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

[iammaxhailme]

This really depends on map size. It's a lot easier to win an acidental diplo victory on standard and smaller. It's practically impossible (without an extraodinary game) on huge maps.

I win unintentional cultural victories way more often, at least I used to when I played on huge maps

 

[Abaxial]

Only in Civ 6 does anyone complain that they won the game.

 

[Disgustipated]

I'm finding it hard to believe that people are genuinely winning a DipV genuinely by accident

I don't find it hard to believe, I know how obsessive some of us civ players can be. I'm willing to bet some of you all are obsessed with winning every single competition. I used to be that way. But lately I would rather use the gold for buying improvements/buildings in my own civilization. Everyone else is on their own. I'm not giving them my money.

I've never had an unintentional one. But what usually happens is if I get close, then I just decide to go for that victory. There's nothing wrong with a diplomatic victory. But honestly I often turn it off along with cultural victory. I find both victories come too early. Though diplo is mostly based on luck, so doesn't always come too early.

 

[bengalryan9]

I'm willing to bet some of you all are obsessed with winning every single competition.

I think the point is that if you do that you're not exactly winning a DV by accident. You put actual effort towards winning competitions that would help you win. That's no accident.

 

[Amrunril]

Only in Civ 6 does anyone complain that they won the game.

I very much agree with this sentiment. If you're in the position where "accidental victory" is a concern, you're presumably already won the game in all but name. In such a position, I'm glad the game recognizes the victory without the requirement of going through the motions when the outcome is already a foregone conclusion. If you do want to go through those motions, though, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from hitting the "just one more turn" button and doing exactly that.

 

[bengalryan9]

I very much agree with this sentiment. If you're in the position where "accidental victory" is a concern, you're presumably already won the game in all but name. In such a position, I'm glad the game recognizes the victory without the requirement of going through the motions when the outcome is already a foregone conclusion. If you do want to go through those motions, though, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from hitting the "just one more turn" button and doing exactly that.

Heck, I wish it would just declare victory a lot earlier than it already does. As it stands now it makes you play it out well past the point where anybody has any chance of actually catching up with you.

 

[kaspergm]

While not exactly an "unintended" DV, I had an experience yesterday which I think shows quite well the problems that OP is also referring to.

Situation is this:

• I have through casual voting and winning the Worlds Fair (plus building Mahabodhi Temple of Potala Palace, both mostly to reap the secondary effects) collected 9 DV points - hardly what I'd label being "close to winning".
• I have a religion with the Pagodas belief and has build the Hungarian wonder that double diplomatic favor points from being suzerain (which I am for 6 or 7 city states), so I have a fairly good income of DF.
  
• World Congress vote comes up with the world leader vote. Being only at 9/20, AI hasn't started to vote against me, so I'm able to buy the 2 points (+1 extra from "winning" this vote, which feels really like an oversight/abuse). The two other votes are easily predictable (-50 % gold for buying military units, extra trade route for myself (Portugal had previously voted strongly for this because we were neighbors and he wanted the +4 gold for sending his caravans to me). Result: I get a total of 5 DV points (that's 25 % of a win in one vote!), so I'm now at 14/20.
• As chance has it, I'm at this very moment literally both researching the tech that gives me +1 DV point and ... culturing? ... the civic that gives me +1 DV point. These will finish in 3 and 2 turns respectively.
• I have the GE Eiffel sitting around, and Statue Of Liberty has not been build, so I can finish this wonder in 2 turns, for the final 4 points needed to win.

The result:

• I go from sitting at 9/20 DV points to winning a DV in 4 turns. While one may not call it "unintended", it still feels like the victory was basically handed to me with a minimum of effort.

While I realize that train has probably left the station, I think this example also goes to show some very obvious changes that needs to be done, most obviously:

• The vote for +2/-2 DV points should not offer the additional point for "winning the vote". You should not in fact get 3 DV points from pushing this vote through, and you should not be able to "game" the system by voting against yourself to reduce the -2 points to only being -1 point.
• Statue Of Liberty needs to be toned down, so that instead of giving +4 DV points, it only gives +3 or maybe +2, and give it an(other) secondary effect besides the loyalty bonus (for instance, give it (one of) the free Settler(s) back).
• To compensate for above, the Hungarian wonder (Orza...whatever) could give 1 or even 2 DV points, this wonder could use a buff.

 

[ShakaKhan]

Heck, I wish it would just declare victory a lot earlier than it already does. As it stands now it makes you play it out well past the point where anybody has any chance of actually catching up with you.

Preach! I like religious victories because I spend the majority of the game setting up the infrastructure for the apostle spam to finish it, and that's usually less than 15 turns - Rough estimate is 90% of the game is setting up for victory and 10% activating the completion. I like Dom games because I enjoy the early game bulldozing other civs (avoiding those with coastal capitals) but then when war weariness starts to creep in it's ugly face I make peace with everyone, get two frigate/battleship armadas and one naval melee unit per capital left, put them in position, DoW everyone with a capital left and finish the game two turns later. I like cultural victories the most because not only are there soooo many avenues to generate the game-winning yield, but once I have unlocked the final tools that I'm exploiting to get the win, it's over in less than 8 turns. But Science? Snoozefests. I get to the point where I'm 3 eras ahead in science and 2 eras ahead in culture, have enough GPT to buy multiple potential game-ending units every turn, triple to quadruple the amount of cities of the second largest civilization, and there's still HOURS left to play, which I try to actually play to keep myself engaged, but it's really a matter of clicking next turn over and over again. And, for me, Diplo is by far the worst. I've set out 5 times to try to get a DV, and only completed it once, not because I lose the game, but because the game is clearly decided but I have only 13 out of 20 points needed (I get everything on the checklist - the 3 wonders, the tech and the civic, voted for the winning decision in the first two elections) so I gotta play at least 60 more turns after the game is decided and another reason I'll get to in a minute. And while I pray to the civ gods for it, I've never seen an Aid Request mission before I start ticking off the planet with coal plants, and even after that I've only seen 2 in the last 9 games combined. The one time I actually got a diplomatic victory, I got about 20 future techs and future civics each, could have built a spaceship two voting eras ago, at any point could buy a world-conquering military in less than 5 turns, and would have won a culture victory if it wasn't turned off half the game ago

I DO min/max and have no shame in admitting it; because I HAVE TO. My machine sucks, and even playing on small maps exclusively, once turn 170ish rolls around, I start seeing performance issues. At turn 200, it runs really slow and Heaven forbid I call it a night and have to load a save the next day, what I do is to load the game up before I go on my morning walk/jog, and then load the save file before I get in the shower, and it's still loading after I finish showering. At turn 230, I can't play anymore because the game will freeze and crash every third turn. As such, I need to lock in a victory and soon, so here's how my last 9 games finished (all immortal or Deity except 2 Emperor games):

-Gitarja: Science victory: turn 187
-Peter: Culture victory: turn 166
-Kupe: Religious victory: turn 141
-Tomyris: Domination: turn 142
-TeddyBull: Diplomatic: turn 211
-Kristina: Science: turn 190
-Joao: Domination: turn 154
-Lady Six: Religious: turn 122
-Gorgo: Science: turn 193

So while my situation is a little unique in that my equipment forces me to prioritize winning early or fail to achieve a victory condition, I have to ask, if people are unintentionally winning Diplomatic victories, what turn are you winning on? I get that it's the "default" victory condition because you will always generate DV points every 30 turns, but to me it seems like if you win it by accident while actively pursuing a different victory condition, then you need to work on your ability to achieve that victory condition. Apologies if that comes off as condescending; I'm not the greatest player myself by a long measure and probably fall into the bottom half of the pack of Civfanatics, but it seems to me that with the frequency that DV points come along, there's more than ample time to pop a different VC before it accidentally triggers.

 

[Linklite]

Pretty what is combined about is not it being "accidental" at all, what is meant is that it's too easy relative to the other Victories. Which may be true for their settings and their playstyle, but as you say, that doesn't make it objectively true. I keep on getting CVs regardless of what Victory I pursue, even DipV. In fact, I played a DipV the other day and got frustrated because of how long it took, I almost gave up because it felt like I was running on a treadmill. For every two steps forward, I be pushed two steps back. It's just the settings played and the playstyle. I'm a lot better at Cukture than I am at Diplomacy, at least on the settings I play on.

The solution is simple, either:

1. Change settings like disasters.
2. Exercise self control and not donthe things thst lead to an unfortunately early DipV.
3. "Git Gud" at the other Victories.
4. Disable DipV since it's obviously a disadvantage for the AI.

 

[The Civs 6]

I have to admit that, with standard speed, UDV is very hard.

Keep in mind with the historic speed mod, you got to the industrial era at around turn 300 if you had a lot of good pace on science. So you would have 10-15 emergencies and disaster relief parties by then. So that's something to take up with the historic speed mod people.

Carry on guys.

 

[The Civs 6]

Only in Civ 6 does anyone complain that they won the game.

I just want to point out the obvious thing that I don't play Civ to win the game. A frighteningly large amount of people seem to play this game to get high scores. I dunno, maybe 15 years ago that would have been a relevant concern. But strategy games have moved on, just Civ didn't.

 

[ShakaKhan]

Keep in mind with the historic speed mod, you got to the industrial era at around turn 300 if you had a lot of good pace on science. So you would have 10-15 emergencies and disaster relief parties by then.Carry on guys.

Thank you for making my point. Turn 300!!! I get that it's a ridiculously slower game mode, but still TURN 300! I could sandbox every turn up to turn 250 completely disregarding any momentum towards any victory condition with any civ, and still pull off any victory condition with ANY civ in the 50 turns that follow before turn 300. When I get my next machine which can handle the game, that's my next game - play Shaka and do nothing other than sandbox for maximum yields up to turn 250, and then at that very turn, focus on a culture victory.

 

[bonfireg]

You can change the diplomatic victory points required for a victory in one of the GlobalParameters.xml files. If you find that civs are getting close to 20 diplomatic victory points well before getting anywhere close to domination, cultural, religious, etc. victories you can go ahead and change it to 24 points or 30 points or whatever.

 

[Linklite]

I have to admit that, with standard speed, UDV is very hard.

Keep in mind with the historic speed mod, you got to the industrial era at around turn 300 if you had a lot of good pace on science. So you would have 10-15 emergencies and disaster relief parties by then. So that's something to take up with the historic speed mod people.

Carry on guys.

That makes more sense. By t300 I'd have been in the future era for quite some time, and you get screwed by the leader elections long before then. Certainly, if you are still getting SC sessions every 30 turns, a DipV would be very easy at that pace, even without the emergencies. That also explains why you were concerned about the SoL - in my games, it becomes available before the World Leader elections and when +4 would be enough to skip you past that stage, do you can build it without concern for the Victory.

 

[MrRadar]

I came to look at the DipV as a sort of 'emergency' or 'saving the face' exit when you botch another victory condition or get bored of sandboxing along, but still don't want just to quit without some sort of finality. It floats to you gently, it requires minimal imaginable effort to pick up... and it is worth exactly as a much as a Steam achievement that some games put in: "Start your first game".

You don't necessarily have to wait t300 to get it, you can get around t250 without doing anything extraordinary. AI just won't build SoL. My last one was t265, standard speed, disasters 2, no modes, deity.

And it is somewhat strange to look at that screen with serene images and listen to the words about how you were striving for peace whenever you could... in a company of your massive army that just wiped a couple of civs from the map. What a troll.

No wonder that DipV is a clear first candidate in the poll, as a VC needing a rework.

 

[Linklite]

I came to look at the DipV as a sort of 'emergency' or 'saving the face' exit when you botch another victory condition or get bored of sandboxing along, but still don't want just to quit without some sort of finality. It floats to you gently, it requires minimal imaginable effort to pick up... and it is worth exactly as a much as a Steam achievement that some games put in: "Start your first game".

You don't necessarily have to wait t300 to get it, you can get around t250 without doing anything extraordinary. AI just won't build SoL. My last one was t265, standard speed, disasters 2, no modes, deity.

And it is somewhat strange to look at that screen with serene images and listen to the words about how you were striving for peace whenever you could... in a company of your massive army that just wiped a couple of civs from the map. What a troll.

No wonder that DipV is a clear first candidate in the poll, as a VC needing a rework.

I agree. One of the great paradoxes is that alliances harm your DipV. Due to cost scaling and the equal rewards of diplo in alliances, if you're winning a DipV, you're actually giving away votes to others that will then use those to vote to takeaway your own DVPs. As a result, it's significantly more beneficial to eschew alliances completely and go lone wolf, which is completely against the theme of a DipV! Unless, of course, you're playing multiplayer teams, at which point DipV becomes even more broken.

The main redeeming feature of DipV as it stands is that it's the only Victory that I regularly see AIs making active progress on. I regularly see the AI get halfway to winning, while the other Victories. I never see them make substantial progress. SVs are the possible exception...depending on how you define it.

 

[George Truman]

I actually just tried my first diplo victory and had the opposite problem. I messed it up and missed two opportunities to vote for myself for +2 victory points because I thought the AI was all going to team up on me and I ended up accidentally winning a culture victory while shift+entering waiting for the last world congress.

Does anyone know how many diplo victory points the player needs to have for the AI to start voting against them? 17 or 18 maybe?

 

[MrRadar]

Does anyone know how many diplo victory points the player needs to have for the AI to start voting against them? 17 or 18 maybe?

In my experience it's 15 and onwards, though some slight variations might be possible, as I had one surprise at being taken down at 14 already when I was sure they weren't supposed to bother just yet, and another time I already voted against myself at 15 only to be astonished when it emerged that I could have clinched that vote, as AI's votes were split roughly in half: half of them voted against me and that wouldn't've been enough to match me had I gone all in, and the other half AIs were more interested in other resolutions.

 

[Stringer1313]

I think that at a minimum, only the civ(s) that sank in the most diplo points to the winning resolution should get a point.

 

[Linklite]

I actually just tried my first diplo victory and had the opposite problem. I messed it up and missed two opportunities to vote for myself for +2 victory points because I thought the AI was all going to team up on me and I ended up accidentally winning a culture victory while shift+entering waiting for the last world congress.

Does anyone know how many diplo victory points the player needs to have for the AI to start voting against them? 17 or 18 maybe?

For me, it's always been when I've hot around 15 DPVs, but also they have always targeted me when the World Leader elections come around. It could be me hitting 15, or it could be that they just target the leader and that was me who happened to have 15 or it could be some other prompt.

I noticed in one game that the instant that you git 10 DPVs, they stop selling you diplo, which scuppered my plan (I had tons of gold, so my plan was to buy all their diplo, can't vote against me when I'm the only one with diplo). So they start to turn against you at 10 DPVs, but I'm not 100% sure about World Leader elections, probably around 15 DPVs.