Current World Congress AI too easy to game.

Dux1 · Jul 15, 2013

I do find it odd and a little disheartening that the AI seems blissfully unaware of its inability to win the host seat when it only has a handful of votes. It would be nice if it had some added logic to vote for someone aligned with their interests that actually could win in such cases.

Quick1 · Jul 15, 2013

GoldenShadow said:
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.

I like this idea. My main problem with the Diplomatic victory as it stands is that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of Diplomacy. If you can win the influence of every CS, you win. My thought was that to be a candidate for World Leader, perhaps you would have to do something like negotiate a peace between two other civilizations.

I also think the CS get too many delegates in the later eras. Perhaps sticking with 1 each is a potential solution. But then there's also the problem that you cannot negotiate for delegates from other civs. You can have had a game where you didn't participate in a single war against another civ, have not a single red mark in against you, and giving them 9999 gold plus a bunch of resources is not enough to swing their delegates.

I've actually turned it off as a victory condition for now until it gets some kind of re-tooling, hopefully in a patch in a few weeks.

Cymsdale · Jul 15, 2013

I think the reason diplomatic victory seems so easy is that I don't see the AI take over city states very much. It becomes more difficult if you have to liberate them from their oppressors.

doctorfork · Jul 15, 2013

Diplomatic victory isn't really diplomatic at all. It should just be referred to as "economic victory".

I like the idea of having to be world leader for a term and then deciding if it's ok. Of course, that present other challenges, in that everyone will immediately turn against you in order to prevent you from winning-it would create an inverse effect.

The problem with a diplomatic victory is that nobody will vote to lose the game. So the game shouldn't let any players decide-it should be entirely in the hand of city states to determine the winner, or some other factor that has no direct control-just influence.

I would suggest that the city states determine the diplomatic winner based on a totally new metric. The CS's would still track influence the current way, where you can purchase their loyalty and friendship through quests(but mostly money), but at the same time make it worthwhile to invest in them over the years. Keep a separate influence on each CS that tracks total influence that either doesn't degrade or degrades at a slower pace. For example, if you purchase 60 influence for 1000 gold, that adds 6 permanent influence.

The permanent influence is what primarily would motivate the CS voting systems. This grants city states a new role wherein they're real allies, not just purchased votes. When it comes time to vote for a world leader, the CS recognizes who has been their ally throughout history, not just the one who flashed cash two days before the vote.

MadHaxxor · Jul 15, 2013

I just played a game as Venice where I controlled all 15 city states (I bought one). It wasn't even the World Congress, it basically turned into the "here's what Venice wants, deal with it congress" I instantly destroyed the top player at the time by embargoing him, city states, banning his luxury, and standing army tax. I got him to > -100 gold per turn, and when ideologies came around, his people became very unhappy

GoldenShadow · Jul 15, 2013

doctorfork said:
Diplomatic victory isn't really diplomatic at all. It should just be referred to as "economic victory".

I like the idea of having to be world leader for a term and then deciding if it's ok. Of course, that present other challenges, in that everyone will immediately turn against you in order to prevent you from winning-it would create an inverse effect.

The problem with a diplomatic victory is that nobody will vote to lose the game. So the game shouldn't let any players decide-it should be entirely in the hand of city states to determine the winner, or some other factor that has no direct control-just influence.

I would suggest that the city states determine the diplomatic winner based on a totally new metric. The CS's would still track influence the current way, where you can purchase their loyalty and friendship through quests(but mostly money), but at the same time make it worthwhile to invest in them over the years. Keep a separate influence on each CS that tracks total influence that either doesn't degrade or degrades at a slower pace. For example, if you purchase 60 influence for 1000 gold, that adds 6 permanent influence.

The permanent influence is what primarily would motivate the CS voting systems. This grants city states a new role wherein they're real allies, not just purchased votes. When it comes time to vote for a world leader, the CS recognizes who has been their ally throughout history, not just the one who flashed cash two days before the vote.

There are some ideas I would like to expand upon. Spending money to ally with a city state does not buy their delegates. Instead, they vote based on their type. for example, a cultured CS would vote for the civ that has grown the most culture in the past 30 turns. A military CS would vote for the civ that has had the biggest standing army for the past 30 turns. Mercantile CS would vote for the civ with the most happiness for the past 30 turns. Religious, who has the most faith for the past 30 turns. Maritime, who has to most ??food?? -figure this one out later-
I use the average of 30 turns so you can't cheese the game by buying a lot of stuff on the turn before the big vote. You become ineligible for a vote is you are at war or they are angry with you.

dr.skeletor · Jul 15, 2013

MadHaxxor said:
I just played a game as Venice where I controlled all 15 city states (I bought one). It wasn't even the World Congress, it basically turned into the "here's what Venice wants, deal with it congress" I instantly destroyed the top player at the time by embargoing him, city states, banning his luxury, and standing army tax. I got him to > -100 gold per turn, and when ideologies came around, his people became very unhappy

This. I just finished my first Venice game and named the World Congress "The Golden Council" when I founded it. I didn't realize how prophetic this would be. I owned consistently between 12-14 city states not including the 3 I had puppeted (I had to puppet one more than I would have liked to save it from imminent conquest). With all the extra trade routes (collosus + exploration + freedom) I was making ridiculous :c5gold:

. This was even with Greece and Austria trying to CS monger the whole game.

Sadly, I only went through two votes after the city states kicked in before I won culture victory, so I couldn't cripple my foes (Shoshone and Japan). However, I saved after I won just so I can wield the city states like henchmen to my maniacal world dictator later. It is fun to have your economy peacefully influence politics beyond just the end UN vote.

pilot00 · Jul 15, 2013

Same here with Greece. Darius finds us all so gets to be the first host. He passes incense lux ban. Then turns pass by second council where CS votes mattered so it happened like that:

-I declare myself the host
-I declare Orthodoxy as the world religion
-I start the Olympics
-I Pass science founding (all the others wanted arts but who cares right?)
-I Pick freedom first and OFC I declare it the world ideology
-I embargo Darius
-I told them to help me build the ISS
-I start the Olympics again
-By that point I could declare myself as the world leader.

Greece without patronage only dominant religion.
Notice a pattern yet?

I should have named it: The do what I say congress

ptoss1 · Jul 15, 2013

The AI doesn't know how to play the world congress. The Ai sucks. What else is new?

Current World Congress AI too easy to game.

Dux1

Warlord

Quick1

Chieftain

Cymsdale

Prince

doctorfork

Chieftain

MadHaxxor

Warlord

GoldenShadow

Chieftain

dr.skeletor

Chieftain

pilot00

King

ptoss1

King

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