25% for U.N. ; Discussion

[Trifna]

"The catch here is that in order to even be on the U.N. council (and thus eligible to be elected U.N. leader), you must either control 25% of the world's territory or population."

This is from the Q/A from the official site. Woundered if 25% is not too much... Japan is VERY strong and are in the U.N. Same for some other countries. Not so sure that it's the population or territory that decides about it! If you don't know, Russia is a very wide country. USSR was even wider. But they aren't the strongest in U.N. at all. I guess it should be based on power or something...

Any comments?

[SerapisIV]

Well, they did say that the numbers were in flux. I trust Firaxis to playtest game concepts correctly. Bugs on the other hand...I wish there was a Beta

[MarkG]

numbers like these are set in stone. the percentage for the domination victory have changed in the last weeks(used to 75% now it is 66% i think)
as play-balancing continues, it could change...

[Haphazard]

I think the conditions are reasonable. It keeps out the minor / subjugated civs who have little influence. The most advanced Civ will probably build the UN, so the council will represent the balance of power quite well.

I'm kind of concerned that the UN will meet up frequently, and the game could be finished just by a vote. Maybe the AI's might elect them self the winner by conspiring against the Human!

I think the UN council is based on the security council (and only the permanent members - US,UK,France,Russia,China) This was determined in the 40's on the most powerful (and largest spheres of influence) nations when the UN was founded after WWII. I think this is modelling the Real world quite well, considering there are only 8 (maybe 16) civs, rather than the actual 190+ of the UN.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Haphazard
I'm kind of concerned that the UN will meet up frequently, and the game could be finished just by a vote. Maybe the AI's might elect them self the winner by conspiring against the Human!

the same model was in smac(with the difference that all 7 civs took part) and it worked pretty well

[Trifna]

Well what I am woundering isn't only the 25%, but also that maybe it should be based on many factors. Doesn't means to put it overcomplicated, but territory and population, I think, isn't that much.

A very crowded territory will pass way after a powerful little unpopulated country.

[Haphazard]

Originally posted by MarkG
the same model was in smac(with the difference that all 7 civs took part) and it worked pretty well

Yeah, but that was because each civ's vote was weighted to their population size, and if that's the case here, that's fine. If it's one civ one vote, there could be problems...

Of course Firaxis won't make such a mistake

[Roland Ehnström]

Hmm, with these rules (25% of territory or population), I think there will hardly ever be more than three civs in the UN council...

An example:
Civ one holds 30% of the land and 20% of the population.
Civ two holds 20% of the land and 35% of the population.
Civ three holds 20% of the land and 15% of the population.
Civ four holds 15% of the land and 15% of the population.
Civ five holds 10% of the land and 5% of the population.
Civ six holds 5% of the land and 10% of the population.
Civ seven is a tiny one-city-civ.
Civ eight is extinct.

In this example, only two civs get a position in the UN council.

-- Roland

[Haphazard]

That's assuming that 7 civs make it to the modern age, with about 6 reasonably balanced civs. Won't happen too often I think. Also whoever builds the UN gets on too.

[TechWins]

I think Firaxis might have mis-worded the description. What I mean is that any Civ can be in the UN but you have to either control 25% of the world's territory or population to be on the UN council. The UN council would be all Civ's eligilbe to be casted as leader and are allowed to vote for the leader, while the Civs just in the UN would be allowed to vote for the leader and that's it. This may be highly unlikely but it still isn't out of the realm of possibility.

If my explanation holds not to be true, then I'm not sure if I like what I read. At best only a few Civs will be in the UN each game and that is not good.

[Roland Ehnström]

Well TechWins, you may well be correct. At least what you are saying makes sence to me.

However, then we are in an even WORSE position! How? Well, look at my example again. In this example, seven civs would vote for a leader, but they can only vote on either Civ one or Civ two. This means that the very FIRST time that a vote takes place, one of the civs will get a majority of the votes, and the game ends. Ouch!

Haphazard:
"That's assuming that 7 civs make it to the modern age, with about 6 reasonably balanced civs. Won't happen too often I think."

Well, if there are fewer civs, and they are even less balanced, won't that make it so that even FEWER civs have a chance to get voted as the leader?

Hmm, an example again then:
Civ one: 50% land, 40% population.
Civ two: 35% land, 45% population.
Civ three: 10% land, 10% population.
Civ four: 5% land, 5% population.
All others extinct.

No, still only two civs above 25% in either population or landmass...

Haphazard:
"Also whoever builds the UN gets on too."

Yes, but I assumed that one of the most powerful civs would do this (otherwise, this civ is virtually giving either of the two most powerful civs a free-ticket to victory...).

-- Roland

[Inverse Icarus]

yea, i read ti the same way techwins did, basically sayign you cant get a diplomatic victory without having the 25%.

[Haphazard]

Oops. Good points Roland. Let me try again though...

Why would Firaxis include both Territory AND population as individual factors? Possibly because quite often they are not the same over civs. A militarist civ would have high territory. A civilised civ high population (maybe based on number of people, not pop points). Example:

Civ 1 (Nasty aggressive): 35% territory 20% population
Civ 2 (Peaceful builder): 15% territory 30% population
Civ 3 (Balanced - large continent with plains): 25% land 15% pop
Civ 4 (Balanced - island with grassland) 10% land 25% pop
Civ 5 (just lucky with resources/tech trading, or human OCC) trivial land/pop but built UN
Civ 6-8 (small or dead)

This would give a UN council of 5. More unlikely than your example, given, but still possible. I guess the average no. on the UN council will be about 3.

[TechWins]

First off, I'm surprised on how some of you thought what I said is a possibility.

This means that the very FIRST time that a vote takes place, one of the civs will get a majority of the votes, and the game ends.

Who's to say that there will not be an option to vote for nobody? Since that will most likely be an option, it is going to be very difficult to receive a majority (I'm assuming 3/4 or 2/3) of the votes.

One more thing, if the Civs do wind up being the way Roland portrayed them to be, then the game is going to be very boring. My assumption is that we will see more games like Haphazard portrayed. I'm making this assumption because in most of my Civ games there were more than two "good" Civs at the end of the game and not that many Civs usually died (1 or 2 or even sometimes 0).

[Marcus Agrippa]

I hope the UN council membership won't be based exclusively on population. If it was, the 5 members of the S. Council would be:

China
India
USA
Indonesia
Brazil

The Brits and French have relitively small populations and territory in square miles. However, I think it is good that they (rather than, say, Indonesia) are Permanent Members. They have a ton of experience from the Age of Imperialism (good and bad experience), stable governments, powerful militaries, and a good deal of cultural influence. (The UK or France both have far more overseas influence than Indonesia, Brazil, or India.) As for the Russias... they aren't in good shape, but we can't deny all their nukes.

There has to be a more complex system than "Builder and anyone with X% of the world population." In fact, the builder is probably going to be one of those civs with 25% pop. Therefore, we might have a council with only two members, or possibly only one!

[Kc7mxo]

Hmm. Why is the usa on there? We've only got 250 million.

And we certainly aren't that big territory wise.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by the Civ team
The catch here is that in order to even be on the U.N. council (and thus eligible to be elected U.N. leader), you must either control 25% of the world's territory or population.

Somehow I would have feelt more at ease with the following version:

Allthough every empire, regardless size & population, are free to vote, the catch is that in order to be eligible & possibly elected as U.N. leader, you must either control 25% of the worlds territory or population.

In order to avoid backward and/or stubbornly aggressive empires having too much negatively shortsighted influence, each empire could be allocated vote-points from a pool of (lets say) 100 points - according to their historic/present empire-status and their diplomatic history & reputation.

[Phutnote]

Needing 25% of land/pop to even be on the council seems a little odd to me. In civ II, I often find 7 civs left near the game end (some of them have been restarted ones --- I usually play with that option on).

So say there are 8 civs playing, one has 30% of the world or pop, and the 7 other civs each have 10%: that means, that even though you have the max number of civs, the UN council consists of a grand total of 1 civ.

After a certain year/tech point, the AI becomes more aggressive in the endgame and starts to gobble up the other, weaker civs. This would change the balance and centralize pop/territory so you have more on the council, I suppose. But what if it's then 25%, 20%, 15%, 20%, 5%, 5%, 10%? You still only have 1 civ on the council.

The 25% rule just seems a little unusual to me when I look at it out of context.

Phutnote

[DarkCloud]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
Hmm. Why is the usa on there? We've only got 250 million.

And we certainly aren't that big territory wise.

Ahem! Territory-Wise

1. Russia
2. Canada
3. China
4. America?
5. Brazil

[dennis580]

Yea I'm also very concerned with this. I have a fear that most UN Meetings will be conducted with only 2 members. In some cases thier might only be 1 member in which case that civ can go ahead and vote for themselves to go ahead and win the game.

[dennis580]

I personally would like too see this lowered down to 15% instead of 25%.

[Christantine The Great]

I think the whole point of the UN is to be the civ who builds the UN. Then you equip your allies with lots of your units and tech and they go conquer/diminish your enemies. They grow in size, pop on to the council, and elect you leader. VIOLA! You win.

[faded glory]

Sorry Im not in tune to Civ news, so please enlighten me.

What will the UN do? What kind of powers will it have? There will actually be more than 1 civ in the UN . I thought it would be a useless wonder like in Civ2

[Christantine The Great]

Sorry Im not in tune to Civ news

Get in tune by going to the latest Ask the Civ Team replies. They describe what the UN is now there.

[SerapisIV]

The UN is mentioned on Civ3.com regarding victory conditions. What it's wonder function is, Firaxis has not announced this yet. Odds are it will change from Civ2 though (it appears most wonders will have at least somewhat changed powers)

[Christantine The Great]

I think that is its function. Lets the world hold a council meeting and gives you an automatic place on the council.

[tishco]

i thought it was 25% of the whole map like domination to join, which is reasonable then the votes based on population like SMAC

[korn469]

in the latter stages of the game, any player who can persuade all other civilizations to nominate them as the UN Secretary General will triumph

this is from the gamespot uk preview

so what i assume is that whoever builds the U.N. wonder will always be up for election as will all of the players who control either 25% of either population or territory (ie those are the requirements to be on the U.N. council and only civs on the U.N. council can be elected Secretary General)...but before you get the U.N. win you'd have to convince all if not most of the civs to vote for you (even civs not on the U.N. council get to vote)

[faded glory]

This 'UN' is going to make PBEM lots of fun

[Tventano]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Ahem! Territory-Wise
1. Russia
2. Canada
3. China
4. America?
5. Brazila

I decided to look this information up in the World factbook. I've looked it over manually so I may have missed something.

Country	million sq km	million people
Russia	17	146
Antarctica	14	a few thousand
Canada	10	31
USA	9,6	276
China	9,6	1262
Brazil	8,5	173
Australia	7,7	19
India	3,3	1014
Kazakhstan	2,7	17
Sudan	2,5	35
Algeria	2,4	31
Congo	2,3	52
Greenland	2,2	0,06
Mexico	2,0	100
Saudi Arabia	2,0	22
Indonesia	1,9	225
Libya	1,8	5

Of course Antarctica is not a country, but defintely a large area. Greenland is a part (colony?) of Denmark. The USA is just a little bit larger than China, I did not know either.

Only in Civ power has a relation with population, in real life economy is much more important. Having more population does not automatically give you more scientist etc. Feeding a billion or a few 100 million people is quite a hard job for lots of countries. But anyway population is the most important resource in Civ. What a shame that in real-life we do not invite refugees in and try to send them away with lots of lame excuses.