I'm done with BNW, I'm going to Vanilla. World Congress ruins the game for me.

This.

 

Couple of options:
Turn off diplomatic victory, or (and I think this next one will be more helpful to you) Reduce (or eliminate) the number of city state (in advanced setup).

Personally, I rarely found the World Congress, and I rarely build the Forbidden Palace. I usually don't get control of it until just after banks - when I have money to buy enough city states so I can vote for myself as host. Yeah buy then, usually there's a luxury or two banned, or Arts Funding or something has been passed. But you can barter for votes with your Spy/Diplomats, and once you're in control, you can rescind these if you want.

I always want to have control of it when Ideologies come into play, because usually my first proposal is to make my ideology the World Ideology. If you do that before most of the AIs have adopted one, they'll happily sell you their votes for a luxury or a few GPT.

Anyway, build your markets and banks, sell your extra luxes for GPT, and establish foreign trade routes (preferably sea routes). Your GPT will skyrocket. (Also consider taking social policies or ideology tenents that reduce or eliminate maintenance costs.)

 

It takes minimal effort even on Deity to fend off a DV from the AI, Greece is the only exception and if he is in the game you have to make a moderate effort to fend off a DV.

After that, the WC is just flavor and does not win or lose the game. You might shave or lose a few turns off an SV, shave or lose a few turns off a CV, but other than that it should no effect.

On any difficulty up to Emperor, you can safely ignore diplomacy and the WC if you choose, though you will get a better game if use both

 

Usually I can eventually, if not right away, dominate the WC, but in my current game I've never had such a lopsided arrangement against me. It's about mid-game and Siam has 14 delegates or so, and I have 3....the others are all close or similar to me.... He has about 10 CSs in his fold...plus the Forbidden Palace...

But I find it a rather interesting development. At present I'm doing what I can to basically ignore the WC....not voting; putting in proposals I don't care about..... For now...

But my empire is quite productive and Siam's capital is sitting not too far away on the coast..... He will at some point be losing his capital and maybe having a number of his cities razed...he just doesn't realize it at the moment....

I have been a bit of a war-monger in this game and I think I'll keep that role going...it's kind of fun sometimes...and the "work arounds" are not that difficult. [But my gold flow suddenly dropped after I went to war with a nearby civ...I did lose one trade route, but the hit seemed greater than that....so I'll have to figure out what is going on there.... It dropped from around 70or 80 or so to about 7gpt...???...might be my relatively heavy military.... I took Autocracy so that will help....and I might start going down the rest of the Honour tree now that I have just finished Rationalism....[I have Tradition and Aesthetics finished... might also be an idea to open Commerce...???]

Siam is slightly ahead in techs...not by much, so I've have to carefully work out an attack strategy.... Probably I will have to overwhelm him with Frigates and Privateers or maybe wait for Battleships and Destroyers....we'll see, but this development has made this game interesting ...a challenge.....

 

On the one hand, you're playing King level. And you spawned *next* to Alexander. You should have a tech lead on him and be able to outplay him. Sure, you'll have a dozen or three turns of a ton of CS's being mad at you, but you should be able to crush him like a bug.

On the other hand, Alex is a pain in the ass, and I do *not* find that it's easy on the higher difficulty levels (especially Deity) to control him, especially if he spawns on the other half of the world.

 

You don't have to gain CSs to obtain a victory. There are other victory types such as science, domination or cultural victories. If you don't have enough resources to obtain a CS through their quest, you could also use the spies to coup if the percentage is high enough or by rigging the elections in the CS so that your influence with that CS could rise. Voting in favor or against propositions in the WC also decides the AI attitude, where an AI would complain (because you voted against their proposal) or a compliment (because you voted for their proposal).

 

Coups are really hard when Alexander has +200 influence on them, as he often does ...

 

thousands of units on king difficult ? most i've seen is 20 or so.

 

espionage and world congress are basicly tools for the AI to use against the human player.

They will ban luxuries that you have will embargo you , will steal techs from you faster then you.


its basicly a tool so the Ai doesn't fall behind when you are winning.


Bad design in my opinion

 

Lower the city states to the same amount of players and you will be fine controling one or two city states and you can manage to fend off the world congress use diplomates to get votes you're way

 

Dead wrong with regard to the WC. It's one of the easiest mechanisms for the human to exploit - to the point of being borderline exploitative - especially when ahead in tech.

 

A lot of "Alex hate" in this forum...

It is, of course, all situational, but if I find Alex close to me, I try to make life miserable for him as soon as possible...I don't even bother with the pretense of being friendly... I'll steal settlers and workers and I won't agree to peace...temporarily... unless he gives me a city to raze....

But I know it's situational...I don't think "turtling" is realistic if Alex is close....

In one game a few weeks ago I was playing as the Mongols....And I think he declared war...can't quite remember, but I had my Keshiks ready and I went after him...

I forget how many cities he had...five maybe, anyway even after I had taken Athens and Sparta he still had one city left, but I thought: "NO!!!....he'll just be a nuisance with his control over CSs and a problem in the WC."... So I annihilated him.... It actually felt good.....no sympathy for Alex, I'm afraid...

 

Let me put it this way its a mechanic to counter runaway players

On topic if you know alex is a problem declare war simple as that try to practice tactical combat more units doesn't allways mean you win especialy in civ 5

 

Runaway players know how to use it to their advantage, which is the point you're missing. The most obvious example is putting up your own ideology before anyone else even has one. It's very likely to pass, and your advantage has increased again.

The rare times it works against the runaway is when a lot of people don't like you. But if you're playing anything other for Domination, there is no reason to be disliked. It's pretty easy to focus the AI on someone else.

 

This guy posts alot of angry threads about such and such being impossible, I'm really interested in what his typical game plan is.

 

The one thing that boggles me on this is Alexander surviving to the World Congress... he's so aggressive he tends to turn quite a few of the AI against him in the early game (especially competing for CS favor) and never survives past Medieval in my games... even when I play Continents and he's on the other one, I'll see a Civ has been eliminated and when I get to Renaissance I'll find Athens puppeted by some other empire...

 

In fairness (and I am not saying I agree with the overall hyperbole of the topic), but it IS a valid statement that a lot of the primary function of the WC is slowing down runaways- or rather slowing down anyone really.

Got culture hogs in the game? Pass Sciences funding, they're slowed down.
Getting beat in science? Pass arts funding to slow them down.
Someone running away with the gold advantage? Embargo them.
Someone in Freedom is milking trade routes for CS influence? Embargo city states.
Local warmonger getting too big? Standing Army Tax.
Guy with an ideology other than your own that you want to hinder? Pass a World Ideology and watch their happiness go through the floor and tank their production/unit effectiveness, growth.

Yes, it can be surmounted, and yes it can be exploited, but at the end of the day, it IS a sour note that Domination is about how much you can build your troops to overcome enemy defenses, Cultural is about how much you can pump your tourism to overcome their culture, and Science is about how effectively you can tech and grow- all processes that are rewarding your good play; DV by contrast is solely based on how hard you can screw over every other potential threat and stall them until a World Leader vote comes around (hell, it's even built into the mechanic, as you can be seeking a DV and have your victory conditions triggered solely by the other guy doing well enough to get to Information Age.)

I think that is one thing that needs to be mentioned; conjecture aside, the nature of Diplo victory as a "slow down or screw up everyone else who's doing well" just makes it a bit more trolly and easy to scowl at versus the other VCs being based around how well *you* actually do.

 

Might I make a suggestion? Use the strategy/tips forum and actually listen to advice.

Spoiler :

 

Honestly, I see it a very different way. If I'm in the lead and can control the world congress (which is not impossible at all to do), I can use it to speed up my game.

Culture Hog? Pass Arts funding, I'm now further ahead.
Crushing in science and ignoring tourism? Pass science funding and get further ahead.
Have one main tech competitor? Embargo them.
Have no tourism but a science lead and fast radio? Pass a World Ideology and watch the rest of the world either follow me or face a penalty. Also ensure that I will never face a penalty and can get the two bonus tenants in the ideology I want with no strings attached.
Lots of wonders? Cultural Heritage sites. Now my wonders are even better!
Facing competition from enemy religion? World religion.

If you don't control the world congress, it will be a hinderance to you. There's nothing that stops you from controlling the world congress while having a lead though. This is one of the best benefits to going patronage now, since that will give you a lot of nice city state bonuses, and yet another reason to get more allies.