Chalk one more challenge down and I read it was easier to do under classic, not Disharmony but I bought the emperor edition and I didn't want to turn back to classic mode, read all the guides and basically followed the core advice of turtle up, don't attack anyone, give bribes and just wait it out to win the diplo victory.



So here's my take on how things are because a few things old guides mentioned don't seem to matter in Disharmony or however the patched game now works.



1. True to old guides, best pick seemed to be one of the spiral galaxies, I picked spiral-8, so bunkering down in your little fortress of systems behind your wormhole out to the center of map was easier.



2. Also true to old guides, it helped to pick max AI, 8 empires, so more trades and on-going agreements could keep running to fuel diplo points.



3. Not so true to old guides, I found giving gold bribes basically useless. It added extremely little to the +X modifier to your relations due to "donations". It also seemed to add zero to negligible effect to total rate of earning diplo points.



4. I should note here this was the most not-fun 4x game of my life. I did it for the achievement only. Damn you steam achievements.



5. I didn't creep out of my wormhole block, just fortressed up, AI scouts eventually found me, hit cold war with each, then went to peace. As recommended by guides, the biggest boost to diplo point rate was when after rush researching cooperation agreements. Getting co-op agreements with some AI took heavy bribes of tech or resources, usually something they lacked or would give them 4 monopoly bonus.



I noticed in the trade window that if you offered something they had 3 of, they were much more likely to take it if you offered the 4th.



6. Diplo rate points until getting to co-op agreements was really slow moving. Like 1% every dozen turns or more, by doing the small trades like resource X for their resource Y. But after peace + co=op agreements with all 7 AI, I was at about 1% every 2-3 turns.



7 Long story short, it was one huge snooze fest of click next turn while I slowly racked up diplo points. What also sucked is the one genocidal maniac AI, the Horato, wiped out the Cravers (ironic) plus the Amoebas. This sucked because him wiping those guys out was neutral for me with the Cravers since you can't have peace but it did wipe out one of my co-op partners.



So in hindsight, I'd not use random factions and set 7 AI to non-Craver. It took me to about turn 360 to win. I expect I could have won 1/7th faster if Cravers hadn't been filling a slot that I could be trading with.



Note - I never went to war but a couple times the pesky Horatio Hitler came to wipe me out but I followed the guide at first and built wall of steel ships - it was recommended not to kill their ships but just wear out their attacks with invulnerable tank ships and then eventually ask for cease fire at first opportunity.



I found this part to no longer be true, or effective. It was lot easier to build actual combat fleets that could kill the Horatio swarm coming at me. Usually after 10 turns or so of slaughtering his fleets after each war announcement, he'd finally settle for a cease fire. But when I was just getting Draws by using tank fleets, it took longer to negotiate a cease fire. I think the key is just not taking a planet, doesn't really matter how many of his troops you slaughter.



Every few turns it was micromanagement hell - to keep my diplo points at the fastest rate I could get it, 1% every 2-3 turns, I had to constantly trade items as the AI keep breaking agreements. So every few turns it was cycle through all the AI and setup new trades.



I must say this was mind numbingly boring and again only because I chase achievements. I am glad I will never, ever have to do a diplo win again.

Notes I missed:

-Normal difficulty. Don't know if it's true as old guides said that on newbie modes it's harder to win diplo.

-disabled all victory conditions other than diplomatic

-used random 7 AI factions but as noted above should have picked manually to avoid Cravers



The AI doesn't seem to not factor the other victory conditions being disabled, because I was able to sweeten the pot and make some crucial late game co-op agreements and deals by giving away science tech that wouldn't hurt me too much to give since there was no science victory. They just seemed to value it based on the science research points.



e.g. I was able to give away the end game right tree science victory tech that slid the AI agreement bar to automatic yes to whatever deal I wanted them to take.