Kark has the key point "Diplomatic Victory" needs to be Defiable
However, instead of being a "Diplo Victory" vote it should be a "World Government" vote.
with
Candidate 1
Candidate 2
Abstain
Never!
However, this time Never would NOT be a Veto, if either candidate got enough votes, then from that point on
1. They are the only ones that get to vote on Resolutions (so when you choose a resolution, it instantly passes/is revoked)
2. The Resolutions don't apply to those that Defied the 'World Government'.. they stay in Permanent Defiance
3. Everyone who voted for the leader of the 'World government' will get a DiploVictory once all Defiers are eliminated or Vassalized
This way
#3 means I (a human player) have a reason to vote for another player [Everyone who voted gets the win]
#1 means winning the election has some real benefits
#2 means that the Game can essentially ignore the Victory condition if it is not strong enough.
Defying a UN world government would be bad .. continual unhappiness.. but able to be handled
Defying an AP world government would only be bad if you had significant numbers of that religion
[the Inquisitor unit might be good for that... although I think it should be with Divine Right... to make that tech good, but I could see Not having an Inquisitor unit]
the main issue is the UN WG would hav at least 67% of the world's pop against you.. an AP WG might not.. it would just be a government of that religion.
I think this would be almost equally game-breaking (if I can switch to and from Nuclear non-aggression, or holy war / forced peace with impunity, there's almost nothing I can do to lose the game). Not to mention that these victory conditions would be rather ridiculous in MP (it'd be just the same as teams, except that this way everyone could collude beforehand and vote for the same guy just to win).
Maybe if it were tweaked a bit, so that:
1) Only civs that vote for a candidate (regardless of whether or not they vote for the "winner") are affected by "World Government" resolutions.
2) Civs that vote for the "winner" would be able to vote on the future resolutions (a necessary "real world" assurance - if I elect a "dictator for life", what's stopping them from "turning rogue" after they're elected? And if nothing's stopping them, why would I risk voting for
anyone?).
3) Civs that vote for the "loser" will not be able to vote, while still remaining answerable to the resolutions passed. They'll end up in a position similar to vassal states - if they end up controlling more land / cities / population than the "winner voting" civs, a new election will occur. This is realistic, given the "pre-modern" "life isn't fair" era that the AP represents, while still giving the "loser voters" a reason to keep trying.
4) Civs that "abstain" will have neither the bonuses of "winner voting" nor the punishment of "loser voting", but allying with either faction will "count" towards the diplo flip in #3 (i.e., if Ghandi abstains, then later forms an alliance with the Netherlands (who voted for the loser), his land and population will count towards the "new election revolution").
5) Civs that vote "never" will never be bound by the AP laws, and the AP won't be able to govern them (so if Tokugawa votes "never", he'll never have to give back a city he conquered, but likewise, even if he becomes Asoka's vassal, the AP will never be able to force its members to declare peace on him). Their cities and territories won't count for either side, no matter who they're allied with, unless one side takes their cities by force. I think this would result in a fair compromise - you could wage war with impunity, and conduct your diplomacy mano-a-mano, the good old-fasioned Despotic way, but your lands would be ripe for invasion, since voters of both sides know that your cities will never have to be given back, and can give their "side" an advantage in the "new election revolution".
So, generally, you'd end up with side A (the winners) in an uneasy relationship with side B (the losers), while sides C (abstainers) and D (nevers) are prone to alliance to keep the other two sides off their back. An intriguing balance of power, I'd imagine. Sorta like the Cold War in a way.
I'm tempted to make it even more deep - maybe off the deep end here, even - by having some mechanism for "friendly overthrow" (i.e., a supermajority of all voters, regardless of who they voted for, could demand a new election - this would help ensure that the winner doesn't go rogue after winning, yet, since it'd be a supermajority, a lot of "winner voters" would have to be flipped - this way it wouldn't be a constant see-saw). I don't know if this could ever be gracefully merged into the AI, but, man, they've merged everything
else in, so a guy can dream
True diplomatic victory would only come through the UN (since by that point every civ has had opportunity for growth and a major war or two), and UN votes could "override" AP votes. Some other civ controls the AP and his alliances are tight enough to keep him in control? Focus on the UN. You're on the AP and the UN is coming to power? Maybe you should try and spread the AP religion, so the AP will have more votes than the UN. But this could backfire, since there's a good chance those UN members don't like you very much, and may well use their newfound extra votes to vote you out! And there's always the chance that the AP religion is spread to every city, but the numbers are still weaker than those of the UN - in which case, it sounds like a good argument for Holy War against the infidels!
Think of the horribly bloody and complicated wars that could result from this!
That may be so, but it definetly could use some tweaking. I find it a bit silly that you can be a voting member simply by having a single city with the religion. It should be restricted to civs that only have the same religion as their state relgion. Having only one city makes it too powerful and doesn't really force you to try and do anything about spreading your religion. It's supposed to represent a religious victory but you don't really have to work at it. It would be much more of a challenge if you actually had to get other civs to convert in order to win that way.
I believe that the number of votes you're given is dependent on the number of cities with the AP religion. At least, that's how it seemed to work in my game. There could, of course, be RNG-derived atrocities, such as having the AP being built on another continent where its religion is widespread, then "leaking" to yours in the period immediately following Scientific Method, leaving you forced to rely on the benevolence of the passive religion-spread algorithm.
Still, it's a good argument for "tiering" the various abilities it has, so civs with only one or two "voting cities" could only be "sternly advised" (with a lighter unhappiness penalty) to give back cities, declare peace, etc. And, of course, I already made a few suggestions for an "ultimate bonus" that would be worth the time and effort it'd take to get a majority vote, while keeping games from ending cold.
Now if only the game would stop crashing to desktop every ten turns... speaking of "ending cold"
