EVP III: The Diplomatic Persians

It's been a month, and I am back, spouting, and encouraging Noble players to step outside of thier comfort zone, and do victories that they never thought of...

And again, I do a victory condition I have never done before... not even close...

Diplomatic Victory.

Conditions for victory:
Diplomatic victory, as Cyrus, of the Persians. I must win by this method!!
Partial Victory: At least 5 of the 7 civs vote for the Persians to win
Total Victory: 6 of the civs vote for the Persians to win, the seventh being the rival civ

Unlike Domination/Conquest, these victories are MUCH harder... simply because I don't have a clue on how to get people to vote for me. I think I have only had 1 person vote for me for diplomatic victory, and I think that was because they were my vassal... most of the time, I am not even the UN resident!!

So... how do I pull off a UN victory? Persia is a relatively nice civ, and the Pangea Standard Sized map should make an early rush nice... Unfortunatly, I have no idea on the mid/late game, which I should be wooing the leaders of the world.

The problem is this: If they start off hating me, I vassalise them to force them to vote for me. However, now the AI treats me and the vassal the same, as the average of the two civs. This means one thing... they no longer like me. Now, in order to make THEM vote for me, I need to vassalise THEM too... and before long, I get the message "digitCruncher has won a conquest victory". DANG!!

Diplomatic victory is a tough victory to crack... I simply can't get non-vassals to vote for me!! So before I start... how do YOU play a diplomatic victory game??

Not all 7 will vote for you because at the very least your opponent will vote for themselves. Also one easy way to play "diplomatically" is warmongering. Consider bulbing theology to build the ap in christianity (which is your very own religion). Then swap back to the religion your friends are running. spread it to your friends alot, then at the end spread to the remaining civs' lowest pop city.

Sorry... Religious victory is EVP IV, not EVP III

But I do warmonger quite a bit in my diplo games... but I can never get enough diplo bonuses through war... and it always is such that my best buddy just so happens to be the second largest civ, and thus, my rival >.<

Your total victory condition is impossible to fulfill. The AI will never not vote for itself.

I find diplo win pretty straightforward. Grab as much land as possible early so you have potential for pop.
Try to manipulate diplo to your advantage, easy bonuses to grab would be MMS, Favorite Civic, religion, fair trade, etc.. Spiritual civs have a big advantage here.
Also gifting a resource (or trades) will get the +2 "supplied us with resources" bonus. Give in to demands more too.

Modified appropiately

Giving into demands might actually work in my favor... although I do need the tech lead such that I can get the UN... I almost never give into demands ATM

Thanks for that. I will start on Wednesday...

Well... here is the start... Its not a good one >.< (Nothing like my parallel game, which I have already played for the first 175-ish turns, destroyed the Romans (who had prets >.< It was a tough, and interesting fight!!), over-expanding, but still having some HUGE point lead near the end of the game... after clawing back a tech deficit which was insane... This game will have one important thing: I need to be able to tech by my own steam, as otherwise I will get "-2 You traded with our worst enemy" penalties... and that also opens the door to gifting plethora's of techs. However, I need flatland, not hills, for that plan to work >.<

I also think I might be ready to jump to Prince, disappointing all Noble players out there. So sorry in advance if I get too good





Finally, I promise to make small thumbnails from now on, simply because I feel for the people without fast internet... but this is an interesting scenario... should I settle in place? (Moving the scout north, to see the tile above, reveals a regular grassland. This means that one of the tiles to the south must have a food resource...as I only count the rice, and I always have 2) I think that I should settle in place... but doing that in my parallel game was costly... missing out on a gold resource, and multiple floodplains >.<

[Edit]Settling in place seems a no-brainer, for a noble player like myself. Anywhere else and I either lose the rice, or I gain some worthless coastal tiles (which I can't work effectively)[/Edit]

Total and even partial victory will depend on total chance:

AIs in the game, how religions are founded, how much global warfare occurs, etc etc.

Most of my UN victories come after war. You can of course wipe someone out but that seems to run counter to your objective here, although the vassal thing is a problem too.

If you play a lowish difficulty, you can found multiple religions, especially early ones, dropping the AI chances of warfare. From there you can run favorite civics and whatnot until you have a bunch of friendlies. Finally get mass media, and if the biggest rival is one of your friendlies, gift mass media to someone else so they build the UN (assuming you're #1 in pop), otherwise just build it yourself.

An ideal opening would be isolated, where you found buddhism or hinduism, then judaism then placate the other AIs once you meet them (run FR or their religion).

An opening that will make this impossible is pangaea where izzy gets buddhism, sal gets hindu, and sury gets judaism. On a map like that, total victory can easily be impossible.

Not total luck... luck, and the ability for the player not to ruin the luck given to them.

Anyway, the AI civs I have run into so far say that domination would be hard, anyway... >.<


4000BC: Settle the capital in place. Unfortunatly, I don't have a screeny of the city immediately after, but it is lacking regular resources... it has Sugar (very nice food resource!!), spices, and rice. And that is it. It has 4 grassland hills, a floodplains, and the two tiles to the south are two plains, and to the west are three riverside grasslands.

3735BC: Research the Wheel (on route to Pottery. I have plenty of food to start me off, so I need to cottage them for an early tech lead). Unlock Immortals. Immortals are truely powerful... in addition to all the bonuses of Chariots, Immortals also get +50% vs. archery units, and recieve defensive bonuses! They have the Chariots innate +100% vs. Axe (attack), so there is no counter to those Immortals!! Except, Protective Archers. But surely there are only a couple of protective civs... right?


3575BC: Meet the neighbours I: Meet Qui Shi Huang, of the Chinese. Pro/Ind. Rushing him is gonna be tough... I will probably rush someone else...


3525BC: Meet the neighbours II: Zara Yaqob, of the Ethiopians. Cre/Org. IMO, the African civs seem to do outlandishly better than the regular civs... them and, occasionally, the Incans.

In this turn, I pop a hut, and grab another scout.


3475BC: Meet the neighbours III: Giggles, of the Sumerians. Pro/Cre. Another nasty Protective civ.
In this turn, I pop another hut, and grab 5 XP on one of my scouts.

3400BC: A scout is killed by a lion, the one I popped from the hut, not the hyper-XP one.

3350BC: Pop a hut, and get ANOTHER scout... so far my hut-pops have been less than helpful...

3300BC: Pop another hut, grab 73 gold.


3250BC: Meet the neighbours IV: Sitting Bull of the Native Americans. Pro/Phil. Nasty guy to attack... and the 3rd out of 4 civs to be given the protective trait!! Insane...


3150BC: Hinduism is founded, the latest time I have ever seen one of those techs go... I mean, seriously... that is 34 turns after the start. (Zara Yaqob gets the holy city)


3025BC: Get the infamous Herbal Medicine event. For some reason, I always get the same result: "Our experiments have caused fatalities throughout the empire!"
Our experiments have been a resounding success! We now possess much better treatments!"
And this is no exception. Yahoo!!

2975BC: Our first scout, our Woodsman II scout, got slaughtered, on a hill, on a forest. To be fair, it got attacked by a lion, and 2 wolves, so I am not totally suprised. But I would like it to have gone a little further


2950BC: I get Truffles!! Yummy! I never got this event before, and it is on a very nice tile (Now it is equivelent to a riverside floodplains, with a cottage too!!)

2725BC: I am the least cultured civ in the world. I think that is because I am not creative, and everyone else is tied with me. Anyway, surprisingly (and oddly enough), Zara ISN'T the culture leader... I thought his holy city + Creative trait would lead to him being the culture leader, but some other civ is.

Also, it is worth noting that, 51 turns into the game, and buddism STILL hasn't been founded!! If I knew that, I would have got the buddist and hindu holy cities, right of the bat!!

Save game attached. My next plan for the next 50 turns is: Research Bronze Working, adopt slavery, beeline CoL (after Animal Husbandry), as I have no stone, nor any marble nearby, and then go for Currency (Trying to trade for Alphabet, and/or backtrading some other important techs, like Archery). I will ignore most early-game wonders, and probably go for SoZ, to make warring with me not profitable (as I will be settling mostly commerce tiles).

I fear that this post is going to be like EVPII, in which I found out 2 ways NOT to do a culture victory... but oh well. People learn better from mistakes, than successes...

TMIT, he needs warfare though. So the AI has someone to hate. He should pick his vassals early, and vassalise the best friend of his main competitor.

Actually, it occurred to me that he could in theory vassal EVERY SINGLE AI BUT ONE, and then win diplomatically . Not much luck in THAT!

He'll win dom if thats the case

Not so. If he himself doesn't get TOO big, he won't. It's only 1/2 land and pop for vassal land/pop, so if he grabs say 20% of the world's land himself, he can actually take another SIXTY percent in AI land before he even comes close to domination land.

I should have thought of this earlier, many of my games actually end in similar fashion.

There is a problem there, insofar that in doing that he will have vassals renouncing protection due to them getting too big again, or his main rival will get too big, leading him to be cut off from the 75% vote required for diplo victory. He will always have to control >75% of pop, which is difficult without the 64% land limit. I think its 64% of land.

UN doesn't require 75% like the AP. It actually tends to require in the low 60's%.

Land and pop reqs for domination vary for a number of reasons. I'm telling you though, it's very, very easy to win this way. Vassals don't break free very easily. Even if they happen to be above the threshold (which is rare, and in intercontinental wars you can even make a colony to split them up), if you power rating is high they WILL NOT break free.

I thought the idea was to go for a diplomatic victory rather than a pseudo-diplomatic victory which is essentially a variant of domination.

I'm probably wrong but I thought that the rules for diplomacy had been changed so that you required an independent (not PA or vassal or colony) to vote for you to win diplomacy.

Total victory (all civs voting for you) will be impossible, partial victory (5 of 7) is going to be very challenging. One of the things to be mindful of is that by the time you get to UN some civs may have switched to free religion making shared religion obselete (but some wont, particularly if they have a favourite religious civic). Wisely chosen civics is often a good idea (adopting an AIs favourite civic and making sure they're running it themselves).

Question:
What are the odds of getting 5 out of 7 leaders with the Protective trait (Yes, this is a spoiler to whats to come )

Binomial distribution doesn't work (There are 8 protective civs, out of 51 leaders total), as 5 is far too many of the 8 possible civs... so p is not constant.

This is the formula I used:

((8*7*6*5*4*41*40)/(49*48*47*46*45*44*43)) * 21

= 5.4357 * 10^-4

Thats...

Ouch.

0.054%!! Not far-fetched, but still pretty unlucky!! 1 in 1900 odds!!

It's worth noting that similar things happen all the time. However, we don't often notice when 5 out of 8 civs start with, say, Imperilistic, for example... or Creative! The wonders of the Human Mind, however.

The odds that England, USA, Mali, China, India, Inca, and Ethiopia all appearing in a game like this have MUCH lower odds... but you wouldn't see anyone getting all worked up about that (simply because, from a human viewpoint, that isn't 'amazing'). Again... the Human Mind -.-.

[Edit]Oh... and 'ideally' I will try for a proper diplomatic win. Unfortunatly, this leaves me with very little room for a backup >.< So... no. I will not vassalise the world in order to force everyone to vote for me. I WILL vassalise everyone I need to, however. But I won't vassalise my friends[/Edit]

Please, I will need tips (and people following diplomatic victories in this thread will ALSO need tips!!)[Edit]

Bribe people to war against your biggest competitor. I would have farmed the sugar before you bothered cottaging your other 3 foods. I think gilgamesh is fairly aggressive, he's declare on me from afar before.

I farmed the rice, and then cottaged the truffles (for 3 3 ), and floodplains (3 2 ) so it wasn't that sub-optimal. But you are right (and speaking of that... I STILL haven't improved the sugar!! I better get around to it... but my workers are too busy with my REXing. When I build my stack of Immortals, I should be fine. But its gonna be late... around turn 100-150 will be my 'rush'... >.< I don't know why I was so slow this time... I didn't even build my first warrior until turn 60 (!) I am thankful I didn't run into any barbs!!

I would like to apologise. Buddism ACTUALLY appeared REALLY early, not REALLY late... 3700BC in fact (Turn 12).


2725BC: Find out that I am the most un-cultured civ in the world. Thankfully, that is about to change. Hopefully.

2700BC: FINALLY research Bronze Working, and adopt Slavery. Slavery + Granaries + Imperialistic = Settlers popping out ridiculously fast... After just 2 turns building, I can whip Settlers for only 2 population!!


2525BC: Meet the Neighbours V: Ragnar of the Vikings (Agg/Fin). A semi-mad war-mongeror, even worse than Monty. He actually waits until he has an army before he attacks!! Not that I have seen it. The only other time I have run into him is in Mod Test II: Next War Revolutions, where he was a rebel of some major civ, and got eaten up to almost nothing, down to 2 or 3 pathetic cities, before finally getting back to strength. As my capitulated vassal of course

In this turn, a forest fire nearly burns down a forest, but I pay 10 gold, to buy 1 happy, and 30-45 hammers... thats a good deal!!

2300BC: Cut down a forest, and then two warriors pop out. That was surprisingly effective!!

2225BC: 2 turns of building, and I whip my first settler for 2 pop (with 3 hammer overflow). I love BUG... here is why:


2100BC: The Final of Meet the Neighbours:

Saladin... (Pro/Spi). This is going to be a VERY long war, if I choose to war at all -.-

1725BC: After a long period of nothing happening, Ethiopia completes Stonehedge. This is a wonder I don't like... it means I cannot build Obelisks, which means -2 culture in all cities after Astronomy . The GPP are nice, however, as is the early culture (10)

1575BC: I was planning on expanding to my third city (My second city location was EPIC. It was right on the Chinese border, but it has *2* sources of gold, pigs, horses, and LOTS of hills. I don't know whether to turn it into a production city, or a gold city, however. Probably Gold...

However, a barb warrior attacked my warrior from across the river... victory odds was only 21%, and it won Which REALLY slowed me down, as I had to produce ANOTHER Warrior to guard the city...

1500BC: Get this quest, classic literature.

Thats... good. 7 Libraries isn't something that is TOO difficult to get, and the Great Library is a mid-tier wonder...
Now to find out what it does... apparently I have 3 choices
#1: +2 science in one city (linked with the Library, I think)
#2: Get an ancient era tech for free
#3: Requires the Great Library: +1 free scientist Specilist

Its a nice thing... The Great Library is good for GPPoints... and I think my GP Farm (with Banana + Rice + Tons of grassland, and I think 2 plains hills) will LOVE a free scientist...

1475BC: The 5th most advanced civ in the world... >.< Not good. I will get CoL, REX and capture Chinese cities, go for Currency, and THEN Alphabet (Currency for the gold trade + Markets, which I will need to continue my expansion, and Alphabet for my tech trades, what I do so well )

Well... that was... interesting. Seriously... I have fought Prets with Immortals, but they are NOTHING compared to... Protective Archers on hills (Although it was actually the regular swordsmen who put up more of a fight. That, and poor luck)


1475BC: We left out empire, cut off, on a penensula, with only Protective civs to get more land...

1325BC: HORSES!! With this resource, we can (finally) attack the Chinese with Immortals. OK, it was about 50 turns later than I expected... but it should still be useful to get China while it is still off guard. That, and as my only direct neighbour (stupid penensula), and the civ likely to get the most land, I am forced to launch an attack on China... >.<

1150BC: Giggles gets Alphabet. I cannot trade anything, however, surely CoL should be a nice bargaining chip...


1125BC: Hinduism spreads to my lands. I choose not to convert... not yet. I want the diplo bonus!!

1100BC: Giggles researches Fishing, and I finally can trade a tech...

In this year, the Great Lighthouse is built (In Ethiopia, also the site of the Jewish AND Hindu holy city)

900BC:

Slave revolt. Fun. I choose the second option, as I need population and happyness... I already have 22 turns of whip unhappyness by now >.<

800BC: Zara asks me to adopt Hinduism. I oblige, and I get +1 diplo bonus!!

725BC: Sitting Bull adopts Hinduism

650BC: And then, so does Qin Shi Huang.

625BC: Research CoL, and found Confusism. I don't trade any techs for 12 turns, as I miss it >.< Dang, curse you silly mistakes!!

500BC: I see something that turns my blood cold...

China is trying to get Construction. This means Elephants. I am almost 100% sure that China has Ivory, so that means War Elephants. In otherwords... the obsoletance of my Army >.< Immortals are no match for Elephants, which means I have only a few turns to destroy the Chinese.

485 BC: First major tech trade, and it is a goody!!


And a mediocre one later in the same turn:


440BC: When Native America took CoL from Giggles (Curse you!!), the only person I could trade CoL to was Ethiopia (which was a nice surprise. I thought I would NEVER get Alphabet) So the last tech trade...


410BC: Enough is enough. I cannot take the (very real) risk of China attaining weapons of mass (ancient) destruction, so I launch my attack of 14 Immortals. This was 2 more than the one that destroyed Rome in my parralel game, and that destroyed PRETORIANS!! It should be enough, enough to wipe the entire map clean of the Chinese empire!!

Well... I have very few screenys of the war (>.<) Sorry. So this is what happened.

Turn 1: I launch an attack on a nearby Chinese city. Capture it.

Digits Losses: 2 Immortals
Chinas Losses: 2 Archers. A City.

Turn 2: Keep a Immortal fortified (Oh yes... Immortals get terrain bonuses, the only mounted unit (aside from Conquistadors) that have this ability. It is useful, to say the least.) in the captured city. Move my 4 4XP Immortals south, to Beijing

395BC (Turn 4... I think): See the Chinese defenders:



Too much for my measily stack of 10 3XP immortals to kill. I wait for reinforcements (2 turns). China whips an Axeman (!?) to survive.

4 turns later, I attack China... in an epic war.

After the bloodshed ended, I look away in disgust. No less than *10* Immortals died in that war, and only 1 losing Immortal withdrew (I should have promoted Combat I, instead of Flanking... they would do more damage that way >.<). I now am left with 5 Immortals (Thankfully, all strong, lvl 2 and lvl 3 Immortals) guarding China. As soon as "Refuses to talk" wears off, I will end this war. I think.

350BC: Saladin builds the Oracle in his capital.

335BC: End of the game, for now. I am the wealthiest civ in the game (I blame the city capturing )

Now, summary:

Was this war worth the permanent -1 diplo hit with all Hindu civs? I dunno. Without this land-grab, I would be stuck with 6 or so cities for the entire game. Also, with this land-grab I get some border cities to Giggles and Zara, both people I want to befriend, without the border pressure that will cause diplomatic tensions. Finally, I get some sweet new land, and also secure a (as-yet) uncharted penensula, all to myself, and whoever is mad enough to split thier empire in two.

But now I am forced to REX. And that will be tough on the economy. I have 1 VERY important GP Farm to build, and another Strategically important penensula guarding city to build (1S, 2E of the corn near the desert). In addition, I cannot finish the Chinese off (I have barely any troops left, ANYWHERE!!). I will need to withdraw several Immortals to fog-bust, so no axes attack my lone warriors defending my cities. Thankfully, CoL will save my behind.

And of course, since China is still around, China is a very real threat. They can expand to the east, if they can out-REX Native America. They have Iron (I don't!! *Gulp* Thats insane... all the Iron lies MILES to the Chinese East...), and although I have copper, thats hardly going to come in handy. If it comes in a war of Chu-ko-nu vs. Longbows, its hard to see me winning... (Although Jumbos will come in handy!!) They still have 2 VERY good commerce cities, but lack the production to counter-attack. Yet.

Finally, this is a gold-mine!! I have no less than *3* sources of gold. Thats epic... I just need calander, and tons and tons of health resources.

Was the war worth it? I dunno. I lost alot, but gained alot too. Its hard to find a balance...

I *would* give an overview of the game ATM, but Civ IV is throwing a hissy, and trying to overthrow my computer (It freezes at the load screen, and takes no CPU power, but over-rides even Ctrl-Alt-Del for nearly 4 or 5 minutes >.<). If someone REALLY thinks it is needed, then they can... by opening the attached save, and then doing what is needed. But otherwise, you can wait for 8 or so hours, when I sleep


Immortals are great units, almost as good as Prets if you get Horses in the BFC (IE. You are fighting Warriors / Archers), and even better if the AI post-pones Bronze Working, especially for the religious techs!!

They still need quite a bit of skill to use. They are RUSH units... waiting to turn 130-something before attacking is insanely risky. Now you have to fight Horse Archers, Swordsmen, and Spearmen. Waiting any longer, and I would have Elephants, which are no contest (An attacking War Elephant has 8 strength, to an Immortals 2.67... thats exactly 3 times stronger!!).

The best promotion plan (IMO) is the same for any mounted rush... a few suicide Combat I units, 2, or 3 'mid-tier' flanking units (to be used when there are 18-50% odds of success), and 4 or 5 'hyper' combat units, which are kept alive by only attacking at 80% or higher odds. Unfortunatly, I ignored the first group, which is critical, as flanking chariots (and Horse archers, and Immortals) don't actually do all that much damage, so Combat I is vastly superior, especially when the chance of withdrawl is so low at Flanking I (20%, compared to 10%). So although you half the chance of the suicide unit surviving, you double the damage, which is MUCH better.

One last comment:


Me-thinks Ethiopia thinks this is a OCC

(Thier only city, and it is the medieval era already )