Diplomatic victory needs some balance

[japanesesamurai]

Again in my game on deity, I and two other players have around 14 diplo victory points without anyone building the spaceport yet. In 60 to 90 turns, for the third time in a row, there will be a diplomatic victory. This is getting on my nerves. This mechanic needs proper balancing. It is ridiculously easy to win with a diplo victory unless you go all out killing everything and pump out massive co2. I tried disabling the diplo victory condition before but the game isn’t really made for that, in fact you still win diplo points.
In every game you have to build the Statue of Liberty to give yourself 60 more turns. But then you are close to winning diplomatically so why bother doing the space stuff. It is literally the same thing every game.
This started happening the moment I gave the voting some thought. The AI voting is too predictable. They will always vote either in favor for themselfs or vote against their enemies. Or 100% production towards city center buildings = 1 diplo point. With 100% certainty. All players receive a free diplo point if this is an option.
I’m considering lowering the amount of city states. Might slow things down a bit (probably not though because someone gets diplo points every 30 turns regardless of favor amount) Although I have the city state number set to default minus 1. Which is 8 I believe on a small map. So it’s pretty standard stuff

 

[civac]

Just kill them all.

 

[japanesesamurai]

But I will win the game. Why would I need to kill them? But that’s not the point whether I lose or win. It’s not important. The problem is that the diplomatic win comes in too early. The same thing happened in my two previous games. The pacing is unbalanced compared to the other victory conditions. No one built spaceports yet, I am the only one with rocketry researched. Two players have 14 diplo points, 1 player has 11, then 8 and the last one has 2. I have 600 favors. The other players somehow managed to have 50. And I have 14 points. And there’s two CS emergencies I’m about to win. I cannot lose

 

[civac]

I wasn't serious. Several of the CIV6 victory conditions are gamey and weird. The implementation of the diplomacy victory is still silly even if you require more points. The fundamental mechanics of it are off. Regarding winning by Diplomacy yourself, that doesn't seem like a proper way to declare a winner compared to proving your economy is best (Space Race) or conquering half the world. To me, it would feel unsatisfactory.

 

[japanesesamurai]

Ok so I am too slow then! It is basically a race then against the diplomat of the world? Instead of a culture-space race.

Some patches ago, the diplo victory was much slower. You needed to get to the end of the civic/tech? tree. To the future era to get a point every “new age”. Which felt way more balanced tbh. You only needed 10 points instead of 20

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

This is one of the instances where I preferred Civ 5's system vastly over civ 6's.

First of all, it's the voting options that are presented.
Noone has any say in what resolutions get proposed, and can only vote for the outcomes.
RNG is the almighty god here, and decides whether you will get interesting options or not.
In civ 5, being the "leader" of the World Congress/UN let you choose the proposed voting options, making it far more interesting to invest into the diplomatic mini-game to set up favourable policies.
In general, the voting options were also a lot more interesting.

In civ 6, the international projects are also far too infrequent.
In civ 5 it was common to see at least two international projects (international games, world's fair, building the international space station) during a game, whereas in civ 5 the option might not even come about at all if you're unlucky.

Lastly, there was also no such nonsense as "diplomatic victory points", as the only way to win a DV was by having enough votes to vote for yourself as world leader, which was a very hard task since you had to secure as many delegates as possible, most of them stemming from being suzerain of city states.
This of course meant that it also had counterplay, because other players could kill off said city states, prevent diplomats in their cities or, trade for delegates from other civs or try to become the leader of the next Congress/UN.

The whole minigame was imo very satisfying, unlike the current system where you can game the system by just knowing what to vote for, regardless if you don't care what you are voting for or it even actively hurts you, just in order to secure a point.

 

[Myomoto]

I am finding in general the diplomatic victory is way too easy to get. Generally I think the disaster relief scored competitions are to blame. They are too numerous, and award too many points to the winner, and are generally too easy to win.

 

[footballciv]

Mostly agree. It’s too much of a guessing game and at mercy of the RNG. You can get points for giving one gold to an AI who everybody hates. How random of that. No other victory condition depends so much on luck and randomness. Even when I win, I feel undeserving.

I always turn the diplo victory condition off and haven’t run into any issues. Now I finally vote for what I want hoping it would pass, no matter how unlikely it is, instead of voting for what I think AIs are going to vote for to get the stupid diplo victory point. And no more building reluctantly the Statue of Liberty.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

This World Congress has issues but its better than V's unless you're the congress leader it meant the AI was deciding the adgenda and just led to banning everything in sight and repealing was far too difficult nor was there anyway to reject the outcome.

At least in VI random options means the AI can't keep bringing up the same thing and the resolutions only last 30 turns so if something goes bad its not a black mark forever.

I agree with civac that the diplomatic victory on the whole feels weird I think an alliance victory where a group can win would feel more in the spirit of diplomacy.

Good diplomacy should be a means to an end not the end itself.

 

[Draco84]

I've never seen the AI win a diplomatic victory so I don't really worry about it. When they are close usually they are voted to lose 2 pts.

What I would like to see is something like civ 5 coming back, maybe instead of whoever has the most suzerainty, whoever has the most favor can pay 10% (or some increasing number) of their balance to make a selection? Recalculate favor balances and whoever now has most gets second choice and later in the game add a third choice etc.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I wasn't serious. Several of the CIV6 victory conditions are gamey and weird. The implementation of the diplomacy victory is still silly even if you require more points. The fundamental mechanics of it are off. Regarding winning by Diplomacy yourself, that doesn't seem like a proper way to declare a winner compared to proving your economy is best (Space Race) or conquering half the world. To me, it would feel unsatisfactory.

Agree, the current Diplomatic Victory wining mechanism doesn't feel like an achievement gained by hard work, and voting the same outcome with others in the World Congress doesn't feel like you are the leader/negotiator/compromiser of the international community anyway.

I would like to see a larger emphasis on city-states and alliance levels.

 

[japanesesamurai]

World congress in V was way more impactful and implemented better. The diplo victory was part of the race to victory and some resolutions were a real danger and outcomes could cripple you or the AI significantly. You had to decide early on and actively pursue the victory with Forbidden Palace and whatnot.
I don’t entirely dislike the current mechanic but it lacks any meaningfull strategic element. It’s like “yeah aaight I just go for the diplo victory then because Im almost there anyway. Forget about my efforts and strategy I’ve been working on for 200 friggin turns.” It is a huge anti-climax.

While typing this I wonder what happens if you click “one more turn”. Are you/other player able to get another victory? What exactly happens when you complete the space missions after someone already won? Do you again get the victory/defeat screen? This actually might add another layer to the rather easy deity level: “you have to become the world leader before you lock in a true victory”

 

[CoconutTank]

I do think the diplo points requirement should scale based on number of players (AI + human), or at least let there be a slider that modifies the number of points needed to win a diplo victory.

Points from emergencies could be adjusted a bit as well. Maybe only reward 1 diplo point, and award 1 additional diplo point if one has an alliance with the affected party, or only award diplo points if one has an alliance.

Overall, diplo victories tend to be my fastest win con when I'm trying to go for it at all, and I agree that either the threshold is too low or diplo points are awarded too easily.

 

[japanesesamurai]

I do think the diplo points requirement should scale based on number of players (AI + human), or at least let there be a slider that modifies the number of points needed to win a diplo victory.

Points from emergencies could be adjusted a bit as well. Maybe only reward 1 diplo point, and award 1 additional diplo point if one has an alliance with the affected party, or only award diplo points if one has an alliance.

Overall, diplo victories tend to be my fastest win con when I'm trying to go for it at all, and I agree that either the threshold is too low or diplo points are awarded too easily.

Ah yes the amount of players do have an impact of course. I never play with more than 5 players. Last couple of games I played with 5 on a small map with high sea level. The mechanic is probably balanced out for standard map sizes. And so indeed the points should scale with amount of players. This is just really poorly designed then I assume. Probably never tested on smaller sized maps. As someone else mentioned, I’ll just dusable the victory condition then which will of course make a lot of mechanics and some wonders pointless

 

[MrRadar]

DV needs either a radical revision (including the rest of diplomacy aspects), or full removal. Currently it is the most arbitrary and annoying of them all - collecting made-up points up to a made-up limit. It just does not feel real in any way, it tastes ashes when accidentally achieved instead of another victory you were going for, and is even worse than RV.

Number of alliances and their level should matter much more in going for a DV, number of liberated cities, both: CS and AI should be considered, amount of all sorts of trade: in luxuries and trade routes, and number of trading posts around the world should be factored in. Now you get 20% of victory just by building a certain wonder - , c’mon.

 

[bengalryan9]

I actually think the timing of getting a diplomatic victory (assuming you don't save scum votes) is in a pretty good spot right now.

There are some changes I would make for sure... the system isn't perfect by any stretch, but I don't think major changes to the system are coming any time soon. As it currently stands, I think it's ok.

 

[japanesesamurai]

I actually think the timing of getting a diplomatic victory (assuming you don't save scum votes) is in a pretty good spot right now.

There are some changes I would make for sure... the system isn't perfect by any stretch, but I don't think major changes to the system are coming any time soon. As it currently stands, I think it's ok.

Maybe on a larger map with 8+ players. But with 2 to 5 players it comes in too early...
Religious victory too but there’s a interesting way to prevent that and it’s part of the difficulty. If on a duel map you don’t focus on faith, you lose. Unless you condemn the heretics for thousands of years!

 

[iammaxhailme]

I think diplo victory is too easy on small maps and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hard on my preferred size, 12-person. It seems balanced for, maybe 6-8 players. But it doesn't scale either up or down well. This is mostly becuase of the "vote to take away points" option, which is either incredibly easy to brute force over (on small maps) or basically impossible because literally everybody votes against you (on huge maps)

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

To be honest it doesn't need some balance. It needs completely rework
It is all about grinding points, chasing civics tree, and waiting for an annoying world congress with a dice throwing AI. It is really awful. It is no matter even if it's easy or hard. It is just dull and very very little rewarding.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

I won an interesting Diplo game yesterday that had me needing to vote against myself (to lose 2 points) in order for me to actually win. A couple of achievements made in the process btw. The whole sudden introduction in the world congress of a "vote against this person" because they are within reach of winning (despite peaceful play, allied status' and agreements across the board) just to prolong the game is ...well...gamey. Just as it is that the whole world will suddenly turn against you in denunciation in other situations. Sometimes the game just needs to realize "Game Over" rather than prolong into a boring and frustrating (irritating)...are you kidding me moments. Makes you realize that it just doesn't matter how you go about things. This eliminates, for me at least, the aura of immersion and true strategy.