Diplomatic victory questions

Can anybody please help with some information about winning by a vote in the UN. I just tried for this win but the vote was inconclusive. I got 50% of the votes, which is obviously not quite good enough to get a majority, even though I out-polled the others by at least 2-1.

So is that it? Can I ask for a revote later – and if so how please? (I’m playing the game with the patch applied).

Does anybody also know the ins and outs of what influences voting (or the location of a good thread on the subject). I was intrigued to see that two of my ‘good mates’ voted for themselves, while one of the other civs, who I thought was my arch enemy voted for me!

Final question. Is the site search engine currently out of order? I’ve tried searching several times over the past couple of days but only get error messages about being unable to reach the server (so I'm finding it hard to track down Diplomatic threads myself)

Thanks.

I havent tried a diplomatic victory since the patch, so I am not sure about voting. If you built the UN, you should be the one who decides when to call a vote; before the patch, you were asked every turn. Now I dont know.

I also was not aware there could be more than 2 contenders for a UN vote, I have only ever seen it be me and the "best" other civ. A civ will always vote for itself if nominated, the key is to get others to vote for you. Trade them techs, give away your map every turn, even give them small bribes of free money till the next vote. If you had your worst enemy convinced, you should be able to get someone else on your side this way.

There used to be a diplomatic victory thread in this forum, but I dont see it.

Thanks Sultan. I think that the rule about 2 candidates is just a minimum thing - i.e you will never get elected unopposed. As far as I can see anyone who controls at least 25% of the world's territory, or 25% of the world's population, or builds the UN, is eligible. If no others qualify then the computer will put up the civ with the next largest population to run against you.

But whether you can re-run an inconclusive vote - after further 'lobbying' - is a mystery, despite it's seeming a logical thing to expect

Come on, all you great brains out there – someone must know more than me!

The rules seem to be that anybody who has either a) made the UN b) Got 25% of the world’s population OR c) controls 25% of the territory, can stand for election. So in games with lots of civs there are less likely to be more than a couple of candidates. A few games ago (with 8 civs) I won a Diplomatic victory (as Cleopatra) and got pretty much all the votes except for the other candidate who naturally voted for himself .

On the first vote in this game, 3 of us qualified and no clear winner emerged. I reloaded back 50 turns or so and spent the intervening time furiously buttering everyone up with trades, gifts, free techs etc. This time the vote came slightly earlier and there were only 2 candidates. This time Bismark (who voted FOR me the first time through, (when he was my enemy and annoyed with me) voted AGAINST me, even though he was now my friend (thanks to all that greasing up to him.). The vote was tied again – so still no result. I’m having trouble figuring out the logic here!

BTW, this is a 4 civ game. I’m experimenting to see how a game pans out with only 4 civs on a big map (I get whupped seems to be the answer – partly due to a horrendous start in an isolated jungly corner). I’ve gone past 100,000 culture points, but can’t meet the “twice your nearest rival condition. I had enough juice to have won the space race except I have no Aluminium and no Uranium. I gave/traded the other 3 enough techs to find Aluminium but not one of them had a surplus to trade! So it looks like a humbling defeat if I can’t figure out how to to rig (sorry - “influence”) the vote. My military is nowhere near good enough to achieve anything quickly enough that way.

The easiest way to get civs to vote for you is to cause everyone else to declare war on the other nominee using MPPs. Pay for a pact with enough civs to win the vote, station a unit in the other nominees territory, declare war. On the next turn the civ will attack your unit, triggering the MPP's. When it comes to your turn again, hold the election and you should win. If a civ is in a MPP with you and at war with the other civ up for election, chances are they will vote for you. This works for me every time.

Polonius, I was playing around with the UN victory route the other day and after building the UN, I called an immediate vote. I had spent the previous 10 turns giving money to all the other civs (7 civs in the game at this time) each turn and they were all either polite or gracious to me, so I figured the vote would go my way, no problem, right?

Wrong. The only 2 candidates were me (Ghandi) and Montezuma, and after the vote were tallied, Monte won 5 votes to 2! I then reloaded the game, and this time, before calling for a vote, I hit F4 to check my Foreign Advisor screen and see what kind of treaty's/diplomatic agreements he had with the others and sure enough, he had Mutual Protection Treaties with 3 of the Civs that had voted for him.

I then contacted every other civ, made my own Mutual Protection Treaty's and then called for a new vote.... Everyone but Monte voted for me and I won.

Normally I try to avoid MPT's because of the world wars you can get drawn in to, but when it comes time for a UN Vote, there's nothing better to have!

Loduke

Well, I will give you some kind of answer in 8 more turns, when I build th UN. I looked at the other civ building it--they have 23 turns to go. I am at war, but not with her, and have 5 mpps operational. Better check, to make sure they don't expire before the un comes. If they do, I will use my leader in reserve to speed it up. Other wise, I will build my first army, not that I need it, to see how the army plays.
And If nothing else works, then I'll just park a unit on her land and see what happens. Or I could offer MPP with Aztecs, whom she is fighting. Last time I game them my map, they said I sure knew how to pick friends...
There is no way I can double Egypts culture, unless I do go to war with her, and remove some of hers.
How do you know what percentage of area you have? On Marla's map, I have the american continents, and most of Australia, but I have no idea what percentage this is. Rough guess is 35%.

Thank you, thank you, oh Wise Ones for your interesting and informative help. I shall get back there and get Pacting immediately. By the sound of it I should be able to pull a victory from the jaws of defeat.

The great thing about this splendid game is that even when I thought that I was going to lose, it was an edge of the seat game full of excitement and possibilities. Even if I do take it through to a loss it scores better than some of my victories.

Before Civ 3 I never thought I'd find a game that would take me 3 days of slog to play a scenario that ends in my losing, yet still find every minute of it fascinating and enjoyable!

YEEESSSSSSSS!!!!

It worked...


It got pretty tight there though. I got the MPP in place with Bismark the turn before the UN was built, and my spearman finally trudged into Shaka's territory on the same turn.

Hammurabi was already fighting Shaka so I didn't do an MPP with him as I figured I'd get his vote anyway).

The next turn Shaka told me to get out, which I ignored. Nobody quite had enough time to actually go through the business of declaring war as the UN arrived on the same turn. I asked the for the vote and - BINGO - got Bismark and Hammurabi's votes for the WIN!

Thanks for the great advice.

How did your game work out Moulton?

AH!!! Too late. I hastened the UN with my leader, asked Aztec for MPP--and he refused. Not feeling charitable--though he was in war
But the others came through. Finally, ended this madness==with a diplomatic victory. 2600 points.
Now to try a Large world... random, so it it does well, I can post in the HIGH SCORE forum...

2600 points! I take my hat off to you Sir.
Celebrations are called for.


I've got a way to go to catch up with you as I got around 1600 for mine. But I'm working slowly through the difficulty levels, having never played civ games before.

Unfortunately, I can't use my advanced age as an excuse (55) as I believe that you are well senior to me in that regard too - so I'm just going to have to study a bit harder.
:grad: :grad:

Does anybody know how to call a UN vote? In my experience, you get asked when the UN gets built. Prior to the patch, if you turned the vote down, you'd get asked every turn. Now I think you just get asked every 20 turns. If the first vote is inconclusive, do I need to wait 20 turns or is there a way to call a vote after like 10 turns?

Does anyone have experience dealing with AI civs that build the UN? It seems to me that if you have enabled diplomatic victory, then not having control over the UN can lead to instant defeat, even if you're doing reasonably well in the game. If the AI is aggressive and smart about using the UN to achieve diplo victory, then controlling the UN is a must.

I'd also be curious to hear post-patch experiences about how often you are asked to call a vote.

Originally posted by 3amCiv
Does anyone have experience dealing with AI civs that build the UN? It seems to me that if you have enabled diplomatic victory, then not having control over the UN can lead to instant defeat, even if you're doing reasonably well in the game. If the AI is aggressive and smart about using the UN to achieve diplo victory, then controlling the UN is a must.

I'd also be curious to hear post-patch experiences about how often you are asked to call a vote.

Click to expand...

The problem here is that the AI knows how many votes it will get, and so will not call for an election until it knows it will win. Most of the time this means an election will never occur, because I have become very good at diplomacy (of course this is with a computer, not a human). If I get a great leader at any point after the middle ages, I save it for the UN to avoid this situation.