[GS] World Congress: Civ5 vs. Civ6

[Dux1]

I really enjoyed the World Congress in Civ5: BNW. While it was not without its problems (mostly tied to the problem of being able to easily buy off city-state for votes), I found that overall, it was an interesting, intuitive and impactful addition to the game. As a refresher, here's how it basically worked in BNW:

• The World Congress would begin only after one civilization had met all of the others. At this point, all civilizations unknown to each other would immediately be introduced, and the first World Congress would commence with the civ that discovered everyone else as the first congress host. This could happen in any era, but generally occurred in the late-medieval or early-renaissance eras.
• At World Congress meetings, the host and one other civilization (IIRC, chosen at random) would be able to select resolutions from a list on which the rest of the world would then vote. These resolutions were similar to the randomly selected ones in Civ6: GS, but they were chosen by players with predetermined targets (e.g., a player might propose a ban on a certain luxury), not randomly selected by the game with undetermined targets.
• All players would then vote on the the two proposals. The number of votes a player would have was initially set at just one (with the host getting an extra vote), but it was tied primarily to city-states later (with some wonders and World Congress resolutions adding votes in other ways).
• The level of knowledge you had on how other civilizations would vote on proposals was clearly determined by your level of diplomatic visibility with that civilization. You could increase this in various ways, e.g., through diplomats and spies, but it was always clear how to do this.
• Resolutions would stay in effect indefinitely until repealed by a separate World Congress proposal, which would need to be proposed and voted on in the same way as the initial resolution.

By comparison, Civ6: GS works like this:

• The World Congress starts at the beginning of the medieval era regardless of who knows who. This will frequently create a bizarre situation in the early stages of the congress in which unknown players meet with each other and vote on binding resolutions that affect one another whilst remaining unknown to each other
• At each World Congress meeting, resolutions are selected at random, and the targets of these resolutions are not predetermined; instead, each voting civilization also selects their preferred target when they cast their vote. Once the main vote is decided, the preferred target selection of each vote on the winning side is added up, and the greatest number here determines the target (I am unsure what happens in the fairly likely event of a tie, but I assume it's just randomized). This is often counter-intuitive: For example, if the resolution is "ban some luxury," and you vote for it, selecting a luxury on which a rival of yours depends in an attempt to sabotage them, this could backfire if the "ban some luxury" resolution is passed but the winning target winds up being a luxury on which *you* depend. You have no way of making your vote contingent on your preferred target being selected, so somewhat ironically, you will have helped to sabotage yourself in this case.
• Before a resolution vote, you are sometimes told how some of the other civilizations will vote on the main question of a proposal, but your level of knowledge does not seem to be tied to diplomatic visibility in any obvious way; it appears to be random. Furthermore, you are never informed about the preferred targets of the other civilizations voting, so what information that you do get about the main question is of limited use.
• Resolutions stay in effect only until the next World Congress meeting, at which point they expire automatically.

Compared to the Civ5: BNW system, I think the new system is confusing and mostly un-intuitive. In the Civ5 World Congress, I always knew exactly what I was voting on, and it was clear how we arrived at the outcomes. If I wanted to know more about how other civilizations would be voting, there was a clearly explained and intuitive way to do this. I do like the Diplomatic Favor currency, and I have no issue with resolutions automatically expiring after 30 turns, but other than that, I prefer the older system. I'm curious to see if others feel the same way.

 

[PhilBowles]

I prefer Civ V's system, with diplo favour a better version of BNW's vote trading. There are too many options for the AI to process in the Civ VI congress and where possible it will always vote for itself - this means there's no real 'Congress' in the sense of civs voting together on or against an issue, essentially it's just an expression of how much favour a civ either has or is willing to commit (which for AIs, as you note, seems impossible to anticipate) on whatever their favoured motion is.

A practical downside of this is that it hampers the AI - the AIs seem to make individually fairly good decisions (moreso than in Civ V with the somewhat random resolutions they would propose) but can't coordinate to push an outcome through that would benefit them more than a competitor. There is no relation at all between how much an AI likes you or another AI and what it will vote for, which removes the 'Diplomatic' aspect of the congress.

It's also extremely opaque what allows you to become a party to a military emergency: for instance I was a one-time suzerain of Nazca and so had had envoys there, but I wasn't a party to the emergency that triggered when France captured it.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Civ 5's version is better.

Civ 6's version is too random and haphazard.

 

[DWilson]

Let's ban crabs. Let's ban diamonds. Let's ban Cheetos. Okay, let's unban Cheetos. Let's ban Cheetos.

Hello city state, here's money, now you do what I say.

Let's ban Doritos. Attempt to unban Cheetos fails.

Edit: To be fair, I liked that following the offical world religion granted extra influence, and the existence of a host (which also yielded extra influence).

 

[AriochIV]

I think the Civ VI version sucks less than the Civ V one once you understand it, but it is somewhat nonsensical.

World Congress/UN is a feature that, like espionage, has sucked ass in every Civilization iteration. So I guess sucking less is a win.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

I like Civ VI's version way better. Civ V always devolved into a mad ban on luxuries.

"NOBODY WILL BE HAPPY, SO SAYETH THE WORLD CONGRESS!"

It was incredibly annoying. Speaking of the new diplomacy in Civ VI, I winced when the world voted to ban nuclear power plants when I was in the process of converting 4 plants to nuclear power. It hit at a horrible time but I'm glad the AI actually used diplomacy to hinder me.

 

[PhilBowles]

I like Civ VI's version way better. Civ V always devolved into a mad ban on luxuries.

"NOBODY WILL BE HAPPY, SO SAYETH THE WORLD CONGRESS!"

It was incredibly annoying. Speaking of the new diplomacy in Civ VI, I winced when the world voted to ban nuclear power plants when I was in the process of converting 4 plants to nuclear power. It hit at a horrible time but I'm glad the AI actually used diplomacy to hinder me.

That was an issue with AI decision-making more than the system - Civ V tended to suffer a lot from having good systems but bad AI.

Civ VI's version seems to have much better AI decision-making but is a worse system.

 

[Socrates99]

Civ Vs was only good if a player controlled it. Otherwise it devolved in a ridiculous banfest. At least VI seems to have avoided that.

 

[Sagax]

Will write a longer post when back from work, but for now:

Civ 5 WC is a great system put to terrible use.

Civ 6 WC is a terrible system put to great use.

 

[Metecury]

6 is better but is far from perfect. They ought to have two rounds of voting for some resolutions, one to determine outcome A vs B (very inspired and immersive names by the way), and a second one to select the specific outcome of A and B when there are multiple choices. As it stands now if say 5 players put one vote for option A but different outcomes each they beat one player putting 3 votes in a single B outcome.


Also what the hell decides ties? what are the rules? Is it random? I've lost the vote for diplomatic victory points twice while having the same amount of votes.

 

[chibirobo1]

I think its just silly that you dont meet all the civs like in civ V. I dont understand why they left that part out. It also comes way to early.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Civ V WC: tediously control all the city-states or even your allies will use the WC to passive-aggressively harass you.

Civ VI WC: You never know what will come up. Sometimes you can leverage it to help yourself. Sometimes to inflict harm on a foe.

Yeah, you can't fully weaponize it by choosing the resolutions that could most harm your foes. But you can often use what does come up. And it's far less tedious.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I appreciate what the devs were trying to do with the World Congress in civ6. Certainly, the A/B system of resolutions with 5-6 choices for each one that you can pick do create a lot of options for the player to customize. But I don't really like that they are random. I feel it might be better if the world congress rotated between the civs, giving each civ a chance to customize and submit a resolution for a vote. And, I think it might be better if there were two rounds of voting, the first one on A or B and the second round on the target. That might be a bit more intuitive and straightforward that the current system.

 

[Vahnstad]

I wouldn't say the WC implemented in civ 6 is good, but it's definitely a lot better than in civ 5.

 

[Dux1]

I like the idea that a few people have brought up about having two rounds of voting, one to determine A or B and then another separate round to determine the target. This change alone, I think, would go a long way toward making the system more understandable and intuitive. Combined with requiring the civilizations to know each other before the World Congress starts, I'd probably change my vote.

Reading through some of these replies, I think I may have been remembering the old World Congress with a bit of rose-colored glasses, anyway. That luxury ban spam really was terrible. Then again, I think much of that problem would be addressed by the Diplomatic Favor system alone, or perhaps combining that with a cap on the number of luxuries that could be banned.

It's also extremely opaque what allows you to become a party to a military emergency: for instance I was a one-time suzerain of Nazca and so had had envoys there, but I wasn't a party to the emergency that triggered when France captured it.

I completely agree on this. The criteria for being invited to vote on emergencies doesn't seem to make any sense at all. I wish someone from Firaxis would just explain it.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Civ 5 was stupid easy with Gunboat Diplomacy. Get all the CS, over 1000 influence, yep, they do what I tell'em.

 

[Isengardtom]

I like the Congress in VI

But I like that suggestion from some here to start with a vote on the A or B and then move from there to the target

Thing is they would need to tweak the favor because of you can put extra votes in both the A/B choice and the target that would cost a lot of extra favor

 

[LKx]

Despite civ6's congress is a bit cofused, the mechanics behind it are way better than civ5 (in civ5 it was an economic domination of city states, rather than diplomatic).

So, definitively civ6.

 

[PhilBowles]

I completely agree on this. The criteria for being invited to vote on emergencies doesn't seem to make any sense at all. I wish someone from Firaxis would just explain it.

Or just a tooltip, but that would demand a UI that's fit for purpose as opposed to the "Why am I starting the World Games at 50 when I don't even have entertainment districts?" system we have now.

Despite civ6's congress is a bit cofused, the mechanics behind it are way better than civ5 (in civ5 it was an economic domination of city states, rather than diplomatic).

So, definitively civ6.

You appear to be referring to the victory condition rather than the actual congress in general. Civ VI's diplo victory is literally gold-buying to victory - aid emergencies need gold and only gold, and diplomatic favour can be bought at most game stages.

In Civ V gold-buying was an exploit you could choose not do in favour of playing the much better quest and influence game, and didn't even work all that well unless you saved everything and threw it at the CSes right before the vote. It also only worked because of a flaw in the AI coding (they could never buy more than one CS a turn with gold). It wasn't the entirety of the victory condition as it is in Civ VI.

So whatever one thinks of the normal process of the World Congress, the spend-to-victory issue is at least equally true of both games.

 

[Duuk]

Civ5 WC: Better voting, Worse system
Civ6: Trash voting, great options.