Diplo victory - Is it unbalanced?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I had this thought just now while I was finishing up my first Twilight of the Arnor game.

I was playing my custom race, the Nonsequiturians, on Challenging. Thalan tech tree. Other races were: Korx, Terra, Arcea, Toria, Korath and Krynn on a large map with tech trading off. Terra and Korath stayed weak, and Krynn took out Korx in middle-game. They started dominating on military and influence like they do.

Anyway, I chose neutral, and my big tech lead and solid defensive fleet made Krynn want to ally with me. I hadn't been expecting that, but I felt I had to do it because I didn't see a way to take them out in any other fashion. They just had too many ships and too much influence.

So Toria started going for the ascension victory, and I decided to take them out. While I was doing that, Krynn obliterated Terra and Arcea in about 20 total turns, leaving me, them, and a very weak Korath. I then took out Korath for the diplomatic victory.

I guess my point is, what if it had been the other way around? I could easily have sat on my hands and waited for Korath to get conquered by Krynn... while I did my laundry or something. I didn't actually try that, but if I remember right, I've seen it happen that way before... and I think I still would have won the diplo victory. Am I wrong? I've never seen the AI win a diplomatic victory, and by definition it would seem impossible since once there are no wars and everyone is allied, you win. I almost want to say that the game should award the win to the race that conquered the most others, or assembled the most alliances.

Plus, the whole alliance setup seems unbalanced. I can ally with someone and then spy on them, select an opposite alignment, pay others to attack them... I've never seen the AI break an alliance. The only way seems to be if you do it yourself.

If I'm wrong, chime in... but it does seem unbalanced. I'm thinking about turning off diplo victories from now on.
7,384 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi,

a similar thing happened to me, too. I guess this is where the overall flexibility of the game comes in, a way of realism if you will. In other words: Sometimes you get lucky. :D

I had alliances with 2 of the remaining 3 other races, and out of the blue the thalans started to attack the korath clan (which was the only one not to be my ally). They crushed them to dust. On the other hand, i worked pretty hard to get the thalans to be my ally (they attacked my once and i could barely hold them back although they were at war with 2 other races already) while maintaining alliance with the iconians, who where hostile to the thalans. I just figured that i couldnt match them military-wise, so that may have been the key to me winning the game.

So it was either luck, wits or both. :D

But same as you im still new to the game, so i think the vets here can get it covered better.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Haha! Glad it worked out for you. Actually, I've been playing this game for years. Just took a break before the expansion, that's all.

My post was less about it being an obstacle to winning (it isn't, and I can always turn diplo victories off) and more about it being a question of balance with the AI. The game is pretty fair as far as scaling up the intelligence of your enemies once you get beyond Challenging (fair enough to whoop my ass on anything beyond Tough so far) but it doesn't seem like that happens here.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hey Kribensis,

I dont believe the AI can get a diplomatic victory. I've never seen the AIs break an alliance either, so they could definitely use an augmentation in that direction. The diplomacy overall seems way too simplistic in my opinion, and you can really abuse the AIs with manipulating it. ;)

Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In my first TA game the Thalans were eventually allied with everybody else (including me). They didn't win though, and the Victory screen showed something like 40% or so (can't remember exactly) in the diplomacy section for them.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Who cares about diblo victory? I crush my oppnents allways... 'Till the game gets a lot better diplomacy and UP (similar to SMAC)

...I think getting diplo victory is too easy and as the AI can't do that (maybe everyone in the alliance is victor?) it's a bit boring too.

Duh... why can't civs form coalitions/confederations etc.? Let's say Korath and Korx and Humans form alliance with each other and then they could form a confederation (let's call it Kohuko Confederation) and 4 others form another coalition (insers races and name here) and then UP could vote (don't ask who votes or if it's random or something, i leave details out) or decide which coalition is winner (again no idea what are the reasons or anything) and the winning side would get diplo victory?

Could that make DV more challenging and balanced?

and is this bordering off topic? it's 0:40 AM here... i'm a bit tired.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hell, even a simple non-aggression pact would be good. I cant remember any reasonably good 4x game that didnt have that. It seems like a strange oversight.

Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd be happy if the AI broke your alliance every now and then. It strikes me that the AI can, by definition, never win a diplo victory unless you let it, so basically I just have to turn that off. It's such a simple concept, that the AI can't win diplo, but I never really thought about it before.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
An AI influence victory is completely preventable, as well. All you have to do is delcare war on them. You may not win, but you can force a conquest victory.

In order for a player to get either a diplo or influence victory, the AI must let them. In essense, it's another form of surrendering.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Of course the AI can get a Diplo victory. All Allies share the victory when no opposition is left, so the player and the allied AI get the victory. If all the AI's were allied and not the player, the Allied AI would get the diplo victory when the player is defeated (you just won't see it, because you are dead).
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good point, that. It's like a take-off on the old question, "if a tree falls in the forest" ...

But what about a scenario where the AI takes out three civilizations and you just sit there and offer them an alliance when they're done? It doesn't seem right. Here they've done all that work ridding the universe of the Axis of Evil (or Good) and you still wind up with that score for the Metaverse. What does the AI get?

They really need to unionize.

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh, I agree with you there, it is a cheap victory. I believe that is why the Diplo victory scores less than a comparative military conquest victory. Besides, it's just not as much fun. I usually turn off all non-military victory conditions.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is my first time posting on these forums in a while, and my video card has been fried for a couple months now so I haven't been able to play the game. But I played it quite a bit back when GalCiv 2 first came out and I remember specifically how the AI absolutely never broke an alliance.

I never went for the Diplomatic Victory because it was way too easy and not as fun, but my strategy was to ally with the civ who has the highest military rating so that I ensured my survival in the early to mid game. But in the mid game I tend to catch up and even surpass my ally in military strength, but instead of fighting a direct, total war, I fight a shadow war.

According to Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the best way to wage a war is to not let the victims know they are in a war. First things first, I hire mercenaries to do the dirty work for me. Usually mercenaries I know will lose in the end game, but for the mid game they can keep my ally's military distracted and weakened. By this time, my ally is completely dependent on my trade routes so I believe a trade embargo is in order.

Now when a civilization who is suppose to be your ally starts to build military starbases in your territory directly after cutting off 90% of your income via a trade embargo, and you are already busy fighting wars that were declared on you by other rival civilizations without warning, wouldn't you be at least a little suspicious of their motives?

The main point of this post is that I am pretty disappointed to see that this problem with the AI not being able to break an alliance, especially when said alliance is weakening their position, has not been fixed already, two award winning expansion packs later. I hope the developers take note of this thread and fix this.