In BNW how to NOT go diplomatic victory?

pulli23

Chieftain
Joined
Aug 10, 2014
Messages
11
Well in all my games in BNW I seem to get a diplomatic victory. It just feels too natural to go for that. I am playing on emperor difficulty.

It is so easy to just keep in your own borders, focus on science, stay host & then trade votes/buy citystates.

Especially as you wish to get as many citystates as possible anyways. And this is even strengthened by your ability to "plan" what happens if you have the majority of the votes.

Is ignoring the world congress even viable? Especially scientific victory seems to be overshadowed by this condition. In my latter 5 games I wished to go for scientific victory but end game I just saw the diplomatic victory thrown into my face.

But also in @ epic speed/large map size it's easy - while I was going for full conqueror I was thrown in the face with standing army taxes. Which I then had to undo, but in the process I got so many city state friends that end game diplomatic victory became easier.
 
I know this really won't help you a lot, but I do agree, in almost all my BnW games, I literally get DV handed on a platter. Certainly, one can choose not to take it, but that doesn't really make much sense. Ignoring the World Congress generally does not seem advisable, because AIs has an erratic, to say the least, way of making suggestions (and you will end up with all the luxuries in the world banned).

I modded the game so that DV voting starts an era later, which definitely helps the issue a lot. Sure, I still get DV most of the times, but at least not as early as before. In my last game I actually got a cultural victory a handful of turns before I would have gotten the diplomatic victory, and I didn't even play super cultural from start.

I think one issue is that on Emperor level, the AIs are not very protective of their city state allies. You can buy out every city state a couple of turns before voting, and the AI will just sit iddle and let you win, even if they have plenty of gold in the bank. That's a bit frustrating.
 
You don't need to use all your votes in the WL vote, just use enough to win it(but not outright). SV requires you to be somewhat single-minded in that approach, detours into any other trees except Rationalism and Freedom(if planning on buying your parts) will slow you down. I actually find CV usually gets in the way of a "normal" SV as I will always take the opportunity to build useful wonders etc.....
 
Diplomatic Victory often is the fastest of the peaceful types.
Also the ideal path of science to take in BNW is mostly the same for all paths. (Science is King) It's in the modern era that they diverge. Prior to that point your pushing science hard for all of them.
(In case of Cultural Victory to reach Internet and also to have been first to a few key wonders, in case of Diplomatic Victory to reach Globalism)
 
As King/Emperor level player I find Cultural to be quick and easy and more interesting.
 
On what turn are you winning these Diplomatic victories? If they are past turn 250, then the problem is you are focusing your funds towards diplomatic advantages, rather than using those funds to improve your other victory conditions.

If you don't want to win with diplomacy, buy your science buildings and get RA's with your gold. You could spend that gold to build culture faster, or buying military units or buildings.

Clearly you are well versed in spending gold to get votes, but if you want to win another condition, spend it towards those victory conditions instead.
 
On what turn are you winning these Diplomatic victories? If they are past turn 250, then the problem is you are focusing your funds towards diplomatic advantages, rather than using those funds to improve your other victory conditions.

If you don't want to win with diplomacy, buy your science buildings and get RA's with your gold. You could spend that gold to build culture faster, or buying military units or buildings.

Clearly you are well versed in spending gold to get votes, but if you want to win another condition, spend it towards those victory conditions instead.

Well take a (direct) competor for example: scientific victory. Even buying all science buildings (last game I won diplomatic victory but had ~3k beakers at the end); Long before you get close to scientific victory you start the era with the world leader vote.

Then you have 30 turns "left" in the game basically. Now at this point you first need to still discover a lot AND build everything. As said last game I had massive bpt (amazon, so lots and lots of jungle). However a scientific victory was still around 10ish turns away, even though I focussed fully on that in the end.

What I did before getting to the world vote wouldn't really matter; it would've sped up both victories equally fast. It's just that in those last 30 turns you can so easily get enough city states - and I can't see how you can get anywhere near a science victory. (Or cultural/letting internet techs work for that matter).
Only way I could foresee this being postponed is if getting enough allied city states would be much harder. (number much higher/allies only vote if they're allies for 30+ turns). right now you just earn around 10k and you win last turn.
 
Play a game with ghengis khan and befriend him. By the end of the game, there might be four CSs left!
 
Play a game with ghengis khan and befriend him. By the end of the game, there might be four CSs left!

I actually found that Khan is less of a threat to city states on higher difficulty levels than he was on lower ones.

City states get instant granted techs that 2 major civs have and so tend to get a tech lead of Khan if they didn't start with next to him.
 
well, you could also disable diplo as a victory option. initially this would just be to break you from certain habits that are easy to fall into. once you can get certain timings and can avoid some of the easy temptations you can apply that in a game where it would be an option.

you could also watch some LPs or read some detailed breakdowns of other games to see why they won with another VC without even intentionally avoiding the diplo win. science vics were my crutch in vanilla mostly because it was the only way i knew for certain how to win. since then though i havent gone for SVs out of habit but out of necessity or intention.
 
Choose less CS on your map settings. That will make it less diplo-intensive (among other things).
 
Bump it up a level or throw Alexander in mix..
 
Well take a (direct) competor for example: scientific victory. Even buying all science buildings (last game I won diplomatic victory but had ~3k beakers at the end); Long before you get close to scientific victory you start the era with the world leader vote.

Then you have 30 turns "left" in the game basically. Now at this point you first need to still discover a lot AND build everything. As said last game I had massive bpt (amazon, so lots and lots of jungle). However a scientific victory was still around 10ish turns away, even though I focussed fully on that in the end.

What I did before getting to the world vote wouldn't really matter; it would've sped up both victories equally fast. It's just that in those last 30 turns you can so easily get enough city states - and I can't see how you can get anywhere near a science victory. (Or cultural/letting internet techs work for that matter).
Only way I could foresee this being postponed is if getting enough allied city states would be much harder. (number much higher/allies only vote if they're allies for 30+ turns). right now you just earn around 10k and you win last turn.

You never answered my question. What turn are you winning on? Your settings would also be good to know. The reason this matters is to get an idea if you are just being overly efficient on your diplomatic victory, or due to your lack of attention to your other victory conditions. You say you are doing great at science, but that doesn't mean anything without numbers.
 
Well in all my games in BNW I seem to get a diplomatic victory. It just feels too natural to go for that. I am playing on emperor difficulty.

It is so easy to just keep in your own borders, focus on science, stay host & then trade votes/buy citystates.

Especially as you wish to get as many citystates as possible anyways. And this is even strengthened by your ability to "plan" what happens if you have the majority of the votes.

Is ignoring the world congress even viable? Especially scientific victory seems to be overshadowed by this condition. In my latter 5 games I wished to go for scientific victory but end game I just saw the diplomatic victory thrown into my face.

But also in @ epic speed/large map size it's easy - while I was going for full conqueror I was thrown in the face with standing army taxes. Which I then had to undo, but in the process I got so many city state friends that end game diplomatic victory became easier.

There are four quite easy options:

1) disable it
2) don't buy CSs just so you win it.
3) stop playing on emperor and go play immortal
4) when you start the game, put Alex in it.

I recommend option 3, the game is very far from challenging on emperor.
 
Go full domination and win before the UN
 
@advice on playing "higher then emperor" - well I really like "getting back up" from a bad start. On immortal it seems that if you start in a bad position you really are so far behind that you can never get back up. - Also it seems that things like using the perfect policies (read:

As far as turns: I play on marathon settings (Just because from experience otherwise militaristic units have become outdated before they reach the opponents). I do know that I am not really "victory minded" for the first part of the game, and even after that I first always try to "destroy" the runaway civ (through trade embargos / military / banning lux). After that I go for my own victory.

But my last game - here I played shoshone & amazon plus map. I started in the middle of the north eastern swamp. Playing "europe" just before I intended to go tall instead of wide (last map I tried going wide/liberty, but after founding 2 more towns I was landlocked and 3 civs were very angry at me for "settling wrongly").
Anyways I couldn't trade with anyone until my 3rd city (and only with suleiman after that, who was very far behind), and even lategame I could only trade with 3 civs. I won after 900 turns - but I was like 2 eras before anyone - in points I had more than all other 10 civs added together.
 
Marathon, speed ? Ok. With that set up, harder is to finish the game. 900 turns ? :eek:

I tend to ignore CS, except some cultural and maritime at first, late faith ones. I like SV and I'm now in a run to win without wonder (except Hubble) and CS allies (this one is really hard).

Last game, Shoshone, Deity, Continent, standard, SVT290. No wonder, one cultural CSally (the only one on the map), weak gpt trade route were all internal. I wasn't able to win a diplomatic victory before science. Because I completely neglect CS (no gold and no quest). I was late, and when I was able to have CSallies, some civs where to far in influence to come back.
Finally, I allied two other CS (mercantiles) during a war to have a buffer between my civ and AI's.
Also, I never host WC. Forbidden Palace in an AI, another meet all civs first. It wasn't a pain. At the end of the game, I hosted WC for the first time, to propose... natural heritage site. Nothing else useful.
 
Marathon, speed ? Ok. With that set up, harder is to finish the game. 900 turns ? :eek:

I tend to ignore CS, except some cultural and maritime at first, late faith ones. I like SV and I'm now in a run to win without wonder (except Hubble) and CS allies (this one is really hard).

Last game, Shoshone, Deity, Continent, standard, SVT290. No wonder, one cultural CSally (the only one on the map), weak gpt trade route were all internal. I wasn't able to win a diplomatic victory before science. Because I completely neglect CS (no gold and no quest). I was late, and when I was able to have CSallies, some civs where to far in influence to come back.
Finally, I allied two other CS (mercantiles) during a war to have a buffer between my civ and AI's.
Also, I never host WC. Forbidden Palace in an AI, another meet all civs first. It wasn't a pain. At the end of the game, I hosted WC for the first time, to propose... natural heritage site. Nothing else useful.

How do you prevent the -33% gs debuff & the banning of all luxuries then?
 
I play with -33% for GS. And ban luxs affect me on late game. Early AI's ban luxs of warmonger one. Sometimes, I successfully fail a ban lux with my 1 or 2 votes, help by AI's. If not, I have to make with -4 happiness. :)
 
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