World Congress (Civ6)

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The World Congress is a new gameplay mechanic in Civilization VI: Gathering Storm and is the key to the new Diplomatic Victory. It is in many ways similar to the World Congress from Civilization V: Brave New World, but also differs in some key aspects.

Introduction

The World Congress is a place where all leaders in the game (or at least those who haven't been eliminated yet) meet to discuss proposals of importance to the world and vote for or against them, according to their benefit, or to the detriment of their competitors. The voting power of each leader depends on their accumulated Diplomatic Favor.

Since this sort of global-level civilized interaction is unthinkable in the very dawn of history (while newly-established empires are still fighting to keep their own against nature and barbarian tribes), the World Congress convenes only when the world enters the Medieval Era.

Mechanics

World Congress sessions take place during their own phase, which occurs after all AI players have had their turns, but before the player can start his or her next turn. During this phase the player is free to close the session panel temporarily in order to better understand which outcomes and targets suit them the best; however, the player will be unable to move units or issue any kind of order. The World Congress phase will only be ended when all votes for all proposals brought forth are submitted and confirmed.

It is fully possible, and in fact common in the first few regular sessions, that the player has not met all leaders in the world. They will nevertheless still vote, but they will appear as question marks, preserving the discovery flavor of the game.

The World Congress meets for two distinct types of sessions: Regular and Special Sessions. The very first meeting is always a Regular Session; if conditions, for a Special Session are met earlier, this Special Session will be scheduled, but put on hold and called only after the first Regular Session has passed.

Regular Sessions

World Congress regular session

Regular Sessions are the main manifestation of the Congress' mechanics; at them matters of mutual interest to all are discussed which are relevant to the current World Era. These sessions are pre-scheduled, and take place every 30 turns on Standard speed, starting from the turn after which the world enters the Medieval Era. The frequency of Regular Sessions scales with game speed.

In each session, 2 Resolutions are proposed (supposedly by the rotational leader of the Congress), which make decisions on currently relevant topics in the world, such as border treaties, preferred religion, trade pacts, and climate. But from the Modern Era onward leaders diversify their interests, while at the same time politics enter a new level of complexity. Thus, the Diplomatic Victory Resolution enters as a third option which is always available, while a scored competition of some kind enters as a fourth option.

The exact resolutions proposed for discussion are randomized, but their occurrence is era appropriate and the probabilities are based on recent world events. For example, Climate Accords does not appear in the Renaissance Era, and it is more likely to be proposed with increasing Climate Change stages.

All civilizations which are still in the game are required to vote on all proposed Resolutions. For the exact mechanics of the voting process, see below.

Resolutions

In this Diplomatic Victory resolution, Option A won with 24 votes, and among the players, Teddy Roosevelt won with 10 votes. He will be awarded with 2 Diplomatic Victory points.

Resolutions are the main proposals discussed and enacted in Regular World Congress sessions. Unlike the Emergencies and other possible results of a Special Session (which may never occur), the effects of Resolutions are mandatory for all, and are thus always sure to affect the world after the start of the Medieval Era. Each Resolution passed will function until the next World Congress Session (that is, for the next 30 turns). In essence, Resolutions are minor game mods which change some basic game rule for the next 30 turns.

In a major development since Civilization V: Brave New World, there are two possible Outcomes for each resolution, which have opposite effects. Furthermore, each outcome may have many possible Targets: players, districts, currency types, etc.

For example, the Urban Development Treaty has two possible Outcomes: boost Production towards all buildings in a certain type of district, or ban the construction of any new buildings in that type of district. Each of these Outcomes can apply to any of the district types, and thus the district types are the Targets. Each player must select only one Outcome and one Target.

Scored Competitions

Main article: Competition (Civ6)

The second major type of events discussed and undertaken in the World Congress' Regular Sessions are Scored Competitions. These are events which run for a specific number of turns (usually 30), during which all participants do something to compete towards a particular goal. Note that, unlike Resolutions, not everyone is required to participate in a Scored Competition! If a civilization decides to vote against enacting a Scored Competition, this civilization won't participate and won't be able to win any rewards.

Scored Competitions are usually undertaken in the late game. Exceptions are the Aid Request and the Military Aid Request, which are actually meant to respond to game events (like Emergencies) These competitions may be asked for via a Special Session of the Congress every time a civilization gets hit by a severe natural disaster or constantly bullied by another civilization, and awards Diplomatic Victory points on completion.

Special Sessions

World Congress special session

Special Sessions are meant to respond immediately to game-changing events in the world. A Special Session may be called to respond to a severe Natural Disaster or an Emergency caused by the actions of a civilization. In fact, Special Sessions now replace the Emergencies in Rise and Fall, incorporating both their purpose and mechanics via the World Congress. There are two conditions for a Special Session to occur:

1. A game event, such as an aggressive move by a certain civilization, or a natural disaster, happens to trigger the necessity for a Special Session. For the full list of conditions, check here.
2. An affected civilization (that is, a civilization which suffered in some way from the reason of the emergency) expends 30 Diplomatic Favor to bring the proposal to the World Congress. All affected civilizations have the opportunity to do so, although only one "sponsor" is required to call a Special Session.

Unlike Regular Sessions, Special Sessions may take place at any moment in the game as long as the previous session - Regular or Special - took place 15 turns or prior on Standard speed. If a condition for a Special Session occurs, but the previous Session was within 15 turns, the opportunity to call it will be put on hold and will wait for the next possible turn. If the next Regular Session is within the 15-turn timeframe, the Special Session call opportunity will occur at the same time as the Regular Session.

Once called, the Special Session will occur after the next turn. In practice, this means that between the special event causing the session, and the beginning of any actual Emergency or Relief project there will be a hiatus of (at least) 2 turns: one turn during which the civilizations will have the opportunity to call the session, and another one during which they will prepare to attend the session.

The condition of an Emergency does not vanish with the passing of time. For example, suppose a city-state is conquered by Civ A; Civ B, C, D all have sent Envoys to that city-state, which gives them cause to call a City-State Emergency. However, the world is still in the Ancient or Classical Era, during which the World Congress doesn't yet meet. Whenever the world reaches the Medieval Era and the World Congress is unlocked, if Civ A still occupies the said city-state, Civs B, C, and D will be able to immediately call a Special Session.

In another example, suppose that the same situation occurs, but that Civs B, C, and D are all declared friends of Civ A at the time of conquest. (Declare Friendship serves as a non-aggression pact in Civilization VI.) The declared Friendship means no affected civilizations qualify to propose an Emergency! This is consistent with the Friendship declaration because passing the Emergency means war with the aggressor: Civ A. But when the Friendship expires, and a Special Session may be held (with the 15-turn limit checked), even if this was hundreds of turns later, an Emergency can still be called as long as the city-state in question is still under Civ A and has not changed hands.

Note that multiple Emergencies may be voted in the same Special Session, if the aforementioned conditions have been met for more than one case in the last turns (i.e., there has been a triggering event, and an interested civilization has spent 30 Diplomatic Favor). It isn't rare for this to happen, especially towards the late game, when disasters and aggressive actions become more common.

Once a Special Session begins, all civilizations called to it are required to vote on all eligible topics. The Outcomes in Special Sessions are either to pass a resolution reacting to the emergency reason, or to skip it. Civilizations may vote "For" or "Against," and those which voted Against are not required to participate in the Emergency or Competition, even if it passes. For example, if a City-State Emergency is proposed, a civilization which votes Against won't go to war with the target even if the competition actually occurs.

Also note that, unlike Regular Sessions, only some civilizations may be called to participate in Special Sessions, particularly in the case of Emergencies. This often depends on friendship status and alliances (the ally of a civilization targeted for an Emergency won't be called to participate, since it's clear how they stand). In the case of a City-State Emergency, only civilizations that have met the city-state in question are called to vote.

For more details and a full list of Emergencies and their particulars, head here.

Voting

All decisions of the World Congress are made by voting by all eligible civilizations currently participating. In another major development since Civilization V: Brave New World, the voting process is based on a brand new type of currency: Diplomatic Favor. City-states don't mean more votes anymore (but they may help a player acquire more Diplomatic Favor), and in fact there is no hard upper limit on how many votes a player may have for any particular proposal of any session of the World Congress - it all depends on how much Diplomatic Favor they have at the moment. The system is deceptively simple: the first vote for each civilization for each Resolution is free. The cost of each subsequent vote, however, scales linearly by a factor of 10. For example, three more votes cost 60 (10 * 1 + 10 * 2 + 10 * 3) additional Diplomatic Favor. In practice, it is really difficult to gain enough Diplomatic Favor to cast more than 10 votes on a single item on the World Congress agenda.

Note that votes themselves cannot be negotiated or traded either during a World Congress Session, or outside of it! However, Diplomatic Favor can and will be freely traded as part of any normal trading negotiation.

Outcomes mechanics

World Congress session results

For each Regular session resolution, every civilization will first choose one of the two outcomes. If there are multiple possible targets within that outcome, the civilization will then choose a single target. A target may be a civilization or it could be a district, a type of terrain feature, or a kind of luxury resource - it all depends on the type of resolution being voted on.

The votes are first tallied to decide which Outcome gets passed. In this step, votes with different targets but the same outcome are aggregated. Once an outcome is decided, the votes for this outcome will then decide the target - if any. Each voting step is based on plurality - the option with the most votes wins. Ties are broken by the proportion of Diplomatic Favor a player commits.

After the June 2019 Update every civilization which voted for the outcome/target combo that eventually won gets 1 Diplomatic Victory point. Note that this only works for Resolutions and the Diplomatic Victory vote, but not for Competitions vote.

Since each Resolution has two possible Outcomes and each Outcome may have a number of possible targets, there are 3 possibilities for each player, in some of which their Diplomatic Favor spent are refunded:

• The Outcome the player voted for won with the target they voted for.
  • No refund of Diplomatic Favor spent.
  • The player gets what they voted for.
  • The player gets 1 Diplomatic Victory point.
• The Outcome the player voted for won with a different target than the one they voted for.
  • 50% refund of Diplomatic Favor spent.
  • For example, suppose the Urban Development Treaty Resolution is passed with +100% Production for buildings in Industrial Zones; Civ A voted for this outcome, but for Theater Squares. That civ will retain 50% of the Diplomatic Favor they spent on the Resolution.
• The Outcome the player voted for lost.
  • 100% refund of Diplomatic Favor spent.

Diplomatic Victory

Starting from the Modern Era, a Resolution on Diplomatic Victory points will always be available as the 3rd Resolution in the Regular Session.

The two possible Outcomes are:

1. Award 2 Diplomatic Victory points to a leader.
2. Take away 2 Diplomatic Victory points from a leader.

The logic of a Diplomatic Victory vote is, of course, skewed by necessity - no civilization will vote for another to become the leader of the free world! However, when a single civilization starts approaching the 20 necessary points for a Diplomatic Victory, most civilizations will concentrate their efforts of barring that civilization from winning (by voting for the Lose Victory Points outcome).

If a player votes for himself or herself with the option "Take away 2 Diplomatic Victory Points", and this option is validated, the player will lose only 1 point (because voting for the winning result awards the player a point).

List of Regular Session Resolutions

Resolution	Min era	Max era	Outcome A	Outcome B
Mercenary Companies			+100% cost when producing or purchasing military units using this currency type.	-50% cost when producing or purchasing military units using this currency type.
Diplomatic Victory	Modern		Target player gains 2 Diplomatic Victory points.	Target player loses 2 Diplomatic Victory points.
Luxury Policy			Duplicates of this Luxury resource grant additional Amenities.	This Luxury resource grants no Amenities.
Trade Policy			Each Trade Route sent to target player provides +4 Gold to the sender. This player receives +1 Trade Route capacity.	All active international Trade Routes between target player and other players are ended. No new routes of such kind can be established.
World Religion		Industrial	+10 Religious Combat Strength for all units of this Religion.	Condemning a unit of this Religion yields 25 Diplomatic Favor.
Governance Doctrine			Appointing and promoting a Governor of this type yields 15 Diplomatic Favor.	All active Governors of this type are neutralized for 6 Turns.
Arms Control	Atomic		All players have their Weapons of Mass Destruction set equal to target player's.	Target player loses all of their Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Heritage Organization	Modern		Great Works of this type generate +100% Tourism.	No Tourism from Great Works of this type.
Policy Treaty			All players with this Policy in their Government gain 1 Diplomatic Favor per turn.	This Policy cannot be assigned by any player.
World Ideology	Modern		This Government type gains a Wildcard policy slot.	This Government type loses a Wildcard policy slot.
Urban Development Treaty		Modern	+100% Production towards buildings in this District.	No buildings can be created in this district.
Border Control Treaty		Modern	New Districts built by target player act as Culture bombs.	Target player's borders cannot grow via Culture.
Public Works Program	Atomic	Information	+100% Production towards this Project.	-50% Production towards this Project.
Patronage		Modern	+100% points towards Great People of this class.	No points earned towards Great People of this class.
Treaty Organization			Being Suzerain of a City-State of this type yields +100% Diplomatic Favor.	No Diplomatic Favor earned from being Suzerain of a City-State of this type.
Global Energy Treaty	Modern		50% discount on the production of buildings of this type.	Buildings of this type cannot be created by any player.
Sovereignty		Modern	+100% of the City-States' yield when sending a Trade Route to a City-State of this type.	City-States of this type do not provide their unique Suzerain bonus.
Migration Treaty	Industrial		+20% Population growth but -5 Loyalty per turn in target player's cities.	+5 Loyalty per turn but -20% Population growth in target player's cities.
Deforestation Treaty	Atomic	Information	Clearing Features of this type yields Gold equal to the Production and Food.	Features of this type cannot be cleared by any player.
Public Relations		Atomic	Target player generates 100% more Grievances, and other players generate 100% more Grievances against this player.	Target player generates 50% fewer Grievances, and other players generate 50% fewer Grievances against this player.
Espionage Pact	Industrial	Atomic	Spies function as if 2 levels more experienced when executing this Mission.	This Mission cannot be performed by any player.
Military Advisory		Atomic	+5 Combat Strength for units of this promotion class.	-5 Combat Strength for units of this promotion class.

Unimplemented Resolutions

Comments in the XML files indicate that these resolutions have not been implemented in the game yet.

Resolution	Min era	Max era	Outcome A	Outcome B
Favored Civilization			The target player's cities are 100% Loyal.	The target player cannot exert Loyalty pressure on others' cities.
Power Policy			Converting the chosen Power resource is twice as effective.	Converting the chosen Power resource is half as effective.

Strategy

List of AI behaviors

1. For the Mercenary Companies resolution, most AI tends to vote for -50% cost on using Production.
2. For the Diplomatic Victory resolution, the AI leaders tend to pour most of their Diplomatic Favor into gaining 2 points for themselves. However, when a player is 1 or 2 Diplomatic Victory points away from a Diplomatic Victory, AI leaders will pour most of their Diplomatic Favor into removing 2 points from the winning player instead.
3. For the Luxury Policy resolution, the AI has a tendency to ban the type of luxury resource the human player owns the most copies of.
4. For the Urban Development Treaty resolution, the AI has a tendency to vote for City Center buildings or Campus buildings. Other options may still occur.
5. For the Border Control Treaty resolution, the AI usually will only put 1 vote for themselves. Therefore, human players can often secure an easy win by casting 2 votes in their own favor.
6. The AI will not trade Diplomatic Favor past a certain era.
7. The AI will mostly join but almost never actually do anything for Aid Requests before a certain era. Therefore, human players can give the aid target a small amount of Gold right before the competition expires to win it.

If the winning (human) player expects to have insufficient votes to counter all the opposing votes, the player should expect the game to last longer and it is thus wise to spend Diplomatic Favor on other resolutions if they are also important. If the winning player expects to be close to having a tie, the player may find it advantageous to instead commit all of their Diplomatic Favor in the hope of winning the tiebreaker.

Sometimes, voting along the likely Outcome of a competing player but on a different Target can waste 50% of their Diplomatic Favor, since usually an Outcome with a different Target than that desired is a different resolution altogether from the perspective of that player and won't help them (but will cost them the Diplomatic Favor).

Diplomatic Victory vote

Even if the player has more Diplomatic Favor than all AI players together, the AI players can (and usually will) still have enough votes to pass the option "Take away 2 Diplomatic Victory Points" against the player. This is because the Diplomatic Favor cost for one player is significantly higher with each added vote (the cost rises quadratically with regard to number of votes), and multiple civilizations pooling votes spend significantly less Diplomatic Favor than a single civilization wishing to brute force the opposite outcome. This puts emphasis on the generation of Diplomatic Favor for those seeking a Diplomatic Victory, especially when victory is close.

On higher difficulty levels, it may be impossible for the player to overrule the AIs for the Diplomatic Victory vote. Diplomatic Victory is still possible with the strategy of voting for oneself to "Take away 2 Diplomatic Victory Points" and thus losing only 1 point for this particular resolution (see above). When winning the points for the other two resolutions, the net result will be +1 point for the player (+2 for regular resolutions, -2 from the Diplomatic Victory vote, +1 for voting for the winning outcome), allowing for slow progress toward victory.

Trivia

• The banners that appear in the World Congress menu are the symbols of the civilizations that are currently in the game.
• In the Diplomatic Victory movie, the World Congress headquarters resembles the headquarters of the United Nations, and the flags of Mexico, Nigeria, Kenya, Thailand, Argentina, South Africa, Iceland, Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, Papua New Guinea, Morocco, and Sri Lanka appear there. Ironically, none of these countries appear as major civilizations in the actual game.

Related achievements

The Art of Telling Plain Truths Win a Diplomatic Victory A Winston Churchill quote: "Diplomacy is the art of telling plain truths."

Airing Your Grievances Win a Diplomatic Victory Resolution and use it to reduce another player's progress toward that victory. A phrase to describe someone who complains in public.

Nobel-er than the Noblest Achieve first place in all three Nobel Prizes in the same game. Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel left $9 million to begin the Nobel Prize.

See also

• World Congress in other games