United Nations

Christantine · May 28, 2000, 21:26

I think the United Nations was very badly represented in Civ 2. First, even though the U.N. HQ is in New York City, U.S.A. it does not mean that the U.S. controls it. Second, it acts more of a "police force" for the planet. It cannot force warring countries to make peace with its members but it will orginize a task force using the member's armies to oppose those countries.

I believe that both Marco Polo's Embassy and the U.N. should not be wonders but something like the SMAC World council (Or whatever it was called). Maybe Marco Polo's Embassy should be tossed away since there was no organization then. I think the U.N. should be something like this:

1. A worldwide organization that is created when there may be a group of countries are all allied together and wish to set up a organization to maintain peace around the world.

2. Membership is decided by present members who would vote to grant membership to them or to keep them out (Not that you can't bribe members to vote Yes or No).

3. Members have a full embassy with other members.

4. If members have problems with another they can settle it in the International Court. In this they would each present their problems ( Nothing complicated, something like stationing troops too close to someone's cities.) and it would be resolved by a jury (Member civs) who would vote on what to do.

5. There would be a Supreme Council consisting of the 3 most powerful members. The 3 would be the most advanced civ, civ with largest and best army, and the richest member. They would be able to veto anything put to them by another civ and they would make the final decision to admit a civ into the U.N. (Again they can be bribed).

6. If a U.N. country is attacked by a non-U.N. member then each U.N. member must submit at least 2 military units to help the attacked country. The units are then commanded by the country for the duration of the war.

7. If a U.N. member attacks a U.N. member then it is expelled from the U.N. and every other member must declare war on the offending civ. If the offending country begs for peace it is forced to pay sanctions to the victim country and to the U.N. itself. If the country fights than all members are required to fight it until the country is completly destroyed or until it gives up.

8. Each U.N. member is required to submit money to the U.N. based on its GNP (about 3% of its GNP a turn). The money is then free to be used by any member but if it is not repayed on its agreed payback date then it is fined and the amount borrowed is instantly deducted from its treasury. One member would be the treasurer.

9. To leave the U.N. you must pay any money owed to the U.N. and you will get a small black mark.

That is all I can think of now. Submit your own ideas and revise mine!

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I came, I saw, I conquered...my allies!!

May 28, 2000, 21:36

I don't know, but I think your system is way to complicated. How can a computer be smart enough to handle problems of in an "international court". What happens if the two countries involved are the richest and also the most powerful (army size). What happens if one civ is all three? I think there are to many "what ifs" to your system, Although I agree the UN should not force nations to make peace. I think it should raise your rep a little and make all of you allies get a bonus as well. Or make nations more eager to ally with you. Anything you can do to make that system more simple?

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

Biddles · May 29, 2000, 06:48

I think that the UN should be one of a number of bodies: UN, G7, NATO etc. While the UN would be the peacekeeping body, The Group of Seven would be the Economic body, NATO would be a military alliance.

These bodies act like SMAC style bodies. They are pretty much alliances that act the way in which Christantine has already explained. Maybe the UN is the Global Council body that can only be formed later in the game, whereas all the others can be formed form the start.

The G7 can enact economic treaties, though more detailed than the SMAC ones.

NATO can launch joint wars, in which each member assigns units to a NATO force which you can control against the Civ mentioned and any civs which side with it.

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- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission

Christantine · May 29, 2000, 09:14

OrangeSwfr

If you don't like my ideas than make some of your own. Please don't tell me how bad my ideas are and don't do anything about it.

Biddles

Great idea

. Maybe then the U.N. would be led by the most advanced, NATO led by the civ with the largest and most powerful military (But NATO should be changed because random maps don't have an Atlantic Ocean), and G7 is led by the civ with the most trade routes (AI-Civs should be programed to do more trade than in civ II). Maybe instead of G7 it should be WTO (World Trade Organization). And if one civ is two or more than all the more power to them!

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I came, I saw, I conquered...my allies!!

Christantine · May 29, 2000, 09:23

OrangeSfwr

Many times in history countries have had almost complete control over the other peoples of the earth. (ex. Rome, Mongols, France, British Empire, United States + U.S.S.R.) It would be a great challenge to gain support for yourself if you are a small civ and you have a minor position in the U.N. and others take advantage of you. And this would all take place in the shifting world of diplomacy.

Everyone, SUBMIT IDEAS!

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I came, I saw, I conquered...my allies!!

The Joker · May 29, 2000, 09:35

A UN like the SMAC council is a must. If it is to work as I would like it needs a way better AI (not that it needs to be harder to beat, but more that it should know it's own strenght and such stuff).

I think the UN ideally should be like the diplomatic pacts of Harel's Master Diplomacy list (check this forum a month or so back). There evey possible aspect of the UN is included, from peace keeping operations to veto rights. Check it out!

May 29, 2000, 10:14

quote:

Originally posted by Christantine on 05-29-2000 09:14 AM

OrangeSwfr
If you don't like my ideas than make some of your own. Please don't tell me how bad my ideas are and don't do anything about it.

Christantine - I was only playing devil's advocate there. Your system just seemed to complicated to me. It didn't mean that I don't like your idea. I was going to wait to see what changes other people would suggest as well as yourself before I went telling you how to change it. Plus - I did acknowledge that you are right about the UN being inaccurate in the game, and I also gave an addition to your plan.
You didn't even answer my questions regarding numbers 4 and 5. I'll repost them here so you don't have to go back up...

quote:

How can a computer be smart enough to handle problems of an "international court"? What happens if the two countries involved are the richest and also the most powerful (army size)? What happens if one civ is all three?

(All three meaning most powerful, richest, and most advanced)
To add, who would be treasurer and how would this be chosen? Couldn't the computer handle the treasury?

To all - How will G7 (or WTO) affect the game? Will it be symbolic or political? And if political - how so?

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

Christantine · May 29, 2000, 18:51

The treasurer would be a civ that has a spotless reputation and who hase never gone broke.

I believe The Joker should explain to us what he plans the WTO (or G7) should be. How does it exactly work?

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I came, I saw, I conquered...my allies!!

May 29, 2000, 21:47

Ok, but what would the treasurer "do"? Just look at the amt. of money or do something with it? That's where I'm confused. Does that civ make decisions on who can use the money? Does that civ decide how much money a civ needs to pay to come into the UN?

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

Biddles · May 30, 2000, 09:37

I think that all these councils should be SMAC style.

NATO
For the NATO (Joker: Agreed a new name is needed, Maybe: Allied Military Command) Alliance Each Civ should have to assign X units to the NATO army. Where X, the number of units assigned, also determines the number of votes you have in NATO council. There should be a minimum number of units that are required to join the alliance(maybe tech level as well). YOU then control the NATO military (sorry, lack of faith in AI to do this). The catch is that you can't do anything unless the NATO council has aproved it. So unless NATO declares war against Russia, you can't attack Russia. Any exploration done by these forces would be gained by all NATO civs. If at anytime you (or anyone else) withdraws from NATO, then your units are kept in the alliance for a few turns and then returned to their home cities.

I know that people are going to say that the number of units you donate relating to your voting power, will mean that a really powerful civ will be able to use NATO as a rubber stamp for their wars, but this is why I propose this. The USA dominates present NATO, Russia dominated the Warsaw Pact. It is just how things happen.

Group of Seven
The Group of seven should operate the same as NATO. The ammount of money you donate to the G7 treasury per year dictates your voting power. G7 should be able to enact Global Trade Pacts from SMAC and a range of other Economic Pacts (They are listed somewhere in the list). G7 should also be able to use it's treasury funds to lend out money and give money, both to other civs and to other alliances (i.e. NATO). Maybe G7 can also buy economic facilities in it's member civs: Build X banks in each member civ. As with NATO, you control G7 funds but can't do anything without aproval.

United Nations
This has been proposed as the Tech Alliance. I think a new name is needed for a tech alliance and the UN should be used for something else. With tech alliance, each civ should have to donate a set ammount of research points to the Aliiance per turn. This amount is determined by the council (can be discreet values or percentage values). If a civ cannot or will not meet this level, they're out. These Points are used for collective research, which is just the same as normal research except all members get the resultant tech. The tech to be researched is decided by majority vote, with the council leader given the tiebreaker. The tech council can also broker tech trades etc.

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- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission

Christantine · May 30, 2000, 20:00

OrangeSfwr

Read on to find out what the tresurer is.

Biddles

Thank you for telling us what you ment with NATO and G7. But I think there are some problems with both. I believe that the human player should control the army but the AI council decides who you send the army aganst. But I also think that the NATO (From now on lets call it Strategic Military Alliance of Nations?) Council should also make recomendations on where to strike or where to attack. Example: You want to attack City A because it is closer to your SMAN base. The Council wants to attack City B which is farther away but lightly defended and has useful wonders in it. You take a vote and you lose to the opposing AIs in the council and you must direct the armies to City B or be thrown out of SMAN.

I also think that the rule that you cannot wage any wars aganst other countries unless SMAN is too should be changed because if a country attacks you than you can have the option of asking SMAN to help you fight unless they don't instantly give you their support. If they disagree than you deal with the war yourself.

I think that G7 should be renamed because it should be more international (i.e. World Trade Org.). I think that the only idea that should be changed is that it should only loan money to the U.N. My original thought was that even though the organizations are different I still think that both SMAN and G7 should be exclusive to U.N. members only. My reason is because there could be a problem with each international organization fighting with each other. The U.N. and SMAN could be fighting each other while G7 is passing embargos on it's client states and robbing the U.N. and SMAN. To balance this out there would be options for non-U.N. states like creating a League of Nations type of thing (Mostly powerless but still the civ belongs to something that will moderatly help him). This would help the countries that do not wish to belong to the U.N.
Let me sum up what I think the U.N. should be:

1) An international organization that is formed when 3 or more civs form a alliance net and this could happen sometime around the industrial age (It could have happened).

2) The U.N. would have three branches that are exclusive to U.N. members. They are SMAN, G7 (or WTO) and the Congress of Technology. SMAN would be the U.N.'s military aid and its way to enforce its will on the world. G7 would be the U.N.'s economic arm and its member's bank. The Congress of Tech would combine some of your research power with other members. The U.N. itself is purely diplomatic and it gives a full embassy to anyone who joins. It is optional to join G7, SMAN or CoT if you join the U.N.

3) SMAN membership requires:
A: Military units atleast in the middle industrial age (Ironclad, Dragoons and musketeers.)
B: At least a 2/1 unit/city ratio.

4) G7 membership requires:
A: You keep at least 25% of your taxes.
B: You have at least a 1/1 trade route/city ratio.

5) CoT membership requires:
A: You to share all of your techs with other members.
B: to give an amount greater than 25% of your research power.

6) Your dues to the U.N. is 3% of your profit for a turn.

7) Your dues to SMAN is at least 4 units for its army.

8) If you are in the U.N. but not in SMAN than you must give permission to SMAN to station troops in your territory. If you belong to both you have no choice.

9) If you are in U.N. and G7 and trade with an other member of G7 than the city with the trade route gets another trade arrow where there is already one. If you have two trade routes with a G7 member than you get two trade arrows where there already is on ect.

10) There would be a Council for each branch of the U.N. and for the U.N. and a Supreme Council for everything. The Supreme Council would be made up of the heads of the indivudial Councils. The Supreme Council would admit nominated-to-be-a-member civs by voting. In the case of voting in a member to the U.N. the vote would be a 3/4 vote. For voting in a member of the U.N. to another branch than the vote would be a 4/5 vote with the head of the Council of the department in which the member wishes to enter gets a double vote.

11) To get to be the Head of the Council of each branch you would be elected by the other members of the council. to be nominated to be the head would vary between the 4 departments.

U.N. Council Head nomination requires:
A: Attitude with majority of other members of Council at or above Receptive.
B: Spotless reputation.

SMAN Council Head nomination requires:
A: Majority of military units are up to date.
B: No lower than Questionable reputation.

G7 Council Head nomination requires:
A: At least 2 trade routes for each of your cities.
B: Spotless reputation.

SoT Council Head is automatically the most advanced member of the council.

12) The G7 Council Head is also the treasurer for the U.N. The Treasurer authorizes loans to other branches or member civs.

13) If you leave the U.N. (the actual U.N., not a branch), then you are expected to pay back any loans; and if you belong to SMAN, your units will be intantly brought to your capital. Any SMAN bases in your territory will be taken out.

14) The Universal Rule: Bribe whenever possible!

Well, that is my most current summarization. I hope you don't think it's that complicated.

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I came, I saw, I conquered...my allies!!

Biddles · May 30, 2000, 21:37

SMAN (lets hope firaxis can come up with a better sounding name).
I'm not too sure on letting the AI vote on strategic decisions. If it takes into account the situation you oput forth (ie. wonders in a city) than all the AI will vote the same way each time. If the AI takes into account what is best for each civ, than you would get varied opinions, but still, letting the AI make strategic decisions? The AI doesn't really have the capability to make good decisions.

I agree that you should be able to wage your own wars without SMAN/UN support. The USA does it all the time. You can ask for their support and if they refuse you say "fine i'll deal with it myself, but I AM TAKING ALL THE SPOILS OF WAR" (or just flood SMAN with your units and revote).

That brings me on to something else. Any units you give to SMAN are SMAN's until you leave SMAN. Once you leave there should be a number of turns until you can rejoin.

Group of Seven (sorry, I like the name of this one. Maybe call it group of X where X is the number of civs involved)
I think it would be cool for all these organisations to be fighting each other. If there are going to be more civ's than 7 on the map (crossing my fingers

) than there should definetly be options for more than one global military\economic\tech alliances. Think about it. NATO and Warsaw Pact are in a state of Cold War. G7 and UN are in open conflict with G7 embargoing all UN countries and the UN destroying all of G7's diplomatic ties. Mean while the newly formed AXIS pact is having talk with Warsaw to launch a joint attack on NATO, who is appealing to the UN to talk some sense into the other guys. And EVERYONE is eyeballing the congress of tech beacuase they all want the CoT's high tech to use for their own purposes.
I think it adds another level of depth to the game.

Congress of Technology
Agree with everything except having to share all tech's. This would mean that there was no 'most advanced' civ who would be leader. I also want to be able to keep a tech advantage. Maybe member civs are more eager to trade techs.

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- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission
[This message has been edited by Biddles (edited May 30, 2000).]

Par4 · May 30, 2000, 23:31

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA I'm Back
My hard drive died and I had to get a new one, but all my stuff is gone now, this sucks all those word pad doc. and OMG this sucks, but my I have warrenty and the good people at CompUSA replaced my 10gig with a 13.6gig, Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok for the UN
WTO, for god's sake man use WTO, G7 makes me think, Apple comp rules the world, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!.
I guess Gx is ok though. I can't really think of anything else this is pretty straight forward and good, a huge improvement over the council of SMAC. WTO head person needs international trade routes, maybe 1 international route for every possible nation to trade with, not really sure. No have to give techs, thats national security. Um just my say, Orange how can object to some of Chistantine's ideas, they are perfect, well close.

some things for Court
Military buildup, must be near boarder or coast

Promotion of Ethic/racial hatred(against their country, think Kosovo except important, like the US gov promoting anti french/quebec hatred and canada goes and complains to UN)

Terrorist attacks, if we have em(think Lebannon, is that the right country, can't remember

Embargos(US embargo on Cuba, not UN embargo)

I think that is enough, could be simple for AI to pick which one and which country.

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Your game will get worse
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And you ain't got backup of your files
Life sucks
Although I am doing a lot more Mountain Biking
[This message has been edited by Par4 (edited May 30, 2000).]

DarkCloud · July 30, 2000, 20:06

*Bumping this up*
However I will still be writing the proposals in Election to the U.N. But I bet everyone should look at this.

Thanks Christantine for informing me of this thread.

NOTE: Can the new thread for this be my "Election to the UN" or do you think we should post in here Christantine?

Christantine The Great · July 30, 2000, 23:48

I think that this post should be continued.(Only because this post has the workings of a model, not because it is mine.) It is up to you DarkCloud.

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"Adorare Christantine!!!"
Republican Decree #1

Doomer · August 8, 2000, 08:51

Not only an embargo can be impossed on a nation that has attacked another one, but also embargoing a nation when it's using lended money from the UN to buy military units instead of city improvements.

The new units are disbanded, improvements are made in the cities and until the country comes out of a financial crisis the UN will be present in the country. (i.e. renegade countries like IRAK). It's up to the country to decide what to do to the UN. Will he obey or will he attack the UN units? Lots of AI for this.
[This message has been edited by Doomer (edited August 08, 2000).]

Shadowstrike · August 8, 2000, 21:38

Remember that the UN, embargoes, etc. only became the norm in the modern era. They should reflect this in Civ (i.e. UN effects beginning only after a certain advance and contact with all civs, etc.)

Before the UN, such measures were unknown and should be unavailible. Just a touch of reality. (we really don't want the UN existing from the beginning of time do we?)

August 10, 2000, 00:56

I think the idea of the UN as a council similar to AC is a good idea. The other ideas, WTO and NATO, however I don’t really love. Military unions like the NATO are already represented by alliances. The close relation between NATO and UN is quite new. Until 1989 there were 2 big military blocks within the UN, you remember? That doesn’t mean that military alliances can’t be made better in Civ3 though. Councils of different military alliances are a possibility, not a “global” military council, and less calling it NATO, that perspective is simply too, too, ah, American, that’s it.
And to the WTO, G7 or Gx: sure they have importance on the real world, but what shall it be in gameplay?

Christantine The Great · October 4, 2000, 21:08

***WHAM***

This hasn't been brought up for a while. Anyone with new ideas?

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"Freedom, Trade, Christantine!"

Az · October 9, 2000, 00:48

well kick NATO the hell out of there and so the G7 !

hey Nato is just another military alliance ,it's not some kinda superbody.

G7 - just a bunch of rich countries , who want to enlarge globalization.

UN - that's something different . it should be like the SMAC council , pretty much.

and when you are at it ... please make an automatic exchange of embassies when at peace.

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"It should be interesting when you meet our resident Israelis. Nice guys, actually" -MtG

"I've read this on the walkthrough but as I said it became too boring to continue" -Builder

the true question is will the future smilies affect spam ?

Deathwalker · October 9, 2000, 05:18

I think that is a good idea to improve the UN, but I also think that for simplicity sack it should repersent all the world organisations like the world bank. This way world factors can be built into the game more easily

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I have walked since the dawn of time and were ever I walk, death is sure to follow

Rufus T. Firefly · October 9, 2000, 06:29

Repeat after me:

The UN should not be a Wonder.
The UN should not be a Wonder.
The UN should not be a Wonder.

The simple reason is that Wonders are, by game definition, unique to the country that builds them and, while their representation in the game isn't historically accurate or logical, it does stick to this: the Egyptians built the pyramids, the lighthouse, and the library for themselves; the US built the Statue of Liberty and the French the Eiffel Tower for themselves. But no one country founded the UN, and no one country obtained unique advantage from it. The UN violates the whole logic of Wonders.

The fact is, it's the Manhattan Project that should force other countries to always offer you a peace treaty and to automatically accept your ambassador, instead of the silly "everybody gets nukes."

The seventh wonder of the modern age could then be the Marshall Plan, which would count as a trade route between your empire's largest city and every other empire's capital or largest city.

That's what I'm thinkin', anyway.

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But there must be a war! I've paid a month's rent on the battlefield!
-- Rufus T. Firefly

October 9, 2000, 20:36

I agree. The U.N. should not be a wonder at all. It should not be constructed by any one civilization.

And for the record....

quote:

the US built the Statue of Liberty

The French built the Statue of Liberty. They gave it to the U.S. But I know what you mean.

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"...The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy's plans; next is to attack their alliances; next to attack their army; and the lowest is to attack their fortified cities." - Sun Tzu

Biddles · October 11, 2000, 07:44

When the term NATO is used it's just the name being used for all the military alliances (warsaw pact, axis, allies etc.). It is meant to be different than an alliance between 2 civs where the alliance does pretty much nothing more than allow access to the others territory. "NATO" is meant to be a military alliance of multiple civs where a decision is made by the members to wage war on someone else. So whereas in an alliance you still have to pay your ally to fight a war of agression, with NATO if the member coulncil votes for war, all the NATO countries go to war and no "monetary encouragement" is required.

The UN should basically be the SMAC global council.

G7 could be extremely useful, depending on what changes are mad to the trade and diplomacy areas, 9which in my opinion will be changed greatly. For example, if a system is introduced where specialty goods are used (i.e. iron, coal, oil, gems, wheat, etc.) than you could form an organisation and name it OPEC. Now if anyone pisses you guys off you simply cut off their oil supply, and since your organisation just happens to control 90% of all known oil reserves, pretty soon that civ is going to:
1: Come back to you on it's hands and knees grovelling and begging for oil
2: Attempt to fight a war against OPEC in a desperate attempt to seize valuable oil fields (oops, the don't have any oil to run their army though

, what a predicament)
See, G7 (or OPEC or Medellin Cartel :P ,etc.)

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- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission

Chronus · October 11, 2000, 21:30

My, we certainly do have many creative and ambitious people out there. Are you folks talking about the United Nations wonder or a United Nations GAME? :-)

This all seems like a ton of complication for such a tiny aspect of Civ. With that said, please carry on with the suggestions. I think I'm enjoying them as much as you folks are.