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

[Sagax]

Can you continually make trades for the other civs' diplomatic favor so they don't have any to spend on votes?

No, eventually they stop accepting the trade once it is evident that you are stockpiling the Favor.

 

[CPWimmer]

Reaching an Alliance Level of 3 should award a Diplomatic Victory point to both you and your ally.

Do this plus make it so Level 2 or higher Alliances prevents the player (human or AI) from voting Against your ally for leader.

That would make that last vote a bit more palatable.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Do this plus make it so Level 2 or higher Alliances prevents the player (human or AI) from voting Against your ally for leader.

That would make that last vote a bit more palatable.

And lose the Victory Point if the Alliance ends for any reason.

 

[Sagax]

And lose the Victory Point if the Alliance ends for any reason.

....like it expiring naturally? You can’t keep it going at all times, it’s a deal that expires and then requires renewal. Also, sometimes AI refuses to renew DoF->Alliance for no apparent reason. No thanks...

 

[Thibaulthc]

The diplomatic victory should be related to the new system of grievances!
How could you win the diplomatic way if half the world hates you??
This kind of victory should be reachable only in a peaceful playthrough, from the start.

 

[returnofbabylon]

....like it expiring naturally? You can’t keep it going at all times, it’s a deal that expires and then requires renewal. Also, sometimes AI refuses to renew DoF->Alliance for no apparent reason. No thanks...

This is definitely a good point, but my main reaction is that there's no way a level 3 alliance - literally the closest form of diplomatic relations in the game - ought to expire for literally no reason.

The whole way everything diplomacy-related in VI expires after a certain number of turns, from trade deals to open borders to alliances, makes this aspect of the game tedious, and unnecessarily so. It should be possible to limit a diplomatic agreement to a certain number of turns; making it mandatory to do so is madness. If I want a permanent alliance I should be able to have one, and then either side should be able to cancel it (with penalties for doing so).

 

[CPWimmer]

The diplomatic victory should be related to the new system of grievances!
How could you win the diplomatic way if half the world hates you??
This kind of victory should be reachable only in a peaceful playthrough, from the start.

I agree that it should be related to the grievance system in some way - but I don't think that what happened hundreds (or thousands) of years ago in the Ancient, Classical and even Medieval eras should have an impact on the end game Diplomatic victory.

 

[teakbois]

I thought of a cool possible way to earn diplo points that could be added: peacefully freeing a city state. Either by loyalty flip or convincing another civ to release it (that would need to be implemented)

 

[iammaxhailme]

"joint victory" should be a thing too.

Not sure about that, but I think that once victory is achieved, the game should continue until somebody gets 2nd place, then 3rd, etc until everyone has placed.

Then again who would want to play after they win? Maybe it's a bad idea. Plus if the first winner will probably be able to use their advances to mold the next winners...

 

[leandrombraz]

Next vote: There's no words to describe what I'm feeling, only tears:

 

[leandrombraz]

I got the climate accords that give a point but now I have 6 points, so I need another from another source. Aid request?

If that tornado wasn't worth an Aid Request, idk what is. The fact is that it's unlikely I'll win one vote, let alone two, so I either get it from another source or GG.

 

[leandrombraz]

I just got the "When Diplomacy fails achievement". It failed. Against my will I'm officially in the "you don't need to outvote if there's nobody to vote" business. I consider this a defeat and take no joy in my actions.

In my defense, Seondeok took Auckland. Nobody takes Auckland. Dido did nothing but she got the favors. Say hi to the Giant Death Robot, Dido. He brings nothing but much needed Democracy.

 

[Yzman]

I won my first diplo game with no issue.

The issue as evidenced by this topic appears to be the amount of players, which maybe inherently makes sense. The more people you have, the less likely you have to win a diplo victory.

I was doing a small map with 6 players and was able to outvote them all. I also got vote from SOL, and the techs that give it.

Another possible issue is the 2fold voting that exists. People could vote different things but as long as they are B's, the B's take it. A leader actually picking what the resolution is, instead of the current A/B system may work better.

 

[Chocolate Pi]

Root problem A: The pool of total possible VPs is way too small. Even with Statue of Liberty or CO2 project, it's 120 turns of endgame Congresses from a dominant position. What's more, the total pool doesn't scale with the number of players!

Secondary problem B: It requires an extreme degree of favor domination to prevent other players (AI or human) from clicking the button that prevents you from winning. (As they should!) This degree does scale: Outvoting 3 players with a paltry 210 favor each takes around 2300 per Congress. Outvoting 6 players takes about 8800!

Unrelated but adjacent problem: Contest rewards are a joke. Build Stadiums and run projects for 30 turns to get +2 Tourism per Campus? If you have 6 Campuses, a single builder can generate the same amount of Tourism on any 3 random mountains. (+3 amenities!) And you know what you can do with your Spaceport for 30 turns that helps the Space projects go faster than the ISS reward? Actually running Space projects!



Solution to A: Way more Diplo Victory points. All contests give one to the winner, plus more favor to the runners up. CO2 capture should give 2 points to the winner, plus 1 point to 2nd place. (Which can be multiple people, so this helps with scaling.)

Solution to B: You can't target a player with a negative resolution unless you or an ally have grievance against them.


At this rate, a player who is nice to everyone but wins every contest (requiring dominance in production, GPP, stadiums, and spaceports...) will be able to win after 60 turns of congress votes while only needing 2x as much Favor as everyone else. This would still be the slowest victory path (and would probably need more buffs to be in-line), but at least it's actually attable + fitting with the flavor.

Note that if you are going for a Domination or Religious Victory, the associated Greivances mean you still need that crazy 40x Favor to force Diplomatic win--this makes DV "cheap" only for people who play nice!

Bonus: Canada's contest perk majorly buffed to "When you place 2nd or 3rd in a contest, you gain the reward for 1 place higher." With these changes, Sweden and Canada might prefer Diplomatic victory to Cultural. Literally no one else would though--still too slow and requires risky contest-chasing.

 

[leandrombraz]

Root problem A: The pool of total possible VPs is way too small. Even with Statue of Liberty or CO2 project, it's 120 turns of endgame Congresses from a dominant position. What's more, the total pool doesn't scale with the number of players!

Secondary problem B: It requires an extreme degree of favor domination to prevent other players (AI or human) from clicking the button that prevents you from winning. (As they should!) This degree does scale: Outvoting 3 players with a paltry 210 favor each takes around 2300 per Congress. Outvoting 6 players takes about 8800!

The way it scale is just ridiculous. This match single handled destroyed any fun I was having with the expansion, which I was enjoying. I don't even feel like playing Civ VI anymore, to be honest. It's like I got punished for playing too well and everything I did didn't matter.

 

[Disgustipated]

I think I made a mistake in my current Sweden game playing a large map and disabling culture victory. I wanted the smorgasbord achievement so I made a large map, but I also want to get my first diplomatic victory.

I'll play as long as I can (it's only King level), I'll do science victory if I have to. Or break out the GDR which I have yet to use (and still need the achievement for).

 

[leandrombraz]

I think I made a mistake in my current Sweden game playing a large map and disabling culture victory. I wanted the smorgasbord achievement so I made a large map, but I also want to get my first diplomatic victory.

I'll play as long as I can (it's only King level), I'll do science victory if I have to. Or break out the GDR which I have yet to use (and still need the achievement for).

If you still early in your game, just don't play too well. Seriously, delay you own progress, don't worry about science or culture, don't worry about favors, don't worry about anything, just play lousy. You want to have a decent amount of favors but there's no need to maximize it, you won't win that vote anyway, don't even try. Do what others recommended in this thread and try to delay the points you get on the tech and civic tree in the future era, you want them to be your two last points. If you do that, all you need is more favors than the AI that have more favors, that isn't a lot. You need to time it right though, if you get 8 points and them take too long to get your last two points, another congress will happen and you will lose a point. You need to research the tech/civic exactly on that 30 turns window between getting 8 points and losing one. You have to cheesy the system to win because it's rigged against you.

Also pray to RNGesus to give you Aid Requests.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Unrelated but adjacent problem: Contest rewards are a joke. Build Stadiums and run projects for 30 turns to get +2 Tourism per Campus? If you have 6 Campuses, a single builder can generate the same amount of Tourism on any 3 random mountains. (+3 amenities!) And you know what you can do with your Spaceport for 30 turns that helps the Space projects go faster than the ISS reward? Actually running Space projects!

Some play balance issues simply need a lot of time in the field to evaluate, because the game is complex and the interactions between the various systems make it hard to evaluate on the whiteboard how something may play out.

Others, though, are simple math and could have been evaluated during game design. You've pointed out two examples of that here, but there are others that plague the underlying economic system of Civ 6 and have persisted since the beginning (Tier 3 buildings and Wonders being prime examples).

I really feel like the dev team could benefit by adding someone who's good with return on investment and time value of money calculations. You can see what the developers are trying to do and their ideas are usually good. But when it's time to add numbers to the effects, they struggle with evaluating benefits versus opportunity costs.

 

[Chocolate Pi]

Some play balance issues simply need a lot of time in the field to evaluate, because the game is complex and the interactions between the various systems make it hard to evaluate on the whiteboard how something may play out.

Others, though, are simple math and could have been evaluated during game design. You've pointed out two examples of that here, but there are others that plague the underlying economic system of Civ 6 and have persisted since the beginning (Tier 3 buildings and Wonders being prime examples).

I really feel like the dev team could benefit by adding someone who's good with return on investment and time value of money calculations. You can see what the developers are trying to do and their ideas are usually good. But when it's time to add numbers to the effects, they struggle with evaluating benefits versus opportunity costs.

I normally hesitate to criticize stuff like this, because it's highly iterative and we have the vantage point of only seeing the final iteration. But there does seem to be a consistent issue in Civ 6 with late-game math being underbaked. (T3 buildings being a super clear example, as you highlighted.)

 

[Disgustipated]

If you still early in your game, just don't play too well. Seriously, delay you own progress, don't worry about science or culture, don't worry about favors, don't worry about anything, just play lousy. You want to have a decent amount of favors but there's no need to maximize it, you won't win that vote anyway, don't even try. Do what others recommended in this thread and try to delay the points you get on the tech and civic tree in the future era, you want them to be your two last points. If you do that, all you need is more favors than the AI that have more favors, that isn't a lot. You need to time it right though, if you get 8 points and them take too long to get your last two points, another congress will happen and you will lose a point. You need to research the tech/civic exactly on that 30 turns window between getting 8 points and losing one. You have to cheesy the system to win because it's rigged against you.

Whoops, too late for that as well. My culture is already skyrocketing. And my science is starting to skyrocket as well since I did want to take advantage of that great scientist bonus. Oh well, we'll see what happens. I do believe it's possible, I seen Quill do it in his very first Canada game. Well technically he won by space, but had he delayed his space victory 1 or 2 turns he would have won the cultural victory. He even played after the win to prove he could have done it. He was at 7 points, got the vote to get to 9 and won the climate accords on the same turn. My goal in my game is to try to get an odd number. I just hope I can get Statue of Liberty built, I don't have a lot of good places to build it.