[GS] I'm not playing another Diplomatic Victory into some serious changes are made

Okay, I wasn't believing that the AI going after you in the last vote was pure BS, I didn't think it would be too extreme but holy crab:




78 votes!!!!! I would need 30810 favors to win that thing!!!! The AI trying to stop you is cool but that is way, waaaay more than I asked for. Now I have 7 points, there's no other source of points showing up, not a single one, which means I still have 60 turns ahead of me if the AI don't pull one of those on me again, if they do it's 90 turns!!! I'm not playing another diplomatic into the next patch, it's horrible that this can happen. I'm on turn 312, I can win a thousand culturals before I win a diplomatic and have way more fun in the process.

I'll win a cultural before I win that for sure. I been holding back on tourism really hard but there's no way. Cultural is broken because it goes too fast. Diplomatic is broken because of this nonsense. Mix on that the fact that Civs that are good at diplomatic are also good at cultural and the fact you want culture for diplomacy since there's some good sources of favors at the end of the tree, and you have a complete disaster, not the fun kind. I'm usually not that negative but seriously, that is just not working. The AI need to get better at their cultural game and stop with this nonsense at the last vote of the diplo victory.

If at least I could get diplo points from more sources but the whole game I got one! One single, sad aid emergency to help Canada.


They need to, at least:

• Put a leash on the AI going against the player in that last vote. 78 votes is to much, period. At least my allies should give me a few votes, it's a diplomatic victory, right? Leaders that are going going for diplomatic should be more likely to vote for themselves than against. Everyone going against the player like that is just not fun;
• Decrease the interval between each congress in late game. 20 turns is more than enough, 15 might be better once you are this late into the game. Losing a vote is just too punishing with the congress taking so long to happen;
• Increase the number of emergencies and scored competitions that give points or add more variety of sources for those. Getting only one chance to get a point like I did shouldn't happen, ever;
• Seriously, 78 votes is too much, nerf that thing down to oblivion... and give the AI some domestic tourists!!!

I was enjoying the experience into I got to that point, despite having to dodge my own cultural victory. I'm not going down that road again. Good bye diplomatic victory, see you in a month or whenever Firaxis fix this.

 

Stop at 7 points. Don't research seasteads tech.
They will still vote against you when you have 7 but not as badly.

I agree its a lousy victory condition though and the worst thing about GS

 

I was surprised the first time this happened and lost the game after the second, but I do have some tips:

Your resolution didn't pass, so you still have all your favour. Your opponents just spent 78 votes' worth of favour they aren't getting back in a hurry. My second Congress ended with me short by three votes - over half of the opposing civs' favour came from a single civ, and I could have won it if I'd won the preceding competition (Climate Accords).

The trick seems to be to wear the AI down with successive resolutions, since whenever they succeed you'll keep your favour and lose theirs. For my next game I'm going to try targeted resolutions aimed at the opposing civ with the most favour - that way if they want to stop you they'll use a lot of favour and, again, you won't.

Or you could just buy all the opposing civs' favour before the vote.

 

Seasteads is on the way to the last tech that I can repeat, at least in the random future era I got. There's no skipping it. Same for global warming. It's also counter productive. The last tech add 5% production towards City projects, which meant more CO2 converted into favors. It basically fall into the same issue I have with dark ages, which you can't get unless you do bad plays on purpose. I would need to hurt my science on purpose, in a game I'm already hurting my tourism on purpose in order to be able to workaround a bad mechanic. Speaking of that, I probably can win a science victory before the next world congress even happen and I'm not even trying.


Edit: I did delay seasteads for that reason, btw but it was way earlier, before I got my 5-6 points. By now I already researched it an eternity ago.

Yeah, I'm likely to win next vote but there's no guarantee that I'll get that point I lost on this vote. I'm not getting any emergency/scored competition that give points. I got the world games though, that give me more tourism, like I need that, and it's impossible to lose. So I win next vote and then I need to win another, which I can't guarantee I'll win since I'll be the one spending favors next vote, so the vote after that might be just as impossible to reach. Not that any of this will happen, off course, I can't stop my cultural by now.

 

Get up to 8 votes with the WC. Then stop. From then on, pick option B and target someone else with all your Favor. Get the last two some other way.

 

When the game is too hard, people complain. When the game is too easy, people complain. On balance, I'd rather the game be too hard than too easy.

This happened to me last game and I was eventually able to overcome all their favor b/c they lost it, then got the last points through aid packages

 

Oh, now that's an idea. I can save the vote I lost, at least. Captain Savescum, time to save the day!

Though I really don't trust the game giving me this last two points, it definitely won't happen before the next congress, which mean I still stuck with a cultural approaching fast. I'm also unlikely to win the next vote since then the AI won't lose its favors on this one. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

 

I would imagine this would be a nightmare to win on larger maps...
They really need to tweak the number of votes to scale inversely with the number of civs... And make world leader votes separate from normal sessions (like in BNW) occurring more frequently (once per 10-20 turns seems fair enough)

 

That's not being hard, I won 150 turns ago. I'm holding myself back really hard to get a diplomatic victory and there's no way I'll actually lose, even if I avoid my cultural somehow, I'll inevitably win eventually by any victory*. That's not hard, that's annoying.

Edit: *Any victory but religious. I think that boat already sailed, the faith just isn't there.

 

Its a VC the AI doesn't even compete in, they just block you at the very end. That's not a good kind of hard
The concept of diplo favor itself is solid. Running alliances, suzerains...Being a suzerain for 100 turns and losing it one turn before WC is irrelevant, which is nice. The groundwork is there for a solid diplo victory. They just need a better system.

 

It seems like a good idea to save teching Seasteads and Global Warming Mitigation until after you get the 8 from WC resolutions and Aid Emergencies.

 

It's but I did that when I was about to go for 6 since that's when I was close to researching both techs. For this to be practical, I would have to hold back on my science and culture to avoid researching it before time. By that point, diplomacy will be the victory that you win by playing as bad as possible: Don't get too much tourism or you win a cultural. Don't get too much science and culture or the AI will pile up on you. As a player who likes to do things as well as possible, this is heresy.

 

Ideally you get a few aid events. If you can get 3 plus statue of liberty you only have to go through with two votes.
Maybe just put disasters at 4? And scout, scout, scout. Need to meet all AIs and get envoys to all city states so you can get in on the action.

 

Disasters are at 4. They are happening frequently, special sessions to vote for aid aren't. If I get an aid emergency now I'll cry of happiness, like someone that find water (or Petra) after days walking in a desert.


Update: The AI learned how to use spies at City States or/and is using all the envoys they hoarded so far. I'm losing CS right and left (I had all CS). I almost got a CS emergency, which I hoped would trigger a special session, maybe with a forgotten aid emergency there to give me that final point but Korea gave up on conquering Muscat halfway through.

 

During my last game i was getting some offerings to ask for aid. Once i was hit by a megacolossal erruption, and two other times i wasn't even hit by anything. The thing is that why should i or anyone ask for aid? It will help your opponent and you will recieve maybe just a little bit of gold (if you even recieve it). And what send aid projects do then? This emergency should start automatically or it makes no sence.

 

Can you kill pretty much everyone and then win diplo?

 

This just happened to me too. Maori deity game, going cultural or diplomatic. Thought I would have diplomatic first because I'd accumulated 9 points, the Congress was coming up, and a competition had just started which awarded one victory point. So even if I failed the vote, I still had the competition to get that last point. I put everything I had into the vote and all my opponents voted to take away a point, and I ended up with 8. So I had lost progress, and now I needed the competition just to get back to where I was. I won a cultural victory with my squadron of rock bands about 10 turns later. Both before and after the vote, every civilization refused to sell me even a single point of diplomatic favor.

 

So kill everyone until there's only one dude left, and then diplo him.

 

That's not very dimplomatic. More like like forcing to give up.

 

That's the classic way of winning Diplo in older Civ games.

Nuke everyone and then win Diplo because the other civs don't have the population to counter your votes.