World Congress Review: Part 3 (Diplomatic Victory)

[Stalker0]

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.

• 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.

The Problem, Hegemony is not the victory condition.
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 The AI will often immediately start repealing WI at every oppurtunity, so you may get one shot at hegemony before its repealed, and you are unlikely to get it passed again.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.

Updated United Nations proposal

• 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.

 

[azum4roll]

Either get to Info era or wait till half the civs are in Atomic (activates final form of the UN).

Still not fixed? This shouldn't be a thing in VP.

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.

Not really. If you don't lead by that much, the diplo victory contender will happily propose and vote for these.

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.

Updated United Nations proposal

• Renamed to "World Congress Expansion"
• Provide same benefits as now
• Does not unlock the United Nations.

World Ideology then has the sole purpose of screwing the CV leader, by generating Discontent on their ideology and make them impossible to win.

 

[Stalker0]

World Ideology then has the sole purpose of screwing the CV leader, by generating Discontent on their ideology and make them impossible to win.

And generating more votes of course. We can argue whether WI is too much of a CV screw as well, happy to debate that point.

 

[azum4roll]

And generating more votes of course. We can argue whether WI is too much of a CV screw as well, happy to debate that point.

When everyone is acting against you, you don't want to give everyone X votes.

 

[Diomedes_]

I think you're totally right to identify the conditions for even having a hegemony vote as a big part of the problem with the DV, but I think fundamentally the main problem is with how you acquire votes. Like the SV and CV both rest upon a few really powerful policies/wonders/proposals/techs, but the way in which you interact with those is totally different than how you interact with the ones that secure you the DV.

You can win an SV or a CV without all or even any of the most helpful policies/wonders/proposals/techs, but it is essentially impossible to win a DV without the Consulates policy, Palace of Westminster, United Nations, or any of the other sources of free votes. If you compare the WC proposals relating to SV, CV, and DV, there is a stark difference between how the player utilizes them. Building the ISS doesn't give you free spaceship parts or exclusive access to the final spaceship part necessary to win. Passing the Passport System or getting the Olympic Village only give you percentage modifiers on your existing tourism output, and don't give a source of free flat tourism. Science Initiative or Endowment for the arts do not just give free GPs. For both the SV and CV (the SV especially), the proposals that help you win with that victory type require active utilization by the player to be strong. For one, you have to put production into the projects to get the benefits, and for two you have to actively specialize your strategy to make the most of their benefits. But the most important factor here is that in the pursuit of an SV or CV, passing these helpful proposals does not get easier, i.e. pursuing an SV or CV does not usually give you more votes at the WC.

Compare this to the DV, where not only are there a number of more or less "free" sources of votes that can be locked down by a single player, but also where some of the most important sources of votes or ways to block your opponents are granted to you by virtue of how many votes you already control. Sure, many of your votes are going to come from CS allies and embassies, which is a pretty dynamic mechanic. But most of the votes that push you over the top and into a hegemonic and then winning position are going to come from "free" sources and congress proposals you can only pass if you already have a lot of votes. Sure, for the SV or CV having better science or culture output makes getting those victories and the helpful policies/wonders/proposals/techs needed to secure them easier, but almost all of the bonuses you get towards the SV and CV are neither exclusive or straight-up make the victory condition easier to reach, and just in general the SV and CV feel much more dynamic, though they still have their problems. Like imagine if Olympic Village just straight-up lowered the number of civs you had to be influential with to win, or if the ISS made it so that you only had to build 1 booster instead of 3. That would feel pretty boring and broken, right? Well isn't that just essentially how all of the sources of free votes work for the DV?

 

[Rekk]

I think that a DV player shouldn't need to completely control congress in order to progress their victory condition. This essentially requires proposals where the DV player benefits, but other players benefit almost as much. DV is then navigating proposals so that the DV player comes out on top without angering everyone too much until it's too late, without bludgeoning everyone over the head with it (which is what Sphere of Influence, World Religion, World Ideology, etc. do).

 

[Diomedes_]

After thinking about it a bit, I also think one of the key aspects of late game diplo in Civ is that it is hyper-Realist, in like the Hobbesian sense of the word. IRL, countries are not trying to "win," but instead are just trying to survive. Sometimes countries believe survival requires domination, but for most they do not. At least for me, my real-world reference for how international politics/power dynamics work is useless in Civ, as weaker players are incentivized to take pretty wild risks to try to win from a bad position, rather than make safe decisions to ensure their survival. Like if one was to make VP late game diplo play out more like IRL politics using existing game mechanics, we would probably see way more voluntary vassalage and weaker civs paying massive amounts for defensive pacts.

I'm not sure if diplo-wise Civ should be exactly like IRL, as there is definitely something fun about the chaos of the late game with players just throwing haymakers at each other, but I do think making AIs pursue security a little more and trying to win the game a little less would probably open up some good opportunities for making the DV a more interesting victory condition, and likely SV and CV also as a side effect. Like imagine if voluntary vassalage were more common and we gave Masters a decent number of votes per vassal, then there's a whole new way to get votes. Or if weaker civs were willing to sign defensive pacts with stronger civs even if they had significant costs, then as a strong civ you could trade protection for votes. We could even add in temporary defensive pacts to help facilitate this very mechanic (i.e. making protection dependent on WC support).

 

[CppMaster]

After thinking about it a bit, I also think one of the key aspects of late game diplo in Civ is that it is hyper-Realist, in like the Hobbesian sense of the word. IRL, countries are not trying to "win," but instead are just trying to survive. Sometimes countries believe survival requires domination, but for most it does not. At least for me, my real-world reference for how international politics/power dynamics work is useless in Civ, as weaker players are incentivized to take pretty wild risks to try to win from a bad position, rather than make safe decisions to ensure their survival. Like if one was to make VP late game diplo play out more like IRL politics using existing game mechanics, we would probably see way more voluntary vassalage and weaker civs paying massive amounts for defensive pacts.

I'm not sure if diplo-wise Civ should be exactly like IRL, as there is definitely something fun about the chaos of the late game with players just throwing haymakers at each other, but I do think making AIs pursue security a little more and trying to win the game a little less would probably open up some good opportunities for making the DV a more interesting victory condition, and likely SV and CV also as a side effect. Like imagine if voluntary vassalage were more common and we gave Masters a decent number of votes per vassal, then there's a whole new way to get votes. Or if weaker civs were willing to sign defensive pacts with stronger civs even if they had significant costs, then as a strong civ you could trade protection for votes. We could even add in temporary defensive pacts to help facilitate this very mechanic (i.e. making protection dependent on WC support).

Yeah, I agree. AI should also consider being 2rd or 3rd instead of focusing on either being 1st or losing.