[GS] World Congress Voting Mechanism Is Flawed?

[Atlas627]

Except real-world voting is kept to the simplest precisely because politics are complicated. The last thing you want is a convoluted voting system with loopholes to add to the mess.

The voting system is simple, but the consequences are not straightforward. How to manipulate that system so you get the results you want is not straightforward.

This is a game, politics is just a theme. The mechanic is interesting, and evokes the theme. If it exactly matched real-world UN that would not be a very good game mechanic. Since there is no reasonable way to make voting coalitions with the AI, having a simple Yes/No/Abstain vote would give the player no agency.

Also, even if we assume that the current system is fine and adds "a layer of complexity"...we're talking about the Civ 6 AI. Are we really expecting them to be capable of figuring these things out and min-maxing? For now, their votes seem very straightforward: always for their own benefit, and bandwagon against the DipV runaway. Outside of that, they are voting without any strategy other than "My CIV-ica first".

No, I'm not expecting the AI to do it. Does that mean we should have boring game mechanics? If all we have are math puzzles for game mechanics (which a strategy game mostly is), then they'd better be damn-complicated ones or the player is going to be very bored very quickly. The few game mechanics we have in the game that are not just math problems are predicting strategies of other players, which includes this version of the World Congress. I don't see a problem with it being convoluted (not that I think it is, either).

 

[DWilson]

I like the voting mechanic as is, but agree that having more ways to predict the AI's behavior would be a good addition.

Espionage and diplomatic visibility should be more enlightening, and an opportunity to bribe for visibility would also be cool (I pay you 40 gold for info on how you intend to vote).

 

[kaltorak]

Totally agree, and good example. In your example it's like Mali is actually voting against themselves... Bad design. For this to work, there should be 2 rounds of votes, otherwise you are harming yourself too often.

 

[Human Crouton]

It's impressive that Firaxis came up with a voting system that is so unintuitive and dumb that it is probably unique to GS across all of human history.

 

[Kibikus]

Just another example I just saw on reddit of how flawed the voting system is:

Surely Outcome B: Wilhelmina should be the result of the vote, but somehow Robert the Bruce gets the DVPs.

 

[DemonMaster]

The B side (to remove DVP) lost and A (to add DVP to someone) won. The votes on the winning side determined who got the DVP.

Even if we would have done two separate voting rounds, the result would have been the same.

That said. One thing that is missing is information about what various AI likes and not. So hopefully FXS will add more of that.

 

[Amrunril]

I've actually found the system more usable in practice then I predicted from the previews, but it's still very much non-ideal. The A and B groupings are definitely problematic in many cases, given that a civ's preferences are more likely to be A>B>B>A than A>A>B>B. An issue that hasn't been touched on as much, though, is the sheer number of options in each vote, sometimes as many as twice the number of voters. 8 civs are often going to split their votes 6 or 7 ways, allowing the winning option to succeed with only a tiny plurality of votes. Real world voting systems address this (albeit imperfectly) either by runoffs system or by voters coordinating beforehand to form coalitions around a smaller number of options. Civ VI doesn't allow either of these options (at least in single player), which means that these small plurality wins are not just possible but expected.

 

[kaltorak]

I've actually found the system more usable in practice then I predicted from the previews, but it's still very much non-ideal. The A and B groupings are definitely problematic in many cases, given that a civ's preferences are more likely to be A>B>B>A than A>A>B>B. An issue that hasn't been touched on as much, though, is the sheer number of options in each vote, sometimes as many as twice the number of voters. 8 civs are often going to split their votes 6 or 7 ways, allowing the winning option to succeed with only a tiny plurality of votes. Real world voting systems address this (albeit imperfectly) either by runoffs system or by voters coordinating beforehand to form coalitions around a smaller number of options. Civ VI doesn't allow either of these options (at least in single player), which means that these small plurality wins are not just possible but expected.

Agree on this too. It's a pity, since I like diplomacy and want as many options as possible. But this is true, not only A vs B is a problem, but also the amount of target options in each vote. That makes the outcome too random, since maybe 5 civs with a total of 10 votes would hate an outcome that wins, bc another civ with 3 votes chooses it, while those 5 civs split their 2 votes.

 

[Forster]

I don't think you should be voting in the world congress until you've met all the other civs.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I don't think you should be voting in the world congress until you've met all the other civs.

In a vacuum I agree, but that would hurt the civs geared towards diplomacy too much. They want the mechanic to come up earlier than that.