I don't care for the UN much.

[Willem]

Why should I be forced to change my civics choices because of a resolution, why not just a diplomatic penalty for not going along? I can see the non-proliferation being a binding thing since it would be very unbalancing for the human to have nukes when the rest of the world doesn't, but why force the civics on everyone? The trade resolutions are kind of a no brainer really, since they only benefit the player if passed.

[TheHateMale]

You can turn the UN off if these annoy you.

Personally, I like forcing Saladin into free religion.

Diplomatic penalties would have no effect in multiplayer. It would also be tremendously unfair to force all the AIs to do something you don't have to, although you could use the WorldBuilder to do that if you really want.

[Willem]

Originally posted by TheHateMale

Diplomatic penalties would have no effect in multiplayer. It would also be tremendously unfair to force all the AIs to do something you don't have to, although you could use the WorldBuilder to do that if you really want.

Good point about the multiplayer, but maybe some other arrangement could be made for that. Like a trade penalty. In fact, that could be one the consequences of not abiding in SP as well.

As for the AI, why does it necessarily have to abide with the ruling? Each civ could make a choice on their own whether to switch or not, with the same penalties the human faces if it doesn't. It can't be that hard to program a yes or no response. And some penalties would be more severe than others, like a civ that used Police State or Slavery.

Or better yet, just drop those resolutions altogether and let everyone choose the type of government they want. Though give those forms that don't adhere to the principles of the UN certain disadvantages. Like increased unhappiness, or loss of productivity or trade etc.

[TheHateMale]

A yes/no response on its own would be very simple, but for an AI to implement it, it would require a yes/no response in relation to every other possible choice it could make - in short doubling its work.

One of the major points that the designers have said about this game is you have to live with your decisions - even ones made near the beginning of the game can influence the endgame. If you play with/don't run the UN, you may well be forced into civic configurations that are sub-optimal for you.

[Willem]

So what's wrong with not having those resolutions at all. Just have a resolution stating that the UN believes in certain civics, and it's up to each civ whether they want to adhere to them or not. By doing so, they get some advantages in trade etc. By not doing so they suffer penalties, like a sanction. And some forms get more of a penalty that others.

Forcing the player to adopt certain civics kind of defeats the whole purpose of having them. What's the point of giving us these choices if they're just going to take them away from us anyway?

[Strategist83]

[SIZE=1]Forcing the player to adopt certain civics kind of defeats the whole purpose of having them. What's the point of giving us these choices if they're just going to take them away from us anyway?

The UN only enters the scene at the later stages of the game. Besides, the UN is meant to be annoying for 'bad' states with evil civics.

[clarkcd]

I'd like to see something like the effect of not having Emancipation implemented with relation to UN mandated civics. For each civ that follows the UN you could have 1 unhappy face. Not a sanction exactly and you still can run a civic against the UN but in larger maps it could cripple your economy.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Strategist83


The UN only enters the scene at the later stages of the game. Besides, the UN is meant to be annoying for 'bad' states with evil civics.

So how effective is the real UN at enforcing it's ideals over nations of the world? Why should the ingame be this almighty power that no one can oppose? There's other ways of implementing responses to violations, we don't need to be automatically forced to comply. And I think it might be more interesting in the game if there were just penalties instead.

[Chronus9]

Once a resolution is passed, can it not be repealed? The option seemed there but I didn't actually try it.

[TheHateMale]

Bring the same option up for vote again, and vote against it. Hope some of the other civs do as well.

[Enigma_Nova]

And be sure to pre-emptively invade those that you know will not.

[Saurus]

The U.N sure is the most useless concept in the game I think. It's just put into the game as cosmetics whitout any true function.
In most of my games someone wins a spacerace victory at about the time U.N has been in existence for about 10-20 turns. It changes nothing! Who cares if Salladin is forced to adopt free religion for the last 10 turns of the game?


But the U.N could be made both useful and fun ... Maybe there could be a resolution witch would prevent or pospone the Space-Race victory in a way or another...like making some of the Space-ship modules more expensive due to enivormental reasons or whatever...

[Destroyer]

I agree, vast amount of the game are useless - the UN being one of them.

First, i hate diplomatic victories, so by turning this off, the UN is removed completely, which is so stupid.

Secondly, it should follow the SMAC model more closely.

Thirdly, you should have the option of disregarding the UN completely creating sanctions.

Forthly, decalring war on any UN affiliated nation should result in all UN nations declaring war back.

In fact, NATO and Soviet style alliances should pre-empt the UN, perhaps based on Civics.

There is so much you can do with this, but it has not been really developed in 4 generations. Same with spying and starship building.

[TheHateMale]

UN with resolutions only would be cool.

I think it was mentioned before that although SMAC had more options for stuff, the AI had difficulties dealing with it. Having never played the game I can't really comment on it though.

Looking at the options you want, it'd probably work if you modded the UN to be opt-in. Opting in should automatically give you the +1 trade routes (to make it beneficial) and sign you up for a mutual defense pact with everyone else who opted in. There'd probably be a relations bonus between members as well, like when you share a religion. Ignoring resolutions would stop the trade route bonus and possibly the mutual defense pact. Perhaps there could be automatic Open Borders with other members as well. This would probably work best if Diplo win was disabled at the same time.

For the NATO/Soviet model you could have a temporary version of the permanent alliance (that lasted 40 turns or whatever depending on game speed). I don't know how this could be implemented though with regards to tech sharing.

It would certainly make for an interesting mod.

[johnmcd]

Whatever happens it should happen earlier, the League of Nations is a perfectly good precursor.