TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
Introduction
Unlike the Apostolic Palace, the United Nations (and diplomatic victory) have been around in Civ IV from the initial release. As a victory condition, I feel it is very frequently overlooked. Despite my preference for warring in this game, I find that the #1 most frequent victory I post on the forum is a UN win. There are a number of ways to attain it and I will take you through them in this guide. While a UN win is possible in virtually every game, sometimes it's hard. The majority of the time, however, it is actually one of the easiest victory conditions you can achieve if you play diplomacy right.
The United Nations
Let's start with the wonder itself. It is available fairly late in the game, with the mass media tech. Once built, the person who built it and the person who is #1 in population are the candidates for chair. If the person who built it is also #1 in population, the other candidate is #2 in population.
The chair, once elected, gets to propose resolutions. Many of these are useful, but the focal point of the article is the one at the top of the resolution list: diplomatic victory. This resolution calls a vote between the two candidates that would be eligible for chair, and with enough votes (just over 60% of the world's population), the favored civ wins the game.
Securing the Votes
This is the snag for most people but it doesn't have to be. The idea is to get enough pop between yourself and the leaders who will vote for you (expect to need to get them to friendly, typically) to win the game. There are a couple ways to go about doing this:
War: This is certainly a way to increase your population. Note that if you YOURSELF get over 60% of the world's population, the diplomatic victory resolution won't be available. HOWEVER, you can use vassals to go over 60% instead and win that way. Using just yourself and vassals is a subset of the UN victory that I call "diplomation". It's usually played just like a domination game, only you win before getting enough land. Frequently you don't even need to build the UN yourself if this is the approach you choose.
Religion: A popular approach to get AIs to friendly is to use religion. It's pretty straightforward - run their religion and they like you. My advice is to only use this approach if you can do it without pissing off other people you need for voting. It can certainly be effective though, especially if otherwise heathen AIs go free religion later on.
Favorite Civics: This is your main meal ticket if you're not using war exclusively. You can view favorite civics at any time in the foreign adviser. If BOTH you AND the AI are in their favored civic, the bonus is quite similar to that of religion. This is a very simple way to get AIs to friendly.
Fair Trade: Fair trade is capped at +4, and is probably the easiest thing to get. Just give them a tech or very favorable trade, or even a lot of gold. There is ANOTHER aspect of it, called "we appreciate the years you have supplied us with resources". This you get for gifting non-gold resources for a very long period of time. I recommend excess livestock or resources you have a lot of. It takes a long time to build the +2 cap for resource supplies, so do it early for people you want votes from.
Years of Peace and Open Borders: Both capped at +2. Both pretty straightforward.
Hidden Modifiers: Even I don't know these 100%, but note that some AIs are pre-disposed to like you, such as Asoka, Gandhi, and Zara. This can be negative or positive in the -2 to +2 range and won't display.
Espionage: Espionage doesn't win you diplo directly, but is a very important aspect potentially. You can use spies to swap AI civics and religions to your own. As spies hurt diplo when being caught, I recommend using them in ships. The don't ever accrue the -50% cost that way, but they're never caught outside mission attempts, either. Spy demerits are therefore very infrequent, and influence missions are not expensive at all. You can also do this to other AI religions to stop "worst enemy" status before you get requests for such. Therefore, espionage can save you a lot of request refusal headaches and lock AIs into religions/favorite civics (at least for when it counts near the vote!).
That's all the major ones. Without hidden modifiers you need +11 net diplomacy for friendly with most AIs. Usually some combination of fair trade, open borders, resource supply, and a favorite civic will get you there. Religion, if possible, can allow you a lot of wiggle room.
Try not to refuse requests unless they're war or stop trade requests that will cost you more diplo to accept than decline. If all the AIs hate someone, it might be a good idea to just close borders with that AI and not count on it's votes anyway. Diplo takes some planning ahead.
An Extra "AP Style" Trick
This is for civs that are #1 in pop only. If you conquer someone hated or performed an early rush, it's not out of the question that you're #1 in pop or can get there relatively easily. If this is the case, you may wish to DELIBERATELY AVOID building the UN. UN candidates will always vote for themselves if they can. If the #2 AI in pop is one you can get to friendly, try to get to mass media early and GIFT IT TO SOMEONE WHO WON'T VOTE FOR YOU, of course providing that this won't get you in too much diplo trouble. Otherwise juts pick someone small. Be sure this person isn't more favored than you. If the gift target builds the UN, you're running against him rather than AIs that would otherwise vote for you. It is extremely easy to secure the votes needed for winning if you accomplish this task. It's possible to have the top 3 civs all vote for one person!
Conclusion:
Like other recently-written guides, this is a work in progress and I will add to it as needed. Hopefully, this lends some insight into how easily the UN victory can be attained, and how to go about doing so.
Strong diplo relations can substantially reduce the chances of war (or eliminate it entirely), so UN wins can frequently be the MOST SURE victory conditions, even over war, culture, or space. They also tend to be faster/earlier, though not the best for score. Never overlook this possibility after meeting all of the AIs, or after that renaissance war that gives you a major leg up in land!
Unlike the Apostolic Palace, the United Nations (and diplomatic victory) have been around in Civ IV from the initial release. As a victory condition, I feel it is very frequently overlooked. Despite my preference for warring in this game, I find that the #1 most frequent victory I post on the forum is a UN win. There are a number of ways to attain it and I will take you through them in this guide. While a UN win is possible in virtually every game, sometimes it's hard. The majority of the time, however, it is actually one of the easiest victory conditions you can achieve if you play diplomacy right.
The United Nations
Let's start with the wonder itself. It is available fairly late in the game, with the mass media tech. Once built, the person who built it and the person who is #1 in population are the candidates for chair. If the person who built it is also #1 in population, the other candidate is #2 in population.
The chair, once elected, gets to propose resolutions. Many of these are useful, but the focal point of the article is the one at the top of the resolution list: diplomatic victory. This resolution calls a vote between the two candidates that would be eligible for chair, and with enough votes (just over 60% of the world's population), the favored civ wins the game.
Securing the Votes
This is the snag for most people but it doesn't have to be. The idea is to get enough pop between yourself and the leaders who will vote for you (expect to need to get them to friendly, typically) to win the game. There are a couple ways to go about doing this:
War: This is certainly a way to increase your population. Note that if you YOURSELF get over 60% of the world's population, the diplomatic victory resolution won't be available. HOWEVER, you can use vassals to go over 60% instead and win that way. Using just yourself and vassals is a subset of the UN victory that I call "diplomation". It's usually played just like a domination game, only you win before getting enough land. Frequently you don't even need to build the UN yourself if this is the approach you choose.
Religion: A popular approach to get AIs to friendly is to use religion. It's pretty straightforward - run their religion and they like you. My advice is to only use this approach if you can do it without pissing off other people you need for voting. It can certainly be effective though, especially if otherwise heathen AIs go free religion later on.
Favorite Civics: This is your main meal ticket if you're not using war exclusively. You can view favorite civics at any time in the foreign adviser. If BOTH you AND the AI are in their favored civic, the bonus is quite similar to that of religion. This is a very simple way to get AIs to friendly.
Fair Trade: Fair trade is capped at +4, and is probably the easiest thing to get. Just give them a tech or very favorable trade, or even a lot of gold. There is ANOTHER aspect of it, called "we appreciate the years you have supplied us with resources". This you get for gifting non-gold resources for a very long period of time. I recommend excess livestock or resources you have a lot of. It takes a long time to build the +2 cap for resource supplies, so do it early for people you want votes from.
Years of Peace and Open Borders: Both capped at +2. Both pretty straightforward.
Hidden Modifiers: Even I don't know these 100%, but note that some AIs are pre-disposed to like you, such as Asoka, Gandhi, and Zara. This can be negative or positive in the -2 to +2 range and won't display.
Espionage: Espionage doesn't win you diplo directly, but is a very important aspect potentially. You can use spies to swap AI civics and religions to your own. As spies hurt diplo when being caught, I recommend using them in ships. The don't ever accrue the -50% cost that way, but they're never caught outside mission attempts, either. Spy demerits are therefore very infrequent, and influence missions are not expensive at all. You can also do this to other AI religions to stop "worst enemy" status before you get requests for such. Therefore, espionage can save you a lot of request refusal headaches and lock AIs into religions/favorite civics (at least for when it counts near the vote!).
That's all the major ones. Without hidden modifiers you need +11 net diplomacy for friendly with most AIs. Usually some combination of fair trade, open borders, resource supply, and a favorite civic will get you there. Religion, if possible, can allow you a lot of wiggle room.
Try not to refuse requests unless they're war or stop trade requests that will cost you more diplo to accept than decline. If all the AIs hate someone, it might be a good idea to just close borders with that AI and not count on it's votes anyway. Diplo takes some planning ahead.
An Extra "AP Style" Trick
This is for civs that are #1 in pop only. If you conquer someone hated or performed an early rush, it's not out of the question that you're #1 in pop or can get there relatively easily. If this is the case, you may wish to DELIBERATELY AVOID building the UN. UN candidates will always vote for themselves if they can. If the #2 AI in pop is one you can get to friendly, try to get to mass media early and GIFT IT TO SOMEONE WHO WON'T VOTE FOR YOU, of course providing that this won't get you in too much diplo trouble. Otherwise juts pick someone small. Be sure this person isn't more favored than you. If the gift target builds the UN, you're running against him rather than AIs that would otherwise vote for you. It is extremely easy to secure the votes needed for winning if you accomplish this task. It's possible to have the top 3 civs all vote for one person!
Conclusion:
Like other recently-written guides, this is a work in progress and I will add to it as needed. Hopefully, this lends some insight into how easily the UN victory can be attained, and how to go about doing so.
Strong diplo relations can substantially reduce the chances of war (or eliminate it entirely), so UN wins can frequently be the MOST SURE victory conditions, even over war, culture, or space. They also tend to be faster/earlier, though not the best for score. Never overlook this possibility after meeting all of the AIs, or after that renaissance war that gives you a major leg up in land!
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