[GS] Is the World Congress good now? (Post June 2019 update)

[acluewithout]

So the World Congress changes are interesting.

Diplomatic Points. Big change is that you now get diplomatic points for being in the winning side of a resolution and from winning scored competitions. This might make diplomatic victories more interesting; but leaving that aside, it might make these various votes and competitions more interesting even if you aren't going for a DV. So, that's good. If you're going for a DV, it also means you have reason to participate in the WC other than just to vote of a leader (whereas before the whole point was to not participate and just stockpile favour).

More Emergencies. Emergencies work really well with the WC. So more Emergencies is awesome. And this one has a real sting in the tail given gold can actually be used to build units (whereas with disaster emergencies, and gold you get can't actually repair anything).

Resolutions. So, more resolutions is good. But they still haven't fixed the main problem. The resolutions are too narrow.

The new spy.mission is a good example. Say you boost stealing gold. How is this useful? Now everyone just steals from everyone. Say you ban stealing gold. Great. Now everyone benefits from that. How is that creating interesting decisions? There's no real trade off.

Or take one of the resolutions that targets a particular Civ. Well, I'm not going to vote for any that hurts me or any that benefit someone else. And sure, I can vote for ones that help me or hurt someone else, but that's not a hard choice. Again, no trade offs. Boring. And sort of silly.

Resolutions need to have wider targets so you get more interesting decisions. Using the above examples; don't ban a single spy mission, make it groups of missions. Like maybe all the heist missions get banned - so I vote for that because I want people to stop stealing my gold but now I also can't steal great works and so I have to consider that trade off. Or you sanction a type of government not just a Civ. Now, if I'm voting to sanction autocracy because I'm targeting a particular Civ that has that Government, I'll have to now consider the collateral damage being any other Civ with that government (maybe an ally, or someone I want to ally later, or even me).

World Congress trigger. I still think it's kinda lame the World Congress is just triggered in the Medieval era. Too predictable and repetitive. Dull.

Overall. Yeah. Well. Yeah. Look, I'm glad they looked at the WC again, but it's still not great. And they still really haven't fixed the core problem - way too narrow resolutions and a fixed start date. Lots of really good stuff in the patch, but the WC is disappointing. (Sorry FXS. A for Effort though!)

 

[Ceydezed]

I haven't seen the details of the patch obviously, but i disagree with / would like to comment a couple of points:

This might make diplomatic victories more interesting

- what it might also do is increase the risk / possibility of AI winning a diplo victory. A lot of AIs always / often vote for the same resolution. They also have a lot of gold to send for emergencies. This might make them get a lot of points. Player will possibly have to strongly monitor the progression of the AI (obviously this is just an hypothesis).

The new spy.mission is a good example. Say you boost stealing gold. How is this useful? Now everyone just steals from everyone. Say you ban stealing gold. Great. Now everyone benefits from that. How is that creating interesting decisions? There's no real trade off.

Or take one of the resolutions that targets a particular Civ. Well, I'm not going to vote for any that hurts me or any that benefit someone else. And sure, I can vote for ones that help me or hurt someone else, but that's not a hard choice. Again, no trade offs. Boring. And sort of silly.

I disagree with that, as long as you are aiming for a clear victory, you can really target something specific (eg disrupt rocketry ban, steal art work more efficiently, neutralize governor). If you are behind, you can pass something to get more gold. If you want to make a civ lose loyalty, you can increase their grievances if they are at war, etc. I see that at as interestingly strategic for your end game purpose.

 

[Leucarum]

Whether this is balanced now is going to be tough to judge until it's played, it's been so dramatically changed. But, at the risk of dooming it prematurely, it couldn't really make diplomatic victory worse, could it?

 

[darkace77450]

It's improved, but I won't consider it good until we have the agency to choose the resolutions we vote upon.

 

[acluewithout]

I haven't seen the details of the patch obviously, but i disagree with / would like to comment a couple of points:.

Fair enough.

- what it might also do is increase the risk / possibility of AI winning a diplo victory. A lot of AIs always / often vote for the same resolution. They also have a lot of gold to send for emergencies. This might make them get a lot of points. Player will possibly have to strongly monitor the progression of the AI (obviously this is just an hypothesis).

Yeah. That could happen too. Which would not be fun.

I disagree with that, as long as you are aiming for a clear victory, you can really target something specific (eg disrupt rocketry ban, steal art work more efficiently, neutralize governor). If you are behind, you can pass something to get more gold. If you want to make a civ lose loyalty, you can increase their grievances if they are at war, etc. I see that at as interestingly strategic for your end game purpose.

Sure. But my point is there's no interesting trade offs. So no interesting decisions.

To take your example. If I'm going for a Culture Victory, and GilgaBro is going to Space then I vote for disrupt rockets and vote against steal art work. There's no real decision here.

But if I have to choose between Corporate Espionage (disrupt rockets, break dams, sabotage industrial zone) and Larceny (Steal Artworks, Steal Gold), well now there might be trade offs. I want to disrupt GilgaBro's rockets... but do I risk exposing my Dams. I don't want people stealing my artworks, but I wanted to use spies to raise money.

Make the resolutions wider and then decisions will have more trade-offs. Be more interesting.

 

[Ceydezed]

Fair enough.



Yeah. That could happen too. Which would not be fun.




Sure. But my point is there's no interesting trade offs. So no interesting decisions.

To take your example. If I'm going for a Culture Victory, and GilgaBro is going to Space then I vote for disrupt rockets and vote against steal art work. There's no real decision here.

But if I have to choose between Corporate Espionage (disrupt rockets, break dams, sabotage industrial zone) and Larceny (Steal Artworks, Steal Gold), well now there might be trade offs. I want to disrupt GilgaBro's rockets... but do I risk exposing my Dams. I don't want people stealing my artworks, but I wanted to use spies to raise money.

Make the resolutions wider and then decisions will have more trade-offs. Be more interesting.

All right i get what you mean - there is only one possible choice depending on what you are aiming. This is the case in most of the aspects of the game, i think - if you are science you will go for this building, this government, this policies. If cultural, for others. At the end this game is very dichotomic, either something is useful for you or it's not. It doesn't surprise me then that this new patch is also respecting this. But i agree that having a bit more complex choices would also be interesting.

 

[criZp]

it won't be good until they separate the for/against vote from the target vote

and the resolutions are still boring, just too many of them I don't really care about

 

[Pietato]

Too early, bro.

 

[acluewithout]

Too early, bro.

Yeah. But I was bored.

And I figured, now we have threads to put thoughts on these topics after the patch notes come out and after the patch goes live.

 

[acluewithout]

I’m pretty happy with WC changes. Have no ideal how it’s going to work on practice tho.