Resolutions at the World Congress that are Rather Pointless

[Cicerosaurus]

1. Banning nukes- if this is proposed and it looks like being passed, as long as you have gold and uranium you can just buy one in as many cities as you can afford. The next turn you are free to use them knowing that no one else can build them (unless of course they have a stockpile as well).

2. Embargo on a hated country. Lets say Greece as I always get around to hating them. It seems like a good idea to cut off their supply routes, but is it worth it to lose the 25% modifier for your culture that you get for a trade route?

 

[camfrlas]

embargo on hated civ is quite strong resolution. some 25% doesn't mean as much as cutting them from all that gold, even if you're going for cultural victory. in advance, if you combine this with embargo with city-states, you can seriously hurt them.

banning nukes is kind of easy to go around, i give you that, but once already owned nukes are gone and you can't make more, i guess you'll feel the impact. i never actually tested it in real game so far, but maybe i think this could be useful against runaway with tech advantage. (assyria is in my mind for example.)

 

[Shafi-is-back]

If someone is already at war with me, i wouldn't have trade routes with them anyway, so i definitely use embargo's on my enemies to cripple them.

 

[livsbrand]

I rarely find myself in a situation where I want to trade with the other civs. The way I treat them the quadruple DoW is always just around the corner.

 

[Rambuchan]

2. Embargo on a hated country. Lets say Greece as I always get around to hating them. It seems like a good idea to cut off their supply routes, but is it worth it to lose the 25% modifier for your culture that you get for a trade route?

Yes, it's worth it.

Think of all that gold (and maybe those science and religious benefits) they would be missing out on. That is quite a set back. Especially if they are centrally located on the map with access to many trading partners, or it's late game and long sea trade routes are in effect.

If you're going for a culture victory, you can always do musical concerts in their lands, spam hotels and airports, use tourism boosting ideologies and wonders, or, having set them back with the embargo, just go to war and capture their prime tourism/culture cities.

I find the 'ban a luxury' proposal which your hated country has in abundance to be a better option actually, but the embargo is still worth it.

 

[Cicerosaurus]

At least it is generating some discussion.

I'd like to see some capacity to break the embargos such as Iraq and rogue states. Say construct a nuke or slyly trade under a flag of convenience but if a spy discovers this there are some stiff penalties involved. Like the United Nations calling you a big pooh or whatever they do.

 

[VainoValkea]

Embargo is very potent. I use it to cripple warmongers and other troublemakers all the time. Also good for making friends since these warmongers tend to have lots and lots of enemies who enjoy such proposals. Typically, the empires hurt worst by embargoes are warmongers with expensive armies - and they're usually the guys who you don't need that extra +25% modifier on as they're already neglecting culture in favor of that extra artillery.

 

[Cicerosaurus]

Wouldn't it be as useful to get the Standing Army Tax? Perhaps the two together would really be deadly.

 

[VainoValkea]

As useful? Not by a long shot. Increased unit maintenance keeps them in control, but it impacts everyone, not just the intended target, and is far less crippling. Embargo destroy's a large part of an empire's income, that's really devastating unless the target civ has a large "internal market" of trading posts to make money with.

 

[Cicerosaurus]

Wouldn't that be dependent on how the economy was run- as in if they depended on trade routes for a large proportion of income? If a Civ had a lot of (say) gold mines with mints and whatever is the embargo going to be that harmful given to what they can generate by internal revenue?

Question also- does the embargo prohibit the Civ from selling its excess goods (in this case gold).

 

[simonthesinner]

If you can get through the embargo and the "no trading with city states" you can seriously cripple a civl like Venice.

 

[Babri]

Wouldn't that be dependent on how the economy was run- as in if they depended on trade routes for a large proportion of income? If a Civ had a lot of (say) gold mines with mints and whatever is the embargo going to be that harmful given to what they can generate by internal revenue?

Question also- does the embargo prohibit the Civ from selling its excess goods (in this case gold).

Embargo means no more leak of science. Also it is difficult to have a good economy running without having ITRs all around. Yes you can still build units & cities, but if you were like 50 GPT from ITRs & suddenly you get embargoed, you'll most probably go in red or have little positive GPT because you have expanded your forces & infrastructure with the high income in your mind (that you had before).

 

[camfrlas]

Wouldn't that be dependent on how the economy was run- as in if they depended on trade routes for a large proportion of income? If a Civ had a lot of (say) gold mines with mints and whatever is the embargo going to be that harmful given to what they can generate by internal revenue?

Question also- does the embargo prohibit the Civ from selling its excess goods (in this case gold).

selling would be unaffected.

of course internal resources do play some role, aswell as how wide you are, but i would say, that with so many gold mines (unlucky) how many other luxuries do you have? also they cannot compensate for all the gold you'll lose from trade routes. i would add that embargo civ doesn't criple you, but little things like this adds up. embargo+embargo on CS+possibly not so great selling what you have (since other civs probably also don't like you with all that voting against you) and you have serious problems. i would reccomend keeping an eye on world congress - you may not turn every voting to your favour, but you must prevent changing game against you.

 

[MarshalN]

Doesn't trade embargo also impact luxuries?

 

[Cicerosaurus]

Embargo means no more leak of science.

I'd argue that science leak is pretty meaningless unless it is early in the game. And of course it works both ways.

If Greece is ahead in the game (technically) and you embargo them that means you don't get the science. And if the science level is one point and your turn level is a few hundred what does it really matter?

 

[Chiatroll]

1. Banning nukes- if this is proposed and it looks like being passed, as long as you have gold and uranium you can just buy one in as many cities as you can afford. The next turn you are free to use them knowing that no one else can build them (unless of course they have a stockpile as well).

2. Embargo on a hated country. Lets say Greece as I always get around to hating them. It seems like a good idea to cut off their supply routes, but is it worth it to lose the 25% modifier for your culture that you get for a trade route?

1. I love being the only guy in the world with a stock pile of nukes because of it's effect on diplomacy.

2. I like to embargo the big culture factories so I can buy more time on the spread unless I'm going for a tourism win. It also puts a major hit on the costs of maintaining an army for the warmongering guys. I had embargo and standing army when I played a brasil game both on to break the back of a very dangerous Assyria who kept eyeing my stuff but couldn't withstand my culture.