This thread is meant to be a deep dive into the World Congress. This first part will deal with the general structure of the congress. Part 2 will look at the various proposals individually, and part 3 will look at Diplomatic Victory.
A victim of our success
There has been recent grumbling about the congress, and I think a lot of that is a reflection of our success with the AI. The AI has learned to play the WC very well, they are very human like in their responses now, and know how to counterplay a lot of the key moves in the congress. But with that comes frustration, it has become harder and harder to make real motion within the congress, and it feels like its literally you vs the world in many cases.
The info gap - The Guessing Game of Votes
In theory, the proposal "flavors" are supposed to give the human so general info about what proposals an AI values. If I have 2 proposals, one has a +1000 with the AI, and hte other 0, I would expect the AI to throw the vast majority of its votes into the first proposal, and almost nothing into the second. But commonly this is not how it works, because the AI takes into account a lot of other factors into its final vote, it might actually vote no using most of its votes on the 2nd proposal.
As a result, there really isn't any way to try and "vote with the group", its just random guessing. And so you often just have to throw all your votes at the wall and hope they stick, spreading your votes out is a complete "finger in the air" operation. Winning a vote doesn't feel like something you worked out, it just feels like you either had the votes to force it through, or you got lucky it passed.
Vote Trades - What Vote Trades?
Vote trading is in theory a way to really "work" the WC, but there are a few problems here. The first one is the barrier of entry....the diplomat. Giving up a spy is a big expenditure, especially since I don't know what the vote trade would look like ahead of time cost wise. So I have to commit a diplomat and "hope" I get a reasonable deal. That's just too much cost.
Second, often the vote trade costs are simply too high to be worth it. The AI will often ask for 100s of GPT in trades for even a few votes...its just insanity.
The Repeal Deal
As the proposals add up, so do the repeals. And it can get onerous in later congresses as you try to make ground and people are constantly throwing out repeals to trip you up. On the flip side, having to spend a proposal slot to undo someone else feels a bit lame, and it turns the WC into this quagmire state where nothing is getting done.
Ideas for Fixes
With my notes laid out, here are some ideas I may polish into proposals for the future congress.
The "Halftime" WC Congress
Currently every voting cycle, everyone puts in all their votes, and then we see who wins. And while that is how real votes work mechanically....that's really not how they work politically. The politicans have huge info networks to get insights into votes, by the time the vote actually hits the floor, most savvy politicians already know how that vote is going to go. While that is hard to simulate in the game, there is a way to mirror that a bit that would also help MP players as well.
The Idea: Each congress cycle is actually two votes. In the first congress (at the half way point of the cycle), you commit half your total number of current votes. So that means you now know the results of this commitment for the remaining half of the cycle. This gives you some insight into how people are voting, and you can then wheel and deal with this info in mind, completing your vote in the 2nd vote (which is the remaining half of your votes +/- any votes you gained or lost since the last cycle).
Ex: I have 20 votes going into a late game WC (10 turn cycle). At the 5 turn mark, I have to commit 10 of my votes to the proposals (half of 20). At the 10 turn mark, lets say I lost 2 votes due to CS allies I have lost. I now get 10 votes - the 2 I lost = 8 votes.
Vote Trades are Always On and now in Packages
In this idea, every civ receives a "vote package" they can give to each civ (which is 2 votes). This assumes of course they have at least 2 votes available. If they have a diplomat with that civ, they receive 1 additional vote package per spy level (aka 8 total votes with a max level diplomat + the base 2).
Advantages:
Remove Repeals - Give Proposals Expiration Times
In this idea, repeals are no longer a thing. Instead, proposals with a duration just have a set amount of turns that they last. This is both a way to balance certain proposals, but it also removes all of the repeal headache, and so keeps the WC moving forward.
As a bonus option (if it can be implemented), it would be cool if a new GD bulb option allowed you to extend the cooldowns of certain proposals, but that might be tricky on the UI side.
A victim of our success
There has been recent grumbling about the congress, and I think a lot of that is a reflection of our success with the AI. The AI has learned to play the WC very well, they are very human like in their responses now, and know how to counterplay a lot of the key moves in the congress. But with that comes frustration, it has become harder and harder to make real motion within the congress, and it feels like its literally you vs the world in many cases.
The info gap - The Guessing Game of Votes
In theory, the proposal "flavors" are supposed to give the human so general info about what proposals an AI values. If I have 2 proposals, one has a +1000 with the AI, and hte other 0, I would expect the AI to throw the vast majority of its votes into the first proposal, and almost nothing into the second. But commonly this is not how it works, because the AI takes into account a lot of other factors into its final vote, it might actually vote no using most of its votes on the 2nd proposal.
As a result, there really isn't any way to try and "vote with the group", its just random guessing. And so you often just have to throw all your votes at the wall and hope they stick, spreading your votes out is a complete "finger in the air" operation. Winning a vote doesn't feel like something you worked out, it just feels like you either had the votes to force it through, or you got lucky it passed.
Vote Trades - What Vote Trades?
Vote trading is in theory a way to really "work" the WC, but there are a few problems here. The first one is the barrier of entry....the diplomat. Giving up a spy is a big expenditure, especially since I don't know what the vote trade would look like ahead of time cost wise. So I have to commit a diplomat and "hope" I get a reasonable deal. That's just too much cost.
Second, often the vote trade costs are simply too high to be worth it. The AI will often ask for 100s of GPT in trades for even a few votes...its just insanity.
The Repeal Deal
As the proposals add up, so do the repeals. And it can get onerous in later congresses as you try to make ground and people are constantly throwing out repeals to trip you up. On the flip side, having to spend a proposal slot to undo someone else feels a bit lame, and it turns the WC into this quagmire state where nothing is getting done.
Ideas for Fixes
With my notes laid out, here are some ideas I may polish into proposals for the future congress.
The "Halftime" WC Congress
Currently every voting cycle, everyone puts in all their votes, and then we see who wins. And while that is how real votes work mechanically....that's really not how they work politically. The politicans have huge info networks to get insights into votes, by the time the vote actually hits the floor, most savvy politicians already know how that vote is going to go. While that is hard to simulate in the game, there is a way to mirror that a bit that would also help MP players as well.
The Idea: Each congress cycle is actually two votes. In the first congress (at the half way point of the cycle), you commit half your total number of current votes. So that means you now know the results of this commitment for the remaining half of the cycle. This gives you some insight into how people are voting, and you can then wheel and deal with this info in mind, completing your vote in the 2nd vote (which is the remaining half of your votes +/- any votes you gained or lost since the last cycle).
Ex: I have 20 votes going into a late game WC (10 turn cycle). At the 5 turn mark, I have to commit 10 of my votes to the proposals (half of 20). At the 10 turn mark, lets say I lost 2 votes due to CS allies I have lost. I now get 10 votes - the 2 I lost = 8 votes.
Vote Trades are Always On and now in Packages
In this idea, every civ receives a "vote package" they can give to each civ (which is 2 votes). This assumes of course they have at least 2 votes available. If they have a diplomat with that civ, they receive 1 additional vote package per spy level (aka 8 total votes with a max level diplomat + the base 2).
Advantages:
- This gives you more flexibility with your vote trades. You can ask for 2 votes on proposal 1, 4 votes on proposal 2, etc etc. Its not all or nothing.
- Removing the hard cost of a diplomat will greatly increase vote trading options.
- You now can preview the cost of votes trades. If you see that Civ A is willing to trade their votes at a pretty reasonable price, then you can send your diplomat to them to negotiate for even more votes....as opposed to guessing what the cost might look like before sending in the diplomat.
Remove Repeals - Give Proposals Expiration Times
In this idea, repeals are no longer a thing. Instead, proposals with a duration just have a set amount of turns that they last. This is both a way to balance certain proposals, but it also removes all of the repeal headache, and so keeps the WC moving forward.
As a bonus option (if it can be implemented), it would be cool if a new GD bulb option allowed you to extend the cooldowns of certain proposals, but that might be tricky on the UI side.
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