Are there some of you who aren't exactly satisfied with the civics options --perhaps even as simple as changing a few names. I've just started to think about this, some I don't have any concrete suggestions, but for some reason many of the options don't quite seem right to me.

My main concern is that it seems you could almost keep some of the most basic Civics and still have a very successful empire. I'm thinking things need to be tweaked so that it's obvious if you stick to the "old way" you're going to start to lag behind.

EDIT: Scroll down the thread to view some of the civics ideas. Check out subsequent pages for even more ideas from other Civers.

For even more ideas, check out Arbitrary Guy's ideas in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141217).

Also, check this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145483) out!

The problem, I think, is the way these are tied to the much streamlined (as in: lightened) techtree. Not enough technologies = not enough choices. This was a design decision that will need to be corrected - by us of course.

I for one intend, if at all possible, to greatly increase the size of the tech tree - therefore making it more realistic. I want techs with prerequisites such as buildings present in x number of cities + other techs + a certain level of culture... you get the idea. Same thing with the civics - make their availability dependant on a number of factors.

Really I detest the pretension of offering us a game that simulate the development of civilizations and yet that is actually a race to get the first space ship out. The linearity of it all bores me senseless ! You'd think that after 4 games they'd have gotten it right but no - of course not. Bahh !



G.

It seems to me that a major improvement would be giving each civic a negative effect as well. They all have only positive effects. This would be difficult, however, beacause, 1) balancing issues and 2) the xml options are basically only for good things.

It seems to me that a major improvement would be giving each civic a negative effect as well. They all have only positive effects. This would be difficult, however, beacause, 1) balancing issues and 2) the xml options are basically only for good things.

This was exactly my thought.

Grallon, you bring up some good points. I'm a minimalist on modding. I like to do just enough to make things better, but no more. I don't like the idea of adding a ton of techs just to add a ton of techs. HOWEVER, I do like the idea of adding pre-req's other than or in addition to just technologies. I think things need to be more interconnected and have ramifications.

I'm in agreement with the three of you.

And I'd like to see a couple more civics within each civic branch.
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http://img467.imageshack.us/img467/2391/civ69np.gif > [c3c]

Four things.

1> In Alpha Centauri, each of the Social Engineering choices (i.e., the civics) had two pluses and one minus. Some wonders could remove the minus from certain SE choices, and some other wonders gave different bonuses depending on which SE options you had running. You could do that here, if you wanted.

2> ArbitraryGuy: Several of the existing options DO have negatives. Medium or High upkeep is an obvious one, but a few are more straightforward; Mercantilism disallows foreign trade routes, Theocracy penalizes secondary religions, Pacifism makes troop maintenance more expensive, and Free Religion removes the bonuses of a State Religion. So clearly, the mechanism is there to add drawbacks, even ignoring the fact that you could probably just add a "bonus" that's a negative number.
On a more abstract level, the "negative" aspect of each civic is the fact that you're not choosing the others. For instance, only people with Universal Suffrage can spend money to rush production, so if you picked one of the other Government civics you'd be at a substantial disadvantage.

3> Colonel Kraken said: "I'm thinking things need to be tweaked so that it's obvious if you stick to the "old way" you're going to start to lag behind."
You will. Sure, you CAN stick with the original 5, but that'd be dumb. Look at each category:
Government: Any of the last three are viable, although I think most people will end up with Universal Suffrage or Representation.
Legal: The last two are clearly superior to the others, and I'd guess most people end at Free Speech.
Labor: Tribalism is completely inferior to the others, and Slavery and Serfdom aren't that good, either. So it's Caste System or Emancipation, and with Emancipation's offensive use I see it as the one everyone migrates to.
So, for three out of the five civic categories, you already have it greatly favoring switching to the newest and greatest civics. For Economy and Religion, any of the later four options (i.e., not the default one for each) would be viable. But anyone who sticks to the beginning five WILL lag behind.

4> White Elk: I'd agree, more civics would be nice. As part of my future mod, I'm adding one new one to each category, based on Alpha Centauri social engineering: Green, Knowledge, Cybernetic, Planned, and Eudaimonia.

2) the xml options are basically only for good things.

Not at all. Just about every 'Integer' value (that's all the xml elements beginning with a small 'i') allows a negative as well as a positive value. .. and I only say 'Just about' because I haven't tested them all, but I surely haven't run into any yet that don't allow negative values. Some of them have pretty stupid effects when you make them negatives though (like a negative production cost, for example), but still - it's allowed. :)

So, Civics can easily reduce the Birth rate of Great Persons, reduce Health in cities, subtract Experience from newly trained units, decrease the speed of Military unit production, etc., etc..

Not at all. Just about every 'Integer' value (that's all the xml elements beginning with a small 'i') allows a negative as well as a positive value. .. and I only say 'Just about' because I haven't tested them all, but I surely haven't run into any yet that don't allow negative values. Some of them have pretty stupid effects when you make them negatives though (like a negative production cost, for example), but still - it's allowed. :)

So, Civics can easily reduce the Birth rate of Great Persons, reduce Health in cities, subtract Experience from newly trained units, decrease the speed of Military unit production, etc., etc..

I was mostly thinking about civics that could give you unhappiness. If you put in a negative value for the religion happiness values you get "-1 :mad: in each city" instead of "+1 :mad: in each city" .

That isn't quite true Isak, I tried to change <iNonStateReligionHappiness>0</iNonStateReligionHappiness> to <iNonStateReligionHappiness>-1</iNonStateReligionHappiness> for organized religion and all it did was: +1231304 per (religion symbol) in a City.

That isn't quite true Isak, I tried to change <iNonStateReligionHappiness>0</iNonStateReligionHappiness> to <iNonStateReligionHappiness>-1</iNonStateReligionHappiness> for organized religion and all it did was: +1231304 per (religion symbol) in a City.

It works fine, just doesn't display correctly in the Civilopedia due to a conflict with the <bStateReligion> element being set to 1. Try setting the value to -1 for one of the Civics that don't have <bStateReligion> set to 1.

It also shows up a bit funny in the City screen, where it says "+1 :mad: "We want religious freedom". ...:crazyeye:

But that should be possible to take care of by editing the text files, and possibly python a bit.

It didn't show that in the civilopedia, it showed it on the civics screen.

I am a bit confused when you say, "Try setting the value to -1 for one of the Civics that don't have <bStateReligion> set to 1." because if the bstatereligion is 0 it is a non state religion right? but I want to modify civics so that the player is penalized for having religions other than the state religion. (except for religious freedom) If I mod one that isn't state religion how will that help?

It didn't show that in the civilopedia, it showed it on the civics screen.

Yeah, the Civics screen probably uses the same code to display the effect as the Civilopedia.

I am a bit confused when you say, "Try setting the value to -1 for one of the Civics that don't have <bStateReligion> set to 1." because if the bstatereligion is 0 it is a non state religion right? but I want to modify civics so that the player is penalized for having religions other than the state religion. (except for religious freedom) If I mod one that isn't state religion how will that help?

Sorry, I wasn't being clear. It won't help you do that, just show you that it actually can work. To make it display correctly in the Pedia and Civics screen, you'll have to modify whatever is used to display the effect. I'll see if I can dig that out of the Python files (or find someone a bit more familiar with them to do it for me ;) )

To make it display correctly in the Pedia and Civics screen, you'll have to modify whatever is used to display the effect. I'll see if I can dig that out of the Python files (or find someone a bit more familiar with them to do it for me ;) )

Do you know anything more about this, Isak?

I've been thinking about this more in depth. I don't like the current civics because they seem muddled and disorganized, rarely making sense for the category they are in or having some of them at all.

I've been pondering some ideas, systems of government and social institutions. Here is what I've come up with:

HEAD of STATE
Who controls the state?

Chiefdom: Starting Civic. A tribal leader/tribal council makes the decisions for the tribe.
Despotism: A thug, military leader, or charismatic leader has seized control of society and protects himself with personal guards.
Monarchy: A member of the aristocracy, learned class, or other such member of society is considered the leader through divine appointment, heredity, or other such convention.
Oligarchy: A small group of leaders run the country either by appointment, tradition, or self-proclamation.
Representation: The government is run by representatives chosen by the people.
Direct Democracy: All citizens who wish to become involved in how society runs may choose to have a direct say.
Totalitarianism: A powerful central government led by a socially powerful individual(s).


GOVERNMENT
How is the state run?

Tribalism: Starting Civic. Tribal leaders direct family leaders how to conduct their daily lives.
Mercanary: Hired thugs carry out every desire of the head of state.
Feudalism: The head of state owns the country but divests his/her authority through lords who own and/or help care for the land.
Bureaucracy: The head of state is surrounded by advisors, leaders, governors and other individuals who carry out the day-to-day running of government.
Federalism: A relatively weak central government shares authority with autonomous/semi-autonomous territories/regions/cities.
Martial Law: Police/Military is a common presence on the street and impose the will of the state. Curfews are probably in place.
Secret Police: An internal security agency has its fingers everywhere in society in order to ensure compliance with the will of the state. Even the military has "advisors" attached to every unit and subunit to ensure compliance.


ECONOMY
How does the economy function?

Barter: Starting Civic. The economy is based on the exchange of goods. If any currency exists, it is not official and not used often.
Command: The government determines how property will be used, collects however much tax and "treasure" it wishes, and may even determine who will do what job. Typically, the government will collect "grain" to distribute to society in times of famine or depression.
Manorial: Peasants hold land from a lord of an estate in return for fixed dues in kind, money, and services
Mercantilism: The belief that a fixed amount of wealth existed in the world and government does all it can to accumulate as much of it as possible. The premise that national wealth and power are best served by increasing exports and collecting precious metals in return.
Liassez Faire: An economic doctrine that opposes governmental regulation of or interference in commerce beyond the minimum necessary for a free-enterprise system to operate according to its own economic laws.
Regulated Capitalism: The free market operates but government has laws to prevent monopolies, harming the consumer, general trade regulation and other laws it may deem necessary to control the behaviors of companies, corporations or individuals.
State Property: A regulated free market is dominated by state owned property, major commodities and means of production.


SOCIETY
What are the social conventions of society?

Familialism: Starting Civic. Your status, duties and obligations are to the family and your job is determined by birth order and/or gender.
Serfdom: Society dominated by peasant laborers who can be generally characterized as hereditarily attached to the manor in a state of semibondage, performing the servile duties of the lord/aristocracy.
Caste: Your positition in society is determined by birth. Either you are born privelaged or not.
Guild: Trade and social guilds dominate society. Your position in life is not determined by birth but you will probably do what your parents did. You may select a new trade, but you will be stuck with it for life moving from apprentice, to journeyman, and possibly to master.
Citizenship: You have civil rights simply for being a citizen of the state in which you reside. Government must make use of the rule of law to deal with its citizens.
Nationalsim: Citizens are generally free to move about and conduct themselves how they wish, but their desires are superceded by the needs of the state. Very strong social pressure is in place to ensure your do your duty to the "motherland".
Socialism: From each according to his ability to each according to his need.


RELIGION
How is religion used and viewed in society?

Paganism: Starting Civic. The religious beiefs of society are many, varied and relatively unorganized, based on mysticism, necromancy, and oral tradition.
Mythology: A semi-organized polytheism based on an oral tradition of stories set to explain every aspect of the world.
Organized Religion: A well organized, entrenched theology controls a large aspect of society and has powerful influence on government which must be ever mindful of appeasing the spiritual beliefs of the people.
Theocracy: The government is seen to be appointed by God or the gods and may even be seen as a god itself. Religious law controls all aspects of society.
Philosophy: The latest thoughts on the human condition are discussed, debated and continually revised. The spiritual condition of man is considered but may have no part in religion per se.
Humanism: Religion is the antithesis of humanity. Humanity is only limited by its own understanding of the universe. Scientific knowledge is the preeminent determination of how society should run, from the care of the environment to the raising of children.
Free Religion: Each individual determines his or her own religion and everyone is free to express his or her religious preference openly and worship in his or her own manner.



I haven't even begun to consider the benefits and negative aspects of these civics. Glaringly missing are Universal Suffrage, Slavery, and Free Speech. I really wish I could implement these separately as sort of major civics you impliment as suppliments to the above types of government --because I don't see how someone shouldn't be able to have many of these civics and not Universal Suffrage and other such things. Are there ways to add a 6th column to the civics sceen? What are some ideas of other ways these could be implemented.


I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on these civics ideas, how they could be implemented, better names, and additions or subtractions.

Thanks!

I believe these civics allow for the representation of many of histories governments and societies. Here are a few examples:

Ancient Israel Pre-Moses: Chiefdom, Tribalism, Barter, Familialism, Paganism.
Ancient Egypt: Monarchy, Bureaucracy, Command, Caste, Theocracy.
Middle-Ages Europe: Monarchy, Feudalism, Manorial, Serfdom, Organized Religion.
18th Century Europe: Monarchy, Bureaucracy, Mercantilism, Guild, Organized Religion.
Pre- Civil War U.S. : Representation, Federalsim, Laissez Faire, Citizenship, Free Religion.
Fascist Germany: Totalitarianism, Martial Law, State Property, Nationalism, Humanism.
U.S.S.R. : Totalitarinism, Secret Police, Command, Socialism, Humanism.
Modern-day France: Representation, Bureaucracy, State Property, Citizenship, Free Religion.

Who controls the state?
How is the state run?


Civ confuses government type with government efficiency. What you're looking for is increasing government efficiency over time, which historically has nothing to do with the type of government that rules the society. There's no reason that a dictatorship has to be less efficient than a republic, for example, nor is there any evidence that a republic is more likely to be more technologically advanced than a non-representative form of government. We like to believe the propaganda, but for 99% of human history there's no chartable correlation.

I did away with government type and simply changed one civics branch to reflect increasing government efficiency over time. It's a linear progression, unlike some of the other civics I've developed.


ECONOMY
How does the economy function?


This is a difficult one, and I haven't gotten around to resolving it yet. While there's no correlation between the type of government and the efficiency of that government, there is one between government interference and economic efficiency. That is, the more government interference you have, the less efficient the economy becomes. That's been especially apparent since Keynesian economics has proven to be an abject failure.

If I were you, I'd leave techs to determine the complexity of the economy and use civics to decide how much the government interferes in that economy. The more interference, the less efficient the economy becomes. Since a rational player won't choose a government type that decreases economic prosperity without some real form of payoff, you could counterbalance this with an increase in happiness and health (i.e., health care combined with bread-and-circuses). A player could then decide which level of interference he or she likes the most of the choices given.


SOCIETY
What are the social conventions of society?


Socialism is a form of government interference in the economy, not a social convention. Serfdom is a legal and economic system.


RELIGION
How is religion used and viewed in society?


Your definition of humanism is incorrect. This would more properly be labeled antitheism. Not atheism, but antitheism. Humanists simply believe that the religious, and religious doctrine, should not determine the laws and mores of society, but that these should be arrived at by rational means. In other words, a fancy way of saying "separation of church and state", which is a core tenet of the United States (despite continued attempts by religious radicals to seize control of the state).

Max

Your definition of humanism is incorrect.

Max

Perhaps I should have clarified: secular humanism.

I would like to see some of the civics you have come up with, Max.

Thanks,

CK

Perhaps I should have clarified: secular humanism.

The definition still isn't right. Humanists aren't anti-religion, they're against having the religious and religious institutions dictate the mores and laws of society.

Antitheists are anti-religion - period. They want religion eradicated.

Like I said, humanism is just separation of church and state. Humanists are fine with religion so long as the religious can't impose their view of how the world should be on everyone else by force. Perhaps more accurately, humanists don't care about religion unless the religious try to seize the government to promote their own agenda. It's a bit of rather bad propaganda by the religious right that brands humanists as anti-religion; but then, the religious right thinks that anyone who won't bend over and grab their ankles for them is 'the enemy'.

Max

I think I struck a nerve . . . :mischief:


Anyway, you going to share your civics ideas?

Colonel Kraken, I like your list very much. The challenge, however, will be balance.

Still, I might make a few suggestions.

Humanism-->State Atheism or Ban Religion (sounds more in line with what you're going for)

Under the religion column, I recommend Pacifism or Compassion -- which emphasizes the 'help the poor' and 'stop violence' undertones in most religions. The liberation theology movement in Latin America is just one such extreme example.

Socialism IS an economic system.

Column Suggestion

And I think the following should be in the same column -- be it society or otherwise. This is the "tie that binds" together all the cities in a civilization.

Decentralization: Default

City States (Ancient to Medieval): a federation of city states with some common languages cooperate. Each governor ruled, and they all cooperated for the few functions that were necessary. Relatively uncoordinated, but stable.

Imperialism (Classical to Enlightenment): Empire, centered around a person, family, or group. Empires grew far and wide, but were prone to collapse once their pillar fell (Caesar, Khan...). And Governors would rule in the name of the emperor or monarch.

Feudalism (Medieval to Enlightenment): Builds on the previous two. Empires were big but unstable. City states were stable, but uncoordinated, and small in scope. Feudal relations organized these fiefs into a hierarchy of relations. Feudalism is essentially fractal in design. You remove one link in the tree, and the tree readjusts and survives. Feudal relations are essentially relations of protection.

Nationalism (Enlightenment to Present): Nationalism toppled empires, because people pledged allegiance to an 'idea', not a man. That idea was based on common language, or common values, or so on. Nationalism could take many forms, from Religious Nationalism (theocracy, think Osama Bin Laden), or cultural nationalism (think Greece toppling the Ottoman Empire after centuries of rule), or civic nationalism (think early America) based on the participation of its citizens, or state nationalism (think Fascist Italy) where people exist strictly to boost the state.

Globalization (Industrial to Present): Whether you're the USSR who wanted an international worker party to spread influence across the globe, numerous Latin American countries changing to free market anarchy to allow American corporations to spread their influence, or Osama Bin Laden who wants global cooperation from all Islamic States... Globalization involves the spread of an ideology. If you achieve success, borders are little more than a formality.

I might throw in there something more like early England (off and on) that's neither Feudal nor Imperial. Not monarchy -- it's not about who rules -- but about how cooperation is established between seperate units. Maybe a kingdom is just imperialism on a small scale.

Anyway, it's way passed my bedtime. Got carried away. I hope this is semi-coherent.

Thank you very much, DH. I really appreciate your input on this matter.

City States
This was definitely in my consideration when building the various columns. I tried to remain generic enough to keep from stating specific government types per se and allow for more variations on the same theme. Thus, "Federalism" can incorporate the notion of City States (if given the proper other Civics choices!) and can also incorporate a Confederate States of America type system as well. This was my goal: flexibility.

Decentralization: Default
The default of which column?

Imperialism
I don't see this so much as a form of government as it is a manner in which you choose to use your governmental power. Thus, many of the systems I have set up (possible combinations) could indeed become "Imperial" and would definitely lend themselves as such.

Nationalism
Nationalism is in my list. :)

Globalization

Excellent point! I had been thinking about eliminating up to 3 religions and using those three to represent the spread of different ideals. This would make a great one! The "tech" for it would come in the Industrial Era, of course. Can you think of a way it should propogate itself? What would be the benefits? What other "ideals" could be added in place of a couple of the religions?


Thanks for your help! I'd love to continue to bounce off ideas with each other.

To me, it's a question of scope. The 'glue' that holds together a civilization is key and has always changed things. It's not the government. It's not the political system. But it's the very ideology of the civilization itself "What ties these cities together to be considered part of the same system?"

Ancestry: No bonuses from a very vague social glue. (Default)

City States: +2 hammers in all cities. Low Maintainance. (Good early civic for builders.)

Imperialism: Replaces maintainance distance costs with distance related unhappiness. High Maintainance. (Good early civic for expansionists.)

Feudalism: +2XP for all units, +2 gold from all cities. +20% defence to all cities. Low Maintainance. (A alternative civic for the medieval era.)

Nationalism: +25% war weariness for all nations. Can draft units. Losing a city generates free units. Low Maintainance. (A mid game turning point. Turn the tide against the aggressor by hitting them with war weariness and cities harder to take.)

Globalization: +2 unhappiness in all cities. +% gold in all cities based on how many cities in the world share your civics. e.g.: you control 30% of the world, Caesar controls 30% and shares 50% of your civics, and Khan controls 40% of the world with but 25% of your civics. That's 30%+15%+10% = 55% extra gold. High maintainance. (If you can afford the happiness hit, you might be able to offset the maintainance costs and turn this into a roaring economy.)

It's not what each civic does on its own, but how each stands in relation to one another. It's the choices they present between one another. The way Nationalism becomes the 'safe' civic once it comes along. The way imperialism gets hit the hardest by Nationalism's war weariness boost. The way globalization is only an option if you can handle the maintainance and unhappiness, and it requires diplomacy to take full advantage. The way feudalism, city states, and imperialism offer differing approaches to everything.

The goal of these civics is to really reflect the impact of these ideologies. Nationalism really is one of the top 3 social movements in all of history.

=o you and this guy should combine: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141217

I'd like to see the civics options reinforced with Religion Types. For example (in no particular order):

Pluralism - Resembles religions that had multiple gods, dedicated to various aspects of life. Examples of such religions would be the many ancient Mediterranean belief systems (Greek, Roman, Egyptian...) and many of the native American Indian religions.
Culture +1, Happiness +1 - Comes from the rich legends and traditions surrounding the mythologies.

Mortal God - Religions that worshipped the Emperor as a God. (Japan, Incas, Egypt...)
City Production +25% - The fear of the ruler makes people more obedient and work harder.

Philosophical Ways - Represents cultures where a philosophy became the way of life and took the place of actual religion. Confucianism and perhaps Taoism as well would fall under this category. (many Far Eastern and South Asian cultures)
Culture +2, War weariness +50% - Such cultures were often culturally very rich and also rather peace-inclined.

One True God - "Modern" monotheistic religions that swear in the name of a single, immortal god. (Christianity, Islam)
Religion spread +20%, Happiness +1, Happiness -1 from Non-State Religions - These type of religions often have strong missionary traditions but easily conflict with other religions about being the only right one.

Atheism - Self-explanatory. Though not an actual religion, many nations have endorced or enforced atheism as their "state religion". (many Communist nations)
Science +1, Culture -1 - Endorses scientific facts over religious beliefs.

These, and especially the values given, as just examples and may or may not require more careful thought and balancing for optimal gameplay. But the point is that these would allow the simulation of the differences between the religions without insulting anyones feelings. It would be up to the player to decide how to practice his religion.

EDIT: Note that these would form a new civic category of their own. It is possible, as shown here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145483).

=o you and this guy should combine: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141217

I have definitely checked out this thread. Unfortunately, I think he's taking a bit of a different approach to the matter than I would like. Thanks for the tip, though. :)

DH_Epic and Excel, thank you very much! Great stuff. I'll have to ponder things a bit and come back with some more ideas. Most excellent.

A couple of questions:

(1) Do any of you know if it's possible to add a 6th column to the civics choices to give us more versatility?

(2) Is it possible to give negative food/commerce modifiers to a civic choice, just like Civ3 did for the starting governments? I assume it's just as easy as adding a negative integer instead of a positive one . . .

Excel, I REALLY like your Religion Types ideas. I'll have to mix and match them with what I already have.

Currently, I have 7 civics in each of the 5 categories. Would it be too much to have 8 in each category? Is 7 good? Should there be less? I like more choices! :D

DH, your ideas are kind of like a national, social ethos. Very interesting. I do have a question: Isn't Globalization more of a national policy than a social "glue"? I imagine it could be considered both: you (society) believes their ways are the best and should be spread around the world. Instead of gaining gold from those who share your civics under Globalization, shouldn't you get happiness --as it's more of a social mentality than a national/economic policy. I don't know. I'm just playing with ideas.

I will mention again that I really love the idea of spreading certain social ideals (like Free Speech, Universal Suffrage, Emancipation, Democracy, Communism, etc) via the religions. There would still be 4 main religions (I think that's plenty) and use the other 3 for some social "glue" type force that may spread across the world.

What do you think of this?

Currently, I have 7 civics in each of the 5 categories. Would it be too much to have 8 in each category? Is 7 good? Should there be less? I like more choices! :D

I guess the answer is YES (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145483)!

It is possible to add an entirely new civics column. See this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145483). I would put the Religion Type civics to that new column, so they'd complement the current Religion civics and not replace them.

I do believe that you can add negative modifiers to the civics. The vanilla system uses mainly bonuses, but iirc there is a negative modifier against war weariness already in place (Police State?).

It is possible to add an entirely new civics column. See this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145483).

This is good news!

DH, your ideas are kind of like a national, social ethos. Very interesting. I do have a question: Isn't Globalization more of a national policy than a social "glue"? I imagine it could be considered both: you (society) believes their ways are the best and should be spread around the world. Instead of gaining gold from those who share your civics under Globalization, shouldn't you get happiness --as it's more of a social mentality than a national/economic policy. I don't know. I'm just playing with ideas.

The way I see it is it's not just the social glue but the expansionist glue. To kind of explain things. Forgive me, because I'm trying to find ways to articulate it as I go along. The words don't always match up entirely to what I'm thinking.

Maybe the column should be called "Expansionism":

Ancestry: A primitive notion that we basically expand by giving birth and planting settlers. Represents the ancient age mentality, of settlers and so forth.

City States: We expand by setting up diplomatic relations between city states who share common goals and offer support to one another. A more coordinated system than ancestry, and nearly as peaceful.

Imperialism: We expand by killing or imprisoning foreign leaders, and planting our own governors and army. The definitive expansionist civic.

Vassalage: We expand by a series of military agreements. Rather than kicking your ***, you agree to be my b****. You pay taxes and supply military units. In exchange, you get protection under our larger army. Less involved than imperialism, but also less dominant.

Nationalism: Nationalism is almost intrinsically anti-expansionist. I can tell we're from the same nation because we dress similar, have the same language, the same values, or maybe the same religion. This idea fractured huge empires, and formed ferocious unity among citizens. This civic becomes more and more mandatory once it comes along.

Globalization: We don't expand officially. Our borders might not shift very much at all. We expand by spreading our way of life, our ideas around the world. Kind of like an ideological vassalage: you change your civics to ours, we form stronger diplomatic and economic ties, and we promise not to kick your ***. (For the USA, this is the Free Market. For the USSR, this is Marxism. For Osama Bin Laden, this is Islam. They don't want to conquer other nations, but merely persuade them to their way of life.) This is the civic for a dominant superpower who can afford to focus on international change, instead of domestic concerns.

Anyway, sorry to keep bombarding you with long strings of information... but my point -- Globalization moves you away from national concerns. To some degree, you start neglecting your own people because you become wrapped up in trying to change the world. Hence, a nation that switches away from Nationalism to Globalization should only do so because they think they're powerful enough to afford it. The way I represented this was that a Globalist loses happiness, but might make up for that if they have a dominant ideology in the world. USA and Europe can be said to be Globalists and are benefiting greatly from it with all the internal dissent it causes. Cuba cannot afford to be globalist, although at one time perhaps they were. This is the tension I want to create -- between Globalization and Nationalism.

Again, the civics stand in relation to one another. Of course, this puts realism and historical simulation first, and gameplay second. Ultimately, these would have to be balanced with gameplay in mind, otherwise the game could become really unfun. But the basis is history.

Oh, so your ideas were for an entirely new column. I get it! :cool:

LOL

I did have another thought. There's an alternative to imperialism and cooperative city states. That's the notion of family rule, which fits into this column.

I differentiate it from the idea of monarchy -- rule by one person, usually a king. It's more the expansion / social glue thought -- your cities are governed by close family members, and you might even make important diplomatic deals through agreements like marriage!

I can't help but get carried away, but if I were to give examples of each of the civic choices:

Decentralization: The default. Early civilizations.

City States: Ancient China. Ancient Greece. (I rule Dallas, you rule Houston, but we cooperate when need be.)

Family Rule: Classical China. England, off and on. (My brother in law, the Prince of Houston, will follow me towards Christianity because we are kin.)

Imperialism: Classical Rome. The Ottoman Turks. Genghis's Mongolia. Hitler's Germany. (Install a governor in Houston, and tell those Houston bastards to pledge allegiance to me!)

Vassalage: Medieval Europe (for the most part). Medieval Japan. England, on and off. (Tell the Duke of Houston that if he pledges his sword to me, we will see to it that he will never be vulnerable to the filthy Cubans!)

Nationalism: Most modern nations, from America to Vietnam. (We all pledge allegiance to the Texan flag, and ensure that Texas can exist independent, strong and free!)

Globalization: The USSR. USA since 1950. Modern Europe soon, and maybe even China soon. (We believe that the whole world needs to be a bit more like Texas, but we have no interest in conquest.)

Okay okay, I keep ranting. I think that might be the last one. for a while, anyway.

Good ideas. Please have a look at my modest suggestions (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143950) too.

Very intriguing thead, Colonel Kraken-I only wish I had sufficient time to read through everything. Having played a number of games, though, something has come to mind in relation to the economic civics. The first is that switching to Mercantlism is really ONLY a genuine option if you are alone or surrounded by Xenophobes, yet you don't get ANOTHER economic civic choice until Economy comes along-thats a HELL of a long wait-if you ask me.
Another point is that I was once told about 'opportunity costs' in regards to the civics choices-as opposed to the flat bonus/penalty system of SMAC's SE. I am beginning to see this after playing a few games-though a few obvious ones come to mind. For instance, Freedom of Speech is GREAT if you have lots of Towns, and Representation is great if you have plenty of specialists in your cities-and if you ever end up at war in this case, then the choice to switch to police state can be an incredibly gruelling one-because of 'lost opportunities'. That said, though, I do think that the maintainance costs of these civics are fairly unbalanced-and could be the best place to balance them out. For instance, democratic governments are great for encouraging economic growth and science-but all of those politicians and their staff-not to mention constant elections-are VERY expensive, thus these two should have a medium to high maintainance cost IMO.
Freedom of Speech is fine for the most part, but there should definitely be a war weariness penalty for this civic, because the flip-side of free speech is the possibility of angry protests when wars start.
That said, I also see nothing wrong with adopting a SMAC approach to civics either-though Civ4 definitely has WAY more concepts that Civics interact with, making the process more complex.

It may interest people to know that I have begun a long-term attempt at creating a mod based on the ideas I outlined in my 'Broader Civic System' spreadsheet and thread. If people want, they can check it out here

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=130020

BTW, does anyone here know if you can make civic systems DIRECTLY impact the level of UNHAPPINESS in a city (i.e. + or - UNHAPPINESS)? I really want to be able to impact this rather than simply being restricted to happiness alone.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Awesome! I was wonder when the great Aussie_Lurker was going to grace this thread. ;)

Thanks, sir. This is exactly the type of interaction that can lead to great mods! :)

I also have ideas in a thread around here. Perhaps you could borrow ideas from that?

I also have ideas in a thread around here. Perhaps you could borrow ideas from that?

Yes, of course! Do you have a link to it?

Sorry I haven't gotten the effects down yet for all of them. My point is that speicailization based on strengths can lead to victory. A financially powerful civ can buy military might and culture, but not as well as a truly military focused civ. I'm still working on it though.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145878

OK, just a quick summary. In terms of Government-the key differences I see are these. In Dictatorships, Despotisms, Monarchies and Republics, you are effectively 'entrusting' the rule of the nation in the hands of an individual, wheras in Oligarchies, Collectives, Democracies and Juntas power is more in the hands of a group. Each I feel has its benefits and penalties. The former are good for 'whipping the people into shape' (figuratively or literally) and 'getting the job done), and they are betteron average-for going to war. The downside is that the individual ruler tends to stifle original thought and debate and, to a greater or lesser degree, has a harder time holding together larger nations-without setting up the neccessary underlying infrastructure. The latter, OTOH, are less effecient, due to conflicts of personalities-though this does lead to greater debate and imaginative new ideas. They are also better at maintaining a larger number of high growth cities. Obviously, each of the governments differ in various ways but-at their core-I might venture that 'Single Rule' states might get, on average, greater work rate, lower war weariness, and greater yields from merchants and engineers, but higher 'unhealthiness' and/or 'unhappiness' and/or maintainance costs and lower yields from artists and scientists. 'Collective Rule' states might get, on average, lower worker rates, higher war weariness and lower yields from merchants and engineers, but enjoy better yields from Scientists and artists, and a better starting level of health, happiness and maintainance costs. Note that this is merely a BASE position-and doesn't account for any yield changes for tile improvements or the like.
Anyway, when I get a chance, I will next look at 'Ideology/Philosophy'.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

OK, now lets look at a governments ideology. Well, this is a bit more straightforward. Plutocracy/Capitalist is going to promote the interests of the wealthy, but often at the cost of other things. So such a government is going to probably get improved yields from merchants and economic improvements (including towns and villages), and maybe even grant 1 free merchant as a specialist (can anyone confirm that a specialist can be created this way?) The downside is that happiness and health suffer (due to lax environmental controls and poorly funded welfare and health care for ordinary people). Feudalism is based on the notion of the 'four estates' of the Nobility, Serfs, Church and Burghers. Thus I might venture that such a system might grant a bonus to unit support and XP, bonus food/hammers from farms and mines, bonus culture from Priests and bonus commerce from merchants. However science, health and happiness would take a hit and either the # of cities and/or distance from Capital city costs should be higher.
Militarist is easy-bonus to XP and unit support (and a small bonus to science) but happiness, health and culture will all take a hit. Universal should grant a fairly wide variety of bonuses (especially health, happiness and science), but maintainance costs for cities should be higher, as should war weariness-and merchant benefits should be lower (higher taxes to pay for everything). Socialist ideologies favours the lower/working classes, and should thus grant a bonus to health, happiness and yields from engineers and citizens, whilst also boosting food and hammers from relevent terrain improvements. However, like Universal, maintainance costs should all be higher, and so should unit costs, and merchants and priests also deliver fewer benefits.
Fascism promotes national culture, science and business over all things-so artists, scientists and engineers-or merchants-should all yield greater benefits-and internal trade routes should yield greater commerce. However, multi-racial and multireligion cities should have a penalty to happiness and/or health and foreign trade routes should yield less income.
Theocratic is another easy one-a bonus to the yield of Priests (and possibly even a bonus priest specialist per city), but a penalty to science and multi-religion cities.
Anyway, there are just a few thoughts on Ideology.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Man, I never saw your civics suggestions until now, Aussie. I really like them!

One thing I noticed that I didn't expect to like, but I think is quite good... is how there IS some overlap. That Militant Religiousity is a religious value, but Theocracy is also an ideological driver. Or how Environmentalism can appear in two different columns with two different approaches to similar problems.

All in all, I think there's something to be gained from it. But because this is Colonel Kraken's baby, I leave that purely up to him ;)

ECONOMY
How does the economy function?

Barter: Starting Civic. The economy is based on the exchange of goods. If any currency exists, it is not official and not used often.
Command: The government determines how property will be used, collects however much tax and "treasure" it wishes, and may even determine who will do what job. Typically, the government will collect "grain" to distribute to society in times of famine or depression.
Manorial: Peasants hold land from a lord of an estate in return for fixed dues in kind, money, and services
Mercantilism: The belief that a fixed amount of wealth existed in the world and government does all it can to accumulate as much of it as possible. The premise that national wealth and power are best served by increasing exports and collecting precious metals in return.
Liassez Faire: An economic doctrine that opposes governmental regulation of or interference in commerce beyond the minimum necessary for a free-enterprise system to operate according to its own economic laws.
Regulated Capitalism: The free market operates but government has laws to prevent monopolies, harming the consumer, general trade regulation and other laws it may deem necessary to control the behaviors of companies, corporations or individuals.
State Property: A regulated free market is dominated by state owned property, major commodities and means of production.
Thanks!

This is the best civic list I have seen so far, thought I would make some small changes to the economic civic category to better reflect the difference between economic systems(like US economic system VS France economic system vs North Korea economic system)

The part after Regulated Capitalism would I change as following:

Welfare capitalism: the nation uses a mostly capitalistic economy. Properity is protected and most of the property is in private hands. Thought the nation has cheap or free health care, a social security system, public education and some labor regulations(like how many hours you may work each week). Unions are allowed and protected but they are private run. There are some laws to prevend pollution.

State Property: Every item is property of the government. There is no private property, people may not run free enterpises. Farming is done in big collectives and every single factory is in government hands. There is no care about the enviroment at all, pollution is extreme. Unions are run by the state, people may not create there own unions.

I think this would cover most modern economies. There is a GIGANTIC difference between the economic system of Sweden/France and that of North Korea/USSR. So I think that those 2 nations should certainly have a different economic civic. If you want to run a free enterprise in North Korea shall you be shot, if you want to run one in France/Sweden shall you need to follow labor/envorimental regulations but when you do can you start one.

Ok, I have been pondering this heavily, considering the myriad of ideas here and elsewhere. The main thing is to consider how specific or abstract you wish to take it. I really don't know how much to unravel civics and how many choices to make. I don't want scores of meaningless choices. I'm more of a minimalist, yet I want enough choices to make sense.

I had pondered adding an "Authority" category. How is authority vested in the government? How does it obtain its authority? For example:

Tribal: You're the leader of the tribe. Plain and simple. No one questions it.
Aristocratic: Your a member of the learned class, and you're wealthy. Some may question how you do things, but few question you should be in charge.
Dynasty: A noble family passes the inheretince of head of state down through its generations.
Martial: You're in charge because your goons say you are.
Charasmatic: You may be an incredibly popular politician or military commander and your popularity (and your own schmoozing) have propelled you into authority.
Constitutional: Written law says you are lawfully in charge of government.
Divine: The people believe it is God's will you're in authority; or, they may think you're a demi-god.


There were one or two others I had thought of, but my list is at home. The question is, is this sort of thing necessary? Does it matter? There are so many things to consider.

Should there be a category for how easy it is to change your lot in life?

Should there be a category for the type of legal system in place? (Barbarism (might makes right), Blood Feud (you may take revenge on those who have wronged you, but other limitations exist on how you may conduct yourself), Natural Law (we are endowed with certain inalienable rights . . .), Common Law (tradition and stare decisis are the law of the land), Statutory Law (law is based on legislation), Edict (what I say the law is, it is), etc.

Do these things matter? How involved should one get in extrapolating these types of things?

I was just wondering if any of you have any thoughts on the best way to handle these types of things.

@Everyone
Thanks to Colonel Kraken, dh_epic, and Aussie_Lurker especially.
And thank you for a discussion which is non judgemental on certain forms of government/state/religion..etc in that they all have advantages and disadvantages.

Couple of thoughts for consideration after reading this whole thread (it is very interesting).

I really think by adding more choices, like a sixth column, 7-8 civics will actually help the starting trait of spiritual. :rolleyes:

As of right now I can go a game and only change civics a handful of times because I hate anarchy...therefore consequently I am adapt to playing with a set of given civics so spiritual is useless. :mischief:

With more choices and the need to change more often in a game would actually give this trait some merit.
;)
-Other thoughts
would there be any way to implement a one time/couple time random event similar to a nuclear meltdown :nuke: for the large civics. I am not versed on what could actually be implemented here but something like if you are in the globalization civic and the stock market crashes..you are SOL and better change civics..or do you ride it through and when the economy comes out of the tank you are big time rich (assuming you didn't go bankrupt as well :sad: ) I am sure there are many other events that could be attributed to 'balance' some of the civics in all categories. Conversly since as the Civ 4 Manual states golden ages is the flip of the reversed dark ages (more fun) there could be random event bonuses?

-Now this is getting much more complex but
if cetain civics were chosen you the player might lose abilities in a given turn
i.e. (hard to find an example but...) under civic X you only get to tell you city what to build every second/third time, because in between the city chooses for itself.:eek:
--because remeber we are enabling all these civics/governments...etc but really there is one person calling the shots US :king: So by gaining some advatages we actually have to relinquish some of our control over the game is very interesting... I for one am not sure if I would want to give up such power :drool:

Thank for commenting in this thread, Memphus!

Certainly, I wish I could have much further reaching consequences for civics choices. Indeed, I wish I could have certain civics from one category to the next mutually exclusive (not just the ones in the same column), and I would love to be able to have some civics as singularly executable (e.g. Free Speech or Emancipation). This would be wonderful. Unfortunately, such things are beyond my simple abilities!

Granted, Firaxis has allowed a lot more of the game to be modified. Unfortunately, they have made it more difficult to accomplish. I was a heavy modder in Civ3, and it was relatively easy for me to accomplish and understand. Disappointedly, even relatively minor things in Civ4 are rather involved and complicated to change. :sad:



p.s. Love your sig! :D

Kraken, I admit that more complex functions-especially those needing python-can be VERY daunting, but making relatively simple changes to the game using XML is quite easy (though a Civ3 style editor interface would be even nicer!) Heck, I have already added a slave and Serf specialist to the game using XML, and have also added a Slave Labour System National project. I also have a pretty good idea of how to make this project ONLY turn up when you are in the Slavery Civic. I have also created a python script (with Snaitf's help) to make the slave specialist appear whenever you are in Slavery.
To me, the extra level of 'complexity' is a small price to pay for far greater flexibility that it allows. I hope to show you what I mean in the coming months, with my Broad_Civic_System mod :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

We need to make it harder to switch civics and religions... 5 turns isn't enough. I've been trying to increase the 5 turns to 200 (for religion), but couldn't find its place in xml

I have a few ideas, although they are simply addditons to existing civis than ideas for new civics. Here is a list, with additions in green.

Barbarianism
Low Upkeep
+ 1 unhappiness
(In the Civopedia, it describes it as "strong taking what they want from the weak." I think this would be a cause for some unhappiness.)

Freedom of Speech
Liberalism
No Upkeep
+100% culture
+2 gold from towns
+ 50% war wariness
(This is because most of the war wariness in the modern area came from the Freedom of Speech, which showed the true horors of war. How to combat it? Supress free speech. Thi is what police states do.)

Theocracy
Theology
Medium Upkeep
Halts the spread of non-state religions
+2 exp in cities with state religion
Non-state religious buildings give no benefit

Pacifism
Philosophy
No Upkeep
Doubles Great People birth rate in your cities with state religion
+1 gold per military unit
+ (?)% war wariness
(I don't think any explination is needed for this one)

I also want to make Environmentalism better, but I'm having trouble how. I think that, since in such a society, they would recycle as much as they could, all cities could get a production bonus.

Barbarianism
Low Upkeep
+ 1 unhappiness
(In the Civopedia, it describes it as "strong taking what they want from the weak." I think this would be a cause for some unhappiness.)



Except the weak! :)

Thank you for your thoughts, ToV!

Ok found the line! But it makes it impossible to switch within 5 turns of changes, and this goes for both religion and civics in the same line. hmmm

I am testing a Military category, which replaces the Legal one. The current options are:

Militia - default.
Warrior Class (Archery) - low upkeep, a bunch of free units, happiness from military units.
Professional Army (Civil Service) - low upkeep, +1 gold/unit, +3 experience points/unit.
Conscription (Nationalism) - medium upkeep, can draft 5 units/turn, +25% unit production.
Self Defense Force (Constitution) - no upkeep, +100% war weariness, +1 specialist/city.

My personal pet peeve with the civics are the maintenance costs. They're pretty much arbitrarily assigned, and have a very rosy view of anarchy.

Let's build a Libertarian government in Civ: The government that spends the least money keeping itself in power. The people will naturally favor: Representation (Or despotism, both are Low), Free Speech, Emancipation, State Property, and Pacifism (All FREE). IOW, people are naturally communal creatures with a tendency to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, resolve situations peacefully, and in general respect their fellow man.

Complete and utter hogwash. In the State of Nature, men are grasping, selfish, and closeminded. Life is, pardon the cliche, nasty, brutish, and short. Look at the fight over civil rights and tell me emancipation is the state of nature... we may have abolished slavery, but we're spending gobs of money to keep from sliding into a virtual Caste System. Look at the budget and projects of the ACLU and tell me Free Speech comes naturally. Look at the utter poverty of failed (and failing) socialist states and tell me we have a tendency to share our goods with others. Look at Iraq, look at Iran and Israel and tell me pacifism is an easy governmental choice.

The only thing I believe is that the people will naturally turn to a despot.

So, for anyone considering a civics mod, I have a Theory of History I want to push: The later in the tech tree a new Civic comes into play, the more expensive it is to maintain... and the more powerful its benefits are to compensate for this. As real wealth in the world increases, we have the resources to imprison our criminals instead of enslaving them, we have the leisure to argue about how things should be done instead of killing the dissenters and getting the seed planted so we don't starve come winter, we have the education to realize... hey... that other guy really isn't so different after all. The pursuit of civilization is a separation of ourselves from the state of nature.... as we can afford it.

No matter what you call them, or what they do, I would have the civics come in a strict order of cost. I'll say 7 civics per category: None, Low, Low, Medium, Medium, High, High. With the two options at each cost level representing a dichotomy of some sort. Not necessarily builder/conqueror, the most popular, but that one will definitely show up at a few branches.

Just for fun, let's take a specific example: Free Speech gives +2 commerce per town. I'd give it a High maintenance. If your civilization is large and well established, with plenty of towns, all that extra commerce can outweigh the organizational cost and create a mountain of new wealth that you just couldn't have without Free Speech. But if you're a tiny backwater living hand to mouth, the upkeep can drag your civilization into the gutter. The civics should be expensive, but they should also promise a good ROI for a sufficiently advanced civilization.

Couldn't agree more TBox. If I change anything in the Civic system, it will be the maintainance cost of Representation, State Property and Universal Sufferage. Why? Well for Rep. and Universal Sufferage, there is the high cost of all those parliamentarians, senators, congressmen etc-not to mention the cost of holding elections on a 3-4 year basis. Plus, it is my experience that representatives in democratic governments can be pretty greedy and corrupt.
State Property also requires at least a Medium Upkeep, to represent the corruption inherent in such systems which I mentioned above (though, it might be possible to reflect this by increasing the # of cities maintainance).
Anyway, be on the lookout for my civics mod, as it will have this and many other changes.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Couldn't agree more TBox. If I change anything in the Civic system, it will be the maintainance cost of Representation, State Property and Universal Sufferage. Why? Well for Rep. and Universal Sufferage, there is the high cost of all those parliamentarians, senators, congressmen etc-not to mention the cost of holding elections on a 3-4 year basis. Plus, it is my experience that representatives in democratic governments can be pretty greedy and corrupt.
State Property also requires at least a Medium Upkeep, to represent the corruption inherent in such systems which I mentioned above (though, it might be possible to reflect this by increasing the # of cities maintainance).
Anyway, be on the lookout for my civics mod, as it will have this and many other changes.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

That's rather a cynical view. A more optimistic view (for Representation/US) is that it's the money spent educating the citizenry so they can make an informed decision.

Although I, too, have been tempted to rephrase that "Funding the PIGs on both sides to see who's best at brainwashing."

But I think, to avoid arguments, it's best to pretend that everything is rosy. We're already skirting serious political debate just talking about this mod.

Edit: Hmm, just noticed how cyncial my *original* post sounds. Color me hypocrite, but I'm not changing anything. Let's just say I woke up slowly. Still stand behind all my statements.

I have also thought of extending the Civics with a Gender Role category.

Tribal family: default civic.
People in a tribal family are organized much like many other large social mammals. With some exceptions, men provide the society with food and other supplies while women do household work. If marriage exists, it has little economic and legal impact - parents have strong influence on daughters and sons as long as they live. The sexes are collectives with distinct roles but neither has power over the other. Neither gender has higher status - the celebration of differences means stability but stagnation.

Polygamy (Agriculture): +40% food, -30% production
Polygamy means "marriage to many" and mostly means "polygyny" - a custom where a man can have several wives. In most polygamic societies, women are the legal property of men, not unlike slaves. This means that only the wealthiest and most powerful men can marry.

Health and other desires of women are of no concern for the governing class, as their puropses in life are raising children and pleasuring men. The birth rate is high, but the physical and intellectual workforce is limited to the male population.

Patriarchy (Code of Laws): +20% food, -10% production
A patriarchy is a community ruled by old men, literally fathers. In Civ 4, a Patriarchy is a society where public offices, studies and business are mostly a privilege for men.

Patriarchy differs from a polygamy as women are, legally and socially, respected as individuals. Society supposes men to be protectors, breadwinners and representatives of women, and denounce any cruelty against a woman much more than had it been against a man. A woman can occasionally do a man's career - widows and daughters of late powerful men often get this opportunity - but their designated place is at home. A Patriarchy is a softer, slightly more productive, version of polygamy.

Equal Rights (Constitution): +100% Great People
In an Equal Rights society, both sexes are - in theory - entitled the same political, legal and economic rights. To some extent, women can also participate in male entertainment such as sports and drinking. Marriage is an alliance between man and woman as equals. However, the burdens of childbirth and nursing prevent many women from a professional carreer. Authorities censor sexuality to limit undesired pregnancy, and discourage same-sex relationships because their inability to reproduce.

The desire for equal rights will be obvious in populated societies where production and great people will be important for competition.

Family Planning (Medicine): medium upkeep, +100% Great People, +3 health/city, military units produced with food. Subject to UN Resolution.
Family planning is a collective term for techniques such as contraception, abortion, fetal diagnostics and in-vitro fertilization, which separate sexuality from reproduction. In a society with family planning, authorities encourage sexual education, and allow sexually explicit material to be spread. Erotics is public entertainment. There is no view of women as weaker than men, so athletes, soldiers and police officers are respected regardless of sex.

Public nursing allows parents of both sexes to work. The society also accepts same-sex relationships and divorces, allowing many different family constellations. The society becomes more productive, since it accepts the talents of all their citizens regardless of sexual identity.

Radical Feminist Bureaucracy (Communism): high upkeep, Universities and Jails give +3 happiness, no foreign trade.
A Radical Feminist Bureaucracy is a "matriarchal dictatorship" inspired from Marxism. All public authorities are controlled by academics who have corrupted the strife for equality, to place a collective guilt on the male collective and use former sexual oppression as an excuse of authoritarian rule.

The state limits free speech - especially all kinds of sexual messages - to stop alleged sexism, and abridges legal rights in the witch-hunt of "men's violence against women". Like all societies, most sentenced criminals are men, but the Bureaucracy is the only one to use this as justification. Academic gender studies are reformed into authoritarian anti-male propaganda, taught as a mandatory subject on all levels. Achievements for equality are few, since these would destroy the ideologic base of the government. Both sexes are allowed to hold office, and through affirmative action the representation is mostly equal, but many governments have "separatist committees" where only women may participate.

It is not strange that Bureaucratic governments shun the ideals of patriarchy. However, they accuse all other systems to be patriarchal, even each other. Boycotts and protest actions make international cooperation difficult.

Cool stuff, Optimizer! :goodjob:

My ultimate goal would be to break up all of the Modable atributes of Civics into "Meters" much like SMAC. So for example their would be a War Weariness meter from +4 to -4 each level giving you a different war Weariness modifier spaning a broad range. The player dosn't directly affect the meter rather they choose among bundled pachages of modifers aka "Civics". FreeMarket might give +3 Economy and -2 Happyness, all these modifiers get combined to determine the final outcome. This system was responsible for much of the deep strategy involved in SMAC (the main exploit being that it was far to easy to switch Civics which has now beed adressed with Anarchy and mininum time between revolutions). Its also a very easily balanced and tweeked system and provides excelent interaction with Wonders and building that provide modifiers as well.

When the SDK comes out this would be my first goal.

Colonel Kranken, I am very intrigued by your threat! Many interesting ideas!

If I may, I would like to add some thoughts to your new civics ideas, especially the "Head of State" column.

1.) What is the difference between your Totalitarianism and Despostism if you have only one individual running the totalitarian government (meaning one individual as leader)? In that case, both gov forms seem to be rather similar to me.
And with regard to several individuals: what makes the group of several individuals different to Oligarchy? That actually leads me to my second point which could be considered as a follow-up on Aussie_Lurker:

2.) For your "Head of State" column you could take into account the ideas of the old Greeks. IIRC, they distinguished the government forms as follows (looking at the main categories, meaning not differentiating between for example direct democracy and democracy by representation):

Government by....."good" form......"bad" form
one.....................monarchy.........despotism
some...................aristocracy.......oligarchy
all.......................democracy........ochlocr acy

That does seem to fit your first category if you change your Totalitarianism
(by several individuals) to Oligarchy and your Oligarchy to Aristocracy.

3.) Having said that, I think you should not put Aristocracy in a separate column under "Authority", but rather consider it in your "Head of State"-column. The "learned class" in your "Authority"-column seem to resemble the class of philosophers in Plato's State of philosophers. Thus, you could maybe refer to wisdom/wise people as the selection criterion in that category of "Authority".

2.) For your "Head of State" column you could take into account the ideas of the old Greeks. IIRC, they distinguished the government forms as follows (looking at the main categories, meaning not differentiating between for example direct democracy and democracy by representation):

Government by....."good" form......"bad" form
one.....................monarchy.........despotism
some...................aristocracy.......oligarchy
all.......................democracy........ochlocr acy


Hmm, doomed to be political. Tangenting off of this good form/bad form idea, I can see the same applied to a lot of more modern civics.. IE, "good" free religion, which advocates a separation of church and state and a secular humanist appraisal of the virtues of various virtues, while still respecting individual religions themselves... and "bad" free religion, which is a pro-athiesm viewpoint that suppresses all religions.

Tagging into my last post about civics costs, the "good" version would have a higher civic cost, but provide the most benefits, while the "bad" version would provide some of the benefits, but have a lower civic cost.

So "good" free religion would have "high" cost, provide +1 :) for each religion in a city, and give +10% research in all cities. "bad" free religion, which is actually a suppression of religion, would have "medium" cost, and give only +10% research. Both would deny access to any state religion, of course.

But, alas, my agenda is showing. Time to go zip up.

I also have a less detailed idea called "International doctrine".

* Survivalism (default): no properties
"We are happy as long as you don't mess with us!"

* Isolationism (Monarchy): no foreign trade, +25% commerce, +1 happiness from state religion
"Foreigners should keep to foreigners. We do best by ourselves."

* Cosmopolitism (Currency): +1 trade route, +50% commerce in capital
"Come here from around the world! Buy, sell, publish!"

* Colonialism (Civil Service): -50% distance upkeep
"Let's explore and conquer the rest of the world!"

* Supremacism (Nationalism): -75% war weariness, +25% unit production, -50% culture
"Other peoples are inferior to us. Let's crush them and burn their cities!"

* Globalism (Radio): +1 trade route, +25% culture
"We don't conquer our enemies, we sell them stuff instead!"

Thanks for the thoughts, CellKu and Tbox. That is the kind of stuff I like to discuss --bouncing ideas off each other to see what makes sense, what doesn't, and what can be consolidated.

Optimizer, your "Supremacism" could probably be could Imperialism and your "Post-Colonialism" could be called dh_epic's "Globalization".

Hmmm, I think the better differentiation is between the Single Person model of rule (Despot, Dictator, Monarch, President) vs the Multiple Person model (Aristocrats, Plutocrats, Junta, Cabinet). Beyond that is what each PARTICULAR government type focuses on-for instance is one system better at industry, finance, culture, research-or warfare. That is what my system is going to primarily focus on in the Government civic area, with a secondary 'Ideology' section that further delineates the government-i.e. do the Priests (Theocratic) rule as an Oligarchy (collection of Priests) a single-person Dictatorship ('High Priest) or a Republic (say as Modern day Iran).
Hope that makes sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Actually, let me see if I can explain a bit better.

1) Despotism is an informal ruling structure-where an individual or group seizes power simply because they can, and only for as long as they can. Pre-City tribal structures and post-Revolutionary France are classic examples of this type of government.

2) Dictatorship-a system of Rule in which one or more sections of society ask an individual to rule them-either for life or for a specific period of time. Stalinist Russia, post-Civil War England and late-Republican Rome are classic examples of this type of Rule.

3) Oligarchy-like a Dictatorship, only by a group of people rather than an individual. Oligarchies are usually formed by people simply on the basis of their greater power but-unlike Despotisms-the Rule is more formalised in nature. Etruscan Italy and pre-Democracy Greece are good examples of this type of rule-as was the pre-Stalinist Russian Republic (a Workers Oligarchy, if you will).

4) Monarchy-a formalised Rulership structure based purely on Heredity. Dictatorships, out of interest, can and have developed quite nicely into monarchies. Examples are too many to mention.

5) Republic-A democractic or Pseudo-democratic rulership in which the people invest the majority of the power into the hands of a single head of state-usually a President or Proconsul. The amount of 'checks and balances' which can exist may vary from government to government, but the head of state almost always has veto power. Republican Rome and Modern US are classic examples of this type of government, as are many of the modern Latin American governments.

6) Democracy-a system in which people elect parties (via members of Parliament or MP's) rather than a specific head of state-but with a nominal 'Prime Minister' (normally the leader of the governing party) who maintains order and appoints Cabinet members. However, the Prime Minister can be voted down on any issue-either by his own party, or a cross bench of government and opposition MP's. The degree to which actual 'Democracy' is maintained will differ from state to state. Most modern European states have some kind of Democracy-whether they call it a 'Republic' (with a symbolic President) or a 'Constitutional Monarchy' (with a symbolic King or Queen).

Other types of governments which can exist are 'Autonomous Collectives', 'Juntas' and 'Police States'-though I am not sure that this isn't already effectively covered by other government or civic types, or needs a seperate civic at all.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Great stuff, Aussie. Thank you.

Hey, this thread's gettin' big. Cool beans. :mischief:



Hey, have you guys voted in the Firaxis' poll (http://www.firaxis.com/community/polls.cfm)?!


In the section concerning what you would like to see added/expanded in the game, I was going to mention Civics. But, I decided to make mention of the Religion aspect of the game because I figure it's easier for me to moddify some civics into the game than change the whole religion part!

With the units which need to be added, they say pick 4 only. Is that 4 per era, or 4 overall-because that is one BIG list!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

With the units which need to be added, they say pick 4 only. Is that 4 per era, or 4 overall-because that is one BIG list!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Yeah, I agree. :sad: I wanted to pick more. Actually, I wish the would have allowed us to be more specific about what units we actually think need to be added (up to 4).

Yeah, I agree. :sad: I wanted to pick more. Actually, I wish the would have allowed us to be more specific about what units we actually think need to be added (up to 4).
And I screwed that one... I picked way more than 4... Was too excited about what should be added so that I didn't read closely enough. But well, hopefully they don't throw it away.

Back to the topic: Aussie_Lurker, what is the difference between your Republic if you take the US as an example for it and your democracy where people elect MPs. In the US, they elect MPs, as well. Is the only difference how the executive (president, prime minister) is elected, meaning directly by the people or indirectly via the MPs? And, wouldn't it be more appropriate to call a system a democracy where the people elect also the executive, because it seems in such a system the people have more power. Moreover, with the impeachment-procedure the US has a mechanism for throwing out the president after he is elected if he is unbearable. The democratic mechanisms etc. in other Western countries which consider themselves democracies do vary, but they don't seem to be sooo different that they should be considered as a completely different category - at least on that level of abstraction that we look at now in you civic column.

Second, is your dictatorship something like a more advanced despotism? Thinking about my question, consider the following:
A dictator, as well, will only remain in power for as long as he can. And does a dictator always needs to be "asked" by a group to rule. Many military rulers in what one would call dictatorships today seized their power by using the military for their own benefit. I am not sure whether one could consider that as "being asked".

Third, I like your "ideology"-idea, perhaps you could elaborate a bit more on that. Maybe your "Police-State", "Junta" etc. could be dealt with in that category, e.g. how much should people be controlled could be seen as fitting into that column. What do you think?

You may note, CellKu, that I noted a Republic is a democratic instituation-just like 'Democracy' itself obviously is. For me the difference really does come down to two factors-how the Head of State is chosen, and how much power the Head of State has. In a Republic, the greater part of the power (especially the military) is invested in the Head of State-wheras in a 'Democracy' any head of state is usually just a 'minor functionary' with Symbolic power only. If the Head of State of a Republic could not be impeached or otherwise voted out, then it would be a Dictatorship. Maybe a better way to think of it is that 'Democracy' in this case refers to 'Parliamentary Democracy', and a Republic is a 'Presidential Democracy'.
And yes, Dictatorships are pretty much just 'formalised' Despotisms. It should be noted, though, that in two famous examples-namely Rome and post-Civil War England-the elected representatives appointed the Dictator (Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell respectively).

As for 'Ideology', I am thinking such things as 'Feudalistic', 'Socialist', 'Fascist', 'Militaristic' (and YES, I do believe that Fascist and Militarist are different from each other), 'Theocratic' and Plutocratic.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussi_Lurker, thanks for your clarification! Refering to the concepts of Parliamentary Democracy and Presidential Democracy does clarify that for me. And I apologize for my unprecise statement: I did note that you characterized both systems as democratic, but my statement did not reflect that clearly.
What makes it interesting now is which Civ4-advantages/disadvantages you will give to these forms of government.

I think with your "Ideology"-column you are on a very interesting track. That should have been included in Civ4 right from the beginning! And certainly Fascist and Militarist are NOT the same. Who would think that??

CellKu

There are many good ideas in this thread, but when you post civic ideas you should also post suggestions for gameplay effects. Then we can rationalize, so we do not have tons of choices that are almost similar.

I think the primary advantage/disadvantage between the Republic and Democracy government civics might be the degree to which they suffer from war weariness, and what extra yields their specialists produce. Though I confess that I have not given it enough thought yet.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

If we talk Presidential vs Parliamentary democracy, I agree that the latter one should be more lethal to war weariness and other kinds of unhappiness. I am not sure how to offset this advantage.

Here is my current setup. Please tell me if any option is unbalanced, ahistorical or just strange.

GOVERNMENT
Despotism: default
Hereditary Rule (Monarchy, L): +3 happiness from Palace, +1 happiness from Courthouse
Aristocracy (Feudalism, L): +2 happiness in largest cities, +2 science/specialist
One Party State (Fascism, H): +3 happiness from Barracks & Jail
Presidency (Constitution, M): +50% commerce
Parliament (Democracy, M): +50% war weariness, +75% commerce
Mainly a dilemma between stability and science/culture. The "freer" government forms require peace, a large culture budget and/or plenty of luxuries.

LABOR
Informal: default
Slavery (Bronze Working, M): can population-rush, +25% food, -25% commerce
Unhappiness from population-rushing is increased, so Slavery is only practical together with oppressive (happiness-providing) civics like Hereditary Rule and Warrior Class.
Privilege Society (Currency, L): +1 prod from Farm, +1 happiness from Forest & Jungle
The happiness from Forests/Jungles in a Privilege Society comes from upper-class hunting privileges. Because of hunting, many forests in western Europe survived the medieval colonization, to the joy of present-day environmentalists.
Labor Market (Liberalism, N): +1 hammer from mine/workshop/lumbermill
Differs from the Privilege society because any person can apply for any job. Lack of worker rights makes work hard and dangerous, and unemployment is a threat. Think sweatshops.
Labor Rights (Communism, H): +3 health, +2 happiness from Forge, Factory & Supermarket
The choice depends on what kind of infrastructure you have. An agricultural empire will benefit from Privilege Society. A society with plenty of industrial will love Labor Market. A society with large population will need Labor Rights.

ECONOMY
Barter: default - no cottage growth
Chartering (Currency, L): can gold-rush
Mercantilism (Banking, L): no foreign trade, unlimited Merchants
Free Market (Economics, L): +100% cottage growth, can gold-rush
State Property (Communism, H): +100% worker rate, unlimited Engineers
State Property is great for building up your infrastructure when entering the industrial age. (Railroads are made more expensive and give commercial bonuses to Towns, Factory Farms are introduced as an upgrade to Farms. The high upkeep cost is due to all the bureaucrats needed. State Property is not only thought as modelling communist dictatorship like the Soviet Union and North Korea, but any goverment with great influence over industry, like the USA during the New Deal or labour-ruled European states.) The Unlimited Engineers models the ability of a socialist state to abolish unemployment by assigning people to public works. (A citizen specialist can be regarded as unemployed)
Environmentalism (Biology, H): +3 health, +1 happiness from Forest & Jungle, +1 food from Windmill
I have thought of implementing auto-upgrade for other terrain improvements than cottages, to model private enterprise.

RELIGION
Paganism: default
Leader Cult (Monotheism, H): no State Rel, no foreign religions spread, +2 happiness from Colosseum & Broadcast Tower, -50% war weariness
Preferred symbol: A gigantic bronze statue. The Leader Cult models as different societies as monotheistic Egypt, imperial Rome and 20th century's fascist and communist states. A good choice if you have no world religion of your own.
Theocracy (Priesthood, M): no foreign religions spread, +2 happiness from State Rel, Missionaries without Monastery, unlimited Priests
Choose this if you have founded a religion.
Sanctioned Religion (Divine Right, M): +50% culture, Missionaries without Monastery
Preferred symbol: A coronation - hands placing a crown on a bowing head. Models a religious authority and a civil one giving each other legitimity, as in Catholicism.
Reformed Religion (Printing Press, N): +25% building & unit production with State Rel
Preferred symbol: A stack of printed books. Models a state-controlled church with little economic resources, preaching spartan ideals, as in England and Scandinavia.
Free Religion (Liberalism, N): no State Rel, +1 happiness for each religion, +20% science

ARMY
Militia: default
Warrior Class (Archery, L): +1 happiness for each military unit, 10 free units
Warrior Class is the choice for stability.
Professional Army (Civil Service, N): +3 experience points, +1 gold/unit
Conscription (Nationalism, H): can draft 5 units/turn, lower unit upkeep cost
In great late-game wars, conscription will be needed for survival.
Self Defense Force (Constitution, L): +100% war weariness, +1 gold/unit +1 trade route

ORGANIZATION
City States: default
Nomadism (Horseback Riding, M): 30 free units, units produced with food, -1 food from Farm, -50% science & culture, -50% worker rate, no war weariness
This civic might be hard to balance. The aim is to make a "raider" civilization like the Huns or Mongolia which doesn't build great cities (but occasionally conquers them). A Nomadic civilization would win many wars but "lose the peace".
Vassalage (Feudalism, L): -50% unit upkeep
Centralization (Civil Service, H): +50% prod & commerce from capital
Nation State (Nationalism, H): medium upkeep, -50% war weariness, +100% Great People with State Rel
Federation (Constitution, L): no upkeep due to distance, -50% upkeep due to number of cities, +25% culture
Small? Choose Centralization or Nation State. Large? Choose Vassalage or Federation.

GENDER
Tribal Family: default
Preferred symbol: A campfire
Polygamy (Agriculture, N): +30% food, -30% commerce, +20% unit prod
Preferred symbol: Woman in a burqha
Patriarchy (Code of Laws, N): +20% food, -10% commerce
Preferred symbol: A male symbol
Equal Rights (Liberalism, N): +100% Great People
Preferred symbol: A balance scale
Birth Control (Medicine, M): medium upkeep, +100% Great People, +2 happiness from Hospital, units produced with food
Preferred symbol: A packed condom
This choice will mainly depend on your size. A leader with room left for expansion will want increased birth rates.

Well, though it is rough-after all, it WAS done before I got my hands on the game, here is a repost of my ideas for a broader civic system (including possible in-game effects). Feel free to read and critique-though please don't limit criticisms to 'oh, that idea SUCKS!!' :mischief: -instead, please add any suggestions you might have for changing one of my ideas, I am ALWAYS happy to incorporate them!
You might be interested to know that I am already 75% of the way towards modding slavery-such that it gives you a free slave specialist in every city AND gives you a chance to build a Slave_Labour_System National Project-which adds a further slave specialist to your city.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

You guys have some really interesting ideas. Having briefly scanned this thread, I'm now going to study it in detail.

I could list my set of 6 civics (and I may do so later), but I'd rather introduce an additional concept into the mix first.

As much as I could, I made each civic focussed on one or two main factors and then made those on a graduated scale, often with one traded off against the other. Where it suited the particular option, I included something extra.

For example:
AGGRESSION
Pacifism +25% war weariness, -1 happy from barracks, +100%GP rate
Normal (default) normal war weariness, no effect from barracks, no other FX
Nationalism normal war weariness, no effect from barracks, draft 3 units/turn
Militarism -50% war weariness, +1 happy from barracks, -2 health

Limiting and monodimensional or logical and a cool idea?
I'd be interested in your thoughts.

PS I agree with some of the other posters that the standard civics seem jumbled up.
PPS Maybe this is similar to what Impaler[WrG] had in mind?

Some civic combinations are more or less absurd (Universal Suffrage and Slavery). Since they cannot be disallowed, the properties should be picked so that "absurd" combinations work very badly together.

Some civic combinations are more or less absurd (Universal Suffrage and Slavery). Since they cannot be disallowed, the properties should be picked so that "absurd" combinations work very badly together.

I agree. This is why I think that Free Speech should increase war wairiness because:

1) It does in real life
2) So it works badly with a police state- just like in real life.

Actually, this combination isn't as absurd as you might think. In many ways, Athens had Universal Sufferage-in so far as ALL 'citizens' could vote on important issues effecting the City-State. They still had slaves, of course, but these slaves weren't considered CITIZENS!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

They still had slaves, of course, but these slaves weren't considered CITIZENS!!
OK - you got me there. Maybe the same could be said about pre-civil war southern US, too.

When it comes to free speech, the extension of free speech is very closely related to the rate of governmental oppression. I can hardly imagine a dictatorship with free speech or a functional democracy without it. Therefore, the Free Speech option should be integrated into the Government category. (Of course this means free speech in a _political_ context. A democracy might still censor sex, violence and certain commercial messages.)

Most preferably, I would like civic choices to change a player's strategy dramatically. Playing as an absolute monarch with slavery should have a completely different feeling from playing as a democratic leader with labor unions.

This can be done in a number of ways:

* War or peace. Depending on war weariness, extra happiness, military upkeep costs and unit productions, some civics are better for a warmonger than others.
* Expansion or consolidation. Certain civics allow you to build -or conquer - lots of cities, while others make it preferrable to improve the land and cities you already have.
* Development or stability. Some civics give more science, culture, production and great people than others, usually at the cost of happiness.

Most preferably, I would like civic choices to change a player's strategy dramatically. Playing as an absolute monarch with slavery should have a completely different feeling from playing as a democratic leader with labor unions.



This is definitely what I would hope for, though, I'm not sure how to obtain that end exactly.

As I wrote before, most of the game mechanisms in the Civ series are designed as if the player were an absolute dictator, controlling economy, science and everything.

I think that more things should happen outside control of the player, without adding too much randomness, to model actions of private enterprise, local political leaders, religious authorities and other social entities. Growth of cottages and spawning of Great People are some of them.

The problem is that something like blind research might be too much a handicap for "democratic" countries. Sure, it makes historical sense that your research is determined by people other than yourself. But at the end of the day, you might get very screwed in the process.

As I wrote before, most of the game mechanisms in the Civ series are designed as if the player were an absolute dictator, controlling economy, science and everything.

I think that more things should happen outside control of the player, without adding too much randomness, to model actions of private enterprise, local political leaders, religious authorities and other social entities. Growth of cottages and spawning of Great People are some of them.
That is a very interesting idea! I saw a random events mod in the mod forum. Perhaps there could be a similar mod that is more adapted to the civics system in a way that certain civics provide for more random events. This randomness, however, should be balanced by some advantageous features to make it interesting to select civics with random events. Moreover, as I agree with Optimizer that there should not be too much randomness, it would be great if there was some room for the player to actually influence the situation in a way that increases or decreases the likelihood of certain events.
IMHO if there are too many events occurring out of the blue that will ruin the mod.

CellKu

Are there some of you who aren't exactly satisfied with the civics options --perhaps even as simple as changing a few names. I've just started to think about this, some I don't have any concrete suggestions, but for some reason many of the options don't quite seem right to me.

My main concern is that it seems you could almost keep some of the most basic Civics and still have a very successful empire. I'm thinking things need to be tweaked so that it's obvious if you stick to the "old way" you're going to start to lag behind.

EDIT: Scroll down the thread to view some of the civics ideas. Check out subsequent pages for even more ideas from other Civers.

For even more ideas, check out Arbitrary Guy's ideas in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141217).

Also, check this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145483) out!



If it's even possible... I'd like to see each leader have multipule favorite civics. Maybe two, or three...

I don't know enough about coding to make it work. I tried, but kept getting errors when loading up the mod. :confused:

I haven't read more than the OP, but in response: I really like the idea of needing (at certain point(s)) to change techs to avoid becoming obsolete as a nation. But modders remember, if the civ is already ahead in tech, and this civic brings them even farther ahead, this can be a bad thing.

I haven't read more than the OP, but in response: I really like the idea of needing (at certain point(s)) to change techs to avoid becoming obsolete as a nation. But modders remember, if the civ is already ahead in tech, and this civic brings them even farther ahead, this can be a bad thing.
Could be true. I try to follow the principle not to make any civic inherently better than another - they should all be good at different occasions. However, some civics would be better together with developed infrastructure (like State Property in the original rules).

funny you should mention that, Optimizer. In the mod I am working on I have altered Slavery and Serfdom. Now the former grants greater hammers from Mines and quarries, whilst providing a small food benefit from plantations (though this might change) along with the population sacrifice. Serfdom, OTOH, provides extra food and gold from farms, plantations and pastures. My thinking behind this is you will only pick the labour civic which best suits your situation. If you have lots of farms and pastures, then you might adopt a serfdom civic (which, I might add, will make Feudalism a better governmental philosophy for you). If, however, you are blessed with metals and stone, then slavery might be more up your alley.
Hope that makes sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I was working on modding civics tonight when I ran into two problems with my mod. The first problem is that civ4 doesn't have a global happiness setting. Instead it has a largest city happiness setting, a state religion, and a nonstate religion happiness setting. The second problem is that it doesn't have a setting to modify build times, it only has a state religion build time modifier. So I'm deciding how exactly to press on. Though here's my proposed civic stats. For now I'm not proposing any changes to the default settings.

Government

Monarchy (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Monarchy
Cost: Low
+1 Happines per military unit
+50% Hammers in the Capital
-1 Happines in all cities

Republic (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Code of Laws
Costs: Low
+25% Construct buildings rate
+2 Happiness in largest cities
+50% to number of cities cost

Representation
Tech: Constitution
Cost: Medium
-50% to number of cities cost
+3 Science per specialist
+2 gold per military unit

Police State
Tech: Nationalism
Cost: High
+2 Happines per military unit
Can pop rush
-50% Culture

Economics

Serfdom
Tech: Feudalism
Cost: None
+50% Worker rate
+1 Food from farms
Cottages take twice as long to grow into towns

Mercantilism
Tech: Banking
Cost: Low
+1 Hammers from mines, limbermills, workshops
+1 commerce from plantations, windmills, watermills
no foreign trade routes

Free Market
Tech: Economics
Cost: Low
Can gold rush
+2 Trade routes per city
-4 Health

Socialism (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Industrialism
Cost: High
+4 Happiness in every city
+4 Health in every city
-10% commerce in every city

Ideology

Feudalism
Tech: Feudalism
Cost: None
Units build using food and shields
+1 gold from farms
-1 gold from cottages, hamlets, villages, towns

Democracy
Tech: Democracy
Cost: Medium
+100% Culture
+25% Commerce in all cities
-50% Military unit production

Communism
Tech: Communism
Cost: Medium
Unlimited specialists of any type
+50% Hammers in every city
-4 trade routes

Fascism (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Fascism
Cost: Medium
+100% Military unit production
-50% War weariness
5 Unhappiness in all cities

Governing Class

Aristocracy
Tech: Divine Right
Cost: Low
+1 Gold per specialist
+10 Free military units
+50% Number of cities cost

Bureaucracy
Tech: Civil Service
Cost: Medium
-50% City distance cost
-50% Number of cities cost
-2 Happiness in largest cities

Theocracy
Tech: Theology
Cost:Medium
No nonstate religion spread
Build missionaries with a monestary
+3 Happines in cities with state religion
-2 Happiness per non state religion

Universal Sufferage
Tech: Democracy
Cost: Low
+2 Gold from towns
+1 Hammer from towns
+100% War weariness

Civil Rights

Slavery
Tech: Bronze Working
Cost: Low
+1 Free specialist per city
Can pop rush
-50% Great people points

Pacifism
Tech: Philosophy
Cost: None
+100% Great people points
+2 Culture per specialist
-4 experience

Free Society
Tech: Liberalism
Cost: Medium
+25% Research
+100% Growth rate from cottages to towns
No state religion

Mobilization
Tech: Military Tradition
Cost: High
+3 Experience
+15 Free units
Draft 6 units per turn
-50% Construct buildings rate

This thread just keeps getting better and better. :cool:

I hear ya, Korn. I wish Firaxis had given us more ability to develop and/or assign additional tags; or, at least, defined more tags than they were going to use for the more obvious stuff: like happiness civ-wide!

Good work. I simply haven't had the time to delve into such a time consuming project as modifying Civics.

Well, I agree that extra tags in XML, along with an ability to 'mix-n-match' tags from various schema would help a lot. However, Python CAN let you work around things, if you are patient (which I am not just yet :( )
Consider doing this Korn-though I confess its a bit of a hack.

To the def BeginPlayerTurn section of the CustomEventManager, add a few lines which tell python to look what civic the player is in and-if the player is in the right civic-it automatically puts a building (or buildings) in all your cities.
Then, in XML, create a building which either adds global happiness (i.e. a National WOnder), or a standard building which adds happiness in whatever city it is built (but you may need to either disable the building somehow, or make it so ridiculously expensive that no-one would actually build it!)
Anyway, just some thoughts.
As for me, I am now almost finished the government section of my Civics mod-I will post it here when its done for some feedback.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

It great to see a thread like this where guys are sharing ideas on civics. I had my own mod going adding tons of civics and the AI is having a ball using them. Its great to be able to mix and match to customize your civ so much better now with increased civic options. Oh happy day!

OK, maybe a FEW too many zeroes, but you get the idea. I am uploading part1 of my CivicMod. So far, all I have done so far is to change all the government civics, add a new civic option-Ideology (with 3 ideologies so far completed)-and change the first two of the labour civics. Please be fair, but also be honest. If there is something about my changes you don't like, please feel free to tell me, and don't hesitate to suggest alternate changes, I am ALWAYS open to suggestions. In the meantime, however, please enjoy.

p.s. due to size constraints, I have removed ALL but those files which I have actually modded-and those I felt were in some way critical to the operation of the mod. If for some reason the mod doesn't work, I suggest that you copy all of the missing asset files from your main game into the mod folder. Hope it isn't neccessary though.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

OK, maybe a FEW too many zeroes, but you get the idea. I am uploading part1 of my CivicMod. So far, all I have done so far is to change all the government civics, add a new civic option-Ideology (with 3 ideologies so far completed)-and change the first two of the labour civics. Please be fair, but also be honest. If there is something about my changes you don't like, please feel free to tell me, and don't hesitate to suggest alternate changes, I am ALWAYS open to suggestions. In the meantime, however, please enjoy.

p.s. due to size constraints, I have removed ALL but those files which I have actually modded-and those I felt were in some way critical to the operation of the mod. If for some reason the mod doesn't work, I suggest that you copy all of the missing asset files from your main game into the mod folder. Hope it isn't neccessary though.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Great Work! Because I have spent the last couple of days developing my own additional civics to add to my game, I won't use the mod as is. HOWEVER, this is a GREAT mod to be distributed as an example of how to change/add civics to make each persons gameplay better.

Funny thing is, I have some of the same names for my new civics, the only difference is in the actual meat of what the new civic does. Most of the time civics boil down to personal gameplay preference. So, IMHO the more civics ideas implemented the better.:goodjob:

OK, maybe a FEW too many zeroes, but you get the idea. I am uploading part1 of my CivicMod. So far, all I have done so far is to change all the government civics, add a new civic option-Ideology (with 3 ideologies so far completed)-and change the first two of the labour civics. Please be fair, but also be honest. If there is something about my changes you don't like, please feel free to tell me, and don't hesitate to suggest alternate changes, I am ALWAYS open to suggestions. In the meantime, however, please enjoy.

p.s. due to size constraints, I have removed ALL but those files which I have actually modded-and those I felt were in some way critical to the operation of the mod. If for some reason the mod doesn't work, I suggest that you copy all of the missing asset files from your main game into the mod folder. Hope it isn't neccessary though.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie, there is some VERY creative work in this MOD dude. Great job!:cool: :goodjob:

I disagree with fascism:

Fascism (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Fascism
Cost: Medium
+100% Military unit production
-50% War weariness
5 Unhappiness in all cities
5 Unhappiness is too much... perhaps change it down to 3 or something... keep in mind that under Fascism not many people complained (probably because they were too scared to). But keep in mind Hitler's state of Germany... the people were mesmerized by him and did everything he said. A true fascist government is able to pull such a thing off, successfully, which does not coincide well with the 5 unhappiness penalty.

Aussie Lurker

I don't have access to civ4 right now (my computer won't run civ4, but my roommate's computer does so we share his), so I looked over the xml files in your mod, but I couldn't check them against a game of civ4. I only checked the governments. Here are the listed xml values tell me if they are right.


Dictatorship
tech: writing
cost: low

Bonuses
+10 percent military production
2 free units
+10 percent hammers
-20 percent war weariness
specialists +3 gold
-5 percent city distance cost

Penalties
-1 happiness in largest cities
+5 percent city number cost
-1 health in every city
-10 percent worker speed
specialists -1 research

Oligarchy
Tech: Priesthood
Cost: Medium

Bonusues
+5 percent great people points
+5 percent military unit production
+1 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 2 units per turn
-10 percent war weariness
+1 trade route
+10 percent food in every city
specialists +1 gold
specialists +2 culture
plantations +1 commerce
villages +1 hammer

Penalties
none

Monarchy
Tech: Monarchy
Cost: low

Bonuses
+5 percent great people points
+1 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 1 unit
+1 happiness in largest cities
-10 percent war weariness
+1 trade route
+10 percent commerce in every city
specialists +3 culture
Pastures +1 food
Winery +1 commerce


Penalties
none

Republic
Tech: Constitution
Cost: Medium

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
-10 percent city distance cost
+1 health in every city
+20 percent worker speed
+10 percent military production
+2 happiness in largest cities
+2 trade routes
+10 percent hammers in every city
specialists +3 gold
can gold rush
quarries +1 hammer
towns +1 commerce

Penalties
+10 percent city number cost
+1 gold per military unit

Police State
Tech: Fascism
Costs: High

Bonuses
-10 percent city distance cost
+20 percent military production
+2 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 2 units per turn
-2 percent war weariness
+5 percent food in every city
+10 percent hammers in every city
specialists +3 research
mines +1 hammer
plantation +1 food

Penalties
+10 percent city number cost
-2 health in every city
-10 percent worker speed
-2 happiness in largest cities
-1 trade route
-5 percent commerce in every city
specialists -2 culture

Parlimentary Democracy
Tech: Democracy
Cost: High

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
-5 percent city number cost
+2 health in every city
+20 worker speed
+10 percent cottages to towns growth rate
+2 trade routes
+10 percent food in every city
specialists +3 research
can gold rush
farms +1 commerce
towns +1 food

Penalties
+5 percent city distance cost
-1 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
+1 gold per military unit
+10 percent war weariness

Thanks for the compliment, RED DIAMOND, it really does mean a great deal to me. The one thing I wanted to avoid was 'no-brainers', instead tying peoples choices to both temporal and geographical situations.
For instance, on the face of it, an empire with lots of farms and pastures would be best off adopting serfdom and feudalism as their labour and ideology choices-respectively....or would they? Certainly feudalism and serfdom will give greater benefit to those with these terrain improvements, but such an empire would already be fairly awash with food-so perhaps a Plutocratic Slave-based system would be best instead? Now, I have only manipulated a fraction of the entire civic system, but I hope that even this has created some interesting decisions for players-and this is even before I tackle the Python side of it (which I hope to use to ADD free specialists, particularly in the ideology side of it), and even with what I feel are the limitations highlighted by Korn-though, as I said above, this editor is FAR less restrictive than the old Civ3 one IMO.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I disagree with fascism:


5 Unhappiness is too much... perhaps change it down to 3 or something... keep in mind that under Fascism not many people complained (probably because they were too scared to). But keep in mind Hitler's state of Germany... the people were mesmerized by him and did everything he said. A true fascist government is able to pull such a thing off, successfully, which does not coincide well with the 5 unhappiness penalty.

Shqype

As you said, in Nazi Germany most people didn't complain because they feared the Gestapo and other branches of Hitler's secret police forces. If people could have freely expressed their dissent without any fear of retribution, I don't think that Adolf Hitler would have been quite as popular. Even if all segements of the German people except for Jews, Poles, Gypies, Homosexuals, and Communists loved the Nazi party, I think I can find the justification for some discontent. However, if you combine Fascism with Police State in my proposed values you'd have the following:

Bonuses
+100 percent military unit build rate
-50 precent war weariness
+2 happy citizens per military unit
can pop rush

Penalties
-5 unhappy citizens in all cities
-50 percent culture

Or basically with three military units in every city you'd have +1 happiness (+6 from 3 military units -5 from fascism). Along with less war weariness, pop rushing, and the ability to build military units twice as fast, and a heavy culture penalty.

Korn, that sounds MOSTLY right, but I feel certain that Oligarchy and Monarchy had more penalties. Even if it is correct, I think that attempting a SMAC-like 'perfect balance' to each civic choice is not neccessarily ideal-as their are what have been described as 'situational' bonuses/penalties-such as the ones I mentioned above-as well as the upkeep and city maintainance costs associated with them.
That said, if your analysis of the governmental civics is accurate, do you think they are FAIR? If not, how might you suggest I go about changing them to make them more so? Yours is an opinion I value most highly (along with DH_Epic, Optimizer and Colonel Kraken) and would thus be VERY interested in hearing your thoughts.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Here is another thought, Korn, you could also make Fascism have a building associated happiness bonus-like forced labour camps and jails-and use Python to ascribe a Fascism or Police State specific wonder like The Gestapo/Secret Police.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie,

I know virtually nothing about python, and that's why I haven't used it yet. However, I'm quickly learning how to use xml. I think you're doing a great job, and I don't want you to stop! However, I disagree with the way you assigned values to your governments. I think that you gave each government too many modifiers, and that most of the modifiers aren't strong enough to clearly differentiate the various governments. Right now Oligarchy looks like the strongest government, because it doesn't have any downsides, and the rest of the bonuses are basically in line with the other governments. Police States can build military units a little faster, and Parliamentary Democracies will get great people slightly quicker, but with such low modifiers players would barely miss out on any benefits by remaining in Oligarchy.

I too want to give the player interesting choices (with some grounding in reality but that would always come second to gameplay), so hopefully we can collaborate. I'd love to do a universal civics mod. I'm just afraid that I will probably differ with most people because I don't really see a need to add tons more slots (either by new categories or lots of new choices in each existing category). Maybe six by six block at most (as opposed to the five by five block we already have). Right now civ4 has 3125 unique civic settings counting defaults, or 1024 unique civic choices not counting defaults. Even if people tried twenty unique settings per game not counting defaults, it would take them about 50 separate games to use everything. I would like a system that avoids having tons of almost indistinguishable differences for a system that has fewer well defined choices.

So I think adding one more category is a good thing, but adding more than that is a bad thing. One more choice per category could probably be a good thing, but we might have problems coming up with unique stats, especially considering the limitations forced on us by the editors. How does that sound so far?

Aussie,

We cross posted, but I had already thought of adding a Secret Police Wonder that would give fascists governments +2 happiness from jails. I just hadn't thought of how to implement it yet. So we're on the smae track. :)

I confess that I have over-estimated the value of the various percentages-especially those relating to worker rates and free military units. Its funny that I didn't see the imbalances until after you displayed them to me in that format. I plan to finish up the ideology side of the civics tonight, after which I will return to the governments. Thanks for the input though.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

OK, I have been looking over all the bonuses and penalties, and have decided to make the following modifications. What do people think, will this be more balanced?

Dictatorship
tech: writing
cost: low

Bonuses
+20 percent military production
+10 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
+10 percent hammers
-20 percent war weariness
specialists +3 gold
-10 percent city number cost
Workshops +1 Hammer
Farms +1 Food

Penalties
-2 happiness in largest cities
+10 percent city distance cost
-2 health in every city
-20 percent worker speed
specialists -1 research

Oligarchy
Tech: Priesthood
Cost: Medium

Bonusues
+10 percent military unit production
+5 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 1 units per turn
-10 percent war weariness
+1 trade route
+10 percent food in every city
specialists +1 gold
specialists +2 culture
plantations +1 commerce
villages +1 hammer

Penalties
+10 City Number Cost
-10 percent Gold Commerce in every city
-1 Health in every City
-10 percent Worker speed

Monarchy
Tech: Monarchy
Cost: low

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
+10 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 1 unit
+1 happiness in largest cities
-10 percent war weariness
+1 trade route
+10 percent commerce in every city
specialists +3 culture
Pastures +1 food
Winery +1 commerce


Penalties
+10 percent City Number Cost
+1 Gold per Military Unit
+10 percent City Distance Cost

Republic
Tech: Constitution
Cost: Medium

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
-10 percent city number cost
+1 health in every city
+20 percent worker speed
+10 percent military production
+2 happiness in largest cities
+2 trade routes
+10 percent hammers in every city
specialists +3 gold
can gold rush
quarries +1 hammer
towns +1 commerce

Penalties
+10 percent city distance cost
+1 gold per military unit

Police State
Tech: Fascism
Costs: High

Bonuses
-10 percent city distance cost
+30 percent military production
+20 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 2 units per turn
-2 percent war weariness
+5 percent food in every city
+10 percent hammers in every city
specialists +3 research
mines +1 hammer
plantation +1 food

Penalties
+10 percent city number cost
-3 health in every city
-10 percent worker speed
-1 happiness in largest cities
-1 trade route
-10 percent commerce in every city
specialists -2 culture

Parlimentary Democracy
Tech: Democracy
Cost: High

Bonuses
+20 percent great people points
-10 percent city distance cost
+2 health in every city
+20 worker speed
+10 percent cottages to towns growth rate
+2 trade routes
+10 percent food in every city
specialists +3 research
can gold rush
farms +1 commerce
towns +1 food

Penalties
+10 percent city number cost
-10 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
+1 gold per military unit
+10 percent war weariness


I should point out that the major factors that would impact on the decision to go monarchy, oligarchy or dictatorship will be war/peace status; Number of cities vs. distance between the capital and provinces, the importance of science over culture/gold and the size of your treasury-as oligarchy as more expensive to maintain than either dictatorship or monarchy.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Dictatorship v Oligarchy

Dictatorship
cost: low

+10 percent hammers in every city
+10 percent military production
+10 percent Science Commerce in every city
specialists +2 gold
Farms +1 Food
-20 percent city number cost
-10 percent war weariness
Workshops +1 Hammer
+5 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage

Oligarchy
cost: medium

+2 happiness in largest cities
+1 trade route
+1 health in every city
+10 percent food in every city
specialists +1 research
specialists +2 culture
villages +1 hammer
draft 1 units per turn
-10 percent city distance cost
+10 percent worker speed
plantations +1 commerce

I think we should try to keep down the number of effects from each civic to 3 or less.

OK then, so what 3 effects do you think I should keep Optimizer-and do you mean 3 total, or 3 bonus and 3 malus? Thanks for your input, it really does mean a lot :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I agree with optimizer we should use a small number of modifiers. Something like 2-4 positive effects and 1-2 negative effects. I used two positives and one negative for the most part in my mod. Also I think that all percentage should be ten percent or greater so we can really notice a change.

You're probably right-that was certainly the original plan in my 'Broader_Civic' spreadsheet. I think I just got carried away.
So, my thoughts are that-at the most basic-government civics should effect the following: maximum efficient city size (health/happiness), efficiency of city production in gold, hammers, food and commerce (not specialist commerce-that should be an ideology thing I reckon) and the ability to raise and maintain an army. The thing is, should I retain the government effects on terrain improvements, or is that just excessive?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Dictatorship
tech: writing
cost: low

Bonuses
+20 percent military production
draft 2 units
+20 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
+10 percent hammers in every city

Penalties
-2 happiness in largest cities
-2 health in every city
-20 percent worker speed

Oligarchy
Tech: Priesthood
Cost: Medium

Bonusues
+10 percent military unit production
+10 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
+1 trade route
+10 percent food in every city

Penalties
-10 percent Gold Commerce in every city
-1 Health in every City
-10 percent Worker speed

Monarchy
Tech: Monarchy
Cost: low

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
draft 1 unit
+1 happiness in largest cities
+1 trade route
+10 percent commerce in every city

Penalties
-10 percent science commerce
+1 Gold per Military Unit
+10 percent distance maintainance cost


Republic
Tech: Constitution
Cost: Medium

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
+10 percent worker speed
+2 happiness in largest cities
+20 percent commerce per city

Penalties
+10 percent city distance cost
+1 gold per military unit
-10 percent military unit production

Police State
Tech: Fascism
Costs: High

Bonuses
+30 percent military production
-1 gold per unit
+20 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
-25 percent war weariness



Penalties
-2 health in every city
-1 happiness in largest cities
-1 trade route

Parlimentary Democracy
Tech: Democracy
Cost: High

Bonuses
+20 percent great people points
+2 health in every city
+10 Science Commerce
+2 trade routes

Penalties
-10 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
+1 gold per military unit
+10 percent war weariness

So, does that look a little better?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I agree that most civics should try to have three effects, and no more. I know this is a niche mod for really keen players like myself... but there's a certain finesse to game design.

Right, here we go guys, we now have Civic_Mod v0.000000002 ;). This time I have gone back and made all the changes to the Government civics AND added all the Ideology civics. As always, if you have any suggestions to improve it-or are having technical problems with it-then please let me know. Here is a quick rundown of what the different ideological effects are-in a similar format to the one used earlier by Korn. Enjoy :)

Survival
tech: None
cost: None

Bonuses
-20 War Weariness
+1Food, +1 Hammers from Camp

Penalties
-1 Happiness per City

Plutocratic
Tech: Currency
Cost: low

Bonuses
+20 percent Commerce per city
+1 Trade Routes
Unlimited Merchant and Artist Specialists
+1 Happiness from Markets

Penalties
-10 percent Food per City
-10 percent Culture per City

Feudalist
Tech: Feudalism
Cost: Medium

Bonuses
+10 percent Food per City
+10 percent Military Production
+1 free trade route per City
Unlimited Priest Specialists
+1 Happiness from Castles

Penalties
-1 Health per City
-10 percent Science Rate per City
-1 Happiness in 6 Largest Cities

Militarist
Tech: Metal Casting
Cost: Medium

Bonuses
+20 percent Military Production
+2 Free Experience
-25% War Weariness
+1 Happiness from Barracks

Penalties
-10 percent Culture per City
-10 percent Science per City

Socialist
Tech: Communism
Cost: High

Bonuses
+20 percent Hammers per City
+2 Health per City
+1 Happiness in 6 Largest Cities
+1 Happiness from Hospitals

Penalties
+10 percent # of Cities modifiers
-10 percent Culture Commerce

Fascist
Tech: Fascism
Cost: High

Bonuses
+10 percent Culture Commerce
+2 trade routes per city
+10 percent Science Commerce
+1 Happiness from Jails

Penalties
No Foreign Trade
-3 Happiness in 6 Largest Cities

Theocratic
Tech: Theology
Cost: Low

Bonuses
+2 State Religion Happiness
+20 percent State Religion Production
Unlimited Priest Specialists

Penalties
-1 Non-State Religion Happiness
-20 percent Science Commerce


Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie, I will certainly be giving this a look over when I get the opportunity. Thank you very much, sir! :)

Well, from my consideration of the Legal and Economic Civics changes I want to make, it occurs to me that there is SOMETHING missing-and that is <TradeRouteCommerce>. They have <TradeRouteYields>, which will prove very useful to me, but it doesn't seem like it would have been too hard to have implemented a similar schema for trade routes to add directly to wealth, culture and/or science. I think this may have made Mylon's job a lot easier too ;).

Oh and, have a look at this dictionary definition of Mercantilism

mer·can·til·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mûrkn-t-lzm, -t-)
n.
The theory and system of political economy prevailing in Europe after the decline of feudalism, based on national policies of accumulating bullion, establishing colonies and a merchant marine, and developing industry and mining to attain a favorable balance of trade.

That just doesn't seem to fit with the in-game effects of Mercantilism (in fact, it would make more sense applied to State Property IMO). If anything it would suggest more foreign trade routes, not less, and possibly greater gold yields from workshops, mines and quarries. I would be very interested to hear what you guys feel should be the in-game representation of Mercantilism.


Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

The way I understood Mercantilism was that it was based on the theory that there was a limited amount of "wealth" in the world, and that nations must try and accumulate as much of it to themselves as possible. Hence the need to have favorable balance of trade (and many colonies). No foreign routes makes "sort of" sense as a way to represent mercantilism in-game. Though, would (almost) equally well apply to the Soviet project (maybe State Property and Mercantilism got mixed up somewhere along the line?).

Your civics-system looks quite promising, although as others have noted, a bit over-complicated.

Well, I certainly wouldn't expect a huge uptake of my mod by the general population, but I hope the more 'fanatical' amongst us will find it acceptable. Plus, remember that it is still nothing more than a 'work in progress' ;).

To reiterate, I feel that each civic category will achieve a certain thing over everything else. i.e.

Government-effects city size and efficiency, and ability to raise armies and fight war.

Ideology-effects the kind of specialisation you have and what makes your people happy.

Organisation-effects distance and # of city maintainance, as well as the yield and commerce modifiers of your cities (Capital vs. Non-Capital in particular)

Legal-effects happiness and city maintainance costs, and the commerce yields of your specialists.

Rights-effects the health of your cities and the growth rates of surrounding improvements and-like government-can effect both city and specialist efficiency.

Labour-effects worker speed and the yields of certain terrain improvements.

Economy-Primarily effects city commerce and Trade Route Yields.

Religion-obvious really, what is the nature of your state religion (if any) and how does your nation relate to other faiths.

So long as you keep these in mind, then understanding my civic system should be quite easy.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Well modded Civics have revitalized the game for me. I set it up for 9 civics per category. I tried to make it so you get a couple of choices when tech opens civics. for instance Salvery is abhorent to me, so I added the less abhorent civic share cropping. The great thing is to see certain AI's going for the new civics while others are mixing and matching for the moment much more.

I was stoked when Chairman Mao switch to my new Wartime civic and a turn or two later proceeded to kick Ghandi's butt all over the place. I let him take a couple of cities then bribed him to get him to lay off Ghandi. He promptly switched his economic civic after the war. I love the open way the game is made and the way it is so easy to mod in great stuff like civics and have the AI react.:D

That just doesn't seem to fit with the in-game effects of Mercantilism (in fact, it would make more sense applied to State Property IMO). If anything it would suggest more foreign trade routes, not less, and possibly greater gold yields from workshops, mines and quarries. I would be very interested to hear what you guys feel should be the in-game representation of Mercantilism.


Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Good point, and I made the exact same one earlier in the thread. ;) Seriously, though, I had thought the best way to represent mercantilism would be to increase the revenue from mines and plantations. No foreign trade routes simply does not make sense. Mercantile nations worked hard to make sure their goods sold abroad.

But, actually, you can still trade off excess resources. So, in effect, you can still gain "bullion" for your goods. Maybe cutting off the "automatic" trades simulates having very tight control on guilds and the economy in general (which mercantile nations did!). Interesting stuff!

In game terms, it may very well make sense to increase gold from mines and such, not allow foreign trade routes, but still gain favorable trades (gold per turn!) from excess resources!



Btw, that sounds great, Red Diamond!

Well, here were my thoughts. A Barter Economy grants trade routes +2 food and +1 hammers. A Cash Economy grants trade routes +1 Food and +2 gold. A Mercantilist Economy grants trade routes +2 Gold, +1 Hammer. A State-Run Economy grants trade routes +2 Hammers and +1 food. A Free Market Economy grants trade routes +3 gold. Lastly, an Environmentalist Economy grants no net benefits from trade routes, but grants health, happiness and 'efficiency' benefits to all cities.
Anyway, just a thought. I would like to know what you think.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie how are you giving trade route +gold, +hammers, and +food? Is that with python?

Nope Korn-no Python Neccessary. If you look up the CivicInfo.xml file you will find this line <TradeYieldModifiers/>
According to the Apolyton Modiki, this refers to the hammers, gold and food that a trade route provides. As I said previously, my only disappointment is that they don't have a <TradeCommerceModifiers/> section for allowing trade routes to provide additional culture and science. Perhaps we should lobby them for that? ;)
EDIT: Oh, and just found out that it gives a % bonus to food, hammers and gold NOT a direct amount, which I think is even better!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie,

When you change information in the following block of xml text, what other xml files does it change?


<CivicOptionType>CIVICOPTION_GOVERNMENT</CivicOptionType>
<Type>CIVIC_HEREDITARY_RULE</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_CIVIC_HEREDITARY_RULE</Description>
<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_CIVIC_HEREDITARY_RULE_PEDIA</Civilopedia>
<Strategy>TXT_KEY_CIVIC_HEREDITARY_RULE_STRATEGY</Strategy>
<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Civics/Hereditary_Rule.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/Civics_Civilizations_Religions_Atlas.dds,3,3</Button>
<TechPrereq>TECH_MONARCHY</TechPrereq>


like for example if i changed hereditary rule's name to monarchy, and wanted to change it's button which other files would i need to modify to make it work properly?

One other question, how much have you experimented with the trade route modifier? Would it only work on items such as corn (food), coal (hammers), and gold (commerce) or what exactly?

@Korn469

As to your first question, the only other place you really NEED to go is the CivText folder and alter the relevent sections of the CivObjectsText.xml file. In this case, find CIVIC in the file, scroll down to CIVIC_HEREDITARY_RULE and change it to CIVIC_MONARCHY. It's that easy. Oh, but if you change the name of one the civics that you vote on in the UN, then you will need to find VoteInfo.xml and change the relevent section too (this last part isn't vital, as it doesn't cause the game to crash during loading).

As to the second question, it says +20% food per trade route (with the 3 arrows) for example. What this means, I think, is that if you have two cities connected by a road-and a trade route forms, then each city will have 20% more food to play with. So, by default, we have a form of food and hammer trading in the game ;)! Like I said, if only they allowed the same thing for culture and science (tradecommercevalues) then we would be 'In Like Flynn')
Hope this answers your questions. If not, I will have me economics section of the mod finished by the end of today, and will post it here for you to look at.

Yours,

Aussie_Lurker.

Thanks for the info to the first part of my question! That really helps out quite a bit. I've been playing more than modding lately, but I intend to release an update to the Blitz mod that will include the altered civics values I posted here (with a few changes).

As to changing the values in trade routs, that sounds like a slightly odd effect. It may be the reason why no civic in the civ4 defaults uses it.

Well, as I said, the inability for cities to trade food-or hammers-always seemed a major omission, IMO, and though the health benefits of traded food resources was a step forward, it wasn't really the same thing. Now, at least, you have a means, within the civics system, to represent the domestic and international trade in commodities.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

This is the BEST thread in the entire forum. I just wish more people would see it.

The two biggest aspects of this game IMHO are religion AND civics. I modded my game so that you choose which religion you want and research that 1st. I usually play me against 12 other civs. This means only 8 of us can be founders and reap the benefits of same(gold, culture, science etc.).

Because of this there is no more religion monopolies by the sprituals. I enabled religious victory and trying to get more than 50% of the world to your religion is almost impossible without ALOT off finese and some luck. The AI now just does not religion hop if they found a religion as much anymore.:cool: In addition, I added a few more civics that do not allow non state spread. VERY different game now.

Finally, I added a Atheism civic and boy did I find some GREAT things fooling with this. Basically you get some happiness, culture, gold and science bounses, BUT strict penalties for state religion or ANY religious buildings in your city. So strict that you "really" have to play as an atheist or your people will all go :mad:. Great flexibility to create good social engineering has been given to us. :D As you can see by doing this you can indeed restrict certain civics combos that don't make sense (Police state/free speech):eek: :crazyeye:

Good thread, because I'm doing some modding by myself.
I wanted to implement land-owning church civic, like in medieval times, so that it gives +4 gold per priest specialist but no happines from state religion in city. However it seems like I can't assign gold bonus to priest specificaly, at least not in civicinfos.xml, while I can assign it for any building in buildinginfo.xml (look at angkor watt wonder) Any advices?

Also, how to mod phyton so that I can build building only under specifical government?
Thx in advance

I did some thinking aloud and tried so see if I could come up with some civics that would have only a couple of bonuses/penalties just like the game in its current state, and also to configure the bonuses/penalties in a way that would require only some XML modding: Here goes nothing...

CONCEPTUAL CIVICS

GOVERNMENTAL
Military Dictatorship – High Upkeep
Positives: +25% miliary unit & military building production, +1 happiness per military unit stationed in a city
Negatives: -2 (or 3?) happiness in six largest (or perhaps all?) cities (lack of free speech)

Police State – High Upkeep – Change from original version
Positives: Spies can be built without Scotland Yard
Negatives: -1 (or 2? or 3?) happiness in all cities (citizens afraid of secret police)

Fascism – High Upkeep
Positives: +2 experience to new military units, can draft 3 units per turn, -50% war weariness,
Negatives: No foreign trade routes (ultra-nationalistic society), no state religion (the state is the religion)

Monarchy – Medium Upkeep – Change from Hereditary rule
Positives: +50% gold output, +50 (or 100?)% culture in capital (Monarch demands fine goods & arts), can draft 1 (or 2?) units per turn
Negatives: +25 percent maintenace cost for distance from captial (extra police needed to ensure Monarch's absolute rule)

Despotism – change from original – High Upkeep (corruption rampant away from capital)
Positives: +1 happiness per military unit stationed in a city
Negatives: ???

Republic – Low Upkeep – Keep original from game (Representation)
Positives: +3 research per specialist, +3 happiness in 6 largest cities
Negatives: ???

Democracy – Medium Upkeep – Change slightly from original (Universal Suffrage)
Positives: +1 production from Town, Gold use allowed to hurry production, +1 happiness in all cities
Negatives: +25% war weariness

City-States – Low Upkeep
Positives: +1 culture, +10% gold/production/research in all cities (high degree of autonomy)
Negatives: +50% (or 100%?) maintenance cost for distance from capital (required due to each city's high degree of city autonomy – lack of governmental intervention can mean warring among rival city-states)

This is nowhere near finished (I typed it up in about 25 minutes) and I just copy-pasted from the Open Office program I was using; personal notes included. Obviously I've just started since I've typed up only governmental civics, but I'm hoping for a high degree of variety between civics. Thoughts? Ideas so I can fill in the areas with question marks? At the very least I want to mod this for myself because there just seems to be nowhere near enough civic options in the game and it's finally bugging me.

Hi TheJopa.

The best thing for the latter question is as follows:

in the CvGameInterface.py file, find the def CannotConstruct section.

Add the following:

def cannotConstruct(argsList):
pCity = argsList[0]
eBuilding = argsList[1]
bContinue = argsList[2]
bTestVisible = argsList[3]
bIgnoreCost = argsList[4]

if eBuilding ==gc.getInfoTypeForString('BUILDING_FEUDAL_MANOR') :
if pPlayer.getCivics() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('CIVIC_SLAVERY'):
return True

Now, you need to repeat this code for every civic category EXCEPT the one you want to be able to build the improvement/wonder in. Then, as your last line, write return False
Now, I realise that this is time consuming, but it is far more 'foolproof' than the CanConstruct section, which would only look to confirm you are in the right civic or not-not whether or not you have any other prerequisites.
However, if you want to try this approach, it is pretty much the same-but simply write:

def canConstruct(argsList):
pCity = argsList[0]
eBuilding = argsList[1]
bContinue = argsList[2]
bTestVisible = argsList[3]
bIgnoreCost = argsList[4]

if eBuilding ==gc.getInfoTypeForString('BUILDING_FEUDAL_MANOR') :
if pPlayer.getCivics() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('CIVIC_SERFDOM'):
return True

return False

Now, I haven't tried this myself but, based on the experience of others, either of these SHOULD work.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

OK, now your first request is a LITTLE bit harder to do, but all I can suggest for now is:

def OnBeginPlayerTurn (Self, argslist)
'Called at the beginning of a players turn'
iTurn, iPlayer = argslist

player = gc.getActivePlayer()
if (player.isCivic(gc.getInfoTypeforString("CIVIC_CHURCH_PROPERTY"))):

if (city.isSpecialist(gc.getInfoTypeforString("SPECIALIST_PRIEST"))):
for i in range(player.getNumCities())
player.getCity(i).getCommerceChange(gc.getInfoType forString("COMMERCE_GOLD"), 4)

else:
for i in rang(player.getNumCities())
player.getCity(i).getCommerceChange(gc.getInfoType forString("COMMERCE_GOLD"), 0)

Anyway, I can't confirm this will work, but there IS a certain logic to it. It might at least be worth a try. Even if I am wrong, it might start your feet in the right direction ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Unhappiness in police states could be connected to scientific buildings like Libraries, Universities and Laboratories. In such states (Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Nationalist Spain, People's Republic of China), students and academics have usually been the largest threat against security of the state.

Unhappiness in police states could be connected to scientific buildings like Libraries, Universities and Laboratories. In such states (Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Nationalist Spain, People's Republic of China), students and academics have usually been the largest threat against security of the state.

Yep, that's the idea.:goodjob:

Well, as I said, the inability for cities to trade food-or hammers-always seemed a major omission, IMO, and though the health benefits of traded food resources was a step forward, it wasn't really the same thing. Now, at least, you have a means, within the civics system, to represent the domestic and international trade in commodities.


Those both dilute the value or identity of individual cities, though. Fishing villages wouldn't be nearly so interesting if you could just divert the output of a core city for three or six turns to *shazam* give it lighthouse, harbor, courthouse, and the other basic buildings it'd need. Instead, you have to weigh the eventual commerce return against the long startup time when it'll be underdeveloped and draining your coffers...

Aussie lurker, thanks. I will try these, I downloaded phyton editor, though I don't have any experience in it yet.
If someone wants to mod slavery civic, in unit graphic section of forum is slave unit along with phyton script which allows slaves to be spawned after combat (20% chance) if your civic is slavery. And I would also add slaves ability to join city as slave specialist, like great people, so that they produce few additional hammers. This can be done in xml files, however they wouldnt count in population. This may cause some unbalace, because you could have hoardes of slaves, which give production without unhealthines or overcrowding penalties. But I suppose this could be edited in phyton.

@TheJopa. I should warn you that, even if my suggested script for the Priest works, I have a strong suspicion that it will ONLY work for the first specialist in each city-NOT for every priest you produce. Sorry about that, but until they improve the XML schema, we are kind of stuck with it :(. Guess its better than nothing though

@Kidinnu. I don't think the trade route yield modifiers will be quite as diluting as you think. Remember, they are percentage modifers, so only act on what is already there. So a fishing village with only 6 hammers to its name will-even with a 100% bonus from trade-only boost its hammer output to 12.
All I am talking about is a 10-30% bonus at best. However, it WILL be an added incentive for players to found more trade routes. As for my views on the ability to trade shields/food in previous games, I always said that there should be some kind of restriction on the MAXIMUM shields/food a city could send/recieve on a per turn basis-probably determined in part by tech level. Trust me, I wanted realism, but NOT at the expense of gameplay and strategy.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hi again everyone. Well sorry for the delay, but here is the latest update to my civics mod. This time around I have altered the Labour civics. Just a note, I have removed Emancipation from the Labour Civics (I plan to move it to a new option called 'Rights') and have added Professional, Conscription and Organised Labour to the list instead. As always, this IS a work in progress, so I will greatly appreciate any feedback you might be able to give :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Sorry I have not had time to check out your civics mod, Aussie. Certainly, it is my intention to provide feedback to you on your project.

y not add confederation??

OK, I have been looking over all the bonuses and penalties, and have decided to make the following modifications. What do people think, will this be more balanced?

Dictatorship
tech: writing
cost: low

Bonuses
+20 percent military production
+10 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
+10 percent hammers
-20 percent war weariness
specialists +3 gold
-10 percent city number cost
Workshops +1 Hammer
Farms +1 Food

Penalties
-2 happiness in largest cities
+10 percent city distance cost
-2 health in every city
-20 percent worker speed
specialists -1 research

Oligarchy
Tech: Priesthood
Cost: Medium

Bonusues
+10 percent military unit production
+5 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 1 units per turn
-10 percent war weariness
+1 trade route
+10 percent food in every city
specialists +1 gold
specialists +2 culture
plantations +1 commerce
villages +1 hammer

Penalties
+10 City Number Cost
-10 percent Gold Commerce in every city
-1 Health in every City
-10 percent Worker speed

Monarchy
Tech: Monarchy
Cost: low

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
+10 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 1 unit
+1 happiness in largest cities
-10 percent war weariness
+1 trade route
+10 percent commerce in every city
specialists +3 culture
Pastures +1 food
Winery +1 commerce


Penalties
+10 percent City Number Cost
+1 Gold per Military Unit
+10 percent City Distance Cost

Republic
Tech: Constitution
Cost: Medium

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
-10 percent city number cost
+1 health in every city
+20 percent worker speed
+10 percent military production
+2 happiness in largest cities
+2 trade routes
+10 percent hammers in every city
specialists +3 gold
can gold rush
quarries +1 hammer
towns +1 commerce

Penalties
+10 percent city distance cost
+1 gold per military unit

Police State
Tech: Fascism
Costs: High

Bonuses
-10 percent city distance cost
+30 percent military production
+20 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 2 units per turn
-2 percent war weariness
+5 percent food in every city
+10 percent hammers in every city
specialists +3 research
mines +1 hammer
plantation +1 food

Penalties
+10 percent city number cost
-3 health in every city
-10 percent worker speed
-1 happiness in largest cities
-1 trade route
-10 percent commerce in every city
specialists -2 culture

Parlimentary Democracy
Tech: Democracy
Cost: High

Bonuses
+20 percent great people points
-10 percent city distance cost
+2 health in every city
+20 worker speed
+10 percent cottages to towns growth rate
+2 trade routes
+10 percent food in every city
specialists +3 research
can gold rush
farms +1 commerce
towns +1 food

Penalties
+10 percent city number cost
-10 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
+1 gold per military unit
+10 percent war weariness


I should point out that the major factors that would impact on the decision to go monarchy, oligarchy or dictatorship will be war/peace status; Number of cities vs. distance between the capital and provinces, the importance of science over culture/gold and the size of your treasury-as oligarchy as more expensive to maintain than either dictatorship or monarchy.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.


y whold being under a police state result in ppl being less healthy.. forget balanceing, and make it realistic.

Its not making them literally 'less healthy'. Its just that a combination of fear, disappearances and people trying to flee the regime would have the effect of reducing the nations full growth capacity. Of course, if the nation has access to abundant food, then this won't matter so much.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

You seem to have a done a reasonable job. However, there are a fer things I want to question. First, I do not think we need than many new civics. For example: In reality, what is the difference between a dictatorship and despotism? Not much. There is some, but not enough to justify having each their own civic.

I did like korn469 example, although that needs work as well.

Finally, on the question of Merchantism, I believe thay Fraxis was inspired by the one in Japan several hundred years ago, where the total of all foreign trade allowed was i Dutch ship per year. That was it. Also, in European contries, they had something simillar. They did not trade with their rivals, but instead set up colonies so they could get what they need themselves.

On further reflection, I have actually decided to retain the 'No Foreign Trade' penalty for Mercantilism, but give a reduction in distance maintainance costs for cities-which I think belongs here FAR more than with the State-Property civic (I mean, COME ONE, the Soviet Union wasn't the only communist country, yet they use their 'empire-building' tendancies as the basis of Communist Economics!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

On further reflection, I have actually decided to retain the 'No Foreign Trade' penalty for Mercantilism, but give a reduction in distance maintainance costs for cities-which I think belongs here FAR more than with the State-Property civic (I mean, COME ONE, the Soviet Union wasn't the only communist country, yet they use their 'empire-building' tendancies as the basis of Communist Economics!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
That does sound a bit more realistic, seeing as civs Mercantilism would be encouraged to have lots of colonies in real life. I do want to point out though that, unless I am mistaken, Mercantilism still allows trading of resources, techs, ext. If I am wrong about this, please let me know.

It does, ToV, the foreign trade routes effected are merely those that automatically form between connected cities. Given that my economics civics all give yield bonuses for trade routes, then it means that the only things which a Mercantilist civ can trade with other civs are raw resources and techs.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hi again guys. Well, slowly but surely I move forward in my quest to totally overhaul the civics system. I should point out that-at this point-I have discovered a problem with # of cities maintainance. Namely there seems only two settings-either you pay maintainance or you don't. I plan to look more deeply into this. In the meantime, though, here is the most recent update to the mod-with economics changes included. Please enjoy, and feel free to post your views on it here for my consideration :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I found that out too. Whatever you put, it says "No maintenance cost from number of cities". Probably bug, because that line is interger value and not binar.

How do you allow civics to modify culture rates?

I've got a number of questions like that - do you need to edit in python or something?

If you are talking about the % up/down buttons that it tied to the drama tech? I think. You could change the tie in. It might be easier to describe exactly what you want to do/change because there are many ways to skin that cat in this game.

I basically want to add (as part of the 'colonisation of the moon' mod btw) some government civics. Among these, Facism and Communism both lower the net culture output of cities (by 10% and 15% respectively), and in another variety of civics, the Social Engineering civic lowers net culture output while the Free Speech civic doubles the culture output of cities.

This is to try and represent the relative oppression of fascist states against creative artists and their attempts to impose imitation popular works (like the Nazi propaganda fairy tales). The culture bonus under free speech is the diametric opposite: it represents the creative freedom enjoyed by the populace and the resulting diversity of new creative works.

Just a simple modifier to change the net culture output of cities in much the same manner as the commerce/production/food variable.

The option to tie culture to trade routes would be good too but it might be asking too much.

Essentially I want to know how easy it is to add variables to an XML file in a way the game will understand.

I basically want to add (as part of the 'colonisation of the moon' mod btw) some government civics. Among these, Facism and Communism both lower the net culture output of cities (by 10% and 15% respectively), and in another variety of civics, the Social Engineering civic lowers net culture output while the Free Speech civic doubles the culture output of cities.

This is to try and represent the relative oppression of fascist states against creative artists and their attempts to impose imitation popular works (like the Nazi propaganda fairy tales). The culture bonus under free speech is the diametric opposite: it represents the creative freedom enjoyed by the populace and the resulting diversity of new creative works.

Just a simple modifier to change the net culture output of cities in much the same manner as the commerce/production/food variable.

The option to tie culture to trade routes would be good too but it might be asking too much.

Essentially I want to know how easy it is to add variables to an XML file in a way the game will understand.

VERY EASY!:D this is the block I use in one of my civics that increases gold, science and culture by 5% in all cities.
<CommerceModifiers>
<iCommerce>5</iCommerce>
<iCommerce>5</iCommerce>
<iCommerce>5</iCommerce>
</CommerceModifiers>

To get the opposite you just make it neg -5:cool:

So which one deals with culture (I know these things go in order)? And does this need any additional programming?

Thanks for your swift response, btw.

Doesn't "culture" in-game to some extent model propaganda?

@Holistic: Yes. In a word!

@Red Diamond: Which of the three variables controls culture? And does it need any additional programming?

@JBG. The order of the commerce settings is Gold, then Science, then Culture. So it is the bottom one you have to modify in the XML file-and NO you don't need to make any other programming changes, just alter the setting in CivicsInfo.xml and you're all done ;). Note, however, that even if you are only changing the one setting, you have to always include ALL THREE commerce settings (or you get a parsing error!)-just leave the other two at zero. Hope this helps.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

@JBG. The order of the commerce settings is Gold, then Science, then Culture. So it is the bottom one you have to modify in the XML file-and NO you don't need to make any other programming changes, just alter the setting in CivicsInfo.xml and you're all done ;). Note, however, that even if you are only changing the one setting, you have to always include ALL THREE commerce settings (or you get a parsing error!)-just leave the other two at zero. Hope this helps.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Thx, was out most of the day and playing civ. Aussie is 100% correct as usual. JBG can't wait for the moon mod:goodjob:

Thanks guys.

We ought to have an alpha version soon. :scan:

Aussie_Lurker, could you please specify what changes you made in this newest mod? I would appreciate it.

But anyway, I had an idea of a knew economic civic: mixed economy. This is an economy that is regulated by the government, but at the same time tries to promote free markets. The US has something like this, and quite a few European nations have more socialistic versions. It would have medium upkeep (Think America's giant debt), and would combine some elements of the Free Market and State Property Civic. Example:

+ 1 trade route
1 free specialist
Some other bonus or penalty

Also, I have some changes to the State Propety and Free Market.

State Property would have 1 free specilist (instead of no maintenance) and a small to medium production penalty (because workers have no incentive to work hard)

Free Markets would give +2 trade roughts and a health penalty (because pure capatilists don't give a (explitive deleted) about the environment)

I hope you can incorperate this into a mod. I will try to come up with one more for the other catagories, as well, but do not count on anything comming soon.

Well, the one I hope to post tonight contains the addition of a new civic category-namely organisation. Now your city culture, production and maintainance will be in part dictated by whether or not you are a nationalist, a federalist, a devolutionist, an imperialist or Hegemonic style of ruler. The only problem is that I am getting an XML error when I load the mod, even though it works fine :confused:.
Next on the agenda are Rights and Legal civics.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hiya guys,

Well I have the latest update to my civics mod. I have added the Organisation civic category and totally altered the Legal civics. Please note, when you load the mod you will get an error message, but you will still be able to play the game (in fact, if anyone can tell me the source of the error, please tell me ;) ).
Anyway, as always, please try it out and tell me what you think of it. Its still pretty rough, but I hope to clean it up prior to adding the Python elements to my mod.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I think I can see the problem. (Or not. I'm not an expert.) When I try to open up the XML from my computer, it gives an error measage:

"Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet."

I have no idea what this means.

Edit: Now that I think about it, this seems to be more of a symtom then the problem.

In the mean time, could you please post exactly what changes you made so I can comment on them. I want to see what you came up with.

Xsl has to do with an Microsoft Excel database, yet I dont see the relation between XSL databases and XML.

Hiya guys,

Well I have the latest update to my civics mod. I have added the Organisation civic category and totally altered the Legal civics. Please note, when you load the mod you will get an error message, but you will still be able to play the game (in fact, if anyone can tell me the source of the error, please tell me ;) ).
Anyway, as always, please try it out and tell me what you think of it. Its still pretty rough, but I hope to clean it up prior to adding the Python elements to my mod.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I really appreciate the fact that you are working on civics as it has given me many ideas to make my games better.:goodjob:

I also appreciate the sharing of the expanded civics screen. This will allow me to expand my civcs from the current 45 to 66. This gives me much more room to provide more social engineering options. Based on my tests so far with my 45 civics, that AI really responds to choices given based on their personality. GREAT STUFF.:cool:

BTW, I'll be checking out your civics for more ideas:eek:

One other thing Aussie. There is no readme file, it is needed to outline what you have changed IMHO. In addition, you need to explain what the .py are for and what they change. It looks like the inquisitor and some culture alteration stuff is in there along with building file etc... This is why I think you need a readme file. The only thing I am using from your mod now is the Civics screen.py file. Why? Because I am not sure what else is going on in your mod, bro:(

Sorry about that RED. Most of the reason why I haven't done a readme yet is because the whole thing is in a state of flux (I mean, technically this is barely an alpha version of my mod :mischief: ). Once I have finished the XML component of the Civics mod, I do plan to write out an extensive readme of the changes made. It is odd that there are any cultural alterations in my mod. I did use the Python Scripts from Mylons Mod, but deleted all the the stuff which was secondary to my mod. That said, when it I have finished modifying the Civics, I will be relying heavily on stuff by TheLopez, Mylon and Snaitf.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I tried to load your mod. However, I saw no change. Could you please list exaxtly what changes you made on this web site so I can coment on them. I want to hear your ideas.

OK, most recent changes to my mod (31/01/06) are as follows:

New Civic Option: Organization. Denotes the way in which the government is structured. The choices are-
(a) Village: Default, no net difference.
(b) City State: Available with Polytheism. Each city pretty much runs its own affairs. Reduced City maintainance costs, draft 1 unit per turn, but reduced culture per city (as the cities don't see themselves as part of a contiguous nation-state).
(c) Hegemonic: Available with Code of Laws?? Quasi-federal system, where some cities (like the Capital) are more equal than others. Bonus to yields and commerce in the Capital, but penalties in non-capital cities.
(d) Imperial: Available with Monarchy. Your nation subjugates all the lands around, usually dominated from the Capital. Bonus to Distance maintanance costs and culture, but reduced happiness in largest cities (which chafe under the imperial yoke).
(e) Nation-State: Available with Nationalism. All cities within your borders both recognise their national identity and are proud of it. Bonus culture in all cities and reduced war weariness (IIRC). Penalty to city maintainance.
(f) Federal: Like the nation-state, but more regionalised in nature. Can't recall what it does off the top of my head.
(g) Devolved: Federal plus. Each region within your nation has almost total autonomy, which is obviously a bonus for larger nations. Benefits are, I think, happiness and reduced distance maintainance, but with a penalty to war weariness (nobody likes being forced to fight by the central government).

The other changes were in the legal civics, which now consist of:
(a) Tribal Law-default
(b) Martial Law-improved war weariness and bonus happiness from military units
(c) Ecclesiastical Law-laws drafting along religious lines, good for keeping people in line in cities with the state religion, but bad for science and multi-religion cities
(d) Beureacracy-laws are designed to make it easier to keep track of the minutiae of day-to-day life. Improved city yields, but causes unhappiness due to delays in getting what you want, when you want it
(e) Constitutional Law-laws aimed at strictly defining the rights and responsibilities of the people and their rulers. Culture and drafting bonus
(f) Jurisprudence-a legal system with established precedents and usually based on trial by jury. Bonus happiness from courtrooms
(g) International Law-laws designed to be harmonised with those of neighbouring nations-usually taking the best of all worlds. Seeks to protect the legal rights of all citizens within your borders, regardless of their nationality.
Anyway, thats pretty rough, but I hope that is what you had in mind.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I should point out that-at this point-I have discovered a problem with # of cities maintainance. Namely there seems only two settings-either you pay maintainance or you don't.

Look in GameInfo.xml. You will see iNumCitiesMaintenancePercent.

The default value depends on the world size.

Notice that the highest it is set is at 45. If you set it to 50 in your civic, have a look, and then to 100, you will see "no maintenance cost for number of cities" both times and come to the conclusion that you did.

Try setting it to 5 or 10 and see what happens. I haven't tried it myself, but maybe then you will get the result you want.

Xsl has to do with an Microsoft Excel database, yet I dont see the relation between XSL databases and XML.

Umm, no.

(1) Excel is .XLS
(2) Excel has nothing to do with databases
(3) XSL is Extensible Stylesheet Language, which tells a browser how to display an XML file.

So when you try to open it, and Internet Explorer intercepts it, IE complains that it doesn't know how to draw it.

Much more useful is to just open it in wordpad or notepad, which doesn't require the XSL and allows you to use it.

Here is my latest version of civics. Thx to Aussie and all you guys here:goodjob: The idea being multiple choices for designing your civ. Oh boy the AI's are having a blast. They all seem VERY indivdual now:cool:

Oh my, so many options!

I will try the zero-sum challenge, and keep to 5*5 civics, while keeping maximum diversity.

RED DIAMOND, I like some of your ideas, but that is too many options. Try to narrow it down. For startetrs, remember that the economic icvic is NOT how the economy runs. Is is how the government AFFECTS the economy. So Barter does not fit. Also, a religious state and a theocracy are the same thing, so there is no reason to have both. (There are other examples, but I will not get into details) Finally, socilized economy sounds too much like communism. Try renaming it mixed economy or regulated economy. If you can narrow it down a bit, your list should be fine.

Ahhh, but ToV, even I have Barter as an economic option. I feel it is perfectly justified because the government may in fact desire and/or legislate for a barter economy-especially before the age of hard currency. In my system, though, barter influences what yields trade generates (e.g. barter delivers less hard cash and more goods, wheras cash economy has a greater cash and non-food goods component.)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Oh no guys don't get me wrong, this is no "public" mod per se. No way in the world would I even remotely attempt to please this crowd:D

This is just showing my personal mod of how many civics can be added. In addition, I did this primarily for play vs a large number 8plus of AI's. They really like the larger number of civics choices. I might add my AI's have 3 traits and some other little things that make them more individual.

The basic concept holds true. The diverse AI personalities make some very individual and diverse civics choices throught the game. It really adds depth that would really have to be seen to totally appreciate how well it all works, but trust me it works:goodjob: It turns out to be a perfect amount to allow "several" choices to socially design your civ.;)

Aussie Lurker, i love your mod.

Im learning XML, messing with the files and stuff. Ill make my own Civic mod, based on this thread and many history books lying in front of me right now :). Ill try to give only 'bonuses', nothing 'negative' for each civic (except a few, like trade penalties for communism or WW for free speech), since im using 9 "castes" of civic (like Economy, Government, etc.. sorry for my english), with 5 to 9 options under each "caste", and no more than 2 bonuses for each civic. It will take a month, probably, since im kinda of busy in the next two weeks.

As ToV said, i will try to stop nonsense choices like Religious State (government) + Teocracy (religion). Once i get home, ill post the list of civics here.

I remember the civic castes are: Head of State, Government, Economy, Society, Religion, Ideology, Legal, Military and Gender Role (yea, alot i took from this thread :) ). I tried to use your idea of "Organization" civics, but there would be too much repeated civics (Feudalism with Serfdoom with Manorial for example...), so i removed the organization civics. Yep, theres still alot, but each one will have small bonuses (there wont be a game-changing civic like that one with +100% clture) and very few civics will have negative aspects. Additionally, im trying to name all civics with small names (like, 'Militar' instead of 'Military Tradition', so the civic table dont screw up).

Wish me luck :) And dont stop updating yours!

Aussie_Lurker , I rather like your use of the oganization catigory. It just makes sense. I do not see any problem with it, although I might change the names a bit. Examples:
Beureacracy-laws sounds better as Beureacracy
Your discription of Constitutional Law sounds like Nationhood (or whatever its called)
Jurisprudence is a bit of a mouth full.

And two final questions:
1) What tech requirements and upkeep do you think your new civics should have?
2) Where will you fit in free speech?

[ (Of course this means free speech in a _political_ context. A democracy might still censor sex, violence and certain commercial messages.)[/QUOTE]

That is what the current controversies over free speech are about - the need to protect public decency balanced against the need to talk about certain issues, such as sexual freedom and how to protect against diseases.

I have a list of some choises, based on the ideas of Armandeus and Aussie Lurker, as well as my own.

New Civic Ideas

Government:
Deposition
Low Upkeep

Hereditary Rule
Monarchy
Medium Upkeep
+1 happiness per military unit in city

Representation
Constitution
Low Upkeep
+3 science per specialist
+3 happiness in 5 largest cities

Universal Suffrage
Democracy
Medium Upkeep
+1 hammers and commerce from towns
May spend gold to finish production

Police State
Fascism
High Upkeep
+25% military unit production
-50% war wariness

Organization:
Village
Low Upkeep

City State
Polytheism
(?) Upkeep.
-25% city maintainance costs,
draft 1 unit per turn,
- (?)% culture per city

Imperial
Monarchy
(?) Upkeep
- (?)% distance maintanance costs
+ (?)% culture
- 2 happiness in largest 5 cities

Federal
(?)
(?)Upkeep

Devolved
(?)
(?) upkeep
+ 2 happiness
- 50% distance maintainance
+ 25% war weariness

Legal:
Barbarianism
Low Upkeep
- 1 happiness

Vassalage
Feudalism
High Upkeep
New units given +2 experience
Lower unit support costs


Nationhood
Nationalism
Low Upkeep
Can draft 3 unit per turn
+ 2 happiness from barracks

Bureaucracy
Civil Service
Medium Upkeep
+50% hammers in capital
+50% commerce in capital
+15% increase in city maintenance

Freedom of Speech
Liberalism
Low Upkeep
+100% culture
+ 50% Great People birth rate
+ 25% war wariness

Labor
Tribalism
Low Upkeep

Slavery
Bronze Working
Low Upkeep
Can sacrifice population to rush production
+1 hammer for quarries
+2 commerce for plantations

Serfdom
Feudalism
Low Upkeep
Works build improvements 50% faster

Caste System
Code of Law
Medium Upkeep
Unlimited artists, scientists, and merchants in cities

Emancipation
Democracy
No Upkeep
Doubles growth of Cottages, Hamlets, and Villages
Gives Civs Without Emancipation unhappiness

Economy
Decentralization
Low Upkeep

Mercantilism
Banking
Medium Upkeep
No foreign trade routes
No distance maintenance

Free Market
Economics
Low Upkeep
+2 trade route per city
Factories –2 health

State Property
Communism
Low Upkeep
+1 food from watermills, workshops
+1 free specialists per city
- 10% production

Environmentalism
Ecology
Medium Upkeep
+5 health in all cities
Recycling Plant increases production +10%
+1 happiness per extra health

Religion
Paganism
Low Upkeep

Organized Religion
Monotheism
High Upkeep
Can build missionaries without a monastery
Cities with State Religion construct buildings +25% faster

Theocracy
Theology
Medium Upkeep
Halts the spread of non-state religions
+2 exp in cities with state religion
+10% military production in cities with state religion
-10% science

Pacifism
Philosophy
Low Upkeep
Doubles Great People birth rate in your cities with state religion
+1 gold per military unit
+ 100% war wariness

Freedom of Religion
Liberalism
Low Upkeep
No state religion
+1 happiness for every non-state religion in a city
+10% science
+10% culture

Credit goes to Armandeus and Aussie Lurker for their many ideas.

Well, you guys might be interested to know that I am almost finished the XML component of my Civics mod. I did all of the religious civics last night, but it is still giving me trouble! Perhaps someone out there can help. I have some civics which, when in effect, are supposed to cause unhappiness on the basis of how many religions are in the city. Instead it is saying on the civics screen that it gives a +120468956 (or some such) per religion. I should point out, though, that the unhappiness for multiple religions has worked fine in other civic categories, just not in the Religious Civics.
Also, does anyone know how to reduce the font of the writing in the civics screen? I have tried altering almost the entire CvCivics.py file, but without effect on the writing.
Anyway, if people could give me advice on these matters, I will appreciate it-and hopefully I should have the 'finished' product for you by sometime tomorrow :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Ok first an opinon then my ideas, 1 first, I think the Civics area left a WHOLE WHOLE lot to be desired, I'm afraid we got the old rush job thrown at us. But I digress

Economic Freedom

Traditonalism- people care for themselves growing thier own food and getting thier own water. Little if any trade takes place, there is no conecpt of it.

Barter (available with Curency)- Items are now assigned a new characteristic called "worth" the idea that some things are more useful than others leads to a privallged and non-privallged class +10% to unhappniess, +2 gold in every city

Cottage Industry: Small groups of people choose to sepicalize in a field and create products for that field. Competition has begun to surface as each industry attempts to make a better product, or starve. +2 hammers +1 free speicalist. Decreases chance of a great person (because their all workin' don't ya know)

Capitalism- The cottage industry has evloved into a corperation. Large companies make products for the consumer, while the goverment will inergect occasionally to break up unfair monoplies the busniess run on thier own. +3 gold +3 Hammers 10% of entire income is lost due to the citizens (gasp) wanting to keep thier own money.

Comunism the gaps between the rich and the poor are eliminated, everyone is paied teh same and has mostly the same stuff. The goverment controls all industry in the since that there is no competiton. -1 hammer (no incintive to work) +4 gold due to coruption in your favor.

Personal Freedom

Tribalism What is personal freedom, is that somthing you can have when you don't work your butt off all day growing your own damn food?

Despotism Whoever is the stronger makes the rules, and they are very rarely nice happy rules. No unhapiniess (if you don't like it you can leave or you can die) -1 hammer (ok I'll work pretty boy, but I won't be happy about it... ow leg cramp gotta take a break)

Constiutional Monarchy A king is in place, but his powers are limited by his underlings. Citizens have some freedom but treason is still defined by the king, and still punishble by death. +1 hammer can execute any unhappy citizen.

Constiutional Republic citzens have total controll of thier goverment through elections, they can voice thier opinons to thier representive, or random strangers on the street. +20% happniess, +2 gold, citzens vote on other civics every three turns, civics change imeaditly (no anarchy) after the vote whether you like the change or not it doesn't matter. All citizens also vote on going to war.

No idea...

Press freedom

Gossip Information is exchanged from person to person, meaning that the story at the end can be very different from what some people call the truth.

Heraldry Persons hired by you go and spread good news about your goverment, whether it's true or not. -10% to research. +10% happniess. Increases the odds of war being declared

Indpendant Media The media is sperate from the goverment, and reports with basic freedoms. However the King can lean on the press to paint a postive image of say, an upcomming war. There's no gurentee they'll do it though. The free thought increases research. +10% research postive or negitive effect on a war vote depending on how much money you used to lean on the press. +5% happniess[/B]

Free Press The news media is open to everyone. Various news sources dispense a variety of news from a variety of perspectives. However the view is largely negitive of your nation. +20% to research -10% happniess negitivily affects the chances of war being declared.

Relgious Freedom

Paganism
Relgion is primitive and has no real affect on personal behavior

Theocracy God is seen as the true ruler of the nation. The teachings of his profits are law. Leaders relgion becomes dominant in all cities. +3 gold from tithes, if the leader changes his relgion all of these are lost (might help to make relgions give bouneses but I doubt we'll get that)

Fundmentalism Relgion is seen as making this nation superior to all the others, it is the will of God that this nation conquer the infidels and make them belivers, or kill them. Leader relgion becomes same in home city, Fanatic is spawed every five turns in each city. Automatic war with every civ who has a leader of a differnt relgion, cannot declare peace until the leader converts or Fudmentalism is changed.

Free Relgion People are free to see God in their own way. +15% to happniess (Leaders relgion remains to check against Fundi civs). +15% research. Domestic terrorism is a possibilty in all cities.

What do you think?

Hey guys. I worked out what was causing those wierd numbers. There seems to be a conflict between State Religion and Negative happiness per religion in a city. So it looks like I will have to make that change via Python, which is unfortunate. Anyway, I will post the completed XML version later today for your perusal :)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hey guys. I worked out what was causing those wierd numbers. There seems to be a conflict between State Religion and Negative happiness per religion in a city. So it looks like I will have to make that change via Python, which is unfortunate. Anyway, I will post the completed XML version later today for your perusal :)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I ran into this as well, but I fixed it all in XML. I will take a look later to see what I did.:goodjob:

I don't know how RED DIAMOND. I only solved it by setting the State Religion Boolean to 0, but this means that you have no state religion under any of those Civics (something I don't want). If you solved it some other way, then I will eagerly want to hear how :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hey Aussie. Are the booleans set to zero for all of the other civics in that class?(ie. All other government civics set to 0, except for the one with State religion).

Hey RED. The State Religion Boolean is set to 0 in all the Civic Categories EXCEPT Religion. Even here, it is only Free Religion and Paganism which lack the State Religion setting.
The point is that, if your religious civic has 0 State religion, then you can't have a State religion-which is exactly what I don't want!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Could someone comment on my civics please? Sorry to whine...

Hey Red or Aussie

I dont suppose there is a way of creating a special unit from having certain civics is there?

Well, some are pretty good, but Civics like Heraldry and Cottage Industry I find a little TOO specific. Some things should simply be left to the imagination IMO ;).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Oh, btw Riker. If the unit you want has no other requirement (eg. tech or resource) beyond the appropriate civic, then it should be quite simple.
Go into CvGameUtils.py and find the line def CanConstruct.
Then type something along the following lines (can't guarantee it will work without some changes though!):
def canConstruct(self,argsList):
pCity = argsList[0]
eBuilding = argsList[1]
bContinue = argsList[2]
bTestVisible = argsList[3]
bIgnoreCost = argsList[4]
if eUnit == gc.getInfoTypeForString('UNIT_CIVICSPECIFICUNIT'):
if pPlayer.getCivics() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('CIVIC_SPECIFICCIVIC'): return True
return False



Hope this helps.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hey RED. The State Religion Boolean is set to 0 in all the Civic Categories EXCEPT Religion. Even here, it is only Free Religion and Paganism which lack the State Religion setting.
The point is that, if your religious civic has 0 State religion, then you can't have a State religion-which is exactly what I don't want!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Send me your file, I think I can fix it;)

Howdy RED. Here is the file for you to look at-hope you can fix the happiness issue for me.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Howdy RED. Here is the file for you to look at-hope you can fix the happiness issue for me.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Darn, I looked this thing over top to bottom and found no errors. Even the entries with state religion and neg happiness seemed ok too:confused: At least they showed up ok in game. This is really wierd, but I remember having the same error, but for the life of me, I forgot what I did to change it.

As it is now, I did not get the error. Where does it show up, in game in the civlopedia?

Hi RED. The error actually shows up in both the civics screen AND the Civilopedia. I have since removed all happiness penalties from the religious civics, and will try and reintroduce them either via the '6 Largest Cities' Category, or via Python.
BTW RED, how were you able to squash the labels for your civics into the squares? Mine are mostly OK except when I have two word terms (like Parliamentary Democracy and Organised Labour).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hi RED. The error actually shows up in both the civics screen AND the Civilopedia. I have since removed all happiness penalties from the religious civics, and will try and reintroduce them either via the '6 Largest Cities' Category, or via Python.
BTW RED, how were you able to squash the labels for your civics into the squares? Mine are mostly OK except when I have two word terms (like Parliamentary Democracy and Organised Labour).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Thats a flippin wierd error because I've seen it too, but not when I used your file:confused: Truthfully, that one has gotten my goat.

In terms of the 66 civics on one screen, I changed the size of things in the Civicscreen.py file. I have attached it for you to use. BTW, Parliamentary Democracy won't fit because of the letter and space limit of about 18.

Oh, btw Riker. If the unit you want has no other requirement (eg. tech or resource) beyond the appropriate civic, then it should be quite simple.
Go into CvGameUtils.py and find the line def CanConstruct.
Then type something along the following lines (can't guarantee it will work without some changes though!):
def canConstruct(self,argsList):
pCity = argsList[0]
eBuilding = argsList[1]
bContinue = argsList[2]
bTestVisible = argsList[3]
bIgnoreCost = argsList[4]
if eUnit == gc.getInfoTypeForString('UNIT_CIVICSPECIFICUNIT'):
if pPlayer.getCivics() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('CIVIC_SPECIFICCIVIC'): return True
return False



Hope this helps.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Thanks Aussie, I will give it a bash and let you know. ;)

Question, when playing with XML in CIVICS there is an option of <CIVICPERCENTANGER>, does this anger neighbours if I have this type of civic?

Example, If I put Slavery at 400%, would this mean my neighbours are angry because I have this civic or because they dont have that civic :crazyeye:

If you understand my ramblings please explain to me what the answer is. :lol:

Question, when playing with XML in CIVICS there is an option of <CIVICPERCENTANGER>, does this anger neighbours if I have this type of civic?

Example, If I put Slavery at 400%, would this mean my neighbours are angry because I have this civic or because they dont have that civic :crazyeye:

If you understand my ramblings please explain to me what the answer is. :lol:

That is a boolean(ie. it should be 0 or 1 only). What the 1 does is makes all other civs have unhappiness if they don't have that civic. A little counterintuittive but hey most programming things are:lol:

Thanks RED, but if its a boolean why does it say percentage, and in the original Civ4civicsinfos.xml it has 400 under emancipation?

Please clarify before I edit this part.

Many Thanks RED.

Riker13

Actually RED, it isn't a Boolean. How do I know? Because it doesn't say <bCivicPercentAnger>, it says <iCivicPercentAnger>. All Boolean settings have a lower case b next to them (i.e. just a 0 or 1 for no or yes), wheras CivicPercentAnger is an integer setting (or lower case i). This means that you can give it an integer setting relating to how much anger you want the civic to cause to your neighbours. Hope this helps guys.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie/Red

Yes that sounds right.

Ok here is another problem, I am not so hot on Python yet and I have tried adding that code you posted (Aussie) but it comes up with this error:

Failed to load CvEventInterface :crazyeye:

What do you think????

Regards

Riker13

OK Riker. Go into your .ini file and, on the line which says pythonerrlog=0, set it to 1 instead. This will generate a new log every time you try-and fail-to load a mod. This log will then tell you where it is having the problem. Post the error log and your python code changes and I will try and help you if you like :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Thanks Aussie.

[Feb 09, 2006 - 20:45:49] Messages while processing 'Resource/Themes/Civ4.thm'

Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:401, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size3_Italic' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:402, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size3_BoldItalic' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:408, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size1_Bold' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Window.thm', Ln:3048, Col:9) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size1_Bold' not found

Sorry Aussie, this is the one your after.

I keep putting my foot in my mouth. Of course you are right Aussie:blush:

OK Riker, there is your problem. You are trying to import a python file you haven't got-namely CustomFunctions.py Of course, this doesn't mean you don't have other errors-just that this is the one which is causing you most grief right now. Solve it and we can move on.
Also, I don't think you need CustomFunctions in order to enact a change to def CanConstruct. Anyway, give me some time to think about what I did when I first tried modifying python, and I will get back to you-OK? :)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Ok thanks Aussie, I will try and have a play with it today. :)

Hello Again. So far, My list is as follows.

New Civic Ideas

Government:
Despotism
Low Upkeep
Anarchy Length 2

Hereditary Rule
Monarchy
Medium Upkeep
+1 happiness per military unit in city

Representation
Constitution
Low Upkeep
+3 science per specialist
+3 happiness in 6 largest cities

Police State
Fascism
High Upkeep
+50% military unit production
-50% war wariness
+2 happiness per military unit in city
Anarchy Length 2

Universal Suffrage
Democracy
Medium Upkeep
+1 hammers and commerce from towns
May spend gold to finish production


Organization:
Village
Low Upkeep

City State
Polytheism
Low Upkeep
Can draft 1 unit per turn
-25% city maintenance costs
-20% culture per city

Hegemonic
Monarchy
Low Upkeep
+20% commerce in capital
-(1 or 2) happiness in largest 6 cities

Vassalage
Feudalism
High Upkeep
New units given +2 experience
+6 free units

Federal
Civil Service
Medium Upkeep
-25% city maintenance costs
+2 happiness in largest 6 cities

Nationhood
Nationalism
Low Upkeep
Can draft 3 unit per turn
+2 happiness from barracks
+1 culture from specialists
-1 happiness per 20% foreign nationality


Legal:
Barbarianism
Low Upkeep
-1 happiness in largest 6 cities (“Under barbarism, the strong take what they want from the weak”)
Anarchy Length 2

Decree
Writing
Low Upkeep
+25% culture
+25% commerce in capital

Bureaucracy
Civil Service
Medium Upkeep
+50% hammers in capital
+50% commerce in capital
+10% increase in city maintenance (Bureaucracy becomes corrupt and inefficient over time)

Jurisprudence
Constitution
Medium Upkeep
+50% culture
+1 happiness from courthouses and jails

Freedom of Speech
Liberalism
Low Upkeep
+100% culture
+ 50% Great People birth rate (The government does not suppress ideas)
+ 25% war wariness (There would not have been protests during the Vietnam War if the public had not seen all of those nasty war images)


Labor:
Tribalism
Low Upkeep

Slavery
Bronze Working
Low Upkeep
Can sacrifice population to rush production <2 unhappiness per pop rush>
+1 hammer for quarries (Where slaves commonly worked)
+1 commerce for plantations (Where slaves commonly worked)

Serfdom
Feudalism
Low Upkeep
Works build improvements 50% faster
+1 food from windmills

Caste System
Code of Law
Medium Upkeep
Unlimited artists, scientists, and merchants in cities

Emancipation
Democracy
No Upkeep
Doubles growth of Cottages, Hamlets, and Villages
Gives Civs without Emancipation unhappiness


Economy
Decentralization
Low Upkeep

Mercantilism
Banking
High Upkeep
No foreign trade routes
-50% distance maintenance (Many European colonial empires ran mercantilism, so this seemed a better place for the bonus)
+25% commerce from markets, grocers

Regulated Market
Economics (Perhaps somewhere else)
(Low or Medium) Upkeep
+1 trade route per city
+1 free specialist? (Tell me if there is something better)

Corporatism
Industrialism (Or Corporation if I move Free Market)
Low Upkeep
+2 trade routes
+20% production from factories (Factories are worked overtime to increase production- and profit)
-2 health with factory (Industrialists do not care about the environment)
-10% commerce (The corporation takes more for themselves)

Planned
Communism
Medium Upkeep
-20% production (Citizens have little or no incentive to work hard)
+1 food from watermills, workshops
+1 production from watermills, workshops (So the production penalty can be balanced, at the cost of other improvements, such as cottages)
+1 free specialists per city (A logical extension of the change made to mercantilism)

Environmentalism
Ecology
Medium Upkeep
+6 health in all cities
+20% production from recycling plant (Nation recycles as much as possible)
+1 happiness per extra health (Citizens pride themselves in keeping the environment clean. In game terms, there is now a logical reason for all of the extra health)


Religion
Paganism
Low Upkeep

Organized Religion
Monotheism
High Upkeep
Can build missionaries without a monastery
Cities with State Religion construct buildings +25% faster
+1 extra happiness in cites with state religion

Theocracy
Theology
Medium Upkeep
Halts the spread of non-state religions
+2 exp in cities with state religion
-1 happiness per non-state religion (Self-explanatory)
Anarchy Length 2

Pacifism
Philosophy
No Upkeep
+100% Great People points in cities with state religion
+1 gold per military unit
Half as many free military units (Increased military costs have more effect)
+100% war wariness (Self-explanatory)

Freedom of Religion
Liberalism
Low Upkeep
No state religion
+1 happiness for every non-state religion in a city
+25% science
-10% culture (The “Morally lax” society described in the Civopedia)

Credit to Armandeus, Aussie Lurker, Holistic, korn469, and JBG for their ideas.

The legal category is the one I find the worst in unmodified Civ4, theoretically at least. Gameplaywise it's another matter, of course (where it instead offers quite interesting trade-offs). The main reason for this is that I don't quite understand what it is supposed to model, since the civics choices have quite different connections to law. Bureaucracy might refer to how law is instituted, Vassalage to how law is enforced, Barbarism to how the population is controlled (which is not the same as enforcing a particular law), and Free Speech to what rights are granted. Nationhood might relate to what law aims at.

So. The question I'd really expect a "Legal" category to answer is why the laws are binding for the citizens. This would give (roughly chronological (from a Western European perspective))
- Tradition; Laws follow from tradition
- Canonic; The gods are good, and hence their laws are too
- Edict; The ruler(s) is/are good, and hence their laws are too
- Natural Law; Laws that are moral are "good" (and common to all, regardless of e.g. faith or nationality)
- Legal Positivism; Laws that are instituted by the powers that be are good (could also be called Legalism (since this usually follows))
- Legal Instrumentalism; Laws encourage desirable behavior (could also be called Social Engineering)

Another option would be how laws are instituted
- Custom; laws follow from custom
- Canon; laws follow from religion
- Edict; laws follow from the ruler's desires
- Bureaucracy; laws follow from a bureaucratic procedure
- Constitution; laws follow from a bureaucratic procedure but are subject to judicial review
- Treaty; laws follow from treaties made with other governments (or should at least not violate those treaties)

The problem with incorporating Free Speech into any category is that either you have freedom of speech or you have not; it's not in contrast to, say, personal rights to property. Also, as a negative liberty, it's doesn't necessarily conflict with positive liberties (and arguably requires a corresponding positive liberty to exist to be of any use). If a civic category can be made multiple choice, the legal category could be a "Rights"-category (roughly);
- Familial
- Sovereign (where everything belongs ultimately to the Ruler)
- Civil
- Political
- Economic
- Social

Well, I hope there was a point to this.

Well, Holistic, I actually took the second option you mention in my civics mod. My Legal Civics are Tribal Law (laws following tribal custom), Martial Law (Laws based on military procedure), Ecclesiastical Law-though Canonical actually sounds better-(Laws based on religious belief), Beuracratic Law (laws based on beuracratic procedure), Constitutional Law (laws based on a written compact between the rulers and the ruled), Jurisprudence (the modern system of judicial law featuring defence, prosecution, judges, juries and legal precedent), International Law (laws based on international treaties). I have instead also created a seperate category defined as rights-which deals with rights to property, right to trial (habeus corpus), right to protection by your social betters in return for service (vassalage), rights based on race, rights based on citizenship (civil rights-including freedom of speech, association etc), the right to vote for all citizens (Universal Sufferage) and Equal Rights (all the rights of citizenship, but extended to all people-regardless of colour, creed, social standing or citizenship). It is the interaction between laws and rights which I feel make things REALLY interesting-such as how does Canonical law effect Civil Rights? Does the freedom of speech and assembly only apply if it does not violate the religious laws?
Anyway, good to hear your thoughts, Holistic, it seems like we are on the same page :).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Yuh, I saw you chose that route, Aussie_Lurker. The slight problem with having a civic called "Jurisprudence" is that it basically means study of the law. Perhaps "Adversarial" (where facts only are presented by the parties) might sound better (but implies that the other choices are "Inquisitorial" (where judges actively find facts)).

Another minor issue with your particular choice of civics is that International Law might be difficult to model in-game, given that International Law only exists to the extent that nations respect their obligations. International Law is ultimately voluntary (and more so for powerful nations). As a civic, it might actually be slightly easier/better to model by a new category; International Relations/Diplomacy. Might be rather pointless, though, since it would only serve a limited purpose outside of scenarios (e.g. a European 17th century scenario (for the rise of the Westphalian system)).

Having both a rights-category and a general legal-category is quite nice (and does indeed offer interesting choices), but, generally, I feel that the fewer categories the better (another reason why not to include a Diplomacy-category). The most interesting interactions between the categories also seems rather complicated to convincingly model in-game and still be kept simple. But YMSMV*, and to actually contribute, I'd suggest adding a civic for third generation-human rights, "Solidarity Rights" (e.g. the right to a clean environment).

* Your Modding Skills Might Vary

generally, I feel that the fewer categories the better
So do I. I personally that we should not make to many new catogories, and try to maintain the existing system as much as possible, In my newest suggestions (a few posts up. No on has responded to them yet.), I have a 5 by 6. (I need two more civics) I personally wouldn't dare to go past a 6 by 6 grid.

Over at the Luna Mod we've been hammering out some civics (36 in all) and I just wanted to thank you lot for inadvertently solving problems/giving ideas. Especially to Aussie_Lurker who was able to help me specifically.

Good work, guys! :thumbsup:

EDIT:
And ToV, why not have (for Federal) -50% size/distance penalties, +2 war weariness, -10% commerce in capital?

And ToV, why not have (for Federal) -50% size/distance penalties, +2 war weariness, -10% commerce in capital?
Thanks, JBG! That is perfect! I'll edit it in now.

ToV, as for organization you might consider adding either an Imperial or a Colonial-civic, basically depending on at what point in the tech tree you want to introduce a civic that should basically make it easier to have a wide-spread empire. For City States, I'd suggest Sailing as the Tech Prerequisite, and perhaps change the name of "Village" to what dh_epic suggested very early in this thread as the baseline-Organization civic; Decentralization.

As for an additional legal civic, a Canonical/Ecclesiastical could perhaps fill the void between Barbarism and Bureaucracy (although as I wrote a couple of posts up, I don't feel Bureaucracy and Free Speech as legal civics to be that... "logical").

EDIT: Oh, and might I suggest replacing Environmental-civic with Mixed Economy? While they basically should have similar effects (save for production boost from Recycling Centers -- perhaps replaced by a modest boost to Great People-generation?), Mixed Economy seems like a bit more "realistic" economical civic than Environmentalism. Consequently, State Property could be called "Planned" instead.

EDITed further for bad reading of what ToV actually suggested...

Thought you guys might like to know that the Song of the Moon has gone Gold!

And what about an Orthodoxy civic for religions? That would make sense given the other options floating around.

And, Holistic, I LOVE your sig!

ToV, as for organization you might consider adding either an Imperial or a Colonial-civic
I considered it, but Mercantilism (after my changes) seems to give the same desired effects.

EDIT: Oh, and might I suggest replacing Environmental-civic with Mixed Economy? While they basically should have similar effects (save for production boost from Recycling Centers -- perhaps replaced by a modest boost to Great People-generation?), Mixed Economy seems like a bit more "realistic" economical civic than Environmentalism. Consequently, State Property could be called "Planned" instead.
I'm not sure about this. Environmentalism takes active efforts to protect the environment, while a mixed or regulated economy takes less active and more passive action. Also, the environment takes higher priority in Environmentalism. As for renaming state propery, I am personally fine with that.

Actually, I think there is room for both an Imperial and Mercantile civic. To me, the first one represents the manner in which a person rules over distant cities (often on seperate continents), whether those cities be conquered (as in the Case of Rome and Spain) or those formed by Colonists (as in the case of the American Colonies). Mercantilism, however, represents a 'Colonial-Style' economy, where you send out colonists to stake out land and resources to be sent back to the homeland. The two, however, are by no means mutually exclusive-and I would say that both the Spanish and British Empires (as well as the Dutch) ran both an Imperial Organisation and a Mercantile Economy-side by side.

As for mixed economy, I went with a Welfare State (and kept Environmentalism), as I feel the modern welfare state represents a true mid-point between a planned and free economy.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hey everyone, I have posted the Alpha version of my Expanded Civics mod in the 'Completed Modpacks' section. Please check it out-and try it out-and tell me where I have gone wrong.....or right ;)!
Keep your eyes open for future updates to my mod over the next 2 months, but at least I have the underlying bedrock complete.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

"Actually, I think there is room for both an Imperial and Mercantile civic."

I just realized: I do have an imperial civic, but I named it Federal. If I move the Tech Requierment to Civil Service, then it will work as Imperial.

I have edited my new list into my last post to save on space.

Please note that I myself am not a modder; just a guy with a lot of ideas. I need help in that respect.

Well ToV, as you have probably seen, my civics ideas and yours actually aren't that disimilar and-if you are not averse to the idea-I may choose to 'borrow' some of your Civic Settings (your Police State, in particular, seems to be what I am after). Fear not, though, as I will give credit where credit is due ;).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Well ToV, as you have probably seen, my civics ideas and yours actually aren't that disimilar and-if you are not averse to the idea-I may choose to 'borrow' some of your Civic Settings (your Police State, in particular, seems to be what I am after). Fear not, though, as I will give credit where credit is due ;).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
Thanks, Aussie_Lurker. But if you are talking about the "+2 happiness per military unit in city" I borrowed that from *I think) korn469. You would need to give credit to him, too.

EDIT: I have made MORE changes, which I have edited into the post on the last page.

ToV, aside from realism (since I can't think of any national economy that can be categorized as "environmentalist"), the main reason why I suggested "Mixed Economy" as a replacement for Environmentalism was for the reason that the aim of the government regulation is not as defined with the term Mixed Economy (supposing that environmentalist aims are pursued under a "mixed economy"), and also to offer a middle ground between a Free Market and State Property (which I still should be renamed Planned, since that refers to how the economy is "managed" much like Free Market does, whereas State Property does not).

Since happiness in-game basically models civil obedience, and since there's no "general" unhappiness (at best only for the largest cities), I'd remove the unhappiness from Barbarism (or perhaps (over)compensate it with no upkeep). As I commented in Aussie_Lurker's thread, bonus hammers for Slavery don't go well with Pop-rushing. Then again, +1 hammers from quarries merely make them equivalent to mines, and they're quite uncommon anyway. I'd still suggest the +1 food from Serfdom at least come from other improvements than farms. Since farms can be put on most flat tiles, this could basically end up being "the" civic for fast growth (emancipation unhappiness be damned), which doesn't go together with the rural "image" of Serfdom.

As for another Legal civic, I'll suggest... Edict/Decree (since Canonical obviously wasn't what you were after), as in laws dictated by an authority (civic available with e.g. Monarchy). For effects, lowish maintenance and, say, a culture-bonus could make sense. The culture would model "cohesiveness" of the empire (or for that matter, propaganda), so "Jurisprudence" might also receive a culture-bonus.

On a completely different matter, I did some "testing" of how the <iTradeYieldModifiers> works. While it's probably a no-brainer, and probably spelled out in one XML-file or another, I didn't understand what the modifiers actually did in-game. The following might therefore be quite self-evident, and not belong in this thread (or for that matter, forum), but might conceivably be of some use to others in designing civics.

<iTradeYieldModifiers>
1) The food or hammers gained is equal to (Trade Route Value * <iYield>-modifier), rounded down. E.g. a +33% hammer yield will not give a hammer for a trade route worth 3 (+3 TR sounds better, no?), but a +34% bonus will.
2) Negative hammer- or food-yields have no effect, except to decrease positive modifiers (presumably since trade routes provide no hammers or food to begin with).
3) Bonuses are counted per trade route and are not cumulative across different trade routes. E.g. if a city with four trade routes worth "1" runs a civic that gives a bonus of +25% to hammer yield, there will not be any bonus hammers generated from trade. If a city with one trade route worth "4" running the same civic will however generate a bonus hammer.
4) For commerce, the trade route yield is equal to Trade Route Value + (Trade Route Value * <iYield>-modifier), again rounded down. E.g. with -10% penalty to commerce, a +1 TR will not generate any commerce (which makes most early-game trade routes kind of boring with any penalty to commerce and bonuses of less than +100% to food or hammers)
5) Penalties to commerce above -100 doesn't give trade routes negative yields.
6) A trade route must generate at least some commerce for there to be any hammers or food generated. I.e. a -100% penalty to commerce will never give any hammers from any trade route, even with e.g. +400% hammer yield. A -99% commerce penalty will however generate the expected 12 hammers from a +3 TR.

Given how trade routes values are calculated (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159047), any hammer- or food-bonuses will benefit big cities the most, and in particular bonus food might start a snowball, even more so if foreign trade routes are enabled.

Actually, Holistic, that info comes in VERY handy and-once again-really, really bothers me. It means that many of my attempts to balance my economic civics are completely pointless :(. To me, this ranks as a major BUG which needs to be rectified by Firaxis-namely allowing negative trade route yields AND cumulative trade route yields. e.g. if a city with 20 food is running a civic with -10% food per trade route, then they should have a -2 food penalty.
Man, I am really depressed by this.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hm... maybe I was unclear; the food or hammers you gain from trade routes are shown in the "Trade Routes"-box on the city screen. The food or hammers actually produced by the city has no relevance to what is generated from trade routes.

By "cumulative" I meant that fractional trade route yields from different trade routes do not add up. While this is logical, it gives not-so-nice threshold effects. It'd be somewhat nicer if trade route yield modifiers are applied to the total trade generated by the city (like Great Person birthrate-modifiers are). Also, while the rounding down is logical (and found in most(?) calculations done in-game), it makes any penalty to commerce yield very noticeable in empires in the early game, where trade routes worth 1 are the most common(?). It also makes it difficult to make a civic that to some degree replaces commerce from trade routes with hammers or food at a reasonable rate in the early game.

If you meant a city with a trade route worth 20 (practically impossible), yeah, the -10% from trade routes will not give any penalty to the City's food box (well, I tested with hammers but I'd be very surprised if it works differently for food).

Holistic, thank you for all of your ideas.

I haven't made up my mind yet if I mant to scrap environmentalism. Until I decide, it stays. Just remember that everything on that list is subjuct to change. I can rename state property as "Planned", and the only reason I did not do it before now is because I was conserned more with getting the bouses right.

You have an interseting point about barbarianism. How about -1 happiness in largest x cites, and No Upkeep. Since in the begining there are few cities, it would usually translate into -1 happiness in all cities. The Slavery options was an idea from another thread. I figured since quaries and plantaions are for recources only, these bonuses would be situation and not overpowered. And for serfdom, also a good point. +1 foor from windmills might work.

A Decree civic would be perfect! Thank you. I'll be adding those in as well. Plus the culture bonus, I need one more bonus or penalty. Since it involves the leader making whatever laws he/she wants, I'm think it should be a penalty.

Thank you again.

I have edited the changes into my post into the last page.

While no government has embraced a Green economy, the movement is out there that is pushing for such a thing. It is conceivable, that somewhere in the future, when alternative fuels and other eco-friendly technologies make such an economy practical, that some governments will adopt an "Environmentalist" approach. Who knows?

Oh, I did not mean that it's unrealistic for a Green economy to exist (quite the contrary, and almost any non-agricultural non-industrial economy could be called "Green" to some extent). I meant that when modding the civics for greater "realism" (which is not only wide open for interpretation, but may also not necessarily be one of ToV's goals), a "Mixed" economy makes somewhat more sense than an Green economy, since most economies today can be classified as Mixed. In-game effects would be quite similar, mostly due to the way environmental damage is modelled. The "width" of the term Mixed Economy makes it slightly useless, but also so that it liberally interpreted can be seen as encompassing a Green economy.

st noticed: according to the civopedia, Free Market IS the regulated economy Holistic is after. So Free Markets would take that spot, and Decentrialization should get bonuses and benalties that only aply in the industrial era. (The United States, Britian, and other early industrial countries, ran decentrializations in the 1800's)

Heh, that's what I get from not reading the civilopedia (and jumping to the conclusion that Free Market basically corresponds to Laissez-Faire). Regarding civics that develop or evolve with tech level, it would indeed be really nice, ToV (and possible with python?). With "developing" civics, a democratic form of government could be made available very early, but only really "competitive" with the discovery of Democray (well, there's probably more examples). Name changes to civics when they "develop" might make it slightly less confusing.

Regarding Barbarism, it should perhaps be stressed that No Upkeep is actually a very strong bonus, more so for bigger empires where the difference in civic upkeep is larger between no and low upkeep than between low and high. Unhappiness to largest cities is not quite as strong, and a more penalizing, but perhaps fitting way to give unhappiness to Barbarism would be from troops (i.e. negative military happiness). I'm not sure how the AI would handle this, though since it'd basically be an imperative for aggression.

Heh, that's what I get from not reading the civilopedia (and jumping to the conclusion that Free Market basically corresponds to Laissez-Faire). Regarding civics that develop or evolve with tech level, it would indeed be really nice, ToV (and possible with python?). With "developing" civics, a democratic form of government could be made available very early, but only really "competitive" with the discovery of Democray (well, there's probably more examples). Name changes to civics when they "develop" might make it slightly less confusing.
Evolving civics is not exactly what I meant, but is a good idea. I was actually struggling to find a Laissez-Faire civic, and now I have found one: the sixth economic civic, Corporatism. (Now I need one more civic in the other categories)

As for Barbarism, I never knew that it would be so hard to balance out one small happiness penalty.

Oh, I have edited my list. Did you expect anything else?
EDIT (again): I have edited my list AGAIN, mostly tweaks to the legal and organization civics, and adding another civic to the organization catagory. It's just to bad I have zero modding skills, otherwise I would have a demo or something by now.

It might be easier if I post my ideas so far here.

New Civic Ideas

Government:
Despotism
Low Upkeep
-1 happiness in largest cites
+25% distance maintenance (“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”)
<Anarchy Length 2>(Who want’s to do back to despotism)

Hereditary Rule
Monarchy
Medium Upkeep
+1 happiness per military unit in city
(Another bonus or penalty)

Representation
Constitution
Low Upkeep
+3 science per specialist
+3 happiness in 6 largest cities

Police State
Fascism
High Upkeep
+50% military unit production
-50% war wariness
+2 happiness per military unit in city (Secret police keeps order)
<Anarchy Length 2>

Universal Suffrage
Democracy
Medium Upkeep
+1 hammers and commerce from towns
May spend gold to finish production
(Some sort of penalty)


Organization:
Village
Low Upkeep

City State
Polytheism
Low Upkeep
Can draft 1 unit per turn
-25% city maintenance costs (Cities take care of themselves)
-25% culture per city (To slow border growth, and so cities are more isolated)

Imperial
Monarchy
Low Upkeep
+25% commerce in capital
+2 happiness in capital
-1 happiness in largest 6 cities

Vassalage
Feudalism
High Upkeep
New units given +2 experience
Free units <+6 base, +10% pop>

Federal
Civil Service
Medium Upkeep
+2 happiness in largest cities
-25% city maintenance costs

Nationhood
Nationalism
Low Upkeep
Can draft 3 unit per turn
+2 happiness from barracks
+1 culture from specialists
-1 happiness per 25% foreign nationality (xenophobia, anyone?)


Legal:
Barbarianism
Low Upkeep
-1 happiness in largest 6 cities (“Under barbarism, the strong take what they want from the weak”)
<Anarchy Length 2>(How would volunteer to go back to this civic?)

Decree
Writing (Too many civics were opened by Monarchy)
Low Upkeep
+25% culture
+25% commerce in capital

Bureaucracy
Civil Service
High Upkeep (Bureaucracy becomes corrupt and inefficient over time)
+60% hammers in capital
+60% commerce in capital

Jurisprudence
(Education or Constitution)
Medium Upkeep
+25% culture
+10% science
+1 happiness from courthouses and jails

Freedom of Speech
Liberalism
No Upkeep
+100% culture
+ 50% Great People birth rate (The government does not suppress ideas)
+ 50% war wariness (There would not have been protests during the Vietnam War if the public had not seen all of those nasty war images)


Labor:
Tribalism
Low Upkeep

Slavery
Bronze Working
Low Upkeep
Can sacrifice population to rush production <2 unhappiness per pop rush>
+1 hammer for quarries (Where slaves commonly worked)
+1 commerce for plantations (Where slaves commonly worked)
<Anarchy Length 2>

Serfdom
Feudalism
Low Upkeep
Works build improvements 50% faster
+1 commerce from farms (Feudal Lords squeeze out every penny from their serfs)
-1 food from farms (food goes to the Feudal Lords first)

Caste System
Code of Law
Medium Upkeep
Unlimited artists, scientists, and merchants in cities

Emancipation
Democracy
No Upkeep
Doubles growth of Cottages, Hamlets, and Villages
Gives Civs without Emancipation unhappiness <400>
(Something else)


Economy
Decentralization
Low Upkeep

Mercantilism
Banking
High Upkeep
No foreign trade routes
-50% distance maintenance (Many European colonial empires ran mercantilism, so this seemed a better place for the bonus)
+25% commerce from markets, grocers

Lassie-Faire
Corporation
Low Upkeep
+2 trade routes
+25% production from factories (Factories are worked overtime to increase production- and profit)
-2 health (Industrialists do not care about the environment)
-10% commerce (The corporation takes more for themselves)

Regulated Market
Industrialism
Medium Upkeep
+1 trade route per city
+1 free specialist? (I am looking for something better)

State Property
Communism
Medium Upkeep
+1 Free Specialist (Investments can be directed to specific ends)
+1 Food from watermills, workshops
+34% Hammers trade yield (Production in other cities "synchronizing" with the receiving city)
-50% Commerce trade yield (Individual initiatives are not encouraged)
-2 Trade Routes (Individual initiatives are not encouraged)

Environmentalism
Ecology
High Upkeep
+6 health in all cities
+25% production from recycling plant (Nation recycles as much as possible)
+1 happiness per extra health (Citizens pride themselves in keeping the environment clean. In game terms, there is now a logical reason for all of the extra health)
+1 food from farms (Hydroponics offer larger yields)


Religion
Paganism
Low Upkeep

Organized Religion
Monotheism
High Upkeep
Can build missionaries without a monastery
Cities with State Religion construct buildings +25% faster
+1 extra happiness in cites with state religion

Theocracy
Theology
Medium Upkeep
Halts the spread of non-state religions
+2 exp in cities with state religion
+10% military production (Easier to recruit a Holy Army)
-1 happiness per non-state religion (Self-explanatory)
<Anarchy Length 2>

Pacifism
Philosophy
No Upkeep
+100% Great People points in cities with state religion
+1 gold per military unit
+100% war wariness (Self-explanatory)
Less free military units <-5 base, -25% pop>(Increased military costs have more effect)

Freedom of Religion
Liberalism
Low Upkeep
No state religion
+1 happiness for every non-state religion in a city
+25% science
-10% culture (The “Morally lax” society described in the Civilopedia)

Credit to Armandeus, Aussie Lurker, Holistic, korn469, JBG, Dubmetender, and TheJopa
for their ideas.

@ ToV
Why people always give despotism low upkeep and no other effects, while in reality it had a big effect. I found good way to implement despotism in my mod- 4 unhappy in 5 largest cities, +2 happy per military unit, +15% distance to palace maintenance, low upkeep. So you basicly need 2 military units in 5 largest cities just to break unhappines penalty, and this early in the game, that usualy means in all your cities. For me, it seems very realistic, since despots can rely neither on population nor on aristocracy or clery etc. However, every unit after secon rapidly adds happines in city. So 4 units give 4 happines. Maintenance penalty makes despotism corrupted and bad for big empires, so they have to change to monarchy. Monarchy gives only +1 happy per military unit, but it doesn't give unhappines, so you are not forced to garrison your cities. This is realistic because monarchs have support of aristocracy. And you could also add tribal council as starting government, which would be like despotism now, so that you are not forced to deal with 4 unhappy people so early.

Sefrdom should rather have +1 food from cottage, hamlet, village, town (or just from village and town), I think it is better bonus than food from windmills.
For mercantilism- is it possible to give +25% commerce bonus from building? Because if it is, give Central planning –50% commerce from Stock exchanges and markets, and –25% from banks. And –20% industry doesn't fit in central planing, in fact it should be +25% because they invested lots of money in heavy industry.
Is it possible to give +1 happy for extra +1 health for environmentalism? I would do some changes in python so that you get +1 food for every 3 extra health (regardless of civic) so that you basicly have 2 extra food in environmentalism.
How about creating anti-clericism civic? (Think of soviets and all communist nations) It would be no state religion, no non state religion spread, 1 unhappy per non state religion, extra research, no upkeep. In that case, Free religion should have research bonus removed and increased upkeep.

Bonus foods from the cottage-improvements should come with a penalty to commerce, though. Otherwise Serfdom again ends up as the best "urbanization"-civic, since the cottage-line improvements become like pre-Biology farms -- only with bonus commerce.

"Lack of incentive" under a Planned economy could be modelled by penalty to the Improvement Growth Rate. However, many centrally planned economies have been accompanied by quite... forceful incentives to "work" hard. It's not really the productivity that "usually" gets hampered by central planning, but rather individual initiatives. In-game this might correspond to commerce or trade rather than hammers, and since the cottage-line provides the most commerce, this might make "sense". While this would make the cottage-line take forever to improve, the civic is available at such a late stage in the game that "dedicated" cottages should already be towns.

Corporatism is usually used to refer to the economic system of Fascist states, which might not be what you have in mind...

@ ToV
Why people always give despotism low upkeep and no other effects, while in reality it had a big effect. I found good way to implement despotism in my mod- 4 unhappy in 5 largest cities, +2 happy per military unit, +15% distance to palace maintenance, low upkeep.
The problem is that you do not have that much happiness in the beggginning, anyway, and I already hava unhappiness with Barbarianism. But the corruption, I can do.

For mercantilism- is it possible to give +25% commerce bonus from building? Because if it is, give Central planning –50% commerce from Stock exchanges and markets, and –25% from banks. And –20% industry doesn't fit in central planing, in fact it should be +25% because they invested lots of money in heavy industry.
It might be possible through python, but I reallt don't know what's possible and what's not.

"Lack of incentive" under a Planned economy could be modelled by penalty to the Improvement Growth Rate. However, many centrally planned economies have been accompanied by quite... forceful incentives to "work" hard. It's not really the productivity that "usually" gets hampered by central planning, but rather individual initiatives. In-game this might correspond to commerce or trade rather than hammers, and since the cottage-line provides the most commerce, this might make "sense". While this would make the cottage-line take forever to improve, the civic is available at such a late stage in the game that "dedicated" cottages should already be towns.
I'll get on that. Would 1 or 2 less trade routes work for you?

Corporatism is usually used to refer to the economic system of Fascist states, which might not be what you have in mind...
No, I hade 19th century America and Britan in mind, during the Industrial revolution. Also, see this topic: MEET THE CORPORATION
(http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200509/corporation.asp)

While dictionary entries on the matter don't define "corporatism" solely as fascist economy, it is the "usual" interpretation and used as such in e.g. the Desert War scenario (isn't it?). I'd also refer to the wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism). It's the wiki, so it's not the ultimate truth or anything, but all I'm saying is that the choice of name is rather unfortunate. Laissez-Faire is probably a "better" term.

As for Planned economy, by the time it is available each city has two trade routes before The Corporation is discovered, four in coastal cities with the Great Lighthouse, three in all cities after The Corporation is discovered. Since the distance maintenance reduction (it's still in, isn't it?) makes the civic appealing to large empires, where even internal trade routes might be nearing +4 value, a penalty of two less trade routes would be quite severe. Not that difficult to allievate by discovering The Corporation, though. With airports, cities would have a maximum of two trade routes. If the penalty is further alleviated by e.g. giving a bonus hammer yield from trade routes, +100% hammers from trade routes (with -99% gold) might be overpowering (big cities with good foreign trade routes would be getting upwards +20 hammers from trade routes alone), but perhaps worth testing. Would make the civic very appealing for Space Races (and not entirely historically inaccurate at that).

The problem is that you do not have that much happiness in the beggginning, anyway, and I already hava unhappiness with Barbarianism. But the corruption, I can do.
I don't have that problems- with 4 unhappy, and 2 happy from first military unit (you always keep at least one unit in city to protect it) they can usualy grow up to 4-5 before unrest starts showing up. And at that time you can build second and third warrior to keep order.

Bonus foods from the cottage-improvements should come with a penalty to commerce, though. Otherwise Serfdom again ends up as the best "urbanization"-civic, since the cottage-line improvements become like pre-Biology farms -- only with bonus commerce.
Yes, penalize gold, and in heavy way. -1 for cottages and hamlets, -2 for villages and towns. So gold prod. would be 0/1/1/2, but with 1 extra food when they grow on villages.... Maybe needs some more balancing

I don't have that problems- with 4 unhappy, and 2 happy from first military unit (you always keep at least one unit in city to protect it) they can usualy grow up to 4-5 before unrest starts showing up. And at that time you can build second and third warrior to keep order.
4 unhappiness just seems a bit harsh, and also some people (me included) use the first warrior for exploration, and some civs start with a scout instead of a warrior.

I have taken everyone's suggestions into consideration, and I have edit into my list what I have so far. I am still considering my options, however.

Since the distance maintenance reduction (it's still in, isn't it?) makes the civic appealing to large empires, where even internal trade routes might be nearing +4 value, a penalty of two less trade routes would be quite severe.
I have taken out that bonus. Everything you see on the list is what I propose, and if there is something missing from the orriginal version, it is because I took it out.

If the penalty is further alleviated by e.g. giving a bonus hammer yield from trade routes, +100% hammers from trade routes (with -99% gold) might be overpowering
I have not suggested this at all.

You do make a good point about the trade routes. Maybe I should increase the penalty to -3 or -4. Also, I will rename Corporatism as Laissez-Faire. I want to move the tech requierment to corporation, but to do that, I need to move Regulated Economy. Does anyone have any suggestions? Speaking about the Regulated Economy, I think I need a different bonus for it than the "One Free Specialist". Any suggestions?

High every ones
I just made 5 new civics this week, and after testing, i think it's equilibrated and playeable:
communism : Upkeep : high
+15% prod military units
- 25 % unhappyness during war
+ 3 xp for military unit
required : communism

Law State : upkeep medium
+2 happy with courthouse
+ 10 % science
required : Education

Syndicate : upkeep high
+20 % prod
+2 happy with factory
+40% unhappyness during war
required : industrialization

Usure : upkeep : medium
+20 % gold
-2 happyness in 6 great cities
required : banking

Monastic study upkeep : high
+ 100 % great person in city with official religion
+10 % science
required : clerge (don't know english term : the tech with organized religion)

just suggestion, but it's playeable...
Sorry for my poor english

communism : Upkeep : high
+15% prod military units
- 25 % unhappyness during war
+ 3 xp for military unit
required : communism
Although it may seem like it, Communism is not primarilly a war civic. This could be useful for the police stave civic.


Monastic study upkeep : high
+ 100 % great person in city with official religion
+10 % science
required : clerge (The English term is Priest, but the tech you're looking for it monothesism.)

Syndicate : upkeep high
+20 % prod
+2 happy with factory
+40% unhappyness during war
required : industrialization
Sounds like my corporatism, but I do not think it needs a igh upkeep, because the GOVERNMENT does not do much to interfere. I do not know about the war wariness. If anything, corpotations actually support war, because it can be a very profitable time for them.

Law State : upkeep medium
+2 happy with courthouse
+ 10 % science
required : Education
This might be a good legal civic. Both myself and Aussie Lurker have a civic like this, called Jurisprudence. Law State is just as good a term.


Holistic, I have been thinking very hard, and I have decided to stick with corporatism, the civic where the corporation is in charge ofthe government. Please reade the article I linked to (MEET THE CORPORATION) for more information.

[QUOTE=ToV]Although it may seem like it, Communism is not primarilly a war civic. This could be useful for the police stave civic.

Yes, but i was inspired by the WWII, USSR made a lot of military units to fight germans in a few time... it is for simulation of "nationnalist spirit"

For Syndicate, i decide high upkeep, because +20% prod is powerfull, and dificult to equilibrate and for roleplay, the workers are happy because the boss pay for their happyness, it's expansive for community
... and for war wariness, it's for war simulation, during the WWII, the women work in factory, and the men go to fight, so women was not happy...

Yes, but i was inspired by the WWII, USSR made a lot of military units to fight germans in a few time... it is for simulation of "nationnalist spirit"
The USSR aslo ran a police state. The ideologies of state propery and police state are mutually exclusive.

For Syndicate, i decide high upkeep, because +20% prod is powerfull, and dificult to equilibrate and for roleplay, the workers are happy because the boss pay for their happyness, it's expansive for community
... and for war wariness, it's for war simulation, during the WWII, the women work in factory, and the men go to fight, so women was not happy...
I would have to disagree. The woman working work not unhappy, many actually prided themselves with what thier work. They saw it as a means helping their loved ones.

Also, the corporation does not neccisarily "Buy their workers happiness". If anything, they pay their workers as little as possible. The corporation sees such things as "living wages" and "benifits" as needless expenses, which must be done away with. And for the upkeep, just add more negative stuff, like extra unhealthyness (polution).

thanks Tov, i didn't think about polution for syndicate, good, good...

i think the different apreciation of syndicate or corporation between you and me, is cultural... i'm french, and in France we have a "syndicate culture".
We have a lot of public agent who go in the street each time someone want to change something, is the reason why i made the war weariness for syndicate...
i'm sorry for my basic english, and hope you understand what i mean...

ToV, I was probably (yet again) quite unclear; already a penalty of two trade routes is quite severe, but not impossible to compensate. The extra hammer yield from trade was a suggestion for further compensation for the penalty. Without the distance maintenance, planned economy looks quite... unimpressing. Here's an alternative;

Planned
Medium upkeep: Central planning requires a lot of... planning work correctly
+1 Free Specialist: Investments can be directed to specific ends
+1 Food from watermills, workshops: As above - bonus food makes it easier to support working watermills and workshops, and makes this an indirect hammer-bonus
+34% Hammers trade yield: As above - think of this as production in other cities "synchronizing" with the receiving city.
-50% Commerce trade yield: Supply and demand are hard to balance properly, also see below
-2 Trade Routes: Individual initiatives are not encouraged

Another option for a "procon" would be for the cottage-line of improvements yield one less food and one bonus hammer -- an indirect commerce-penalty, of sorts.

Regarding the Meet the Corporation-article, I've read it before, ToV (at least it seemed somewhat familiar -- might've been a Swedish translation I read). The only "problem" I have with calling the civic Corporatism is the Fascist implication. Oligopoly might be a slightly less "charged" word (but then again, quite misleading).

It feels sort of... dishonest to only "critique" others' civics settings, so here are couple of ideas I have for my "own" system. The categories would be (approximately); Government, Organization, Labor, Economy, Authority and Military. The basic system would be something like:
Government
Autocracy
Oligarchy
Democracy

Organization
Unitary State
Federation
Confederation

Economy
Command
Mixed
Free Market

Labor
Unfree
Free

Authority
Tradition
Charismatic
Legal-Rational

Military
Mercenary
Conscripted
Professional
sorry for the ugly formatting...
The reason why there's no religion-category is that I'd want it to be replaced by having civics choices give special bonuses or penalties depending on whether a State Religion is selected or not. This might be doable in python, though. I'd probably sooner split the Economy-category into "Market Regulation" and "Legal Tender" than have a separate Religion-category. Authority is in the Religion-slot for the extra-expensive upkeeps.

Oh, this might be somewhat useful information for civics-modders; extra civics categories have the same upkeep costs as the Government-civics. That is, if a government civic with "low" upkeep costs 6 gpt, a religion civic with "low" upkeep costs 12 gpt, the custom category civic with "low" upkeep will cost 6 gpt. This might be determined by another XML-file than CivicOptionInfos, though.

The system "might" be too simplistic though, and could/should probably be "fleshed out" to at least two different "versions" each. The "Charismatic"-civic could make for an interesting civic, if it somehow could be modded to only last for a specific number of turns before the government collapses into the earlier (or simply another) form. Perhaps it could even only be activated by Great People, in which case it needn't be a civic of its own, but simply an "amplification" of the current Authority-civic or one tied to the type of Great Person.

I'd also like to replace the "Emancipation"-unhappiness with a "Liberty"-rating for each civic. Net negative liberty changes in civics would cause a temporary unhappiness when revolting and/or increase revolution length. Positive changes would do the opposite, so that switching, for example, from Barbarism, Slavery and Theocracy to Free Speech, Emancipation and Free Religion might have no Anarchy. The amount of unhappiness from having less "liberty" than other civs would depend on mostly on what the actual difference in liberty is, so that running a Slavery-like civic (with a very low liberty-cost) in the "BC":s would not cause unhappiness from lack of liberty.

The government and organization-categories would have to in some way model how (or if) power is delegated. I'm not quite sure how to do that. Is it upkeep costs or distance maintenance that should be affected? Something altogether different? Both? Nothing?

ToV, I was probably (yet again) quite unclear; already a penalty of two trade routes is quite severe, but not impossible to compensate. The extra hammer yield from trade was a suggestion for further compensation for the penalty. Without the distance maintenance, planned economy looks quite... unimpressing. Here's an alternative;

Planned
Medium upkeep: Central planning requires a lot of... planning work correctly
+1 Free Specialist: Investments can be directed to specific ends
+1 Food from watermills, workshops: As above - bonus food makes it easier to support working watermills and workshops, and makes this an indirect hammer-bonus
+34% Hammers trade yield: As above - think of this as production in other cities "synchronizing" with the receiving city.
-50% Commerce trade yield: Supply and demand are hard to balance properly, also see below
-2 Trade Routes: Individual initiatives are not encouraged
Wow. Thank's for the imput.

It feels sort of... dishonest to only "critique" others' civics settings
You're bringing possitive feedback, and that's a good thing.


I'd also like to replace the "Emancipation"-unhappiness with a "Liberty"-rating for each civic. Net negative liberty changes in civics would cause a temporary unhappiness when revolting and/or increase revolution length. Positive changes would do the opposite, so that switching, for example, from Barbarism, Slavery and Theocracy to Free Speech, Emancipation and Free Religion might have no Anarchy. The amount of unhappiness from having less "liberty" than other civs would depend on mostly on what the actual difference in liberty is, so that running a Slavery-like civic (with a very low liberty-cost) in the "BC":s would not cause unhappiness from lack of liberty.
That is a very interesting and prommising idea. Tell us if you make any progress, I would like to hear it.

Well, it's just an idea at the moment and will probably remain so for a longish while -- for my part, at any rate; I still haven't even tried to understand (let alone use) python (which is probably what a "Liberties"-system would require).

One thing that does not make sense is Caste System allowing unlimited specialists of certain kinds. Isn't a caste system a society where only a limited few have the opportunity to qualified professions?

I have removed the caste system, and split the Emancipation into two new civics, called Labor Market and Social Security.

Together these labor civics would approximately represent the Marxian modes of production - collectivism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism and socialism.

I have removed the caste system, and split the Emancipation into two new civics, called Labor Market and Social Security.
The problem is that Social Security is a government program, not a system of labor.

One thing that does not make sense is Caste System allowing unlimited specialists of certain kinds. Isn't a caste system a society where only a limited few have the opportunity to qualified professions?
But who decides which castes perform what tasks? The people who implemented the caste system, i.e. the player.

Anyway, these are some new civics I've thought up:

Government: Oligarchy (could use a better name, all the other government civics have more descriptive names like "Hereditary Rule" instead of "Monarchy")
Medium Upkeep
Requires Code of Laws
+50% food and +50% commerce in capital

Legal: Thought Control
High Upkeep
Requires Genetics (I'm not thrilled about this tech, it's not very attainable. I just can't think what else might be used)
+2 experience
+1 happy per military unit
-50% war weariness

Labor: Cybernetic
Medium Upkeep
Requires Robotics (see Thought Control, although I feel that Cybernetic should be made more powerful rather than be avaliable earlier)
No unhealthiness due to population

I wanted to include Eudaimonia to round out the Alpha Centauri future societies, but I couldn't find a good place for it either on the tech tree or the civics menu. For economics I added a varient of ToV's Corporatism.

Religion: Atheist State
Medium Upkeep
Requires Scientific Method
No state religion
No non-state religion spread
+1 unhappiness per non-state religion in a city
+100% science

What do you think?

Dryhad, your civics sound very Sci-Fi, and an interesting alternative from what has already been discusses.

For Oligarchy, why the +50% capital food yeilds? Could you explain whet you mean by Oligarchy? That way, we can not only understand why you put that there, but could see if we could come up with a better name, if any exist.