Diplomatic Victory Dogpile

[steveg700]

So, the WC vote pops up, and there's the opportunity to vote for diplomatic VP. I go all in to grab those votes, but when all nine members go all wolfpack to drag down the guy in the lead. Just like that, nine points drops to six. So much for the Statue of Liberty I just built.

Strategy-wise, it's undeniably sensible AI behavior; each of them knows they can't win, so might as well hope everyone else gangs up on the leader. I just don't know that designing votes to work this way makes sense. A victory condition where everyone can so easily trip up whoever's in the lead seems unsound. It's not even like I can take consolation in them having spent so much favor that this behavior is unsustainable. Collectively, they spent very little. Seems like they should be able to keep doing this to the leader the next go 'round.

 

[Ziad]

It's fine but what bothers me is alliances voting against me. It kinda goes against this whole diplomatic thing.

Maybe they can make it so that civilizations with a certain alliance level cannot choose to punish you diplomatically this way. It sorta rewards making long-term alliances with others, while making you more cautious about who you ally with (don't let them win!)

Just make it less game-y.

 

[Morningcalm]

Allies should be ok with trading a yes vote or neutral vote for a high price at least.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

The DV still needs work in future updates. The aid emergencies in particular need to be tweaked and the over-all VC needs to be viable when compared with other VCs.

 

[Victoria]

Still not bothered getting one for my HOF.
Seems like a lot of effort.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Allies always vote against you even when it comes to taking away a luxury resource.

 

[Staal]

Allies should be ok with trading a yes vote or neutral vote for a high price at least.

The problem with this is that a Diplomatic victory simply becomes an Economic victory again, as it was in Civ 5 (if I remember correctly). I almost feel like the franchise has hurt itself with this move towards different victory types. Don't get me wrong, I was in favour of it years ago, but now I have changed my mind.

This might be an unpopular opinion but there should only be one Victory type; Score. Scoring stops when a Civ achieves Domination or the Space Race. What madness is this that I speak of, you may ask? Let me explain.

I don't mean Domination in a pure military sense, but a blend of all approaches. Civs can still have their strong suite (military, culture, religion, science) on which they would focus, but victory can only be achieved by subjugating all other Civs through a combination of military, cultural, religious or economic control. Economic control could be a great opportunity to make Corporations a feature again.

Thoughts?

 

[Victoria]

Thoughts?

100% agree. an economic victory of types would free up the world congress to be a general tool of use. And personally I have found a lot of what is voted for in congress is of value.
Some things are really bad about world congress and freeing it up from a direct victory condition would relax some of those quite frankly weird effects.

old emergencies were great, they happened then an there, not in 30 turns where the target city is firmly embedded in an expanding civs influence. The way civs now deal with envoys makes emergencies and consequences more dangerous.

 

[Lanthar]

Staal,

I think that's a great idea. I think the legacy mechanic of separate victory types could be rolled into the Score. There could still be separate stop points for the game (Time, Domination, Space Race) that would also contribute to your score (like everything else), but wouldn't necessarily guarantee a win. A tiny but tech advanced nation completing the Space Race might lose to a large nation with massive points from economic activity or previous wars that was able to hold on to a thin scoring advantage.

That system also allows for mechanics like Religion, where every civilization in larger games is not guaranteed a religion (and therefore is locked out of that victory condition). If it's all settled by Score, a player can dominate with religion but still lose to another player using other mechanics to get points. I think a unified victory point system would allow for more flexibility in design and play.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

I think a unified victory point system would allow for more flexibility in design and play.

I agree.

I also think that happiness should be a big part of a combination victory.

 

[steveg700]

The most outright vexing thing is that the vote drops the target THREE POINTS. Winning would only net two.

Second ridiculous thing about it going to go down like this is that the two civ's who applied the most votes against me by far are two allies. If a diplomatic victory just means ham-handedly brute-forcing my way past all other civ's with a resource expenditure, it really starts to not feel all that diplomatic. Maybe voting against a civ should have either a discount or surcharge based on your relationship. High grievances provide a discount to voting against, whereas ally status imposes a surcharge.

Bu I guess you can buy diplomatic favor for gold before the vote, effectively allowing gold to purchase DF.

The problem with this is that a Diplomatic victory simply becomes an Economic victory again, as it was in Civ 5 (if I remember correctly). I almost feel like the franchise has hurt itself with this move towards different victory types. Don't get me wrong, I was in favour of it years ago, but now I have changed my mind.

This might be an unpopular opinion but there should only be one Victory type; Score. Scoring stops when a Civ achieves Domination or the Space Race. What madness is this that I speak of, you may ask? Let me explain.

I don't mean Domination in a pure military sense, but a blend of all approaches. Civs can still have their strong suite (military, culture, religion, science) on which they would focus, but victory can only be achieved by subjugating all other Civs through a combination of military, cultural, religious or economic control. Economic control could be a great opportunity to make Corporations a feature again.

Thoughts?

I've sung from the rafters at many an opportunity that the approach to victory conditions holds Civ back more than just about anything else about it. Been saying emphatically since V. The current scoring method is essentially a time loss. What we need is a race to high score.

The notion that "multiple paths to victory" encourages a variety of playstyles is fallacious. If you really want variety, enumerate all the ways possible for a civilization to excel to identity core areas, Then adjust the victory condition so that no one area can unlock a win. They already have a lot of tools to work with. For instance, emergencies provide a competitive element which could be expanded into broader scoring opportunities. For instance, in the medieval era, an event could pop up where players can compete to earn score for medieval warfare: you can earn points by killing units with knights, pillaging units with knights, or killing knights with other units. And perhaps building medieval walls and armories yield a more meager amount of points. Something like that.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

@Staal Agree with you and it should be considered seriously IMHO. Only "Victory Point" wins via multiple routes, i.e. Space Race, Culture, Geographic Domination, Religious spread) or even a nice combination/balance of each for us players that go after several victory types at the same time would be most welcomed!

 

[Lanthar]

@MisterBoomBoom - if everything you do produces Score, then that allows the kind of flexibility you want - you can pursue several victory paths (in whole or in part) and gain Score from there, or specialize for the big Score bonuses at the end of a specific specialty tree. This also would allow players to switch focus based on game events to a different kind of victory path without having to "start over" - a half finished Space Race path still yielded Score from what you did accomplish, even if your focus changed to Domination (or something else) because of how the game is playing out. Progressively increasing Score bonuses as you do each step (or capture each original capitol, etc) can balance out points from specialists and generalists to keep things competitive.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

Agree @Lanthar ...well thought out. Great comment! It could also bring into the game the concept of doing something or building things or discovering new stuff or being the first to do something, to add to a score. Having them Era weighted (?) so that if behind you can do something great to push yourself forward and still be in the game....or "put it away". Likewise being the last ...or poor in something...might lose you points.

 

[Lanthar]

Thanks! I like your idea about giving a bonus to a Score reward for being the first to do something. Era weights could also be a way to encourage or make a specialist path competitive, where you sacrifice points from other areas to be the first one to complete the Space Race or something. Done right, scoring bonuses can keep generalist and specialist playstyles relatively competitive.

 

[Lord Lakely]

It's fine but what bothers me is alliances voting against me. It kinda goes against this whole diplomatic thing.

Maybe they can make it so that civilizations with a certain alliance level cannot choose to punish you diplomatically this way. It sorta rewards making long-term alliances with others, while making you more cautious about who you ally with (don't let them win!)

Just make it less game-y.

What bothers ME is that there is no diplomacy in the diplomatic victory vote itself. Like, you accumulate favour and bid with it. That's it. You can't bribe an AI with gold to vote a certain way. You can negotiate with AIs that don't have a preference. You can't take matters into your own hands. It's just a matter of "hmm, do I have enough favour to outbid everyone else" and that's not very fun. Both Alpha Centauri and Master of Orion2 had amazing Congress-like mechanics and they just put the current system to shame with their simplicity and elegance.

Ofc the devs COULD spin that "the extra favour you spend to outvote the rest IS the bribe" but that's just LAZY and I want to have more faith in the devs that they had a vision instead of just coming up with a half-baked concept because they were out of other ideas.

Diplomatic Victory should get a rework so that you can at least use diplomacy (or espionage) to manipulate votes more actively. Bring it on in a third expansion pack, plz.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

The current scoring method is essentially a time loss. What we need is a race to high score.

What we really need is a good Ai and not a bunch of scripted cheat BS that is super transparent.

 

[WillowBrook]

I don't think I'd attempt a diplo victory with more than about 8 major civs to start, and even then I'd try to to take out one or two early. The whole system is just not set up for anyone to win when there are a lot of civs competing.

That said, I'd love to see allies not be able to vote down their allies. There would be no requirement to vote in support of anyone, but it seems fair that you couldn't make an ally lose points.

I don't think I like the idea of buying votes, leave room for a different economic victory.

I'm wondering if era score is a dry run at a score victory to replace all other victories for Civ VII.

 

[Victoria]

I think the score system sucks because the game becomes so long.
What you need is a score victory where you exceed other civs scores by X or exceed them in all/most areas.
I do like the idea of a well rounded victory.
Now if a mod made a VC like that I’d play it.... @FearSunn ?

 

[Troy Bruckner]

I think the score system sucks because the game becomes so long.
What you need is a score victory where you exceed other civs scores by X or exceed them in all/most areas.
I do like the idea of a well rounded victory.
Now if a mod made a VC like that I’d play it.... @FearSunn ?

Maybe an option to declare victory if you are far enough ahead and the game can either reward you with a victory or perhaps punish you in some way if you are not, but you declare yourself victor.