[GS] World Congress: Civ5 vs. Civ6

[Amrunril]

I voted for Civ V, though I like and dislike elements of both systems. Civ V has a much better voting system, and I prefer the idea of electing leaders to choose resolutions to having the resolutions selected randomly. However, the fact that city states could be monopolized simply by spending a lot of money eclipsed a lot of interactions that could otherwise have been quite interesting.

Civ VI has much more interesting resolutions, and the dynamic of choosing whether to spend favor or save it for future votes is quite interesting. However, the A-B voting system with more options and civs is pretty thoroughly nonsensical.

As I think about this question, I notice an interesting pattern about Civ V mechanics translated to Civ VI. When vanilla Civ V mechanics are altered for Civ VI (city states, great people, golden ages) the result tends to be a dramatic improvement. When the expansion mechanics (religion, tourism, world congress) are altered, the result is much more ambiguous. I think this speaks in part to the excellent quality of G&K and BNW and in part to developers feeling the need to make large changes for the sake of change when smaller tweaks would likely yield better results.

 

[PhilBowles]

As I think about this question, I notice an interesting pattern about Civ V mechanics translated to Civ VI. When vanilla Civ V mechanics are altered for Civ VI (city states, great people, golden ages) the result tends to be a dramatic improvement. When the expansion mechanics (religion, tourism, world congress) are altered, the result is much more ambiguous. I think this speaks in part to the excellent quality of G&K and BNW and in part to developers feeling the need to make large changes for the sake of change when smaller tweaks would likely yield better results.

GPs pre-BNW were essentially the same in Civ V as Civ IV - I think BNW already showed that this was too conservative as the mechanic wasn't great in its first incarnation. The main lesson I take from your examples is that importing systems unchanged from the previous game is rarely a good idea, just as was true of GPs in vanilla Civ V.

Religion and tourism in Civ VI are minor tweaks on the Civ V system and both are lacking in Civ VI. Religion lacks the important links to good yields (especially as it's all but impossible to keep high numbers of followers in foreign cities without going all-in on religious victory) that made it an important part of non-religious gameplay in Civ V, but apart from the baggage associated with the religious victory, which is simply poor in both concept and execution, the system - and some of the beliefs - are identical.

Tourism is a direct import from Civ V divorced from the major context - ideology and impact on trade yields - that made it a relevant part of gameplay, so now it's a barely meaningful score victory condition that - with rock bands in the mix - isn't even very useful for that purpose.

City states buck the trend as they're a rather minor tweak - I actually preferred the Civ V system of fluctuating influence to static numbers of envoys and fixed yields whoever's in charge as they provided more incentive to contest them with other civs. In Civ VI you only care about the few with good suzerain bonuses and, while these are a nice addition to the game, they aren't well-balanced. The military CS remains pretty weak in terms of its yield bonus, an issue not dissimilar from their relative unimportance in Civ V.

Golden ages are an all-new version of a system that's been different in pretty much every Civ game. I certainly wouldn't call them well-implemented in Civ VI - they're a sometimes-relevant side effect of the loyalty system. In concept I prefer Civ V's golden ages boosting yields and being the result of game actions with relevance beyond filling an era score bucket, but they were linked to a highly unpopular global happiness mechanic that the game in its final form would have been better without.

World congress is very much a case of a "large change for the sake of change". Civ V's was a good system with poor AI decision-making and "overtweaking" it has, in the judgment of 50% of people who've voted so far, been a downside. And some of the remaining 50% prefer it only because it removes an exploit or problematic AI behaviour from the Civ V version, both of which could have been fixed with tweaking. A Civ V system with diplomatic favour (which among other things is generated from suzerainty) instead of vote trading and city state votes would probably have been the optimal approach.

 

[jddods]

Civ 6 is better. I think the voting system just takes a bit getting used to.

 

[PhilBowles]

Civ 6 is better. I think the voting system just takes a bit getting used to.

Unfortunately the AI isn't a quick learner, and it's the AI's trouble making use of the system due to having too many options that's my core concern.

 

[DWilson]

I wouldn't want the two round version. It would be either more expensive in terms of diplo (as you have to pay to vote twice, both times gauging the potential votes that the AI might make either way; not to mention it's weird that you either now have to only compete with those that agreed before or you have to compete again against those that disagreed), or useless if you can only vote in the second round as many times as you voted in the first.

 

[acluewithout]

I think CivVI has much the better system.

Random resolutions are much better than always selecting resolutions, and has more of a feel of shifting Geo Politics. What’s great is that the random resolutions are balanced out with some direct control, in that you have the option to propose emergencies.

The voting is a little buggy though. Possible resolutions should be reduced to just the A and B. The additional targeting of a Civ, currency, district type etc. seems a poor idea. And a few more emergency types would be welcome.

I’d also like the WC not to trigger automatically, but instead trigger via a wonder being built or all Civs meeting etc. But that’s really just for flavour.

 

[Cagarustus]

Just a question: can the world congress be completely reworked with dll modding?

 

[kb27787]

BNW is better.. The proposals are a lot more game breaking and last forever until repealed. Or at least the one time things were a lot more powerful back then (double culture, double tourism etc.. Now we just get a measly 100 GPP in an era where they cost 810)... randomness is certainly OK as long as the pool they are randomized from contains all meaningful proposals rather than the junk we get most of the time.

As of now in the earlier ones I find myself simply not caring because the resolutions simply do not impact me that much such that I just drop one vote in each and ignore the results.

The embargo proposals really need to be moved up to earlier eras so you have a good way to retaliate against someone peacefully as in BNW... Embargo them, embargo CS, then double military upkeep... Atilla's 30 city empire implodes.

 

[Starwars]

As much as I appreciate a goal of sort of holding the player back a bit so they can't control everything about the game, I think the VI WC feels a bit too random for me. I mean, it's fine sometimes but last game I just kept ending up with propsals that just didn't affect me all that much. Like, it's just not particularly fun to have to vote on whether a religion should have more strength or not when you don't have a religion yourself (and none of the AIs are really going for a religious victory). The WC should feel like a big event when it comes around I think but at the moment it's just a crapshoot between "ok, this can be sort of useful" and "I really don't care at all about this."

But again, part of it is, and I hate beating the dead horse here, down to the AI being a bit lackluster. If they were more of a threat, more competent then it'd also make me engage more in maybe looking up if I wanted to ban a luxury or not. Really *play* with the system. But as is I'm just more likely to throw a quick vote in for something that may benefit myself and if it fails, oh well, because again... with the AI being what it is, it just won't matter all that much in the end. And that's kind of a shame.

But I guess, in response to the question, I prefer Civ V's by a small margin even though I didn't really feel that was a good implementation either. But it didn't feel like just a big diceroll and I liked that at least.

 

[shaglio]

This thread should probably be split into 2 separate questions:

Which game has the better designed World Council?
Which game's AI is better at using the World Council?

For example, the common complaint of the Civ 5 AI constantly banning Luxuries isn't necessarily a problem with the design. That's more of a problem of the AI's programming. If it were programmed to do things sensibly (not keep banning luxuries every time, not banning their own luxuries), that might change's people's opinion of the Civ 5 WC.

I have yet to finish my first GS game because I've been to busy, so I don't have enough experience with it to for an opinion right now.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

For example, the common complaint of the Civ 5 AI constantly banning Luxuries isn't necessarily a problem with the design. That's more of a problem of the AI's programming. If it were programmed to do things sensibly (not keep banning luxuries every time, not banning their own luxuries), that might change's people's opinion of the Civ 5 WC.

Thing is, that is how the AI picks it's Ban Luxury proposals in Civ 5. Consistently the AI will only propose to ban (a) luxuries they do not have, and (b) luxuries that the civs they hate most do have.

Then when casting their votes, they will never vote to ban a luxury they currently have. Which does lead to some semi-cheesy strategies like if you trade a luxury to them you know that civ won't vote to ban that luxury in the upcoming session. They won't vote against it if they aren't producing the luxury themselves, but they won't vote for it if they're receiving the luxury in trade.

The perception that the Civ 5 AI voted against it's own luxuries and proposed bans at random came from the initial release of BNW. I've played a lot of final patch Civ 5, and this behaviour was fixed.

Presumably, the AI's behaviour in the Civ 6 World Congress will also get improved by patches.

 

[Dux1]

What’s great is that the random resolutions are balanced out with some direct control, in that you have the option to propose emergencies.

Is there any direct control with emergencies, though? Emergencies seem to be the most random part of the World Congress to me. There never seems to be any rhyme or reason to when an emergency will be called or who can vote on it, and if there's a way for the player to directly call an emergency meeting, I haven't found it.

 

[kaspergm]

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

I think this very accurately sums it up!

I think overall the proposals of Civ6 are much more interesting and better balanced, but as for now, the voting has me utterly confused. I get that there's a tactical aspect in not being able to predict how many votes AI will throw into a proposal, but it also means you often end up just throwing votes blindly. Of course, if you have super much favor, I guess you can actively out-vote the sums of the AIs, and I've been able to do it on occasion, but often it feels like outcome is so predictable that it's not worth risking throwing your favor into it (although do I seem to recall that if vote went against you, you got your favor back? Or was it only sometimes? And does it count if vote only goes against you on one point? ).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Civ6 WC is significantly better than Civ5 in some ways-but as bad, if not worse, as Civ5 WC in others. Although it is nice to be introduced to the mechanics early in the game, I did prefer the Civ5's approach of when the WC started. I also liked Civ5 having City States taking part directly in the vote, but hated the way we could buy them off with cash. Though I guess the Favour System is kind of an abstraction of the Civ5 system. Overall, I like it better than Civ5 or Civ4 equivalents, but seeing it improved even further would be yet another reason for me to want a 3rd expansion.

 

[Sagax]

Okay, finally get to write about this...

I liked Civ 5's WC for its flavor, simplicity, and transparency. You meet everyone in the game, which opens the international discussion table, and you get clear "Yay or Nay" proposals. You know how the options are pitted against each other, and you know that you are voting for your own real benefit. You could also negotiate with AI to vote for a particular outcome in the diplomacy screen.

The problem lied in AI's voting for luxury bans non-stop, and occasional stupid proposals slipping through and taking effect forever unless repealed (good luck with that). You could say that many proposals were just not thought through and turned out to be rather dull when put in practice. The fact that there was always a host making proposals meant that many times the proposals had little relevance to the participants - especially if the host is AI.

But at its core, the concept was flavorful, was easy to follow, and clearly signaled the midpoint in your game. Which is why I think Civ 5 WC had a good underlying concept, but it fell short on resolutions and how AI handled it.

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I will remove Diplomatic Victory considerations from both versions, because they are both equally bad in my book. Civ 5's strategy of saving Gold and then spending it all to bribe CS and gain game-winning votes is not that different from Civ 6's strategy of taking over CS, saving Favor, and then spending it all on the game-winning votes. Using a unique currency for the votes doesn't suddenly make the victory different and innovative, when the underlying principles remain the same.

There is, however, one DipV-related nuance that makes Civ 5's verson of WC MUCH better in my opinion. The sessions become more frequent in future eras, starting from every 30 turns in Renaissance and getting as fast as every 10 turns (20, depending on how you count the DipV sessions) in Atomic+. This means that the World Congress becomes a more active factor in the late game, making you engage more often in the otherwise barren late game. This also speeds up the Diplomatic Victory, giving you a clear sense that it is time to wrap up the game. Civ 6's fixed session frequency becomes almost unbearable in the late game, when you have almost nothing else to do and most likely could have already won via any other victory condition.
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Civ 6 WC tries to fix the issues of its predecessor, and in some ways it does. You are no longer stuck with endless luxury-banning proposals, and no accidental silly resolutions last forever. The proposals themselves are set in a way that something is guaranteed to happen after the vote - no longer can you keep downvoting the resolutions and prevent anything from happening. Finally, the Favor cost and refund mechanics mean that you actually need to budget your voting power,even if you don't plan to pursue the Diplomatic Victory. You can spend a lot of Favor on a few specific resolutions that may heavily affect you, but that leaves you less powerful for other resolutions - as you have spent your Favor, while the opposing side got it refunded. This does feel like a system that is used very effectively...

...but why does it have to be so convoluted and slow-paced? The current system slams two separate voting phases into one, creating an extra mental barrier when voting. What often ends up happening is that you inadvertently help your opponents. This scenario was illustrated multiple times here in various threads, so I will just make a brief example: If I want to get more amenities from my duplicate luxury resources because I got screwed by RNG, but I also know that Scotland wants to supercharge his UA by enhancing his own duplicate luxuries, then I am actually discouraged from voting for my preferred option. Because my votes will be counted in favor of Scotland as part of the first round, and then he may actually win if he invested more votes into his resolution. This would never happen under the Civ 5 setting - you voted for your own benefit, and nobody gets to take advantage of your votes while voting for something drastically different. Some people say that this is for the better, that this makes you think ahead. I am sorry, but I call BS on that. This is not creating a meaningful brain puzzle, this is making the votes unnecessarily complex by obscuring transparency. Yes, this is kind of a Prisoner's Dilemma. No, there is no place for this in the World Congress, where AI votes selfishly without such considerations.

The best part is - the game already has the infrastructure for better handling of the two-stage voting. Have you noticed how emergencies work? If you are eligible for emergency proposal, you can spend 30 Favor and bring the emergency to the Congress floor. Then the players get to vote for or against this emergency using the same WC overlay. This can be totally adapted for regular resolutions. Let the game present you with the two opposing options: for example, the one about amenities for the duplicate luxes or no amenities from the lux. Every player selects their preferred first-stage resolution - for free, instead of the 30 Favor. The winning option gets passed to the voting floor, and there everyone gets to pick the lux they want affected by the resolution and dump as much Favor as they want, just like now.

This post is getting way too long, so I will just wrap it up with this: Having half of the world as question marks on the voting floor and calling it "World Congress" is ridiculous. Having the fixed session frequency without acceleration in the late game is a sure way to make people forget about the existence of Diplomatic Victory a month after the expansion is released.

TL;DR: If we could take Civ 5's simple concept and incorporate Civ 6's proposal system while also fixing the current two-stage voting, this would be golden. For now Civ 6's WC fixes some main issues from Civ 5 while breaking the stuff that Civ 5 did right.

 

[kaspergm]

 

[GeneralZIft]

Hey guys, I'm new here, but I would like to say that in the case of a tie, the Civ 6 system decides the winner by who puts in the largest proportion of their favour into the vote, rather than at random. I feel like the Civ 6 system gives me more freedom on what to vote than the Civ 5 system. The civ 5 buying out city states was super artificial and the person at the top tended to stay at the top with the most votes. I think that perhaps the voting system could be changed to be a little more like Civ 5, where if you vote for something in B, then the opposing something in A will be less likely to pass.

Eg. If I vote 10 times to improve trading with me (A), but someone votes 5 times to embargo me (B) - then 10-5 will be worth 5, and the highest voter would win - if that makes sense.

In other words, a proposal in B against someone will reduce the votes for that person in A. That's how the votes should be decided. I didn't explain it very well but I hope you guys get the meaning of it.

Thanks

 

[Janskey]

The proportion of favor thing seems to work only within resolution A or B. If there's tie a between A and B, the first player on the list wins.

Spoiler :

The proportion is likely calculated after possible favor refunds, or is there any other explanation why this happens, compared to pic3?

Spoiler :

Similar to the "first player on the list", it appears to be the first option on the list that wins ties in other cases as well.

Spoiler :

Now, I only tried with two players, but I guess it's the same with any number of players. You might want to be player 1 in multiplayer.

 

[Victoria]

Both were rubbish and could be simply abused.
The issue is the same as most other issues, put something in place to please the masses but if it worked correctly so if you started running away with a Dom victory it did something seriously negative to you like an entire ban on trade it would not be popular either. There is a lot of Dom players out there.

People say that using gold to buy CS was clear abuse is correct but DF is treated like gold in this game. It is just in another form and can be traded as well.