Arsenal of Democracy Abuse (easy Deity diplo win)

Many players probably have used this trick since the new patch came out.

I just got an easy diplo win on Deity as Korea. Thought the following combo was quite overpowered in terms of gaining CS allies:

1. Freedom: Arsenal of Democracy: +15% Production towards Military Units. Gain 15 Influence from each Military Unit gift to City-States.

2. Commerce: Mercenary army: Allows the purchasing of Landsknechts

3. Commerce: Mercantilism: Purchasing items in Cities requires 25% less gold.

4: World Wonder: Big Ben: Purchasing items in Cities requires 15% less gold.

You can achieve this combo easily on Deity, this means as soon as you have these 4 policies/tenet/wonder, you can gain 20 influence with any CS (not at war with you) every 3 turns with a mere 130 (buy and then gift a Landsknechts). this is more than 50% cheaper than buying influence with gold.

A bit tedious to do but it is just insanely powerful. I had 15 CS allies in that game, completely dominated all WC and UN proposals and the CS were good military deterrents since they all have potent military. No Forbidden Palace since I was originally going for a cultural vic; after Globalization, i controlled 45 votes (needed 40 to win) with 5 diplomats in other Major civs.

I think "Arsenal of Democracy" might need a nerf in the next patch. Or maybe they can allow the Mercenary units scale up in terms of power and costs with each new Era. I mean being able to buy a super cheap medieval unit in the Information Era, and gift it to CS to gain 20 influence just does not make sense.

Incredible as always, ABCF . I always approve of finding loopholes into abusive tactics !

Wow. I might try this to get my first Deity win.

ABigCivFan said:

I think "Arsenal of Democracy" might need a nerf in the next patch. Or maybe they can allow the Mercenary units scale up in terms of power and costs with each new Era. I mean being able to buy a super cheap medieval unit in the Information Era, and gift it to CS to gain 20 influence just does not make sense.

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LOL. That's a cool find.

They could simply close the loophole and make Landsknechts, even upgraded, impossible to gift to anyone. After all, they're "mercenaries", not "truly yours".

ABigCivFan said:

Or maybe they can allow the Mercenary units scale up in terms of power and costs with each new Era. I mean being able to buy a super cheap medieval unit in the Information Era, and gift it to CS to gain 20 influence just does not make sense.

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I think this would be a great improvement both in terms of fixing this problem and in making Mercenary Army better. You wouldn't have an entire social policy that's only useful for a short period of time.

Or rather, it would remain useful in a more logical way .

ha, I thought about this before, but with scouts. unfortunately, scouts doesn't work, so knechts is the only way to abuse this.

anyway, this is dependent on you constructing the big ben. without it, and with the +influence from gold gift policy, (philantropy?) the influence gain is slightly higher than gifting knechts.

TheMeInTeam said:

Incredible as always, ABCF . I always approve of finding loopholes into abusive tactics !

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Hey TMIT! it is nice to meet again on Civ 5 forum been a while... I moved on to Civ 5 this year and quite enjoy its depth and all the new features.

and with the +influence from gold gift policy, (philantropy?) the influence gain is slightly higher than gifting knechts.

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In the later eras, 250 only buys 15 influence. The trick I mentioned works well with just Patronage opener, no need to burn more SP in Patronage tree.

Big Ben is one of those wonders worth a saved GE or a Faith GE since human players are heavily handicapped in both production and income generation compare to the Deity AIs, and getting Big Ben tips that balance well, coupled with other purchase discount SPs and Ideology tenets, it gives human players much better to conversion ratio.

Diplo win on Diety isn't a Diety win. Diplo is the default win for those who suck at Diety. When diety is chosen, diplo win should be removed from the VC list.

ABigCivFan said:

Hey TMIT! it is nice to meet again on Civ 5 forum been a while... I moved on to Civ 5 this year and quite enjoy its depth and all the new features.



In the later eras, 250 only buys 15 influence. The trick I mentioned works well with just Patronage opener, no need to burn more SP in Patronage tree.

Big Ben is one of those wonders worth a saved GE or a Faith GE since human players are heavily handicapped in both production and income generation compare to the Deity AIs, and getting Big Ben tips that balance well, coupled with other purchase discount SPs and Ideology tenets, it gives human players much better to conversion ratio.

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Do you know how influence and gold ratio changes with era, CS friendliness and philantropy?

I think your strategy works better as CSs are also militarily resilient to invasion by constant reinforcement.

Looooooooooooooooooooooool thank you so much for this find

I always wondered when LKs get obsolete but never bothered to try them yet... guess they do not go obsolete which seems pretty stupid to me in the first place. Maybe they shouldn't 'just fix' this but instead move the LKs to the Honor opener (as a straight buff to that tree) with it going obsolete in the industrial era and find something else for Mercenary Army/Commerce... like "Gold cost of purchasing units reduced by 15%".

rodrigoq said:

Diplo win on Diety isn't a Diety win. Diplo is the default win for those who suck at Diety. When diety is chosen, diplo win should be removed from the VC list.

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Does not matter what Vic you are going after, imagine you are going for domination/Science/Cultural vics and have 15 CS allies, it simply boosts your power immensely. AIs suck at this and often sits on 30K gold and not even try to buy the CS away from human players which is another loophole which should be easily addressed by the code. The AIs simply need to be more aggressive at buying off CSs from human players. it is ridiculous to have the human player earning 150 gpt with a reserve of 500 gold to have 15 CS allies while the top AI has 500 gpt with 30K gold sitting in the bank!

@EEE_Boy, yes if the CS is at war and request units, each Landsknechts gift (130 gold) gives you 25 influence

ABigCivFan said:

Does not matter what Vic you are going after, imagine you are going for domination/Science/Cultural vics and have 15 CS allies, it simply boosts your power immensely. AIs suck at this and often sits on 30K gold and not even try to buy the CS away from human players which is another loophole which should be easily addressed by the code. The AIs simply need to be more aggressive at buying off CSs from human players. it is ridiculous to have the human player earning 150 gpt with a reserve of 500 gold to have 15 CS allies while the top AI has 500 gpt with 30K gold sitting in the bank!

@EEE_Boy, yes if the CS is at war and request units, each Landsknechts gift (130 gold) gives you 25 influence

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AI used their money to buy CS's back in the days of Vanilla Civ V. It,s was quite hard to get Diplo victory then

BlackWizard said:

AI used their money to buy CS's back in the days of Vanilla Civ V. It,s was quite hard to get Diplo victory then

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... and they still do it (at least sometimes).

Last night I was in a bribe-contest with Venice over two CSs. Venice bribed them back to him, then I bribed them to me and then to him and so on until I ran out of money. Venice also went out of money, but he had a hard time counter my Gunboat Diplomacy. He managed to get one of those CSs on his side before the vote, but that one was my "security CS".

My first Autocracy Diplo-Win

DemonMaster said:

... and they still do it (at least sometimes).

Last night I was in a bribe-contest with Venice over two CSs. Venice bribed them back to him, then I bribed them to me and then to him and so on until I ran out of money. Venice also went out of money, but he had a hard time counter my Gunboat Diplomacy. He managed to get one of those CSs on his side before the vote, but that one was my "security CS".

My first Autocracy Diplo-Win

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Big question: After taking the CS the first time, why not just Dow?

kb27787 said:

Big question: After taking the CS the first time, why not just Dow?

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First reason: Why? I won the economic battle, didn't I? When it was three turns left before voting, neither of us had any money (not enough anyway). I controlled 42 votes and I needed 39 to win and I even had a Rank 3 Spy in position to take another CS (that I actually forgot to use).

Second reason: My enemies (Venice, Aztec, Hun, Morocco) all hated me and they had nukes, I didn't.

Third reason: I don't use exploits or cheats and even if a DoW just to block isn't exactly that, it is in a grey zone, so if I can't win a diplomatic win without using pettifogging tactics I don't deserve to win

DemonMaster said:

Third reason: I don't use exploits or cheats and even if a DoW just to block isn't exactly that, it is in a grey zone, so if I can't win a diplomatic win without using pettifogging tactics I don't deserve to win

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It's a game mechanic, not an exploit

It only feels like an exploit because the AIs aren't programmed or 'smart enough' to do it themselves.

I don't know what difficulty you play on, but I class that in a category of 'Advantages I have being a Human player' which I stack against the stupid starting bonuses I have to give them to keep the game fair.

But at the end of the day, do what you want! I personally only use diplo victories as a last resort win (get out of jail free!!) or if I know I have any VC I want in the bag and don't feel like playing it out.

Furret said:

It's a game mechanic, not an exploit

It only feels like an exploit because the AIs aren't programmed or 'smart enough' to do it themselves.

I don't know what difficulty you play on, but I class that in a category of 'Advantages I have being a Human player' which I stack against the stupid starting bonuses I have to give them to keep the game fair.

But at the end of the day, do what you want! I personally only use diplo victories as a last resort win (get out of jail free!!) or if I know I have any VC I want in the bag and don't feel like playing it out.

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If an AI doesn't know how to do a certain thing and you do, you can do something that the AI can't. That can be called an exploit. I also said that this was a little bit in a gray area.

And yes you do what you feel like, exploits and all and I do what I like and feel is right. I simply like the kick when I win honestly without using cheap trick and game exploits.

Btw, I play on Emperor.

Nice one !!!