How to fix the UN

[Pythagoras]

I think the general concept of 'group treaties/agreements/pacts' much like EU except better, should be implemented. Group defense pacts especially where diplomacy is done at the group and not the national level.

[ckweb]

I like the changes to the UN proposed by SeferKoheleth and others in this thread. Here my thoughts:

Disable Diplomatic Victory -- In reality, being Secretariat-General is hardly an indication of cultural, diplomatic, or military strength of the nation where the Secretariat-General hails from. In fact, it is almost the precise opposite. Usually the Secretariat comes from a smaller nation. Moreover, the Secretariat does not wield enormous power or anything. He's almost a figurehead. The military and diplomatic power of the UN stems from the Security Council and by serving as a forum for world opinion.

In agreement with others, I'd like to see the UN open up new treaty options. I particularly like the following:

Anti-Pollution Treaty (i.e. Kyoto) -- I like the 50% reduction in pollution idea but there should also be certain requirements on the signees, i.e. they must sell all Coal Plants or they must reforest a certain number of squares or something along the lines of what "mwaf" wrote.

Anti-Slavery Treaty -- Great Idea! Foreign workers are returned to their civilization or in the event their civilization has been destroyed, they "join" the nearest city.

Rules of War Convention (Geneva) -- Great Idea! Cannot capture foreign workers! Cannot Raze cities!

Nuclear Disarmament -- I disagree with the all civs declare war on the civ idea. Instead, the nuclear disarmament and anti-proliferation treaty should be that all civs are barred from building nuclear weapons. If they build weapons, world opinion moves against them to much the same degree as breaking a mutual protection pact.

Also -- I think infantry should have the ability to lay (and destroy) anti-personnel mines, which would damage any foreign units that enter your territory without a right of passage agreement. If this capability were added, the UN could then have an Anti-Personnel Mines Treaty that requires every civ with these mines to destroy them and agree not to lay them.

For any of these above treaties, failure to participate should result in all participating civs placing a trade embargo on the offending nation until that civ complies.

GATT -- I don't like the idea of -15% commerce for civs with the most resources/luxuries. In reality, GATT hardly penalizes the rich. There should simply be a 15% increase in commerce for all signees. Unhappiness is an interesting trade-off. Failure to sign should not result in a trade embargo.

While "Peacekeeping Missions" and "Recognizing New States" are nice ideas, I don't think they are practical for this game. I see no way to make them work in a realistic way.

I like Ijuin's comments as well; except the "World War" idea. The objective of the UN is maintaining peace and int'l cooperation.

[Carver]

Originally posted by SeferKoheleth
I disagree on GATT-- basically all sound economists agree that free trades helps everyone. It should function sort of like "Commerce Rates Doubled" in Alpha Centauri-- except that CIV III stupidly got rid of commerce income (which should be a great way to encourage non-war making).

Tell that to a meeting of Third Wolrd finance ministers. What the West calls "free trade" means nacsent industries in developing nations, which have less production and are thus less efficient, cannot compete and are killed. Meanwhile, the West continues to spend over $300 billion US per annum subsidizing agricultural production in the developed world, thereby also killing agricultural production in the Third World. So far "free trade" has been almost a "loose loose" situation for the poorest of nations.

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by Carver


Tell that to a meeting of Third Wolrd finance ministers. What the West calls "free trade" means nacsent industries in developing nations, which have less production and are thus less efficient, cannot compete and are killed. Meanwhile, the West continues to spend over $300 billion US per annum subsidizing agricultural production in the developed world, thereby also killing agricultural production in the Third World. So far "free trade" has been almost a "loose loose" situation for the poorest of nations.

The economics are debatable, but I dont think the cultural detrement to poorer nations can be ignored. Of course punishing the weaker civs might not be good for gameplay.

[Nubclear]

Re: How to fix the UN

I do hope that we wouldn't keep the same UN Vote screen that we have now.

"Hello! Would you like to bring an issue with the General Assembly?"
"What issue would you like to bring up?"
"Would you support a world war?"
"Against which civ do you want to declare war?"
"Alexander votes YEA. Cleopatra votes NAY. Gandhi votes YEA. Lincoln abstains, Catherine abstains."
"Sorry, no majority was found....."

Maybe something like Alpha Centauri, although not quite as futureistic. And also, this voting system of the majority of all memembers needs to vote yes, IMO that needs to be changed.

I mean, if someone abstains its just that: Abstination from the vote. They do not put forth a vote. If I were to put up an election, say Uber vs. Myself vs Abstain, and everyone went abstain and there was one vote for Uber, the Uber would be the winner because he has the majority of the two candidates.

[SeferKoheleth]

Originally posted by Pythagoras


The economics are debatable, but I dont think the cultural detrement to poorer nations can be ignored. Of course punishing the weaker civs might not be good for gameplay.

Actually the economics aren't debatable at all... free trade has been an incredible boon to the 3rd World... despite what the pseudo-Commies will tell you... just ask formally 3rd world nations such as Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Quite simply, the freest 3rd world nations have benefited from cheap exports like textiles and other production.

Ever wonder why all those protestors are all ALL whiny rich white kids from American and Europeans suburbs? Its because REAL 3rd worlders actually like American industry.

That being said, the industrialized world (especially Europe- which is 10x worse than the US) should stop socialistic industry welfare. But trade is still freer than it was twenty years ago, and the entire world is much wealthier (except the uber-dictatorships in sub-saharan Africa).

GATT=commerce bonus for all

[Andrew_Jay]

Your absolutely right ckweb about how ridiculous the diplomatic victory is. For some reason I didn't realise just how much so till now. According to CivIII, the greatest nation in the world today, and the winner of 6000 years of human civilization is . . . Ghana.

[N. Machiavelli]

Originally posted by ckweb

Rules of War Convention (Geneva) -- Great Idea! Cannot capture foreign workers! Cannot Raze cities!

By "cannot capture foreign workers" does that mean that instead of capture, the workers are killed; or does it mean that one simply cannot attack a nation's workers? If the latter is the case, could not a civ simply ring his cities with worker units, thereby making them invulnerable from any attack other than air or long-ranged bombardment? You certainly would be unable to capture the cities. If it's the former, is the deliborate destruction of what is considered a civilian population something the UN would encourage (inadvertantly doing so by forcing the destruction of these units)?

Perhaps the alternative is to have them expulsed to the nearest city. However....

If the Units themselves are expelled to the nearest friendly (to them) city in leu of death/capture, what happens when the last city of that civ is captured? Do the workers vanish (death)? Do they join that last city as population (quite easily pushing the city, assuming it can otherwise support the extra population via aquaduct/hospital) thereby choking it with extra population that it may not be able to support with food, starving the population to death?

The Geneva Convention-esk UN function is a neat idea, but I don't see how one could do it in game terms without eventually 'killing' the population anyway.

[Switch]

Perhaps make it so that, with the convention in effect and the civ in question a part of it, that civ can just walk through enemy workers, much like they can their own. When the civ is destroyed, the workers walk around and join the nearest civ that wasn't at war with them (barring a lack of friendlies, just join the nearest civ).

[ckweb]

Originally posted by SwitchMoO
Perhaps make it so that, with the convention in effect and the civ in question a part of it, that civ can just walk through enemy workers, much like they can their own. When the civ is destroyed, the workers walk around and join the nearest civ that wasn't at war with them (barring a lack of friendlies, just join the nearest civ).

Machiavelli your points are well taken but I like SwitchMoO's workarounds. I think they would solve the problem.

[N. Machiavelli]

Sounds good. Quick question because I don't have the answer in front of me (I'm wonderfully at work and my nearest copy of Civ3 is a 45 minute drive ), do workers have the pillage ability? I'm pretty sure they don't but if they do then you can effectively, with this UN function, have 'phantom' pillagers that cannot be stopped (your units effectively go over them with the work-around).

Also, I'm sure that this 'Geneva' function would also apply to Settlers since they, when 'captured' revert to 2 'slave' workers. If this is the case, couldn't a rival civ effectively move it's settlers through your land and settle in any nook or cranny they desire? If you say "move your units or I'll declare war!" they can efffectivly give you the finger if far away enough from you and settle with relative impunity.

Also, what about the common scenario with a AI civ having "that one darn extra Settler" lieing around after all their cities are taken? They are still in the game; after all, they still have a settler. You also cannot kill that settler, since it is now immune. If there is no land left availible to that civ to settle, the unit is just going to sit there, theoretically for a long time if it chooses to not accept your envoys as AI civs sometimes do.

The only alternative I see is perhaps making settlers non-capturable (simply dieing if attacked) either throughout the game or triggered when the resolution is passed. But if the former is taken, you now simply 'murder' civilians regardless off International Accords, and with the latter, you merely exhange slavery for civ's equivilant to genocide.

[Andrew_Jay]

I don't think a Geneva convention or anti-slavery laws would make the settlers and workers invincible. I think it would be more along the lines of when you sign a peace treaty, all captured workers have to be exchanged. I guess you would lose world opinion if you didn't give all your opponents guys back and they do the same in the diplomacy screen while negotiationg peace. So while you are at war you would have captured workers, but after a war, they would all have to be given back, meaning you would never have captured workers during peacetime.

Here's another idea though, perhaps after a Geneva Convention type thing when workers get captured they turn into a 'prison camp' on the ground, just like a terrain improvement. When their own people take that square, they become remobilised as workers again, just like when you find a goody hut and units pop out and the huts disappear.

[Switch]

Why not make it when you meet an enemy settler with the convention in effect, you just make it two workers of the enemy civ, as if you broke up their camp or something.

And no, workers cannot pillage, so that solves that problem.

[Andrew_Jay]

That's what happens now, a settler gets split up when it is captured. Or do you mean you don't capture the settler or the workers, but it gets split up anyway, so you can 'attack' enemy settlers to split them up and deny them the ability to settle territory?

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Andrew_Jay

Here's another idea though, perhaps after a Geneva Convention type thing when workers get captured they turn into a 'prison camp' on the ground, just like a terrain improvement. When their own people take that square, they become remobilised as workers again, just like when you find a goody hut and units pop out and the huts disappear.

I think it would be wierd to keep prison camps on the front line. But it would make sense to me to have the captured workers held in the nearest city, and when the city is taken they are "liberated"