amateurgamer88
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2018
- Messages
- 1,612
World Congress
The World Congress (WC) can be a powerful tool. As first glance, you might think that only those pursuing Diplomatic Victory cares about the WC. However, that is very false due to how big an impact the WC can have on your game. Some resolutions can hurt you while others can weaken an enemy to give you just enough room to squeak out a victory. For this post, I won't go into the great details. I'll give an overview of how WC is triggered, its functions and ways you can influence it. Regarding individual resolutions, that will take place in another future post.
The categories are listed below:
Unlocking the WC.
Sources of Votes (Overview).
Default Resolutions (Overview).
Unlockable Resolutions (Overview).
Diplomatic Victory (Overview).
Proposal and Basic Strategies.
Unlocking the WC:
There are two conditions that must be met in order to unlock the WC. First, you must have researched Printing Press. Secondly, you must have met all the other existing civilizations. I use existing because some civilization might have been wiped out at this point of the game so it's impossible to meet them. Note that these requirements apply to all civilizations so whoever achieve these not only unlock the WC but also get an extra vote for being the WC host. On Pangaea, you should have met all the civilizations prior to researching Printing Press. For maps with larger oceans between landmasses, this can take a bit longer as a Caravel and/or Explorer are needed to discover all the civilizations. Once the WC is unlocked, you will find your delegates to be valuable assets that can make an impact very quickly.
Sources of Votes (Overview):
There are many sources of votes but a lot of them require investments to achieve them. One of the few ones that's a given is the base votes for each civilization that scales with era. For those going for Diplomatic Victory, getting embassies and City State alliances are all part of the gameplan. Note that the votes from City State Alliances do vary with eras with each alliance giving up to 2 votes late game. There are policies and tenets that also give more votes. Religion can also provide you with ample of benefits, especially when you have reformed and spread your religion far and wide. Other sources are technologies, National Wonders and certain resolutions. You should certainly familiarize yourself with these so you can at least have an impact on votes as opposed to being at the mercy of the other major powers.
Default Resolutions (Overview):
There are default resolutions that are available as soon as the WC is unlocked. These have no technology prerequisites and can still be quite powerful. There are a couple of these resolutions that are net positive for everyone so proposing them can get you diplomatic boost with all other civilizations. Others are geared more towards your victory condition like World Science Initiative vs Endowment for the Arts. Others make war easier or harder. The three arguably quite powerful ones are sanction a civilization, ban luxury and sanction City-States. These three can drastically affect the political landscape and can cripple certain enemies if proposed at the right moment. As I mentioned earlier, you want to have some impact because, otherwise, you might be sanctioned next and you will feel it.
Unlocked Resolutions (Overview):
Unlocked resolutions require certain technology to be researched before they become available for proposal. Some of these are not only powerful but mandatory for certain victory conditions. For instance, United Nations is unlocked through Combined Arms and this is a key component to Diplomatic Victory. Some of these resolutions can also hinder other victory conditions like Travel Ban for Cultural Victory and Spaceflight Regulations for Science Victory. Most of the resolutions that give prizes based on how much you invested in it are also unlocked resolutions. Knowing what benefits you is critical to you deciding on what technology to unlock sooner rather than later. This should also help you gauge what you must do to undermine your opponents to weaken them or slow them down enough.
Diplomatic Victory (Overview):
Diplomatic Victory requires a few conditions. First, you need sufficient votes to gain Hegemony. Secondly, you must have your ideology voted as the world ideology through World Ideology resolution. Third, you need to pass the resolution United Nation to trigger the voting for Hegemony. As you can see, these all demand you to have plenty of delegates in order to pass them, especially when you encounter a lot of resistance to World Ideology and especially United Nations. World Ideology is unlocked through Telecommunications while United Nations is unlocked through Combined Arms. Therefore, you need to have reasonable science output to access those resolutions. While delegates are important, science is also something you cannot overlook for a Diplomatic Victory.
Proposal and Basic Strategies:
Regardless what victory you are pursuing, you must have enough delegates to prevent some diplomatic power from ruining your day. Great Diplomats become very important because they can be unlocked fairly early and they can place down embassies. Each embassy gives you one delegate and each City-State can only have one embassy in its territory. Therefore, it's a race to see who can get the most embassy down to get additional delegates. One thing to note is that you can actually steal land with a Citadel to capture a foreign embassy. This will remove that embassy and lets you place your own down. Therefore, it's vital where you place your embassies (to avoid losing it) and plan ahead so you can steal an AI's embassy to bolster your strength in the WC. There will be times when you cannot get place any embassy because the CS happens to be on a single tile island. In those cases, there isn't much you can do.
For those pursuing Diplomatic Victory, Statecraft is pretty mandatory as it caters to those focusing on CS. Normally, Freedom is the best Ideology for diplomatic victory but Autocracy can also work if you happen to be a war machine ready to influence the WC that way. A key resolution you want to focus on is Sphere of Influence that, if passed, makes a CS permanently allied to you. You no longer need to compete with other civilizations to ensure you have the highest influence. Instead, you can now divert your resources elsewhere and be guaranteed the votes from that CS assuming you can protect them. Vassals can be a great source of votes for Hegemony but you must realize that they can vote against you for other proposals. Therefore they are great for the final vote but can be detrimental for all the votes prior to it. Be ready to deal with it if you have lots of vassals.
The World Congress (WC) can be a powerful tool. As first glance, you might think that only those pursuing Diplomatic Victory cares about the WC. However, that is very false due to how big an impact the WC can have on your game. Some resolutions can hurt you while others can weaken an enemy to give you just enough room to squeak out a victory. For this post, I won't go into the great details. I'll give an overview of how WC is triggered, its functions and ways you can influence it. Regarding individual resolutions, that will take place in another future post.
The categories are listed below:
Unlocking the WC.
Sources of Votes (Overview).
Default Resolutions (Overview).
Unlockable Resolutions (Overview).
Diplomatic Victory (Overview).
Proposal and Basic Strategies.
Unlocking the WC:
There are two conditions that must be met in order to unlock the WC. First, you must have researched Printing Press. Secondly, you must have met all the other existing civilizations. I use existing because some civilization might have been wiped out at this point of the game so it's impossible to meet them. Note that these requirements apply to all civilizations so whoever achieve these not only unlock the WC but also get an extra vote for being the WC host. On Pangaea, you should have met all the civilizations prior to researching Printing Press. For maps with larger oceans between landmasses, this can take a bit longer as a Caravel and/or Explorer are needed to discover all the civilizations. Once the WC is unlocked, you will find your delegates to be valuable assets that can make an impact very quickly.
Sources of Votes (Overview):
There are many sources of votes but a lot of them require investments to achieve them. One of the few ones that's a given is the base votes for each civilization that scales with era. For those going for Diplomatic Victory, getting embassies and City State alliances are all part of the gameplan. Note that the votes from City State Alliances do vary with eras with each alliance giving up to 2 votes late game. There are policies and tenets that also give more votes. Religion can also provide you with ample of benefits, especially when you have reformed and spread your religion far and wide. Other sources are technologies, National Wonders and certain resolutions. You should certainly familiarize yourself with these so you can at least have an impact on votes as opposed to being at the mercy of the other major powers.
Default Resolutions (Overview):
There are default resolutions that are available as soon as the WC is unlocked. These have no technology prerequisites and can still be quite powerful. There are a couple of these resolutions that are net positive for everyone so proposing them can get you diplomatic boost with all other civilizations. Others are geared more towards your victory condition like World Science Initiative vs Endowment for the Arts. Others make war easier or harder. The three arguably quite powerful ones are sanction a civilization, ban luxury and sanction City-States. These three can drastically affect the political landscape and can cripple certain enemies if proposed at the right moment. As I mentioned earlier, you want to have some impact because, otherwise, you might be sanctioned next and you will feel it.
Unlocked Resolutions (Overview):
Unlocked resolutions require certain technology to be researched before they become available for proposal. Some of these are not only powerful but mandatory for certain victory conditions. For instance, United Nations is unlocked through Combined Arms and this is a key component to Diplomatic Victory. Some of these resolutions can also hinder other victory conditions like Travel Ban for Cultural Victory and Spaceflight Regulations for Science Victory. Most of the resolutions that give prizes based on how much you invested in it are also unlocked resolutions. Knowing what benefits you is critical to you deciding on what technology to unlock sooner rather than later. This should also help you gauge what you must do to undermine your opponents to weaken them or slow them down enough.
Diplomatic Victory (Overview):
Diplomatic Victory requires a few conditions. First, you need sufficient votes to gain Hegemony. Secondly, you must have your ideology voted as the world ideology through World Ideology resolution. Third, you need to pass the resolution United Nation to trigger the voting for Hegemony. As you can see, these all demand you to have plenty of delegates in order to pass them, especially when you encounter a lot of resistance to World Ideology and especially United Nations. World Ideology is unlocked through Telecommunications while United Nations is unlocked through Combined Arms. Therefore, you need to have reasonable science output to access those resolutions. While delegates are important, science is also something you cannot overlook for a Diplomatic Victory.
Proposal and Basic Strategies:
Regardless what victory you are pursuing, you must have enough delegates to prevent some diplomatic power from ruining your day. Great Diplomats become very important because they can be unlocked fairly early and they can place down embassies. Each embassy gives you one delegate and each City-State can only have one embassy in its territory. Therefore, it's a race to see who can get the most embassy down to get additional delegates. One thing to note is that you can actually steal land with a Citadel to capture a foreign embassy. This will remove that embassy and lets you place your own down. Therefore, it's vital where you place your embassies (to avoid losing it) and plan ahead so you can steal an AI's embassy to bolster your strength in the WC. There will be times when you cannot get place any embassy because the CS happens to be on a single tile island. In those cases, there isn't much you can do.
For those pursuing Diplomatic Victory, Statecraft is pretty mandatory as it caters to those focusing on CS. Normally, Freedom is the best Ideology for diplomatic victory but Autocracy can also work if you happen to be a war machine ready to influence the WC that way. A key resolution you want to focus on is Sphere of Influence that, if passed, makes a CS permanently allied to you. You no longer need to compete with other civilizations to ensure you have the highest influence. Instead, you can now divert your resources elsewhere and be guaranteed the votes from that CS assuming you can protect them. Vassals can be a great source of votes for Hegemony but you must realize that they can vote against you for other proposals. Therefore they are great for the final vote but can be detrimental for all the votes prior to it. Be ready to deal with it if you have lots of vassals.
Last edited:
Production and 4 
Maintenance. Upon completion, they grant a free Office to the City the Headquarters was built in and allow you to construct additional offices in your other owned Cities. There's a limit of one Headquarters per Civilization so pick the one that benefits you the most.
Trade Unit limit
Tourism with them by 2%. 
