I'm done with BNW, I'm going to Vanilla. World Congress ruins the game for me.

[azzaman333]

espionage and world congress are basicly tools for the AI to use against the human player.

They will ban luxuries that you have will embargo you , will steal techs from you faster then you.


its basicly a tool so the Ai doesn't fall behind when you are winning.


Bad design in my opinion

Disagree completely. Espionage is how I research the bottom row of the tech tree, and it's usually very cheap to do so after the first tech if you pick the right target. World Congress I don't think I've ever had any problems dealing with either. Simply by selling your luxuries around you're not only benefitting from the extra gold, but the AI won't vote to ban something that's giving them happiness (except with the possible exception of the proposer of the resolution). I have no idea what you're doing to get embargoed, I'm pretty sure I've never had that problem.

 

[Quineloe]

I really prefer the Master of Orion diplomatic victory over this city state nonsense.

But that's probably beyond modders to implement :/

 

[Txurce]

In fairness (and I am not saying I agree with the overall hyperbole of the topic), but it IS a valid statement that a lot of the primary function of the WC is slowing down runaways- or rather slowing down anyone really.

Got culture hogs in the game? Pass Sciences funding, they're slowed down.
Getting beat in science? Pass arts funding to slow them down.
Someone running away with the gold advantage? Embargo them.
Someone in Freedom is milking trade routes for CS influence? Embargo city states.
Local warmonger getting too big? Standing Army Tax.
Guy with an ideology other than your own that you want to hinder? Pass a World Ideology and watch their happiness go through the floor and tank their production/unit effectiveness, growth.

Cpt Oblivious already covered why the WC favors - not hinders - the good player. I wanted to add that your list sounds more like how a human could slow a runaway AI, than what the AI does to a runaway human - which is what the OP is complaining about. I only wish the AI could do what you propose.

 

[Wodan]

I firmly believe the default settings have waaaay too many CSs. I'm sure that's contributing to this situation.

Pretty much all games, I routinely change the default #s to between 2:1 to 5:2 of Civs to CSs. That is, if the game defaults to 10 Civs and 18 CSs, I change it to something like 17 Civs and 6 or 7 CSs. This has a lot of benefits, and decreasing the overwhelming importance of CSs in the World Congress is one of them.

 

[KnightAndDay]

I agree with the people who have written about you not needing to control the WC if you're going for a science victory. You need to focus on your chosen victory condition and the things that are going to help that, rather than getting mad at alex. Greece is obviously designed to be strong with diplomacy. You can take the first few patronage policies & just focus on allying a few city states that are going to be helpful to your civ.

 

[KnightAndDay]

By the way, Siam can be just as difficult to deal with as Greece in this regard!