Tier 2 plaza building for diplo victory

[Mango201]

I'm going for my first ever MP diplomatic victory and I'm trying to pick a tier 2 government plaza building.

The obvious choice is foreign ministry for the +3 diplomatic favor, but I think I may actually have enough diplomatic favor coming my way. I got the Pagoda's belief and can faith purchase them at 90% discount because I'm playing as Saladin. I have an alliance going with the only other civ on my continent so I'm not particularly worried about war. I'm not particularly worried about religion either as I have really good faith output and I currently have the most converted cities in the world. Because of these conditions I've grabbed a lot of land I ended the classical era with the historic moment for having 3 more cities than the largest civ in the world. I just got monarchy and once I start building renaissance walls I should have lots of diplo favor to spare.

So with all that in mind, the 3 extra diplo points per turn seem kind of mediocre. Perhaps getting the intelligence agency and messing everyone else up with spies will be a better game long term? The only downside is that I don't really have good targets for my spies short term, I'd have to discover the second continent to get them going. Thoughts?

Also, more generic question on diplo victory - if you're generally confident in your ability to defend against war and religion (as I am), can you just sit back and hope to win a diplo victory or is culture / science generally faster?

Thanks.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

You could always get the Grand Master's Chapel just in case you need to buy an army of units with faith, since you are making so much already playing as Arabia.

 

[InsidiousMage]

You literally can't have enough diplo favor since the cost isn't linear. In a six player game it costs nothing for the other five players to vote against you but costs you like 150 favor to get six votes for you. The seventh vote costs you 210 but bringing the total votes against you to 10 only costs each player 10 favor.

 

[Jkchart]

More diplo favor is ALWAYS key due to the scaling cost of votes.

However if you have Pagodas and a lot of Holy Sites, you could probably afford to go with either of the other two as well. Grand master's chapel would be good to buy yourself an army for defense. Intelligence Agency is nice if you focus spies.

Personally, I usually go with Foreign Ministry nowadays since they added the favor boost. If I'm strong with religion and have salty neighbors, I'll go GM Chapel. Int. Agency is my least favorite of the three but it is still a good choice for CdM or a player who has invested a lot in espionage early.

Really the T2 Govt Plaza buildings are all fun choices.

 

[Mango201]

You could always get the Grand Master's Chapel just in case you need to buy an army of units with faith, since you are making so much already playing as Arabia.

I thought of that but like I said I have an alliance with my neighbor and they're kind of weak militarily anyway, so I'm not that worried about war. There are three players on another continent, so if one of them goes for a domination victory that could be an issue, but I'll have lot's of warning because they'll likely have to fight their neighbors first then cross an ocean to get to me - so instant faith purchasing won't be that much help (though I guess it could help to reinforce). And even then I think a strong networks of spies depleting their money, recruiting partisans and giving me +3 combat bonus from intel would be a better defense no?

You literally can't have enough diplo favor since the cost isn't linear. In a six player game it costs nothing for the other five players to vote against you but costs you like 150 favor to get six votes for you. The seventh vote costs you 210 but bringing the total votes against you to 10 only costs each player 10 favor.

Yeah that's a pretty strong point. Let me think this through. If each of my cities has a pagoda and renaissance walls + monarchy I'll be producing 3 diplo favor per city. I have 9 cities and could easily get up to 15. So I could be producing as much as 45 diplo favor per turn. Assuming 15 turns per era I could be entering world congress with 600-700 diplo favor. But based on your numbers that's not even 8 votes and it actually doesn't cost them that much to outvote me... Interesting. By that logic though, the extra three votes from foreign ministry doesn't matter much either does it?

In that case it seems like its a good strategy to try and trade people down to zero diplo favor right before world congress. They still get one vote for free, but maybe I can rob them of that second vote?

 

[Kwami]

Keep in mind that you can't spy on allies. So, if you create alliances for extra favor, then you'll have fewer targets for your spies. And if you don't need an army, then the Chapel isn't of much value. Best to just take the extra favor, really.

Also, later in the game, the AI usually stops trading favor for anything, so you can't just buy them all down to zero.

 

[UWHabs]

More diplo favor is ALWAYS key due to the scaling cost of votes.

However if you have Pagodas and a lot of Holy Sites, you could probably afford to go with either of the other two as well. Grand master's chapel would be good to buy yourself an army for defense. Intelligence Agency is nice if you focus spies.

Personally, I usually go with Foreign Ministry nowadays since they added the favor boost. If I'm strong with religion and have salty neighbors, I'll go GM Chapel. Int. Agency is my least favorite of the three but it is still a good choice for CdM or a player who has invested a lot in espionage early.

Really the T2 Govt Plaza buildings are all fun choices.

I think the odd part is that in T1 and T3, they very obviously line up with strategies. T1 it's very clearly tall vs wide vs war. T3 it's very obvious war vs space vs culture. But T2 is kind of a mixed bag - obviously faith buying units is useful for war, but it's also a sneaky emergency option for peaceful games to build a defensive army. Then you have the one giving you a bonus for levying troops and DF which is kind of similar. Although rarely do I pick it - I find either I have good faith and want the troop option, or figure that spies are kind of generically useful, so just do that.

 

[Mango201]

Keep in mind that you can't spy on allies. So, if you create alliances for extra favor, then you'll have fewer targets for your spies. And if you don't need an army, then the Chapel isn't of much value. Best to just take the extra favor, really.

Oh that's a really good point. That kind of brings me back to my last question from the OP - can diplo victory beat scientific / cultural victories or is it too slow? If the latter, I'd imagine I really need the spies to slow down these victory types. In other words, can I actually afford not to have spies?

Also, later in the game, the AI usually stops trading favor for anything, so you can't just buy them all down to zero.

Its a MP game, but I guess this point applies even more with humans

 

[InsidiousMage]

In that case it seems like its a good strategy to try and trade people down to zero diplo favor right before world congress. They still get one vote for free, but maybe I can rob them of that second vote?

The AI isn't actually super good about accumulating favor so if they spend it all to down vote you in one Congress you will usually have enough to out vote them in the next. It's just a matter of timing and hopefully getting a few emergencies along the way. Also, you can put all of your favor into the two non-diplo point votes to stay even and win using things like World Fairs or Games combined with emergencies.

can diplo victory beat scientific / cultural victories or is it too slow?

If done right and with a little luck it's about as fast a culture win and you should win not long after getting your tier 3 government.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I thought of that but like I said I have an alliance with my neighbor and they're kind of weak militarily anyway, so I'm not that worried about war. There are three players on another continent, so if one of them goes for a domination victory that could be an issue, but I'll have lot's of warning because they'll likely have to fight their neighbors first then cross an ocean to get to me - so instant faith purchasing won't be that much help (though I guess it could help to reinforce). And even then I think a strong networks of spies depleting their money, recruiting partisans and giving me +3 combat bonus from intel would be a better defense no?

Are you playing with the Ethiopia pack enabled? That might reduce the productivity of your spy game if people have access to the Diplo Quarter.
I might just go with the Foreign Ministry if you know you want to try a diplomatic game.

I think the odd part is that in T1 and T3, they very obviously line up with strategies. T1 it's very clearly tall vs wide vs war. T3 it's very obvious war vs space vs culture. But T2 is kind of a mixed bag - obviously faith buying units is useful for war, but it's also a sneaky emergency option for peaceful games to build a defensive army. Then you have the one giving you a bonus for levying troops and DF which is kind of similar. Although rarely do I pick it - I find either I have good faith and want the troop option, or figure that spies are kind of generically useful, so just do that.

I think since the changes to Foreign ministry providing diplo favor, it is now more straightforward with diplomacy/gold vs faith vs espionage. At least to me it's more clear cut because before I usually always went for the intelligence agency unless I was playing a heavy faith/religious game.

 

[Unmitigated Gaul]

The mission takes a long time, but I have found fabricate scandal to be helpful in diplo games.

If there is a city state you really want (Ayutthaya or Kumasi for example) and you’re having to compete for it aggressively, fabricate scandal can be a great way to free up more envoys for other city states.

 

[fy00sh]

Also, more generic question on diplo victory - if you're generally confident in your ability to defend against war and religion (as I am), can you just sit back and hope to win a diplo victory or is culture / science generally faster?

To answer this part, I'd say having a solid culture output is pretty important so you can rack up envoys to maintain suzerainty of as many city states as possible, and to get to the Statue of Liberty quickly, but science is also good for getting to the Potala Palace. When I'm trying to go for Diplo Victory I try to have high yields in both science and culture so that I can get close enough points-wise to victory to swoop in and win by completing the Statue of Liberty, the Seasteading tech, and the Carbon Recapture civic all before the World Congress can vote to remove my DV points.

 

[Vargas1]

Do you have any interest in trying to settle the other continent at some point? If so, GMC is super helpful to make sure you hold on to your new cities if your new neighbors are unhappy with your entrance.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I pretty much always take the spy one no matter what I'm doing.