Diplomatic Victory, so unfulfilling

I think theyve done something about the maximum gifts per turn in the latest patch but im not 100% sure

off topic: please dont write post abou how winning is easy... everytime i come on the forums a new post pops out with someone saying that this game is too easy and then they say " oh yeah i play on tough becouse i dont want the AI to cheat..." PLAY ON HIGHER DIFFICULTIES its not like the ai is gonna get any better on tough so stpo whining and turn it up

Well, I guess it would not be so easy, if I needed to conquer more then one race or something.
Not just get tech lead, due to tech-whoring and buy out diplo victory.

Anyway, it was my first (and probably only) game on Tough, since it obviosult can't challenge me.
I'll probably more to Crippling with its 25% economy bonus for AI.
But I don't think this will solve problems I outlined, just pospone them a little.

Did you know you can turn off 'Tech Trading'? Try that.

On that topic, I hated the aggressive tech trading of everyone else in Civ3. I had little chance to trade techs with other races unless I just discovered something or was way out in front of everyone else. The net effect is that my research was up against the research of the rest of the planet, which sucks.

Brad (of Stardock) has already said that they won't use the Civ4 solution because that requires the AI to play unlike a human, using artificial measures to prevent trading.

He's been working on improving its trading, but to me it's this ridiculous function where it picks someone at random to trade with that seems most useless. This is a stratergy game and it's picking random people to trade with? WTF? It needs to be much smarter than that, at the very least it could go for the race with the lowest diplomacy which holds the tech it wants (and it should want something, not just trade due to a random function).

I agree, Quitch. The current AI's diplomacy is just not good enough. I must say I wouldn't mind at all if they borrowed the diplomacy AI from Civ 4 which is extremely savvy.

To the original poster I will say this: Fixing the AI's diplomacy by making it more demanding and trading more will go a long way towards making alliances more difficult to obtain and thus make the diplomatic victory more fulfilling.

Diplo Vitory can be easy depending on the settings of your game. For exapmle playing a game in a galaxy of good races will surly be easy. On the other hand the diplo victory playing as good in a galaxy of evil races on a hihger difficulty mode may be impossible, since you'll be constantly at war and never have occasions to gather techs and money to "bribe" other races into your alliance.
Where I see a problem is the neutral races. It is very easy to have graet relations with them, no matter if playing as an evil or good race. I'd like the neutral races to be more critical towards everything "non-neutral". The longer the player is at war, the less opportunities he has for gathering techs and money to give away.

My general setup:
Suicidal, Nine Races, Playing Humans with +50 diplo, good ethics.

I've gotten a lucky break from the get-go and gotten an early diplo victory once out of the last 5 games. I generally win by diplo victory, but not before having to eradicate several pesky antisocial human-hatin empires.

Generally speaking the Drengin, Yor, and Korx have got to go. Goody-two-shoes altarians are either my best ally, or decide they need to stop my reckless conquest and save all those poor races I'm slaugtering left and right.

I usually conquer half of the races and then ally with the survivors. It makes it more difficult and I don't have to worry about crushing everyone in my path.
I crush the civilizations that declare war on me first. I also destroy all minor races.

Update:

I just got another Diplomatic victory.
Now on Crippling difficulty, Terrans, large map with 9 races.
It was very challenging game until I conquered Torians (and bit after conquest when Drengin invasion was probablity).

Then after some build up and tech trading, I become 2-3rd world power (with Drengin being the 1st).

After some trade missings with my freighters and mostly peaceful exsistance, I concluded that all races had neutral or positive relations to me. Even Drengin, but that was after one tribute I played to them and some freighter missions (was wary at one point).

So anyway, I did the exactly same trick as I did in my last game.
I gave bunch of techs to most races buffing my relations to friendly and then signing alliance.

It was a bit more difficult with Drengin, since just giving all my tech was not enough (they had very advanced military tech).
So I gave them 3 planets too, to make them frienly (well what can you expect from Drengin). Then I made final alliance and won the game.


Anyway, from next game, I'll turn off this kind of victory, because it was just too easy due to the way how diplomacy is set up. One-turn gambit is just too cheap way to win.

Maybe this is kind of thing that needs to be looked for next patch?

As for Civ4 comment, regarding "tech-whoring" (seperate problem from 1-turn diplo win gambit):

Well if you want AI to act like Human, then they need to use something similar to Civ3 model.
I mean that's what human player does all the time. Agressive trading.

With some spicing of Civ4 model when some particular techs AI won't trade for strategic reasons (to neither player or any other AI, otherwise other AI could spread it to someone else).
Combining this with mechanism of AI valuing some tech paths less them others, like if some AI really does not need life support techs, could give interesting results.

p22: Turn off tech trading. Or turn off diplomatic victory. Or don't do it all in one turn.

Pre-1.1, AIs only allied when you were "close" (AFAIK), now they ally at "friendly" which is a very bad change, IMO...

Agreed...
Btw, I never played Galciv before 1.1

Well IMO its a CHEAP way to win, comparable to the UN Victory in Civ.

At least UN win in Civ4 is bit more difficult.
I never suceeded in getting it, although I played CIv4 all the time.


P.S.
Btw, implementing some Civ4 UN abiltiies to GalCiv2 would be nice. Like having general secretary who in fact posts proclamations to be passed in united planets (not just random thinkgs like it's now).


P.P.S.
As someone said, change of eagerness to get ally from 1.0 to 1.1 definetly gave it's ugly side.
While I don't think having ally woth frendly relations is bad as it is, the problem is if that is combined with diplo win.

Maybe with only 20-30% of races you should be able to get alliance with just friendly relations. After that, other races should understand that player wants diplo-win and would require close relations for futher alliances.

Anyway, from next game, I'll turn off this kind of victory, because it was just too easy due to the way how diplomacy is set up. One-turn gambit is just too cheap way to win.

TURN OFF TECH TRADING....problem solved. Sheeesh, no need to patch the game or whine about winning this way. Just use the settings provided in the game so you can't trade tech and then you can't win this way. It also makes the game harder as yoiu have to research everything to get anything.

The fix for this is to allow the AI to form opposing power blocs. This is somewhat done using ethics and such, but I've never had a galaxy split into a cold war between two rival alliances. I've always been able to just add civs to my 'stable' until I've got all of them. GOTTA CATCH EM ALL is not a particularly realistic political system.

TURN OFF TECH TRADING....problem solved. Sheeesh, no need to patch the game or whine about winning this way. Just use the settings provided in the game so you can't trade tech and then you can't win this way. It also makes the game harder as yoiu have to research everything to get anything.

Removing crucial game features doesn't make game better.
That's just a workaround.

And even then, it's better to remove less (diplo-win) then more (tech trading), if it solves the problem.
No tech trading hurts AI too, while not having diplo victory only hurts player (AI can't get diplo victory).


P.S.
Also pointing game problems is not whining.
That's called feedback.
Current diplo rules are just not good enough to give proper challenge (without removing core game features as workaround).