Problem I have with the World Congress

Aside from the fact we can't ignore the resolutions the biggest problem I have is when it comes time to elect a new leader. It comes on with no chance to prepare and the AI ALWAYS votes for themselves. So it always goes to the civ with the most votes, which is usually the current leader. They need to patch it so the AI will not always waste their votes for voting for themselves. Weigh the military and the culture and the technology and the tourism and the ideology. Each civ has it's preferance of what it likes and they vote for the one that meets that. Let us trade for votes (without need of diplomats). Something. Anything would be better then the vote for myself mentality the game does now.

Use my current game as an example. Due to lots of warring, science advancement took a hit on all the civs. The gap Renaissance and Industrial was large and the gap between Industrial and Modern is still going. Finally in 1988, half the civs made it into the Modern era (playing with 13 total) and time came to vote to get Greece off the seat of power. You see, nearly every other civ hates Greece and currently has them denounced. Half of the civs have had wars with Greece and they have been in constant war most of the game. Greece is also the only civ to have taken Autocracy. Because Greece is the leader and is Ally with a lot of the city-states they have 22 votes. The next highest has 9 (me), then 5, then 3 and the rest with 2. Every single civ voted for themselves in the election.... every single one except for me. I voted for the one with 5 in hopes another civ or two would vote for them and we would get Greece out.

Before the Host vote comes up buy off a few city states and make 100% sure you only take Greece's CS. Honestly, it makes sense that everyone would vote for themselves because there is usually zero guarentee that the guy an AI would vote in will make any choices that AI would approve of.

eldiablonoche said:

Before the Host vote comes up buy off a few city states and make 100% sure you only take Greece's CS. Honestly, it makes sense that everyone would vote for themselves because there is usually zero guarentee that the guy an AI would vote in will make any choices that AI would approve of.

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That's I normally do for the regular sessions. The problem is, the leader vote comes up with no warning that it's coming.

You can use the diplomacy overview to see which era everyone is in, though. There isn't a way to know on precisely which turn the vote will pop up, but you can see that it's close and start getting ready for it.

Host is definitely one where the AIs should vote for (or against) other civs.

Or you could combine your votes with your closest AI ally or whoever is in last place. I've never been in situation where my votes with an AIs wouldn't cinch it.

Against would be a good solution. You're at war with Greece and you don't want them to be leader then you commit your votes against them. Every vote against a civ takes away one vote for the civ.

Perhaps if you could only use half your delegates to vote for yourself, and use the others but split over the others civs in order of preference

Two turn election would probably solve this.

Candidates would work (say you must vote for or against the current host + the 2 or 3 civs with the next most delegates)

yea this voting thing needs work

Bed0 said:

Two turn election would probably solve this.

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A good way to do it:

The first vote is the primary election (in US political terminology): it decides the two candidates for hosting. Presumably every civ would vote for themselves, at least until they write a more interesting AI in a patch. (It would be cool if an AI who is culturally intimidated by me or militarily afraid of me might be compelled to vote for me, even in the primary.)

The second vote is a decision between the two candidates. Each civ must vote for one of the two candidates, or abstain. Also, since the candidates are known on the turn between the first vote and the second, the vote could be traded for with Diplomats like the other resolutions.

In Tilarium's story, you'd end up with Greece and some other country as the two nominees, and everyone who denounced Greece would vote for the other guy.

"Don't blame me; I voted for Kodos."

I think you should only be able to use the votes that you get from city states to vote for yourself, and the rest have to be given to other players.

For Hosting, I always vote for the Civ with most votes. If that's me, then I get it. If that's another Civ, they would have got it anyway, and I get some diplo.

rexman07 said:

A good way to do it:

The first vote is the primary election (in US political terminology): it decides the two candidates for hosting. Presumably every civ would vote for themselves, at least until they write a more interesting AI in a patch. (It would be cool if an AI who is culturally intimidated by me or militarily afraid of me might be compelled to vote for me, even in the primary.)

The second vote is a decision between the two candidates. Each civ must vote for one of the two candidates, or abstain. Also, since the candidates are known on the turn between the first vote and the second, the vote could be traded for with Diplomats like the other resolutions.

In Tilarium's story, you'd end up with Greece and some other country as the two nominees, and everyone who denounced Greece would vote for the other guy.

"Don't blame me; I voted for Kodos."

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Thanks, rexman07
I was too lazy to explain.
However, i think there is no need to choose de host candidates since we could narrow to the two most voted.

Bed0 said:

Thanks, rexman07
I was too lazy to explain.
However, i think there is no need to choose de host candidates since we could narrow to the two most voted.

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Oh, good point. If I understand you correctly, you're saying we can skip the "primary election" to select two candidates for host, since, if we still assume that the AI is dumb and always votes for itself, then the two candidates are going to be the two with the most delegates. So we can just skip to the two-candidate general election. And then each AI would simply choose which of the two candidates they prefer. A simple rule for AI voting would be:

1. Vote against a candidate you're at war with.
2. Vote against a candidate you've denounced.
3. Vote for a candidate that you've declared friendship with.
4. Otherwise, abstain.

Of course, the AI behavior could get more complicated, involving its victory conditions vs. the candidates, the geopolitical balance of power, etc.

With more game mechanics, the election could be even more interesting:

• If you have a declaration of friendship with one of the two candidates, NOT voting for that candidate will cause a diplomatic penalty. ("How could you turn your back on us at the World Congress?")
• If one candidate is dominating your culture with tourism, then your vote will affect your happiness penalty. If your people love that country's blue jeans and rock music, they'll be happier seeing them run the UN than some barbaric nation they don't respect or understand.

Oh, but the problem with this is that voting between host and #2 is not all that interesting. They both get to propose resolutions. The only difference is who gets an extra delegate or two. It would be more interesting if the elections would have more of an effect on which proposals will get made.

rexman07 said:

Oh, good point. If I understand you correctly, you're saying we can skip the "primary election" to select two candidates for host, since, if we still assume that the AI is dumb and always votes for itself, then the two candidates are going to be the two with the most delegates. So we can just skip to the two-candidate general election. And then each AI would simply choose which of the two candidates they prefer. A simple rule for AI voting would be:

1. Vote against a candidate you're at war with.
2. Vote against a candidate you've denounced.
3. Vote for a candidate that you've declared friendship with.
4. Otherwise, abstain.

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Even as long as the AI always votes for itself, shortening the list to the two candidates with the most votes would not always be logical. I had one game where I was the one with the second most votes. I used them to make the one with the lowest score chair of the congress, because he was the one posing the lowest danger of winning diplomatically and because his and my votes combined did surpass the votes of the leader. The proposed shortlisting would have prevented that option for the human player. Granted, in that situation I was second place and would possibly have profited by being elected, but also the leader could have been elected against my wishes. We simply do not know.

A system that always leads to a leader with majority backing and only requires one voting round would be instant runoff voting with an obligation to rank *all* the leaders. It would be easy to implement, since the AIs already have some fixed preference order.

Example: Alex of Greece leads but is hated by all, the rest (let it be three in this example, Monty, Caesar and Wu Zetian) have one congress vote more combined than Alex and all like each other.

All vote for themselves first, and all others rank Alex last. In that system, in the first round of evaluation, the one with the least votes would be eliminated -- maybe Wu Zetian. Her votes would then go to the one she ranked second, let it be Monty. In the second round of evaluation, the one who now has the least votes again is eliminated. Let it be Monty. In that case, Montys vote goes to Caesar, because Monty ranked Alex last and Caesar second or third. Wu Zetians vote also switches again, this time to Caesar. Caesar is elected, because the three leaders who are not Alex form a majority.

The greatest disadvantage of this voting system in my opinion is that it takes some effort to visualize the outcome. Maybe one could indeed display successive voting round notifications in the turn after the vote took place. Advantages would be that an absolute majority candidate can always win, that data for the AI's voting preferences is readily available and that a preference ranking is also quite accessible for human players who are probably at most times not so versed in tactical voting.

rexman07 said:

Oh, good point. If I understand you correctly, you're saying we can skip the "primary election" to select two candidates for host, since, if we still assume that the AI is dumb and always votes for itself, then the two candidates are going to be the two with the most delegates. So we can just skip to the two-candidate general election. And then each AI would simply choose which of the two candidates they prefer. A simple rule for AI voting would be:

1. Vote against a candidate you're at war with.
2. Vote against a candidate you've denounced.
3. Vote for a candidate that you've declared friendship with.
4. Otherwise, abstain.

Of course, the AI behavior could get more complicated, involving its victory conditions vs. the candidates, the geopolitical balance of power, etc.

With more game mechanics, the election could be even more interesting:

• If you have a declaration of friendship with one of the two candidates, NOT voting for that candidate will cause a diplomatic penalty. ("How could you turn your back on us at the World Congress?")
• If one candidate is dominating your culture with tourism, then your vote will affect your happiness penalty. If your people love that country's blue jeans and rock music, they'll be happier seeing them run the UN than some barbaric nation they don't respect or understand.

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You summed it up perfectly

I would also add the possibility to AI attack CS to lower human or other AI players influence

rexman07 said:

Oh, but the problem with this is that voting between host and #2 is not all that interesting. They both get to propose resolutions. The only difference is who gets an extra delegate or two. It would be more interesting if the elections would have more of an effect on which proposals will get made.

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The runner up don't need too necessarily propose resolution, if i understood correctly your concern. Isn't that how it's done? I thought that was host and other random player that haven't proposed resolution yet.

Drill IV said:

Even as long as the AI always votes for itself, shortening the list to the two candidates with the most votes would not always be logical. I had one game where I was the one with the second most votes. I used them to make the one with the lowest score chair of the congress, because he was the one posing the lowest danger of winning diplomatically and because his and my votes combined did surpass the votes of the leader. The proposed shortlisting would have prevented that option for the human player. Granted, in that situation I was second place and would possibly have profited by being elected, but also the leader could have been elected against my wishes. We simply do not know.

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I think it would not, since you could still vote for other AI player to the second turn and he would have won in the OP case. But there would be no need because he would be elected for host in the second turn, since Alex had worse relationship with other players.

If we could apply rules rexman07 pointed

Drill IV said:

All vote for themselves first, and all others rank Alex last. In that system, in the first round of evaluation, the one with the least votes would be eliminated -- maybe Wu Zetian. Her votes would then go to the one she ranked second, let it be Monty. In the second round of evaluation, the one who now has the least votes again is eliminated. Let it be Monty. In that case, Montys vote goes to Caesar, because Monty ranked Alex last and Caesar second or third. Wu Zetians vote also switches again, this time to Caesar. Caesar is elected, because the three leaders who are not Alex form a majority.

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I suppose that could work too, but we should try to keep it simple.

I have to agree with the OP. The host vote comes with absolutely no notice. And there's no way to convince the AI to vote for anyone but itself - even when doing that will ensure its most hated foe will gain the host seat.

The host vote as it comes up now is: whoever has the most city-state allies RIGHT THIS SECOND wins! Wooo!

...that's not strategy. That's a random event.

Bed0 said:

Two turn election would probably solve this.

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Yeah, a simple solution is for the best, methinks.