World congress stupidity

So it's the first vote of the new world congress. I submitted a proposal for arts funding. Boudicca submits one for banning marble. I just mined my first marble, and she has nothing against me yet, is not at war or even feeling badly towards anyone who has marble, so who knows why. I think AI's just suggest stupid bans out of thin air, most of the time. Random stupidity just for the sake of a dumb proposal. :shrug:

So the vote rolls around, and there's no way I'm going to let her ban one of my luxes, so I cast my two votes (leader) as nay against it. When the results are in, she didn't even cast a single vote for her 'ban marble' proposal, and it loses by like 8 votes due to most of the rest of the world thinking she's as dumb as I do. Instead, she casts her 3 votes (built the Forbidden Palace) for MY suggestion, which she could have ignored, since it passed easily with no nays from anyone.

So ok, she's as completely and undeniably dumb as a box of rocks, for proposing it for no good reason in the first place, and then for not even voting for her own proposal. Sure enough, the next turn, I get a glare from her and the diplo hit for 'voting down her proposal'. :le sigh:

There should be a rule that if you don't even cast one vote for your own proposal, you should not be allowed to look down your nose at other civs for voting against it- put up or shut up, twit. End of tale.

The AI selections are basically there to make it hard for the player. Most often its an ban or embargo that they will put up for a vote. Occasionally they do something productive but not often. In my first BNW, the first two votes in the WC were both bans against luxuries I owned. I learned fast to be one of the founding members of the WC so I can control the voting.

Smokeybear said:

So it's the first vote of the new world congress. I submitted a proposal for arts funding. Boudicca submits one for banning marble. I just mined my first marble, and she has nothing against me yet, is not at war or even feeling badly towards anyone who has marble, so who knows why.

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The banning of luxury resources is rather simple: if they don't have that luxury, the AI is likely to propose it. If there were still Classical era Wonders not built, it might be about that, otherwise there maybe a civ she doesn't like which has marble.. or you picked her first choice of proposal and she felt back on banning a random resource she didn't have. They like especially to try to ban resources that give an extra bonus, like silver, gold, marble or pantheon-upgraded resources. They also like to ban a resource their worst enemy has that they don't.

When the results are in, she didn't even cast a single vote for her 'ban marble' proposal, and it loses by like 8 votes due to most of the rest of the world thinking she's as dumb as I do. Instead, she casts her 3 votes (built the Forbidden Palace) for MY suggestion, which she could have ignored, since it passed easily with no nays from anyone.

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It's the first congress, her spy is probably busy on some other task and she had no idea how the world would stand on your proposal.

You were host, you just happen to put a proposal that Bouddica was strongly in favor of. She had second choice, her own proposal she was less strongly in favor of. The AI go for their strongest choice (Yea or Nay). If there are two strong options, they split their delegates between the two

It's as simple as that. The human often find himself in the same situation: putting up a proposal you don't really want and might vote for or against or vote to stop the proposal of the AI.

Sure enough, the next turn, I get a glare from her and the diplo hit for 'voting down her proposal'. :le sigh:

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Rule of thumb: the banning of resources don't pass very easily. Many AI that don't have it feel more strongly about the other proposal (especially one like Arts Funding, that touches on their flavor and favorite victory conditions), and the AI that have the resource, got it from CS or trade, will always vote against. In short, you should have voted for your own proposal and avoided the predictable diplo hit when Bouddica's proposal would get defeated.

EK834 said:

Rule of thumb: the banning of resources don't pass very easily. Many AI that don't have it feel more strongly about the other proposal (especially one like Arts Funding, that touches on their flavor and favorite victory conditions), and the AI that have the resource, got it from CS or trade, will always vote against. In short, you should have voted for your own proposal and avoided the predictable diplo hit when Bouddica's proposal would get defeated.

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Sounds good in theory, but in actual play, I've gone with that thought and still ended up getting my lux banned by idiots, more often than not. Which is why if I care about the lux, I'll always vote against the idiot AI, no matter what. The only thing they can be counted on voting for, almost always, is the wrong thing.

MarauderCH said:

The AI selections are basically there to make it hard for the player. Most often its an ban or embargo that they will put up for a vote. Occasionally they do something productive but not often. In my first BNW, the first two votes in the WC were both bans against luxuries I owned. I learned fast to be one of the founding members of the WC so I can control the voting.

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I'm not sure how accurate this is. It would be fairly useless, since the other Civs would have to be programmed to vote according to what would hinder the human, and that's not how their votes are cast.

Very often an AI will try to embargo CS when I have no trade route to any but one of the leading civs, or one of their enemies, does.

Most of the time, the luxury they're trying to have banned doesn't concern me. I play tall, and like to play Venice a lot, so I don't have many luxuries to trade. It's rarely one of mine they try to ban, unless they really don't like me.

Sometimes a proposal of the type Arts Funding doesn't suit me, but I find that most time it suits the strategy of the AI that proposed it, more than it targets mine. And very often Arts or Science Funding proposed by the AI happens to suit my strategy just fine, I just preferred to put up something else..

Once or twice I've put up a proposal the second AI hated and it put as second proposal something I'm forced to vote to defeat (eg: I try to pass Science Funding and the AI will try to repeal World Religion or Ideology), but I've no idea if this reflects a programmed tactic to force me not to vote for my proposal or it's concidental and just the proposal the AI favored most.

The luxury ban is also a real pain for Indonesia and its UA. If you play as Indonesia and you manage to get your own luxury resources going, there's a big chance that AI will try and ban them because neither civ but you would have that resource.

I tend to put in quite a bit of effort into getting the forbidden palace, founding and hosting, and bribing like crazy in the World Congress. It's one of my absolute favorite parts of the game now, even though late game it can offer very few options to propose. I enjoy playing the peaceful game, getting my way in the world congress, the first couple proposals tend to be stuff everyone likes, followed by my religion/ideology, and embargo on the world pariah, etc. If I don't like the second proposal, I never vote it down, but instead I bribe it down, and ensure mine passes with my votes.

Plus this strategy leads me to build up city state allies, which is something I generally forget otherwise, unless I want to irritate Alex, or Ramky.

Sell that luxury to AI or even give it for free to AI that has the most votes. If they are neutral to other proposal, they will vote against "ban luxury". Doesn't work always, but you can always use diplomats to manipulate them into voting for something else.

PS. Most AIs love Arts Funding for some reason, so you can easily vote no for ban Marble, and still get Arts Funding. I have rarely ever seen someone propose "Science Funding" (usually Arabs and Rome)

This often happens to me, but I've discovered a solution! If you have multiple copies of a lux(if this is not the case, then this won't work ) Simply share out that lux to every civ you can ( you might have to go a bit lower on the prices, but that's worth it for not losing it) then when the vote comes, since most people are getting happiness from the lux, they'll vote against it! This option is usually easier if you have a good monopoly on that lux.

The AI absolutely loves to ban luxes. It seems like 90% of AI proposals are inane "ban X lux." I don't think the AI is programmed to favor player lux bans over other AI lux bans, but it's definetely programmed to have a hot, steamy, love affair with the ban hammer.

Question: if a luxury I control is banned does that mean I simply cannot trade excess to others or does it go beyond that and stop producing happiness for me?

Stops producing happiness for you, and everyone else.

Best way to avoid that outcome is to sell (if necessary, give) a copy to every AI you can find. Any AI getting happiness from that lux is likely to vote against the resolution (depending on what the other resolution is).

Sammydakid said:

Question: if a luxury I control is banned does that mean I simply cannot trade excess to others or does it go beyond that and stop producing happiness for me?

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It stops providing happiness to everyone including the owner of the resources.

perhaps her enemy at the time had marble. 30 turns is a long time in civ so may have "kissed and made up" by the time voting came round.

IMHO talking about the "Intelligence" of a AI is pointless. You are right they are way more stupid than most people which is a problem in CiV but pretty great IRL.

Problem is, the hole World Congress thing is stupid. I allways feel like whatever i do i can only loose. Either it helps me but pisses everyone off or the other way around. If i am not host at least i don't have to vote but if by chance a have to be the host i HAVE to choose something which either goes against my strategy or pisses somebody off without much of a benefit for me...
Plus yes, the AI can't handle it...

Smokeybear said:

So it's the first vote of the new world congress. I submitted a proposal for arts funding. Boudicca submits one for banning marble.

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She probably wanted to propose the same thing, but since you already did, the AI just chose something random.

As a human politician, I would have no problem raising a vote I didn't care about just to make you use up your limited votes to stop it.

As a human player, I have done just that later in the game when there weren't resolutions that fit my strategy.

I did the same thing as Boudicca in my current game. Was at war with Persia, proposed banning a luxury that would hurt him. By the time the vote came around we were at peace and the other proposal appeared more attractive to me. Guess I need to be rebalanced.

In my current game (still in progress), I was friends with Denmark, who was the first host of the WC. His first proposal? Embargo me!!! That jerkface. I had trade routes with many other civs, and his proposal didn't pass (he used all his votes to try to get it to pass, though). I obviously voted against it as well. Of course, next screen, you voted against me, we won't support you in the future. You jerk, you're the one who backstabbed me! As soon as the DoF expired, I denounced him and he's been hostile ever since - even after adopting the same ideology as me!

Once the options get thin, I'll propose a resolution that key AI are in favor of but won't help me, then vote it down. Get the positive for proposing something they like and no negative side effect for voting it down.

Worlds Fair is usually good for this as most AI like it, but if I'm not ready to devote production to it I'll propose it then vote it down.