Hello again!

One more question about this wonderful game.



Played several games, but lost all of them. All in the same way. Somewhere in the world exists Drakken faction. I have no common borders and no any other business with them. They establish peace with most empires and while i am building, fighting, questing, etc... (= playing a game), they are quickly accumulating diplomatic points and evenyually win diplomatic victory. At moment when diplomatic victory acheved, other victory conditions progress (for all factions) is 30% in best case.



That games I played on "Normal" and "Hard" difficulties.



This looks quite disproportional for me



How can I hamper Drakken's lightning-like advancement? What can I do? (If they were my neighbor, I could declare war and vanquish them, but they are far away...). Any ideas, strategies, thoughts, comments?

One way is to eliminate other empires from the game. You get diplomatic points every turn for being in contact with another empire (more for being at peace with them, but some just for being in contact), and the Drakken are automatically in contact with everyone, so anyone you take out means fewer diplomatic points per turn for them.



(Of course, if you have the military might to eliminate other players, you can probably attack them directly...)



You can also use diplomacy to ask other players to declare war on them. This will hamper them in the obvious way (tying up their resources in a war), but also, they get fewer diplomatic points per turn from a war than from a peace treaty or alliance.



Anything you can do to reduce the influence that the Drakken are generating should slow them down (you earn diplomatic victory points for every trade you make, and initiating a trade costs influence); but there's probably not much you can do on that front directly.



You can refuse any deals they try to make with you (especially peace/alliance), though you might be hurting yourself in the process.



Obviously, you could change your game parameters so that there are no Drakken in the game, or disable diplomatic victory entirely.



Or you could try to win faster. (About what turn is it when the Drakken win?)

Antistone has good advice. Here are a couple of things I'd add:



One of the best ways to figure out how to defeat a strategy is to try your best to master that strategy. So try a Drakken diplomatic victory out. What are the limits? What allows you to win more quickly or less quickly?



One of the things that stood out to me is that you mentioned that you hadn't even found the Drakken by the time they won. Exploration is an important part of this game, and you might want to put more of a focus on it.

natev wrote:
Antistone has good advice. Here are a couple of things I'd add:



One of the best ways to figure out how to defeat a strategy is to try your best to master that strategy. So try a Drakken diplomatic victory out. What are the limits? What allows you to win more quickly or less quickly?



One of the things that stood out to me is that you mentioned that you hadn't even found the Drakken by the time they won. Exploration is an important part of this game, and you might want to put more of a focus on it.

I'm not finding the Drakken to be that dangerous. Basically in my current game, I am almost on par with them diplomatically. There's a like a 3 - 4% difference in victory conditions.



Interacting with the other empires is a good way to compete. Also, try playing Broken Lords. Once they get going, they can buyout everything...including population to put to work gathering diplo points (you can pursue both an economic and diplo victory simultaneously). Am I the only person who thinks BL are a touch overpowered right now?

Diplomacy can't exist if you make the world burn. Instigate violence whenever possible. Declare war on them frequently so they'll waste their influence forcing truce instead of making deals that increase their victory progress. Be that guy.