United Nations - Diplomacy Win

[Honos]

In previous incarnations of Civilization the United Nations (UN) allowed players to vote on resolutions. What the heck happened in Civ5 that made that go away? Now all you need to win the diplomancy game is a boat ton of cash to buy off city states right before the vote to win. I miss the old way where if you build the UN, then you became Secretary-General and could decide what the UN votes on. AND there could be fun stuff like nuclear proliferation pacts, currency pacts, ect.

Anyone else agree or am I completely "in left field"?

 

[snarzberry]

No, I agree completely. Diplomatic victory is one of the weakest parts of the game. I pretty much ignore it. It's not a satisfying way to win and the UN could be so much more in the general scheme of in game diplomacy. I hope this receives some attention in GK.

 

[Glassmage]

new expansion is working to make diplomacy better.

 

[Diosk]

I can't agree with this one more!

I almost feel like "Diplomatic Victory" is really just "Economic Victory". I also would really like to see policies being voted on (such as a global nuke ban) and also have a system to buy support from other nations. I think it's pretty silly each civ only votes for themselves. I mean really, when they have a civ score of 300 and one city left to the top civ's 3500 who owns half the map, why would they vote for themselves?

The possibilities are endless with diplomacy even before the U.N. Why not open trade routes with other civs? Or buying and selling tiles to or from them? Land rights seem realistic enough. Who knows!

 

[apocalypse105]

They are going to make gold less viable to city state and more quests in the expansion so it isn't just a economic victory

you olso have reputation with city states you can for example bully it and get goods but it will proparly not like you and vote for you

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

The United Nations has never been done right in any iteration of Civ nor has the diplomatic victory ever been properly executed.

But here's to Gods & Kings giving it a shot!

 

[Tiber4321]

Its interesting to think of diplomatic vic as a default economic victory. It certainly is br far the easiest way to win. If you play piety and the patronage tree, and build HS, Chi It, and PT and ally with your closest CSs early on, you should be rollling in gold and happiness and have a big head start in CS influence. Egypt is the ideal civ for this, with marble in your capital, its almost too easy. PT with 3-4 good RAs will keep you advanced enough to get to build the UN before space ships are built.

If you are looking for your first win at King or Emperor, this is the ticket. This won't work at higher levels most say.

 

[headcase]

Well, they claim CSs will be more affected by (interesting) quests and less affected by gold in G+K, I sure hope that's true.

But hopefully the UN will have more resolutions as you say. At the very least, it should allow Civs to enter "alliances" which are like friendships but stronger (auto defense-pact, more likely to go to war together if instigating, more negative modifiers upon backstab, etc). More than that would be great though, and I'm sure there will be a lot of mods implementing this a while after the dll release if G+K doesn't deliver.

 

[Tiber4321]

Yes, that would be a great improvement. Its much more difficult to achieve/find/produce something a CS asks of you than to just give them gold. That's the definition of "patronage". You usually have to be allied to a CS for quite a while for this to happen. I believe fulfilling the "quest" of a CS should lock their vote for you.

They could also make it such that if no AI has really impressed a CS, they just abstain in the final vote. This would keep those isolated CSs from being bought off with nothing more than some late gold. Maybe these changes could make Diplomacy victory more difficult, which it definatly needs to be.

 

[Gucumatz]

I liked what they started in Civ 4 with the Apostolic Palace and UN. I hope they continue the progress.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Just to remind everybody, APostolic Palace came with Beyond The Sword, and I'm pretty sure the advancned U.N resolution also were not in vanilla (not sure about that one)

But I agree, I miss those, it's one of the few elements i truly miss (along with vassals, and religion which is being added)

 

[Zandrew]

I've played Civ3 for many years but am new to Civ5. I played a game recently where I built the UN and... nothing happened. I was expecting a pop-up to appear asking if I want to hold a vote. The victory screen said I had enough votes to win. I played a few more turns and still no vote. Am I missing something? Is there something I need to do to cause the vote? I gave up on dipolmacy and won by domination.

 

[nea*Nicu]

the vote is 10 turns after finishing UN.

 

[Zandrew]

the vote is 10 turns after finishing UN.

I wondered if that was the case but I was too impatient. Thanks!

 

[Plutonium239]

I don't have a problem with money being a big part of the diplomatic game; sometimes I think real world diplomacy is just the fine art of paying people to do what you want anyway.

I think diplo wins are unsatisfying because there is no build up of relations over time. Gold gifts and wish fulfillment could both give, in addition to the large temporary boost in relations, a small permanent value. Whether giving a city state gold right before the vote is unecessary, not enough, or would tip the scales would then be affected by everything that came before.

 

[snarzberry]

I can't get any satisfaction from a diplo win while AI civs are sitting on a dragon's hoard of gold and are unwilling to use it to avoid their imminent demise. Hey Darius, it's 2 turns till the UN vote and you have 30K gold. It makes the AI look particularly stupid. Then again, if they were programmed to use that bonus gold efficiently then an AI deity diplomatic victory would be a common occurrence indeed. I don't have a solution, I just don't like it the way it is now. I'm glad they're lessening the importance of gold to city states. I'm wondering how the AIs will behave in GK if they have a high 'try to win' flavour and roll a diplo victory attempt.

 

[headcase]

I wondered if that was the case but I was too impatient. Thanks!

And it's every ten turns in case you don't get enough votes (and no else does either).

 

[Tiber4321]

@ Plutonium, you can play a true patronage game if you choose. I tried it a few times. You get a core group of 4-5 nearby CSs, and build things for them, give them advanced units when they are in trouble, etc. Eventually build up to 8-9 solid Cs allies, and the true concept of patronage kicks in. They do things they ask and they give you great scientists, engineers, etc. Often times what one CS gives you is what another asked for. So it feeds on itself on an upward spiral. They also seem to boost your science.

Of course, all this can be ruined by what Snarzberry talks about. If another AI starts giving one of your core AIs 1000s of gold every turn, they will flip. That's the problem with the diplomacy victory as it stands. I've won games by buying off CSs just because I had the most gold. Its not a satisfactory way to win IMO. Its almost a cheat that lets you win if you are going against an AI trying to build the space ship, because they can be low on gold. Let's hope they are able to fix this problem.

 

[saboteur_]

The current AI really doesn't have much focus on winning. I was playing an emperor game this week, and losing it - hiawatha was a runaway train on a different continent and I couldn't do anything to stop him. He's finished Apollo, I think he even managed a spaceship part - and then he builds UN. I was so far behind in tech I was nowhere near it, and he's supposedly going for a science victory - and still builds UN?

Fine, I think. I can see - since we are not at war - that he has about 20k gold in the bank. So maybe the AI figured it would get a faster win this way. But... He never spends the gold! I am making loads of cash as well, but of course I dedicate all of it to city state patronage. I seem to have more city states allied throughout the 10 turns leading up to the UN vote, with Hiawatha only grabbing one of them back to himself every turn, but not by a large margin as a 500 gold donation wins them back every turn.

And so the game ends - Hiawatha built an unnecessary UN, in the middle of a science victory path that was almost completely uncontested, and loses by not expending his treasury before the vote. A very unsatisfying "win".

 

[Tiber4321]

@ Saboteur Wow, that's really interesting. I've had similar experiences. I had one game at Prince, where I was way ahead in the coming UN Vote, and suddenly other AIs start dumping gold on CSs, while Askia started murdering CSs. I've had a game at King where I dominated my continent and had 9 solid CS allies, but Russia was building space ship parts in the 1980s so I figured I was toast. I bulbed to Globalization, and won an easy diplo victory (also not satisfying). Russia should have won this game, but they apparently went on leave. The AIs are ALL OVER the place in this game. I've seen Siam pull off some master tactics that shocked me, while I've seen other AIs go brain dead.

If you consider that the AIs have no victory scenario planned, it makes you really rethink the game. Civ 5 is so centered around specific victory scenarios for high level victories for the ambitious player, yet if the AIs can't aspire to these same victory stategies, it makes me question the quality of the AI in this game.

I been beaten multiple times in the science race, and diplomacy in Civ 3, in hard fought games at Monarch and above.