Considered a Villian By the World?!?!

"The Florentine" wrote in years before mass media, before modern democracy, before the notion of human rights, and before the notion of a guerrilla "people's war". It may sound good to focus on one's national interest. But the realities of the modern world make that much more complicated than "screw world opinion".The misadventure in Iraq, which appeared to be in America's national interest, now seems like something that has been good for almost no one. World opinion seems to be a vital resource for winning a war, up there with manpower, cash, and weapons.

That said, I agree the UN is pretty much useless. What really kept the peace for 40 solid years was mutually assured destruction. But the UN *has* been occasionally useful for serving some regional or global goals, even just by having a forum where discussion is possible. The problem is there are no regional or global goals in Civilization. It's everyone for themselves.
 
People finally got their wish and players can finally defy UN resolutions.

Funny, they're still not happy. That's because it's not very realistic for anybody to give a crap what civics you're running. So why have all kinds of diplomatic and happiness penalties?

Because without the penalties, the UN is useless. It would be a bunch of voting buttons that do nothing. That might even be realistic. But it would do nothing.

The real answer? Get rid of the UN. It's a useless, stupid feature. It adds nothing to the game. Either that, or redesign diplomacy from scratch.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

It's almost as if you were talking about the real thing... were you?
 
The considered a villain by the world thing is just flat out stupid.

1. I defy illogical and stupid resolutions that would harm my people.
2. The other nations are fighting amongst themselves constantly, committing espionage and getting caught constantly, lack emancipation (ie, still slaving), are running other oppressive civics - and so - so WHY would my people care what "the world" thinks of MY policies?!
3. The penalties for being a villain are beyond ridiculous. It'd make more sense to have tiny penalties - give maybe 1+ happy for being a member in good standing and -1 happy for being a rebel.
4. The UN (or AP) in the game should not have so much impact or control over the late game (if it's a factor - it often isn't). It's just not fun.
 
there shouldnt be a unhappiness penalty in your own lands, for example american are worldwide hated and they keep defying the UN, but they dont care nor are even really aware of being the world's villains. However there should be other penalties, like reduced commerce and barbarian spies (terrorism).

Do you live in america? because it sure seams like you dont!

Most americans Are pissed at our government, Not that I think of any other government in any better light, The fact that no country has yet to surpass america in quality of living and freedom of rights is extremely pathetic! children could run countried better than most of todays leaders

that said, This addition to BTS has to be one of the stupidest right in line with religious victory, being said, I cant beleive diplomatic penalties wouldnt be enough of a penalty, if you have alot of enemeis, this could very easily spiral into a war!
 
I don't have an answer, but this is related to something with civ4 that I've never agreed with. The happiness modifiers all have stupid names. Things like "we just feel happy" and similar is not helpful at all. It should at least say in parenthesis what is causing it (resources, troops in city, civics etc.)
If you mouse-over the happy faces it does tell you what is causing the happiness. However, there is a base number of happy people; those are the folk who say "we just enjoy life." But all the benefits from resources, buildings, etc. should be spelled out.
 
Yeah, I like this idea. The power of the negative modifier should be in direct proportion that the UN has Militarily.

Yep, and also, make the founder of the UN decide how much of theeth the new institution is going to have. Also, in order to add more variety and less "determinism" to the system, it would be great to be able to vote in the UN if you want to upgrade or downgrade the UN power level. It would be nice to see an evil empire stripping the UN's power due to his latest conquests, or a coalition of small, peaceful countries supporting the UN and helping it to become a force to be reckoned with in order to mantain world's peace.

Without teeth, the UN has no ability to punish offenders. I just wouldn't go too crazy about unhappiness penalties. Propaganda (again) is a very useful tool.
I agree that unhappiness penalties are kind of a vainilla, lame penalty. However, I included them as a bit of an accesory penalty to the other ones. Keep in mind that a powerful UN would also have more control over the media and culture of the planet (on its highest levels, the UN would be the equivalent of the Star Trek federation), hence why the happiness penalties. Still, perhaps another way to solve this "vainilla-ness" would be to tie the strenght of the penalties to the civics: free speech would double it, police state would halve it. Another option would be to tie them to buildings:

You defy a resolution of a nascent UN:
Diplomatic penalty, trade embargo and
Radio stations causes 1 unhappiness (the media is influenciated by the UN)

You defy the resolution of a solid UN:
The previous effects plus army embargo and
Universities causes 1 unhappiness (the intellectual elites are likely to side with the UN)

You defy the resolutuon of a powerful UN:
The previous effects and
Theatres causes 1 unhappiness (the "liberal artists" are likely to side with the UN, as well)

I like your trade embargo idea. I like your weapons embargo idea. Some of the units ideas. The units idea made me think of this: What if one of the penalties was somethin along the lines of a few barbarian type troops pop up out of cottages that you have. You could call them terrorists or rebels if that is too strong, something.
That could also be a quite nice option, but I think that it would be better suited as a spyionage action (only avaible perhaps after defying a UN resolution?). However, I kind of find more interesting the periodical appearance of "peacetroops" in the cities of the civs that are being attacked after their agressors defied a UN peace resolution. The more the agressor civilization drags the conflict, the more reinforcements will arrive to the attacked civ. And even better, these reinforcements would be modern troops. Imagine your typical scenario: Moctezuma, in the other side of the planet, extends his empire by attacking a small, technologically backwards civ. That could seriously put him near a domination victory. But then, after a powerful UN tells him to stop (and he doesn't); he finds out that the small civ is not defending with crossbowman against their calvaries but with fully trained marines (tanks too?).

I like your ideas and I agree with the thread starter.

Yay ^_^
 
The considered a villain by the world thing is just flat out stupid.

1. I defy illogical and stupid resolutions that would harm my people.
2. The other nations are fighting amongst themselves constantly, committing espionage and getting caught constantly, lack emancipation (ie, still slaving), are running other oppressive civics - and so - so WHY would my people care what "the world" thinks of MY policies?!
3. The penalties for being a villain are beyond ridiculous. It'd make more sense to have tiny penalties - give maybe 1+ happy for being a member in good standing and -1 happy for being a rebel.
4. The UN (or AP) in the game should not have so much impact or control over the late game (if it's a factor - it often isn't). It's just not fun.

I totally agree totally with 1-3, and the OP.

4 - I've had the AP vote away a lot of my vassals cities away, this was in the modern age. Found it rather annoying. However, I would like that to stay.
 
I heard somewhere that if you destroy the city the UN wonder is in you can stop the voting. Perhaps an attack of those bureaucrats is in order. It might almost be as fulfilling as razing Mecca or Jerusalem and seeing -9 or -10 in diplo modifiers.
 
I have to agree the penalty is way harsh. I defied an AP resolution to stop trading with my best trade partner and got -5 happiness which was impossible to overcome at that early stage of the game. I will say it did go away after the next vote, maybe because this time I had learned my lesson and did not defy the vote even though I wanted to.

The odd thing is the penalty only appeared in two of my cities. How come only two of my cities care that the world thinks I'm a villian?
 
Maybe it has something to do with the sizes of those particular cities. Maybe cities above 5 will consider you a villain or something of the like?
 
I love the arguement that "It is stupid that people become unhappy as I defied a resolution that would harm them". The only Civics you can force as a UN is Free Speech, Universal Sufferage, Free Relgion, etc. I'd be curious as to what Civic you were running. I think the unhappiness penalty is apt and needed. Making it Diplo would unfairly bias against war mongers - as usual.
 
It's a game, nor real life!

In a world with mostly fascists and communists* then your democratic little nation would be treated as "vilain". But I do agree upon that it would be better to have a massive boycott instead.

* When I play I usually play with "democratic" civic choices and most of the other civs are state controlled police states. But perhaps it's just me.
 
The odd thing is the penalty only appeared in two of my cities. How come only two of my cities care that the world thinks I'm a villian?
With the AP, it is my understanding that the penalty will only happen in cities with that religion present.
 
Here's your "in-game" solution. Find out which city has the UN...then nuke it until it glows! muahahahahaha Or just raze it via conventional means :evil:
 
But more relevantly, why can't New York and California defy US legislature? They are relatively richer and powerful than many of the other states. Then you can consider european states defying the EU, which does happen. The civ UN concept isn't ridiculous, it's just there are different degrees to buying into collective governments.

If you think that the unhappiness penalty for defying the UN is inappropriate, consider this, how SHOULD the game represent the effect on US productivity when the state of California finally decides it has had enough of federal policy and stops sending tax returns and national guardsmen to the federal government?

That said, I really like the idea that if a civ is in defiance its theaters, universities, broadcast towers, religions, and other cultural institutions should stop generating culture points and start generating unhappiness points.
 
If you have the "world considers you a villain" unhappiness, and you go and raze the city with the UN/Apostolic thingy, will your unhappiness penalty go away?

If so that would be ironic, considering destroying the UN would be even more villainous than defying it
 
I had some strange new +Unhappiness modifier called "World considers you a villain"


The only other thing is the great new opition to flatout refuse to go along with a UN vote which I think is great

I suspect that Firaxis tried a diplomatic penalty and quickly discovered that some players will defy every last vote. Diplomatic penalties are not enough.

Hence the happiness penalty. It was the only way to make players thoughtfully weigh whether it's worth it to defy or not. Now that the happiness penalties are high, you'll think twice about defying. You'll only do it when absolutely necessary.

Realistic that your people care about the UN? Probably not. But like I said, the most realistic UN would probably be a bunch of resolutions that don't actually do anything. If you went with that, you might as well not implement a UN at all.

Emphasis on these. It's a game and an interesting global gameplay mechanic, I wish there was an actual leader panel like in Alpha Centauri but this is ok.

The reason there's a :mad: penalty is that if you were warmongering you could defy all resolutions at no cost. Who cares if you get a diplomatic penalty if they already have -10 from declaring war on them, their friends, and razing all their cities? The Apostolic Palace would be worthless too.

The :mad: from the UN can be mitigated soon by Future Tech, as other people have said, or an extra point on the cultural slider. If you're on a conquering spree you should have such a large population anyways that you can simply vote No and resolutions will fail. If not, make friends with people far from you that aren't in your crosshairs.

Also, with the Palace, the :mad: goes away quickly in cities that do not share the Palace's religion. It only sticks around for a long time in cities that have the same religion. So if you only have 1-2 cities with the religion of the Palace, your citizens won't really care what you defy, and you receive no diplomatic penalties either. I had 1 city with Buddhism and the Palace kept voting every 10 turns to end my war with Asoka, but I just defied it and easily lived with the +5:mad: in 1 city. If your entire Civ is the same religion though, it becomes a big deal to defy the will of the other religious leaders.
 
I might just go ahead and build the Apostolic Palace to stop this from happening again.
 
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