Should Diplomatic Victory be renamed economic victory?

[jtb1127]

Diplomatic victory in the other civs involved being nice and friendly to everyone else in the game. Doing things such as giving gifts, making trades, and helping friends is what would help. Things such as warmongering would not help you win the victory. So really if you wanted to win diplomatic victory you would have to strategize the entire game based on who to make friends with and who to trade with.

But, in civ v things are completely different. The developers must have noticed that diplomatic victory would be impossible because the AI are extremely hostile. So they had to go with having city states being the center of diplomacy. Now in order to win diplomatic victory you have to make friends with all the city states. The easiest way to do this is to cheaply bribe them with one thousand gold. So, if you wish to win the game diplomatic style, you have to have a large economy to support, and continuously bribe city states.

Because diplomatic victory as nothing to do with real diplomatic strategy, wouldn't it be best to just rename it economic victory? This way it would avoid misleading titles.

 

[black213]

If you want a real diplomatic victory, play with City-State Diplomacy mod.

 

[Fistalis]

its semantics... don't think it really matters one way or another. Maybe i'm just jaded but diplomacy and bribery are pretty much the same thing..

 

[Rooftrellen]

At least this time around, you have to have quite a few people like you.

In Civ4, diplomatic victory was all about taking cities from the weakest civs and giving all low value techs to the 3rd place civ. Ahh, there was nothing like being able to pass a resolution alone because you own half the map.

I think some small changes would be nice. I would make diplo victory now only include the person with the most land, most SPs, most soldiers, and most techs, as well as who built the UN, and no one can abstain, but it takes 75% of the votes to win.

That would make it more dependent on others that are trying to actually win, not just gold, but...as it is now is still better than the "Domination victory that I can finish 50 turns sooner this way" victory of Civ4.

 

[jtb1127]

At least this time around, you have to have quite a few people like you.

In Civ4, diplomatic victory was all about taking cities from the weakest civs and giving all low value techs to the 3rd place civ. Ahh, there was nothing like being able to pass a resolution alone because you own half the map.

I think some small changes would be nice. I would make diplo victory now only include the person with the most land, most SPs, most soldiers, and most techs, as well as who built the UN, and no one can abstain, but it takes 75% of the votes to win.

That would make it more dependent on others that are trying to actually win, not just gold, but...as it is now is still better than the "Domination victory that I can finish 50 turns sooner this way" victory of Civ4.

Yeah. That sound like an easy solution.

 

[JBConquests]

Diplomatic victory in the other civs involved being nice and friendly to everyone else in the game. Doing things such as giving gifts, making trades, and helping friends is what would help. Things such as warmongering would not help you win the victory. So really if you wanted to win diplomatic victory you would have to strategize the entire game based on who to make friends with and who to trade with.

But, in civ v things are completely different. The developers must have noticed that diplomatic victory would be impossible because the AI are extremely hostile. So they had to go with having city states being the center of diplomacy. Now in order to win diplomatic victory you have to make friends with all the city states. The easiest way to do this is to cheaply bribe them with one thousand gold. So, if you wish to win the game diplomatic style, you have to have a large economy to support, and continuously bribe city states.

Because diplomatic victory as nothing to do with real diplomatic strategy, wouldn't it be best to just rename it economic victory? This way it would avoid misleading titles.

Yes, I completely agree. The new name makes considerable more sense.

Then if they want to introduce a "real" diplomatic victory they can.

 

[Drawmeus]

If you want a real diplomatic victory, play with City-State Diplomacy mod.

On the one hand, I really enjoy playing with that mod. It does several good things to managing city-states - makes them a valid play choice for even relatively non-financial empires, makes it easier to retain a nearby city-state than a distant one, and makes it more time-sensitive.

On the other hand, it's STILL not a diplomatic victory - it's a production victory with a time delay. It plays quite a bit better, but a true diplomatic victory requires a whole different way of thinking. Either the City-States need to get organized long-term goals which you can help them work towards (thus, they're your friends because you're helping them achieve what they want to achieve) - this would make the Diplomacy victory a City-State Diplomacy victory - or they need to reduce the consequences of conquering them and the AI needs to be a lot more aggressive about recruiting or destroying them, plus you need to be able to barter with other AIs for City-State influence - this would make the Diplomacy victory a Great Powers diplomacy victory.

Honestly, I think City-States were only half-implemented. The gold donation option is the kind of thing a dev puts in to make sure the system at least doesn't get in the way of gameplay while they're making sure everything's tuned the way they want. It feels like they just never got time to do that tuning. Great concept, but not a great feature of the base Civ V game.

 

[Truthy]

It is a very flawed victory type and the importance of city states is too great. A few small civilizations that the developers described as "resources" should not have such a huge bearing on the outcome of the game. It is yet another problem revolving around Civ V gold dependency, where production and growth scarcely matter because your game must be focused on building wealth to buy troops, buildings, and city states.
I believe that when designing the victories they intended diplomatic victory to be another victory that would be exclusively for those who play with the ideal number of four cities. The developers didn't anticipate the ICS empires to buy off the city states a few turns before the election for a quick, easy, and strategy-less win.

 

[BobDole]

It probably should be renamed, but who knows, maybe they'll make some changes to diplomatic victores one of these days. I think if they added more ways besides money to gain relations with City States, that would be a start (maybe more "quests" that don't involve you destroying other City States, which trashes your relations with everyone). I also think it'd be interesting if a Civ getting wrecked by a warmongering opponent could try and bring in an ally on their side by pledging to vote for the for them for Secretary General of the UN for X amount of turns; you're gambling by hoping they don't have enough votes to win, but you're backed into a corner and need to take the risk to stay in the game.

Anything that makes Diplomatic victories more satisfying would be a start, since it's been the most broken victory type since it was introduced.

 

[Keejus]

The developers must have noticed that diplomatic victory would be impossible because the AI are extremely hostile.

Yes. I'm sure this was their exact line of thought.

 

[Jim Bro]

the City-State Diplomacy Mod doesn't make it a diplomacy win. it just changes the way you can gain influence with City-States (diplomats instead of gold donation). i agree with the one who posted this thread: diplomacy wins do not exist in this game (same as the United Nations desicions). therefore it should be called an economic win... + it's a real boring way to win.

 

[kell_the_kyuss]

diplomatic victory should be no wars for 400 years with a global literacy rating and the ability to import knowledge to countries with lesser science ratings.

not, great engineer > UN 8 turns later > 10,000 gold = win

 

[Stalker0]

Economic Victory makes sense. Then you basic have a victory type for each main type of resource

Space Ship = Science
Cultural = Culture
Conquest = Hammers
Economic = Gold

 

[Selous]

diplomatic victory should be no wars for 400 years with a global literacy rating and the ability to import knowledge to countries with lesser science ratings.

not, great engineer > UN 8 turns later > 10,000 gold = win

something like this sounds sweet!!!

 

[JBConquests]

I decided to play as Ghandi and do a "diplomatic" victory. I had my allied city states I needed to win and it was the turn before the first UN vote took place and I hit the next turn button. Right before the turn started and I got control, there was a 3-way war between China, Monty, and someone else happening right off one of my cities. Rockets were flying, destroyers were bombarding, explosions were occuring. Then I got control and clicked on the UN Vote and won my diplomatic victory.

I read what it said and it said something like "... You brought peace to a war weary world..."

I dunno, it didn't look all that peaceful to me...

 

[NukeEm]

its semantics... don't think it really matters one way or another. Maybe i'm just jaded but diplomacy and bribery are pretty much the same thing..

This x100. There is no such thing as diplomacy.. it's all about what the parties involved can get. Diplomacy is just a nice term for cut-throat bartering.

Read any history book, they gloss it up but when you get down to the nitty gritty everything comes down to a loss/gain scenario. Nations have "diplomatic" relations because there are National Interests at heart always. If the interests can meet, then you have "diplomacy" or if one nation is way more powerful then again.. you have "diplomacy"... After reading a lot about the behavior of empires throughout history and how they treated client states... I say Civ5 got it right on the money (pardon the pun)... well not completely... they missed the "Do as we say or you'll be destroyed" option.

These are the factors... either more/less of guns,money or blood. That's it.

 

[Fredric Drum]

It should be renamed to Bribelomatic victory.

 

[Strategist83]

The motion behind this thread rivals the idiocy that spawned the name for a certain great artist ability... Sorry, but 'economic victory'? By building the UN? Really?

Also, it seems to me you all need to be reminded that the sole reason this 'rushbuy victory' is problematic is... wait for it... once again, the fail AI. It's an AI problem, not a victory condition problem. Nobody online would allow you to insta-ally all city-states one round before elections come up.

 

[SpearMan153]

I decided to play as Ghandi and do a "diplomatic" victory. I had my allied city states I needed to win and it was the turn before the first UN vote took place and I hit the next turn button. Right before the turn started and I got control, there was a 3-way war between China, Monty, and someone else happening right off one of my cities. Rockets were flying, destroyers were bombarding, explosions were occuring. Then I got control and clicked on the UN Vote and won my diplomatic victory.

I read what it said and it said something like "... You brought peace to a war weary world..."

I dunno, it didn't look all that peaceful to me...

Yeah I love the way that wwIII breaks out once the UN is built - art imitating life?

 

[NoAnswer]

Well, in the real world, what we call "diplomacy" is run by money too.