[GS] Does anyone else hate the World Congress?

[SirWill90]

Yeah is the most annoying thing of the game right now. Not only for me but for my friends also. If they want to improve it the should do something like this:

-It should be founded like in Civ5. Modern era and by the first nation that met everyone. This would also enhance the meaning of the middle-late game with the inclusion of a new mechanic. Right now it makes absolutely 0 sense with civs that you don't know nothing about meeting in a congress and voting things that could affect you (and yet you never meet them though).

-Make it so there is a rotating leader making MEANINGFUL proposals in combination with someone else (maybe the one with the most suzerainities or diplo favour per turn). This also gives compensation for having the most diplo power and turns diplomacy into a weapon which you can use to defend yourself against another kind of agression. Get rid of that Random crap that no one cares about.

-Get rid of meaningless bonuses and proposals with no impact. Make it so you have to carefully think what are you going to vote for and make other AI's care about what you voted, like it was in Civ5. If you lack in diplomacy and mess with the cool guy you should have a problem.

-Bring back those votes of "the religion of the world" and "the ideology of the world" that gave you advantages for having a particular religion or ideology. That thing was capable of building ideological blocks that would eventually go to war with each other.

-Also like I said in another thread: make it so allies have to spend double diplo points to vote against you in the congress when DV is on the board. This is a joke right now for god's shake.

There's so much that could be improved if only they got rid of the RNG crap.

Great ideas.

 

[Victoria]

Really? I think I never saw it...What does it do?

As per below yep, it is called World religion
Either +10 combat strength for the religion of choice or kill a target religion for favour

 

[iammaxhailme]

I don't hate it but I think it needs some tweaks. There are a few resolutions that I find to be generally useless, like the "X generates more/less grievances" one.

 

[Victoria]

There are a few resolutions that I find to be generally useless, like the "X generates more/less grievances" one.

I like it. I like the new ability to war and have allies and trade.. this is one of the mechanisms that helps.
The main issue is do I convert my favour to gold or to benefits like these.

 

[Bitterman]

As per below in small type, yep, it is called World religion
Either +10 combat strength for the religion of choice or kill a target religion for favour

+10 Religious Combat Strength for all units of this Religion.

This is what I mean. Who would be interested in this besides the guy who founded this religion? Why not a global bonus, which benefits everyone with that religion as a majority, like +5 combat strenght or +25% tourism against everyone who doesn't have this religion as a majority? This way other people who didn't founded the said religion would still be interested in voting this, and those who do not have it as a majority in their cities would be encouraged to expand it on their terrtories, thus helping the guy who founded to win RV or bear the consequences.

The way it is now, in a match of 10 players, literally more than half (those who never founded) do not care about this in the very least.

 

[acluewithout]

@Bitterman

A lot of the resolutions boil down to “dog pile this guy”, “buff me” and “buff / nerf everyone”. As a result, the World Congress rarely throws up particularly interesting decisions. Worse, the resolutions don’t feel very immersive.

I’ve said it before, but it would be better if resolutions were more “lumpy”. Like instead of “ban foxes” it was “ban animal products (foxes, whales, ivory)”, or instead of “trade ban Kongo” it was “trade ban Oligarch governments”. That way each resolution would have a more spikey profile, more of a mix of positives and negatives.

Anyway. To answer the OP, “hate” is a bit strong. I think the core of the WC works really well (ie diplomatic favour, random resolutions + emergencies). But it could definitely use some tweaks - eg resolutions, when and how the WC starts, maybe an upgrade to the UN in the modern era.

I don’t find the WC factors into my thinking much beyond Emergencies. Resolutions Pop up. Some are irrelevant. Some are okay. I maybe lean into the ones that are okay. Military Emergencies can be interesting. Other Emergencies are... a thing that happens, I guess.

WC seems ripe for something to be developed in a 3XP, along with Governors and Gov Plaza. In the meantime... it’s fine. Totally (and just) fine.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

For all those that point out the idiotic randomness, you do realize that because the AIs do not have personalities and attribute numbers like Civ 5 did (as shown here: https://civdata.com/) you cannot just simply "get rid" of the randomness of the Civ6 World Congress.

The agenda system has yet again shown it's ugly head as the biggest and laziest problem of Civ6. They should have never abandoned that personality trait system. All they had to do was sharpen it up and maybe half of the complaints about the weak AI of Civ 6 would not exist to begin with. Not combat, I'm talking about all the non-combat aspects of the game.

They tried to either be cute and different, or just went a lazy route and made a short pool of agendas and BAM, each new game, the AIs get 2 random agendas and 1 that they always have. To add insult to injury they are likely to denounce or dislike you for not fitting their agenda the turn they see you, even if it is turn 5. I know they "adjusted" a few of them, but most are still annoying. Harald still whines about navies in land locked areas.

As a result every game is literally the same more or less. Who knew someone could make a civ game, that always has "Random Personalities" feature enabled like Civ 5 and the game is still the exact same experience each time with the same AIs. There is no variance whatsoever giving the player the dry "sandbox" experience everyone is turned off or in some cases, turned on with.

Talk about destroying a formula. It wasn't broken. Every aspect of Civ did not require a complete remake, but that is pretty much what they did. They may have gotten their money off the series' reputation this go round, but I doubt they will get the same or more revenue with Civ 7 if they continue to take too many "creative liberties" with the great product they already had. The people that were fooled into buying 6 and became furious and still won't play it even with GS, are not going to make that same mistake twice. I know that I will not be pre-ordering Civ7. I am quite certain many others will be doing the same. It could look like The Sims and Sim City mixed together, Total War and Civ6, complete with blood guts, and leader animations on par with a Madden football game. I will not care for that. I will have to see that AI and gameplay first and see if it is yet another "graphical sandbox".

 

[acluewithout]

@Tiger Genocide You’re of course welcome to your view, but I really disagree.

First, I think random WC resolutions is much better than player controlled (which would inevitably collapse into a few optimal choices and would mean resolutions would need to be more balanced overall). Yeah, the resolutions could be more impactful, but I think the concept of random resolutions is pretty solid, with Emergencies providing a bit of the player controlled resolution aspects.

Second, the Agenda system works very well. AI are usually a good mix of predictable behaviour and randomness. Like, I know old Red Beard is always going to get angry about my envoys in City States, but there’s also usually something else going on too.

To me, the real limitation of Diplomacy is that there’s just not much to do other than manage grievances (so you can annexe cities without everyone trying to kill you), alliances (which really just give yields), and trading for open borders. Maybe a few other wrinkles like spies and or joint war, but overall I don’t feel like I have many options for diplomacy or that playing well gets me all that much.Honestly, I feel like City States have more depth given I can assign envoys and send Amani, levy troops etc.

I really do think it’s worth seeing what happens over the next few months. A patch, and maybe a 3XP and or dlc, and I think Diplomacy and WC could get a lot better. As it is, it’s already fairly good (or at least “fine”), but there’s definitely room for growth.

 

[steveg700]

+10 Religious Combat Strength for all units of this Religion.

This is what I mean. Who would be interested in this besides the guy who founded this religion?

Well, I've voted that for another civ because I liked their follower bonus (let's say, buying campus and theater buildings with faith) better than the one that was getting rammed down my throat (e.g. increased bonuses for relics which I don't have).

 

[acluewithout]

Well, I've voted that for another civ because I liked their follower bonus (let's say, buying campus and theater buildings with faith) better than the one that was getting rammed down my throat (e.g. increased bonuses for relics which I don't have).

I’d never thought of that. That’s cute.

 

[Arms Longfellow]

They need to re-think this system of Favour being another currency that you primarily use to trade for gold. It's just dumb how easy it is to get gold now with Favour. Remember when, in the early game, you could build an army and go for a big conquest push, but you were in danger of going bankrupt because the units cost so much maintenance and you weren't building infrastructure? I miss that feeling. It doesn't happen anymore because it's so easy to support as big of an army as you want by trading Favour.

Civ 5 did diplomacy better. This is also true for the relationships with city states. It felt like you had a more personal connection with city states in Civ 5 because their quests actually made sense e.g. pledge to protect, denounce this guy who is bullying me. Why would a city state love you because you built a spearman? It makes no sense. Too many things in Civ 6 remind me that I'm just playing a game instead of actually building and managing a civilization.

 

[KayAU]

I don't hate it, and I prefer it being there to not being there. That said, it could be implemented better, and certainly has been in previous games, such as Civ 5 and even more so, Alpha Centauri. I guess my main issues are the lack of control and structure to which resolutions come up, and the lack of diplomacy involved in the voting. As it stands, I frequently have resolutions come up which I do not care about, my allies almost always vote against me, and I have no way of influencing how people vote. Here's what I would have liked:

• Someone gets to decide which resolutions are put up for voting. This could be determined by an elected "chairman" role, and/or some metric (for example size of population or size of diplomatic capital). It could even be on a rotation among all the civs, it would still be better than the complete randomness we have today.
• Resolutions are unlocked as the game progresses, probably through tech/civic advances.
• It should be possible to see what people are voting for (possibly dependent on diplomatic visibility), and to negotiate to have leaders change their votes.

 

[Starwars]

It's definitely been a feature of GS that I think I've been increasingly disappointed with. The whole diplomatic favor/victory/world congress just feels like strange abstract concepts that doesn't really manage to find a proper place in the game I think. For a system that is all about diplomacy, it feels completely removed from being diplomatic. It doesn't feel like there's any meaningful depth to it, just another currency bucket to fill and spend.
It's been pointed out but stuff like friendships, alliances, city states. All of that feels like it should be more meaningful, and also *deeper*.

It doesn't feel like diplomacy, at all. It doesn't lead to any deeper and interesting interactions. Just "trade for diplo favour and hope something vaguely useful shows up in the WC". Or just stockpile it and pile it on the Diplo victory vote.

 

[Deadly Dog]

Like many have said I think its mostly about giving players a reliable way to get info and possibly influence AI civs prior to votes, and the need for a better UI that explains what all civs are voting for. Nonetheless I'm slowly puzzling out what (most) resolutions do and have won a few that made a noticeable impact on my games. Friendships and alliances sometimes seem to correlate with getting votes on your side, especially if you built alliances around mutual wars and grievances against particular AIs, but I tend to hoard my votes until I see a resolution that looks like it might really make a difference. Been burned a few times too, losing a key vote and then finding my borders unable to expand for 30 turns or the one GP market I had cornered is shut down.

Best result ever when I locked Dido out of earning GA points for 30 turns while I got my own harbors up, started harbor projects and built the MoM. One free GA, then resolution expires, I finish projects and then gold recruit (Mali) the next GA. Now have 2 ironclad armadas whenever I want. So no I don't hate the WC, obviously.

 

[Tech Osen]

I guess my main issues are the lack of control and structure to which resolutions come up, and the lack of diplomacy involved in the voting. As it stands, I frequently have resolutions come up which I do not care about, my allies almost always vote against me, and I have no way of influencing how people vote.

This pretty much. Too little actual diplomacy involved with getting a diplomacy victory.

 

[MrRadar]

Speaking of hate, apart from collaborative projects, I "hated" the very guts of WC in Civ 5. Meaning, really disliked. Embargo city states, my foot!
I like WC more here, in Civ 6, but that being said, it does require quite a lot of work. A huge amount of work. Which probably will not be done (unless FXS makes Civ 6 a platform for continued development, like Paradox, but I don't know if I want that).

I don't find lower impact of resolutions too troubling, sometimes they're hardly relevant, so what, but there can be a game where the same low profile resolution can suddenly become very useful.

As I've already wrote in similar threads before, what bugs me most is this notion that World Congress is something inescapable, mandatory, that just happens to you and then you must live with it for the rest of the game. Its membership strikes you like a natural disaster and you can't do anything about it; however, natural disasters are mostly created by weather physics, but World Congress or similar organisations are created by men, who join them and abide by their rules or breach them acting under their free or not so free will. What if my nation does not want to be part of any such organisation, if it wants to stay unaligned for the time being, or what if some particular resolution is a bit too restrictive for out tastes and we'd like to breach it? Not much, just a little bit. Or maybe disregard it completely, because we deem it sheer stupidity? What if we want to leave the organisation because of this? Or kick out the author of that nonsense? Impose some sanctions? Be targeted by sanctions? Now, that would be some diplomacy and opportunities for horse trading.
Civ 4 at least gave you an option to "defy" for happiness hit. Alpha Centauri gave you an option to negotiate and buy allegiance of others in session - that was really awesome.

Membership should not be guaranteed, but voluntary and should bring both: positive and negative aspects.
There shouldn't be sessions with unknown members, of course, that's silly.
Agendas also could be prepared in advance during the run up time to the session, using DF to influence what would be put on the agenda, so players should be put before balancing choice of how much DF to spend trying to put a particular issue for consideration, and then to see it passed.

So far, I see this WC as work in progress, which is still in brainstorming phase and very far from finish. It could be a whole expansion worth.

 

[Staal]

This isn't always the case. In my current game as Freleanor, I had just finished getting my Theater Squares built when the WC proposed a ban on Great Writers for 30 turns. Well played, AI, well played

Yes, I have had games where the AI blocks the generation of Great Scientists which slowed down my victory. Banning the sale of a luxury could make sense, but not the generation of Great People. Even then you should be able to ignore the luxury ban and eat a relations penalty. And only with those Civs that actually voted FOR the banning of said luxury.

 

[KayAU]

@MrRadar
I preferred the World Congress in Civ V, although I agree it was far from perfect. At least it offered some predictability and things to be fought for. Choosing a World Ideology, for example, could be done to increase pressure on competing ideologies, and you also had resolutions which could boost certain yields, as well as the rather fun collaborative projects.

Having said that, I think Alpha Centauri is what should set the standard. It's a 20 years old game, but it hasn't really been surpassed in this aspect (among others), at least not by anything from the Civ franchise. I remember how badly I wanted to keep control of the Planetary Council, both for the economic and political benefits.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

@Tiger Genocide You’re of course welcome to your view, but I really disagree.

First, I think random WC resolutions is much better than player controlled (which would inevitably collapse into a few optimal choices and would mean resolutions would need to be more balanced overall). Yeah, the resolutions could be more impactful, but I think the concept of random resolutions is pretty solid, with Emergencies providing a bit of the player controlled resolution aspects.

Second, the Agenda system works very well. AI are usually a good mix of predictable behaviour and randomness. Like, I know old Red Beard is always going to get angry about my envoys in City States, but there’s also usually something else going on too.

To me, the real limitation of Diplomacy is that there’s just not much to do other than manage grievances (so you can annexe cities without everyone trying to kill you), alliances (which really just give yields), and trading for open borders. Maybe a few other wrinkles like spies and or joint war, but overall I don’t feel like I have many options for diplomacy or that playing well gets me all that much.Honestly, I feel like City States have more depth given I can assign envoys and send Amani, levy troops etc.

I really do think it’s worth seeing what happens over the next few months. A patch, and maybe a 3XP and or dlc, and I think Diplomacy and WC could get a lot better. As it is, it’s already fairly good (or at least “fine”), but there’s definitely room for growth.

You say diplomacy is lacking, yet you praised the agenda system? Again, using Civ5 as an example, Ramkhamhaeng had a tendency to forward settle people. Sometimes he did it, sometimes he did not. Hiawatha had a propensity to spam cities, especially if he chose the Liberty policy, but sometimes he did not but instead warmongered or went science. Sometimes both of these guys would go hard for Diplomatic victory and not do too much of the other things mentioned. Napoleon had a high backstab trait but sometimes he would not backstab you the entire game!

Do you see what I mean now? William of Germany complaining about you sending envoys to the city states happens 100% of the time. In Civ 5, an AI complaining about your relationship with just ONE city state was not 100%, but completely random. If they just so happened to be gunning for ally with a citystate, and you demand tribute or mess with the city state, THEN you would get a warning from them.

It was just more interactive in general. Each game was very engaging and you were 100% involved in each AI's matters. In Civ6, you can literally ignore every AI and play however you want and it makes no difference what the AIs think. Aside from their 2-3 agendas, nobody knows what they want to begin with. To make it worse, they cannot even pay you back for ignoring them with force, diplomacy, or economically. In Civ5 if you warmonger nonstop, like a maniac, the AIs stop everything they are doing and declare war on you and dogpile you because they see you as a threat to world peace.

Can the Civ6 Agenda System do anything like this? Absolutely not! I tried this with Civ6 a few times recently and only 1 emergency out of 3 declared stuck. None of them actually tried to stopped me though and I cleared the map. They are locked in and committed 100% to 3 agendas and only care about that. In Civ 5, the game was more realistic to historical beginnings. What did AIs sometimes got upset about at turn 1? Coveting your land, especially if you were too close as a neighbor. Did that always happen? Nope. Attila, Genghis, or Harald might covet your land 85% of the time or more, but even then, it was not a guarantee and you could find a way to run a game with them as a neighbor and an ally. In Civ6 turns 1-20 the agendas are the same as turns 21-100, which are the same at 300. In Civ5 coveting lands fell off as the game progressed and they got interested in other issues, or it would turn into a territory dispute modifier.

All this is why you cannot do similar or the same World Congress stuff Civ5 had. There is no complexity in AI relationships, so as a result, the WC is overtly simplistic. Actually it is worse than I initially thought. None of the voting measures actually tie into any particular Civ's agendas!

The only way they could improve this and make the Agenda System work with WC, is if they added probably 5-10 new random agendas to each civ that can match with resolutions and they still might want to add some agendas that have nothing to do with WC, but would affect it and the gameplay, like an actual warmonger/aggressive agenda. Then they probably should give certain AIs different probability weights towards particular agendas. Like Sweden's leader is more likely to have an agenda that wants to hoard Diplomatic Favor and possibly another for artwork, etc etc..

 

[kb27787]

I hate the system in VI, but loved the system in V.

They really shouldn't fix what wasn't broken to begin with.
If they made resolutions last all game until repealed it would be a lot more interesting.