Whatever else happens... we need to talk about unintentional diplomatic victory (UDV)

[Navelgazer]

Huh. I've never won Diplo Victory unintentionally (despite building the wonders, usually winning the WC votes, and always winning competitions), but that's probably because unless I play against it, I'll tend to win by Culture Victory before anything else has a chance.

 

[The Civs 6]

I dunno but it has happened for me my last 4-5 games

 

[UWHabs]

I find that I often guess very wrong on the early congress resolutions, so I don't get that base of points. And then since I don't play apocalypse mode, there's usually only a couple aid requests in the game, so I hardly ever even come close to a DV. I've won once by it (as Georgia), and that was the only game I truly tried to manage the votes, made sure to always vote how I felt the rest of the world would vote, and had so much diplo favour that I could push through what I wanted at the later resolutions.

I do think the AI is too easy to guess on those diplo votes (as mentioned in OP, stuff like city centre production they usually just put one vote each into, and many others they do as well, so if there are 5 AI I know that I just need to put 6 votes in myself and I have the pick of the litter).

I do think there are other things they could do. Like, maybe all the emergencies should basically give you a choice if you win - you either get 1 diplo point, or you get Reward X (ie. +1 gold per envoy, free great people, etc...). In that way, basically you have to give up something if you want to go towards a diplo victory, but if you're not, then you still get a reward. Personally, culture victory is the one I tend to slip into easiest. Mostly I think that's because when I get late in a game I'm winning, I just start wonder-spamming, or buying great people, or digging up artifacts, and combined with the monopoly bonuses, that can really put you close to the culture win. More than once, I get to within 10-20 turns of a CV and could easily have won by that if I slotted in some of those policy cards or reorganized a few things around my cities, in order to win the way I originally intended to.

 

[The Civs 6]

i didnt realize this until now, but I think playing on historic speed probably makes a big difference here lol.

 

[Pietato]

Accidental diplo should not happen outside of Apoc. mode (if you are trying to win every contest).

 

[bengalryan9]

Accidental diplo should not happen outside of Apoc. mode (if you are trying to win every contest).

Which wouldn't really be an accident...

 

[ferretbacon]

I'm surprised at the number of responses saying they've never accidentally won a DV. Perhaps "accidentally" is the wrong word, but I definitely know what OP means. I try to remain somewhat competitive in all victory types (maybe minus Religious). In doing so, I often find myself within easy striking distance of a DV, particularly if I build the Statue of Liberty to deny it to the AI (often out of necessity to prevent an AI DV). There comes a point in too many games where I can either win via DV or else I'm artificially sabotaging said victory to pursue another. It's gotten to the point where my standard setup is to disable this victory type so that I can achieve others. I find it usually gets in the way of a Culture victory more than any other since CVs generally take the longest.

 

[Mahi]

Funny I actually got my first DV here the other day since I never bothered with it before. Never had it accidently before any other victory

If you're not going for DV why would you vote for yourself in congress rather than voting someone to lose 2 points?

 

[Pietato]

Which wouldn't really be an accident...

Sometimes you can win the contests for cheap and sell the favour for a lot of gold. Not exactly an accident, but it is not your goal.

 

[bengalryan9]

Sometimes you can win the contests for cheap and sell the favour for a lot of gold. Not exactly an accident, but it is not your goal.

I definitely know what you mean. I've been in emergencies before where I'm the only participant, or I'm up against one other person and they have a score of 0 or below. All I'm saying is that you still have to choose to win it. It may be the easiest and mindless emergency to win in the world but if you really don't want to win a DV (like the original poster) all you have to do is... not make that choice.

 

[Conquistador_514]

The OP plays the same way every game, and is baffled by getting the same results.

 

[The Civs 6]

I'll turn off the historic speed mod, turn on standard speed, and get back to you all. But diplo victory still sucks regardless of what happens.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I definitely know what you mean. I've been in emergencies before where I'm the only participant, or I'm up against one other person and they have a score of 0 or below. All I'm saying is that you still have to choose to win it. It may be the easiest and mindless emergency to win in the world but if you really don't want to win a DV (like the original poster) all you have to do is... not make that choice.

Yea, for all the skill that goes around apparently, we can't bully the AI for 0.5 seconds less.

Personally, I will delay my victories by some turns if I didn't get a certain wonder or civic yet. I can do this because I like to screenshot the end of game stuff and I know I can win anyways, and that no one is holding a gun to my head that demands "you must win under x turns"

It's just like all those trade bugs running around. They suck, and they need to be fixed, but it doesn't mean you have to try extra hard to ruin the game on your own.

If you ask me "skill" is about being able to bend a game to your will. If you don't develop them, then accept that you won't get the outcomes you want. If you develop enough ability to give yourself some extra leeway, then you can basically do what you want. Or you can ask Firaxis (or modders) to change the game for you.

At the end of the day, this is a strategy game and if you have too many controllable accidents, well strategize better.

 

[kryat]

I suppose it’s worth chiming in that I have never unintentionally won a diplo victory. (Or really any victory without trying for it).

 

[Linklite]

I suppose it’s worth chiming in that I have never unintentionally won a diplo victory. (Or really any victory without trying for it).

Not even Cultural with C&M? You must be the only one!

 

[kryat]

Not even Cultural with C&M? You must be the only one!

Not even that. Pre-patch, I won a culture victory about 40 turns faster than I would have expected, but I was building national parks and marae en masse. It didn’t seem unreasonable to me to win ~T250, about 30-40 turns after flight.

 

[Earl of Pembroke]

I won accidental diplo, maybe 2 of the first 3 games I played with it on. Have turned it off ever since.

 

[Linklite]

I'm wondering if people are defining "accidentally" differently. Accidentally means that you're playing your game and...what? I got a Victory? Huh? How did I manage to get DVPs, let alone 20?

I think what's really happening is that people are playing the game, including the diplomatic side of things, and their playstyle suits diplomacy, and so they're winning at that, even if they're shooting for a different Victory. That's not accidental, though. That's your playstyle shining through and dominating your game than anything else. For me, I have the same issue with CV - no matter what I do, I end up becoming culturally dominant before I get even 15 DVPs, or I get the last capital, or I even launch a satellite. That means that I have to up my science game, really. I've had or heard of "accidental" Victories of that kind in every type apart from SV - people have captured a city and it just happened to work out that it was the last civ to not be converted and by losing a city, it tipped it over to being converted. I've captured a city without thinking and it happened to be the last capital. Score Victories are accidental almost by definition.

I'm finding it hard to believe that people are genuinely winning a DipV genuinely by accident, and I think that is where the scepticism is coming from. I think what is meant is that playing DipV alongside other Victories, and they're just happening to win the DipV first.

In that situation, the answer is simple. Don't try to win it. Just play the game and win the debates that are important and so forth, but those should not be enough to win before the World Leader elections occur, and once they happen you have to game the system to win anyway. If that means that the AI will win via a DipV then take that as a hint to up your game in other areas. No shame in that, I suck at SVs apparently. Just one of those things, we have our areas we need to (or rather, can) improve on.

 

[Socrates99]

If your congress vote is geared more towards getting DV points than at something that personally benefits you the DV isnt an accident. You're actively pursuing points.

If you're dumping thousands of gold or cogs into competitions that just provide favor and DV points it's not an accident. Especially if you're doing this instead of building or buying buildings, units or projects that actually relate to your declared VC.

My suggestion, stop playing diplo defensively until the votes where you can reduce another player's points. Focus resources on your actual chosen VC. You'll find the AI rarely (if ever) gets a diplo win before you if you do this.

 

[Josephias]

Not much more to discuss here, just to highlight the point that ANY victory (maybe except religious and domination, that require map control), is relatively easy to get. I'd say this is a balance flaw compared to Civ V, in example, were you might be running against the 500-turn clock to achieve your desired victory. Instead, in Civ 6, after turn 300, it's just matter of time you (or the AI) finally achieves one of the (non-score) victories. I'm just trying to win a score victory now (huge map, to add to the injury) and it's really a chore to avoid accidentally falling in one victory or letting it to slip to one of the AIs. (and why I'm doing that, you say?, well, I need taht score victory banner in the HoF ).

Cultural and Diplo are easier to get "accidentally" because they cummulate score for things you maybe did not thinking in the victory (while on the other hand, science requires you to build specific projects, and domination/religion to go around in the map doing things). But it is quite easy to get near a culture/diplo victory just by playing (Diplo because you participated in some competitions early game, and won resolutions that interested you. Culture may come inadvertently by several points: you start to build CS improvements, get great works of art and theme just for fun, build parks just for sake of being eco-friendly... it will be further aggravated if you win Olympic Games / build Biosphere.... and specially if you mix doing some of the previous thing it with lots of conquering, because a) you have more things that give culture and b) you weaken the cultural game of other civs, lowering the victory treshold (or actually making it raise slower). Suddenly, you may find a timer to cultural victory in lower tenths of turns...

Of course, you can avoid both winning diplomatically and culturally, but you have to be very conscious of how near you are of the victory, and actively work to avoid it.