Taking it a step further

Henry_X

Warlord
Joined
Dec 3, 2002
Messages
113
Location
Belgium
Just had a smashing victory in a Regent PTW game after 40 houres of total gametime.

Persians, 3329 points, Space race. 8 Opponents on a large continental map.

I started on the east coast of a continent with arabs in the north, babylonians on the west coast and in the South the Zulu and the Ottomans.

First I managed to seperate the Arabs from the rest and giving them no place to expand. Then I succeeded in getting 4/5 Iron-sources on our continent. I made sure that the Ottomans and Zulu's kept fighting by signing MPP's and took out those Babylonians to isolate the Arabs even more.

My Caravels contact with 3 equally large nations Greece, Rome, Carthage and a slightly inferior Japan. Carthage was my ally during the entire game, Rome my protegé and Greece a pain in the ***. Japan seemed nice, but wasn't to be trusted. As I found out later

Japan got my in a lot of trouble ( Japan, Zulu and Ottomans against me ) but mobilizing and good tactics got me out. I mobilized a second time later to built my fleet and rule the seas.

UN voting time : Arabs with 6 cities left costed my my election, so I made sure they never did again :) . Greece eliminated my supporter Rome so 2nd and 3th time again inconclusive. So with loaded nuke-subs and 7 armies ( 4 being all modern armor ) I safely went for Alpha Centauri.

I kept a save befor building the last component to reload the game and go for other types of victories, and offcourse a nice :nuke: war.

I learned a lot by reading here different articles and asking some stuff. And I'm going for the next level. Hoping to score better there, because I won't make the same faults twice.

Thanks for the great info.
 
jolly good. I wouldn't like towin by diplomacy. that feels like cheating to me. pure luck if you win, not huge amounts of skill. bt you came trough it and won in some style, weel done.!
 
Originally posted by farting bob
jolly good. I wouldn't like towin by diplomacy. that feels like cheating to me. pure luck if you win, not huge amounts of skill.

Spoken like a civ player who is happy to trash his reputation.

I am starting to feel like beginning a crusade to convince the world that there is skill involved in winning a diplomatic victory! It seems like the warmonger types who trash it as "cheating," "easy," or "wimpy" do not appreciate the effort it takes to (1) keep up a good enough reputation to have a shot at winning the election, and (2) keep up a strong enough empire to ensure you are a candidate.

The outcome of the UN election is not "pure luck" if you actually do the work to make victory a lock. One might as well say warmongering is "pure luck" since the outcome of battles depends upon the RNG. No - no one says that because you control your tactics to make sure luck doesn't ruin your day. It's the same thing with winning by diplomacy.

See my comments on this thread.

Everyone's free to play the game however it entertains you. But please don't trash other people's approaches to the game. Diplomatic victory is not "cheating" and it's not "wimpy" and it's not "easier" than any other method of winning.

This is my mission! :p
 
Well spoken, Satchel. Winning diplomatically isn't very easy.
Also well done Henry-X. It's a good way to win.
 
I am not a warmonger, and still find it very easy to achieve a diplomatic victory. Polite and Gracious attitudes can be obtained simply through ROP and MPP's. Your competition in the vote can easily have his rep trashed right before the vote by bringing everyone on board with a MPP, and then declaring war on that civ. Station a ship outside his borders, wait for him to attack, and there it is - if you've signed enough MPP's, there is no way you will get beaten in a vote. The only really necessary step to securing a diplomatic victory is avoiding ROP rape - which is not really much of a feat, and making sure you build the UN.
 
Originally posted by metalhead
I am not a warmonger, and still find it very easy to achieve a diplomatic victory. Polite and Gracious attitudes can be obtained simply through ROP and MPP's. Your competition in the vote can easily have his rep trashed right before the vote by bringing everyone on board with a MPP, and then declaring war on that civ. Station a ship outside his borders, wait for him to attack, and there it is - if you've signed enough MPP's, there is no way you will get beaten in a vote. The only really necessary step to securing a diplomatic victory is avoiding ROP rape - which is not really much of a feat, and making sure you build the UN.

I disagree. It is not always that easy. I do not subscribe to the ROP rape theory of play so that is never an issue for me. Still, I have very few diplo wins, even when I go out to win that way.

Your theory of wining diplo games has a huge player advantage. I dare you to try for a diplo win without that final MPP strategy and see how you do.
 
IMO warmongering is often easier because the AI just isn't very smart about war. They have to have a large advantage in production or technology to even have a chance. Like a civ twice your size on Diety with good infrastructure, or cavs against muskets. This is especially true if you are willing to do ROP rape, or even redeclair war before your 20 turns of peace are up. There are many ways to take advantage of the AI script.

In general I agree with satchel, play it how you enjoy it and don't rain on someone elses parade. Good job Henery_X.

"Shaka you have chosen unwisely"
 
Cast my vote with satchel's points. Although I'm not necessarily convinced it's terribly difficult to win diplomatically, it certainly does impose constraints on one's gameplay. IMHO, turning off the diplomatic victory option just makes the game less challenging (particularly since I am convinced that the AI doesn't modify its basic game behavior based on the "standard" victory conditions enabled -- putting aside the new PTW regicide, mass regicide and princess modes) -- without the threat of an AI diplo victory, I am free to do as I please. With the threat present, I must (1) take steps to protect my reputation, or (2) make d*mn sure I build the UN.

Originally posted by metalhead
I am not a warmonger, and still find it very easy to achieve a diplomatic victory. Polite and Gracious attitudes can be obtained simply through ROP and MPP's. Your competition in the vote can easily have his rep trashed right before the vote by bringing everyone on board with a MPP, and then declaring war on that civ. Station a ship outside his borders, wait for him to attack, and there it is - if you've signed enough MPP's, there is no way you will get beaten in a vote. The only really necessary step to securing a diplomatic victory is avoiding ROP rape - which is not really much of a feat, and making sure you build the UN.

With all due respect, I don't classify that sort of activity as a "diplomatic win." That is simply exploiting a flaw in AI logic. Diplomatic victories are more challenging (and more fun!) if you refuse to use such tactics.
 
In this game I didn't watch my reputation in the beginning. Getting peace for 5 turns to reposition and heal my armies and those kind of tricks. In new games I will pay attention to it.

The game is much more challenging if you try to respect all agreements, but I would always try to put of Building the UN as long as possible. Trying to win in other ways. ( Never won cultural because of a city reaching 20.000 )

In the "peace-time" , when I decided to watch my rep, I was pretty much bored. Avoiding wars , but having the biggest and most advanced army standing arround, is not really fun. If I had eliminated the Arabs befor completing the UN, I should have won. Anyway elections are always exciting, you never know you might just win.
 
Don't confuse reputation with attitude. Warfare, even aggressive warfare on your part, doesn't prevent a diplo win. What is more important is keeping your word -- the peace for 5 turns and then reattack is a rep killer. But peace for 20 turns and then renewing hostilities is not a rep killer. If a diplo win is the goal, it generally makes sense to avoid razing cities and to avoid completely eliminating a civ, if possible. But I have had "annoyed" (an attitude indicator, not a rep indicator) readily vote for me at the UN. Don't know about furious (haven't watched it that closely).

There is also no reason to put off building the UN -- you generally should build it as soon as you can. If you build it, you get to decide to call a vote or not -- so if you build it, you can be assured that a vote will never come (unless you want it). It appears that if you decline to hold a vote, you get the chance to cal another vote 11 turns later; if you hold a vote and it is inconclusive, you get the chance to call another vote 20 turns later (I haven't tested this, but heard it from a source I consider reliable). If an AI builds it, you're at their mercy as to whether they decide to call a vote or not.

I sometimes to choose to ignore my own reputation -- in such cases, I simply play knowing that I must build the UN -- not for a diplo win, but to avoid (by never calling a vote) a diplo loss.
 
Well-said, Catt. Henry, you can wage wars aggressively and ruthlessly while minding your reputation and achieving diplomatic victory. In fact, it's almost a necessity, because you will need to weaken your stronger opponents and make sure you have the resources you need to maintain technical superiority.

The key is not to "avoid" war, but to fight wars honorably. This means no RoP-rape, no razing, no declaration of war while you have active trades, and no making peace while you have active military alliances. It's surprisingly challenging, especially if you are not used to minding your reputation.
 
In all of my 8 PTW games so far(I've played more but got ODd on it and quit for a break) I've achieved three Diplo wins, two of them coming after centuries of heavy warfare. I had allies throughout the game, RoPs and MPPs with all of them, but yet only attacked other nations when they attack an ally of mine.

I got sneak attacked a lot, so it's the civ that sneak attacks me that get's the worse Rep Hit than I do. I've had MPPs and RoPs with civs and they sneak attack me then I just knock them around like a pinball, take a few cities and get peace out of them for gold. A few turns later, realizing they're not going to beat me, turn Polite again.

So it is possible to win Diplo even after constant warfare. But to play a game fully with no war at all and a huge army to warn off attacks, is just so hard. I've done it before and was just itching to rip someone's head off. Eventually when I did win that way, I'd play 20 or so more turns and take over the world LOL
 
Originally posted by Knightblade pDM

I got sneak attacked a lot, so it's the civ that sneak attacks me that get's the worse Rep Hit than I do. I've had MPPs and RoPs with civs and they sneak attack me then I just knock them around like a pinball, take a few cities and get peace out of them for gold. A few turns later, realizing they're not going to beat me, turn Polite again.

I am a major civ, and on the other side of the big continent the smaller Romans attack me for no reason right after a DoW; it amounted to a sneak attack. Their lame little invasion force is defeated at my border. Twelve turns later another bunch is defeated. Six turns later the Romans ask for peace. Whatever. Go away.

Three hundred years later I try to cut a deal with a distant civ: "The Romans have told us of your perfidy". :crazyeye:
No deal.

So much for looking for logic with rep hits. It really happened.
 
satchel,

I agree with your diplomatic victory opinions as well.

As a human, there are ways to exploit (i.e., "cheat") the game to help one win a diplomatic victory just as there are ways to exploit a militaristic victory.

But achieving a diplomatic victory without resorting to "underhanded" methods makes that type of victory even more sweet and challenging.
 
Originally posted by Zouave
So much for looking for logic with rep hits. It really happened.
Zouave, do you have a save game of this (the state just before the DoW)?, and an explanation of anything you did that might provoke the rep hit (raze etc.)?

I'm asking because I now believe that human - AI relations are the only (suspected) cheat that are not yet fully understood. All other aspects of accused AI cheating has eiher been proved to be a cheat (map, etc. knowledge) or to be false claims (mostly everything else).

But I'd like to understand more about the AI - human behaviour, so I'd appreciate if you can be more specific about your game.
 
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