The Diplomatic Victory - observations, notes and tips

[spiceant]

these are some notes, tips and observations
this is from my experience with emperor difficulty (huge maps epic speed blablabla)


note:

1. [NEW]you check the diplomatic relations between ais by going to the foreign screen and selecting one ai, then look at the standing below the picture of other ais, for a more detailed explanation mouse over the other ais picture to see their reasoning, why they are or not happy with the ai you have selected. relations inbetween ais are sometimes already pleased before any modifiers are aplied, i dont know why.
2. The Ai will almost always vote for your diplo win if you have a total positive standing of 11 or more, unless it is your competitor or has a higher standing with your competitor.
3. Your competitor in the UN (largest or 2nd largest) civ will never vote for anyone but itself, for this reason it makes no sense to try and get this civs vote. (unless it is soon going to be replaced by someone else)
4. Ais dont mind to vote for other ais as long as their not negative (annoyed), sometimes theyll abstain though, this (from my observations) happens when i got a higher standing with voters then voters do with my competitor.
5. [rephrased]If you trade with a civ with with which a 3rd party civ is annoyed (or worse) that 3rd civ will give you a -2 to -4 <YOU TRADED WITH OUER ENMY!!!!!!1111> 'bonus', this is quite frustrating as sometimes ais give you a deal but you dont know if you will upset anyone so you gotta turn it down. either that or you didnt know and just accept it and ruin your chances with a civ for the rest of the game.¨
6. Because you are trying it the carebear way, you will need to find a few civs to trade with, which wont give you a -4: you trade with enemy bonus with other civs, these civs dont have an annoyed/furious standing from any other civs except your competitor or tiny civs (without much population).
7. Declaring a war on another civ because the ai asks you to is no different then declaring the war by yourself, except if you turn it down you get a permanent -1 penalty with the demanding civ and accepting it will also cause the target civ to give the demanding a -1 for bringing you in as a war ally.
8. the ai appears to ignore defensive pacts when asked to declare war, this can be used to cause a civilization to kill itself by letting it attack a 3+ man defensive pact. be carefull with whom your going to get the -1 penalty for "bringing in a war ally" though.
9. ais are very unlikely to let you compell them into declaring war on a 3rd party with which they have a better standing then they do with you.
10. if an ai is about to complete a spaceship, have it declare war. often times this will cause it to stop the construction of its spaceship.
11. the tech for the united nations have very few prereqs, you can build it just after researching astronomy -> scientific method -> psysics -> electricity -> radio -> mass media. (altough 1500 hammers take a while without power plants and/or the ironworks). the UN (great wonder) can be rushed.
12. any civics that are passed on the UN will be aplied to all civilizations regardless of wether they have the tech.
13. resolutions can be revoted, this can result in civics/nukes being unlocked again.
14. competitors dont realise you wanna win, get them to war with civilizations which are everbodys friend so your competitor gets negative standing.
15. eliminating a civ by letting others kill it isnt always good, you will want the +4 from mutual military struggle though.
16. remember that there is always a large competitor (on huge games), these will get a larger percentage of the world population if the rest of the world population sinks.
17. the snowball affect still aplys, once a civ is going down it will fall harder aand harder and everyone will try to get a slice, this will often allow you to get +1-4 from mutual struggle with almost everyone.
18. if you are certain that a civ will not vote for you it may be wise to get an ally (or yourself) to eliminate this civ so that that civ's population will vote for you

positive standing bonuses include

1. You have been at peace for so long! if you have been at peace since a long time you will get a +1 bonus, i have once seen this go to +2.
2. You gave us tribute/Help! when the ai asks you to give it something you either refuse or agree to give, if the latter, the ai gets what it asked and gives you a +1 diplomacy bonus. this bonus stacks each time you accept
3. Ouer trade relations are fair ( no their not). when you give the ai 500 gold in the ancient era it will give you +4 for fair trading relations, be warned, other civs that are angry with this civ will probably hate you now (this penalty seems to fade over much time, but not completely) sometimes the ai will give you +1-3 if you havent gifted them enough stuff (voluntarily) yet. you also appear to get this bonus if you trade resources for resources.
4. Ouer open borders bring us closer together! this bonus usually aplys when you have signed open borders and have had the treaty active for quite a while, at the start it gives +1. later +2 and perhaps later even +3.
5. Ouer defensive pact makes us feel good about us! signing a defensive pact with a civilization will give you +1 bonus at the start, up to +4 later. defensive pacts can be signed if you or the target civilization has researched military tradition (and if you are pleased or better, this varys with civs, ecpecially tokugawa).
   signing a defensive pact usually pisses off ALL other civilizations untill you also sign a pact with them. the negative bonus STACKS, so if you sign 2 defensive pacts you get -2 with outsider civs.
6. [Rephrased 25 dec '05]You have wisely chosen your civics. i have seen this bonus go to +6 inbetween ai civs and between myself and roosevelt (after i voted all 5 UN civics passed). this bonus appears to be random to me. however there is a set of rules, if you and a target civ have 2 different civics you will not get a diplomacy bonus for it. the 5 starting civics also dont give a bonus. slavery doesnt appear to either. however if you choose a leaders favorite civic if that leader already has his favorite civic active (read it up in civilopedia -> leaders) and you have more civics active that this civ also has it will usually grant you a diplomacy bonus. i have seen it go to +6.
7. We care for brothers and sisters in the faith! with ordinary civilizations, this bonus goes to a +4 max, with some others (often spiritual, like isabella/saladin) this goes to +7 (i have seen this between ais). the longer a target civ and yourself have been of the same religion (after you have met) the higher the bonus, at the start it is +1. when either one changes religion the bonus is lost and must be rebuild up from the point where you both convert the same religion again (altough the bonus appears to rebuild fast). i must warn you that a civilization that founds a new superstition will often change to this new faith, if it doesnt have all of its other citys under its state religion.
8. You have accepted ouer favorite civic/state religion! each time an ai asks you to change civics/convert to another religion and you accept you get a +1 bonus to that ai. you can change back without penalty (unless you also get a bonus from having his favorite civic in which case you loose this specific bonus). this is a litle annoying to me because i cant change several civics at once to compensate for the change of another.
9. We apreciate your suply of resources (They really do), when you gift a stream of resources to the ai it will give you a positive standing bonus after some time, +1 to begin with and (i suspect) +2 to 4 later depending on the size and timespan of the stream (or rather, waterfall). i believe this also triggers the negative bonus of you have TRADED WITH ENMY penalty with 3rd party civs, im not sure.
10. You have shared your technology with us, when you gift techs to the ai often it will not only develop a menacing tech lead (on emperor) but also give you a whoppy +1-4 to its relations with you. i believe this also triggers the negative bonus of you have TRADED WITH ENMY penalty with 3rd party civs, im not sure.

negative standing penaltys include

1. You are at war with us. i hope this once's obvious, if you are at war with a civ you will get up to -8 (from -3) to your standing with it, this will disappear immediactly when you declare peace.
2. You have declared war upon us! this is the kind of penalty you only want civs to have with you, if they are going to be terminated or have a permanent positive bonus to compensate.
   Each time you declare war on an ai you get a permanent -3 (it stacks) with that civilization.
   this negative penalty is quite usefull if you want 2 world powers to attack eachother constantly, let one declare war -3, make peace, war -3, peace, war -3(total of -9)
3. You have negotiated a trade embargo against us. each time you get a 3rd party to stop trading with the target ai you get a permanent -1, it stacks.
4. You have brought in a war ally, likewise with the trade embargo except its for when you get a 3rd party to declare war on the target. this stacks too. you can get this penalty without declaring war yourself.
5. You have declared war on ouer friend, each time you declare war on a civ you get a permanent (from my observations) -1 from any civs that are pleased or better with your target civ. it stacks too, and hurts.
6. You nuked us. this ones pretty obvious: each time you use an ICBM the affected civ(s) will give you a permanent -2 (it stacks) penalty to its standing with you. i dont recall if it will give you the penalty if its SDI intercepts your nuke.
7. You nuked ouer friend (-1), likewise for the trade embargo, except this time for each time you nuke somebuddys friend. (it stacks tooo )
8. Your state religion isnt ouer state religion! if you believe in another religion for a long time the ai will hate you, up to -4 for ordinary ais and -7 for for example isabella. i have seen this penalty hang at -1, this is usually the result of having another religion as the state, but having spread the religion of the target civ across your citys anyway. otherwise the penalty has a tendency to sink to atleast -2 or 3.
9. You refused to: A-Help us in war B-Stop trading with somebuddy C-Convert to ouer superstition D-Accept ouer favorite civic E-Give us help/tribute F-YOUR UGLY
   these negative penaltys are caused by declining demands the ai makes, these stack
10. You have signed a defensive pact with someone else to a small extend described above, this penalty stacks. ais give you a -1 each time you sign a defensive pact with a 3rd party, this penalty disappears when the pact is cancelled. (this appears to prevent you from making one huge defensive pact.)
11. You are ouer neighbour this penalty goes between -1 and -4, it can get to -4 but this requirs you have multiple contested borders with someone, for example when you and someone conquer different citiys in one region. this penalty is aplied when your borders begin to expand inwards into that of a rival, so if a border is moving constantly the 2 involved partys will get a -1 or -2 to their diplomacy standings. however if the ai founds a city next to your border it will usually not complain. founding a culture bomb next to an ai city is not the way to make friends . the penalty seems to disappear when a 3rd party whipes out your empire while you take another empire.
12. [added 15 mins later]You have traded with ouer worst enemys this aplys when you trade with a 3rd party civ with which they are annoyed/furious, when you have traded big techs it usually whines up to the -4 limit. this penalty fades (over very much time).
13. you have made an arrogant demand! each time you demand something from a civ which has a cautious or worse standing toward you it will give you a permanent -1, it stacks for each time you demand, wether they agree to give or not.
    ghandi appears not to use this penalty, from my observations.
14. You have razed ouer city![rephrased 8 dec '05] each time you capture & raze a city the a civ will give you a -2 permanent and stacking penalty, which civ givs you the penalty depends on the citys nationality, this is usually the nationality of the controlling civ. however if for example japan were to capture new york and the chinese razed it, after capturing it from japan america will give china a -2 penalty.
15. You have razed the holy city! when you raze the holy city of a religion all the civs with that religion as the state religion will give you a -2 to their standing with you. im not sure if this penalty disappears when the civ converts to another religion

last edit
january 9
2006

[ÆnigmÆffect]

Awesome, awesome info. I've been finding Diplo win to be very finicky (well, my first one was on OCC, so that kinda sucks with my own votes )

Thanks!

[spiceant]

i would like some help in discovering which exact leaders do something with a vengeance of some sort.
isabella is a quite known one with her +5-7 to relations if you share her religion for a long time i think this goes to saladin as well. im not sure about when you are heathen.
ghandi doesnt care if you threaten him.
any others? for example civs that give less of a bonus or penalty depending on religion.

edit: also some further help on how much bonus you get from having the same civics would be great.

[hirsch]

"You are our neighbour" can even get worse when you have a complicated border.. up to -4.... got that that way because i and the russians waged war against spain.. and conquered different cities as can be seen in this picture..

[spiceant]

thanks, it has been changed.

[zienth]

The "You razed our city" penalty doesn't always end up with the civ that owned the city just before you razed it. In a recent game, I took a city from the Chinese, but it was in an exposed location, with cultural pressure from both the Chinese and Greeks (who also didn't like me). I knew it would be very difficult to hold, so I gave it to the Arabs, hoping to (a) get them to like me, and (b) cause friction between them and the Chinese/Greeks. I guess Saladin didn't like the city's location much either, because the next turn he declared war on me. Several turns later I recaptured the city from Saladin and this time I razed it. Saladin didn't seem to mind, but the Chinese got the "You razed our city!" modifier against me. I'm guessing that the Chinese still had the most culture in the city, so they got the modifier.

Keith

[flytyer]

This was a great synopsis on the Diplomatic Victory strategy. I have tried several times without success to acheive a diplomatic win. Usually what happens is that another AI or 2 will be building their spaceship and I am trying to keep pace with them while at the same time trying to swing the UN vote in my favor and I end up with a spcae race victory instead.

[dabrovo_mlado]

how do you see the +/- modifiers between the AI?

i only know how to ask the AI what they think about someone through diplomacy, but only get to see the pleased/annoyed/etc. descripiton.

[TylerDurdon]

I hate the fact that the "you traded with our worst ennemy" can last for EVER!!!!

In my last game... Chinese were the first other continent player I discover and I traded with them!!! But they were hated by everyone else that I didnt know... I instantly gain a -4 with almost everybody!!! Thats OK, I cancelled deal with them which gave me a +1.. and SLOWLY and MEAN SLOOOOOWLY decay the -4...

I went further than my space victory and still in 2100AD after I wage war with Egyptian as an Ally against Chinese and still had a -1 for Trading with enemy... for those who would say it was for another trade... I checked and everybody else on the map were pleased with one another... it seem a little bit stupid IMO!!! -1 aint that much of a big deal after all... except that Victoria didnt had it and was elected Secretary until I bashed my way to it (having enough vote to elect myself )

[Mal de Nic]

Originally Posted by dabrovo_mlado

how do you see the +/- modifiers between the AI?

i only know how to ask the AI what they think about someone through diplomacy, but only get to see the pleased/annoyed/etc. descripiton.

Go to the foreign advisor window (should be accessible by pressing F4), you'll see the portraits of the leaders that you know and the lines between them showing Open Borders, War, Defensive pacts etc.

If you click on one of the leaders you will see just the lines coming from that individual. Mousing over another leader will show what that other leader thinks of the leader that you clicked, listing all the modifiers of their view of the leader.

[Mal de Nic]

Oh, and as to point 1. I was under the impression that this was due to some leaders being nicer compared with the more aggressive leaders.

For instance a leader like Montezuma will be annoyed without any modifiers, whilst there are other leaders that are nicer and tend to be pleased with far fewer positive modifiers.

[friskymike]

I understand that the person you are up agains in the election is the person with the next number of votes; what determines the number of votes?

[Mal de Nic]

Originally Posted by friskymike

I understand that the person you are up agains in the election is the person with the next number of votes; what determines the number of votes?

Isn't it population?

[SPQR300]

"6. # You have wisely chosen your civics. i have seen this bonus go to +6 inbetween ai civs and between myself and roosevelt (after i voted all 5 UN civics passed). this bonus appears to be random to me. however there is a set of rules, if you and a target civ have 2 different civics you will not get a diplomacy bonus for it. the 5 starting civics also dont give a bonus. slavery doesnt appear to either. however if you choose a leaders favorite civic (read it up in civilopedia -> leaders) and more civics that this civ also has it will usually grant you a diplomacy bonus. i have seen it go to +6."

This is incorrect. You ONLY get a bonus if both you and the other civic actually runs the other civ's favourite civ. So not only you have to have his favourite civ, but he has to be using it right now too. If it's not true, then you don't get ANY bonus, even if all of the civics are common. You don't need any other common civics, only this one to earn the bonus, however more common civics increase the bonus.

[Hydryad]

I believe they get utterly pissed when you use nuclear weapons against them as well. Sorry, I don't have a test game to check right now, but I remember in one game getting -11 from nuclear weapon usage.

[Briquette]

I was recently in a game where there were myself and 4 other AI civs at the time of the UN vote. I was first in population, first in approval rating, first in score, but behind Huayana in science and military. The other 3 civs basically held our fate. I had a better happiness "score" with ALL of them than they had with Huayana ... yet 2 of the 3 voted for Huayana. Why? My happiness levels weren't overwhelming on all of them (+12 versus +4) (+6 versus +5) (+6 versus +3), but I was leading nonetheless.
There has to be other factors. Does anybody know what they are?

[spiceant]

ais seem to have internal relations that it doesnt show in the foreign screen, this can sometimes be observed in the early game where the only positive modifiers are the years of peace and open borders, where ais will turn pleased(or annoyed) with eachother even though it doesnt show any modifïers. the best explanation i can give for the +12 vs +4 is that at the time of the vote the modifïers might have been different, compared to the moment the votes were shown. (maybe it was +9 vs +8ish at the time of voting).
the only way to break this is to (i think) have them declare war, or improve your relations even further.

[Carewolf]

"You have traded with out worst enemy" doesn't apply when trading with civilization the AI has a bad relationship with, but when trading with the civilization the AI has the worst relationship with. This means you can get the penalty when trading with a civilization the AI has as Pleased if it is Friendly with everyone else!

"You made an arrogant demand". In my experience it only triggers when a tribute is refused by the AI. Whenever they accept they do not get any angrier.

[spiceant]

iv had the ai give me -1 for demanding items from them, at all times including when they actually gave me what i wanted and when they did not.

[eben]

Originally Posted by Carewolf

"You have traded with out worst enemy" doesn't apply when trading with civilization the AI has a bad relationship with, but when trading with the civilization the AI has the worst relationship with. This means you can get the penalty when trading with a civilization the AI has as Pleased if it is Friendly with everyone else!

are you positive about that?
that's actually good news--it means there's only one civ you need to worry about not trading with to avoid upsetting an ally, rather than all the one's he's annoyed/furious with...