Diplomacy victory: the easy win?

[meltone1]

It seems no matter how far I am down in score I am always able to pull out a diplomacy victory. I just butter up the other civs several turns before the vote begins (with tributes and the like), and voila, I am the secretary general. I have always been the first to build the UN when I try, so i'm not sure if it would affect the results if someone else built it, although I doubt it.

Has anyone ever seen the AI refuse to hold an election? Since I have always been the one to build it first (that I can remember), I wouldn't know. The only scenario I could imagine where I wouldn't end up winning the UN vote is if the AI builds the UN first and refuses to hold an election. To do this they would probably have to know before-hand that I would win the vote and not him if he held it. This could be called cheating on the part of the AI, but I think it would at least be a way to not guarantee a diplomacy victory. How do you guys feel about this victory type?

[Bamspeedy]

A win is a win.

But I do feel it is one of the easier ways to win.

[Aggie]

When I play a peaceful game and I know that I will win sooner or later, I choose the UN. Space Race would only take more turns with a similar result.

I've seen the AI refuse to hold an election. That mostly happens in the higher level warmonger games, with warring both by me AND the AI (very few of them and far inbetween - warmonger games tends to be shorter )

[Masquerouge]

I always build the UN just to make sure I can focus on the other victory types with no worries
So I agree, diplo win is quite easy.

[meltone1]

maybe it should be more difficult to boost the AI's attitude towards you.. perhaps if they were a little less forgetful about the past..

[Black Waltz]

Maybe it's only easy because you take the 'formula' of the AI attitudes and go out to butter them up on purpose. If you didn't do that in such a blatent way I'm sure that the win would be harder.

[Bamspeedy]

Originally posted by Black Waltz
Maybe it's only easy because you take the 'formula' of the AI attitudes and go out to butter them up on purpose. If you didn't do that in such a blatent way I'm sure that the win would be harder.

In my games, the AI fight amongst themselves so much during the industrial age. Stay out of those fights and they all hate each other, but not you.

The AI will never vote for someone they are at war with. Get everyone at war with the civ who you will face in the election.

Those were simple ways to win with the UN well before anyone tried figuring out the formula for AI attitudes.

[Justus II]

The only real difficult part if you don't build the UN yourself, is you might not be nominated for the vote! To be nominated, you have to have at least 25% of the population IIRC, or the top two civs if only two or less meet that criteria. However, the builder of the UN is always included. So if you are a smaller empire, and don't build the UN, you wont get nominated. Still, if you plan for it, it can be pulled off easier than most of the other victories.

[Bleser]

On higher difficulty levels, when the AI is ahead of you in tech, and they build it, I have hardly ever actually seen them hold an election. I think it is becaue almost ever AI hates every other AI since they break trades/MPP/ROP all the time. Therefore they don't hold an election since they are hated by all.

Lately, though, even when I build the UN, the results are "inconclusive," where there is no majority. A few civs abstain and this victory is no longer possible...

[LordKestrel]

You don't even have to be the one who builds it, all you have to do it own it when the election time comes up. If an AI civ builds the UN, and doesn't hold elections, you can take that city from them, and then hold elections if you want to try and win that way.

And for the record, I feel the the diplomatic win is the easiest of them all, and is how I usually end a game I'm not happy with.

[stivomali]

I've had one diplomatic loss out of dozens of Civ3 games. As I recall, I was moving up in difficulty in that game and the civ that won had dominated its continent (so all the others that would have been enraged at him had been eliminated). I was the other nominee, but all my enemies on my continent were still kicking and voted against me.

So the AI will call a vote when it knows the other candidate is universally despised.

[AceChilla]

Nothing is a win unless you've slaugtered them all

[Capt Buttkick]

Somehow in my games, Bismarck seems to like the UN. Of course, he never uses it. He's planning to nuke every other civ back where they came from