How to achieve a Diplomatic Victory and how Integrity works

[Mind Worm]

Hello there, I´m trying to get a Diplomatic Victory with Lal on SMAC with that AI patch
(don´t recall who the creator was ) and it´s becoming very hard to achieve.

I try to be friends with everyone, signing treaties of friendship and giving them gifts,
but they don´t want to give me their votes.
What am I doing wrong ?

And even then there can only be two candidates on the elections, how can I be one of them ?
Having many bases and territory ? Military force ? A great sum of energy credits ?


Please share any advice on how to get this victory,
for me it is much more hard to get than Conquest, Economic or Transcendence.

Some tips on how to keep Integrity high, the benefits and cons of high and low Integrity,
and when to sacrifice some of it to take advantage of other factions, would be apreciated fellow SMACers.

[Mart]

For voting 2 factions with highest vote count are selected, however, it happens that two factions have the same second vote count, so 3 factions can be nominated. Or even more, but I am not sure. It can be checked in scenario editor, I once did that, but do not recall now.

Diplomacy victory is best with mix of building strategy and conquest. By not allowing other factions to grow too fast, but allowing them to coexist. In late game, ideology play a role, so social choices are important. E.g. to ensure Deirdre support run Green, but not Free market, etc.
Sometimes, if you build well, you alone can ensure 75% of votes and elect only by yourself the winner.
Diplomatic relations can, however, speed up victory. All AI factions can contribute to research, economy, when pacted. If your faction is too large, bureaucracy has its impact. It all depends, how well someone can handle micromanaging tens of bases on a huge map, for example.

So in general, to be nominated for the win by Diplomatic Victory, have large population for the votes count.

[Agent Miles]

To get a huge population in mid to late game, try this. Spend the resources to build an orbital infrastructure of 14 each Hydroponics, Nessus and Power satellites.Use your hopefully Super-Formers to raise three squares out of the ocean. Start a base on one end of the row and then terraform the other two squares into a farm with condenser and soil enhancer. That's enough nutrients for a population of seven. All the base needs is an aerospace complex to reep the full rewards of your satellites. With a hab complex and a children's creche (with Democracy and Planned), your little base pop booms up to size 14 with 15 Mineral and 15 Energy production. Raise another three squares and alternate the base from one end of the row to the other as you go. You should be able to make a lot of these fairly quickly and it doesn't involve attacking anyone for their useless bases. Also, the Empath Guild and Clinical Immortality SP's can increase the number of votes you get. Good luck!

[Mind Worm]

So in general, to be nominated for the win by Diplomatic Victory, have large population for the votes count.

Thanks for the tips, so it can be done in a Hybrid or Builder/Pacifist way, that´s a relief,
I was beginning to think that to win Diplomatically you have to be a warmonger or Morgan
and bullying or bribing people into voting you.

Being a Builder and not getting into wars, only to stop them, fits Lal.
I´m a bit tired of being a warmonger.

Just wanna have Dierdre and Zak as my pact bros and reunite the UN mission. 

[Agent Miles]

FYI, running Democracy + Planned with a Children's Creche in every base will get you a big population...and a lot of enemies. Running Planned causes a lot of heartburn for the AI factions. I play at Transcend level where everyone hates me anyway. Not every faction can use this method to pop boom and a few work arounds exist.

[Agent Miles]

P.S. Here is the peaceful build strategy I use to get to the above situation.

This is one plan for efficiently using a small number of Tiles to get a core of strong, productive Bases for your Faction in basic SMAC.

Each Base will only ever need an additional 5 Tiles to work, so you can place your Bases close together for better defense. Have your Terraformers plant at least 5 Forests for each Base to start. If each Base has Recycling Tanks and a Recreation Commons, then you can have three Workers in as many Forest Tiles (1 Nutrient, 2 Minerals, 1 Energy) along with the Base itself (3N/2M/2E) for (6N/8M/5E) total production per Base. You can eventually use Supply Crawlers for the other two Forests to bring in an additional 4M per Base (6N/12M/5E). Rocky Tiles with Mines and Roads would be even better. If you temporarily set some of the Crawlers to bring Minerals to your HQ, then you should get enough Ecological Damage (ED) to cause a Fungus Bloom. Each Bloom causes an increase in the amount of Minerals your Bases can use.

Depending on your Faction's overall Efficiency, you can initially grow your "Great Forest" to about 6-8 Bases without extra drones. Have each Base build a Tree Farm (which also increases the amount of minerals you can produce per base before additional ED) and a Children's Creche. Once you discover the necessary techs, have your Formers convert the Base's five Forest Tiles, two to Boreholes and the other three to Farms. Two of these Farms should also have Condensers. I usually put a Road and a Sensor Array in the Farm without a Condenser. Use Crawlers to collect the Nutrients in the 3 Farm Tiles. Two Workers can collect both Minerals and Energy from the Boreholes. That gives you enough Nutrients for the 2 Workers plus 5 Specialists. The Bases should ideally have a basic "6-pack" configuration:

(Farm+Condenser)-(Farm+Array)-(Farm+Condenser)
(Borehole+Worker)-(Base Tile)-(Borehole+Worker)

So that is:
-two Boreholes with Workers (0N/12M/12E)
-two Farm+Condensers with Crawlers (8N/0M/0E)
-one Farm with a Crawler (3N/0M/0E) If this farm is located between the two with Condensers, then it will have 3N.
-the Base itself (3N/2M/2E)
-five specialists of your choice (EC/Labs/Psych)
Total: (14N/14M/14E) plus Specialists' income

FYI, Democracy with Planned plus the Children's Creche (DEM/PLAN+CC) will give your bases enough Growth to boom up to the max population of 7.

Since you mostly have Specialists in your Bases, you can have as many as you can build. If the two workers ever go Drone, then just add enough Psych from Specialists to correct this. Let's say that you eventually have 14 of these bases up and running. That might be two columns of 7 bases (each column of 3 Tiles across and 14 in length) with a column of 14 single Tiles between them to keep the Boreholes from being adjacent. That's less than 100 Tiles to defend.

Finally, when you get the Spaceflight techs you can have each Base build an Aerospace Complex, and a Sky Hydroponics, Orbital Power and Nessus Mining satellite. These give each size 7 Base an initial +7 N, M and E boost. Build a Hab Complex in each Base and as the size of the Base increases to 14, so does the boost from the satellites. Again with (DEM/PLAN+CC) the population booms up to the new max. Each "6-pack" had a basic production of (14N/14M/14E). The satellites eventually add (14N/14M/14E), doubling each Base's production to, you guessed it...(28N/28M/28E). That's better than (4N/4M/4E) for each tile in every one of your Faction's Bases!

As to the 14 single tiles between the columns with bases, add 3 or 4 more bases with only four squares each. That would be one for the base itself and three with a crawler on a farm+condenser (or two with farm+soil enricher+condenser). You can boom this up to seven population. With an aerospace complex it will continue to grow to 14 pop and get minerals and energy from the satellites.

Of course, Boreholes can't be built on slopes, so the ideal 6-Pack arrangement is not always possible. I usually find about one Rocky Tile per Base, which can be mined with a road for an additional 4M with a Crawler. Even with this, your actual territory for your Faction can be around 100 Tiles and still have 250 population and plenty of Minerals, Energy, Economy, Labs and Psych. Good luck!

[vonbach]

I always found the Diplomatic victory the easiest to get. But then again I tend to go by the "be fruitful and multiply"
strategy of trying to build as many bases as possible. Its  possible to simply build enough bases and have them big enough
to simply outvote everyone else. BTW thats a nice terraforming setup Agent Miles.

[Agent Miles]

Thanks!

You can't win if you lose, so a good strategy has to keep your faction in the game until that happens. Nothing's worse than a group of factions voting someone else as Supreme Leader. A big population is the best insurance policy against that.

[Mind Worm]

Thanks for the peace strategy Agent Miles, gonna try it out now. 

[Agent Miles]

You still have to defend your faction. I typically have a running battle with most AI factions until I transcend or out vote them. Best of luck!