Diplomatic Victory too easy

Does anyone else think that Diplomatic Victory is WAY too easy now? I usually play on a Large Random Map Epic Emperor. I've won 2 Diplomatic victories so far. Once was as Venice, in which I basically did a OCC and every single city state was my ally for about 100 turns before I won a diplomatic victory. I was about 700 points behind the score of the two better civilizations. One was my ally and one hated my guts. They both had military that could stomp me, better (although close) research, and almost as much GPT (which surprised me). And yet, they never once attempted to take a city state away from me, and basically just let me walk unopposed into a Diplomatic Victory (which doesn't make much conceptual sense when the highest rated civ controlled one of the two continents in the world).

Basically, the AI just has zero ability to handle the World Congress. It's cool when it starts out, because it's hard to corner it early, but after a few sessions, it's horribly unbalanced.

Maybe I'll try a standard size map, see how that goes.

The A.I. is designed to let you win in BNW.

It's absolutely too easy. It requires less skill than in G&K, because the AI always votes for itself and literally all you need to do is buy up all the city states on the map and you can win. The AI doesn't even try to stop you. Instead of banding together of even making an effort to stop one player form grabbing all the votes, they just sit back and cheer you on with DoFs. It's boring and frustrating.

I turned off diplomatic victory. I think it is one of the best for Venice but right now it is unbalanced. Science and culture are hard to get with only one city producing wonders(spaceship parts) and archeologists. I also found going demo to be equally hard since you have to save and buy so much of the troops needed. All that being said, I will still play with diplomatic victory turned off until it is fixed.

The diplo victory does need reworking. It pretty much renders the science victory the new time victory - the victory you only happen to get when things aren't able to be wrapped up and not a legitimate goal like the other victory types. Even when I play as Korea with the whole game focused on science and teching I find I'm able to consistently vote for myself as the world leader in the UN before I have even half the spaceship part techs researched.

Every victory condition is super easy now. Once you're familiar with the BNW mechanics, it seems like you have to go out of your way to lose. Just went for a cultural/diplo (which ever came first) win as Venice but had a big enough tech lead where I could have got a science or domination win too if I wanted. And this was on immortal where I wasn't even pushing for science. Kinda ridiculous.

e3do said:

Every victory condition is super easy now. Once you're familiar with the BNW mechanics, it seems like you have to go out of your way to lose. Just went for a cultural/diplo (which ever came first) win as Venice but had a big enough tech lead where I could have got a science or domination win too if I wanted. And this was on immortal where I wasn't even pushing for science. Kinda ridiculous.

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I know this is probably true but does anyone else besides me want to see some screenshots of this?

I'm not saying your lying, I just want to it.

CrazyHeaven said:

I know this is probably true but does anyone else besides me want to see some screenshots of this?

I'm not saying your lying, I just want to it.

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I'm too lazy to load up the game again to take pics, but here's the save a turn before the win if you're curious.

Frankly, I think Culture and Science are the toughest since they both take the most time to complete.

Culture is the easiest victory in the game currently.

wasn't a diplomatic victory about as easy in G&K? you just ally all the city states, right? (sorry if this is wrong. i'm not sure i ever did a diplo victory in G&K.) for what it's worth, i won a diplomacy game in BNW last night and did find it somewhat challenging because i was behind on tech (russia was one part away from a space race victory), but that might be because i'm still learning the game.

Why should the game be this easy? What difficulties are you playing that on?

I think the AI definitely needs to have more of a "gang up on the human player" effect in the late game for diplomatic victory to be more interesting.

I even only put in 1/3 of my delegates (controlling all CS's) in the UN to allow myself a cultural victory around 30 turns later.

I played on King difficulty throughout G&K and wasn't too consistent with winning games on it so I never bumped it up but the first full game I played so far with BNW I won a diplomatic victory quite easily with the Shoshone.

I was on my own continent with the Assyrians and I really believe I was able to win by the Assyrians not attacking me early on in the game when they had the #1 military and I was still building my civilization focusing on economy/science. I think in G&K the AI would have attacked me during the medevial era while I was vulnerable and would have prevented me from trading/building critical buildings/wonders. I later took the Assyrians out once I built my military strong enough since they were shown in the demographics to have the #1 literacy rate. Once I took their capital it was smooth sailing and I didn't have another war all game (Besides with the Zulu where I didn't contribute since they were on another continent and at that point weren't a threat to win the game since I had the #1 tech, +400 gpt (More with golden ages) and was just picking up a city state ally ever 2 turns or so (1K each)

I really think the AI should be improved to where they know that I am rapidly allying myself with city states and force them to come attack me/stage coups in my city state allies (only happened once)/attack my city state ally and taking it over or at least destroy my trade routes (Which would have crippled me at certain points of the game.

Was very satisfied with how the game went but was disappointed that once I got moving I felt like runaway AI and only Rome could have prevented that towards the end but was too busy picking on the weak Portugese, Incans and French.

Screenshot : http://oi39.tinypic.com/2h682et.jpg

Also maybe allow a "negative" option for voting for "World Leader" at the end because it felt kinda "cheap" by just voting myself world leader... I wish a "diplomatic" victory was more about alliances/trading with major civs than just one person buying up all the city states and voting for yourself.

For example maybe tweaking a "diplomatic victory" to where not only yourself but civs you are allied with team up together to vote themselves (As a group) as world leader to win the game. This way you can have several "alliances" of civs voting themselves or negatively voting others for "world leader" that way it would be more about your friendships throughout the game. Idk... otherwise this seems sorta broken. I could have easily won a science victory/domination victory (with the amount of gold per turn I was making) if I wanted to but I decided to focus on diplomatic since I was making an insane GPT which would allow for a quicker victory.

Hope they make it a bit more challenging, I don't want to prematurely move up to Emperor... i'll try a few more games first.

I typically play on Emperor, with one difficulty step variance depending on what kind of game I want. The problem I have with Diplo Victory is the lack of ability to interfere with it by the AI. In the Venice game I referenced, I was basically losing to two different civs, one of which was my ally and one of which hated me. But because one of them was my ally going for a Science win, it wouldn't do anything overt like DOW me. And the other DOW'ed me, but they were on another continent, so tough to reach me, plus I was able to buy my ally into war with them. Because no one could invade me, and there's basically no other way to stop a Diplo victory, I could easily win despite being at best the third strongest civ. Plus I'm not sure how a Diplo victory really makes sense when the empire that hated me basically had half the world's population. There needs to be a re balancing of delegates by population or a change in the way the victory is achieved or votes happen.

Giskler said:

Culture is the easiest victory in the game currently.

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Strongly disagree because of the huge amount of time it takes. Even with Brazil, and a strong push for a cultural victory, Diplomatic victory was far easier to go with, partly because of the insane gold from caravans, and partly because many civs put up resistance when they realized I was going cultural (Morocco, for instance, constantly sent Great Musicians to do Concert Tours in my territory as I was nearing Influential with them).

Morningcalm said:

Strongly disagree because of the huge amount of time it takes. Even with Brazil, and a strong push for a cultural victory, Diplomatic victory was far easier to go with, partly because of the insane gold from caravans, and partly because many civs put up resistance when they realized I was going cultural (Morocco, for instance, constantly sent Great Musicians to do Concert Tours in my territory as I was nearing Influential with them).

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And how did it work out for Morocco? Did it delay you from going Influential and having you to devote more resources to Tourism?

Morningcalm said:

Strongly disagree because of the huge amount of time it takes. Even with Brazil, and a strong push for a cultural victory, Diplomatic victory was far easier to go with, partly because of the insane gold from caravans, and partly because many civs put up resistance when they realized I was going cultural (Morocco, for instance, constantly sent Great Musicians to do Concert Tours in my territory as I was nearing Influential with them).

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Agree. This is the difference between the two - Culture provides ways to fight back, stop Open Borders, DoW or otherwise try to decrease the modifiers, or just try to seize one city that has a lot of art items. Diplomacy pretty much allows zero defense other than annihilate the player or all city states. I think its more of an issue the bigger he map is though, since that equals more city states.

I always thought diplomatic victory was by far the easiest in G&K too. Take patronage early on, keep playing normally and you win once you reach the UN.

Morningcalm said:

Strongly disagree because of the huge amount of time it takes. Even with Brazil, and a strong push for a cultural victory, Diplomatic victory was far easier to go with, partly because of the insane gold from caravans, and partly because many civs put up resistance when they realized I was going cultural (Morocco, for instance, constantly sent Great Musicians to do Concert Tours in my territory as I was nearing Influential with them).

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Eh? Cultural victory is triggered before diplomatic is even available if you're aiming for it.