Banning luxuries in the world congress- is it just for screwing someone over?

I know it's possible to ban luxuries in the world congress. In-game information states that this is for luxuries that are immoral or otherwise negative, and a real-world counterpart would be banning whaling or banning real fur coats or blood diamonds or something. My question is are there any in-game advantages to banning luxuries? Do certain ideologies get bonuses for banning them or is it just to harm whichever civ controls those luxuries?

SO the most direct influence is to systematically ban a conflicting ideology civ's luxuries to reduce happiness and cause a city to flip.

Otherwise one could ban a fellow order civ's happiness to lower their happiness for the order tourism tenet but this case is a bit weaker.

It sort like a real almost ineffective embargo. Its more effective if the civ has 10 of that luxury and you and your friends have none of it. Then you really hurt the civ.

It's only for screwing someone over or as Shaman mentioned. Lower their happiness or screw them over in order to cause them to change ideologies, wreck their economy or cause them to be worse at military fights.

It's like embargoing the player, then also embargoing all city states so the player can't do any trade routes except internal ones.

Indeed, nobody benefits from banning luxaries.

Yes, it's a matter of Civ X has several local copies of luxury XYZ and won't trade of them to me, so I'm going to make sure if I can't benefit from it, no one can.

Also, before actually propose this, but sure to check which civs hate the idea and also see if anybody actually likes the idea. (An AI that has dismal relations with one or more of those with local copies of the luxury in question that also doesn't have it will love the idea)

It's definitely designed to screw somebody over, I mean when did bananas or citrus become immoral lol!!

In my current game I have 6 Citrus and use them to trade and one of my closest rivals screwed me over by getting them banned and causing my unhappiness to dip. I don't understand why other Civs back the proposal though seeing as most of the time they are actually trading the particular luxury with me!! Funny how oil, uranium and aluminium aren't seen as immoral!!

it really sucks if your indonesia and this happens to your unique luxuries

it also really sucks if you are completely reliant on protectionism for happiness. a banned luxury is an instant minus 6 happiness.
I've burnt my fingers using protectionism - essentially it holds you hostage to the civ who's luxuries you are buying.
I fell into this trap on the DCL Assyria game. I neglected ideology happiness tenets for protectionism. The happiness didn't last as long as I'd hoped and in the end I had to pay Arabia 54gpt for 6 luxuries = 36 happiness.
They were also ahead of me in the space race. I wanted to attack them but I couldn't because there was no way I could fight a war with -36 happiness

Thanks for the response. I'm just wondering because it means in any game where luxuries you control are targeted, the AI or other player is specifically looking to harm you. There aren't any ways to pretend they're doing it for another reason, like based on some moral ground (if for example there was a mechanic where your people got extra happiness for banning something immoral)

My understanding is they'll do it if they don't like your or because you traded your luxury to a civ they don't like.
So it can go multiple ways.

If I just sell my oranges to Shaka and the whole world hates Shaka it's likely that the world will vote to ban oranges.
The best way to avoid this is to recognise who will command the most votes in the WC and sell your luxury to them and the civs that are generally peaceful.

Now this i'm less certain about but if a civ that controls the most votes in the WC proposes to ban your oranges it may be best to sell your oranges to them, even if it is your last copy. It may be that once the AI recongises that they have access to that luxury they will not vote to ban them as their resolution did.
I'm not sure about this but that is how I would interpret the computer logic for this decision would work.

Most AIs get mad when you vote against their luxury ban or whatever so voting yes on whatever it is they're proposing would let you keep the peace particularly for liberty and traditional starts.

reddishrecue said:

Most AIs get mad when you vote against their luxury ban or whatever so voting yes on whatever it is they're proposing would let you keep the peace particularly for liberty and traditional starts.

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Screw that. I don't want to be friends with people who think Salt is immoral (or Cinnamon for that matter). I'll keep my happiness and my trade GPT, and they can be mad about it. Then when they feel froggy they can jump, at which point I will happily crush them.

sixty4half said:

Screw that. I don't want to be friends with people who think Salt is immoral (or Cinnamon for that matter). I'll keep my happiness and my trade GPT, and they can be mad about it. Then when they feel froggy they can jump, at which point I will happily crush them.

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Totally agree, I'm not going to screw myself over to keep the AI semi-happy lol! From my experience, the AI always finds a reason to hate you - you made friends with their enemy, you told them not to spy (as if that is an unreasonable request), you made friends with a CS, you told them not to settle near you, you commented on how gay their swordsmen were. The AI is broken in Civ and no matter what you do to try and keep them happy, they always find a reason to DoW on you!!

I recently played as Germany (I actually have come around to them in terms of going for a domination victory) and the Celts were nearby and in the Diplomacy screen I had 8 green ticks against reasons why they liked me and no red ticks. No contested borders and we were trading and declaring friendship with each other. 10 turns later I saw an army massing on my border but luckily (thanks to the Germans converting barbs), I had enough units to fend them off when they DoW for NO REASON. That started my ruthless German revenge streak and I wiped those damn Celts out and then swept into Spain who were also nearby. Does nobody know by now that you don't pi$$ the Germans off??

reddishrecue said:

Most AIs get mad when you vote against their luxury ban or whatever so voting yes on whatever it is they're proposing would let you keep the peace particularly for liberty and traditional starts.

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So you would rather take the -4 happiness hit and lose the gpt from trade assuming you have the lux? Makes no sense at all.

Sclb said:

So you would rather take the -4 happiness hit and lose the gpt from trade assuming you have the lux? Makes no sense at all.

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No, i said i would rather take my sv, cv or dipv even against AI without having to go to warusing tradition or liberty by letting AI get mad at other AI and let them kill each other off.

reddishrecue said:

No, i said i would rather take my sv, cv or dipv even against AI without having to go to warusing tradition or liberty by letting AI get mad at other AI and let them kill each other off.

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Why would you ever need to keep peace so much?

If you are in such a weak position that voting no on someone's WC proposal is the reason they go to war with you, you weren't playing the game right anyway. Your military probably sucks, and THAT's the reason they go to war with you.


On topic, I don't ever waste time with the lux votes. There's always something better you can be doing with your WC proposals, trying to get someone else to flip to your ideology can be accomplished many other more efficient ways. Especially since the AI gets absurd happiness bonuses on higher difficulty levels, and on low levels you shouldn't have a problem outpacing their empire anyway.

There are a few subversive political messages in CiV -- lux bans having nothing to do with immorality and everything to do with punishing opponents is one of them.

I would like to point out lux ban almost always work against the player, especially as the game progressess.

1. The AIs have so much extra happiness, losing a lux is not likely to hurt them
2. Banned luxes might be needed to trigger WLtK day
3. CS will give quests for banned luxes

Suppose an AI who hates you has a monopoly so you figure you are screwed for (2) or (3) anyway.

Without the ban, you at least have some difficult options. You can conquest. You can do a terrible trade for one turn (triggering WLtK or the fulfilling the quest) and DoW the next turn (to get out of the trade).

With a ban in place, the player is stuck. And I am not even talking about the player happiness hit. Lux bans are terrible. I vote against them even when I don't have access to them, or my allies propose them. Just not worth it.

Chum said:

Why would you ever need to keep peace so much?

If you are in such a weak position that voting no on someone's WC proposal is the reason they go to war with you, you weren't playing the game right anyway. Your military probably sucks, and THAT's the reason they go to war with you.


On topic, I don't ever waste time with the lux votes. There's always something better you can be doing with your WC proposals, trying to get someone else to flip to your ideology can be accomplished many other more efficient ways. Especially since the AI gets absurd happiness bonuses on higher difficulty levels, and on low levels you shouldn't have a problem outpacing their empire anyway.

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I just havent seen a video with tradition domination victory. I mean why would you be so greedy with happiness for? Do golden ages matter that much to you?

reddishrecue said:

I just havent seen a video with tradition domination victory. I mean why would you be so greedy with happiness for? Do golden ages matter that much to you?

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If you don't need the happiness, sell the last copy of a lux for 240 gold or 7gpt. Later wltkd or CS quests can trigger for that lux and you can just stop selling it.

reddishrecue said:

I just havent seen a video with tradition domination victory. I mean why would you be so greedy with happiness for? Do golden ages matter that much to you?

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I don't have any idea how any of this relates to anything I said.

Sclb said:

If you don't need the happiness, sell the last copy of a lux for 240 gold or 7gpt. Later wltkd or CS quests can trigger for that lux and you can just stop selling it.

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That would make sense. Voting against a AI wc proposal would never hurt anyone.