AI: The price of constant UN defiance

If a civ defies a resolution every time it is brought up, it stubbornly decimates its own cities worse than the Marathon speed "Foment Unhappiness," as the defiance penalty is cumulative.

In this example, every time I brought up Free Religion in the UN, Saladin defied it. So I brought up Free Religion every single time, and this was the result:





The only reason Medina was spared was because that's where Globe Theater was built. I constantly saw random events about riots for Saladin.

The threshold where a leader gives in and just votes "No" or abstains instead of defiance should be lower so that the leader doesn't lay his civ to complete waste. Otherwise, if you spot a similar obstinance in a leader while in control of the Apostolic Palace or UN, you can utterly destroy that civ the way things are now.

That's incredible. I'm glad you showed me this. I defied 4 resolutions in a row in my first BTS game and had +10 for being a villain. I wouldn't have been able to handle this much, tho.

Personally I would prefer a serious diplomatic hit than unhappiness. Countries use their veto in the UN (well, the permanent members) all the time yet they aren't dying off by the millions...

Yeah, before I played BTS, I naturally thought that a diplo hit would be the penalty for defiance. Apparently, our citizens feel that the world sees us as villains, but the leaders of the world don't. lol. Is there a mod for this? Would it be hard to do on my own?

Ghostofkuji said:

Personally I would prefer a serious diplomatic hit than unhappiness. Countries use their veto in the UN (well, the permanent members) all the time yet they aren't dying off by the millions...

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Exactly, and especially if Saladin's people are as religious as he is, in that case defying "free religion" resolution might win him domestic support as opposed to unhappiness.

Ghostofkuji said:

Personally I would prefer a serious diplomatic hit than unhappiness. Countries use their veto in the UN (well, the permanent members) all the time yet they aren't dying off by the millions...

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To make it of some consequence. If it was just a diplo penalty people would ignore all UN resolutions since the diplo penalty barely affects them.

Make it a consequence, sure, but why such an unrealistic and severe consequence?

For one, I think defying should count as a No until the results are in. If you defy a resolution and it fails, then your defiance should bear no more ill effects than a regular No. If it passes, then the defiance kicks in. It is pointless to defy something before you know if someone will actually try to force it on you in the first place

Then as others have said, the penalty should be diplomatic (because more often than not, defying "crazy foreign requests" brings you support amongst your own people). Make every vote in the UN, Yes or No (though not abstain) give all who voted the same a +1 towards eachother and vice versa (-1 to opposite votes), until the next vote (so that no more than +1 or -1 can be accumulated between two civs). Defying could give -1 towards those who voted no but didn't defy (they still respect the system), and -3 towards those who voted yes. Possibly accumulate the diplomatic penalties for repeated defiances, to make it a suitably hard decision whether to defy or not.

azzaman333 said:

To make it of some consequence. If it was just a diplo penalty people would ignore all UN resolutions since the diplo penalty barely affects them.

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Ah.. I think you're speaking for everyone instead of yourself. If you are friendly with any civs (or Pleased, but close to Cautious) and receive a -3 diplo hit for each defied resolution (which would wear away after a while) you could stand to lose your relations with close allies preventing Defense Pacts. You could also push an aggressive civ that was Pleased with you (now cautious) into declaring war on you. Diplomacy has many facets in this game and can completely change the outcome. Remember that diplo vic you were carefully trying to achieve? Defying a call to environmentalism from the U.N. could ruin that. How about declaring war? Your army is weak after a previous entanglement, and the AP resident votes to go to war with your neighbor who is relatively strong. If you defied under the diplo penalty system, your friends would start thinking much less of you.

Yeah its way too much of a penalty... by all means make it a penalty in some instances, but like dida says, it would make no sense if the citizens are religious. Sometimes definace of the UN can win support, like I hear its about the only thing Ahmendejinihad is universally admired for in Iran. Hes reasonably popular, but this is the only issue he has widepread popularity over

@RedRalphWiggum: bingo! I agree 100%. and the whole time, the majority of the rest of the U.N. becomes less patient with them and have even discussed sanctions (sounds like STOP TRADING WITH IRAN!)

the diplo penalty sounds so much more realistic. Someone please MOD IT!! or tell me how

I'm very disappointed with how the defying resolutions works in BTS. I expected something much more realistic and original; perhaps if you defy a resolution you are unable to trade with anyone for 10 turns or so. Anything would be better than the way it is.

Hopefullly firaxis will come up with something in the next patch to counter this...In the mean time, I will use it to my advantage

azzaman333 said:

To make it of some consequence. If it was just a diplo penalty people would ignore all UN resolutions since the diplo penalty barely affects them.

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That's exactly the point. And those who complain about it clearly want the punishment to be less severe because they are habitually defying UN resolutions. Never mind if the popular discontent is "realistic" or not; it makes for better gameplay.

The only unrealistic thing in Civ I object to is that the Scandinavians are called "the Viking civilization" and are depicted with horned helmets. And I feel free to object to them because those things, clearly included for "kewlness", are not important to the game. They are historically inaccurate and stereotyped, and if they were changed it would not make for worse gameplay. As for the claim that Scandinavians have not achieved anything of note after the Viking Age, so they should be called "the Vikings", that claim is simply wrong.

I also think the Ottomans should be called the Turks instead; they often were, long before Atatürk. And if that name change happened, they could take out one of those Sultans and put in Atatürk instead. Protective and Organized.

It is absolutely stupid that the result of defying a resolution is unhappiness in your city. Name one country who defied a UN Resolution and whose people were upset about it? Most of the time they rally to their leader, so if anything it should give you more happiness but a MAJOR diplomatic hit. Also, the UN should be able to vote on war with anyone who defies a resolution.

Öjevind Lång;5885912 said:

I also think the Ottomans should be called the Turks instead; they often were, long before Atatürk. And if that name change happened, they could take out one of those Sultans and put in Atatürk instead. Protective and Organized.

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Before he was a leader, Ataturk was a Military General, and thats how he is famous...I would go with Imperialistic/Organized...
Ottoman empire included not only turks, but many other nations...Turkey as a nation now is not nearly as great as the ottoman empire. And Turkey did not exist before the Ottoman empire, since Anatolia is conquered land...I think they should remain as the Ottoman empire...

neobean said:

Before he was a leader, Ataturk was a Military General, and thats how he is famous...I would go with Imperialistic/Organized...
Ottoman empire included not only turks, but many other nations...Turkey as a nation now is not nearly as great as the ottoman empire. And Turkey did not exist before the Ottoman empire, since Anatolia is conquered land...I think they should remain as the Ottoman empire...

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The Ottoman Empire included many peoples, but the Turks were very much in charge. And their country was frequently called Turkey.

oh hell no, no more TURK VS. OTTOMAN POSTS!!! This has been friggin' murdered on the Warlords and General Topics forums. NO MORE!!!! moderator please!

as to your argument, Öjevind Lång, I think you are way off base. Something tells me that you guys who think that diplomacy is moot are playing on Warlord level or below. If you take a -4 diplo hit every time you defy a resolution, you could easily drop every single friendly relationship you have. You could possible lose most of your pleased relations as well and make all cautious go to annoyed.

How is the current system not a poorly programmed penalty? That's ridiculous. I can switch to Hereditary Rule and post 10 soldiers in my larger cities to counteract this stupid system of for defying 4 resolutions IN A ROW! I did it in my current game b/c it was my first BTS and I had no idea that defying resolutions would give .

With the diplo hit, you could have -16 relations with all who are voting with the same 4 defiances. Since it would wear away in time, you'd probably max out at -12 or something, but that could turn a Friendly civ into Annoyed very easily. And more than likely you'd have anyone not strongly pleased with you as being FURIOUS. talk about being the focus of a joint-force war.

The happiness penalty does fit well in some situations, and not so well in others. For example, if the whole world wants to implement Free Speech, or Universal Suffrage, and you defy this, then I can definitely see a good reason for unhappiness among your own population.

I don't think the effect has to be changed, although a mix of a diplo penalty and a (reduced) happiness penalty might be a more realistic option. Or have the effect change according to the resolution and the situation you're in, which would be most realistic, but also difficult to program.

I agree however that defying should count as a simple "no" unless the resolution would actually pass.

Öjevind Lång;5886039 said:

The Ottoman Empire included many peoples, but the Turks were very much in charge. And their country was frequently called Turkey.

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Maybe so, but one would want to promote a civilization while it is at a peak. You wont see today's greek civilization with Costas Caramanlis at its head in any civilization game, nor will you see the Bush family any time soon at the head of the Americans. Today's Turkey has little to do with the Ottomans...I know what I am talking about

And sorry if we are boring you blitzkrieg1980, but I wasnt around for those thread bashings...

neobean said:

And sorry if we are boring you blitzkrieg1980, but I wasnt around for those thread bashings...

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No way is it boring... rather the opposite. It's too much flaming. You can search Turks in the Warlords or General forums and see how many times Moderators had to close threads on the Turks vs. Ottomans debate. It's just done to death. But feel free to start a new thread in the general or off topic forums.

Just please keep the Turks vs. Ottomans out of the BTS forums.