Diplomatic Victory seems kinda OP

[The Mighty Quinn]

I'm trying to move up to Emperor level, and so far I have one loss (Maya) and three wins (Kongo twice and Japan)...but in all three of the wins I was going for a scientific or cultural victory and wound up winning diplomatically without having made any special effort to do so until the very end, and in two of them I clearly wasn't going to make the condition I was actually trying for. It seems like all you have to do is not start many wars, try to maintain as many alliances as possible, and hoard your diplomatic favor points to use strategically, and it's an easy win. Also, the AI always seem happy to leave the Statue of Liberty to you, which is one-fifth of the wincon right there. Thoughts?

 

[Naokaukodem]

No that's not that easy as diplomatic points mostly are got by voting the same as the final vote. And since the AI is quite unpredictable for some of the resolutions (go guess which resource will be banned...) it stays quite a gamble to win diplo. Not counting that in Immortal or Deity you usually win or lose before any diplo winner can be designated. On the other hand I didn't manage to go as long as winning a diplo victory in most of my games. (I'm quickly frustrated)

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

I would argue that Diplo victory has one major flaw: its time cost. As far as I know, you can't even earn any victory points in the first couple eras. All you can do is scrounge for envoys to claim suzerainty and accumulate Diplo Favor.

To earn points, you either have to vote correctly at time-gated World Congress sessions, unlock a handful of specific Wonders (which take time to build!) throughout separate eras (with the Statue of Liberty coming as late as the Industrial Era), or wait for certain competitions/emergencies to appear on their own.

Now, building Wonders and protecting suzerainty and clicking next turn is far from difficult. However, you can only speed up the process so much. Sure, you can try and rack up Science and Culture to bolster your way through the trees and unlock key Wonders faster (as well as unlocking the helpful diplo-focused Future era civics). You can try and boost your Production to build your Wonders faster, or stockpile Faith and Gold for certain Great People (huh, that's a lot of different colors...). But all of that still can't truly overcome the waiting. Wait. Wait. Waiting...

Now, disclaimer: Diplo is my least sought after victory. Frankly, I find it kind of boring. It's like turning the late game "next-turn" marathon into the entire game. I don't have much experience with it, so this is mostly theoretical talk here based on my hours spent in the rest of the game. Regardless, I would disagree that Diplo Victory is overpowered or much easier to achieve than the other victory conditions. While it's free of a lot of conflict and its individual steps are pretty easy, it's held back by its glacial pace.

it can still be fun though

 

[MrRadar]

wound up winning diplomatically without having made any special effort to do so until the very end, and in two of them I clearly wasn't going to make the condition I was actually trying for. It seems like all you have to do is not start many wars, try to maintain as many alliances as possible, and hoard your diplomatic favor points to use strategically, and it's an easy win. Also, the AI always seem happy to leave the Statue of Liberty to you, which is one-fifth of the wincon right there. Thoughts?

Yes, your impressions are correct. DipV feels the lowest effort and hollowest victory in the game, or the biggest non victory. And it does not matter very much if you stay at peace or war, you can win it while fighting half the world. It served for me as a faster way out of the game that's been decided anyway.
It does not take long to notice witch proposals you can win with only one additional vote, if you bother to look at how AI vote, and if you go Monarchy and build Renaissance walls everywhere (anybody seen Valetta?), you will have all the DF, enough even to compensate for an odd capital or two and other cities that you may have accidentally taken. Some Aid Emergencies may pop up for an additional easy diplo win points, and when you're at 16/20, Mr Shah Jahan may even complete the meme wonder in a second for your great diplomatic "win".

 

[kaspergm]

Diplo win is definitely one that can be achieved with the least effort and earliest in the game, barring of course extremely aggressive domination wins. More over, it's extremely easy to "cheat" on the diplomatic victory and vote the way you know AI will vote on certain resolutions in order to secure you earn diplomatic victory points, even if you don't focus on the diplomatic game. AI no longer puts resources into emergencies, so any natural disaster emergency that you can vote for will be an almost guaranteed two victory points for very little effort. And like you say, Statue Of Liberty is quite absurd in that it hands you 20 % of a victory condition in one single go. I would say DV was one of the major problems of the game if not for the fact that I'm so grateful I have a quick and easy way to end my games without having to go through the tedium of future eras and waiting a large number of turns for my spaceship to reach the destination.

 

[Disgustipated]

I usually disable it. I still find it too easy to get.

 

[Benevolent Dictator]

As someone who plays exclusively Deity on Epic speed, Diplo victories are the natural offramp in the late game when I'm bored and want a new start.

I know everyone complains that Cultural Victories are too easy, but I find personally they are quite difficult on the slower Deity speeds.

There's usually one runaway AI with bonkers Cultural output by the time I get my mid-to-late game Tourism machine pumping, so pivoting to Diplo wins is often a merciful end.

 

[Frolk]

I think my biggest issue with diplomatic victories is that it feels like it's just playing the World Congress mini-game every thirty turns, and everything you do on the civ map is just puttering around until the next session. With the other victories, you're constantly balancing your pursuit of your victory type with managing the more mundane aspects of your empire (gold income, amenities, staying competitive with the AI for tech, culture, and military might), but with the diplomatic victory, there's no real complex strategy involved: you pursue alliances, you get suzerainty over as many city-states as you can, you trade for diplomatic favour, all so that, if you happen to have a non-guessable resolution during world-congress, you might be able to tip the scale. Oh, and you build the Statue of Liberty at some point (and the Mahabodhi Temple and Potala Palace, if you can). And if you're lucky (or if you're a shameless save scummer), you don't actually need diplomatic favour to win resolutions.

What I don't get is that, if diplomatic favour somewhat reliably reflects how "diplomatic" you are throughout the game (eg. you get it for alliances, suzerainty, and addressing emergencies, and lose it for warmongering and polluting), why not just get rid of diplomatic victory points entirely and just make the victory about accumulating favour? Sure, it's a boring "number goes up" sort of victory, but even that would feel a bit more satisfying.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Sure, it's a boring "number goes up" sort of victory, but even that would feel a bit more satisfying.

As it is now, it's being quantified in the gamiest terms imaginable- proprietary "points." What you've suggested would at least put it on par with the other number-goes-up victories, where it's at least rationalized with terms like Tourism.

 

[cain3456]

I think dippy victory should be weighted by speed. Epic games should require 30;points, not 20.

 

[0urBall]

Speaking of, anyone got any idea why the diplo victory hasn't triggered for me?

 

[reddishrecue]

Its not easy to tell what the rest of the world will vote in diplomatic voting and that's the only way one can get a diplomatic victory without the wonders, by being able to tell what the world will want and who will vote for what and who will win. Once you know that somehow I guess you can get a diplomatic victory more often and then the wonders would be an added bonus.

 

[Jaybe]

I think dippy victory should be weighted by speed. Epic games should require 30;points, not 20.

What? They don’t require 30?

Doh! Extended Eras mod makes epic games much more enjoyable with 30 points for diplo victory.