Add more depth to the UN?

[greenday_234]

Personally I like the idea of the UN being in civ4, however I find the fact that the only things to vote on are civics is kinda boring after a while. I wish they would add trade embargoes, peacekeeping operations, drawbacks for the civic votes already in the game, etc. Do you feel the same way? please vote.

P.S. Before voting please remember that this is a game, I'm not interested in launching into a discussion on how the UN is in real life. As with many other elements in Civ4, due to complexity, there are things that are unrealistic. I'm not necessarily looking for realism, I'm looking for a good game.

[Son of David]

It would be awesome to be able to declare a civ as a 'rogue nation' and force everyone to go to war with them or stop trading with them if the vote gets a majority.

Could see possibilities for endless mayhem and destruction there. Yes please!

[Nugog]

It would be great if a civ could opt to go against the UN - and suffer the consequences, be that anything from trade embargoes to invasion!

[Zoid]

All this sound like a very good idea. I want to bend the UN to my will, just like the americans do

[Qwertqwert]

BANANA!!!

[Ijuin]

Here's a shopping list of what I would like to see:

1: Declare/End Embargo on X--requires 50% of votes to pass; nations may disobey at the cost of -5 regard from all other nations.

2: Declare/End War on X--requires 40% of votes to pass, but only nations voting "yes" are bound to obey it
.
2: Force Declare/End War on X--requires 60% of votes to pass; all nations are forced to obey it.

3: Freedom of Information Act: Requires 50% of votes to pass. All nations share maps every 4 turns until Act is repealed unless they are at war with each other.

4: Anti-Espionage Act: Requires 50% of votes to pass. Bans the construction of Spy units by all nations. Nations may disobey at the cost of -5 regard from all other nations.

5: Global Adopt Civic X--same as global adopt civic resolutions already available, but can choose ANY civic (except for the primitive ones that give no benefit). Requires 5-% of votes to pass. Nations may disobey at the cost of -5 regard from all other nations.

6: Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty: Requires 50% of votes to pass. All ICBM units worldwide are immediately disbanded.

[Axxaer]

Definitely. The UN is practically pointlessly at the moment other than for winning the game. I feel that so much more could be done with it.

[Overcast32]

Plus, going against what the UN says might be kinda fun - penalties or no, it would make the game more interesting.

[nbarclay]

I think the U.N. could be made more interesting, but I strongly oppose doing so in a heavy-handed way. The U.N. should be a body through which nations work together to pursue shared goals (including dealing with rogue nations), not something that functions essentially as a world government that civs have no real choice but to obey. When the U.N. is too powerful, I think it does more harm in taking away choices than it does good in adding interesting possibilities.

I think the key to making the U.N. more interesting and useful would be to add the concept of a "rogue nation" and add some special diplomatic options with respect to rogue nations. I can envision three ways a nation could be declared rogue.

1) Change the global civics mechanism so that civs have the option of refusing to adopt a global civic. Civs that disobey a U.N. mandate become viewed as rogue nations by those that obey the mandate. In addition, civs that obey the U.N. mandate and those that disobey it suffer a diplomatic penalty with respect to each other. The extent of the penalty would depend on how much the civic chosen is at odds with the global civic. (For example, Slavery is the exact opposite of Emancipation, and would therefore incur the highest penalty for violating global emancipation.) In some cases, the clash of ideologies between well-behaved civs and rogues would have similar diplomatic impacts in both directions - for example, a theocratic civ could be just as opposed to religious freedom as a civ with religious freedom is to theocracy. In others, the diplomatic effect would be highly asymmetrical – for example, there is a lot more reason for a civ with emancipation to get angry about another civ’s practicing slavery than there is for a civ with slavery to get angry over another civ’s following emancipation.

2) If a civ declares war on another civ that did not already have bad relations with it, it can be treated as a rogue nation for the duration of the war. I'd probably tie that to willingness to have open borders. If you declare war on a civ that is willing to have open borders with you, you can be treated as a rogue. But if a nation is hostile enough that it is unwilling to consider open borders, declaring war on it does not in and of itself make you a rogue. (Note that this approach would guarantee that you could always get through a civ's territory without becoming a rogue. Either you can get an open borders agreement, or you're allowed to declare war.)

3) Going on a conquest spree against multiple nations within a relatively short period of time, especially fighting them essentially one at a time, would create a more lasting rogue status, with a civ being viewed as more of a rogue as it conquers more territory.

Once a nation attains rogue status, some new diplomatic options would open up.

1) Declare an embargo against the rogue. Civs could violate the embargo, but the effects of doing so would be essentially the same as the effects of violating a global civic: a diplomatic penalty and being viewed as a rogue yourself.

2) Initiate a "Police Action" against the rogue, calling on nations to declare war on the rogue until it is willing to stop being a rogue. No civ is required to participate, but civs that do participate get a +2 diplomatic bonus with respect to each other and a +1 bonus from civs that support the police action but don't actually join the fighting. Those diplomatic bonuses could last until, to pick a number off the top of my head, 50 turns after the police action is over. Civs participating in a police action are expected to make peace when the rogue agrees to stop its rogue behavior or the U.N. calls a halt to the police action, and are viewed as aggressors themselves if they don't.

3) Suspend the rogue's participation in the U.N., thereby rendering it unable to vote or to have a candidacy for Secretary General until the suspension is lifted.

Once any of these actions are initiated, they continue until either the rogue nation comes into compliance with U.N. mandates or the U.N. votes to end the action. Note that if a civ starts off as a serious violator of U.N. mandates but then comes mostly into compliance, that could very easily cause other nations to reconsider whether its behavior is still serious enough to require U.N. intervention. In the case of civs that are viewed as rogues because they are engaging in too much aggression, the way of reducing or eliminating rogue status would be to give territory back to its original owner or, if that civ is destroyed, to one of the weaker surviving civs.

Finally, if the position of Secretary General is held by a rogue nation (perhaps because it has a huge population and can get some fellow rogues to support it), there ought to be a way the non-rogue nations of the world can vote to disband the U.N. In essence, the U.N. would stop being viewed as a legitimate global authority and start being viewed as having no more legitimate authority than any other alliance. One possibility would be to allow any non-rogue nation to call for a vote to disband the U.N. under those conditions, with the U.N. being disbanded if two thirds of the non-rogue nations agree to disband it. Only one such vote could be held per election for Secretary General. If the U.N. is disbanded, the wonder is destroyed but nations can start trying to build a new U.N. 40 turns after the old one is disbanded.

The only really messy thing I see in adding this kind of mechanism would be the AI programming. When should AIs consider it worthwhile to violate U.N. mandates? How should they vote on the new options, and how should they decide what votes to initiate if they have SecGen status? And so forth. But I think the scope is within what could reasonably be done as part of an expansion pack.

Edit: I'm not voting in the poll because my opinion of whether more depth to the U.N. would be a good thing or a bad thing depends entirely on the nature of the additional depth. I think the U.N. works pretty well as is, and while there's certainly room for improvement, there's also an awful lot of room to make things worse by giving the U.N. excessive power.

[Bkeela]

I found the Council voting in SMAC more satisfying than the UN is in Civ IV.

More than anything I wish there was some kind of special screen where you could see all the leaders' portraits. Having just a popup is lame.

I'm not sure I want the options expanded too drastically, but for the moment all it seems to be is changing everyone to your favourite civics.

I avoid building the UN anyway. If I'm a small, culture rich nation, I could face instant death to an AI winning the diplomatic victory, and if I'm dominating, I don't really need it.