[GS] Does Diplomatic Victory need a rework?

[Francel]

I've been playing a lot of Gathering Storm lately and am now at least familiar with the majority of the game mechanics.

I believe the conditions used to achieve diplomatic victory could be improved.

The biggest problem in my opinion is the world congress vote to award or remove points. Very often, in pursuing a diplomatic victory, I am somewhat close when this option becomes available (ie 15 or more points). Inevitably, the best strategy appears to vote to remove points from me. What is the sense that the best strategy is to vote against oneself?

Even amassing favor is not enough to win points when the AI votes 40 or more times against me.

Paradoxically, as a certain user has noted, conquering opponents (the opposite of diplomacy), can help rather than hurt the chances of winning a DV, or at least an earlier DV than would otherwise occur.

Therefore, I would like to suggest some possible changes to improve the diplomacy win conditions. I welcome your thoughts on these suggestions, as well as your own ideas.

Instead of voting for the winner in world congress, in which the incentive is so clear for every player, I believe each world congress could have a built-in hidden objective that awards two points to the winner. The objective changes, and you don't necessarily know what it will be, so peace and diplomacy of all kinds are encouraged.

Example "hidden objectives" at world congress:
Climate Crisis: Two points awarded to the civilization causing the least environmental degradation (emissions, deforestation).
Peace in Our Time: Two points awarded to the civilization fighting the fewest wars/killing the fewest units/occupying or razing the fewest cities
League of Nations: Two points awarded to the civilization with the most envoys or most suzzes.
Liberator: Two points awarded for the most liberations of occupied cities and city-states.
Ambassador Extraordinaire: Flip the most City States to your control/Complete the most city-state quests
Alliance Maker: Have the most active alliances/have the highest total diplomatic access level across civs

I considered things like "most wonders" or "most great people" but to me those are just sort of "play the game well" and not very specific to diplomacy. Aid quests could continue to be a thing as well as competitions.

The key I guess is the objective isn't known so you sort of have to be "diplomatic" throughout the game versus winning a game of chance or just eliminating foes.

Also, some things like razing large cities or using WMDs or even certain spy actions could remove DV points.

In conclusion, these are some ideas to improve DV. What are yours?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

This idea will just fool the AIs and mislead them to falsely give their votes for the player who is about to win. Just like gifting cities to AIs for a religious victory.

I like the current Diplomatic Victory condition, which is real diplomatic.

 

[Civ Chemist]

Don't know about those hidden objectives, but I always thought that you should lose and gain DVPs for not being or for being "diplomatic". E.g.:

Losing DVPs:

• Conquering a capital
• Completely wiping out a civ
• Maybe even razing an enemy city or conquering a city state

Gaining DVPs:

• Bringing a civ back to life
• Liberating a city state for the first time (only once or twice per game)
• Liberating another player's city (only once per civ, per game)

 

[Francel]

This idea will just fool the AIs and mislead them to falsely give their votes for the player who is about to win. Just like gifting cities to AIs for a religious victory.

I like the current Diplomatic Victory condition, which is real diplomatic.

Hello what I meant is no more voting for diplomatic victory points. I think this is kind of a bad mechanic, and I don't think it is fun or realistic. They will always vote down the one who is close, so the optimal strategy is also to vote against oneself. Again, this is not fun to me.

I would rather reward real diplomatic play.

 

[tetley]

Civ6 was released 3 years ago. Unless they release another expansion, I say we give it a rest, and move on to the next big thing.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The +2/-3 vote is actually ok but the resolutions in general are kinda haphazard.

Also 30 turns is way too much. Stuff like Carbon Recapture comes too late.

 

[Dotsworthy]

The +2/-3 vote is a red herring which makes the diplo victory seem more frustrating than it is. To win you need to race both the tech and civics trees to build 2 out of the 3 diplo wonders and get the 2 points from tech/civics, while brute forcing the world congress on every resolution where possible and hoping for an aid emergency here or there. That vote seems to exist more for a player who wants to catch up or prevent another from winning the diplo victory.

I do find it odd that City State and Military Emergancies don't provide diplomatic victory points for liberating the city. Perhaps its due to the AI occasionally becoming a bit fanatical about capturing the same city over and over again.

It's also worth noting that penalties for grievances against other players and carbon emissions do subtract from your diplomatic favor per turn, perhaps that isn't impactful enough? I'm sure I read somewhere it takes away from diplo victory points but can no longer find it.

 

[Aurelesk]

I dislike a lot how the World Congress works:

1. Diplomatic Favor
They do not have any value. For example, let's say there is 5 civilizations with 100 DF each, so 5 votes. You will need 3000 DF to tie them. A huge chunk. With them, you can either:
• Enforce a resolution: mostly pointless because most of them are insignificant and last only 30 turns.
• Win resolutions for Victory points: but you can win all of them just by putting 1 free vote on the winning resolution. You can even cheat the system by watching the result, reload, and vote accordingly. In the end, you do not even need to do that because you end to know how the AI will vote.
• Vote for Diplomatic Victory: but most of the time you will not have enough of them.
So two things to do with them: stockpile them and use all of them for the vote of Diplomatic Victory when you are about to win. Or sell all of them to the AI for a huge mountain of gold.

I must admit I feel like cheating when I sell Diplomatic Favor to the AI that will happily waste them to enforce a random luxury ban for 30 turns. No, it is not worth it to spend the equivalent of 5000 gold into passing a resolution that will slightly annoy an AI on the other side of the map.

In a way, I like that approach (contrary to bland vote in Civilization V) but I think it is not well executed. But, in the same time, I am completely unable to find a way to improve it (I feel ungrateful).

2. World Congress
All is random and meaningless. How the resolutions are chosen? Random. How impactful are the resolutions? Meaningless. No permanent resolution, only temporary. How to win Diplomatic Victory: just guessing right about something but putting the least amount of Diplomatic Favor in it. I would want to see this different, and getting back a lot of how it worked in Civilization V:
• Vote for President. The winning civilization will be able to choose one resolution for this era.
• The second resolution is choosen by the civilization with the most Diplomatic Favor (except the President).
• The resolutions should be splitted into two categories:
→ Temporary resolutions: Extremely powerful but only last 30 turns against specific functionalities (destroy all Coal Factory, Trade Embargo against Mali...). Should be able to completely delete some advantages for a short amount of time.
→ Permanent resolutions: Consistent bonus that help/limit toward one victory for everyone (bonus toward Scientist / Engineer, World religion...).
The vote should be a Yes/No question, and not spread the vote into too many choices.

3. City-State and Warmongering
Maybe put more maluses when conquering a city-state. For example: a permanent -1 Diplomatic Favor, and razing it should be -3. In the same time, you should be able to give independance to conquered cities or raze them any time, and not when you just conquered them.
In the same time, most Casus Belli are coming way too late.

4. Spies
You know that Spies and Hackers are really good to mess up elections times, and those filthy Lobby that are mostly interested by making more money and have power without any concern about the people or the environment? We should add this to the game! But I do not know how.
Probably with new Spy missions, Diplomats and something. Maybe by just stealing diplomatic favor, corrupt civilization into voting some resolutions, or have national industries that work like Religion with patents for beliefs, giving bonus to the main civilization when others do it. For example: +50% Production towards Coal Factory. Coal Factory have additionnal +2 Production and yield +2 Power. Patent trade agreement with others civilization give 5 Gold for each Coal Factory in this civilization or something.

 

[iammaxhailme]

My main problem with DV is that it simply takes too long. By the time I get one, I could have gotten culture or science victory 50 turns ago.

 

[leandrombraz]

They definitely need to do something about the diplo vote, it isn't intuitive enough and players trying it for the first time have a tendency to bash their heads trying to win that thing, which lead to a long, frustrating experience that probably will end with them either losing their patience and winning another victory condition, which they could have won several turns ago, or just losing to the AI. I'm in favor of completely removing it and replacing for something else or at least do a considerable overhaul. They should also speed up the congresses in late game, 30 turns is too much and become a huge drag to wait for the next congress.

Losing points if you do undiplomatic actions is definitely something that is missing and it could be one of the things that replace that vote. I don't think you should lose points just for taking capitals or razing cities, grievances already punish you for that, but you should lose points if you eliminate another Civ, even through loyalty so players don't just flip the last city to avoid losing the point. Another possible exploit is to liberate the last city, you should lose a point even if you do that. I considered losing a point if you conquer a City-State but that will hurt the AI more than the player. Losing a point if you eliminate another Civ make sense, since when you remove a Civ you're removing a voter in the congress. Conquering a city-state isn't as impactful, so it doesn't need to be punished. Furthermore, they should increase the max favors penalty for grievances to at least 15.

Alliances should give you a point if you get a tier 3 Alliance. That would increase the importance of Alliances in a diplo game and add another source that doesn't rely on luck. They could do an overhaul of the way alliances level up, adding more sources of alliance points to make it more dynamic and so it doesn't take so long to get a tier 3. One idea I've is to give alliance points based on your relationship with that leader. Example:

Let's say you have the following relationship with a leader:

+3 open borders
+3 delegation
+18 Alliance
-12 leader agenda

So you're getting 24 positive diplo and 12 negative, 24-12=12 alliance points per turn from relationship (they would need to increase the cost of each alliance tier, obviously). That would increase the importance of agendas and of being as nice as possible to your allies, adding a bit more of diplomacy to alliances and to the diplo victory. That would also increase the importance of avoiding grievances in a diplomatic game, you don't want that penalty.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

My main problem with DV is that it simply takes too long. By the time I get one, I could have gotten culture or science victory 50 turns ago.

Not that long actually. On standard deity setting, You can win diplomatic victory on every map between T200 and T210, it is extremely stable, however for science and culture you definitely cannot win between T150 and T160 on every map.

Maybe 10~20 turns later than SV or CV on standard speed, and about the same time as SV or CV on online speed.

 

[lotrmith]

I think the DV vote should be weighted differently (AI tries to vote against whoever is in the lead because the AI is 'playing to win')... perhaps adjust this mindset because DV to me isn't so much 'playing to win' as it is 'someone needs to win so this game will end' and figure out who that is... and in this sense the AI should 'know' whether or not is it likely to win a different VC... so like one or two AIs are out ahead or at least contending in certain areas so they vote against someone in DV, but other AIs who know they are irrelevant vote for a DV winner based on criteria as outlined like by like @civ_chemist.

Also 1 vote per Civ on direct DV votes, DF shouldn't play into it.

 

[CoconutTank]

I dunno, I feel like diplo victory is in an okay spot at the moment, though the World Congress does take some time to get used to.

Having suzerainty over city states is highly encouraged, and one should go into WC sessions with dramatically higher diplo favor than any other civ if one wants to play for diplo victory. Being able to single-handedly control outcomes should require a (relatively) large diplomatic backing. Voting in tandem is highly encouraged, even if the outcome isn't helpful to oneself (but getting DV points should be more important).

Even setting the WC aside, there are still other ways to get DV points. Wonders, future era stuff, completing aid requests and competing in the olympics and nobel prize stuff gives DV points too, so one isn't completely beholden to the WC.

I do think DF penalties from grievances should kick in a little earlier, though I've had enough grievance at one point to start getting negative DF income despite suzerainty over half the CSes lol. I also think warmongering should be penalized more for diplo stuff. Taking a CS should lose 1 DV point, taking a capital should lose 1 DV point, and causing a civ to be eliminated should also lose 1 DV point.

Overall though, diplo victory encourages being nice to others and being productive. That seems pretty diplomatic.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The +2/-3 vote is a red herring which makes the diplo victory seem more frustrating than it is. To win you need to race both the tech and civics trees to build 2 out of the 3 diplo wonders and get the 2 points from tech/civics, while brute forcing the world congress on every resolution where possible and hoping for an aid emergency here or there. That vote seems to exist more for a player who wants to catch up or prevent another from winning the diplo victory.

I do find it odd that City State and Military Emergancies don't provide diplomatic victory points for liberating the city. Perhaps its due to the AI occasionally becoming a bit fanatical about capturing the same city over and over again.

It's also worth noting that penalties for grievances against other players and carbon emissions do subtract from your diplomatic favor per turn, perhaps that isn't impactful enough? I'm sure I read somewhere it takes away from diplo victory points but can no longer find it.

Bingo.

Once you get used to this strategy, you can win Diplo Victories before the +2/-3 resolution even becomes available.

In my opinion, they should bump up the threshold from 20 DVP to 25.

 

[CPWimmer]

When they first looked at changing DV some, my suggestion was to implement more factors based on Alliances.
This could include, but not be limited to, your Allies could not vote against you in a DV vote (if they kept the DV vote around). Maybe that should only be level 2 or 3 Allies, or even some other rule based on alliance level. Perhaps even something like level 2 allies cannot vote against each other, and level 3 allies most spend at least 1 vote on their Level 3 ally with the most Diplomatic Favor (which would then make someone immune if they have the highest diplo favor of all their level 3 allies).

I also agree that there should be lost DV points for certain aggressive actions such as razing a city, capturing a capital, or capturing a city state that currently has a suzerain. As well as earning VP's for certain diplomatic war efforts (either by enhancing Emergencies, or just flat out rewards). Perhaps these don't kick in until the Renaissance or Industrial era to make early game warmongering not impact what is designed to be a late game victory condition.

 

[CoconutTank]

I think the only way to lose DV points is the +2/-3 resolution, which again is pretty late and can be gamed a bit anyway. The Civ 6 wiki has a nice list of things that generate grievances, which could translate to potentially losing DV points in the future I guess?

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Grievances_(Civ6)

There's also a wiki page for Diplomatic Favor, and it does list ways to lose DF near the bottom of the page, but sadly there doesn't seem to be any table or formula available to exactly map grievances to DF loss.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Diplomatic_Favor_(Civ6)

 

[kryat]

I like many of the suggestions here for adding more things that add or subtract DV points throughout the game. In particular, I would strongly second the idea from @CoconutTank that eliminating CS should lose a point, capturing a capitol should lose 1 point, and eliminating a civ should lose points. I would modify it a bit to losing 2 points if by normal wars, but 1 point if responding to an emergency or ideology CB (since that war is meant to be the WW2 eliminating the bad guys style war).

On the other side I think there should be a few more ways to earn points (with a higher victory threshold). Liberating a single city is too little for a full point, but bringing someone back should give a point. There should also be some mechanism to jockey for votes, but this would also require a lag time between when resolutions are announced and when they are voted on (also a desperately needed major change).

There should also be a secretary of the council mechanism. Maybe whoever goes in with the most favor gets to decide whether A or B is picked.

I agree that the +2/-3 vote should just go away. Voting for the +2 is meant to be there to help win a victory, but it’s not really that useful for that, while the -3 is meant to help be a mechanism to stop a victory, and it does that too well unless you game it, in which case, it’s actually not doing its intended purpose.

 

[Francel]

Not that long actually. On standard deity setting, You can win diplomatic victory on every map between T200 and T210, it is extremely stable, however for science and culture you definitely cannot win between T150 and T160 on every map.

Maybe 10~20 turns later than SV or CV on standard speed, and about the same time as SV or CV on online speed.

Are you eliminating most of the other civilizations in order to ensure you are winning the world congress votes? Technically this may work but in my mind it totally violates the spirit of what a diplomatic win should be...

The world congress is currently too gimmicky in my mind. People saying that you can win before the 2/3 vote even comes into play... I played a game in which I reload before every vote, just to make sure I get the most points every time. Having voted correctly and earned 2 points in each WC, having won the aid quest, and having built all three DV wonders, I came into first world congress with 19/20 points.

I really don't like to "reload" or "save scum" because to me whatever happens happens. You can try to use knowledge of the AI to intuit the correct vote or outmuscle them in WC, but to do this consistently? Luck is a much big factor than for the other victory types. I don't like to rely on luck. Do you?

Thus, if I play straight up - no reloads - I am often in the 14-17 range when the first modern WC takes place. Now, I am guaranteed to break even at best, assuming I again get the other 2 votes correct. If I only guess correctly once then actually lose points. My first game of gathering storm I amassed favor and used it all to award me victory points. The AI combined 42 votes to take points from me, so I lost the full three points, missing the other two resolutions.

The other victories you can execute a plan that is much less luck dependent. DV is gimmicky and incentivizes counterintuitive play such as conquering foes.

I liked my idea to encourage peaceful play organically, but it doesn't seem to be too popular. Maybe each era could have a universal dedication randomly selected that applies to all civilizations? These could be along the lines of my earlier suggestions of environmental stewardship, peacefulness, liberation, city-state oriented activities, etc.

Oh well.

Bingo.

Once you get used to this strategy, you can win Diplo Victories before the +2/-3 resolution even becomes available.

In my opinion, they should bump up the threshold from 20 DVP to 25.

Isn't it correct that the points vote happens in the first modern era WC? You are saying, you can research seasteads before the modern era? I believe you but this is very surprising to me since the last game I played seasteads was the final named technology (prior to the "future" techs.)

When I am getting close to the end of the tech tree, even if I am ahead of the others, the in-game era tends to advance as well. Maybe I need to play on larger maps with more civilizations so that I will be more of an outlier. Anyway isn't this really a science win rather than a diplomatic victory win?

Mods: Could you please combine posts? Thank you.

 

[CoconutTank]

I don't know why the save scum argument was brought up in the first place. Anything can be trivialized by save scumming, not just world congress votes.

Save before starting a wonder, and reload if one doesn't finish it.
Save before committing units to a front, and reload if it isn't as favorable as one desires.
Save periodically and reload if the AI wins or does something one doesn't like.

I highly doubt other folks here are doing much time traveling in order to get the results they've stated, and I don't think it's necessary in the first place.

 

[Francel]

I don't know why the save scum argument was brought up in the first place. Anything can be trivialized by save scumming, not just world congress votes.

Save before starting a wonder, and reload if one doesn't finish it.
Save before committing units to a front, and reload if it isn't as favorable as one desires.
Save periodically and reload if the AI wins or does something one doesn't like.

I highly doubt other folks here are doing much time traveling in order to get the results they've stated, and I don't think it's necessary in the first place.

It is a difference of expediency. Sure, you can always go back, replay, and do things differently... with WC you can go back literally one turn and revote, or two turns and get new resolutions... You can perfectly allocate votes to achieve the desired result.

It's not like you can reload to win any war or build any wonder without at least a foundation in place. WC you can win the points just by reloading without having any favor at all.

Anyway, I don't like to reload as I said. If you can get enough points to win a DV before the vote to award +2/-3 I believe you have to win all or almost every resolution vote. If you can do this without reloading, you must have ESP. Really, you are never wrong in your prediction? How do you do it?