World Congress is silly

[MacCoise]

My first full game on GS (Australia) and I hit Medieval

and suddenly I'm asked to vote on resolutions against Civs I have never met ?

Never mind that I can't work out how to move beyond the vote screen but this is game breakingly stupid logic in my book. In CIV IV didn't somebody have to build the UN or Apostolic Palace and then known Civs joined?

Is there any talk of this changing?

 

[SirWill90]

I hope there is such talk. Besides the issue of a world congress whose members can have have had no congress with each other, yes the implementation of the voting leaves much to be desired, not to say “it’s completely counter-intuitive.” Also, how do these resolutions get proposed by the player? Can they be? Or is it always just going to be “player must choose the lesser of two evils seemingly randomly presented by the AI just for the purpose of being a pain” every single (exceedingly often) session? Not to mention the ones where play gets interrupted with the player not even being eligible to vote.

I really dislike it as well and I hope it’s greatly improved very soon.

 

[bonafide11]

Talk of it changing here? Sure. Talk of it changing from Firaxis? Who knows.

But yeah, everyone seems to agree it's silly and hasn't actually added any fun to it. My biggest issue is the lack of options. 100% production towards buildings of this type? And all the Civs vote for City Center. It's almost annoying having it even available because it's just another window I have to read, click through, and then ignore because none of the options really mean anything or affect anything. It's just stupid.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

I'm glad that I am not the only one. I thought it was silly before release. Civ5 world congress was actually way better than this. At least it was very threatening and you could not ignore it at all.

The resolutions are somewhat cheesy and non impactful. The culture bomb one in particular is bad.

The biggest gripe I had before and still do is the voting on things with civs you still have not met yet. That really gets on my nerves. They should make it work like it did at 5, and have everyone meet by then. Grant a science or culture buff for each civ met before the congress start, which will improve the early scouting game as well.

 

[Jaybe]

I would say you're all bonkers, but I prefer to not give offense; but I DO appreciate the challenges, crises and chaos involved in World Congress. Purchasing the game should not be a ticket to predictability. Tanstaafl.

sosume

 

[SirWill90]

I would say you're all bonkers, but I prefer to not give offense; but I DO appreciate the challenges, crises and chaos involved in World Congress. Purchasing the game should not be a ticket to predictability. Tanstaafl.

sosume

There’s indeed much to be said for challenges, crises and chaos. But the way this has been implemented is just poor. As others have said, it’s a downgrade from the way V did it and parts just flat out don’t make sense. It should have been better thought out and executed. It doesn’t seem unsalvageable with a patch.

 

[FenrisWolf456]

I hope there is such talk. Besides the issue of a world congress whose members can have have had no congress with each other, yes the implementation of the voting leaves much to be desired, not to say “it’s completely counter-intuitive.” Also, how do these resolutions get proposed by the player? Can they be? Or is it always just going to be “player must choose the lesser of two evils seemingly randomly presented by the AI just for the purpose of being a pain” every single (exceedingly often) session? Not to mention the ones where play gets interrupted with the player not even being eligible to vote.

I really dislike it as well and I hope it’s greatly improved very soon.

The voting proposals are randomly selected from a pool of potential proposals for each age. This was to work against how things worked in V, where the top two civs would propose the agenda, so while the player (who was often one of the proposers) would certainly choose things that would benefit them, the AI would often choose something nonsensical, almost always to ban a luxury (hence the "Suleiman bans crabs" meme).

However, the approach to voting has lead to some votes always going one way. As mentioned above, the 100% production to a district's buildings has always come out as City Centre for me as well. And the currency cost reduction one always seems to be Faith.

Though I haven't seen anybody complain that they were too often; most complaints seems to be that it's too long between votes (though that's been mainly related to Diplomatic Victory).

They could do with providing more information for some things as well. Like the ones you can't vote in, a bit of info on what is being voted upon and why I can't vote would be appreciated, otherwise, why even tell me? I can't think of a situation where I shouldn't have some say in the going on. Is it a vote to potentially go to war with an ally? Why can't I cast votes against calling a war? Is it a conquered city state I have had no stake in? Why can't I join a war just on the grounds of being a peace-keeper; sometimes a state can be altruistic.

And at the end of an emergency/competition, would it hurt to use that big empty space in the results pane to detail what you actually win, rather than scrolling down to see the colour of your medal and figuring out which of the listed rewards you are a part of?

Still, overall, I appreciate the World Congress, but do agree that it could use some fine tuning.

 

[Victoria]

So, it is broken and it is not. To me the seem like they have implemented a compromise and fallen flat on their face.

The problem is that before GS you had quite early emergencies... and they were OK, added some spice, a bit random but not a disaster. Then they put the world congress on top but of course it was silly for everyone to meet each other on T20 so they compromised and made it medieval.

So why could we not just meet everyone then like in civ V? I guess because there are era points involved they decided against it, personally I think it is fine. You rock up to a leader meeting and find this ginger white guy encased in some sort of lung device and he says he is from the continent of nocs. Maybe the era points are annulled for meeting after Congress convenes?

So why not have a separate emergency system that plugs into a renaissance congress system? Maybe that was too much hard work? Maybe it is Medieval because making it last longer into the game was just evil.

Rerdless, it is broke to me because it just is so long, can be brutally overridden by a warmonger (in fact a warmonger gets more diplomacy points than not being if they are successful) and the way the victory works is by not voting on anything but yourself... like WTH?... would it not have been better if each successful vote you got added to a dip score? It just feels so contrived ignoring the crap programming and poor compromised start with people in hoodies turning up and voting from behind incensed veils.

My first game I just Toa rushed and bang I had 1K favour. It is worth about 2-3K gold on top which has made a mockery of gold.

 

[Infixo]

the AI would often choose something nonsensical, almost always to ban a luxury (hence the "Suleiman bans crabs" meme)

Please don’t confuse bad idea with bad implementation. The design and ideas of Civ5 were great. The AI was poorly programmed to handle them. Proof? See how AI votes in Vox Populi. Same engine, same concepts, just AI better programmed. No more „bad crabs” horsehockey. AI is voting either to progress its victory or to stall yours. Bans your trade, counter-voting, etc. Really good.
After the livestream with WC i critisized 2 things. First, randomness. Second, 2-level voting. First detaches entire thing from strategy, second makes the results totally unpredictable. Both of them make the WC basically... useless. That is a very sad conclusion for me because I considered WC a core component of Civ5, it makes the diplomacy and whole game actually feel alive and immersive.

 

[Disgustipated]

Rerdless, it is broke to me because it just is so long, can be brutally overridden by a warmonger

Looks at the permanent members of the U.N. Security council and their sordid history. Hmmm.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

The Ai always seems to vote to double great prophet points after all religions have been founded.

 

[Disgustipated]

The Ai always seems to vote to double great prophet points after all religions have been founded.

Actually saw a vote for this pass the first time today. And I thought no way was a great prophet still available, but there was one left after I checked. Though the value of this vote is dubious since all the AI's will benefit from it. Are they really gaining anything? I suppose the ones with more holy sites gain more than those without, but they would have gotten the gp first anyways.

 

[Pietato]

The AI has voted for a whole range of things for me. The problem is the time between votes, and the random nature of the Nobel Prizes.

 

[RealAntithesis]

The topics for votes don't sit well with me. Many don't feel like the kind of things an actual World Congress should be concerned about. And they are presented seemingly randomly, which adds to the disinterest.

 

[CaptainPatch]

I heartily agree with the OP. It seems like the World Congress is just somewhere where a player can get something (no matter how inconsequential) to spend Diplomatic Favor.

Forgive me for mentioning an alien game, but Galactic Civilization III did a massively better job of having a civ-spanning ruling body for broaching meaningful policies and resolutions. Politicking to be the body's Chairbeing was entertaining and sensibly done. And the issues voted on had some in-game significance. In Civ 6, if a resolution doesn't go my way, my reaction is "Meh. So what?"

 

[TomKQT]

I heartily agree with the OP. It seems like the World Congress is just somewhere where a player can get something (no matter how inconsequential) to spend Diplomatic Favor.

Diplomatic Favor is there as a currency for the World Congress. And World Congress is there as a way how to spend Diplomatic Favor. We have a circle.

I unfortunatelly think that World Congress is just a waste of time. The propositions are random, useless and too specific (speed up production of buildings in one specific district etc.). Most of the time I couldn't really care less about the outcome and I don't feel like spending any favor in the voting (what if next time there is something really important .... but even then I still think that I should really save the points for something really important .... etc .... and in the end I don't vote at all, because it's all just crap). But even if you don't care, you have to pick some choices, and - again - you have to be specific (so you have to open all those combo-boxes and pick the faith/gold/production etc.). And then you really don't even understand the result.

For me, it doesn't add anything to the game.

 

[Hammurabbit]

The propositions are random, useless and too specific (speed up production of buildings in one specific district etc.). Most of the time I couldn't really care less about the outcome.

I agree with this. I feel in Civ5, when someone banned crab, and you depended on crab to keep your cities contempt, it was actually a semi-big deal.
For World Congress to be interesting I think the propositions need to be more impactful. Ban strategic resources. Or ban trade of strategic resources. Remove all envoys from a city state, etc. Things that hurt you, or your enemy.

 

[Victoria]

And why can you at least have one congress where you can table something to vote.
You can choose how much DF you spend to table a resolution and the top 2 win.
You would at least feel involved then.

Should congress be encouraging bias trading?

 

[Sekou]

It's a poor interface first and foremost .
Then the resolutions are nearly pointless with little meaningful impact.
Lastly, I have no idea still how votes are allocated. So far I just click a bunch of times on a thumb when I really want something to pass or fail and hope for the best. For anything else, just click once, move along and deal with the results.

It's really bad, imo .

 

[Bitterman]

A world congress is about making proposals and then voting on them in order to modify some aspect of the world which benefits me or damage my enemies' interests. The most important flaws I see on the one depicted in Civ VI:

-Is just plain stupid to be voting something which supposedly affects everyone in the game without knowing everyone in the game. What kind of "World Congress" is this in which the ones voting haven't even met between themselves?

-The things we are voting are called proposals for something. Who makes them, who is proposing them? Why? What sense makes this? Why not some kind of rotatory system in which everyone proposes at least once or something in the line of Civ V, where only those interested in the diplomatic game were able to make the most of it? (as those warmongers interested in war are often the ones who make the most out of their mighty armies).

-Why are most proposals so dispersed and complex? There needs to be A and B, so the votes can cluster and you can learn who has the same interests you has and why and form convenient alliances so you can work against the other block. Right now I vote solely what interests ME, which is only coincidentally the same as someone else.

-Again, how should I use this World Congress to harm, for example, a warmonger who is stomping everyone at his will? I should be able to close markets to him, make his army more expensive to maintain, incite revolts on his territory. This way I can make true use of my diplomacy in response to his army.

And this is without having (yet) attempted a diplomatic victory.