diplomatic victory has ruined science victory

This is the third game in a row this has happened. I play on immortal. I start going for science victory and I reach the information era. Meanwhile everyone else has not yet even reached the atomic era. But bc I have researched into info era the world congress starts voting on world leader and there is always some civ out there that is outgold producing me and allying all the city states. I try to buy enough away before the vote but they just buy them back on their turn and they win.

This is ridiculous. They are punishing the civ that has teched way out far in front of everyone else and beat them to the punch and letting them ride on those coattails to a diplomatic win. They can win the game before they even reach the atomic era. The victory types should at least be somewhat equal length races. Mind u I can't must jump and declare war on that civ every time I ally some city states because I still have work to do and I may not want to go to war either because of diplomatic or military reasons.

BEing able to declare war once u have allied the cs is not a fix. War is something you have to do to slow someone down and keep them in check. Not something u need to do when u blow them out the water tech wise.

In my current game I could declare war on Germany who has all the cs but if I do that he has about 60 great war bombers at his disposal. I don't want to have to deal with that.

A single nuke (or mobile SAM) kills all those planes you know? 60 bombers deal 60 dmg (1 each) to the target because of SAM. in BNW AI will not launch their planes as much when you have interception ability (but they still sometimes stupidly do)

(an easier way would just to declare war just on the CS themselves to eliminate them and tech to globalization so he can't get the majority vote)

The World Leader vote should probably come later, yes.

A lot of the VCs really encourage late-game war. You almost need to DOW to protect yourself from Diplo wins if going Science. You almost need to DOW at least your leading cultural rival if you are going Cultural. If you are going Diplo yourself, you may need to DOW if someone is puppeting your CS friends. And of course you need to DOW if you are going Domination...

The days of turtling up and winning are becoming things of the past. But overall, is that a bad thing?

kamikazees said:

A lot of the VCs really encourage late-game war. You almost need to DOW to protect yourself from Diplo wins if going Science. You almost need to DOW at least your leading cultural rival if you are going Cultural. If you are going Diplo yourself, you may need to DOW if someone is puppeting your CS friends. And of course you need to DOW if you are going Domination...

The days of turtling up and winning are becoming things of the past. But overall, is that a bad thing?

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Yes.

Being forced to DoW on higher difficulties is restrictive and unfun for players who don't really care for war.

Same thing happens with culture victories. Tough to win by culture before Internet and to get to Internet you need to go through Atomic Era. Last game I tried to win by culture I ended up accidentally winning a diplo victory.

Yeah, diplo victories should definitely come later in the game and be harder to get.

Matthew. said:

Same thing happens with culture victories. Tough to win by culture before Internet and to get to Internet you need to go through Atomic Era. Last game I tried to win by culture I ended up accidentally winning a diplo victory.

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Yeah, you'll usually have to survive at least one world leader vote before you can win Culture.

I kind of dislike that there isn't much in the way of "working towards" a diplomatic victory. There's Forbidden Palace, Printing Press for an early +1 that doesn't matter later, and the rest is just accidentally completing CS quests (Great Person quests and culture/faith/science contests are silly).

It's dumb that you can be going hard for a science victory (rushing important science techs, saving Oxford/Rationalism finish for the perfect moment, saving up GS for the final bulb fest) and meanwhile you fall ass backwards into a Diplomatic Victory just by completing quests by accident.

I've actually had a slightly different problem on the same topic.

The last 2 games I've played (Standard, King, Pangea & Continents) I've tried to go for Science Victory, but both times, I've ended up being allied with so many city states by the time I STARTED the Apollo Program, that I've ended up getting a Diplo win before even making my first spaceship part.

Diplo does seem to be overly easy. I even had Greece in the game with me last time. Granted, they were on the other continent.

See my signature; Diplo is a little too easy to get, yes. But let's not get too carried away either.

Accidentally winning diplo? Can't you just not vote for yourself so many times?

Alzadar said:

into a Diplomatic Victory just by completing quests by accident.

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Yep. Was going to add that, but cut post short. Diplo victory is just not satisfying even when you win. It feels like the time victory but with a huge random factor thrown on (completing CS quests at random, random chance of coups, etc.). The game just ends and decides upon the winner based on majority votes.

Dralix said:

Accidentally winning diplo? Can't you just not vote for yourself so many times?

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Well sure, but if a leader votes comes up and you have the delegates to win, not voting for yourself is essentially equivalent to winning and then clicking "one more turn". It's not very satisfying to continue playing.

Right. And it is the only victory where you don't consciously go after the victory conditions. Sure, you can, but it is typically never needed against the AI. At most there seems to be only one or two AI that actually try and compete for CS alliances. The most effort I've ever needed to put into a diplo victory was to flip the few competing CS's then declare war on the one and only AI that is trying to stop me. All the others let you coast on to victory.

The game may as well just have a window pop up saying "A civilization has entered the Atomic Era. Do you want to win yes/no?"

Its actually super easy to prevent a dipo victory. You should be going consulates (one of best social policies in the game) and allying the 2-3 near city states to you anyways just to serve as a military buffer if someone randomly dows you. Keep your spies in city states to get their benefits for most of the game.

Also the AI doesn't drop their gold on allying city states really. They just sit on it for the most part it seems like.

Greece on diety can be annoying with the city states however I admit.

But yes, it does suck that science is pushed all the way to the back in order to obtain it. World Congress needs to be pushed back another science and the Apollo Program should be pulled back another science. Currently even with China and Babylon getting that space victory is very difficult when all other forms of victory are so easy for the computer to obtain in the mean time.

The "Treaty Organisation" tenet in the Freedom ideology makes winning a diplomatic victory appallingly easy. It's certainly the easiest way to win if nobody's actively trying to stop you (and the AI often doesn't).

The AIs need to actively compete to take CS from a delegate leader.

and/or some improvement in the influence mechanic.

Alzadar said:

Well sure, but if a leader votes comes up and you have the delegates to win, not voting for yourself is essentially equivalent to winning and then clicking "one more turn". It's not very satisfying to continue playing.

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Not sure about, but winning by diplo certainly isn't satisfying to me. After I won by diplo once I started disabling it.