How do you win Diplomatic Victory?

[RulerOfDaPeople]

Is it even possible when playing with large amounts of Civs?

I am playing 20 or more civs in a perfect world/new world map. Recently I was able to found 4 out of the possible 6 religions and had a large majority of the world included with my state relgion.

However that didn't seem to matter much at all because the AI seemed to have all spuratic and hysterical relations with all the other AI civs, and I could not find any strong ally's that I could trade with, without making some other civ angry. I would constantly get griped at every other turn by an AI leader just for having signed a simple open borders treaty with someone. I was also getting nagged to go to war ALL THE FREAKING TIME. This became a real nightmare for someone wanting a Diplomatic victory because it creates the dellima of either accepting and making the demanding civ happy while taking a negative hit with the target civ and every other civ that has postive modifier relations with that civ, or just declining and making that demanding civ angry with me.

This seemed to happen constantly. And it came to the point where some Civs would demand so many timest that I could litterally make them a mortal enemy just by declining their demands because the modifier stacked so many times from doing so that I got to they hate me and worst enemy status just from that.

Then there's techs. I hate giving techs away all of the time, especially if it's a war tech because I find myself constantly being betrayed by AIs I thought I was in good standings with. I'd rather keep a tech advantage so I don't get ran over by a conquering civ. I tried to gift techs and give into every single request one game, and I found myself towards the bottom of the group in techs by the renaisance era because of it and I couldn't pull myself out. This was after I had an early tech lead but gave it away because of every single Civ that asked for a tech where I gave freely hoping to help for a Diplo win.

But my biggest problem is making triangle diplomacy work with so many civs in the game. No one can seem to agree on anything and no one seems to get along. This means I can't have any real trading partners because it makes all the other civs mad, but worse is that I can't seem to just live peacefully because either way somebody is getting peeved off at me for not going to war on their behalf, or actually going to war on their behalf.

It seems like a no win situation.

Is it even possible to win a Diplomatic victory with so many civs? How do you win a diplomatic victory? I could really use you guys' experience and advice.

 

[PreLynMax]

The best way I can think of to win a dip victory is be aggressive early on, build up a huge lead, and take out whomever opposes you. Also, you have to build up relationships with the weak, and if they oppose you, take them out too.

A good realationship with other civs is key to winning.

When you get the AP/UN, then you must win Secretary General, and then for your first job in office is to pass the diplomatic victory. If anyone opposes you, take them out (or at least weaken them), rinse and repeat.

Having 20 civs may be impossible to win a dip vic, only if 16 out of those 20 are pleased/friendly with you.

 

[Fredric Drum]

I let my diplomats carry swords and axes and bring along catapults. That seems to work most of the time.

 

[Cjreynol]

Like you were saying triangle diplomacy. You just have to accept that some civs are going to htae your guts at every move you make and not worry about it. I used to have it stuck in my head too that I needed to try and please everyone. But it's just not possible and you defeat yourself diplomatically. And I agree, you shouldn't be giving away techs all the time. Even in a game that size there should only be a few people your willing to fork out for and those are:
1) Your buddies, but you can ask for techs from them or just use it to get the +4 diplo boost
2) Someone stronger than you and your buddies combined, of course you play nice with the person that can kill you

Everyone else can just take the diplo hit. It's not that huge anyway and the penalty goes away eventually (or at least mostly, does anyone know any turn numbers for this?)

And your right, sometimes triangle diplomacy just doesn't work, and in games like that it's time to make one person have the same religion, make a few lopsided tech trades their way, and do what you can to keep them happy. Then winning a diplomatic victory is a matter of you conquering enough people and continuing to feed your pal military techs in exchange for sending him off to take on minor civs you don't need to spend time on.

Now i'm sure more advanced players can swing things around and keep half a dozen civs happy in order to go for a diplomatic victory with little or no warring, but I can't and I know I don't have to do that anyway to win. At least one, but preferably two buddies. I shoot for that in every game I play. Even for conquest, it's nice to have a few friendly civs that I know won't stab me in the back while I'm mopping up the rest of the world.

 

[Willem]

I would constantly get griped at every other turn by an AI leader just for having signed a simple open borders treaty with someone.

You need to check the Diplomatic screen more often. You can use the F4 key. If you have BtS, you can mouse over a portrait and it will tell you whether a civ is a worse enemy of another civ. If it is, don't trade with it or make any deals. Just make deals with the civs that aren't enemies with anyone else in the game. That way no one will ever ask you to stop trading with anyone else, and you can avoid that diplomatic hit.

 

[binhthuy71]

You need to check the Diplomatic screen more often. You can use the F4 key. If you have BtS, you can mouse over a portrait and it will tell you whether a civ is a worse enemy of another civ. If it is, don't trade with it or make any deals. Just make deals with the civs that aren't enemies with anyone else in the game. That way no one will ever ask you to stop trading with anyone else, and you can avoid that diplomatic hit.

Good advice although I have been blindsided more than few times by finding out later that I had initiated trades with the worst enemy of a civ that I hadn't met yet.

 

[Willem]

Good advice although I have been blindsided more than few times by finding out later that I had initiated trades with the worst enemy of a civ that I hadn't met yet.

Well it's pretty hard to avoid it altogether but you can at least try to keep it to a minimum.

 

[Continental Op]

I've won diplomatic victory by vassalizing enough enemies, capturing UN and then putting diplomatic victory to the vote. All of your vassals will vote for you, even if they hate you. I'm sure there is a "proper" way to win it too, but I have no idea how it's done.

 

[naterator]

I always used nuclear diplomacy. Reduce the population of the world until you can vote yourself winner. The lazy man's conquest victory. Haven't done it since vanilla though, so it may or may not still be a viable option.

 

[TheLazyHase]

I always used nuclear diplomacy. Reduce the population of the world until you can vote yourself winner. The lazy man's conquest victory. Haven't done it since vanilla though, so it may or may not still be a viable option.

IIRC, you can't use the vote that declare a winner if anyone have by himself more vote than necessary to win.

I.e. if you don't need anyone else to make the vote pass, then you can't call for it.

(and, yes, it's a change, AFAIK when BtS came up it wasn't the case, leading to a lot of ridiculous win throught Apostolic palace)

 

[naterator]

IIRC, you can't use the vote that declare a winner if anyone have by himself more vote than necessary to win.

I.e. if you don't need anyone else to make the vote pass, then you can't call for it.

(and, yes, it's a change, AFAIK when BtS came up it wasn't the case, leading to a lot of ridiculous win throught Apostolic palace)

Oh good, it really seemed ridiculous to call myself the diplomatic victor under those circumstances. I'm glad they patched it out, i've turned off diplo on most games since the AP was included so i haven't noticed. Guess i should just leave it on and learn to deal with it, but i rarely go the religious path, so i rarely have any say in things.

The vassal route seems like a fair military-diplomatic win to me though. Pure diplo wins are tough for me, but forcing my vassals to vote for me is a good way to wrap a game up (i play huge maps so domination can be SO tedious) but still require you to have the game in hand before winning. (unlike beelining for the bomb and nuking everything in sight)

 

[TheLazyHase]

Oh good, it really seemed ridiculous to call myself the diplomatic victor under those circumstances. I'm glad they patched it out, i've turned off diplo on most games since the AP was included so i haven't noticed. Guess i should just leave it on and learn to deal with it, but i rarely go the religious path, so i rarely have any say in things.

I have never seen the AI being able to propose the victory, maybe it's because of low level. The other effects are not so hard to deal with.

You should try to have it built by another religion group if possible if you plan to warmong a lot, cause the AI is very adept at destroying your advance with it. Even then, there are way out, like being AP resident, or simply invading very fast. On the other hand, if you are in the losing hand of a war, the AP work well to cripple your opponent.

and if you're in building mood you should try to run the AP religion, because every religious building give +2 hammer, even if somebody else had done it. It's pretty potent, and one of the reason I wish there would be a setting to have the AP enabled and diplo victory disabled. Then again, usually it's not too hard to avoid an AI diplomatic victory, since condition are pretty harsh.

 

[binhthuy71]

I always used nuclear diplomacy. Reduce the population of the world until you can vote yourself winner. The lazy man's conquest victory. Haven't done it since vanilla though, so it may or may not still be a viable option.

I haven't seen nukes used in a game since the early days of vanilla. It either works out that I get the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty passed in the UN or I have won (or lost) the game before everyone has nukes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It is very, VERY hard to do it w/o vassals in a 20+ civ game. In standard map sizes it's more plausible. If you're going to play overloaded maps though some things just become more or less viable, and non-vassal diplo is one of the things that's less. Keeping so many civs at +8 or better with wars flung around and so many requests is difficult and frequently impossible.

That's for UN though. You can AP cheese just the same as always by controlling it such that the only civs with real voting power will pick you.

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

I have never seen the AI being able to propose the victory, maybe it's because of low level. The other effects are not so hard to deal with.

This last game I seen an AI do it. I was asked to vote between to AI's (Hammurabi or Michael) for a diplomatic victory. I abstained.

That was with the UN. I had the AP, but I never could get enough votes to win or strong enough +modifiers to get any one to vote for me.

Like you were saying triangle diplomacy. You just have to accept that some civs are going to htae your guts at every move you make and not worry about it. I used to have it stuck in my head too that I needed to try and please everyone. But it's just not possible and you defeat yourself diplomatically. And I agree, you shouldn't be giving away techs all the time. Even in a game that size there should only be a few people your willing to fork out for and those are:
1) Your buddies, but you can ask for techs from them or just use it to get the +4 diplo boost
2) Someone stronger than you and your buddies combined, of course you play nice with the person that can kill you

My problem is that as soon as I give or trade a tech away, the AI seems to trade it all to each other and then in 2 turns every other AI tends to have learned that tech. This is the problem with giving free techs to even your best of friends.

Does doing a trade embargo forbid that civ from trading techs, or is it just open borders/resources that they can't trade if you have them stop trading with someone?

You need to check the Diplomatic screen more often. You can use the F4 key. If you have BtS, you can mouse over a portrait and it will tell you whether a civ is a worse enemy of another civ. If it is, don't trade with it or make any deals. Just make deals with the civs that aren't enemies with anyone else in the game. That way no one will ever ask you to stop trading with anyone else, and you can avoid that diplomatic hit.

I am in the F4 diplo glance screen practicly every turn. The modifiers are all over the place and they change all the time. I think I have seen civs with a simple -1 modifier with a 2nd civ demand that I stop trading with that 2nd civ to "Stop trading with our worst enemy". (When they're not worst enemies, really.) Does a civ that is annoyed with a trading partner ask you to stop trading with that civ?

It is very, VERY hard to do it w/o vassals in a 20+ civ game. In standard map sizes it's more plausible. If you're going to play overloaded maps though some things just become more or less viable, and non-vassal diplo is one of the things that's less. Keeping so many civs at +8 or better with wars flung around and so many requests is difficult and frequently impossible.

That's for UN though. You can AP cheese just the same as always by controlling it such that the only civs with real voting power will pick you.

Thanks. So what everyone is suggesting is Peace through conquest? Very well, to the war victor go to the diplomatic spoils!

 

[Xellos-_^]

Is it even possible when playing with large amounts of Civs?

I am playing 20 or more civs in a perfect world/new world map. Recently I was able to found 4 out of the possible 6 religions and had a large majority of the world included with my state relgion.

However that didn't seem to matter much at all because the AI seemed to have all spuratic and hysterical relations with all the other AI civs, and I could not find any strong ally's that I could trade with, without making some other civ angry. I would constantly get griped at every other turn by an AI leader just for having signed a simple open borders treaty with someone. I was also getting nagged to go to war ALL THE FREAKING TIME. This became a real nightmare for someone wanting a Diplomatic victory because it creates the dellima of either accepting and making the demanding civ happy while taking a negative hit with the target civ and every other civ that has postive modifier relations with that civ, or just declining and making that demanding civ angry with me.

This seemed to happen constantly. And it came to the point where some Civs would demand so many timest that I could litterally make them a mortal enemy just by declining their demands because the modifier stacked so many times from doing so that I got to they hate me and worst enemy status just from that.

Then there's techs. I hate giving techs away all of the time, especially if it's a war tech because I find myself constantly being betrayed by AIs I thought I was in good standings with. I'd rather keep a tech advantage so I don't get ran over by a conquering civ. I tried to gift techs and give into every single request one game, and I found myself towards the bottom of the group in techs by the renaisance era because of it and I couldn't pull myself out. This was after I had an early tech lead but gave it away because of every single Civ that asked for a tech where I gave freely hoping to help for a Diplo win.

But my biggest problem is making triangle diplomacy work with so many civs in the game. No one can seem to agree on anything and no one seems to get along. This means I can't have any real trading partners because it makes all the other civs mad, but worse is that I can't seem to just live peacefully because either way somebody is getting peeved off at me for not going to war on their behalf, or actually going to war on their behalf.

It seems like a no win situation.

Is it even possible to win a Diplomatic victory with so many civs? How do you win a diplomatic victory? I could really use you guys' experience and advice.

as others have said the best form of diplomacy is gunboat diplomacy. He (she) who has the most guns gets the most votes

 

[ChaucersSquire]

To my great surprise, I won very quickly once not too long after the BC/AD mark due to a diplomatic victory. When it occurred, I didn't even realize how I won. To date, this was my fastest victory - and I have played a great number of games. This is the short narrative of how it went down.

I had decided to try to discover every religion just to see if I could pull it off. In my process of doing this, I traded many technologies to try to speed up the process. I played the Romans, and did my best to befriend the Chinese, who was doing a lot of fighting - and I wanted them to leave me alone. I would trade technology with them often just so that they wouldn't attack me. I had become quite weak militarily, but again, I was hoping that by appeasing China that they would leave me alone.

It seemed my only way of winning was to build the Apostolic Palace and trying for a diplomatic victory. I rushed to build it and was successful. Though I voted for myself frequently, China continued to abstain, and I didn't end up with enough votes to take control.

Once, in a desperate move to gain their favor, I accepted their request to help them attack an enemy. This made them quite pleased. Though I accepted their request, I actually didn't do any fighting. I really didn't have any troops anyway.

Soon after this, the Apostolic Vote came up. I wanted to vote for a Diplomatic Victory, and voted for myself to win. To my surprise, China also voted for me. It was enough to put me over and win. I am still surprised by this win to this day. Though I have never tried to recreate this scenario, I would imagine that by accepting to go to war together with the leading AI in points, I would have another quick victory.

 

[SewerStarFish]

I have never seen the AI being able to propose the victory, maybe it's because of low level. The other effects are not so hard to deal with.

Sometimes when I am not the AP holder or the next biggest civ I get lazy and just always vote for the same AI, of course always abstaining the diplo votes. I once accidentally voted an AI into a diplomatic victory. I saw that my measly few votes put him over the top.

D'oh.

 

[lindsay40k]

Easy fam. Conquer enough vassals to give yourself a big enough block vote to win, and then gift 1pop arctic settlements to the heathen Theocracies to get the faith in there and enable Religious Leader.

If you're not yet AP resident or don't yet have a big enough vote to veto Stop The Fighting, get your stacks all in position on a brother's borders. Soon as a motion comes and goes, invade and vassalise them before the next vote comes round. Avoid razing - you want your pets to have a good vote - but captures some high pop core cities, both for the Wonders (always handy) and votes. Soon as you're in control of - or neutered - the AP, conquer each brother as and when it's possible.

You'll need to do a bit of juggling, like. One of your vassals will be a candidate, and vote for themselves; you'll need enough votes from the others to outnumber them - and the heathen abstainers - 3:1. Might even need to conquer and mass-convert a heathen or two if you don't have the biggest vote and three brothers under your thumb. All do-able, and less of a fuss than having to conquer EVERYONE. (Most of my would-be Conquest wins turn into Diplo wins, to avoid long grindfests and add a bit of variety to things.)

 

[lindsay40k]

Sometimes when I am not the AP holder or the next biggest civ I get lazy and just always vote for the same AI, of course always abstaining the diplo votes. I once accidentally voted an AI into a diplomatic victory. I saw that my measly few votes put him over the top.

D'oh.

Ouch!

Other day on Emperor, Saladin proposed RL immediately after I gave Isabel the token wasteland settlement to get her heathen butt into the voting chamber.

Thing is, Saladin was the last remaining brother not under my thumb; if I'd had ten more votes, my block would have snatched that pope-hat off him without the need for my subsequent invasion. Hah!

So, I guess they will call a vote on higher levels... though not necessarily in a smart way.