World Congress

[AntSou]

The World Congress mini-game in Civ 6 was just bizarre due to the bi-directional proposals. I'm also not a fan of the enforced design.

Imo, Civs should decide on which side of an issue they are by choosing a side in a resolution. The voting shouldn't be secret either, or known only after the fact. It doesn't even need to be a vote, in fact (though that might be easier for the AI to handle). Whether the proposal passes or not does not actually cause it to be enforced. Instead, Civs gain grievances against one another whenever they are not diplomatically aligned.

This is what I mean, using Civ 6 resolutions as example:

- Ban Mercenary Companies: Civs which are in favour of banning Mercenary Companies gain grievances against another Civ whenever that Civ purchases units with gold;
- Trade Embargo: Civs who vote on embargoing Civ X gain grievances against any Civ which sends trade routes to that Civ;
- Nuclear Weapon Ban: Civs who vote on a ban gain grievances against any Civ each time they add a new nuclear weapon to their arsenal;
- Coal Ban: Civs who vote for a coal ban gain grievances against any Civ using Coal Power plants.

Etc. This makes it more dynamic and less frustrating.

 

[Leyrann]

I also wonder, is what I really want not World congresses, but regional cooperatives? Or perhaps some level of both?

It doesn't seem likely given the expected civ count (although maybe it would work by the late game), but IMO Civ has historically been weak on multilateral pacts. In the real world, you have things like OPEC, NATO, the EU, and the TPP that represent regional pacts, which may have partially-overlapping membership, and provide various benefits to all member states. A multi-lateral defense pact seems like a logical extension of game mechanics, though balancing it could be a challenge. So do multi-lateral (but not whole-world) free trade pacts, and Civ VI already has a Monopolies mechanic (in an optional game mode), forming an international cartel is essentially an extension of that.

Six years ago (wow, time flies), I wrote a proposal for a trade/economic victory (it's still in my signature), and I accidentally came up with the basis for a diplomatic victory as well, which also functioned off of regional cooperation, defense pacts, et cetera, and I still think that's the way to go. I'll just copy-paste the relevant parts from my old post here.

A few notes ahead:
-This was written before the Civ VI World Congress was implemented or announced.
-A few things reference back towards the trade victory that was also in the post but which I didn't copy here. Relevant is that trade routes were a core aspect of the trade victory, and that passive trade routes (akin to Civ IV's trade) were added as a separate mechanic from active trade routes.
-Regarding the mention of Trade Routes and Trade Administration in the Vassalization header, that's another aspect of the Trade victory, where with the right government, trade routes grant significantly more loyalty than they otherwise would.
-Upon actually copying: Spoilered for length.

Spoiler :

Diplomatic Victory
Yeah, diplomatic victory kind of happened while writing this post. Let's dive into some possible mechanics.

Vassalization
The first new mechanic for Diplomatic Victory is Vassalization: If you have at least 6 Envoys with a City-State and at least twice as much as the second place civilization, you will be able to Vassalize the City-State at the cost of 1 Envoy. This will lock you as their Suzerain and block other civilizations from sending Envoys to them, and a DoW on the City-State is a DoW on you. They will, however, lose their shield against loyalty pressure (they will be considered your city for the purpose of loyalty) and if their loyalty reaches 0 you lose an envoy every turn until you only have one envoy more than the second civilization (minimum 3), at which point the City-State is no longer your Vassal (though you'll still be their Suzerain). To be able to counter this, you can move any of your governors to the City-State. Still, I wouldn't advice Vassalizing that City-State in the middle of another civilization unless you're playing with a Trade Administration and have a Trade Route running.

Diplomatic Leagues
The second is the addition of Diplomatic Leagues, which replace the World Congress (which, let's be honest, never really worked). A Diplomatic League can be founded by a major Civilization and will automatically include all Vassals of that Civilization. Other Civilizations and City States can be invited to the Diplomatic League. For Civilizations (who also come with their Vassals, for the record), accepting or declining depends on opinion of you and proximity (and for you it of course depends on what you think is best). For City-States, accepting or declining depends on their Suzerain (they will not join a Diplomatic League if their Suzerain is in another League), what percentage of their received envoys belongs to members in the League, and proximity to the closest member of the League. Diplomatic Leagues would be unlocked somewhere around Diplomatic Service.

Voting
Diplomatic Leagues can vote on various things, and there are two voting systems possible. The first system (default) gives 3 votes to major civilizations and 1 vote to vassals and city-states (where vassals will always vote in favor of their liege), the second system gives 1 vote for every 10 population to every civilization, city state and vassal, rounded up (so if your vassal has 11 pop they get 2 votes). They can vote on various topics. Voting can be initiated by any major civilization, but one civilization cannot initiate the same vote more than once every 20 turns.

1. Form a Defensive Pact. This Pact by definition extends to all entities in the League. If an entity leaves, they leave the Pact, if they join, they join the Pact.
2. Embargo a civilization. This will end all trade routes, passive and active, between the League and a target civilization outside the League. A more realistic version of the World Congress embargo.
3. Free Trade. Extends the range of passive trade routes from the League to civilizations outside the League. Mutually exclusive with Trade Tariffs; one of these two is always active.
4. Trade Tariffs. +20% gold from passive trade routes with civilizations outside the League. Mutually exclusive with Trade Barriers; active by default.
5. Form Alliance. If passed, civilizations will no longer declare war by themselves. Instead, a major civilization can, at any time, initiate voting for a war (with any casus belli available to them). If this vote passes, all entities in the League will declare war together. If this vote fails, the civilization that initiated the vote has the choice to declare war by themselves, but doing so will kick them from the League (together with their vassals).
6. Change voting type. Can be initiated no more than once every 30 turns, independent of civilization.
7. Appoint Leader. Formally appoint one of the faction's major civilizations as leader of the League. By default assigned to the civilization that founded the League.
8. Merge Leagues. Is voted on by two different Leagues to merge them into one League (both need to pass the vote). The leader of the League that has a higher total vote count in the new League becomes the League Leader. If two Leagues have different voting types, the population voting type will be selected.

Emergencies
Emergencies are integrated into Diplomatic Leagues, and when the requirements are triggered a civilization can fire an Emergency for their Diplomatic League; otherwise Emergencies are unchanged. The exception is a Religious Emergency, which is fired by the head of religion.

Diplomatic Victory
A League Leader wins a Diplomatic Victory if his League consists of at least 80% of the World Population and he has been appointed for at least 40 turns. [note that this makes it possible to avoid a Diplomatic Victory occurring by regularly rotating through Leaders]

I also like @AntSou's proposal right above my post, this could actually be implemented in addition to the above mechanism, with that version containing all civilizations (and being the subject of power plays between the Diplomatic Leagues).

 

[stealth_nsk]

I really like what we've seen so far in Civ 7, which includes influence mechanics spent on civ vs. civ basis. It looks way better than Civ 6 influence spent on global decisions. Honestly, if there will be any kind of global council, I want it to have more reasons to exist than just simulating UN or implementing diplomatic victory. Maybe if they could create resolutions, which are really meaningful (like in SMAC), that would work.

If there's no real reason for global council to exist, I'd be totally happy without it.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Though I’m a big fan of the above proposals, I would potentially suggest the reason diplo sucked in civ6 is that civ’s design doesn’t lend itself to anything that involves these randomly and arbitrarily set buffs and debuffs. One of the things that you can always feel in conflicts in civ is cause and effect.

Maybe they could replace the world congress by a more comprehensive diplomatic crisis system? Something that helps people coordinate (or prevent) world wars.

The crisis system in civ 6 could be improved significantly by taking a page out of paradox games.

I would maybe agree. I don’t think civ is traditionally suited to this because it’s not a game that does much with over screens, scenarios, etc, but imo scenarios were a missed opportunity in 6, and could easily be featured in 7 with the new depth the game is offering. not to mention many ppl in this thread have mentioned how emergencies (scenarios by another name) have been their favorite part of diplo in civ 6.

i would love peacekeeping as an actual function in civ 7 beyond the abstract mess that grievances are. For example, sanctions are something i’d like to see, whether you can sanction governments for who they ally with, what their government type is, or if they’ve conducted war. A peacekeeper unit who can kinda prevent armies from proceeding but can only be deployed between wars between third parties where one is a clear aggressor, or in “civil wars” where there’s a rebellion could also be cool.

One thing that would be hard to implement but I’d like to see as a UN nerd is the UN’s various departments be featured/implemented. For example, if Civ wants to take 4-5 UN organs/committees/departments and incorporate them such that say, the UN habitat department’s urbanizing efforts push cities to build 3 buildings in a tile instead of 2 within the next 50 turns, games and priorities could be shaken up to prioritize taking advantage of a major gameplay change that could swing momentum towards those who make use of it.

The World Congress mini-game in Civ 6 was just bizarre due to the bi-directional proposals. I'm also not a fan of the enforced design.

agreed, i think it needed a little bit more cooking.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I'm hoping the Age 3 Victory conditions are related to solving age 3 crises in some way; like you win the Diplomatic Victory if you successfully rally the world to do something about climate change.

I'm still stuck on the timing of the start of the Modern age. We know climate change will be in the game because Ed said it would have been read as a statement to have removed it after it appeared in Civ 6. I struggle to see how it fits for the majority of Era 3, though.

The world at war, the development of atomic weapons and avoiding global nuclear holocaust seem more fitting to me as the culmination / crisis of Era 3. Empires collapsed, new ideologies replaced old ones, 100s of new independent states arose between 1900-1950 - which I know has not been confirmed as the end date for Era 3, but still leads me to go hmmm? These are the topics that, to me, could form the basis for an end-of-Era 3 crisis, which leads into a DLC-based Era 4 Information Age that exists solely in my imagination, but which would be a more natural home for climate change.

Also, to be clear, I don't believe there is a crisis for Era 3, only for Eras 1 and 2. But that doesn't eliminate your point that the victory conditions could be tied to a crisis-like ending of the game. They may also be divorced from that and be like the standard space race victories we've seen in the past.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I'm hoping there's an Age 3 Crisis you need to survive to achieve an Age 3 victory condition, if only because the modern age has plenty of fodder for crises. Super Pandemics, World War 3, Climate Change, the Internet...

 

[Leyrann]

We know climate change will be in the game because Ed said it would have been read as a statement to have removed it after it appeared in Civ 6.

That's a weird thing to say. Climate change has repeatedly appeared in or been absent from games of Civ. I know for a fact that Civ 2 had it, and I'm pretty sure neither Civ 4 nor Civ 5 did.

I struggle to see how it fits for the majority of Era 3, though.

It could be a crisis. As could global wars, nuclear war, running out of natural resources, an AI uprising, I mean, just fill in your own favorite current doomsday preachings.

Super Pandemics

Obligatory reminder that in medieval times they wouldn't even have noticed covid because it's so benign compared to the diseases they regularly had to deal with at the time.

Typhus? 40% fatality rate.
Smallpox? 30% fatality rate, with a spreading rate at least on par with covid or colds. Also, permanent disfigurement or blindness.
Tuberculosis? 50% fatality rate.
Measles? Up to 10% fatality rate in people with malnutrition, significantly weakens the immune system for several years (this kills more people than the disease itself), can cause blindness.
The Plague? Often as high as 90% fatality rate in medieval times.

Meanwhile, covid? With modern treatment, ~0.1%. Without it, perhaps it would be as high as 1%, but many of the people who died from it would've probably died years earlier to another disease without modern healthcare, so it's unlikely to be much higher than that.

Covid is bad in modern times, but to a time traveler from the 15th century, 2020 would look like heaven in terms of not dying from disease.

 

[Professor Phobo]

Covid was just a regular pandemic. A super pandemic, like the board game or the TV show Survivors, now that would be a crisis.

 

[Leyrann]

Covid was just a regular pandemic. A super pandemic, like the board game or the TV show Survivors, now that would be a crisis.

A regular pandemic in modern times. Again, it wouldn't even be a blip in the radar in medieval times.

Also, "super pandemic" sounds like a pseudoscientific scaremonger concept to me...

 

[Professor Phobo]

A regular pandemic in modern times. Again, it wouldn't even be a blip in the radar in medieval times.

Also, "super pandemic" sounds like a pseudoscientific scaremonger concept to me...

Zombies!

But there are a lot of potential crises for a modern age and I love the board game Pandemic, so I'm tossing that one into the suggestion hat.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

That's a weird thing to say. Climate change has repeatedly appeared in or been absent from games of Civ. I know for a fact that Civ 2 had it, and I'm pretty sure neither Civ 4 nor Civ 5 did.

In the context of the quote it makes more sense. Beach felt that removing climate change after including it was a tacit admission that it’s a crisis that isn’t important enough to the modern age to be a key feature of it. I think that’s a fair reading, especially as it’s only become more severe since it was first introduced (in the series at large, and since gathering storm specifically)

Obligatory reminder that in medieval times they wouldn't even have noticed covid because it's so benign compared to the diseases they regularly had to deal with at the time.

Typhus? 40% fatality rate.
Smallpox? 30% fatality rate, with a spreading rate at least on par with covid or colds. Also, permanent disfigurement or blindness.
Tuberculosis? 50% fatality rate.
Measles? Up to 10% fatality rate in people with malnutrition, significantly weakens the immune system for several years (this kills more people than the disease itself), can cause blindness.
The Plague? Often as high as 90% fatality rate in medieval times.

Meanwhile, covid? With modern treatment, ~0.1%. Without it, perhaps it would be as high as 1%, but many of the people who died from it would've probably died years earlier to another disease without modern healthcare, so it's unlikely to be much higher than that.

Yes, but I don’t think comparing things to medieval times is helpful in this context. Our global supply chains and systems are far more delicate than they were in the medieval era, where things tended to be insular by default and trade was like a “bonus”—for example, France didn’t *need* anything from China to survive in the 1400s. Now they definitely do. A 1% mortality disease would still kill so many people that these supply chains would be disrupted. Now we’re facing down the possibility of an Avian Flu pandemic, with people starting to be infected from their cattle during peak fair and harvest season in the Americas (and west at-large). The Avian flu has a 50% mortality rate in humans at-present (tho if it evolved enough to spread human to human, scientists do predict it would be less lethal). We also know that bacteria and viruses trapped in permafrost can revive themselves and infect humans, and we would not have any natural immunity for these illnesses. Not to mention there’s already demonstrable proof that tropical mosquito-borne illnesses are being found in the global north due to the expansion of mosquito ranges and lack of consistently cold winters to kill off mosquitos. Illnesses we eradicated in certain locales like polio are springing back up in humanitarian crises zones like Gaza.

A “super pandemic” is definitely a sci-fi apocalyptic myth, but the fact that infectious diseases are more likely to disrupt society with climate change and increased globalization is undeniable. It’s not one massive 80% mortality event that could pose a major threat, it’s many dangerous illnesses that have 1% mortality that can repeatedly disrupt society, as well as the growing resistance to making concessions to protect ourselves from it (see: the deterioration of public health in the global north—official CDC policy doesn’t even recommend quarantine for lice anymore, let alone illnesses that present genuine risks to the immunocompromised)

in other words, we have unique societal conditions making even one single pandemic a global disruptive event, the comparison isn’t with medieval societal collapse, it’s what will collapse our societies now.

 

[Professor Phobo]

Plus it's a video game with a certain heightened level of reality. They could say it's bioterrorism or "mega-smallpox" or something to have a late game disease crisis. If they have disease/plague mechanics it'd be unlikely for those to just vanish for the late game, after all.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

i forgot to mention this earlier but if measles’ immunocompromising effects are worth noting in the medieval era, covid’s are worth noting in the present day as well, especially since we’re facing other pandemics and epidemics already—monkeypox, avian flu, etc.

covid’s been noted to permanently damage the heart and brain, increase the likelihood for diabetes and permanently weaken your immune system.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Plus it's a video game with a certain heightened level of reality. They could say it's bioterrorism or "mega-smallpox" or something to have a late game disease crisis. If they have disease/plague mechanics it'd be unlikely for those to just vanish for the late game, after all.

population and food penalties of pandemics in early game could transition to commercial and industrial penalties after discovery of sanitation and “advanced medical techniques”, perhaps

having a disease spread could pause production for 5-10 turns and have a heavy expenditure cost

 

[AriochIV]

The World Congress mini-game in Civ 6 was just bizarre due to the bi-directional proposals.

Yeah, the fact that your votes could count toward the exact opposite of what you wanted was pretty damn stupid.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I'm trying to come up with an appropriate Civ name for a super disease. Captain Sids? Does that track? Is there crossover between Civ fans and Stephen King fans?

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Yeah, the fact that your votes could count toward the exact opposite of what you wanted was pretty damn stupid.

> 10 votes for more diplo points to me

> 11 ppl vote to lessen diplo points, 8 of them are for basil, but because i voted for myself 10 times and 11 vote to lose diplo points, i lose them

a mind-numbing level of poor design choices.

 

[AntSou]

I'm trying to come up with an appropriate Civ name for a super disease. Captain Sids? Does that track? Is there crossover between Civ fans and Stephen King fans?

Captain Sids sounds unexpectedly good

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I just play Civ6 with a mod that totally disables World Congress

 

[Disgustipated]

World congress being mostly pointless is actually realistic since the U.N. has become that way.

All I ask if for the love of god stop banning luxuries.