UN a bust?

[Cueball]

yeah, the whole UN concept in this game is horrible. Just another thing they got wrong. Aside from how stupid the diplomatic victory bribing is, it also sucks that they removed all the resolutions you could propose. Just another way this game was simplified for the worse.

 

[anti_strunt]

With no more Permanent Alliances, having the AI "play to win" makes a proper Diplomatic Victory conceptually impossible. Of course the AI isn't going to help you win!

 

[Sonereal]

With no more Permanent Alliances, having the AI "play to win" makes a proper Diplomatic Victory conceptually impossible. Of course the AI isn't going to help you win!

Diplo victories are probably the easiest victories to win.

 

[lschnarch]

Diplo victories are probably the easiest victories to win.

Yes, but only due to the strange and artificial restriction that any major civ has to vote for itself, which ultimately leads to the fact that City States and liberated cities decide about the win.
So it comes down to a combination of conquest and bribery.

 

[zuraffo]

That would turn diplomacy into a pseudo-conquest/expansion victory. IMO diplomacy should be truly about diplomacy - i.e. the other players' attitude towards you.

BUT real world diplomacy is a function of power + wealth. Do you really think the world defer to the US because everyone likes the good ole us of a?



In game terms, I don't believe that a computer game can ever simulate the complex nature of human intrigue. It simply cannot be done. So I'll just take the UN victory as the money victory and be done with it.

 

[Sonereal]

Yes, but only due to the strange and artificial restriction that any major civ has to vote for itself, which ultimately leads to the fact that City States and liberated cities decide about the win.
So it comes down to a combination of conquest and bribery.

Actually, AIs conquering city-states unaligned to you are a blessing sometimes. Less CSs and Civilizations=less votes required to win and since there are usually twice the number of city-states than civilizations, it gets pretty interesting.

But the Diplo victory really is just an Economic victory if anything. Stockpile 10000-15000 gold and you win!

Of course, I've been using the City-State Diplomacy mod a lot lately which makes things far more interesting.

 

[DaveGold]

Actually, AIs conquering city-states unaligned to you are a blessing sometimes. Less CSs and Civilizations=less votes required to win and since there are usually twice the number of city-states than civilizations, it gets pretty interesting.

This may be different on some settings but I find that the number of votes required to win stays the same. You can see the UN screen come up saying '9 votes required' and count just 8 votes available.

 

[MadRat]

This may be different on some settings but I find that the number of votes required to win stays the same. You can see the UN screen come up saying '9 votes required' and count just 8 votes available.

Yeah if enough CS/civs are conquered this happens..

/facepalm

Oh Firaxis how low can you go!

Rat

 

[Sonereal]

That doesn't make any sense!

 

[stormerne]

Diplo victories are just a simpler science victory. You beeline a single tech and circumnavigate the continents with a sackful of gold, allying the city states as you go. You don't even need all the city states on board: three-quarters of them will do.

So what's the advantages? I do find diplo victories less boring than a cultural victory. The full civ AI does at least try and make things harder for you by conquering a bunch of city states towards the end. So there's a kind of tension towards the end wondering whether you can hold out relative peace till the vote, or whether you need to preemptively force-feed city states with units, or whether you'll need to liberate any of them. This is the same kind of tension like with a Civ4 cultural victory where you beeline to Liberalism, switch off research, set the culture slider to max, and play careful diplomacy for a hundred turns.

This may be different on some settings but I find that the number of votes required to win stays the same. You can see the UN screen come up saying '9 votes required' and count just 8 votes available.

Are you taking account of the fact that, if you build the UN Wonder yourself, you'll get 2 votes instead of 1?

 

[anti_strunt]

Actually, AIs conquering city-states unaligned to you are a blessing sometimes. Less CSs and Civilizations=less votes required to win and since there are usually twice the number of city-states than civilizations, it gets pretty interesting.

But the Diplo victory really is just an Economic victory if anything. Stockpile 10000-15000 gold and you win!

Of course, I've been using the City-State Diplomacy mod a lot lately which makes things far more interesting.

That's my point, it's not a "diplomatic" victory. As long as the AI is supposed to always "play to win" there cannot exist a working diplomatic victory. In multiplayer people might feel that they get a "share" in a diplomatic win if several smaller players successfully band together against the big, bad warmonger, but since the AI is incapable of such emotional decisions, there can be no "diplomatic" victory. Just victory through electoral fraud...

Not that I would absolutely want the old "sandbox" AI back, but something feels lacking.

 

[eric_]

Check out this thread for a couple of ideas that, imo, would add a lot more dimensionality to a diplomatic victory.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=396162

 

[Namaspamus]

Maybe they could make diplomatic victory more interesting by making impossible to improve your relation with a city state via money. That is, if you want to befriend a CS, answer one request. If you want to ally them, answer 2 request. Money would still give you influence, so that your good relationship lasts longer, but wouldn't simply be a means to buy all votes a turn before the UN election, and then you should spend more money on city states, since you want to be prepared for the election before the UN is completed.

Agree a lot. Influence would depend only of quests but wouldn't decrease. Purchasing food, culture and units would be a separate thing. Once a CS is friendly, you could begin to buy them stuff, but this wouldn't improve the relation. A friendly or allied CS would of course propose better deals.

Pledging to protect could also make influence increase slowly with time, but failing to this mission would badly affect your relation with all CS, so we couldn't freely pledge to protect everyone.

So we would have to befriend some from the very beginning, not just when the UN is built. The victory would really be diplomatic, built all along the game and involve much more interesting decisions. Maybe gold could still buy some influence but at very high price.

there should be either more than one request at a time for each CS (maybe 2 are enough), or some kind of cycling for their request (for example, they change their request every 50 turns)

Agree. Also maybe we could pay them to bury the war axe when they had a dispute with another CS (useful when you happen to befriend the target too).



There is a thread on this very topic in the "Ideas and Suggestions" forum:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=390940

I proposed much the same thing but no oooone answered boooohoo....

 

[Mad Hab]

You know, you do have the option to exhibit some self-control and not pay them gold and instead answer their requests and protect them. I started a new game last night and I am doing that very same thing. I am doing everything for the city-states as long as it does not involve destroying other city-states and giving them gold.

In one game I had, I was going for diplomatic victory but all (except one) City-States were asking for me to destroy another CS. So I had to bribe them, at the end...

It would be nice if CSs gave you more than just one mission at a time...

Cheers,

Mad Hab

 

[killmeplease]

and more variety of missions as well

 

[CGG1066]

There is also mal-incentives to many of the missions. I know the city state near me will want a road, so I don't build one until it requests one and I get points for it. I know they hear rumors of "a far off empire" and give me points to seek them out. If I cared that much (and I don't) - I'd wait to get that message before finding the guy. It should be tweaked so that when you do these things you get the points anyway.

As for the UN - there is just one small tweak and it would be completely realistic. Just rename it the "league of nations".

 

[aimlessgun]

If we're tossing out suggestions, how about a new resource called "Political Capital" that you gain by doing certain things and can spend for favors (such as votes)