Current World Congress AI too easy to game.

Peng Qi

Peng Qi

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Irrelevant.
The current AI for selecting the host of the world congress is too simplistic; civs that don't have nearly enough votes should not be voting for themselves. As it stands, since the human player is the only player who will ever vote for another player, it's extremely easy to make sure that someone with similar goals or who is sympathetic to you will become the host of the congress every single time. The AI should be changed so that players with less than half of the votes of the vote leader will vote for players who they like or who have proposed measures they like for the next vote.
 
Indeed, the WC is easy for the player. Another thing they should change is the AI's interest towards City-States and the delegates in them. Even the warmongers just drool idly as I take over all their CS allies. Why aren't they conquering them? Why aren't they interested in the fact that I have almost all of the delegates and that they will lose the game if they don't ruin those delegates for me?
 
VainoValkea said:
Indeed, the WC is easy for the player. Another thing they should change is the AI's interest towards City-States and the delegates in them. Even the warmongers just drool idly as I take over all their CS allies. Why aren't they conquering them? Why aren't they interested in the fact that I have almost all of the delegates and that they will lose the game if they don't ruin those delegates for me?
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Although they could definitely do with a nudge towards greater involvement in city-states, the AI doesn't completely ignore them (at least, it didn't in the one complete game I've managed to finish on BNW). I was pleasantly surprised to see Shaka buying out city states as I neared the world leader vote. I do agree though that the player has a huge advantage at the WC if he puts his mind to it.

As for declaring war, that'd be a mistake given that it would lock the AI out from ever influencing those city-states. I'm not sure if the AI factors that into its decisions but the odds of conquering, and holding, however many city states need would probably be lower than amassing enough cash to buy those city-states out the turn of the vote.
 
Veneke said:
As for declaring war, that'd be a mistake given that it would lock the AI out from ever influencing those city-states. I'm not sure if the AI factors that into its decisions but the odds of conquering, and holding, however many city states need would probably be lower than amassing enough cash to buy those city-states out the turn of the vote.
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No.

*dramatic voice*

I am the mistake that would lock them out from ever influencing those City-States.


Seriously, if one player is raking influence points past 200's with all City-States, the others have little chance of getting them back for themselves. The least they could do to prevent landslide diplo victories would be removing those CS's.
 
VainoValkea said:
No.

*dramatic voice*

I am the mistake that would lock them out from ever influencing those City-States.
Click to expand...

lol

Seriously, if one player is raking influence points past 200's with all City-States, the others have little chance of getting them back for themselves. The least they could do to prevent landslide diplo victories would be removing those CS's.
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Yes, there's not much chance of them beating you in influence and, again, I'm working with a sample size of one game but in it I'm looking at the definite possibility of the AI outbuying me even at 200/300 influence whilst being unable to take and hold CSs (I don't know how many times Assyria tried to take Zanzibar and Monaco - they were at 3 pop apiece in the final turns - but they could never hold them for it to matter during the vote).
 
Well yeah, they could buy you off, but that's expensive business. Freedom ideology in particular offers the means for easily spamming hundreds of influence, and that's what I was using - the AI would've had little option apart from war to rob me of those allies.
 
Didn't they originally state you wouldn't be able to vote or yourself? I thought allied CS's would automatically vote for you and your bills.
 
VainoValkea said:
Well yeah, they could buy you off, but that's expensive business. Freedom ideology in particular offers the means for easily spamming hundreds of influence, and that's what I was using - the AI would've had little option apart from war to rob me of those allies.
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It's expensive, true but doable in comparison to the possibility of taking and holding X number of city-states. The Treaty Organization tenet though is insanely powerful and probably needs to be nerfed. To make matters worse, I'm pretty sure that the AI doesn't know how to use the only non-Freedom city-state influence generating tenet, Gunship diplomacy. Both of the Autocratic civs in my game were bullying city-states as often as they could - when the better option was almost certainly to let the influence continue to build.
 
Well, again to draw an example from my previous game, Assyria was very much in position for taking at least five of my City-State allies or even attacking me directly. They could've at least tried not to lose!

Gunship diplomacy seems a lot trickier to me. Very powerful for neighboring city states, but I guess it needs too much investment to get enough troops near most of the CS's. It would be nice to try it out though, even if Treaty Organization is set up with almost no effort.

As for Treaty Organization being overpowered, I'd focus more on Arsenal of Democracy. It's a second level tenet, not third, and similarly powerful. Also comes with the added benefits of reinforcing the city state allies against invasions and, even if the AI tried, much harder to intercept (trade routes can be plundered but to stop unit gifts they need to take the CS or the producing city).
 
how about making it so a civ has to dedicate at least 1, or 2, votes to another civ while voting for WC leader? that would allow civ with several votes to still vote for themselves, but obviously they ones with less votes won't be stupidly voting for themselves when there is no chance to win...
 
Alternatively, a civ that votes for the winner gets a reward. That wouldn't work in World Leader votes (because someone else wins the game, you lose) but would perhaps do good in Host elections.
 
VainoValkea said:
Alternatively, a civ that votes for the winner gets a reward. That wouldn't work in World Leader votes (because someone else wins the game, you lose) but would perhaps do good in Host elections.
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This would be cool. When no world leader is decided, for example, the two civs with the most votes get an extra delegate apiece. If we make the AI collaborate on more things, maybe we could make this even more interesting - everyone who votes for the winner of a host election gets an extra vote (the host winner is likely to have voted for himself anyway)

If the number of delegates is constantly changing due to political alliances, that opens up the political game a lot

Also, perhaps Diplomats should become Delegates earlier in the tech tree? That would create a greater amount of choice between espionage and World Congress votes, and would encourage the AI to use their spies that way as well.

The AI should also consider buying off delegates from each other in order to get more votes to pass/block things they want.
 
I think the host is simply meant to be a reward to the civ who has the most delegates. Simple solution would be to force vote for yourself and remove the exploit from the player. I dislike any option the player has that the AI cannot do as well.
 
The sad thing is, World Congress elections could be easily improved even without changing how AI behaves significantly (although that, too, would be good, because it'd make vote trading much more relevant).

The simplest solution would be to remove the ability to vote for oneself. A bit clumsy, but it'd work and, importantly, it has been used before.

Another would be for every civilization to nominate one candidate - without the ability to self-nominate. After that, it'd be down to a simple vote between two top candidates. I think a similar system has been used in a number of 4X games, indlucing Master of Orion and Alpha Centauri.
 
Removing the ability to vote for oneself wouldn't work with the current WC system. Why would anyone want more delegates for World Leader votes if each delegate means a vote for someone else?
 
VainoValkea said:
Removing the ability to vote for oneself wouldn't work with the current WC system. Why would anyone want more delegates for World Leader votes if each delegate means a vote for someone else?
Click to expand...

Yeah, that would create amusing scenarios where getting too many city-state allies forces you to lose the game. :lol:
 
Cymsdale said:
Yeah, that would create amusing scenarios where getting too many city-state allies forces you to lose the game. :lol:
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Ah, yes. That's right. Still, a two-candidate system of some sort might partially remedy the problem with everyone voting for themselves. And if you DO get the nomination, those votes will actually come rather handy.
 
VainoValkea said:
Removing the ability to vote for oneself wouldn't work with the current WC system. Why would anyone want more delegates for World Leader votes if each delegate means a vote for someone else?
Click to expand...

maybe only major civs should vote for the leader and all the civs should have 1 vote.
 
You guys are thinking too small. Victory shouldn't end when elected world leader. Once elected you get some new abilities and you have to actually create world peace, end all ongoing conflicts before you get victory.
 
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