World Congress (Civ5)

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Introduction

The World Congress is a new feature introduced in the Civilization V: Brave New World expansion pack as a new late-game feature, and a brand new way to achieve diplomatic victory.

The World Congress is a place where, just like in real world, all leaders of the civilizations and City-States are represented by their delegates. They get together regularly to discuss and enact common actions, known as Resolutions, which then become binding for all civilizations in the world and affect gameplay in numerous ways.

Founding and Hosting the Congress

The World Congress

The World Congress is automatically founded when any civilization meets all others and finishes researching Printing Press. When the Congress is founded, the Civilization in question becomes the Congress's first host, after which the host will be voted periodically (each time the Era changes). Being the host provides several advantageous benefits in the World Congress, such as additional delegates and ability to propose resolutions.

Delegates

Each Civilization receives a number of delegates as representatives, forming their delegation in the Congress. The host receives additional delegates. The core of each delegation is formed by 'membership' delegates, which starts at 1 and increases by 1 in later eras. Any bonus delegates (for example from being the Host, or from folowing the World Religion) are added to the core. In addition, from Industrial Era forward, every Civilization gets additional delegates from City-State allies, which always vote with their patron (thus practically increasing the total number of Delegates for this Civilization). Note that these delegates are most unstable, since the civilization loses their votes as soon as it loses the alliance of the particular City-State. Note also that in the majority of cases City-State delegates simply swap delegations (according to whom their new Patron is), but they might also simply disappear from the Congress for a while, until they find a new Patron. 

Delegates by Era

Status	Renaissance	Industrial	Modern	United Nations
Host	1 extra vote	1 extra vote	2 extra votes	2 extra votes
Member	1	2	3	4
City-State	0	1	1	2

In addition, you can also earn delegates from the following conditions:

• The Forbidden Palace World Wonder grants 2 additional delegates for the civ who owns a city with this wonder
• The Globalization technology grants 1 additional delegate from each spy you assign in another civ's Capital as Diplomat
• If the World Congress enacts a World Religion, you get 2 additional delegates from following that religion
• If the World Congress enacts a World Ideology, you get 2 additional delegates from following that ideology
• If no civ receives enough support to win a World Leader election, and you are among the two civs who received the most support, you get 2 permanent additional delegates for use in future sessions

Diplomats

The Diplomat is a new unit, dedicated to dealing with other civilizations in all aspects regarding the World Congress activities. Diplomats are drawn from your Spy pool and use much of their mechanics, such as the ability to change cities within 1 turn.

Producing a Diplomat

Any spy can be converted into a Diplomat when stationed to another civilization's Capital. Now every time you send a spy there, you'll be prompted whether you want him to function as a spy, or as a diplomat. You can change constantly between the two functions - the difference is that in the former case he'll keep a low profile and attempt to steal Technologies, while in the latter case he'll introduce himself officially to state officials and keep diplomatic contacts with them above-the-table, so to speak.

Abilities

The function of a diplomat is entirely related to the work of the World Congress - you can't even make a Diplomat before the Congress convenes. When you have a Diplomat in a certain nation's Capital, he will learn their standing on the currently proposed resolutions. You'll be able to check this from the World Congress screen, by clicking on the nation in question.

Additionally, a Diplomat allows you to interact with another nation regarding the World Congress. That means you may attempt to 'trade' delegate votes from the Diplomatic trading screen. Open a diplomatic Trade screen, and you should see that the 'World Congress' option is now active. Note that his presence won't affect the outcome of your trade/bribe attempts - you still need to sweeten the deal well enough to make the other side agree to support your point of view in the next vote.

Finally, a Diplomat automatically starts promoting your nation's cultural interests, after the nation he is serving in adopts an Ideology. His activities provide a permanent bonus to your Tourism output to that nation, as long as the Diplomat is there.

Along with these activities, the Diplomat continues surveying the city and its surroundings (giving you vision of it and its City screen, just like a spy), and monitoring the nation's covert machinations.

Diplomats become even more important in the late game, after Globalization is researched. From that point on, each active Diplomat confers an additional delegate to your nation in the United Nations. Needless to say, 5 - 6 additional delegates at this point could make enough difference to win the game!

Congress Mechanics

The World Congress' main function in the game is to alter the game rules by enacting Resolutions. Those are essentially temporary mods which affect all players in a certain way - for example they may speed up generation of certain Great People (while decreasing generation of others), increase the usefullness of certain game items, such as Wonders, or even ban trading (establishing Trade Routes) with a certain nation.

Resolutions

At each Congress meeting, the Congress host and one of the Congress members may make Propositions. They may either propose to enact a new resolution, or repeal an existing one. Deliberations then take place for a set amount of turns until the next meeting, when a vote takes place, which passes or fails the proposals. At the turn after the vote, new proposals are made, and the cycle continues.

Since there are always two nations with the power to propose (the current host and another one), at each meeting there are a total of two proposals. The exception is when the turn comes for selecting the next Congress Host (at the turn of a Congress Era), or when the automatic World Leader proposal begins - at these voting session they are the sole proposal, with no additional propositions allowed.

Once enacted, you can never ignore resolutions, meaning you must obey them until repealed.

The variety of resolutions possible is great, from placing trade sanctions against a certain Civilization, funding a boost in generation of certain Great Person types at the expense of others, to initiating a World's Fair. Certain late-game resolutions may not be proposed until at least one civilization discovers certain technologies.

Voting 

Each nation can distribute their delegates amongst the proposed Resolutions for this session, choosing a Yea or Nay vote for each one. One can also choose to Abstain, by not committing any delegates to vote on a resolution. Note that each delegate may vote ONLY once, so you have to choose well which proposals you will throw your weight behind!

You can choose to distribute delegates among the two proposals any way you wish - if you commit all your delegates to one of the proposals, you will automatically abstain the other one. The proposal will be passed if there is enough support (more than 50%) from delegates. Ties are allowed - in this case, the proposal is considered failed.

Note that every vote matters for diplomatic relations with the nation that made the proposal (if that's not you, of course) - if you support it, relations will improve, if you vote against it, they will worsen. Consider abstaining on proposals that you don't feel strong about - this way you will avoid worsening relations with the proposing nation.  

The Congress Further on

The World Congress is held every 30 turns once it is founded and during the Renaissance Era. As Congress Eras advance, meetings become more frequent - every 25 turns in the Industrial Era, 20 in Modern, 15 in Atomic, and 10 in Information. In the last Era, however, normal votes are alternated with World Leader votes, so actual Resolution voting takes place every 20 turns.

These changes of "World Congress Eras" happen each time at least half the civilizations still in play reach that era, or when one civilization reaches the Era beyond it. For example, the Congress Era will become Modern if half the civilizations reach the Modern Era, or if one reaches the Atomic Era. At that turn, the Congress holds an election to designate a new Congress host - this is an extra session, which is simply inserted in between normal sessions, and doesn't cancel the previously made proposals, which will be voted on on the next regular session.

After the first Congress Era change, delegate count changes, and City-States also receive representation at the Congress. They send delegates in the delegation of their patron, which means the more City-State allies you have, the more delegates you'll control! For a detailed table of number of delegates per Congress Era, see above.

With technological and Era advances, more resolutions become available, such as providing culture from Landmarks and Great Person Improvements, preventing construction of new nuclear weapons, and designating a World Ideology. Finally, the Congress may also be able to initiate international mega-projects, such as the World's Fair, International Games and International Space Station. See below for more info on them.

For a full list of available Resolutions, check here.

United Nations

In Brave New World, the United Nations isn't a separate World Wonder anymore. Instead, the World Congress becomes (is simply renamed) the United Nations once any Civilization reaches the Information Era or at least half of the world's Civilizations reach the Atomic Era. From then, the Congress will have an election every 20 turns to designate the World Leader. If this election succeeds, the winner achieves a Diplomatic Victory. If it fails (no nation achieves the necessary support), then the two nations with the most support each get two permanent additional delegates, and the game continues.

International Projects

International Projects are a special kind of Resolutions, and thus may only be proposed during the World Congress. Once the respective Resolution is enacted, an International Project begins, and all Civilizations can contribute Production Production towards it by choosing it in the Production list from their cities. Note that unlike National projects (Manhattan Project, for example), you can select the International Project in every city, making it possible to contribute simultaniously with several, or all of your cities. You can track the Project's progress, as well as your current contribution, from the game tooltip that will pop up when you point at the project in one of your cities; also several global alerts update the Project's situation and level of accomplishment. The International Project is completed when the target Production Production is reached. This works like a kind of a race, because all nations can work simultaneously on the project, and in order to receive a reward, you would have to reach a certain amount of production within the project before it is completed.

Each International Project grants large prizes upon completion, depending on how much the civilization was involved in it, which in turn is based upon the Production Production contributed towards the project. Note that higher level rewards also include the lower level rewards as well, so the largest contributor will almost always receive all the rewards for other top contributors.

•  International Games:
  1. Highest Production of all civs: Tourism increases by 100% for 20 turns and one free Social Policy
  2. At least 350 Production: +3 Happiness and one time increase of 30 Influence with City-States
  3. At least 175 Production: +3 Happiness
•  International Space Station:
  1. Highest Production of all civs: +1 Production from Scientists and +1 Science from Engineers, and Great Scientists provide 33% more Science when used to discover new technology
  2. At least 350 Production: Free Great Scientist
  3. At least 175 Production: One time Research boost
•  World's Fair:
  1. Highest Production of all civs: Culture increases by 100% for 20 turns
  2. At least 350 Production: One free Social Policy
  3. At least 175 Production: 500 points towards next Golden Age

Note: The conditions above assume a game in the Standard map size and the Standard game speed. The total Production Production requirement may differ with the map size and/or game speed.