delegate(s). Now that player going for diplomatic victory may actually have to do something about someone that's a little more assertive than writing a check.

steveg700 said:

Well, when there's too much gold in a game, it's usually because there's not enough to spend it on. Really, the solution is too come with better money sinks.

That aside, I'd specifically say that there should be diminishing returns. The more allies you have, the less influence money should buy.

Also, the "demand tribute" should be expanded so that you can force a city-state to withhold its delegate(s). Now that player going for diplomatic victory may actually have to do something about someone that's a little more assertive than writing a check.

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Say, like with Social policies or whatever, the influence granted by donations would raise by 5% per allied city state?

Even in G&K, I had adopted the consistent strategy of allying with most city-states - no matter the victory condition: military (assistance and blocking were critical, not to mention happiness), science (Scholasticism, nuf ced), cultural (nice boost with cultural city-states_ and of course, diplomacy. I simply found that their bonuses and help were too good to ignore. I continued that philosophy in BNW, which now gives you a diplomacy victory.

Diplomatic victory was always too easy.

Rathelon said:

Diplomatic victory was always too easy.

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That is true, but at least in Vanilla/G&K you had to reach all the way to Globalization and build UN for it to happen. Now it just happens automatically when, what, someone enters Atomic era!? It's not even Information era that you have to reach, which is completely mindboggling to me.

I think a possible solution would be to only allow gifting CS money if they're bankrupt.
This way you can still use your money on a CS but only when they have a mission going on.

I'm playing Germany on Continents (Emperor).

My goal so far is a Diplomatic Victory using Autocracy (I've finished Honor and Patronage). I'm leader or close to leader in all categories: military, gpt, science, culture, faith. This includes diplomacy since I am allied with roughly half the city states in the game. I'm also the World Congress host.

Even without Papal Primacy belief, it's really easy to be permanent Friends with any city state. All you need is Consulates policy + Pledge to Protect on a city state, and you're sitting at the Friend threshold (30 infuence) without doing anything at all. Of course you receive a diplomacy hit when the city-state is bullied by another Civ, but I don't think you need any friends to win a diplo victory-- only all the city-state votes. Which is good since almost every Civ hates me for a single war I started forever ago.

I've not even taken any Ideology tenets yet and the likelihood of me winning a Diplomacy victory is very high. It seems too easy-- just take Consulates (you don't even really need full Patronage), Pledge to Protect every city-state and just buy them all out. Once I have Gunboat Diplomacy tenet, I won't even need to spend gold.

I played Venice on Continents yesterday at Immortal. My culture was pathetic. I was a couple of eras behind the leader (Russia) in tech. My military strength was okayish. Though, thank god Russia wasn't my immediate neighbour with it's insane military power. I was making an absolutely ridiculous amount of gold though and my empire was very happy. My MoV generated 3200 gold per trade mission. And I was generating 300+ GPT.

So, basically apart from gold, I was pretty screwed up. And then, blessing in disguise. Russia reached Atomic Era. UN was found. I had a lot of gold. And the cherry on the cake was Arsenal of Democracy (which I think, btw, should be a level 4 tenet ) . I easily won a Diplo Victory.

But it was hardly satisfying....

/signed

Far too easy to win diplo before any other VC becomes reasonable except for maybe Dom. Every game I have won Diplo it has been before even acquiring the techs necessary for Space Race.

They need to take CS out of the World Leader vote, or at least minimize their impact. You should be required to politic with the major civs for the win same as in Civ IV.

At the moment, CS are too powerful anyway which just makes Diplo easymode.