Would you like to see a change to the diplomacy victory system?

[Greasy Dave]

The last patch was great, satisfied a number game play issues for me. There are a number of things I'd still like to see improved. But the outstanding change I'd like to still see is the diplomacy victory system. Currently it is an economic victory, not diplomatic. (Sure, that's pretty much how the UN works currently, but it makes for poor gameplay) I have no clear cut idea of how it should be changed. Only that right now, it doesn't work. Diplomacy victory in Civ IV wasn't ideal for me because the religious alliances that formed seemed to distort it and I could never achieve it. The only diplomatic victory I ever won was in Civ 3.

My ideal would be winning through a vote in the UN, where CS don't count, (or if they do, they can't be bought). This would probably require some significant changes to the current aggressive civ diplomacy system. Which also wouldn't be a bad thing. So anyway, feel free to fill this thread with how you think a diplomacy victory could work/ be improved. -Or not- in the case that you like the curent system.

Never tried to make a poll before, so I don't know if this will work.

[fangpig]

I quite agree but to be fair the mechanism is analogous to real life.

A utopian system where all members of the UN are equal and have parity is a dilemma for reality let alone civ.

[Martin_K]

the diplomatic victroy as it is now is very simplistic (maybe it has to be so simple for the AI civs?). i would prefer a system where huge empires have more votes than tiny City states. and i think the system would probably work better if only the founder of the UN and one or two top powers can be elected (or maybe a few more if there are really many civs in the game - maybe one candidate for every 3 or 4 civs in the game). i found it somewhat disappointing when i first got to the end of the game and saw that every single country in the world voted for themselves - that's not how a functioning democracy works imo

if the AI had to choose between you and one or two rivals, diplomatic relationships between the civs would actually play a role. they would vote for the guy they like more (or for the lesser evil if they already hate everyone) so it would make sense to manipulate the other civs (bribe them to go to war with you rival so they hate him and vote you etc). as it is now, the diplomatic relations to other civs are completely irrelevant for the diplo victory as they will simply vote for themselves anyway.

[SamBC]

1 civ-or-cs 1 vote is fine, in principle. The problem is the all-voting-for-themselves. Maybe it could use AV-with-RON? The AIs/CSes will always give themselves first preference, then the people they are friendly with in appropriate order, then RON. Count as AV (I think it's known as Instant Run-Off in the US), and if RON wins there will be another vote in a while.

Could also be made better by the need to get a majority behind the idea of electing someone at all first, as in BTS. Preferably with other motions available as well...

[jpbar81]

YES!

I made a thread about an idea to improve the diplomatic victory if you'd like to check it out:
http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread...57#post1352457

Bascially, city-states would also keep a grand total of all the influence points you've EVER earned with them (there will still be a "current" total too). This grand total would be displayed in their city-state window for you. City-states would do this for every civ.

If the UN is ever built and it comes time to vote, the CS will vote for the civ with the highest "grand" total of influence... not the "current" total of influence and whoever is their ally.

With this simple change, civs that keep peaceful relationships and provide support for city-states THROUGHOUT THE GAME will be rewarded instead of civs that just buyout the city-states when the UN is built because they have a ton of gold. Sometimes these wealthy civs that buy them out also just recently made contact with the CS too or never interacted with them the whole game... a shame.

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Other rules that may need to be applied along with this "grand total of influence" idea:

1. Liberating a city-state would provide a large lump sum of influence.

2. Warring with a city-state would rapidly deplete the influence grand total.

3. City-states no longer become "military" allies. When you're involved in war, they don't follow you. (city-states are worthless during wars anyway, so it's not a major loss)

The reason for this is so city-states aren't flip-flopping during wars after being bought-out and ruining your grand total of influence with them that you worked on for a long time. Also, it'll prevent the horrendous spamming of city-state war notifications that appear throughout the game!

They'll still ally with just one civ that has the highest "current" influence and they'll provide that civ the larger bonus along with their resources. The city-state ally will just not follow the civ in its wars. Afterall, civs with very friendly relations with others don't always follow them into war. City-states don't have to be lemmings either.

Perhaps the "Friends > Allies" city-state status can be renamed to "Friends > Trade Partner" or "Acquaintance > Friends" to better reflect this change.

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Also, it may improve strategy by giving you harder choices to make. Civs that have a long history of friendly relations with a city-state and have a high grand total with them would be more inclined to protect them if the CS is ever threatened by others because it's now an investment. You won't just say, "oh well... i'll just buyout that other city-state to replace them."

[Greasy Dave]

YES!

Bascially, city-states would also keep a grand total of all the influence points you've EVER earned with them. This total would be displayed in their city-state window for you. City-states would do this for every civ.

If the UN is ever built and it comes time to vote, the CS will vote for the civ with the highest "grand" total of influence... not the "current" total of influence and whoever is their ally.

With this simple change, civs that keep peaceful relationships and provide support for city-states THROUGHOUT THE GAME will be rewarded instead of civs that just buyout the city-states when the UN is built because they have a ton of gold.

It's an interesting proposal. However my recent experience at immortal level, was that from the rennaissance on the two big civs pretty much bought out all of the CS's. At that difficulty level it was impossible to compete with them economically. With your system in place, by the time the UN came round, they'd still have bought out the Cs's influence, because at that difficulty level they start at it much earlier, and it's much much harder for the human player to keep up.

Personally I think CS's should be taken out of the UN equation altogether (there's too much room for economic exploitation because of influence buying whichever way it's measured). Dip vic should depend on influence with the AI civs.

BTW @ SAm BC what does AV and RON mean? Your post is a mystery to me

[jpbar81]

Yes, a Civ4 style diplomatic victory may work well too with civs that roleplay more rather than playing to win. It's a shame though to not include the city-states in any way.

[Greasy Dave]

I agree it is a shame to exclude the CS's. The problem is, the current mechanic of buying influence with a CS for tactical reasons not connected to a dip vic works reasonably well. However, when carried over into a UN vote it is deeply flawed. And I can't see how you can get CS's voting in a more measured way at the UN vote without cutting out influence buying altogether. So ti's either, no CS at the UN, or somehow remove influence buying......

[nasuellia]

I voted no. Actually not because of "it's the way the world works". It's not my point. My point is: we have a militaristic victory (conquering capitals), a scientific/production one (building the spaceship), a cultural (complete five blocks of policies). The remaining way to victory has to be about pure money.

So, I like it to be coin-based? Yes
Does it demands some tweaking? Yes, I think the City-states should give a lot more different "quests", the militaristic approach (kill city-states to lower the votes thereshold) should be punished a little more.

[dukeisaac]

I believe that the diplomatic victory should be changed along the lines of jpbar81 put it. It puts more weight on a grand scheme of helping city-states rather than buying them out t the last minute. Some mentioned that on higher levels of difficulty this would not change anything as the AI always has larger amounts of gold no matter what, therefore still beign able to buy off city states on the long run.

To solve this, indeed add more quests! As of now there are too few types of quests and they appear not often enough. Conquering an enemy CS is also too omnipresent, there should be less of these and more find luxuries/wonders/natural wonders, etc. Also, i think CS quests that require you to kill another CS should be dependent on the game; meaning that a CS should demand to attack a certain CS based upon current diplomatic alliances; you are allied with Seoul, Kuala lumpur is allied with France, France has been hostile to Seoul, bam they ask you to conquer Kuala Lumpur. There could be hundred of examples of how this could work, making each game more intricate and unique.

Thoughts?

[Sombra]

They just should follow the rules fromAlpha Centauri and adapt them...Either you crush your opponents because you combine 70% of the world population or you win economic wise because you produce 70% of all money + you hold 70% of all all money (something along these rules for cornering the global energy market)....

[SamBC]

Diplomatic victory should be really diplomatic, but have an economic victory added as well that's more purely economic than the current diplomatic.

[NitroPhantasm]

Yes. Does the United States with a single-minded focus go around winning City States over to succeed diplomatically? Gaining the support of strategic city states makes sense, but sometimes the greatest diplomatic victories involve getting several super powers together to gain control over a rogue City-State through diplomacy.

[The Gimper]

As I've posted elsewhere, the other Civs should be able to vote for anyone, not just themselves (I know that if you capture and return a Capitol that was captured by another civ, that civ will vote for you) and it should be based on who carried on the best diplomatic relations throughout the game. One thing I would change for sure, if you engage in aggressive wars (unilaterally initiating wars rather than defending yourself against aggression, fighting wars of extermination) it should be impossible for you to win a diplomatic victory. (There might be an exception for fighting wars of liberation where you retake a civ's captured cities and return them. That would earn you good guy points.) Another aspect of the Diplomatic victory should be brokering peace treaties between warring civs. I don't know that I would remove the ability to give monetary gifts to City States (that is what foreign aid is really all about) but I would radically limit its overall effect. More weight should be put on other quests, and I agree with the suggestion that City States should only request that you eliminate another City State if/when they are allied with Civs that are at war.

Previous versions had a Domination Victory (which was essentially an economic victory). Your civilization had to control x percentage of the land and resources. Bringing that back, or having a victory maybe based on having the top 5 cities in terms of production, population, happiness, and wealth would be good.

[Edward_TC]

Yes, a Civ4 style diplomatic victory may work well too with civs that roleplay more rather than playing to win. It's a shame though to not include the city-states in any way.

That is probable the best way I have heard the differences between the AI in Civilization IV and Civilization V. In Civilization IV it did feel more like a role-playing experience, in Civilization V it's more like a free for all battle chess match.

[Oosh]

Each Civ, including the player, should be forced to vote for someone other than themselves.
City-states should have no vote.

[jpbar81]

I believe that the diplomatic victory should be changed along the lines of jpbar81 put it. It puts more weight on a grand scheme of helping city-states rather than buying them out t the last minute. Some mentioned that on higher levels of difficulty this would not change anything as the AI always has larger amounts of gold no matter what, therefore still beign able to buy off city states on the long run.

To solve this, indeed add more quests! As of now there are too few types of quests and they appear not often enough. Conquering an enemy CS is also too omnipresent, there should be less of these and more find luxuries/wonders/natural wonders, etc. Also, i think CS quests that require you to kill another CS should be dependent on the game; meaning that a CS should demand to attack a certain CS based upon current diplomatic alliances; you are allied with Seoul, Kuala lumpur is allied with France, France has been hostile to Seoul, bam they ask you to conquer Kuala Lumpur. There could be hundred of examples of how this could work, making each game more intricate and unique.

Thoughts?

I agree!

I actually made a post about this before the last patch was released and it changed the pace of the game.

City-state requests and early game pace

I still think though that with this new patch we could still use some more early quests from city-states. It would also really spice-up the early game more.

Also, because it's much harder to gift gold to city-states early in the game and you pretty much have to rely on these quests. Later on, the gold gifts are paltry, but early in the game they feel like they're huge. Perhaps the early gold gift amounts need to be scaled down a little bit more as well.

[Mega-Dolphin]

I'm trying to think of an idea that follows real world politics/UN procedure as much as possible while being good for gameplay. I think pledges of defense for CSes should have more weight, and successful defenses of the CS should have greater returns while failing to defend the CS will have penalties in the future. To include the major civs, perhaps defensive pacts should have a more important role in that if a defensive pact is active on the turn of the vote, among civs that are in a pact, the one with less military power will vote for the one with the stronger military, just like how world powers spread their protective military influence over smaller nations.

Also, I have to wonder what is so special about becoming Secretary-General of the UN. It's a prestigious position, but not a very powerful one. A better objective, at least in name, would be to become a permanent member of the Security Council or something like that since that position is far more influential. Norway did not become a world power simply because one of their countrymen became Secretary-General of the UN, neither did South Korea, nor Ghana.

[Greasy Dave]

Some interesting ideas. What is more interesting for me, is that the weight of the poll clearly favours a change and a greater role for diplomacy. I was encouraged by the last patch. Firaxis seem to be paying attention to players suggestions. (OR maybe I'm naieve). Cross fingers someone up there sees the poll. 2K Greg, any chance of you forwarding them the link?

[MegaBearsFan]

My biggest gripe with Diplomacy is that the fact that every AI is playing to win the game, rather than just provide a challenge to the player means that whenever a player gets close to a victory, all the AIs (even your friends and allies) suddenly turn on you to stop you from winning.

This has two effects on long-term game planning:

First, it completely removes the long-term meaningful effects of diplomatic relations. There really is no point in maintaining very high standing with any other Civs in the game, since that will not stop them from suddenly declaring war on you to stop you from winning. The only incentive you have for diplomacy is the short-term resource and money making effects.

Second, regardless of which victory you are going for, you MUST ALWAYS build and maintain a sizeable military and formidable defenses in your cities in order to protect you from the onslaught of invasion from every other AI player in the game. Even if you are going for a Culture victory and must keep your number of cities small, you still HAVE to build extra defensive units and keep them up-to-date. Since alliances and friendships mean nothing, you can't rely on a larger, more powerful Civ to protect you from an invasion, nor can you summon any of your City State allies to defend your city (they just camp in their own borders the whole game and never do anything...).

Suggestions for fixing this:

First, some sort of shareable victory condition is a MUST. Civ IV had Permanent Alliances. But permanently joining two civs into one isn't the only way to accomplish shared victories. A system in which anybody who is an Ally with the winner also wins by proxy could be implemented. This would allow weak Civilizations who are going for Culture, Science, or Diplomatic victories to build long-term relations with more powerful Civs for protection, in exchange for allowing them to share in a victory if you win Culture, Science, or Diplomacy.

Second, Civs NEED to have a way to ask other Civs and City States to provide them with military support. There should be a "Can you defend my cities?" request in the diplomacy screen for both AI civs and City States. If you ask for help, and the other party agrees, they should move any units that are not actively engaged to defend your cities and support your units in your cities. You should also be able to provide resources and/or gold in exchange for being protected by another player's units.

[The Gimper]

Another change I think needs to be made is that, just as certain policy paths cannot be active at the same time as others (liberty vs autocracy, etc.) how well you get along with a particular AI civ (or how well they get along with you) should depend to some extent on what type of government/policy you/they have pursued. If one civ has a democracy (Liberty and Freedom paths) and another has a totalitarian fascist goverment (Autocracy and Order paths) they shouldn't get along as well as they would with a like goverment. This will require that the policy paths each civ has taken be made known when they are dealing with each other.

[MegaBearsFan]

Another change I think needs to be made is that, just as certain policy paths cannot be active at the same time as others (liberty vs autocracy, etc.) how well you get along with a particular AI civ (or how well they get along with you) should depend to some extent on what type of government/policy you/they have pursued. If one civ has a democracy (Liberty and Freedom paths) and another has a totalitarian fascist goverment (Autocracy and Order paths) they shouldn't get along as well as they would with a like goverment. This will require that the policy paths each civ has taken be made known when they are dealing with each other.

Alternatively, instead of applying direct diplomatic +/- modifiers, the policies and trees could provide different effects on trade (if International Trade Routes become implemented). For example, Civs that follow the Commerce tree could get more profitable trade routes with other players (and therefore, more players wanting to trade with them), whereas the Honor, Autocracy trees could provide the owner of the policy with additional income in the form of tariffs and import/export taxes at the cost of making the routes less profitable for the other player (and thus, making players less willing to want to build positive relations and trade with them), or they could even allow piracy!

[The Gimper]

Alternatively, instead of applying direct diplomatic +/- modifiers, the policies and trees could provide different effects on trade (if International Trade Routes become implemented). For example, Civs that follow the Commerce tree could get more profitable trade routes with other players (and therefore, more players wanting to trade with them), whereas the Honor, Autocracy trees could provide the owner of the policy with additional income in the form of tariffs and import/export taxes at the cost of making the routes less profitable for the other player (and thus, making players less willing to want to build positive relations and trade with them), or they could even allow piracy!

Good suggestions as well.

[brxbrx]

I miss the old UN. We need that, instead of this meaningless, purposeless free-for-all.

[Sugam]

I have to admit, I do wish the victory conditions where more complex and deep, instead of near sudden victory scenarios for many of them. Plus, there is no way that 2 civs can win together or other possibilities that be nice.

[Zyxpsilon]

I made a thread about an idea to improve the diplomatic victory if you'd like to check it out:

Interesting, have a look at this one too... i'm more after CS variety than other concerns while i'd have to include a Financial victory condition along with a completely overhauled UN.

[Greasy Dave]

I woudl reply with quotes but there so much good sense being written in this thread I'd be quoting nearly everbody. I particularly like Megabearsfan suggestion about policies, eg. trade, effecting potential alliances.

I agree in principle with Gimper. Civs ought to be friendly with civs they have policies in common with. My worry is it reminds me of the religious blocks that I kept banging my head against in Civ IV. I have a nightmare vision of the biggest AI civs running the same policies and allying together against everyone. Not sure if the current AI would be up to being more subtle about it than that.

BTW off topic: Megabearsfan I owe you a nod of apology. In a previous thread I started at Christmas we discussed the pro's and cons of the current incarnation of the game. You outlined ideas for improvements and some seem to have been included in this last patch - particularly those regards needing certain buildings to get full use of resources. I was on the fence about the idea. Now it's implemented I see you were right. The game's much better. So, credit where credit is due, you were right, I was wrong . (I still disagree with you about the need to bring back cottages though - though let's not misdirect this thread with a discussion about it )