The UN voting

[caitlinm]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but... what exactly is the point of voting for universal sufferage, emancipation, and free speech? Yes, they are all good things in real life, but in the context of the game, aren't you helping your enemies get benefits? Or does it hurt those with a different strategy than you?

Why does it seem like the UN thing is sort of pointless?

 

[MrCynical]

The universal civic resolutions can occasionally be useful as a way of forcing your enemies into civics that don't benefit them. For example, if someone is getting lots of diplomatic bonuses from sharing religions with other civs, you could harm them by forcing them to switch to Free Religion. You could force someone with a very large empire to pay much higher maintenance costs by forcing them to switch from state property to Enviromentalism.

P.S. While I'm here asking questions -- under Nationhood, when you draft people, does your population go down?

Yes, and it will also cause unhappiness.

 

[smjjames]

I don't like the UN thing (in the game that is) very much and never build the UN wonder unless I don't see any other possible victories and time is running out because the thing is annoying. at least in GalCivII they have thier UN thing once a year and the turns are a week long each.

as for the voting thing, it forces EVERYBODY to use that civic whether or not its a benefit.

 

[caitlinm]

MrCynical, that makes sense. But it would also help those leaders who are more "progressive" in their preferences. By the way, do leaders get a bonus for using their favorite civic? I haven't seen information on that anywhere, but what does a leader's "favorite civic" actually mean?

Sorry I'm dumb.

 

[jimbob27]

The UN thing kinda bothers me. I think it'd be nicer if you chould choose any of the civics, instead of just the most advanced one. Whenever it gest build it makes religion obsolete, which I think it kinda rubbish. Religion is still a huge cause of unrest in the world today... making it obsolete with "free religion" is just rubbish. They've got it in reverse. America has "free religion" and half of the rest of the world hates their guts for it.

The fact that everyone instantly becomes a member is kinda lame as well. When someone builds it, there should be a bonus for joining it or a penalty for not joining. The whole Iraq war has come about because they decided they wern't going to abide by the rules the UN set. Same thing now with Iran. If you could choose to not join the UN, but got a diplomatic penalty, it'd make for a much better game.

 

[MrCynical]

MrCynical, that makes sense. But it would also help those leaders who are more "progressive" in their preferences. By the way, do leaders get a bonus for using their favorite civic? I haven't seen information on that anywhere, but what does a leader's "favorite civic" actually mean?

You can sometimes do a civ a favour by forcing them away from a civic that isn't doing them any good, but in general I find that by the era of the UN, most civs will be using the bottom civic of every category, except maybe Enviromentalism.

If you are using the favourite civic of a leader you get a major boost to diplomatic relations with them, as long as they are also using the civic. A leader doesn't get any benefit from running their favourite civic themselves.

 

[caitlinm]

Oh, so they will like me more if I'm using a civic they approve of? I get it. Then it's kind of similar to religion in that if you have the same one as them they like you, but if you don't they resent you and try to get you to convert.

jimbob, I think you're right in that countries should have the choice of not joining the UN. But the penalties should be significant, otherwise no one would join. Like maybe if a country doesn't join the UN and the UN votes to ban nukes, if the non-UN country nukes a foreign city, then everyone in the UN would declare war on the non-UN nuker. That could be interesting, and somewhat realistic, maybe.

 

[Older than Dirt]

The whole UN thing in Civ 4 is put there to distract you from noticing the really glaring problems - Oh, and of course to make the ghost of Eleneaor Rooosevldt and Hillary Clinton happy.

 

[caitlinm]

...Um, hilarious? (If not nonsensical?)

 

[naterator]

The whole UN thing in Civ 4 is put there to distract you from noticing the really glaring problems

sounds like a perfect recreation of the real thing to me...

 

[Armorydave]

One of the few things that I consider poorly executed in Civ 4 is the UN. Forcing civics onto other nations via UN resolution makes absolutely no sense, regardless of the type of civics. Personally, I would remove it from the game and eliminate the Diplomatic (which is really just a modified Domination win the majority of games) win entirely.

 

[caitlinm]

I think it could serve a purpose, but I'd like to see it modified to change the relationships of leaders in the game. Maybe some countries could get mad at other countries for voting differently on a resolution or not voting for them as secretary? Or, like I said, maybe refusing to join and then breaking laws the UN had set up could result in a war. I think it lacks real options or versatility -- you're basically stuck doing it one way.

 

[covok48]

Diplomatic victory is just the poor man's domination victory. I've never won it through its intended (read: a$$ kissing) means.

 

[Mr. Nice]

Diplomatic victory is just the poor man's domination victory. I've never won it through its intended (read: a$$ kissing) means.

Well I have, indeed it's my preferred route of victory in OCC games, where domination certainly isn't an option (and indeed, on standard maps and larger, it's the most viable means of victory). It's no more a poor man's domination then domination is a poor mans conquest.

 

[Sohan]

I don't mind the UN in practice, although I'm concerned about two issues, both of which seem to have been mentioned already. The first being that I think leaders should be given the option to join or not join the United Nations, with heavy penalties for not joining since there are already obvious penalties for joining (loss of freedom in civic choices, potential loss of nukes, etc). I think it could be better executed instead of forcing everyone into it. I've always been annoyed by the UN forcing civics on me when there are better options for me at the time. The second issue is that the UN resolutions only vote over universal adoption of "progressive" civics. If there were options like universal adoption of state property (ie: Communists take over the UN) or universal adoption of pacifism, then I might be more interested.