[GS] Analysis of GS victory conditions

[Lily_Lancer]

Wait, how does this work? You get exactly 15 points if you're not counting chance-based events, which means there is no room for error even if you win the +2. Do you mean there can be room from error due to potential chance-based events? That's fine if you do, but then you can't also at the same time say:

You have to be consistent. Either you include chance-based events in all scenarios, or you exclude them in all scenarios.

Also note that the number of CS giantly decides your gameplay. Why Norway and Maori are strong? Because they can discover lots of CSs early(and start gaining benefit from them from a really early time)

Playing on a map with 20 CS, oh god. Everything is doubled. Your science, culture, gold, production? everything is doubled. With 20 CSs I'm not definitely sure but it is possible to get 1,000+ science and culture before 1AD easily.


That's why don't play on those maps with lots of CS, that really make you unaware of the real situation that happens on standard settings and standard maps of the game. (And make yourself pride "hey I'm generating that much amount!" however it is those additional CSs instead of your skill really count.)

I miss the political philosophy inspiration in half of my games just because I usually play on a continent standard map which there may only be 1 or 2 CS on the whole continent, while others just set the number to be 20 and start benefit from them early. How can he still win at T219 and consider this as "quick"!

 

[Ownsya]

Not that I'm disagreeing with you, @leandrombraz, but it is difficult to make a fair comparison between games of different settings. Regardless though, people have already shown in gotm games that they can win DV by the modern congress (or even earlier) through peaceful play. In fact, the fastest wins in the last two DV games were both peaceful and both happened on or before modern era as I pointed out in Lily's other thread:

gotm 67 was Diplomatic Victory condition on Immortal using England-Eleanor, standard sized map. The fastest win there was T216 which is close to what you're saying is a good time, and it was done completely peacefully.
gotm 70 was another DV game on Prince with Sweden on a Large sized map. The fastest win there was T240 and it was also a peaceful game. The second fastest win was T247 and in that game 3 civs were eliminated; 2 by the player, one by the ai.

T240 is apparently late by @Lily_Lancer's standard, but if it happened before the Modern Era came around, can it be considered late?

 

[RohirrimElf]

Silly me. I tried a culture victory for the first time as brazil since the last expansion. I did not bother to score faith points at all. Only one rock band in the game. Ended up winning by diplomacy on a huge map immortal game. I was overrun by Korea on science and by Gorgo on culture. Rock band sounds popping up about every beginning of a turn. With double the culture compared to Gorgo and all social policy cards into tourism it was of no help. Earned and bought a ridiculous number of great people with no faith.

If i would have read this tread one week ago i would have gone for a quick prophet.

PS: damn you korea for great engineering a forbidden palace 2 turns before it would have been completed. (spotted by my Culverin)

 

[leandrombraz]

Also note that the number of CS giantly decides your gameplay. Why Norway and Maori are strong? Because they can discover lots of CSs early(and start gaining benefit from them from a really early time)

Playing on a map with 20 CS, oh god. Everything is doubled. Your science, culture, gold, production? everything is doubled. With 20 CSs I'm not definitely sure but it is possible to get 1,000+ science and culture before 1AD easily.


That's why don't play on those maps with lots of CS, that really make you unaware of the real situation that happens on standard settings and standard maps of the game. (And make yourself pride "hey I'm generating that much amount!" however it is those additional CSs instead of your skill really count.)

I miss the political philosophy inspiration in half of my games just because I usually play on a continent standard map which there may only be 1 or 2 CS on the whole continent, while others just set the number to be 20 and start benefit from them early. How can he still win at T219 and consider this as "quick"!

The amount of Civs also decide your gameplay. Having less Civs make it way easier to win in the congress than having a lot of City-states. It make it easier to conquer the whole world and cheese a Diplo victory. I got more CS but you got less votes against you. I'm keeping other Civs alive on purpose, even when I could easily take them down. You're reducing even further the amount of Civs that you have to deal with.

The amount of cities you conquer decide your gameplay. 20 CS give me some pretty good yields? Yeah, so does conquering the whole world. I'm getting more from City-states but I'm also limiting the amount of cities that I get. There won't be much of a difference in terms of yields between an Empire with less cities but more CS and an Empire with more cities and less CS.

Difficulty in Civ vary a lot, affect by a lot of variables, from the game settings to how you play. Standard isn't harder than huge by default and vice versa and the same can be said by one difficulty setting compared to another. This is just elitist nonsense.

How can he still win at T219 and consider this as "quick"!

Are you serious? Again? You're stuck in a loop and your elitist attitude is getting old.

Since you want to go down this road, lets go down this road. The AI is weak, to say the least, it doesn't offer any kind of challenge. Conquering the whole world doesn't take skill, you just steamroll, then you enjoy an egregious amount of yields because more cities= more yields. Taking the warmonger route is playing on easy mode, it take all the challenge of the game. I'm not impressed by your "skill" if your strategy is based on conquest. You're in no position to look down on how others play, you like to go for the easy route yourself.

 

[Victoria]

Now please, guess which luxury is to be banned

they seem to pick the most common luxury of someone they hate, so if you spend the time and have the visibility.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I've never understood the appeal of Jesuit Education. What is the point of spending faith to buy libraries and such? Especially over the competing beliefs.

 

[leandrombraz]

I've never understood the appeal of Jesuit Education. What is the point of spending faith to buy libraries and such? Especially over the competing beliefs.

It was pretty strong in my Mali game, increasing the amount of things that I could buy with faith, which let me save gold for everything else.

 

[kb27787]

they seem to pick the most common luxury of someone they hate, so if you spend the time and have the visibility.

With regards to this... I am annoyed to no end with how the AI handles this.
The rub is, how do you know who is the "someone they hate"?

Civ VI AI is not so straightforward as BNW AI (and even in BNW there are some dishonest civs but for the most part the "good" ones are honest). Quite often, my own "allies" deem me as the "someone they hate most", not the other warmonger whom they've denounced when voting for luxury or GPP bans.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

they seem to pick the most common luxury of someone they hate, so if you spend the time and have the visibility.

How can you guess that if you even haven't meet some of them? (This usually happens in the 1st Congress)

I've never understood the appeal of Jesuit Education. What is the point of spending faith to buy libraries and such? Especially over the competing beliefs.

If you wish to make full use of Monasticism, Jesuit is your best choice.

 

[Minou]

Thanks for writing this up Lily, it is a fascinating and in some ways depressing analysis since it shows how the optimal strategy for many victory conditions goes strongly against the intended "flavor". I have always thought there should be a warmongering penalty to discourage the Diplomatic via Domination strategy - just a simple thing like -2 Diplomatic Victory Point for declaring a surprise war and -1 DVP for declaring war with cause (perhaps with no penalty for "just" wars like liberation or protectorate) would make a big difference.

I had a related question. Sorry if this is already posted elsewhere, but does anyone know the formula for advancing the world era? I understand there is a min/max duration, but was not sure what measure of progress (total techs/civic? weighed by cost? or just whether or not a civ has reached a tech/civic of the next era?) and whether it included all Civ that started the game or all remaining, and finally whether the calculation was rounded up or down (as in, if Classical Era start is based on Civs completing a Classical Era tech/civic, is it when half or half + 1 do this).

I ask because if you want to hit the Modern Era faster maybe leaving some Civs helps? For example, if the progress was based on all remaining Civ and you wiped out 5 but left the 2 most advanced and then propped 1 up by gifting cities and such, in theory you could speed the progress to Modern Era. But if killed Civs still count and are trapped in whatever state they died in for World Era calculation this obviously won't work.

Of course it may still be better to just killed them all to guarantee winning the votes, but maybe one could even thread the needle by trailing along some advanced Civ to reach the Modern Era and then quickly killing all but one right before the vote.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Thanks for writing this up Lily, it is a fascinating and in some ways depressing analysis since it shows how the optimal strategy for many victory conditions goes strongly against the intended "flavor". I have always thought there should be a warmongering penalty to discourage the Diplomatic via Domination strategy - just a simple thing like -2 Diplomatic Victory Point for declaring a surprise war and -1 DVP for declaring war with cause (perhaps with no penalty for "just" wars like liberation or protectorate) would make a big difference.

I had a related question. Sorry if this is already posted elsewhere, but does anyone know the formula for advancing the world era? I understand there is a min/max duration, but was not sure what measure of progress (total techs/civic? weighed by cost? or just whether or not a civ has reached a tech/civic of the next era?) and whether it included all Civ that started the game or all remaining, and finally whether the calculation was rounded up or down (as in, if Classical Era start is based on Civs completing a Classical Era tech/civic, is it when half or half + 1 do this).

I ask because if you want to hit the Modern Era faster maybe leaving some Civs helps? For example, if the progress was based on all remaining Civ and you wiped out 5 but left the 2 most advanced and then propped 1 up by gifting cities and such, in theory you could speed the progress to Modern Era. But if killed Civs still count and are trapped in whatever state they died in for World Era calculation this obviously won't work.

Of course it may still be better to just killed them all to guarantee winning the votes, but maybe one could even thread the needle by trailing along some advanced Civ to reach the Modern Era and then quickly killing all but one right before the vote.

Unfortunately I never do research on this. Since in my games they always follow the mininum number of turns for each era.

I only know that before RF the world era is calculated as "half civ enters that era, one civ is considered enter an era if he enters that era either in science or in culture".

 

[lotrmith]

I have always thought there should be a warmongering penalty to discourage the Diplomatic via Domination strategy -

This penalty already exists in the heavy loss per turn of Favor thus making it harder to swing votes and thus gain DV points at every session of Congress until you actually have finished conquering.

 

[Minou]

@Lily_Lancer: Yes, I suppose it is true that in most games it will be the minimum turns. The reason this came up is the last Diplomatic GOTM which was on Prince (Standard Speed). The eras always took 60 turns for me and I wondered if there was any way to speed them up.

@lotrmith: True that you lose some DF, but as Lily outlines you are still far better off killing all but one AI than playing peacefully so you can ensure winning the final DVP vote where they will always vote against you no matter what. It would be different if raw DF was what was counted in the votes, but since you each vote scales up so much it often takes thousands to overwhelm the AI unless you kill them off. I guess then whether conquering is better than playing peacefully will depend on how certain you are that you can actually take the AIs down in a timely fashion.

 

[lotrmith]

@Lily_Lancer: Yes, I suppose it is true that in most games it will be the minimum turns. The reason this came up is the last Diplomatic GOTM which was on Prince (Standard Speed). The eras always took 60 turns for me and I wondered if there was any way to speed them up.

@lotrmith: True that you lose some DF, but as Lily outlines you are still far better off killing all but one AI than playing peacefully so you can ensure winning the final DVP vote where they will always vote against you no matter what. It would be different if raw DF was what was counted in the votes, but since you each vote scales up so much it often takes thousands to overwhelm the AI unless you kill them off. I guess then whether conquering is better than playing peacefully will depend on how certain you are that you can actually take the AIs down in a timely fashion.

It's only the "final vote" if you've managed to correctly vote on every resolution on every Congress, which I sincerely doubt is the case if you've been mongering and saccing your own favor all throughout history.

 

[Minou]

Ah yes, but I feel like many of the earlier votes either (A) require no DF, since the AI always votes the same way (I admit I have not played enough DipV to know which ones are fixed) and you only need your one free vote to join the winning side or (B) are completely random, so even if you spend all your DF you are likely to lose early in the game.

Later on I find I usually have enough DF from Government, Suzerain, maybe a random Alliance (thanks, Gilgamesh) to override the penalty for warmongering. Actually, some of the Suzerain points are only possible because I have wiped out competing AIs on the starting continent. Especially with those hilarious "promises" where an AI gives you 30DF to promise not to convert a city or something.

So, I think if winning fastest is your goal it is still best to conquer. However, I admit this feels stupid for something called "Diplomatic Victory" and would prefer it was not so - and I of course respect anyone who wants to go the peaceful route for flavor or to go for fastest score under a different victory condition.

 

[Ownsya]

So, I think if winning fastest is your goal it is still best to conquer. However, I admit this feels stupid for something called "Diplomatic Victory" and would prefer it was not so - and I of course respect anyone who wants to go the peaceful route for flavor or to go for fastest score under a different victory condition.

It is to a degree realistic. You can use forceful might to become a democratic dictatorship where really you're a dictator dressed up as a diplomat who "won" by votes, but there was never a choice in the vote. Being all powerful gets you many guarantees irl as well. Alternatively you take some risks, have some faith in people or the system (that you'll get an aid request or a 4th session before Modern), be the best diplomat by getting all the votes right, whether by guessing or swinging, and in the end can potentially win in the same amount of time as the dictator. If not, then it takes an extra era to win but at least the world is still interesting and diverse if you care about that.

I wonder if it's possible to manufacture a military aid request by getting one civ to repeatedly monger another? In the trade screen, when you try to get another civ to go to war you can also choose the type of dow, iirc Surprise War is always an option. Can this be leveraged to trigger a military aid emergency? That would be ultimate, savvy diplomacy imo

 

[Beaver79]

I wonder if it's possible to manufacture a military aid request by getting one civ to repeatedly monger another? In the trade screen, when you try to get another civ to go to war you can also choose the type of dow, iirc Surprise War is always an option. Can this be leveraged to trigger a military aid emergency? That would be ultimate, savvy diplomacy imo

Yeah sort of. In my Roman game I've been surprised attacked at one point in time by my 3 neighbors. Each time I've taken one of their cities and they immediately call a special congress to stop my aggression. I've won 3 of them now and I get 200 diplo favor for each emergency. Since they surprise warred me, I can take a couple of their cities without getting negative grievances penalties. I've been semi-warmongering and I have gained 600 diplo favor for it.

 

[Ownsya]

UPDATE: Okay so I just did a brief check, you can only get them to join a formal war or another available casus belli, not surprise war. This means that you're also limited in who you can get to go to war with who, for a formal war they need to have already denounced someone. Otherwise the conditions for the casus belli need to have been met. In any case, it is a joint war meaning you will also be generating grievances.

I also couldn't find a way to see the greivances that AI have against each other, only grievances between myself and other leaders. Is this available somewhere? It seems that when AI declare war on each other I only get a message saying they've declared war, but not the type of war so it's hard to even deduce their grievance levels.

Another possibility is that if I have a casus belli against someone, I can go to war with few grievances using it. Then ask another civ to join my war as a Formal war generating 100 grievance for them presumably. But with the grievance decay I don't think 100 grievances is enough to work with to manufacture a military aid request practically. I didn't explore all possibilities, maybe there's a way to get it to work but so far it's looking unlikely / highly situational. I must've been remembering Civ V where iirc you could simply trade things to anyone for them to go to war and it's up to them whether the deal is worth it or not.

@Beaver79, you're talking about Military Emergencies. That strategy can certainly be useful for farming diplo favor, I might give it a try. But I'm talking about Military Aid Requests that only trigger if someone dow's against a leader who already has 200 grievances against them. Winner of this aid request gets 2 DVP similar to a natural disaster aid request, but I rarely ever see them in my games.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

This penalty already exists in the heavy loss per turn of Favor thus making it harder to swing votes and thus gain DV points at every session of Congress until you actually have finished conquering.

Ney. The penalty is only heavy when you conquer a lot of cities but make peace with that Civ, you gain one time grievance when you capture the city, and doubles when he finally decides to cede that city. That may result in 1000+.
However, the penalty disappears when you fully eliminate a Civ. All your grievance against him become ZERO since a dead man has no grievance , you only get small amount grievance from other Civs but this quickly decays as he denounces you, or capture city states, or as time goes by.
You may also benefit from the 200 diplo favor as he may start an emergency and you win eventually.
So domination is actually giving you positive diplo favor gain, if you really have played some game instead of only shouting out loudly. Try fully eliminate other Civs more often, instead of just declare war and do nothing.

It is to a degree realistic. You can use forceful might to become a democratic dictatorship where really you're a dictator dressed up as a diplomat who "won" by votes, but there was never a choice in the vote. Being all powerful gets you many guarantees irl as well. Alternatively you take some risks, have some faith in people or the system (that you'll get an aid request or a 4th session before Modern), be the best diplomat by getting all the votes right, whether by guessing or swinging, and in the end can potentially win in the same amount of time as the dictator. If not, then it takes an extra era to win but at least the world is still interesting and diverse if you care about that.

I wonder if it's possible to manufacture a military aid request by getting one civ to repeatedly monger another? In the trade screen, when you try to get another civ to go to war you can also choose the type of dow, iirc Surprise War is always an option. Can this be leveraged to trigger a military aid emergency? That would be ultimate, savvy diplomacy imo

However there may be another way to solve the problem: DOW the target yourself, trying to trigger a military aid request , once he calls for help you stop attacking him but turn to support him. It seems that a Civ can join the military aid request even if the request is aimed to defend from the invasion of himself. Not sure how this strategy works, but I guess this may be the solution.

 

[lotrmith]

Ney. The penalty is only heavy when you conquer a lot of cities but make peace with that Civ, you gain one time grievance when you capture the city, and doubles when he finally decides to cede that city. That may result in 1000+.
However, the penalty disappears when you fully eliminate a Civ. All your grievance against him become ZERO since a dead man has no grievance , you only get small amount grievance from other Civs but this quickly decays as he denounces you, or capture city states, or as time goes by.
You may also benefit from the 200 diplo favor as he may start an emergency and you win eventually.
So domination is actually giving you positive diplo favor gain, if you really have played some game instead of only shouting out loudly. Try fully eliminate other Civs more often, instead of just declare war and do nothing.

Fortunately not everyone is an elitist Civ god who can crush opposing civs on Deity in fewer turns of negative favor than a 200 DF *chance* can counter.

You also *still* lose DF each turn until you fully wipe a Civ out, which means you could definitely be low on DF when a Congress happens, unless you're such an elitist civ god that even without ever reloading you're able to start and win wars exclusively in between sessions of Congress.

And by your own admission wiping out a Civ is harder than simply winning Dom by capturing capitals.

One might question whether in fact you are the one living in a theorycraft world rather than an actual playing reality... except you answered that well enough with your Maori thread.