This is the 3rd in our 3 part series digging in to the world congress.
In this one, we are talking about the diplomatic victory condition.
First a Refresher
A reminder on what we need to get a DV today.
At first glance, it would seem that the Global Hegemony is the key victory point for this win condition....but its not. Hegemony is "relatively easy" to acquire, all you have to do is get 42 votes and you win. That's a lot of votes but its doable.
The real challenge is the UN and WI proposals. Now that the AI is highly aware of DV countering, the AI will do everything in its power to thwart the passing of these proposals. And that often requires much more than 42 votes, you need to have more votes than the entire rest of the world combined to get these passed reliably. Now UN is hard enough, WI is even harder, because not only do you have to get it passed....you have to hold it. The AI will often immediately start repealing WI at every oppurtunity, so you may get one shot at hegemony before its repealed, and you are unlikely to get it passed again.
In the old days, the two entry proposals were relatively easy to get passed with good vote totals, maybe a trade or two....and WI you could often pass by proposing an ideology that wasn't yours to get buy-in from other people. But the AI is too smart for that now, and therefore, DV is extremely hard to get through.
The Multiplayer Problem
The issue is compounded in MP, as humans are even more ruthless than the AI. Again, unless you have more votes than all others players combined, they will never let these proposals through the door. DV might as well not exist in MP games.
Solutioning
New Global Hegemony requirements
The idea here is to push back the tech at which the DV unlock occurs (from Nuclear Fission to Advanced Ballistics as the fastest path...so +3 techs), but we remove the secondary roadblocks. A DV player can still try and pass WI and WC Expansion to secure more votes for the hegemony, but that is no longer a hard requirement. This slows down the fastest possible DV, but makes a standard DV much more possible without having to be so utterly dominant in votes.
In this one, we are talking about the diplomatic victory condition.
First a Refresher
A reminder on what we need to get a DV today.
- Pass the United Nations proposal (tech: Atomic Theory)
- Pass the World Ideology proposal (tech: Nuclear Fission)
- Either get to Info era or wait till half the civs are in Atomic (activates final form of the UN).
- Pass the Global Hegemony proposal, which requires 42 votes on Standard Map settings.
At first glance, it would seem that the Global Hegemony is the key victory point for this win condition....but its not. Hegemony is "relatively easy" to acquire, all you have to do is get 42 votes and you win. That's a lot of votes but its doable.
The real challenge is the UN and WI proposals. Now that the AI is highly aware of DV countering, the AI will do everything in its power to thwart the passing of these proposals. And that often requires much more than 42 votes, you need to have more votes than the entire rest of the world combined to get these passed reliably. Now UN is hard enough, WI is even harder, because not only do you have to get it passed....you have to hold it. The AI will often immediately start repealing WI at every oppurtunity, so you may get one shot at hegemony before its repealed, and you are unlikely to get it passed again.
In the old days, the two entry proposals were relatively easy to get passed with good vote totals, maybe a trade or two....and WI you could often pass by proposing an ideology that wasn't yours to get buy-in from other people. But the AI is too smart for that now, and therefore, DV is extremely hard to get through.
The Multiplayer Problem
The issue is compounded in MP, as humans are even more ruthless than the AI. Again, unless you have more votes than all others players combined, they will never let these proposals through the door. DV might as well not exist in MP games.
Solutioning
New Global Hegemony requirements
- United Nations is active, which occurs when a player reaches the info era (no longer proposal driven).
- Must possess an ideology.
- Renamed to "World Congress Expansion"
- Provide same benefits as now
- Does not unlock the United Nations.
The idea here is to push back the tech at which the DV unlock occurs (from Nuclear Fission to Advanced Ballistics as the fastest path...so +3 techs), but we remove the secondary roadblocks. A DV player can still try and pass WI and WC Expansion to secure more votes for the hegemony, but that is no longer a hard requirement. This slows down the fastest possible DV, but makes a standard DV much more possible without having to be so utterly dominant in votes.