I love democracy

Yeah, in early TRW days I'd usually sweep the Congress.  In my game over the weekend I was happy to see several AIs picking up a decent amount of leverage and therefore sway.  A different mechanism would be nice, but I don't know what that mechanism would be.  A month or so I was halfway through typing up a proposal where "Sway should be the average of your leverage against all other empires", but then I realized the math would work out identically.  ^^;

Some other possibilities (mix and match, any and all) to make CoH voting more interesting:

- Each empire gets 1 vote (including Independent Peoples) making diplomacy with other empires and IPs more important than collecting leverage.

- IPs may vote, civics-wise, for civics that match their ideologies.

- An empire could propose another major empire vote a specific way as though you were offering them a treaty.  If they refuse, you get a Grievance against them

- An empire could try to bribe other major empires to vote a specific way by offering "gifts" (territory, money, influence).

- Include mandatory reminders every turn (or few turns) that votes are happening.  We must either vote, wait, or abstain to end our turn.  Having these tucked into the "notifications" area means votes going by without being noticed.  I played with a friend last night and he was unaware that we was a part of an International Crisis vote until the Congress compelled him to pay up or declare war.  That sort of thing shouldn't be tucked away in the notifications area.

Here is another proposal for calculating votes:

1. 1 vote for each territory held [So, provides a bit of base scores and rewards large empires; but not all that much in the grand scheme of things]
2. Maybe a multiplactor for era after early modern? That could, at a simple level, reflect not just territorial size but progress and strenght.
3. 1 vote for each treaty agreed with another major faction [an abstraction that congress play should interact positively with peaceful play in some form.]
4. A vew votes for each IP treaty. Not much, as client state is clearly much more powerful and deserves a proper diplomatic reward (i.e. leave as is) but a slight reward for positive relationships.
5. 1 votes for each leverage as currently. Though should leverage provide a one-time bonus only and players need to decide whether to use them or not? It would seem odd that leverage gets used up with the leverage actions but can be used indefinitely for votes. How often are you going to blackmail me with that tresspassing incident, Spain?
6. 
   

Shadowhal wrote:
1 vote for each territory held [So, provides a bit of base scores and rewards large empires; but not all that much in the grand scheme of things]

Someone had suggested a month or two ago (I can't find the thread now) that when the Congress is founded, the first order of business is to decide voting strength, and empires would get Votes-Per-Population, votes-per-city, and votes-per-territory.  I thought that was a neat idea.  And I like some of your ideas here too, like a modifier for Era number (and I like the idea of "spending" leverage on a vote and not just having it as a passive value).

RedSirus wrote:

Shadowhal wrote:
1 vote for each territory held [So, provides a bit of base scores and rewards large empires; but not all that much in the grand scheme of things]

Someone had suggested a month or two ago (I can't find the thread now) that when the Congress is founded, the first order of business is to decide voting strength, and empires would get Votes-Per-Population, votes-per-city, and votes-per-territory.  I thought that was a neat idea.  And I like some of your ideas here too, like a modifier for Era number (and I like the idea of "spending" leverage on a vote and not just having it as a passive value).

That sounds alike a good solution. Could also cap leverage based on those as well. So even if you have a lot of leverage you can't use it if you don't own a lot of stuff too.

Sublustris wrote:

You've all missed the point. Point was to change a system, so that no sole player could usurp Congress solely for itself.

That's why all calculations that rely on flat quantity of one normal metric or the other are still prone for exploiting, just like Leverage.

Plus, Diplomat affinity should still have an advantage over everyone else there, and have easier time getting votes.

That is why I propose to count Sway not as flat sum of resource (currently Leverage), but a proportion of how many empires you have Leverage advantage over. Plus 1, in case someone don't have any advantage. For example, I have more Leverage against any of other 3 players (remember this is individual metric beween each pair of players), and each of those 3 have more Leverage against 2 of those; so proportion will be 4-3-3-3, netting me 31% of votes without further modifiers, and 23% to everyone else.

Alright, in which case I propose to take a step back and agree what exact problem needs solving. From what you wrote, you think that it should be extremely hard (if not impossible) for any single faction to control more than 50% of the world congress. Is that correct? What gameplay consequences are you mindful of?

I agree with the hard part. But I don't have an issue with that constellation arising, if that faction is objectively dominant. If I control half the map, have good relations with (some) IPs and have not fully pissed off every remaining major faction, I think a heavy dominance is entirely warranted. And to solve that problem, it's more about mitigating sources of international sway rather than maybe wholesale reform.

If we were to double down on dominance, other solutions as you suggest would better fit the bill.