Dairuka
Prince
Have you ever wondered the real purpose of Religion and the U.N.?
Have you ever slammed your fists against the keyboard, because the U.N. secretary general just passed an aggrivating Enviromentalism, when your entire strategy revolved around State Property?
Well, thats probably because you don't know how to work the system.
Sometime, I'm going to actually sit down and take the time to write up a comprehensive strategy regarding game diplomacy, and the effects religion has upon diplomacy; but chances are you people already know this...
However, the true key to proper diplomacy in this game, is to divide countries into seperate blocs. Excluding yourself from a bloc makes you an enemy, leading the bloc makes you the king.
This here was the outcome of a Monarch Difficulty game which I had just won literally 5 minutes ago. I felt very compelled to share it with a Strategy Forum which seems to frown upon the way the U.N. was implimented, or worse; complain that diplomatic victories were impossible on Prince or Higher Difficulties.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/Dairuka/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/Dairuka/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/Dairuka/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg
The key to forming this bloc was to at first spread out my only religion to the best of my ability. As soon as Britain and Germany liked me enough; you could almost laugh at the key timing; but the other nation with a founded religion declared war on me. Even though I was the clear military power; Isabella still went out of her way to declare war on me. I wonder why? =D
Well, with my ever-valuable +1-+5 bonus from the "We care for our brothers and sisters of the faith." I then managed to convince Bismark, and Victoria to declare war. Of course, I took three cities, crippled Spain, and then left them with only their capital city, declaring peace, and thereby making them my ever popular scapegoat.
Why leave Spain Alive? Well, if I destroyed Spain, I wouldn't have somebody to form a bloc against! This is where most people bugger-themselves. Too often they're stuck in a Civ 3 mindset, where if they don't take the capital, the other cities will automatically rebell against you and turn. This is 100% not true in this game. The only time this will ever be true is if you try to take a port city off of some far away island where your culture doesn't come close to helping.
If you go around destroying every one of your enemies, you force your potential allies into a choice. If they have to expand; they'll have to expand into you, or one of your other potential allies. With a scapegoat alive, and you to play as peacekeeper, you will very easily find yourself on top of the world as king of diplomacy.
Just remember five simple rules to bloc leadership.
#1 - Always be bigger than your bloc allies. If you're not bigger, than become bigger by expanding into the enemies of your bloc alliance.
#2 - Always keep your bloc allies of your state religion, or at the very least of free religion. The negative -4 modifier for being a heathen religion always breaks up bloc alliances over time.
#3 - Always have a scapegoat, otherwise your bloc will dissolve through neccessity.
#4 - Always have something to trade to your bloc allies, in case you need them to either declare war, or to declare peace on a bloc enemy. This means that you're always in control of your allies and enemies growth.
#5 - Aways be the first to build the United Nations, otherwise you can not play the trumph card mentioned below.
The final coup de grace to a United Nations victory.
While it's painfully obvious that if you can pull of a bloc alliance of a grand scale, that you'll almost always be in a position to win the United Nations General Elections simply through sheer majority vote, or by having near majority vote with one sycophant country tossing in their 50-100 coins.
There are occasionally times when you'll be stuck in a deadlock between your own bloc alliance members. An example would be my last game where Bismark was my runner up, and Victoria was voting for him. This left me with 20 votes short of my victory.
With the help of the United Nation's voting system, I proceeded to run out all five civic votes to full success. Over time this canceled out all of the, "You refused to adopt my civic!" penalties, and the "You're a heathen!" penalties. Which brought Isabella up to, "Cautious" rather than "Furious".
From there, I'd administer the common smoozing, throwing her a couple gift techs for the +4 for good trade relations, and opened the borders, and gave her some gift resources.
Two turns later she was, "Pleased" with me... and the following election, she gave me her piddly 46 votes, which helped me to win my Diplomatic Victory of the game. =D
Diplomacy in Civilization 4 is a great weapon. It's very involving, and very ellaborate. Use it well and it'll treat you well. Rampage across every continent with no regard to your enemies and allies; and they'll make you cry when you lose after 7 millenia of isolationism, or ineffective warring, to a diplomatic victory on their part.
Have you ever slammed your fists against the keyboard, because the U.N. secretary general just passed an aggrivating Enviromentalism, when your entire strategy revolved around State Property?
Well, thats probably because you don't know how to work the system.
Sometime, I'm going to actually sit down and take the time to write up a comprehensive strategy regarding game diplomacy, and the effects religion has upon diplomacy; but chances are you people already know this...
However, the true key to proper diplomacy in this game, is to divide countries into seperate blocs. Excluding yourself from a bloc makes you an enemy, leading the bloc makes you the king.
This here was the outcome of a Monarch Difficulty game which I had just won literally 5 minutes ago. I felt very compelled to share it with a Strategy Forum which seems to frown upon the way the U.N. was implimented, or worse; complain that diplomatic victories were impossible on Prince or Higher Difficulties.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/Dairuka/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/Dairuka/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/Dairuka/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg
The key to forming this bloc was to at first spread out my only religion to the best of my ability. As soon as Britain and Germany liked me enough; you could almost laugh at the key timing; but the other nation with a founded religion declared war on me. Even though I was the clear military power; Isabella still went out of her way to declare war on me. I wonder why? =D
Well, with my ever-valuable +1-+5 bonus from the "We care for our brothers and sisters of the faith." I then managed to convince Bismark, and Victoria to declare war. Of course, I took three cities, crippled Spain, and then left them with only their capital city, declaring peace, and thereby making them my ever popular scapegoat.
Why leave Spain Alive? Well, if I destroyed Spain, I wouldn't have somebody to form a bloc against! This is where most people bugger-themselves. Too often they're stuck in a Civ 3 mindset, where if they don't take the capital, the other cities will automatically rebell against you and turn. This is 100% not true in this game. The only time this will ever be true is if you try to take a port city off of some far away island where your culture doesn't come close to helping.
If you go around destroying every one of your enemies, you force your potential allies into a choice. If they have to expand; they'll have to expand into you, or one of your other potential allies. With a scapegoat alive, and you to play as peacekeeper, you will very easily find yourself on top of the world as king of diplomacy.
Just remember five simple rules to bloc leadership.
#1 - Always be bigger than your bloc allies. If you're not bigger, than become bigger by expanding into the enemies of your bloc alliance.
#2 - Always keep your bloc allies of your state religion, or at the very least of free religion. The negative -4 modifier for being a heathen religion always breaks up bloc alliances over time.
#3 - Always have a scapegoat, otherwise your bloc will dissolve through neccessity.
#4 - Always have something to trade to your bloc allies, in case you need them to either declare war, or to declare peace on a bloc enemy. This means that you're always in control of your allies and enemies growth.
#5 - Aways be the first to build the United Nations, otherwise you can not play the trumph card mentioned below.
The final coup de grace to a United Nations victory.
While it's painfully obvious that if you can pull of a bloc alliance of a grand scale, that you'll almost always be in a position to win the United Nations General Elections simply through sheer majority vote, or by having near majority vote with one sycophant country tossing in their 50-100 coins.
There are occasionally times when you'll be stuck in a deadlock between your own bloc alliance members. An example would be my last game where Bismark was my runner up, and Victoria was voting for him. This left me with 20 votes short of my victory.
With the help of the United Nation's voting system, I proceeded to run out all five civic votes to full success. Over time this canceled out all of the, "You refused to adopt my civic!" penalties, and the "You're a heathen!" penalties. Which brought Isabella up to, "Cautious" rather than "Furious".
From there, I'd administer the common smoozing, throwing her a couple gift techs for the +4 for good trade relations, and opened the borders, and gave her some gift resources.
Two turns later she was, "Pleased" with me... and the following election, she gave me her piddly 46 votes, which helped me to win my Diplomatic Victory of the game. =D
Diplomacy in Civilization 4 is a great weapon. It's very involving, and very ellaborate. Use it well and it'll treat you well. Rampage across every continent with no regard to your enemies and allies; and they'll make you cry when you lose after 7 millenia of isolationism, or ineffective warring, to a diplomatic victory on their part.
into the game I allied with two strong civs and togather we crushed our enemies.
