[GS] Does anyone else hate the World Congress?

[criZp]

You just don't get it, do you? Voting for a political party is nothing alike, as you are voting for the party's promises. Changing the leader or whatever doesn't mean that the party is now against what they were supporting before.

 

[Staal]

You just don't get it, do you? Voting for a political party is nothing alike, as you are voting for the party's promises. Changing the leader or whatever doesn't mean that the party is now against what they were supporting before.

Err... that is exactly what happened in the British Parliament over the past 12 months. People voted for MPs, who leave their party (or get sent to prison ) and refuse to resign. They literally got elected on a manifesto they have rejected (and probably always worked against, hypocrites that they are) but without any change in vote.

 

[criZp]

Err... that is exactly what happened in the British Parliament over the past 12 months. People voted for MPs, who leave their party (or get sent to prison ) and refuse to resign. They literally got elected on a manifesto they have rejected (and probably always worked against, hypocrites that they are) but without any change in vote.

Now I don't know the british system, it might be a bad system. I think if people leave the party they should lose their seat that they got through the party. Anyway, british elections are a representative election system, where you vote for people. The system in civ 6 is a direct election system where you vote for issues. They are not comparable.

 

[Disgustipated]

I don't hate it, I just don't find it all that useful. Only about 1/8th of the proposals are remotely interesting towards what I'm working on in my empire. Maybe even a little less than that. At least now it's a way to get diplomatic points, so I do like that. But I agree with the OP, it does sometimes interrupt my train of thought. It can be intrusive at times.

 

[Danthor]

For me the voting process is super boring and meaningless. The only motion I care about is when I can get my newly built districts to turn into culture bombs
I just wish there was an "Abstain" button so I can quickly go back into the game.

 

[Human Crouton]

Not only is the voting mechanism absurd, but the items being voted on are weak and temporary.

The world congress does nothing but get in the way in tiny, annoying ways. It's one of my least favorite mechanics in any game I've ever played.

 

[oSiyeza]

I dont care about WC, cause is so pointless.
I think resolutions need to be more gamechanging, and more varied. And that should be more tied to War and Religion, and Climate Systems.

This is a general problem with this game, effects of a lot of mechanics are usually unimaginative, pointless, and not affect the gameplay at all, cause probably the developers were afraid of unbalancing the game, or creating some challenge for casual players. As a result, a lot of the systems are totally pointless and the only effect they have is adding a small numerical modificator to one of the thousands of formulas the game uses, most of the time you will not even notice any difference. Examples of these unimaginative concepts with a lot of potential are: Spy Missions, WC, Dark Ages, Governors, Climate Disasters, Emergencies, Relics...

None of them is very bad, and none of them is good either. They are just meh. And while all together have some intricacies and fun. Quantity here just hides the fact that nothing is really deep.

Here is my suggestion for WC:
- The WC is hosted by the nation with more diplomatic points available.
- The same country cannot host the WC twice in a row.
- The country hosting the WC can chose one of the voted resolutions, the other one is chosen normally.
- Some resolutions can only be propossed by a country hosting the WC.
- These resolutions would be more meaningful, and some of them require special conditions. Some of these can also be violated, and doing so would cost grievances.
- Examples of these resolutions. Ban Nuclear guns, Ban Nuclear energy, Ban Chopping, Close Borders For certain Religions, Change WC frequency, Isolate Country, Declare an ongoing war to be a Fair war, remove all grievances for a casus belly, Provide special help (tech, money, production) to underdeveloped countries, punish CO2 heavy emmiters, Pardon Grievances of a Country in return for a change in Goverment/Religion, Share a resource (members give a surplus of a resource in exchange for diplomatic favor, or receive the resource for free if they dont have it)...
- Results on some of these resolutions, could lead to a World War, a Special war with two factions (and Neutral) that generates no grievances, stops normal WC, and can only be stoped in a special global Peace treaty after certain conditions are met.

 

[Julia97]

The WC is just in the way, always interrupting my train of thoughts and making me click on random proposals to get it out of the way.

I for one really enjoyed civ5 WC, it made the late game so much more enjoyable. Before the WC, the focus was on expantion and warfare. After WC, you had to change your strategy, the new way of acquiering power was through WC. It fundamentally changed the way you had to play.
Additionally, the WC was very well implemented into the general diplomacy in civ5. You could send a spy to another civ abd see what they were going to vote, or you could send a diplomat to their capital to do some lobbying. Upon voting, you could see who would get mad and who would appreciate your vote. And if you voted against another civs Interests, that civ would become angry with you. While before WC, friendships were established on the foundation of trade and common enemies, after WC, friendships were established on common Interests in trade, great people generation, science and religion. (and also ideologies, which was also, in my opinion, a great feature and really fleshed out the game!)

Overall, civ5 WC had a greater impact on the game. In civ6 it feels like an afterthought...

Sorry for spelling errors, typing in my non-english phone

 

[Victoria]

Changing the leader or whatever doesn't mean that the party is now against what they were supporting before.

And it doesn’t mean they are still for it either.
I think the dual level voting is fine and it’s clear you do not. I’m fine with that.
I just disagreed with your argument as it was hypocritical and used that overused phrase straw man as part of the hypocrisy.

 

[acluewithout]

I think if people leave the party they should lose their seat that they got through the party.

The strength of a parliamentary system arises from the fact that this doesn’t happen.

At the end of the day, the Government only rules if it has the confidence of the Parliament. Lose that confidence, and your Government is gone. This means the Government, in a very real sense, it is held accountable not just at the ballot box but also between elections.

So, while the Government of the day can whip Members of Parliament in its Party to support the Government and vote as the Government wants, there is also the risk of defection if the Government pushes for things MPs won’t agree to (eg things that go against the MP’s consciences). A rebel MP faces significant risks defecting - at the extreme, they can be kicked out of the Party which will make reelection very hard - so real defection is usually pretty rare. But the Constitution does give MPs enough room to vote according to their conscience when it comes down to it, by ensuring that their right to sit in Parliament is absolute and is regardless of Party affiliation etc. and in principle they have complete discretion on how they vote.

Another way to think about it is this. While the UK Constitution and other Parliamentary Systems assume the existence of Political Parties, these Constitutions are actually neutral about whether they exist or not. The bedrock of the UK Constitution etc. is that each Constituency elects one representative, that representative is entitled to vote in the Parliament and do so freely, and the Parliament is the supreme democratic institution (ie the Parliament voting collectively always gets its way).

This is in contrast to a more Presidential system. Taking the US as an example, the President has basically free reign outside of general elections. First, the President doesn’t require the confidence of the legislature to serve and can’t be removed by the legislature outside of the nuclear option of impeachment; Second, the President isn’t even particularly accountable to the legislature because the President isn’t a member of the legislature and can’t be questioned directly (compare that to PM Question time); Third, the legislature can’t even really control the President via legislation because the President can veto laws they don’t like (absent very hard to achieve super-majorities), although the President must abide by laws the legislature has previously passed; Fourth, the President can rely on various executive privileges and immunities and judicial deference that you don’t get in a Parliamentary system (or at least aren’t as absolute), because under a Parliamentary system you don’t have co-equal branches of government - the Parliament is hands down the ultimate power.

In principle, there are of course other checks and balances to a Presidential system. But the key thing is that they deal with executive power in fundamentally different ways.

 

[AsH2]

Boy, that escalated quickly.

I get that the WC voting is not what some people want, and that's a totally legitimate view to have. But the voting is not fundamentally broken, and saying it is doesn't make it so.

I'm not sure the voting is really or strictly a trade-off per se, but not going to argue either way. Key thing is that the voting has an element of risk & reward. If you vote for Option A, you have to factor in that it also has a target and you may not like the target that ultimately gets chosen. So, you either have to invest enough diplo favour to guarantee the precise outcome you want, or not and run the risk you get screwed, or vote for Option B and (hopefully) avoid the risk altogether but then also rule out the upside of Option A going your way.

I think that's a pretty cool idea, although as I've said I think the actual resolutions need some work and maybe there needs to be more visibility on how people will vote and like the WC just needs some more bells and whistles overall anyway. But if you don't like the design then, well, yeah, I get that.

My trade-off thoughts were about "sell df or use them" and if (as suggested) the free vote "on something that benefits you should never be turned into a vote that benefits an enemy" that (to me) sounds like a "free veto vote" and would make WC (though realistic but) almost totally irrelevant - so why keep and use df instead of selling them?

 

[criZp]

The strength of a parliamentary system arises from the fact that this doesn’t happen.

At the end of the day, the Government only rules if it has the confidence of the Parliament. Lose that confidence, and your Government is gone. This means the Government, in a very real sense, it is held accountable not just at the ballot box but also between elections.

So, while the Government of the day can whip Members of Parliament in its Party to support the Government and vote as the Government wants, there is also the risk of defection if the Government pushes for things MPs won’t agree to (eg things that go against the MP’s consciences). A rebel MP faces significant risks defecting - at the extreme, they can be kicked out of the Party which will make reelection very hard - so real defection is usually pretty rare. But the Constitution does give MPs enough room to vote according to their conscience when it comes down to it, by ensuring that their right to sit in Parliament is absolute and is regardless of Party affiliation etc. and in principle they have complete discretion on how they vote.

Another way to think about it is this. While the UK Constitution and other Parliamentary Systems assume the existence of Political Parties, these Constitutions are actually neutral about whether they exist or not. The bedrock of the UK Constitution etc. is that each Constituency elects one representative, that representative is entitled to vote in the Parliament and do so freely, and the Parliament is the supreme democratic institution (ie the Parliament voting collectively always gets its way).

This is in contrast to a more Presidential system. Taking the US as an example, the President has basically free reign outside of general elections. First, the President doesn’t require the confidence of the legislature to serve and can’t be removed by the legislature outside of the nuclear option of impeachment; Second, the President isn’t even particularly accountable to the legislature because the President isn’t a member of the legislature and can’t be questioned directly (compare that to PM Question time); Third, the legislature can’t even really control the President via legislation because the President can veto laws they don’t like (absent very hard to achieve super-majorities), although the President must abide by laws the legislature has previously passed; Fourth, the President can rely on various executive privileges and immunities and judicial deference that you don’t get in a Parliamentary system (or at least aren’t as absolute), because under a Parliamentary system you don’t have co-equal branches of government - the Parliament is hands down the ultimate power.

In principle, there are of course other checks and balances to a Presidential system. But the key thing is that they deal with executive power in fundamentally different ways.

No need to make a wall of text off-topic, I honestly don't care about the british system as I don't live there.

Moderator Action: Please be civil in your response. If you have nothing useful to add, please move along. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[GrumboMumbo]

It has already been said many times, but I think the WC is awful. As others have said, it worked better in V. Having the 2 civs with the most diplo favor choose what resolutions to vote on would be so much better than the current system. I can't click through fast enough. I think only a couple of times have I pumped any extra favor into a resolution, because 90% of the time it doesn't matter. My diplo favor just piles up, it is the most pointless thing in the game.

you do realize that because the AIs do not have personalities and attribute numbers like Civ 5 did

I didn't even know this. That explains a lot.

 

[Golkian]

I do not share the opinion, that the World Congress is pointless. Especially the votes where cost is reduced/increased for buying units or doubling/disabling certain great people surely changed the game pace often for me. The mechanics of the could be better, but I still like it.

Also I do not think that something that happens every 30 turns is an obstruction of the train of thought, especially in the late game. Surely, emergencies might occur a few times in between, but in my opinion they offer interesting results for some victory conditions.

What one must accept, though, that not all emergencies provide an interesting result for the particular victory condition a player might be aiming for in that particular game he is currently playing! In that case I do not see why it is such a burden to click away these dialogues.

Edit: typo

 

[Golkian]

I do not share the opinion, that the World Congress is pointless. Especially the votes where cost is reduced/increased for buying units or doubling/disabling certain great people surely changed the game pace often for me. The mechanics of the could be better, but I still like it.

Also I do not think that something that happens every 30 turns is an obstruction of the train of thought, especially in the late game. Surely, emergencies might occur a few times in between, but in my opinion they offer interesting results for some victory conditions.

What one must accept thought, that not all emergencies provide an interesting result for the particular victory condition a player might be aiming for in that particular game he is currently playing! In that case I do not see why it is such a burden to click away these dialogues.

Replying to myself:
Maybe I should mention what I dislike and how I would change that:
There should be more options to find out how the AI is planning to vote, maybe coupled to the intel level. Currently, even if I have "top secret" access level, I only see for some ai players on which resolution alternative (Aor B) they are going to vote, but if I have top secret level I would expect to see, also which option of the alternative (e.g. "Resolution B (-50% cost for military units" => Option "Gold") AND how many votes they are going to spend on that!

The thread is quite lengthy so I am not sure, if that has already been suggested.

But this simple change would make allocating my own votes and saving up on diplomatic favor for the diplomatic victory point resolutions less random.

Currently if I plan a diplomatic victory, I need to match the AI's vote on as many resolutions as possible, since having so much diplomatic favor that I can safely control the outcome of all resolutions is too expensive and at the same time diplomatic victory points are very scarce. And to accomplish that I would prefer a mechanic that helps me to get this insight.

It could also be a special spy mission, which could give me that info on just a single AI player for the next World congress (or the next 30 turns) if I have that spy in the capital of the AI. The success could be coupled to the intel access level. Having a spy for the top 2 diplomatic favor generating civs would be enough to be a game changer on this issue.

 

[Victoria]

Just looking at the mechanics, it looks like you get some idea of which civ is voting for what, probably the ones that care the most

 

[Disgustipated]

I forgot to mention one thing that may have been mentioned already in this thread. I very much like how emergencies are handled now. So much better than Rise and Fall. That is the one good thing about the World Congress. Of course, because we often save up so much diplomatic favor because the resolutions don't interest us much, that we can get the emergencies to go our way.

 

[Abaxial]

I don't find the current system useless or without effect. I agree that it is dumb in many ways and needs a complete overhaul, along with DV. It is too like rock-paper-scissors, trying to guess what everyone else is going to vote for so you can vote the same way. You soon learn that the motion about boosting buildings in a district will always be won by City centre, but others can be very random.

However, I still prefer it to Civ 5. There, whenever it was my turn to choose a proposal, I could never find one that wouldn't anger someone else.

 

[KayAU]

I actually like that my proposals anger other civs, so long as they are against their interests. There are some which are pretty universally popular, such as cooperative projects, some which will anger some and please some, such as boosts from wonders, and some which are usually provocative, such as making your religion the world religion. This makes sense, and provides a much needed tie between the World Congress and diplomatic relations.

 

[Golkian]

Just looking at the mechanics, it looks like you get some idea of which civ is voting for what, probably the ones that care the most

View attachment 533507

Just for completeness let me add, that the indication shown in this screen misses the information which option of the resolution the ai is going to vote for. If it is indicated that Korea is going to vote for resolution A "Increase cost for acquiring military units by 100%", it still is unknown for WHICH option (Faith, Production, Gold) Korea is going to vote. But to get the diplomatic victory point for matching the winning vote with your own vote, you need not to select the winning resolution, but also the winning option.