Challenge-V-03

[kcd_swede]

Try to get defensive pacts via shared war or Military Tradition. The additional Diplomacy from defensive pacts. Add that to the bonus for shared war and that should be enough of a margin.

The required AIs are three with high peace weights and three with low peace weights; try to guess/ensure one gets the most Population and join the other side.

Good luck!

Sun Tzu Wu

Thanks for the tips! My latest game I made one single misclick that cost me the diplo victory. It was before the game began... I had left Permanent Alliances on. So, having carefully manipulated Ghandi (pop leader) into being everyone's worst enemy, made Nappy and Shaka Friends, with Cathy right on the edge of friendlieness... plus two vassals (Rome and Egypt) with Mongolia eliminated... I GE rush the UN, get elected SG by nearly unianimous vote. The turn before I get to propose DV voting, Shaka and Napoleon sign a Permanent Alliance... thus becoming my opponent.

Wow... that sucked.

But I can see I'm getting closer... there's lots of good advice in this thread so I'm sure I'll get it done before the deadline.

 

[kcd_swede]

Two tries later... a game called Diplo 15 (yes, my 15th overall attempt at this )
I managed to eek out a UN victory.

Tiny islands, started on a stone tile, built the pyramids and the GLH. Out-rexed everyone... Liberalized Astronomy, completely took over India using mace/WE/trebs. Get to Grens thereafter and am looking for next opponent. Napoleon, Catherine, and Ghenghis all are at war with Ramses, so I don't wait for them to ask, and just join in. They were not even fighting, but stayed at war the whole rest of the game (300 years) as I took all but a 1-tile 1-pop city from Ramses. I did not take the last city nor did I give him peace. I want the "mutual military struggle" bonus which has me at +14 with Ghenghis, +16 with Napoleon, and +8 with Catherine (I had denied her Electricity while I was racing to build the UN, and that cost me -4!!!). The mutual bonus with her only got to +3 anyhow. Gifted away a bunch of resources.

Biggest pain was that Cathy would vote for me at +8, except she liked my opponent Julius better than me (at +6), due to same civics bonus. I could not bribe any civics switches, though. Too late, I thought to use espionage. Too late, because before that I passed a UN resolution making USuff the global civic (thinking that once I got them out of the civics, I'd remove the global civic and get them in the ones I wanted). Well.... that didn't work because once in USuff, they all vote to keep it as global civic, and that avenue is closed for good, as is the Espionage avenue.

Anyhow, eventually I get the +2 for years of suppliing resources from Cathy and she switches vote to me, and I win. Shaka was otherwise going to eventually get to friendly, too, and that would have been enough (Me with Sushi, Nappy, and Ghenghis together were 40 votes short of victory... Shaka was in WHEOOHRN forever, but would not declare on anyone... so no war bribing there.)

Anyhow... I think this one I should have won on the first vote with good planning... say about 1890AD (built UN in 1865AD). But as it were, I did it in 1938AD. Good enough for a 5th place at present. Come to think of it, I don't think winning on the first vote would have improved my placing in the challenge as the results stand now... so no big deal. Played conservative just to get this one done.

And with that, I am first to complete all 10 games of the challenge! (Assuming the game is accepted).



For me, this was by and far the hardest game of the series. Good job, whoever thought this sick combination up.

 

[neilmeister]

Well done kcd.
I know from personal experience that this game was a bastard!

 

[AgedOne]

I have just managed a win at this, the most fiendish of the games in this Challenge series. (Please, please let me not have made a mistake in my game set-up )

After a number of attempts, I finally got one where it was all seeming to fall into place.
OCC, and PAs allowed. Played 'tiny islands', but with low sea-level, so it actually ended up looking like a 'twisty continents'. I certainly had neighbours on my land - JC and Nap.
The way the religious cards fell, my Confu was the world leader, and I was able to bribe a few friends to follow it, so by half-way through all the world was with me except Gandhi the unpopular, and Napo, who had Buddhism but was nonetheless vaguely pleased with me most of the time.

Tore away on research, of course. That was going to be no problem.

Cathy was going to be the largest civ. That much was clear from an early stage. My plan was that she should become my Ally - a plan that came to fruition - though not without a few twists . Nice calm Def Pact at first, but she went to war with Gandhi just before the end. So I joined her war. Then she made peace, so I did too and went back onto a Def Pact for a few more turns. Altogether I guess it must have taken 45 turns instead of the 30 I was hoping for (what it seems to take if you share a calm DefPact)

I then realised that I wasn't going to be lucky enough for the next-largest civ to be one of the unpopular ones (Gandhi, Napo). No. It was going to be JC, my next-door neighbour, good friend and close member of our Confucian society. Hmm.

I managed to pull the old 'double shuffle' on him. Switched to Free-Rel. Bribed him to join me. Switched back to Org Rel myself and hoped he wouldn't have the wits to follow me back. He didn't!
Also, a new war against Gandhi sprung up, which I joined for the extra 'mutual war' bonus.
So they all loved me except the unpopulars.
It was going to be enough as long as Shaka voted for me. He was +10 but still only Pleased. He was running Free Rel, so I bribed him over to Org Rel and shared Confu again, just for the last 3 or 4 turns before the victory vote.
The turn of the vote came and he had just turned to a yellow smilie-face .
I pressed the button with confidence.

Yay! The murderous game #3 is over. 1862AD.

 

[cas]

you guys are starting to scare me on this one...haven't tried it yet.

hope it doesn't take more than a couple of tries...

cas

 

[Manco Capac]

Don't fear that one, cas! It took me one attempt to win this one (I hope)..., but a myriad of attempts to get the desired early rush. Bleh...