United Planets

Hey all.

I am in the middle of modding my way, tweaking everything to my personal tastes. But I have come up to one thing that really annoys me. In the United Planets, why do all the other Civs get to vote AFTER you do? And why does the vote fail even if everybody votes on something similar?

What I mean is, if for example the vote is to allow extra trade routes, there might be the following votes result:

2 votes for 1 route
1 vote for 2 routes
2 votes for 3 routes

Now, assuming early game when everyone is pretty much equal, because there is not a high enough majority, the vote fails and its stuck at zero, even though the obvious compromise (I thought this was the point) would be too allow 2 trade routes - which pleases everybody in this case.

Now, obviously this wouldn't work if there was more variation in vote results by civs, but at the moment, even if the civs vote very similarly, if there is no majority then nothing happens.

Maybe to change it you could allow the human player to vote last (so we can decide where to place our vote and know who will have the majority) because at the moment it seems like the civs are voting differently from each other on purpose.

Or better yet, allow the AI civs to take the votes of other civs into account when voting as well as the human player. The votes could be cast in a sequential order. So the first civ gets a choice, but the second civ can see what the first civ voted for and take that into its decision. You could even make this blind so that the votes are not shown, only the percentages, so for example the third civ can see that the other two civs voted for two different choices, but does not know which civ voted for which.

This surely would solve issues like that I mention above. Any thoughts?
7,320 views 9 replies
Reply #1 Top
hm i have some basic knowlegde but what you are proposing.. it sound great but i dont think we are able to do this, i think it only could come in a patch, i never saw something in the data files of politic or anything similar.. ithink this is something hardcoded what means we cant get to it, but this is only my humbly opinion
Reply #2 Top
yeah i always disliked voting first unless i have control of the U.P but at that point i have yet to get a good item to vote on anyways.
Reply #3 Top
You don't vote first... you all vote at the same time. The other civs have no idea what your vote is going to be when they make their decision, any more than you do.
Reply #4 Top
Somehow I find that hard to beleive, maybe its just me being paranoid.

But anyway, I still think my ideas would enhance the game.
Reply #5 Top
Everyone votes at the same time. I thought that was quite obvious.
Reply #6 Top
Ah yes, but everyone is missing the point.

My main point is that without a majority, nothing ever gets carried, instead of there ever being a compromise. Obviously I know that if there is a really veried result then the vote shoudl fail, but don't you think that if the votes fall into only two catagories, then at least the "middle" of the two should be used, rather than just none.
Reply #7 Top
The likelyhood of a tie is close to nonexistent since all races gain a huge number of votes from their influence. And as long as an option gets one more vote then all the others, there is a majority.
Reply #8 Top
Hopefully, there will be more often and more robust UP issues with whatever expansion comes out, the O.P.'s original idea is decent, but to take it further id like to see at least better pricing for voting points, and mayhap a way to threaten/bribe other races for thier vote as well (given that when you are weak, they might do it to you as well) Add to that the ability to see what is being voted for a few weeks before the vote comes up and you have another layer to the game.
Reply #9 Top
I've already tried modding the game so that all UP issues are simple yes/no votes, that seems better in the meantime.

The only thing is you have no choice on values on for example starbase tax, I've just set it to a certain value, or none at all.