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

Finished my forced Diplo Win just now - that is, disabling CV and RV from the beginning and never building the last space project.

GOD was it painful...If you think SV is boring, I dare you to try and aim for DipV. There is nothing you can do to speed up the victory in a significant way, and the intervals between sessions become unbearable. They really need to shorten the intervals closer to the end game, or add something to make this VC more engaging. As of now, it's essentially the exact same slog as it was in Civ 5. Replace Gold with Favor, and you end up with the same winning strategy: stockpile the currency, do nothing big until the last vote, dump everything and win - with Seateed or Statue of Liberty as a finisher to avoid all AIs voting against you. By the way: correct me if I'm wrong, but none of the "other means" mentioned in this thread are reliable. Aid is RNG - I got none in my winning game, despite the climate ramping to lvl 7. Seasteed and Carbon Recapture civic are generated randomly in the future tech tree - you are lucky if they're a leaf tech/civic, and you are kinda doomed if not. Statue of Liberty is a wonder, so subject to being snatched by the AI.

Suppose that the intended strategy was to bait AIs into wasting their favor when voting against you, and then run over them. This has two big issues:

1. The future policy card that refunds 50% of your spent favor if you have successfully downvoted the DipV runaway. I don't know if AI is smart enough to use this, but the tool is there.
2. Score victory. I know many like to just disable it, but the fact is: if you got to the point where you are baiting AI for favor, you may actually end up with Score Victory first. I won my DipV on Turn 285/330 (Quick speed), by winning every DipV vote that was presented and completing the leaf-tech Seasteed (also Carbon Recapture earlier on, because it was not a leaf civic). The WC interval on Quick is every 25 turns - meaning if I hadn't won on Turn 285, I would've had only one more WC round, on Turn 310, to grab the votes before Score Victory kicked in. How does that makes sense?

I understand that they want us to get to late game instead of going into space and winning in the Industrial era. But not like this... this feels like torture.

Unless Firaxis is hinting "Hey, you could just reduce the amount of Favor against you by reducing the number of civs capable of generating Favor" - making DipV Domination 3.0
 
Increase disaster rate. I got most of my points from aid, whenever someone requests aid vote in favour, that way you can easily focus on sending them gold/working on the project.

Use the right late game policies to take over city states and then the right policies for diplomatic favour.


That should do. Ah also wonders related to envoys and diplomatic favour are nice to have.


Edit: also some.competitions give you envoys as a result I think not world games but perhaps the world fair?
 
My first Dip game I have +17 a turn and on 350 GPT and it is T120... no emergencies yet... I have 0 dip votes so far amd could be racing away with any victory. I am not sure I need to do this victory in its current form.
To be honest, I have won every game very easily, the only thing of interest was a mass barb camp spam that happened one game which just adds to the insanity.
I’m going back to just playing deity CV’s... as in you play the game for about 200 turns doing what you want them get a CV or just start another. Dip Victory sounds like a score victory with more frustration.
 
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Won two diplomacy victories so far on emperor with little to no interference from the competition. Just save up your points for when those vote become available.
Guess my first victory was mostly a case of FOMO, getting those points just in case. When I had eight the victory was inevitable because there is a point to be had in both the tech and the civic tree.
 
When the game was just out I found myself staring in surprise at the defeat screen a couple times because of not paying attention to the victory screen. Religion and culture can sneak up on you, same would go for diplomacy.
 
This is just a fundamental problem with the concept of a Diplomatic Victory in a Civ game.

The idea that you can have a competitive game where each player is trying to win, but one of those victory conditions requires some sort of election by the other players is just a non-starter.

You either have to stack the deck in the diplo player's favour by making influence easy to monopolise (like Civ V did, making it more of an Economic Victory), or make the AI purposefully throw the game by voting for the player (or simply abstaining). The OP might be in a lousy situation, but those AI are acting precisely the way they should, the way any human player would in the same situation.

Still it seems like this can be avoided by carefully timing your acquisition of the victory points.

I really don't know why people insist that Diplomatic Victories should be a thing in Civ, as they're rarely satisfying and often frustrating.
 
MarigoldRan said:
Can you kill pretty much everyone and then win diplo?
Click to expand...

Uberfrog said:
I really don't know why people insist that Diplomatic Victories should be a thing in Civ, as they're rarely satisfying and often frustrating
Click to expand...

It should somehow actually reward peaceful play, you should get a malus when declaring wars other than liberation and protection. Now you can warmonger away and still get a victory movie about how you strife for peace and coperation.
 
Uberfrog said:
This is just a fundamental problem with the concept of a Diplomatic Victory in a Civ game.

The idea that you can have a competitive game where each player is trying to win, but one of those victory conditions requires some sort of election by the other players is just a non-starter.

You either have to stack the deck in the diplo player's favour by making influence easy to monopolise (like Civ V did, making it more of an Economic Victory), or make the AI purposefully throw the game by voting for the player (or simply abstaining). The OP might be in a lousy situation, but those AI are acting precisely the way they should, the way any human player would in the same situation.

Still it seems like this can be avoided by carefully timing your acquisition of the victory points.

I really don't know why people insist that Diplomatic Victories should be a thing in Civ, as they're rarely satisfying and often frustrating.
Click to expand...

The only way I see that it could work is if you brought back vassals and forced vassals to vote for you. Then the diplomatic victory would be like a soft domination victory where if you are big enough and maybe took their capital too, to make a couple civs your vassal, they would vote for you and you could get enough votes that way to win.
 
Civilizations should be deducted a Diplomatic Victory point each time they conquer another’s capital, and only be refunded that point if they return the capital at in the peace agreement. Completely eliminating another civilization should deduct a further Diplomatic Victory point.
 
Honestly, the current World Congress mechanics seems like it's maybe just one small patch away from being perfect.

It's possible there's a little too much favour or perhaps it needs to decay? I'd also like to have colonial cities and having nukes generate favour (perhaps linked to policy cards), just to boost settling colonial cities in particular and for favour.

And more emergencies and resolutions are always welcome.
 
World Congress rears it's ugly head again, worst bit of Civ V, is now the worst bit of Civ VI. You can't even get votes from your allies.
 
MarigoldRan said:
Can you kill pretty much everyone and then win diplo?
Click to expand...

That is the saddest part, I can. It would be easier to win a diplomatic by now if I go full warmonger and reduce the amount of votes against me than if I try to be diplomatic. If I wanted to conquer everyone I would be going for domination, so if this is how you win a diplo victory, you might as well remove it from the game. We already have domination, which is more fun and doesn't drag unnecessarily.


Sagax said:
Suppose that the intended strategy was to bait AIs into wasting their favor when voting against you, and then run over them. This has two big issues:

1. The future policy card that refunds 50% of your spent favor if you have successfully downvoted the DipV runaway. I don't know if AI is smart enough to use this, but the tool is there.
Click to expand...

The math is ridiculously against the player. Assuming I win the next vote easy because the AI don't think I'm winning anymore (I have 7 points), and I still don't get any point from other sources (by now I'm sure the special session isn't properly working, AKA bug), I'll still have a pile of favors to get that last vote but the AI will pile on me again. If each of the 10 AIs in my game get 100 favors, which isn't hard to get in 60 turns, and invest all against me, I'll need 12750 favor to win. With all my cities converting CO2, I'll have that. If they get only 50 more favors, it goes up to 17700. By then one vote cost me 600 favors and the AI can get the same vote for 60 and screw me up. All the leaders going after you on that last vote is such a bad mechanic, it's not even funny.


Metecury said:
Increase disaster rate. I got most of my points from aid, whenever someone requests aid vote in favour, that way you can easily focus on sending them gold/working on the project.

Use the right late game policies to take over city states and then the right policies for diplomatic favour.

That should do. Ah also wonders related to envoys and diplomatic favour are nice to have.

Edit: also some.competitions give you envoys as a result I think not world games but perhaps the world fair?
Click to expand...

Disaster rate is at 4, they are happening often but I'm not getting aid requests. I got one in early game and never got another special session again. I already have all CS (had, AI started reacting in the last 10 turns. My spies are on it). I'm making 50 favors per turn + 13 cities converting CO2 every 2 to 3 turns + last tech in the civic tree giving me 50 every 2 turns + a few great people that still available (Sweden). I'm generating a ridiculous amount of favors, it's as maximized as it's possible. Getting more favors isn't the problem. I'm swimming on favors and it doesn't matter.
 
Uberfrog said:
This is just a fundamental problem with the concept of a Diplomatic Victory in a Civ game.

The idea that you can have a competitive game where each player is trying to win, but one of those victory conditions requires some sort of election by the other players is just a non-starter.

You either have to stack the deck in the diplo player's favour by making influence easy to monopolise (like Civ V did, making it more of an Economic Victory), or make the AI purposefully throw the game by voting for the player (or simply abstaining). The OP might be in a lousy situation, but those AI are acting precisely the way they should, the way any human player would in the same situation.

Still it seems like this can be avoided by carefully timing your acquisition of the victory points.

I really don't know why people insist that Diplomatic Victories should be a thing in Civ, as they're rarely satisfying and often frustrating.
Click to expand...

I would rater see the AI roleplaying in the congress than trying to simulate human behavior. As a SP game, it would make so much sense if there was clear ways for the AI to vote for me, that I can manipulate somehow and really play the politics of it. A good way would be if we could help the AI on their objective, if they are going for another victory, in exchange they will vote for me in the congress. I give you a great work for your cultural, you give me some votes. It even solve the problem of a player cultural victory creeping in since I will increase the AI culture and decrease my tourism. I been doing that already, I need to sell my great works to slow down my tourism and give Kongo a little push. Honestly, anything is better than the current AI behavior in the congress.

One of my favorite things in Civ is manipulating the AI, so I'm all in for a diplo victory where the AI just roleplay and accept its destiny as victim of my machinations, instead of simulating a player trying to win.
 
I think the only real solution is to allow City States to vote for you in the World Congress when the victory points come up for vote. Obviously you should not expect your competition to vote for you and this is exactly why city states were introduced in Civ5 in the first place, to provide someone else to vote for you and allow for the possibility of winning a Diplomatic victory even in multiplayer which was brilliant. Unfortunately it was broken because you could just buy them as an ally right before the vote.

In Civ6 you can't do that anymore, you have to earn and keep suzerain status by investing in envoys over time and with spies. So, if they go back to the Civ 5 idea of having City States vote for the civs that helped or invested in them the most it would solve all these problems and make the city state game directly tied into a victory condition which is really why they were added to the game in the first place.
 
I like the concept of a diplomatic victory but this implementation needs work. One issue with the current system is that the more players in the game makes it near impossible to win by voting since votes cost more as you increase. Since the down votes from incremental other players outpace your ability to vote for yourself you are actually incented to eliminate AIs to help reduce the number of down votes. It devolves into gaming the tech/civic that grant a point and praying for a couple of easy to win emergencies which the AI puts no focus on (even those going for diplomatic victories). I usually win the send aid with 500-1000 gold on immortal which is a cheap price for 1 point.

The other core issue is that even if the voting was working better I feel like the voting is just boring and your negative and positive relationships with the AIs has little to no impact on the process. There is no incentive to vote for anyone but yourself. I am picturing a system where you don't win by voting for yourself which means that to win you actually need to keep strong relationships with the other AIs / City states. Maybe through the course of the game every voting session includes an elimination round where everyone gets a "score" by using relationship levels with the AIs, city states, grievances, emergency support etc and the worst score(s) gets eliminated from future cycles until you are left with a single winner. Since it's a calculation its something that could be displayed so it's not a surprise. The timing and # of civs eliminated would need to be carefully tuned and scale but this would mean you would need to try and maintain good relationships through the whole game with as much of the players as possible.
 
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