Diplomatic Victory in Noble?

[843]

I just had 2 games with Isabella, on my first time doing Noble. I didn't expect the opponents to be so much stronger in BTS than Warlord in Vanilla. My scores were the lowest throughout and some Civ won a Cultural Victory on the first game. In the second, Sitting Bull decided to hate me, and I was overwhelmed by his forces. I was beaten in both military tech and his aggressive army, and all my cities were taken. My goals were basically beelining for the UN since I wasn't able to build the Apocalyptic Palace in both cases. The only good thing I managed to do in both games were to amass large amount of gold.

Do you guys have any tip or suggestion for winning a Diplomatic Victory?

 

[Bast]

Oh I want to hear suggestions too. I have no advice for Diplomatic victory because I suck at it. But rather I think I'm just too idealistic and want to win the real diplomatic way. You really can't please everyone and BTS AI is very moody and very unpredictable.

Cultural, space, domination and conquest, you know what you have to do. You can go in with a strategy to build which wonders and research what techs and do what in which city. With diplo you can't do that. What's worse, you just don't know how the AI will vote. Also, the constant demands to declare war and stop trading etc.. hurts your diplo points.

I think that's partly because religious/diplomatic victory is wrong. Essentially you can beat everyone into submission. I think that's a wrong way of achieving diplomatic victory.

 

[843]

Actually, I had thought of beating everyone into submission, like you said. However, I usually end up with Domination Victory. The UN can't be built in a Duel world, otherwise it'd have been much easier.

 

[Gocho]

Diplo is the victory condition I go for in at least 1/2 of my games. I tend to play some form of continents and quickly warmonger my continent free of all who dare live on my land of choice. Once it's clear I set out exploring and find who's out in the world, the trick is to see who's made friends with each other and try and help out the biggest block of friends who aren't your rival. You just have to be focused on who your going to help (without making them 2nd on voting) and make sure they dislike your main competition.

Gift techs, open borders and get trades going and by the time you build the UN you should either have enough votes or have to beat down your rival (or his friends) a bit to finish it up. Don't try and make everyone your friend just the key ones.

 

[madscientist]

I play huge maps and find a diplomatic victory easier than domination. I think there are two types of diplo victories. The first is when you beat and vassal enough AIs to elect yourself diplo victor (I consider this a domination victory on these maps). The second is when you have several stronge AIs vote for you. The first is easy to figure out, just read any warfare related threads, the second is more tricky, and here are some suggestions

1) Leverage religion early but do not exclusively rely on it. Most AIs switch to FR and you will lose that benefit, but if you were a loyal friend even religious zealots will remember (Brennus is like this).
2) Find out who you UN foe will be. The one with the most population. Build that person up so they stay #1 but ar ehated by other AIs. Example, help in war and help them vassal an AI or 2. Just make sure it's not enough to win the UN vote.
3) Do not ignore those request for tribute or help, a little kindness early on helps alot later.
4) Know who to trust and who not to. You can forget Qin, Catherine, Alexander, Napolean being a reliable ally at the end. Also the war happy AIs (Shaka/Monty/Ghengis) make poor allies since they will declare easily on other AIs.
5) Leverage the favorite civics throughout the game. Heretary rule befriends alot of AIs and it worth keeping AIs happy rather than running US or rep. Also note alot of AIs have one of the religion civics as their favorite, so having the same religion can be a double boost.
6) Do not hesitate to go to war for an ally, you do not have to send troop.
7) Open borders judisciously. You do not want an immediate -4 you traded with our worse enemies.
8) Forget defensive pacts. Too often I have lost good friends because I inadvertantly declared war on them when they attacked another AI I had a pact with.