I really don´t like the Congress system. It feels like a free give away of cities every 25 turns. I think that we need to debate the reason for it existance, it´s logic. I feel the congress should give cities to civs that should own them, but for some reason they don´t. But there should be strong reasons for the giving. My proposal is that only cities that were owned by a civ AND it has more than %50 of that civ population should be given. Nothing more. The congress purpose is to restore the corresponding nationality to cities, nothing else.

If we put "colonies" in the ecuation, I think the following condition should be added: cities that are far away from the capital AND have no culture connection to it, should be given to nearby civs. For example, a spanish city in Colombia, near the Incas.

I think the conditions should be very hard, so to avoid illogical giving of cities.

I like your ideas Elhoim, especially the first one, where a city must have been owned by a civ and that civ has 50% of the total population in order for the city to be given away.

with your conditions, there will be 0 (most of the times) or 1 city available for request instead of 5/10

And how many such things happened in history?

I'm sure that Rhye's system will get working, but we have to be patient. Rhye, if you ARE looking for suggestions to improve the congress, what kind of feedback are you looking for?

Actually, there are many instances of historical nations deciding that they want city and trying to get it, despite not really having any justifiable reason, in a Wilsonian sense. Sweden kept the Thirty Years War going because they wanted a treaty confirming their ownership of certain cities in northern Germany. The Russians worked hard to try to get the English and French to justify giving them Constantinople once WWI was finished.

Claims were pretty common in history but most of them were fulfilled by war rahter than congress.
If congress decide to transfer a city it could be executed only if the previous owner is very weak and cannot fight back. Having enough military power I f... all congresses debating on my country ;)

I haven't had any congress in my game so it is too early to comment. But I will rather resist.

I'm only looking for bugs.
I think that the concept as I intended works fine.

I like how the Congress works now, it's good fun. I'm also yet to see any meaningful city get "captured" by the congress, only faraway colonies and controversial border city conquests. Me likes. :goodjob:

My first meeting with the congress so far was incredibly annoying. Playing a 0.93 game atm, as England.
The first congress happened in 1792, and forced me to give Cambridge, a town founded by me centuries ago, size 17, and situated roughly at the RL Hamburg area, to Germany. Everyone except me voted yes.
This town had 68% English citizens and the rest Germans and I HAD TO GIVE IT AWAY?? No option to refuse? Let them declare war on me all they want, its MY town right?. Also, I had a half dozen or so units in the town that also automatically changed ownership. Surely if I somehow lost a town peacefully, my troops would be withdrawn to my home territory.
Going to reload the autosave before and see if the same happens again.

edit :
On the reloaded game (autosaved the turn before), nobody asked for one of my towns, but Germany asked for Singapore, a size one town FAR away from his country, and he had absolutely no colonies anywhere else.
HC asked for a Spanish town in Argentina and got that, while Japan asked for and got a town on the northeastern Chinese coast, roughly North Korea.

This addition to the game, to me, seems totally unneccesary, flawed and..well, random, only towns where the asking city has an overwhelming majority of the population, or is surrounded by the other nation, should be able to be voted for like this. Also, I cant really see what kind of real world (if any) function this is supposed to emulate, rarely did nations intervene in a way like this (if you wanted an area/town, you'd pretty much have to go to war for it). And especially the fact that I cant refuse to give away the town makes it very unfair. At the very least, if this function absolutely has to be left in game, let the player have the option to refuse, and the country that ask for the town then have the option to declare war.

I agree that you should have the option to refuse and risk war. Like when cities flip on civ spawn.

The first congress happened in 1792, and forced me to give Cambridge, a town founded by me centuries ago, size 17, and situated roughly at the RL Hamburg area, to Germany. Everyone except me voted yes.
This town had 68% English citizens and the rest Germans and I HAD TO GIVE IT AWAY??


32% Germans seems to me a good reason for Germany to request it.

What is the logic behind how Civs are picked to join the congresses? My first one took place in Aztec territory, with the Aztecs as the weakest Civ in the game, which seems strange.

- the 4 or 5 best civs that know the world leader, including the leader itself, are invited always, plus some other random (but they still have to be able to contact the leader)

Interesting. I kind of agree, but I think the randomness should be stacked. Say, second place has a 95% chance of invited, then 80%, and last place should be like 10%.

yes it's already that way

In my recent game is still saw some odd congress results.

Macau (Chinese city in mainland china) get passed to the spanish. A Incan city in South America went to the Romans.

I think the idea is good, Its just that we need to get these non-sensical cities that transfer to stop happening.

I definitely like the idea, though I tend to agree with Appren about the frustrating results. I was playing a game as Rome and had cities that I'd conqured or founded hundreds of years before the congress and was forced to give them up.

I have a couple of ideas that might help:
1. Since in my case they were cities I'd conqured, let only the civs involved in the conflict vote, and only then at the negotiating table at the end of the war.
2. Also let a civ have the opportunity to refuse, if so, war is declared between the civ that wants it and the civ that has it.

Thoughts?

I hate to break it to folks, but in a game, sometimes you LOSE. You can't get irritated when something doesn't go your way. If you're unhappy with the result, declare war. Take it back.

On the other hand, looking for truly nonsensical results is important. Saved games would probably help, or at least screenshots.

I hate to break it to folks, but in a game, sometimes you LOSE. You can't get irritated when something doesn't go your way. If you're unhappy with the result, declare war. Take it back.


Correct.
I may add a refuse popup (which means some work to do and I'm not looking forward to it), but you'll end up always refusing if you don't realize that more powerful you are, more they'll strip you down of your cities.

I had my first Congress in 1815.

I played China. Shanghai was the most populated city in the world (22) with 100% Chinese, third most cultured city in China. Japan was the poorest civ.

They claimed Shanghai and they got it :eek: :mad: :cry: My culture in the continent was so strong that Shanghai still did not have connection to Japan.

Absolut nonsense :cry:

And... something happened to the game just after congress. I cannot scroll map with mouse or pick the unit. I can go menu. I reloaded last autosave. New Congress gave different result but the same happened to the game. Then I saved after Congress. While reloading the game crashed to Windows (I tried only once).

I cannot understand idea of Congress.

I can understand to call a Congress after long war e.g. Germany and Russia to decide what is going to happened with cities in dispute.
But making world Congress when at the same time any claims of the world are solved has absolutely no sense. And what is the voting? Do they play dice or poker to decide who tkaes the city?
I was wondering about big Congresses in history.

1815 in Vienna - they debated on Europe after Napoleon who was defeated. They did not take cities from winners. Could you imagine Portugal claiming London in 1815. Leaders vote for yes and British just leave Buckingham Palace or make welcome party for Portugese.

Another in Versailles after WW1 was on defeated Germany and allies. Could you imagine newly re-born Poland wants New York and get it?

How I voted in Congress - basically always against the stronger civ. I do not really cared what was happening in South America but I liked to make life hard for Spanish who was closest to me in points.
If dispute is between Inca and Spain why China shall vote? World Congresses should be allowed only after the UN is built. Earlier only local ones.

I cannot find a single instance in history when for no reason leaders of the world met and redistributed part of their empires.

There must be a possibility to deny voting result. If I feel enough powerful I could risk war with all voting for yes.

And calling Congresses should be event driven - i.e. after big conflicts only and only cities of this conflict's parties could be discussed.

In current condition the concept of Congress kills the game :cry:

And what is the voting? Do they play dice or poker to decide who tkaes the city?


Not really.


I was wondering about big Congresses in history.

1815 in Vienna - they debated on Europe after Napoleon who was defeated. They did not take cities from winners.


Not exact. They tried to form a balance that would deny any nation to become too strong.


If dispute is between Inca and Spain why China shall vote?


You can abstain


World Congresses should be allowed only after the UN is built. Earlier only local ones.


If it were after the UN, when the game is basically over, they would be pointless.

Ok.

But what was the logic that gives Shanghai to Japan and why I had to accept this choice?
I know that I could abstrain from voting about South America but my point was why they asked me? They should not care about Chinese opinion solving a claim in South America. Only in modern ages everything has global dimention. It did not have in XIX century. China was not invited to Congress of Vienna. Furthermore if some crazy Congress vote for giving London to France - Great Britain finishes this Congress immediately - not giving London and then declare war but rather declare war immediately.

Congress of Vienna was held to shape Europe after Napoleon. Of course objective was to balance somehow political situation but definitely not by making winners less powerful. There is no concept of good and evil in politics. There is only keeping its own interest.

International politics is extremely complex and it is very difficult to program this in the game. IMO current model to far to simplified.

If some far away civs agree that I should give a city to Japan - I should have a right to disagree. Later let them all send their armies to make their resolution real :ar15:
It should be left to my choice if I prefer to follow the resolution or risk a conflict with many civs.

Here I come again to the previous point about Chinese voting about South America. What is my interest there? Am I ready to send troops if my voting was ignored. I would say that rather unlikely. It means that I do not have my real interest there. So why shall I be involved in any voting there? :confused:

The methods of voting are complex and consider many factors.
Without seeing your save, I assume Japan asked for a mainland city close to its borders.
Being on the bottom of the power scale, and you being much stronger made most of the civs favour this request. If you are the world leader, you had a further malus. Diplomatic attitude did the rest.

As for the interesting in voting for far places, when you're invited, you vote. All I can do is that in case AI has no interest is more likely to abstain (currently it abstains only if pros and cons are equal within a range)

I am very much enjoying the new conference system but I do agree it needs some more work as it seems to be a little unrealistic.

To address this, would it be possible to further balance the conference system by applying the same rules as the UN voting system uses? That is, have each country's vote value be proportional to their population.

This would mean that the smaller, more insignificant civs cannot make outlandish requests. On the flip side, as a small civ, you would have to maintain much better diplomatic relations in order to survive.

Either way, keep up the good work Rhye. I'm amazed you find enough hours in the day to keep this mod going!

World Congresses, at least the RFC ones, have never happened in real history. The idea of leaders of the world gathering to give away parts of their empires is simply unrealistic. I don't think there's a need for them for better gameplay and for me they're unfun (especially when it's me who loses city).

I think it would be better to make AI more likely to trade away its cities, especially those far away for money or techs (for exaple Louisiana or Alaska) Also when negotiating peace both sides should be able to make demands (currently only one can). Let's say Germans conquer Paris, then French might want to trade their African colonies for it. Seems pretty realistic (that's want Wilhelm wanted to do in WWI)

As for the world leader getting to far ahead, the smaller civs should be able to gang-up against him (something like a pre-negotiated war).

I'm aware these ideas might be impossible implement, but I'm not a modder or programmer, it's for you Rhye to decide.

P.S. Sorry for my poor English

Rael, your English is outstanding. I don't think I even noticed it's not your native language. What language is native to you?

(Sorry to be off-topic, I don't have much to contribute here as I haven't played this far on 090/093 yet. I tend to agree, on principal, that this kind of congress didn't really occur historically just like that and should be tied in with big wars, but I'll stay out of this argument until I've played with this system a little.)

Btw, is there an easy way to disable the conference system? editing some file? I love the rest of the mod, just not this.

you could probably find it in the python, and change it to needing three civs to research future tech, or add it to some unresearchable tech.

A congress at regular intervals might not make sense, because it might occur in the middle of an ongoing conflict. Perhaps the congresses shouldn't occur every at regular intervals, but every time a peace treaty is signed?

Also, it sounds to me like there are still too many "inner" cities thrown up for grabs, and the system needs to pick more moderate cities as options.

(For the record, the idea of "balance of power" makes PERFECT sense. Trying to keep any one nation from getting too powerful was pretty much the model of diplomacy up until WW1, and was probably the *cause* of WW1. The UN was supposed to replace this model of international relations... but it's arguable that cold war diplomacy had more to do with a balance of power and mutually assured destruction than democratic peace.)

Rael, your English is outstanding. I don't think I even noticed it's not your native language. What language is native to you?


Nice to hear it:rolleyes: And my first language is Polish, I've been learning English for five years now

I think it would be better to make AI more likely to trade away its cities, especially those far away for money or techs (for exaple Louisiana or Alaska) Also when negotiating peace both sides should be able to make demands (currently only one can). Let's say Germans conquer Paris, then French might want to trade their African colonies for it. Seems pretty realistic (that's want Wilhelm wanted to do in WWI)

Personally I agree with this idea. The city trading option in the diplomacy window is completly useless. For example, civs should trade cities in a not favored place for one in a favored area.

And about the congress I still found it random a biased. I know it is supposed to balance things out, but it´s the same as ramdomly taking cities from you just because you are powerful. There´s almost no strategy involved in avoiding this, except war. There should be alternative methods of keeping the cities, like having big culture for example. That´s why I proposed tighter requisites. If there´s only one choice, so be it. I think previously owned it should be a MUST requisite, and perhaps at least 35% population in the city. This and more city trading in diplomacy should give a more balanced and realistic feel, and also would lower a lot the chances of strange give aways.

Actually, there were historical instances of countries getting together, without a war, and divvying up portions of the world. The one that springs immediately to my mind is the Berlin Conference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Conference) in which the European powers tried to split Africa between them.

Can cities moved by a Congress be culture flipped back to their original owner?

I make this comment strictly as an offtopic, humorous aside.

I find it funny that people try to have it both ways. They'll rave and rave about realism in one respect, but then they'll completely ignore that most nations tried to draw the borders to preserve a balance of power. It's important to note that the largest empire in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_empires) still didn't control more than ONE QUARTER of the Earth's area... and it's not like they didn't want to control more!

For that reason, I think the World Congress mechanism is EXTREMELY realistic. (Tweaks aside.)

Personally I´m not against it, but now it seems a little off-focus, as it is now somewhat unclear on what the CS (Congress System) is trying to reflect or achieve. Right now it is a system that gives away cities for free using shady and unclear logics. I would love a system that reflects the drawing of borders for power balance (like what the spanish and portuguese did with America), or that decides on cities and territories on dispute (like for example happened with Hong Kong) but now it feels random in gameplay terms.

I continued my England game (after the reload where I did NOT loose my town south of Denmark.

At the next congress, the smaller countries again put their dirty hands on my towns, this time with Spain (without any colonies in Africa whatsoever) demanded one of my South African cities (west coast), and Germany, also with nothing in Africa, demanded the one on the east coast of south Africa.
Every other country voted YES to both of those.

Germany got to pay for their insolence, when I declared war and captured all of their European cities, and 3 turns after we signed a peace treaty their whole civilization fell into anarchy and was taken by Barbarians. Spain next...greedy bastards, the revenge shall be sweet!

Actually, there were historical instances of countries getting together, without a war, and divvying up portions of the world. The one that springs immediately to my mind is the Berlin Conference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Conference) in which the European powers tried to split Africa between them.


But please note that they split Africa. There was no powerful civ there that could disagree. The Congress has not been debating about split of British Empire or other major power. In my game some bastards decided that a key city from the world leader was transferred to its poor neighbour.

Oh, yeah, it needs work. Don't get me wrong. But Civilization, as it stands, is far too oriented towards taking cities by conquest and then keeping them, where especially in modern human history, the goal in warfare was often to take enemy cities and areas in order to get good bargains, and then give the cities back. The Congress is a good first step towards getting Civilization 4 to realize this, and I think we should work with it towards getting it right rather than just saying "This sucks! It's unhistorical! I lost my best city!" (China didn't lose World War I, yet Japan still got Shandong.)

It might also be worthwhile to fix the AI city trading, though, I'll grant that that could make the Congress idea work much better.

I do not deny the concept entirely.
But:

1. Congress should rather follow big wars
2. Until modern ages only parties involved should be invited
3. Civ should have possibility to disagree - if war starts again it means that new balance worked out by the Congress is not a real balance and must be adjusted.

China lost Shangdong to Japan but China was not a world leader but a ruin that could not have resisted decisions of major powers. I repeat - China would never have accepted this, having had enough power.

One thing that I find REALLY annoying is that many buildings dissappear on the city giving, especially the culture ones, like when you capture a city. In my last game, the english recieved one of my cities and in the same turn I took it back and had to rebuild my entire culture infrastructure.

Perhaps the amount of foreign culture in a particular city needs to be a bigger factor? Or, if the problem is that most cities have 100% national culture, then maybe it needs to start looking at cities that are "missing" tiles in its radius?

Some of the cities just don't seem "disputed" enough. They ought to be closer to the 'demanding' civilization, in general.

Some of the cities just don't seem "disputed" enough. They ought to be closer to the 'demanding' civilization, in general.

Exactly my thoughts.

Wasn't there some nice shiny minimod (or a few different ones) that made the culture spread model more complex and eventually allowed cities to receive some more mixed nationality?

The culture influence component is an interesting one, but does very little by itself except create a HUGE amount of culture everywhere, and make borders grow very quickly.

I think the key is making mixed nationality weigh HEAVILY on a city dispute. And if that's not enough, the number of foreign tiles within a city radius should be a factor too. Let's try basics first.

The culture influence component is an interesting one, but does very little by itself except create a HUGE amount of culture everywhere, and make borders grow very quickly.

I think the key is making mixed nationality weigh HEAVILY on a city dispute. And if that's not enough, the number of foreign tiles within a city radius should be a factor too. Let's try basics first.

These two factors sound nice :goodjob:

I think the key is making mixed nationality weigh HEAVILY on a city dispute. And if that's not enough, the number of foreign tiles within a city radius should be a factor too. Let's try basics first.

Yep, they sound nice. I think having previously owned or build it should be considered also.

The system is not weighted fairly. In my most recent game as Persia, I was playing a peaceful game, building plenty of military just in case.

At the first congress, my #2 city was asked for by the Indians, and they won it with 4 yes votes, meaning naturally that I lost 3 wonders! So, now I have to fight a war to reclaim the city and will never get my culture back :(

Of course there was no Indian culture in the city, it was just one of the cities closest to their borders.

In some ways, I feel that the congresses are coming far too early, and are a huge disadvantage to the human player.

In my last test, I played as America, and Washington was sandwiched between St Agustin to the south (Spanish) and an English city to the north (Boston I think?). Neither city flipped to me ever, and at the first congress, the Aztec claimed Chicago, which was nowhere near their land.

Another suggestion for the Congress system - instead of having it be whether yes or no wins, have it be a majority rule. If everyone abstains, and there are 2 YES votes, the city switches - that seems unfair. Perhaps even a 2/3s majority.

I think a beefing to the trade city option in the diplo screen is in order as another mean of getting back cities.

I also think that a vote sytem like the UN is needed, as civs power has to be represented in some way in the congress. This has two main reasons: 1-Gameplay: If you are first, and by a fair amount, all civs will never give you a city and will always vote against you. To counter this, you should have more votes. So votations would be more balanced, and fun. 2- Realism: I don´t think that Somalia´s opinion weight as much as USA´s one. Power has to be represented. I think this idea is worth a try in a beta.

Another suggestion for the Congress system - instead of having it be whether yes or no wins, have it be a majority rule. If everyone abstains, and there are 2 YES votes, the city switches - that seems unfair. Perhaps even a 2/3s majority.

I wholeheartedly agree. 2 YES votes and all the rest abstentions should NOT yield a fllip. In order to flip is have no problem with 50.1% yes vote though.

Since I do not recall exactly how many vote, in an example where 4 of 9 voters vote yes the city would not flip. But 5 of 9 then it would.

I also vote for the plain majority version (50%+1)

2/3 I think is best if each civ has 1 vote. If civs have votes according to their power, I think 50+1 is good.

naturally, to have 50%+ or 2/3, it is all "eye candy",
as all depends on the numbers, percentages of factors set - that is, we are all in Rhye's hand ;)

What do you think of a way to represent civs power? Reasons above ^

I agree that the most powerful civs should get more vote. Afterall, the AI will certainly use every opportunity to gang up on the score leader or the Human player. But is it fair to do so? Does it defeat the purpose?

I still think that the civ requesting the city should have some reason to want it! Either due to previous ownership or high cultural population.

Something I just thought of. If we want to make a city's chance of being given based on the percentage of culture, how is that going to affect America? After all, doesn't their UP give their cities a bit of culture from everyone. What if America was a world leader and had culture from the last place civ. WIth the congresses the way they are now that civ might claim and take a powerful American city just because some of their people immigrated there. Of course if we raise the culture threshold to 50% this will likely never happen, but there could be bugs and this might be a possible exploit. Especially if we get the cultural influences mod going on. Or it could just be a potential tactic for peaceful expansion, and that could potentially add a lot of gameplay tactics, especially for France since their UP is directly related to the congresses system.

I think I'm going to start a game as France now...

There are also some annoying things:

-Nationality: When a city changes, it becomes 100% the new owner nationality, and doesn´t change back. I don´t think the kelpers in the Falklands (Malvinas) would happily embrace the argentinian nationality if a congress decides giving the isles to Argentina. That´s why I think a prerequisite should be 50%+ nationality in the city. I think that should be the prime requisite.

-Buildings: All culturals buildings are lost. It is a pain when you get it back.

-No other options of getting it back except war.

Personally I think the system should be:

-Chosseable cities: 50%+ culture.
-UN voting system.
-Cultural buildings do not dissapear.
-City trading option revamped for another method of getting a city back, and for colonies trading.
-City garrison should go back to the previous owner and replaced with newly created units of the new owner.
-Some kind of way to see the cities that are for chosing, as I don´t really know where some of them are.

The thing about requiring a solid majority is that an abstention is essentially the same as a no vote. (Not that this is a bad thing, just that it might be better to pin it down to yes or no.)

Or, rather than yes or no votes, players vote on a series of cities to trade. "Venice, Barcelona, Atlanta, Tunis, None". That way, greedy players might actually SPLIT the vote. It would lead to a much more interesting dynamic than "yes/no".

But one change at a time, honestly. Let's start by getting the system to be a little more logical with the cities it chooses, then work on other stuff like buildings and votes. If I had more free time AWAY from work, I'd provide a few saved games / screenshots myself :(

-Nationality: When a city changes, it becomes 100% the new owner nationality, and doesn´t change back. I don´t think the kelpers in the Falklands (Malvinas) would happily embrace the argentinian nationality if a congress decides giving the isles to Argentina. That´s why I think a prerequisite should be 50%+ nationality in the city. I think that should be the prime requisite.
-Buildings: All culturals buildings are lost. It is a pain when you get it back.
-No other options of getting it back except war.
-UN voting system.
-Cultural buildings do not dissapear.
-City trading option revamped for another method of getting a city back, and for colonies trading.
-City garrison should go back to the previous owner and replaced with newly created units of the new owner.
-Some kind of way to see the cities that are for chosing, as I don´t really know where some of them are.


I wish I could do all these things.
If you remember, I shouldn't have been the main scripter of this part.
Apart tweaking the voting conditions and adding the refusal button, there's not much I can do of the things you listed here.

I wish I could do all these things.
If you remember, I shouldn't have been the main scripter of this part.
Apart tweaking the voting conditions and adding the refusal button, there's not much I can do of the things you listed here.

Don´t worry! It was just a wishlist ;)

But can you make the cities more tradeable in the diplo screen? That would really be nice. And the UN sytem is doable? Thanks Rhye!

I wish I could do all these things.
If you remember, I shouldn't have been the main scripter of this part.
Apart tweaking the voting conditions and adding the refusal button, there's not much I can do of the things you listed here.

Is the UN voting system hardcoded? Would be great if we could do that at least.

I have noticed that when the human captures an established city it has no culture. But if the AI retakes the city within a few turns, all the previous culture returns. How does this work, and why is it not the case with the human player?

How to convocate a congress ?

It happens automatically after 3 civs discover Nationalism, and happens every 25 turns.

what do you exactly mean with "UN system"?

what do you exactly mean with "UN system"?

When we vote for the UN, each civ get s certain number of votes based on size and score. So the #1 civ gets more voting points while the civ at the bottom gets fewer. Some may call this a weighted system.

I meant the that each civ voting power is determined by it´s population instead of 1 vote per civ. In a previous post I wrote why I thought it was better:

I also think that a vote sytem like the UN is needed, as civs power has to be represented in some way in the congress. This has two main reasons: 1-Gameplay: If you are first, and by a fair amount, all civs will never give you a city and will always vote against you. To counter this, you should have more votes. So votations would be more balanced, and fun. 2- Realism: I don´t think that Somalia´s opinion weight as much as USA´s one. Power has to be represented. I think this idea is worth a try in a beta.

Right now the congress are biased against powerful civs, and that´s okay. I think this would give a powerful civ a way to fight back, and a reason to gang up against it. Right now, every time a congress happens, I know I will not obtain any city, and I pray I won´t lose more than one. I feel that´s there´s nothing I can do. I think that using that voting system is worth a try, so to see how it plays out and if it is better. If it´s not, revert back to the previous one. But I think it would be more fun.

It would be fair, but unrealistic. There shouldn't be any sort of parliament in a congress: it's just the leaders or their delegation.
If the world leader vote counts x2, or if weak civs vote the leader ok, but a full scaling system would look too much similar to a parliament.

OK! I´ll see if I can come with another idea, but I trust that you can make it more fair.

I guess I just feel that the Congress should be fair. It would have been like the Irish claiming London, and all of Europe voting YES.

Perhaps the congress system is better used after a war between 2 nations. Afterall, that is the way they were traditionally used in teh modern and pre-modern era.

For instance, if the Greek take Mediolanum from the romans, after teh war teh great nations of the world would meet to decide who gets to keep the city.

I jsut feel that if a mediolanum has no Spanish nationality they should not be able to claim it.

Nationality isn't the only reason for desiring a city.

If the Irish desire London the rest of Europe will vote no (and it already is this way in 093, without the tweaks I'm doing now)

Well, so far I had two congressen in my 093 Rome game in 1645 and 1745.
In the first nothing happened with my cities,
in the second Greece "took back" Mycenae, a city in North Africa that was once theirs

So far so good... :)

Okay, this is seriously starting to ..well, annoy me alot. The third congress in my England 093 game, and YET again I loose a city 100% mine, founded by myself, to a country with no interests on that continent whatsoever. This time I lost a city on the west coast of USA to Russia. I asked for Havana in the Carribeans, a Spanish town surrounded by my culture, when hovering mouse over it it says 1% Spanish, and EVERYONE voted no. I really cant see much point with this function anymore, sorry.

Rhye is balancing out. I think, as a gameplay feature, it should have defined logic and rules, so the player can develop an strategy to master it.

England game again..4th congress, yet again I loose two cities that the asking country had zero cultural interest in, not even border anywhere near. And worst of all, in one of them ( an ex-Roman city in Tunisia ) I had a big stack of units ready for invading Egypt, thats TWENTY units lost because I lost the city to the congress. Russia again demanded, and got, a city safely within my cultural boundaries..bleh.

Also, poor Singapore was again (the now-extinct Germans got it in the first congress) taken, this time by Spain, who demanded it from China and got it, though they had absolutely zero colonies of any kind in Asia.

Someone show me how I turn off the congress before I start my next game please? :)

Putting all my cities on making culture and just spam-enter progressing this game until the end now, lets see how many other cities I lose.

Yeah, losing so many units just sucks. That´s why I asked for a way to take your units out of the city and replace them with enemy ones.

Fifth congress, this one in 1994. This time I lost two cities in north america, one to Spain (will culture flip soon I'm sure, completely surrounded by my own cities as it is, and Havana, who had recently flipped from Spain, to Russia.
Needless to say, everyone but me voted YES.
edit : oh, and I lost a city in india to persia..that'll culture flip soon as well I'm sure.


Singapore AGAIN changed ownership, this time to Japan.

When I lost a city my units were transferred outside city boundaries. I have not lost it.

In my case there were mixed results. At one time I lost 2 cities, one to the english and the other to the egiptians. In the english case, my units were in my territory and the city empty. With the egiptians, the units were transferred.

In my most resent game as persia, the first congress appeared to work as expected. Only one city changed hands, the Greek taking back a city they had recently lost to Germany in war.

Woah, that was lucky!

Appren, I think you need to recognize that this is how game development (and mod development) works. When a feature isn't done, it's going to have a lot of weird effects. So you shouldn't immediately say "get rid of it!" or "wipe it clean and start over!"

The best thing you can do, IMO, is either:

1) Keep saved games before and after each "faulty" congress, and post them here.

or

2) Take screenshots before and after each "faulty" congress, preferably with detailed shots of the city in question (or cities) if you can... and post the screenshots here.

That would go a long way to making this feature a success, instead of chiming in saying that the feature is pointless. :)

I just had an idea that could drastically increase the amount of strategy involved in the congresses, and it was inspired by SMAC.

what if you could bribe civs to vote a certain way. Perhaps, we could remove the Permanent alliance diplomacy option and instead replace it with a 'bribe' placeholder diplomacy option.

I would suggest this system, however having looked at the Congress code I can't tell you how I would write it in Python.

first, a couple turns, probably 5, before a congress, a popup pops up saying "The leaders of the world are begin to plan a congress, it is believed that these civs will be invited: and it lists off some civs. Now something else we can do is make maybe 3 of the civs listed actually participents at the congress, but the other 2 or however many are listed are just randomly pulled from the surviving civ list, adding a bit of uncertainty.

Then a diplomatic player could go to these players individually, and butter them up normally, but also 'bribe' them to their side. Then when the congress finally rolls around the civs converge, and a simple IF statement should be enough to say "If civ A has 'bribe' with civ B, then civ A is +% towards voting the same as civ B" The 'bribe' that you had with that civ would be removed at the end of the congress, but if you followed through and voted the same you might get a little +1 "you helped us in a congress" diplomacy bonus. Wereas betraying them might give you a hefty minus. We could also get diplomacy bonuses and minuses for civs in general who voted the same way, this could then foster resentment between certain civs and potentially spark World Wars to 'correct' the congress' ruling.

Again, I'm not sure if this is possible, but logically it seems like it would be.

Another thing is perhaps instead of simply taking or giving cities, we might be able to get some different options. For instance, perhaps a warlike Germany might get hit with a 'no milllitary edict' which reduces production of millitary units and increases their maintanence, essentially stifling Germany's war machine. We could have economic edicts that raise maintanence per city, non expansion edicts which prevent the construction of settlers, landlock edicts which prevent the construction of naval units. Whole bunches of things.

We could also, if we can't get the AI programming to work out the bribe function, simulate it by simply dividing the congress members into pairs and giving them a bonus to vote the same way as each other.

This also gives me an idea for allowing the in game enabling or dissabling of congresses, as upposed to simply moving the Congresses.py file . In the custom scenario screen which we can load the map with, there is the 'allow permanent alliances' option, if we replace permanent alliances with the congresses feature, we could change it to 'alow congresses', and then add an If statement to the congresses python file to only have congresses if the 'allow Congresses' map option is selected.

And Rhye, I'm afraid there must be something to give the stronger nations at least a fighting chance in the congress, or else this is pretty much a punishment for having to good of an Empire. However I can't really say, as I haven't played a version with the congresses yet, been too wrapped up in making an Empire in Rome Total War :D

wow, now that was a loooooooong post

Another thing is perhaps instead of simply taking or giving cities, we might be able to get some different options. For instance, perhaps a warlike Germany might get hit with a 'no milllitary edict' which reduces production of millitary units and increases their maintanence, essentially stifling Germany's war machine. We could have economic edicts that raise maintanence per city, non expansion edicts which prevent the construction of settlers, landlock edicts which prevent the construction of naval units. Whole bunches of things.

I don´t think to the congress, but they would be worthy addition to the UN. Perhaps the no milllitary edict shouldn´t be applied to germany but to the civ with the strongest military... But for now I think they are out of the scope...

I like the "bribe" option.
It will need a different implementation from the one descrbed by Vishaing, but sounds a cool idea.

Oh by the way, I failed to make Congress appear on peace signed. It will stay as it is (25 turns). Fortunately, the Bribe option is now possible because the date of the Congress is predictable.

Rhye, can't you have a script triggered after a check finds out if civs X and Y were at war last turn and then sees if they aren't anymore? That would basically do whatever you want when peace is signed (though you may need to watch out for whiped-out civs not being at war with anyone when they're dead. xD)

it would force me to keep a 18x18 grid of all the war states, to be updated every turn.
Maybe it's not a good idea for loading times between turns.

Why couldn't it be an event triggered by the peace-treaty itself?

because the onChangeWar event doesn't seem to trigger it.

One disadvantage of playing as America is due to immigration. When the American cities receive immigration from other civs, it could make those civs claim the US cities.

For instance, in a game last night New York had 10% German culture due to immigration and Germany naturally claimed New York. The bid failed thankfully but it was strange as there was no German nor any European city on the American continent.

One disadvantage of playing as America is due to immigration. When the American cities receive immigration from other civs, it could make those civs claim the US cities.

For instance, in a game last night New York had 10% German culture due to immigration and Germany naturally claimed New York. The bid failed thankfully but it was strange as there was no German nor any European city on the American continent.

fixed, thanks

I don´t mind the congress appearing every 25 turns, as sometimes there where congresses not triggered by war. I´m more interested in the results actually. Besides, with the possibility of city trading in the diplo screen, at the end of a war it would be like a mini-congress with the other civ. And also it would open the door for colony trading.

It would be nice to be able to reject the offer to attend the world congress if possible. I'm currently powerful enough that I know I won't gain anything from going, and frankly I'd rather boycott the congress :king:
I wouldn't mind rejecting the congress and then refusing if they decide to take one of my cities like I can if I don't get invited.

Also I seem to have lots of random war declarations against me this game, I'm over twice as powerful as some of these countries, and they still declare war against me randomly it appears. :confused:

It would be nice to be able to reject the offer to attend the world congress if possible. I'm currently powerful enough that I know I won't gain anything from going, and frankly I'd rather boycott the congress :king:
I wouldn't mind rejecting the congress and then refusing if they decide to take one of my cities like I can if I don't get invited.

Also I seem to have lots of random war declarations against me this game, I'm over twice as powerful as some of these countries, and they still declare war against me randomly it appears. :confused:

this sounds a good proposal that could be merged in a menu that allows to bribe civs too, the turn before the congress.

jukeboxhero, in real life wars aren't always feasible for the side initiating them. It makes sense for little civs to try and piss off the big guy, especially if you view Civ's "War" as a game-version of real-life open hostility.

jukeboxhero, in real life wars aren't always feasible for the side initiating them. It makes sense for little civs to try and piss off the big guy, especially if you view Civ's "War" as a game-version of real-life open hostility.
Hm, I don't know about that, what examples are you thinking of? I don't see the point in pissing off the big guy if you know he will kill you. For example, I was finishing off the Persians, and suddenly Saladin declares war on me. He had like 4 cities (I razed Jerusalem and that other city that is below Bablyon, I don't remember its name, those two that the Arabians get when they spawn so he didn't get it :lol: ) and was pretty near the bottom of the power heap (not actually bottom, I think that "honour" belongs to China at the moment). I would have thought it would make more sense for little civs to suck up to the big guy, in the hope of gaining favour. I have never declared war on any civilizations in my game, and yet I've destroyed 5 so far (and I destroyed mainland France, but they have some colonies so basically 6). I think the war declaration thing is a little extreme at the moment.

By the way, I'm not quite sure what you mean by especially if you view Civ's "War" as a game-version of real-life open hostility.
Do you mean actual conflicts? Or do you just mean stuff like "We're embargoing you, and trying to make people think you're evil"

Anyway, I should probably stop this derail, since the thread is about the congress!

What I mean is that what's called "war" in the game (and also in a few historical examples, like the 100-Year War) is really just open hostility over a long period of time. Most real-life wars, especially in the last century, don't last a single game turn.
That considered, Iraq's hostility towards America and her allies is an example of a small civilization declaring "war" on a major player with no chance of gaining territory out of it. Sometimes civs just hate one another, and fight for that reason, not for actual gain.

Errr, Blasphemous, Iraq and the US got along fine and dandy, and the US appeared to give Iraq its blessing to take over Kuwait. THEN the US decided that was no good and since then has been belligerent against Iraq.

There might be historical cases where small countries hate larger countries and will declare war on them for no good reason, but that's certainly not one of them. Though thinking about it now I can't really come up with any historical examples, at least in recent times.

Well Arkaeyn, you have adeptly uncovered my ignorance (or perhaps simple confusion) on the matter. Thanks. :)

Blasphemous, there's a famous picture (http://billmon.org/archives/000514.html) which does more to explain the situation than I could...

I'm copying and pasting my analysis of the Congress from my China game, in case anyone didn't read that thread:


THE CONGRESS

The Congress system is generally a good idea, but I feel it needs more help. In general, I think it needs to arise dynamically. That's tough to figure out, and worth its own thread. Specific suggestions I have include:

Allow Culture flips on Congress-changed civs. Egypt lost two cities to Rome and France, which quickly shrunk to size 1 and showed up as tiny, constantly rebelling cities on the map. Completely, utterly pointless.

Have more going on in the AI process than "Is the civ too big?" Congresses felt far too deterministic. If the civ with the city under question was much bigger than the demanding civ, the city would switch.

One way to go about this would be to have a diplomatic penalty for voting against a civ. -1 for every time you vote against someone. This would make abstentians relevant, cause more wars, and give the AI a reason not to always vote against the world leader, because he might kick its ass.

I've already recommended that the Congress be based on a majority, rather than simple numbers.

I like the suggestion to opt out of Congresses, so that they can be rejected. Superpowers going their own way, regardless of world governing bodies, is a long and storied tradition, made popular once again by the United States today.

Even better than that is the suggestion for votes to be traded, combined with knowledge the turn before of when the Congress will appear. This will allow the player to look at which cities are available, as well, which is important sometimes when dealing with randomly named colonial possessions.

My 2 cents: I've found the congress system as it is really annoying - losing three cities every 25 turns isn't exactly fun. Especially when the fate of my empire is partially determined by extremely weak civs that could very, very easily be crushed.

However, by tinkering with the python script, I've found it to be much more enjoyable with a smaller amount of invited civs. That way, being the leader means losing one city per congress, two if you're extremely unlucky. That isn't too bad of a deal, especially since your rivals are probably hindered, too. Finally, this IMHO more accurently captures the feel of, say, the Congress of Vienna, where the 3-cities, stuck-in-the-middla-ages civs really didn't have a voice.

most of your requests will be fulfilled in the next version. Tomorrow, or more probably Monday or Tuesday.

Whatever delivers the needed game balance :)

What do people think about giving a diplomacy bonus/penalty based on one's votes in the Congress?

If you vote to give an English city to France, perhaps you could get a +1 with France and a -1 with England. It would make sense at least provided it doesn't unbalance the game.

I think that the World Congresses occur to frequently and too many cities are traded for this to be that good of an idea. It looks good on paper, but in the game, you'd be getting -1 with 5-6 nations every congress. And if your friends are the super powers and you vote against them to keep them from getting stronger, there go your friends. you could always abstain, I suppose but it seems kind of silly to me to abstain because you were afraid of voting either way.

I think the silly thing is that you can go voting against someone's request and they just don't care. Making the congresses actually affect diplomacy is pretty much a necessary change (though not an urgent one), even though it does mean abstaining will become a much prettier option. That's actually a good thing - only decisions that many are strongly in favor of will pass. Things won't pass just because.

i disagree here.
Voting is the consequence of attitude, not the opposite.

But it doesn't make sense for friends to vote against each other and stay friends. If voting against someone makes them angry, you can have beautifully realistic situations such as everybody trying to carve a piece out of say, Germany, and then Germany gets angry at everybody, and you get a world war. Right now superpowers will sit idly by as the world divides their territory between their enemies.
At the very least, America shouldn't be happy with England asking for American cities. (Even if America doesn't get pissed off at France for supporting the request.)

Well, both sides of the argument make sense. You can make a fairly good case for either one. It just comes down to personal opinion on the matter.

I think there might be a middle ground. If a vote succeeds AGAINST a civ, then all the people who voted against that civ receive a diplomatic penalty, and/or every vote that went FOR that civ counts as a diplomatic bonus.

Sounds good dh. It would be enough for civs to need to think twice before voting against a friend. AI would need to be adjusted accordingly if that were implemented of course.

That seems like a good idea.

I've been playing Rhye's and Fall for a few weeks and loving it, and I joined these forums just to complain about the Congress. It's nice to know that a post is already here.

The Congress has ruined two or three games for me. In my last one, I was Japan, on Monarch level, fighting a really fun war to the death with China. After about twenty turns of fighting, I had managed to barely hold on against their units, the world called a Congress, China asked for (and got) my big mainland strategic muster point city, and proceeded to completely massacre me from their safe position in the middle of my empire.

I understand this may be realistic and may be fair and whatever, but Civ is supposed to be fun. And there's nothing less fun than getting a city through clever strategy, hard work, and sacrifice - only to see it taken away from you the next turn when someone else asks nicely for it.

My suggestion: an option at the beginning, similar to the no culture flipping and no barbarians options: no world congresses. That way people who want them can have them but it's not forced on anyone who doesn't like them.

By the way, I think I might have discovered a bug. Whenever I try to bribe someone, and the game says it fails because I haven't given them enough gold, they still vote for my interests. This could just be a coincidence, but you might want to check that it's the actual bribery rather than the attempt at bribery that causes the attitude switch.

You could have refused to let the city go to China. You might have risked war with some other nations, but as Japan you probably would have been far away from them that it wouldn't affect you too much.

Indeed, you should have just refused.

Can you post a save with the bribe bug? It worked fine so far.

I'm actually going to retract the bug report. I tried to replicate it to get a save game and this time they voted against me. I guess it was just a coincidence that happened a few times in a row.

Thanks for the advice on the war against China. Being a terrible cheater, I reloaded from a save and tried it. This time, I kept the city but my defiance of Congress prompted Peter, who had previously minded his own business, to declare war on me. Now my Mongolian colonies are under attack from two directions at once. Conclusion: slightly better than before, but I still wish the World Congress would just go away.

This has probably been suggested already but here's what I think should happen.

You can choose whenever you want Congresses to happen. I don't have Civ4 yet so bear with me. In the Foreign Advisor/Diplomacy Screen you can select Make Congress. Then it asks for a name of the Congress (say Congress of Paris) and you can invite any people yu want (at least 2 others). All the Diplomacy is done and the Congress ends. At the end of the game where it cycles through events it should say 1640: Congress of Paris is held then all the events that took place in it (Spain cedes Barcelona to France). It should also be possible to Request (or Demand) a Congress when you request a Peace Treaty. This would allow for post-war division.

Completely off-topic I'd like to see the idea to Sever Relation with a Foreign Civ. It would add something new to the game. You could also request other Civs to Sever or Break Off Relations. This could also affect Congresses, perhaps allow the divisions of a losing faction in a war without them having a say (like Versaille).

The idea of having congresses happen on a whim seems kind of...unbalanced to me. The player gets to decide when all the congresses are? I think every 25 turns is a better way than that. Oh, and I think it was tried to have it happen after peace treaties and it couldn't be done. If it could though, I think that would be best.

The reason it can't be done every time peace is signed automatically, is that it would require every turn to start with a check of diplomatic state and comparison with last turn's check, which would greatly increase loading times.

Yeah. I was just saying that if it were possible without sacrificing the short load times, it would be the best way to do things. I think the current system works fine though.

I think that the congress could be something like the G8 summit i.e big nations get toghether and divy up the world. For example, America, Spain and Persia are the top three civs. They meet and Persia, who recently warred with Japan, says "let's give Japan's colony, New York, to Germany." America, Japan's ally, votes no. Spain, Germany's most hated foe, also votes no. Measure fails. Your probably are saying, "how's this like the G8?" In the G8, a bunch of powerful countries get toghether and decide economic policy. If they say that Kenya's beef has mad cow disease, they then ban the importing of Kenya's beef until Kenya shows it has improved. Kenya, unless its in the G8, has no say whatsoeveer. It could refuse to carry out more checks, but then it probably loses it's main market. Maybe in the World Congress, one or two other small nations are invited to even things out. However if you're not invited and the biggest nations vote to hand over one of your territories, you can refuse, but risk the wrath of the greatest nations. Also, you could abstain, and then your spot is given to either the next most powerful nation or another random nation. Also, would it be possible to add client states? I had something else I wanted to say, but i'll just say it later.

Client states would also make the world congress more purposeful. You could try and get some territories for your clients states or expand your influence via your client states. For example, if you couldn't expand into Asia becouse every other civ there would attack you, you could take a city from a mutual foe and give it to your client state. Also, I think it would be a good idea to include diplomacy in the congress

I am against this feature, primarily because it doesn't make any sense. It randomly picked one of my founding cities and gave it away to a nation that had nothing to do with me. Perhaps only have it work on colonies or after wars that last x amount of turns?

The feature is still being ironed out. I don't think anyone wants it to go away, really... just that they want it to work in sensible ways. It's been getting better and better.

Yeah, it's definitely improved since .97. It, like the mod in general is a work in progress.

I'm not sure if this was suggested, but perhaps if we include a diplomacy penalty for refusing a congress, that penalty should be A: lessened or B: removed all together if the person refusing was invited to but did NOT go to the congress, thus making the 'boycott the congress' feature actually worthwhile, as right now it just seems to remove your say alltogether, of course I haven't gotten to a congress yet with this feature, so I'm not really sure if there are other uses.

So you can't decline to go to a congress and become immune to losing cities? Dang, I was hoping that was a way around this madness.

I wholeheartedly agree that the system doesn't make sense. Egypt just asked for (and received) a city of mine in north-central Europe, where it has no interests at all. Persia successfully got one of mine in the vicinity of Antioch, which did make more sense, but I refused on that one (and got half the world declared on me due to the state of entangling alliances).

If refusing is so volatile, why in the heck do I see civs refusing resolutions all the time in Apostolic Palace votes? They never get declared on them for that. I understand it is apples and oranges, but I would like to see consistency between the consequences of these two actions.