Quite a few changes were made since I first posted this. The latest changes are in italics.

This is the civics mod I made for my own use. There are no new civics or civic categories. My goal was to tweak the existing civics to have positive and negative aspects, and to more closely reflect the descriptions given for them in the Civilopedia and what my "common sense" perception of that civic was.

I've been playtesting and tweaking this for a couple weeks now.

I may have been inspired by the creators of a few other civic mods, but I can't recall which. I give my thanks to them.

Here is a list of only what I changed. Remember, those bonuses and negative effects I did not change are not listed here. (For example, I didn't remove the -100% city maintenance by distance bonus you get with State Property, or the +100% culture per city with Free Speech, so I didn't list them here.) Keep that in mind when you evaulate my changes, please.

Government
Despotism
Anarchy length 2 (this doesn't affect you when you start off with despotism, but it seems like there would be trouble if you reverted back to it later)
+20% city distance maintenance cost (rule by might could get expensive over large distances, I thought)
-25% war weariness (this charismatic dictator type civic seems fit for a bonus such as this)
Hereditary Rule
+10% city distance maintenance cost (monarchy may not be much different from despotism in this respect)
+10% commerce/production in capital (due to royal court presence)
Representation
+20% city distance maintenance cost (holding elections for representatives and funding parliament seem more expensive over distance, also represents pork-barrel politics)
+2 happiness in largest cities (+3 seemed too much for just Low upkeep)
+1 culture/commerce/production per specialist (rather than only +3 commerce - to reflect a bigger variety of positive things this civic may give)
Police State
Anarchy Length 3 (seems like there would be some resistance - more resistance added per The Q-Meister's insinuation, to keep players from abusing this civic)
-20% great people chance (described in Civilopedia)
-3 happiness in largest cities (due to presence of martial law and secret police)
+1 happiness for each military unit in a city, representing the "police" (people are not getting "happy" but unhappy people are getting dealt with - same game effect)
This civic has two big bonuses (-100 war weariness, faster unit production) but three demerits: less great people, unhappiness, and cost. I thought it should be a difficult civic to maintain for a long time, as it seems to have been historically, at least in modern times.
Universal Suffrage
+10% city distance maintenance cost (same reason as Representation, but we are getting more efficient)
+1 commerce and production in towns (default was +1 production only - this is to somewhat offset the maintenance cost and represent improvements in society)

Legal
Barbarianism
Anarchy Length 2 (reverting to barbarianism may not be seen as a positive thing by society)
-1 happiness in largest cities (brutality - read Civilopedia entry)
Vassalage
(no changes)
Bureaucracy
-10% great people (creativity stifled - described in Civilopedia)
-100% number of city cost modifier (having lots of cities no longer costs extra gold) (removed)
-50% distance maintenance (better able to manage a large empire)
Nationhood
Anarchy Length 2 (revolutions were often fought to achieve nationhood - France, US, etc.)
Free Speech
Upkeep Medium (Low was too cheap for all the good things this civic provides, including the default +100% culture bonus)
+50% great people chance (creativity encouraged)
+20% war weariness (easier to protest war)
removed town bonuses (I think the great people chance is a good replacement - universal suffrage encourages the economy, but free speech? Hmm.)

Labor
Tribalism
-10% worker speed (hard to organize major projects with this civic)
Slavery
Anarchy Length 2 (may be some resistance to this change in civics)
-10% great people mod (stifles creativity - described in Civilopedia)
-2 happiness in largest cities (slave revolts)
+1 hammer for quarries only
+2 commerce for plantations (changes made according to [to_xp]Gekko's suggestions)
(I assume these are where slaves were traditionally used most, and without labor costs, the masters gain benefits)
Serfdom
-1 food on farms, but +2 gold instead, to represent landlords taking their cut of the serfs' farm production and getting rich themselves (suggestion by MrCynical)
Caste System
-1 health in cities (to represent the slum conditions the lowest castes might have to live in, and offset the unlimited specialist bonus) (removed)
High upkeep - to represent a wasteful aristocratic upper caste
Emancipation
Anarchy Length 2 (the US fought a civil war over this civic)
Upkeep Medium (to represent restoring areas that once relied on slavery but are now ruined economically)
1 free specialist in each city (freed slaves often became influential people)

Economy
Decentralization
-10% trade commerce (no regulation, much corruption, etc.)
No upkeep (the trade penalty is penalty enough)
Mercantilism
removed free specialist and replaced it with:
unlimited merchant specialists in cities (which made more sense than allowing just any kind of free specialist)
-25% distance maintenance - to simulate a drive toward colonialism
High upkeep - to represent inflation caused by large amounts of gold coming into the economy
Free Market
+10% to trade (seems reasonable due to less protectionism)
-1 health in each city (representing pollution from rapid economic development)
-10% state religion great people modifier (representing a more materialistic society)
State Property
Anarchy Length 2 (again, revolution was often necessary to achieve this civic in our history)
-10% great people (creativity stifled - see Civilopedia entry)
(I removed my "no state religion spreading" setting because it wouldn't make any difference: religious civics determine things like that.)
-10% foreign trade yield (no hard currency, restrictive trade practices based on politics) (reduced from -25% penalty)
-10% gold in commerce (same as above)(removed)
+1 happiness with factory (the factory is the focus ideologically)
+1 hammer with workshop, but removed default +1 food for watermill
(collective farms were not efficient historically - starvations occured)
+1 hammer, -1 gold in towns (based on Brancaleone's suggestion)
Environmentalism
changed tech requirement to Ecology from Biology (makes sense?)
Anarchy Length 2 (big business would resist)
Upkeep High (mandatory recycling taxes, alternate but expensive fuels, etc.)
Extra Health reduced to 4 (from 6 which seemed too high)
Recycling Center gives +2 health (which restores original +6 if you build it) (my mistake - buildings can't give health through civics. I changed this to +1 happiness)
+1 food at windmills (hydroponics, etc.)
-1 hammer at mines (strip mining frowned upon)

Religion
Paganism
No state religion allowed (if you could choose one of the game religions as your state religion - you wouldn't be pagan anymore, right?)
Organized Religion
Upkeep Medium (less expensive than Theocracy, but still costly to build all those ornate temples and fund the clergy)
+10% state religious great people modifier
+1 state religion happiness (OR is not as oppressive as Theocracy - so the state religion gives happiness)
+15% state religion building modifier (reduced from 25 to offset the great people bonus)
-10% research in all cities (religious dogma often held back science - Copernicus, Galileo, etc.)
Theocracy
Anarchy Length 2 (may require revolution, like in Iran)
Upkeep High (the religion is the govt. - and you need to fund those religious police to enforce religious law)
+25% state religion great people mod (the society is focused on this)
State religion building production +25 (an extension of what Organized Religion gave you - seems logical)
-30% research rate (see above, but more conflict more likely due to very powerful clergy and stricter interpretation of religion)
Pacifism
Upkeep Low
-50% military production (if your civ is pacifist, you shouldn't be aggressively building up your military)
+100 war weariness (it is Pacifism, right?! The +1 gold cost per military unit never seemed to cost me much of anything, and although I didn't remove it, I didn't think it was balancing enough on its own.)
Free Religion
+20 culture in each city instead of +10 research (I think religious dogma not suppressing science is the default. For example, the ancient Greeks did not suppress science/research with their "Paganism." I represented the suppression of science/research in the more dogmatic Organized Religion and Theocracy civics. Also, although not all techs are science per se, after achieving Free Religion, you're researching a lot of hard science techs. I therefore think the diversity you get from free religion should be a cultural bonus, not a research one.)

You need two files, the CIV4CivicInfos.xml to be placed in your My Documents\My Games\Civilization 4\CustomAssets\xml\gameinfo folder, and in order to get the extra civic descriptions to fit neatly on the Civic screen, you also need CvCivicsScreen.py to be placed in My Documents\My Games\Civilization 4\CustomAssets\python\screens. This is if you want to run this as default. If you want it as a mod, move these files to the corresponding folders under Mods, and make your own mod.ini.

I hope you all like this. Feedback (constructive criticism, please:)) is welcome.

Government
Representation
+20% city distance maintenance cost (holding elections for representatives and funding parliament seem more expensive over distance)
+2 happiness in largest cities (+3 seemed too much for just Low upkeep)
+1 culture/commerce/production in each city (rather than only +3 commerce - to reflect a bigger variety of positive things this civic may give)
Police State
Anarchy Length 2 (seems like there would be some resistance)
-20% great people chance (described in Civilopedia)
-3 happiness in largest cities (due to presence of martial law and secret police)
This civic has one big bonus (-100 war weariness) but three demerits: less great people, unhappiness, and cost. I thought it should be a difficult civic to maintain for a long time, and is mainly a wartime civic. It seems to have been that way historically too, to my limited knowledge.
Universal Suffrage
+10% city distance maintenance cost (same reason as Representation, but we are getting more efficient)
+1 commerce and production in towns (default was +1 commerce only - this is to somewhat offset the maintenance cost and represent improvements in society)

Legal
Free Speech
Upkeep Medium (Low was too cheap for all the good things this civic provides)
+50% great people chance (creativity encouraged)
+20% war weariness (easier to protest war)
removed town bonuses (I think the great people chance is a good replacement - universal suffrage encourages the economy, but free speech? Hmm.)

Labor
Caste System
-1 health in cities (to represent the slum conditions the lowest castes might have to live in)
1 free specialist in each city (to offset the health penalty by simulating the highest castes' contributions)
Emancipation
Anarchy Length 2 (the US fought a civil war over this civic)
Upkeep Medium (to represent restoring areas that once relied on slavery but are now ruined economically)
1 free specialist in each city (freed slaves often became influential people)

Economy
State Property
Anarchy Length 2 (again, revolution was often necessary to achieve this civic in our history)
-10% great people (creativity stifled - see Civilopedia entry)
No non state religion spreading (to represent oppression of religion that often occurred with this civic)
-25% foreign trade yield (no hard currency, restrictive trade practices based on politics)
-10% gold in commerce (same as above)
+1 happiness with factory (the factory is the focus ideologically)
+1 hammer with workshop, but removed +1 food for watermill (collective farms were not efficient historically - starvations occured)

Religion
Pacifism
Upkeep High ("None" was too good to be true. As long as you stay out of war, you can use this civic to boost great people output hugely with no negative effects at all!)
+100 war weariness (it is Pacifism, right?! The +1 gold cost per military unit never seemed to cost me much of anything, and although I didn't remove it, I didn't think it was balancing enough on its own.)
Free Religion
+20 culture in each city instead of +10 research (culture output seems more tied to religion than science output, right?)

Al those I have quoted above are in my opinion bad ideas for the rest I think its nice.

To start: Representation, +20% maintenace cost is way to much, it just makes a bit of a lager empire almost impossible, since there are few maintenace cost lowering civics. Just either turn that 20 into 5 or something or just make the upkeep lower, and in the older types of Representation most people couldn't vote so i think that the election costs weren't that high.

Police state, that unhappyness in the city isn't correct, this civic comes with Fascime so I think this civ should represent is the way a Fascime works, The 2 most know Fascimes Italy and Nazi Germany didn't have unhappy people, at least not more then normaly, in germany even MUCH less then in the Republic of Weimarr.

Universal Suffrage, same story as with representation make it 5% or higher upkeep.

Free Speech, why should it have high upkeep there isn't much to keep up for the government, they don't have to arrest people who say bad things about the government, right.

Caste System, the -1 health is not logic, the lowest caste has got it just as bad as the lowest and poorest as those of other countries.

Emancipation, I believe only the USA fought hard about this so no realy need for 2 turns anarchy, that medium upkeep isn't realy good, i see the point of it but such a upkeep is for all the time you have it not just for the start, and
at the end it is an great improvement for the economy so turn the upkeep to low.

State property(You just ruined my favo. civic:( ), -25% is to much turn it in -10 or just in -o because if worked out carefully this could also provide a very strong currency. -10% commerce. in the beginning of this in the USSR and China this gave the economy and the wealth a hugh boost, It failed in Russia because they spend it all on military, and in china because it wasn't worked out well. No state religon, you are mistaken this with is in fact communisme as economic system with the communisme marx made, this is just the economical aspect of that so this shouldn't effect religon, because if you use Marx's manifest that would immidatly fill al 5 different types of civic since his manifest contains all 5.

Pacifisme, HIGH upkeep?!?!?! NO NO NO NO. Does every civic has to have a negatieve point, I think having to pay more for your units and +100% war warines is a high enough prices, wenn using a Pacifisme I allways feel,m and am, very vanuarble. Besides how much does it cost to do nothing in the military aspect(thats one of the biggest money-costers)

Free Religons, multiple people from multiple religons have differnet views and so can a groupm of those can come up with a wider selection of ideas over ther same periode or with a good idea in a shorter period.

I believe that was all my comment, I like they idea much and there should be changes but not those in my opinon.

Ps sorry for my bad english

Slavery stifles creativity? Nope.

One-third of all people living in Attica during Athens' golden age were slaves.

America's industrialization was built on slavery--whether the U.S. could've developed into the economic powerhouse it is today without getting a jumpstart from forced labor is openly debated among historians and economists. How many "great people" has America produced?

Not only did slavery *not* hurt the chances of great people appearing, it massively increased those chances by freeing aristocratic and merchant classes from necessary work. Athens didn't produce Sophocles, Phidias, Plato, and Aristotle because Athens was just that great, but because those people had so much leisure to devote to philosophizing.

And need I mention all the culture that's produced by anti-slavery narratives? African-American struggles produced the blues, jazz, rock, and hip-hop. Exodus produced the Old Testament.

I am not (yet) technically proficient enough to do this, but a mod based on civilization's barbarism is sorely needed. The Civ series has always put the smiley face on thousands of years of progress but failed to show all the digressions--slavery, genocide, oppression--that went into that progress.

Thanks for the feedback.

Does every civic has to have a negatieve point

Hmm. Basically my whole point for creating this mod is: yes! Consider me a slightly cynical realist. Anyway, I like to have to weigh the good and bad of a civic before choosing.

You pointed out the maintenance costs are "too high." I had lower values for maintenance at first, but there was virtually no impact on my budget: even with 10 or 20% extra, the rise in cost is maybe 5 to 7 gold, and I tend to build big spread out empires with too many cities!

The same goes for the +1 gold cost for pacifism. Even with umpteen units (in my own territory, admittedly) and pacifism, upon checking the financial screen I saw that I had to pay exactly 0 gold for units! This is certainly not a balancing factor for getting +100 great people chance. It had no effect at all.

Fascism/Police State, as you describe, may be a popular movement in the beginning when the party rises to power on its charisma and rhetoric, but how did people feel later on in East Germany, the Soviet Union, or in your example, Nazi Germany after the initial fervor wore off and relatives began "disappearing" for political reasons? Saddam Hussein had a Police State, do you think the Iraqis were happy with the arrests and torture?

The cost for Free Speech is admittedly to balance out it's positive aspects, which are exceedingly good. Otherwise it's a case of something for nothing, I think. You could consider the higher maintenance the cost the government must pay in order to maintain positive public opinion and support.

With Caste System, again, it is for game balancing. Otherwise it is all bonus, no drawbacks. That is the whole point of this mod!

With Emancipation, you are causing anger in other civs' populations just by virtue of having chosen this civic. That is a bonus and is like a weapon. There should be some counterbalance to it.

Your arguments against my State Property choices are based on a concept of "ideal communism," which man has never achieved. I chose to instead base them on more or less what really happened in history.

Free Religion gives culture bonuses instead of science bonuses for exactly the reason you gave. However, most late-game techs are scientific rather than purely cultural, so giving Free Religion a research bonus at that point late in the game seems strange. How does free religion contribute to scientific advancement, like getting the Physics or Composites tech?

Slavery stifles creativity? Nope.

You may have a point. However, whoever wrote the Civilopedia at Firaxis seems to believe otherwise: "Aside from its basic moral repugnance, the disadvantages of slavery are numerous: it corrupts both slave and master, it badly underutilizes the intelligence and creativity of the subject people, and it almost inevitably leads to revolts and internal strife."

That is what I based my version of the civic on. I tried to keep things in line with the descriptions in the Civilopedia as much as possible.

The Civ series has always put the smiley face on thousands of years of progress but failed to show all the digressions--slavery, genocide, oppression--that went into that progress.

And that is part of what I am trying to achieve with this mod (within the limits of my modding ability). To show the good and the bad, and give the player an interesting dilemma when choosing civics.

I appreciate your comments.:)

However, if you are simply opposed to the entire idea of giving negative aspects to civics to balance them, then you will not be interested in my mod in the first place, right? If you hate the idea to begin with, then just ignore my mod. You won't use it anyway, right?

I would rather hear constructive criticism from those people who would like the civics balanced in this way, if possible.:D

Fascism/Police State, as you describe, may be a popular movement in the beginning when the party rises to power on its charisma and rhetoric, but how did people feel later on in East Germany, the Soviet Union, or in your example, Nazi Germany after the initial fervor wore off and relatives began "disappearing" for political reasons? Saddam Hussein had a Police State, do you think the Iraqis were happy with the arrests and torture?


Well first off, many police states (China, USSR, etc) lasted for decades and continue to last, during peacetime. So no I don't believe Police State should be only or even primarily a "war time" Civic. Furthermore, I would like to make the Police State used a lot less just for war and then off again during peace like a light switch. I know many players do this but I feel it is silly and unrealistic; perhaps there can be higher penalties or anarchy periods for going back to a police state once you have gone to a more "liberal" form of government?

With regards to people's "happiness", Iraqis may or may not have been happy under Saddam Hussein, but the point is, the vast majority did not show it overtly (precisely because it WAS a police state) That is what unhappiness in Civ is all about: Overt unhappiness, refusing to work, protesting etc. That sort of thing would NEVER be tolerable in a police state. (What happened in East Germany, etc I would argue has more to do with the economics than just being a Police State; for the repression did not suddenly occur in 1989, it had always been there, what did change was the economy) You know the old saying "When people's bellies are full, only the intellectuals care about freedom" As a cynic I'm sure you will appreciate this.

Sure the people may not like their relatives being taken away, but they would do very well to keep quiet about it. Since there is really no way to show "quiet" internal unhappiness in Civ IV, I don't think we should use overt, obvious happiness as a penalty for Police States when such a thing in real life would be dealt with swiftly and harshly.

Fascism/Police State, as you describe, may be a popular movement in the beginning when the party rises to power on its charisma and rhetoric, but how did people feel later on in East Germany, the Soviet Union, or in your example, Nazi Germany after the initial fervor wore off and relatives began "disappearing" for political reasons? Saddam Hussein had a Police State, do you think the Iraqis were happy with the arrests and torture?

Your arguments against my State Property choices are based on a concept of "ideal communism," which man has never achieved. I chose to instead base them on more or less what really happened in history.

This two I wish to point out onther time. I think that the other civics just depend on opinons and how history is interpeted but about this 2 I would like to say something.

With the police state I agree with the q-meister, and thats also were my comment was based on, it does counts if they are unhappy but if they act unhappy.

State Property, I based my arguments on ideal communisme because you did the same by saying no non-state religion spread, if you want to show it as it was you should or stay to the economie part, or say no state religon since the church was one of the enemies of ideal communisme. The state-propertie in the USSR failed as said before, throw the cold-war and through bad-orginasiation in Moskou, for China the same story, so I think that if you would try this system in a modern country with well educated people and a good infastructere and a good working system to do administration etc. i geusse it would work a lot better then it did in a few failed cases. You only based your points on a few failed tries I think you should also consider if it would work the same in a very well organised modern countrt and I think it could deliver quite good resultes(even though I am affraid I will never have the option to see if it is that way)

Well first off, many police states (China, USSR, etc) lasted for decades and continue to last, during peacetime. So no I don't believe Police State should be only or even primarily a "war time" Civic. Furthermore, I would like to make the Police State used a lot less just for war and then off again during peace like a light switch. I know many players do this but I feel it is silly and unrealistic; perhaps there can be higher penalties or anarchy periods for going back to a police state once you have gone to a more "liberal" form of government?

So should I up the Anarchy to 3 or 4 to discourage this then?

With regards to people's "happiness", Iraqis may or may not have been happy under Saddam Hussein, but the point is, the vast majority did not show it overtly (precisely because it WAS a police state) That is what unhappiness in Civ is all about: Overt unhappiness, refusing to work, protesting etc...Since there is really no way to show "quiet" internal unhappiness in Civ IV, I don't think we should use overt, obvious happiness as a penalty for Police States when such a thing in real life would be dealt with swiftly and harshly.

Look at the city screen at the top. You have a total happy/unhappy score, and if you mouse over it, you get exact reasons why x-number of people are happy/unhappy. With police state, you will get 3 unhappy people in your 6 (I believe it is) largest cities, complaining about the civic. You remedy this with buildings or the presence of military units or whatever. So, yes, I think it is modeled reasonably well. The game lets you oppress/appease the unhappy citizens. The game even lets you build jails to throw war protestors into, right?

State Property, I based my arguments on ideal communisme because you did the same by saying no non-state religion spread, if you want to show it as it was you should or stay to the economie part, or say no state religon since the church was one of the enemies of ideal communisme.

State Religion is set to 0 by default for State Property, so that's why I didn't mention it - I didn't change it. What I did was in addition to the game's default of not allowing a state religion with this civic (unless mixed with another, I guess), I took it further and stopped all religions from spreading. So you and I are actually in agreement here. It is a limitation of the way the civics are organized that you can pick State Property (which supposedly shuns religion) and say, Theocracy and get a "Marxist Theocracy" or whatever. To remove that possibility we would have to redo Communism as a Religion, not an Economy choice. Either that, or add "Personality Cult" (a la Stalin, Mao, or Kim) to the list of religions in the game!

EDIT: Since I realized that setting religion flags in non-religious civics is pointless (because you obviously can have a state religion if you pick the default version of State Property, set to state religion 0, and the default version of Organized Religion, state religion 1, together in the vanilla game), I reset the non-state religion flag to the game default of 0 for State Property (as it is for all other non-religous civics). Unless someone can write a python script or whatever that requires you to set your religious civic to say, Paganism (with state religion=0 and non-state religion spread also changed to 0 in that civic), and also removes all religions in your cities when you choose State Property, it is not possible to force the removal of the main religions in your civilization and simulate a "personality cult" upon choosing State Property.

The state-propertie in the USSR failed as said before, throw the cold-war and through bad-orginasiation in Moskou, for China the same story, so I think that if you would try this system in a modern country with well educated people and a good infastructere and a good working system to do administration etc. i geusse it would work a lot better then it did in a few failed cases. You only based your points on a few failed tries I think you should also consider if it would work the same in a very well organised modern countrt and I think it could deliver quite good resultes(even though I am affraid I will never have the option to see if it is that way)

Well, I am not such an optimistic idealist Marxist, and I instead based my interpretation on the numerous real-life outcomes of communist societies. First, because in history, the bad organization etc. you speak of inevitably happens in all historical cases (either that, or central planning is almost entirely abandoned in favor of capitalism, and the country is not truly State Property any longer), and second, because the aim of this mod is to provide both positive and negative aspects to each civic to make things balanced and interesting.

Therefore, concerning the game, "ideal" communism does not interest me any more than "ideal" theocracy, or the perfect-world version of any other game civic, because that's not what I'm aiming to simulate at all.

hi, your mod sounds interesting, but did you just add these changes to the existing ones, or substitute the old ones? i.e. does hereditary rule still give happiness for military units inside a city?

Gekko']hi, your mod sounds interesting, but did you just add these changes to the existing ones, or substitute the old ones? i.e. does hereditary rule still give happiness for military units inside a city?

As I said at the top of my mod description, if I didn't list it, I didn't change it.:) So yes, Hereditary Rule still gives happiness for units in a city. I didn't change that.

Saddam Hussein had a Police State, do you think the Iraqis were happy with the arrests and torture?

I think that what you have just said qualifies as "begging the question".

"To remove that possibility we would have to redo Communism as a Religion, not an Economy choice. Either that, or add "Personality Cult" (a la Stalin, Mao, or Kim) to the list of religions in the game!"

The default Religion for Communist/Fascist systems was always a form of Personality Cult, comparable to extremist fringe religious and political terrorist groups and other zealots. Bin Laden's Al-Quaeda comes to mind as the most modern form of such a personality cult system in a terror network. Don't you think such systems were based on the popular personal fanbase and supposed successes of the dear fearless leader of the movement? Kim Jong-Il comes to mind, as does Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984 or even Brave New World and Repent Harlequin said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison. Most despots tend to like the idea of going back to a more pagan past such as the Aryan Cult of the Germanenorden that the Nazis endorsed. Hitler, Mao and Stalin are just other examples, whose lack of sucess can be boiled down to the fact alternatives were given to the people and chosen by them.

Saddam Hussein had a Police State, do you think the Iraqis were happy with the arrests and torture?
One problem is that happiness in Civ does not represent real happiness, but order and discipline.

As I said at the top of my mod description, if I didn't list it, I didn't change it.:) So yes, Hereditary Rule still gives happiness for units in a city. I didn't change that.

oops... sorry for not reading that the first time :)

- it seems to me you are mistaken on universal suffrage: in vanilla civ4, it already gives +1 production for towns. no +1 commerce though.

anyway, I'm going to wait till some discussion and refinement goes on with this mod, then I'm sure I will add in to my modpack, so thanx in advance for your contribution ;)

Hmm. Basically my whole point for creating this mod is: yes! Consider me a slightly cynical realist. Anyway, I like to have to weigh the good and bad of a civic before choosing.

Don't forget one thing, though - *every* civic already has heavy disadvantages in the form of opportunity cost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost). If you choose, say, Vassalage instead of Bureaucracy, you're effectively being disadvantaged by not having the +50% production and commerce in your capital. I wouldn't say that adding more disadvantages to all civics is really any different than adding more advantages - in both cases, you're just adding more variables to be taken into account.

Saddam Hussein had a Police State, do you think the Iraqis were happy with the arrests and torture?

I think that what you have just said qualifies as "begging the question".

From Fallacy Files (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/begquest.html):
"Begging the Question
Type: Informal Fallacy
Form: Any form of argument in which the conclusion occurs as one of the premisses, or a chain of arguments in which the final conclusion is a premiss of one of the earlier arguments in the chain. More generally, an argument begs the question when it assumes any controversial point not conceded by the other side."

This is my argument:
Premise 1: Police State is a brutally oppressive society by definition and/or necessity
Premise 2: Brutally oppressed people are generally unhappy
Conclusion: Therefore people in a Police State are generally unhappy

OK, so you are accusing me of begging the question. Please give me an example of a Police State without brutal oppression, i.e., refute the truth value of Premise 1. So far, you have not convinced me. Was the feverish support worked up by the Nazi party in its rise to power sustained for as long as Germany was a police state; was the common German pleased with the Gestapo? What about Stalin's Soviet Union, Kim's North Korea, Mao's China, etc.? Why did people risk their lives to jump the Berlin Wall? When did these countries (if ever) cease being brutally oppressive? Did it not coincide with their relaxing their Police State ideology?

My reply was intended as an example of Premise 1, not an assumption that it is true without a doubt.

The default Religion for Communist/Fascist systems was always a form of Personality Cult, comparable to extremist fringe religious and political terrorist groups and other zealots.

I don't deny this.

I think it would be interesting to have "Personality Cult" as a religion in Civ IV, but it probably wouldn't fit in with the current model of religion (missionaries to other civs, etc.), so it would be a major change from the current game.

Don't forget one thing, though - *every* civic already has heavy disadvantages in the form of opportunity cost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost).

That's very interesting. Thank you. But I felt that the opportunity cost was not significantly high for the resulting gains received by changing civics. Of course you lose the advantage of your previous civic to gain a new advantage. But you are always receiving some form of major advantage. It seems similar to being able to choose from a Rolls Royce or a Lamborghini each time.

Giving you trade-offs by adding negative effects to your current choice in order to make that choice more interesting, and representing the opinion that utopia is ultimately only an unattainable ideal, are the two main rationales behind this mod. If you disagree with these points, then this mod will not interest you. I respect your choice not to be interested, of course.

Gekko']oops... sorry for not reading that the first time :)

- it seems to me you are mistaken on universal suffrage: in vanilla civ4, it already gives +1 production for towns. no +1 commerce though.

You may be right. I was reading directly from the XML file, where it is sometimes difficult to tell which is which. I will double check.

anyway, I'm going to wait till some discussion and refinement goes on with this mod, then I'm sure I will add in to my modpack, so thanx in advance for your contribution ;)

You're very welcome.:D

One problem is that happiness in Civ does not represent real happiness, but order and discipline.

Perhaps this is true, but the whole game is highly abstracted, so I think we should be allowed this stretch, don't you think?

For a much less abstracted similar game, I point you to Europa Universalis II, for example. Even then, the abstractions are in different areas.

More to the point, even if "happiness" really represents "order and discipline" then my concept of Police State causes a crisis where your civilization must divert more resources to maintaining "order and discipline" in exchange for suppressing war dissent. Is that an acceptable explanation?

And someone asked me why I did not make my expanded civics(45 total) in mod form:rolleyes:

I have seem some excellent discussion in these civics threads, but the central theme is there is no Univesal civic system that everyone agrees on, none. The fact that there are civics choices leads to the understanding that not everyone will agree on what is good/bad/indifferent in any given gameplay situation for each person.:goodjob:

btw, it seems to me that slavery giving +1 production for mines would be too powerful for such an early civic. I recommend changing that to quarries only, and upping the commerce from plantations to +2 or +3. otherwise mine spamming may become an issue. and how many cities exactly will the happiness penalty apply to?

Serfdom: I'd never change 1 food with 1 commerce, but maybe that's only me. now if it were +2 commerce it would be useful instead ;)

Kinda off topic

When creating a new campaing world for my rpg group i decided that the players will create a few countries (probably those where they would like to start) and the best way to do so was using the civ4 civic system :) Off course, im not creating a pen and paper strategy game, i just give short descriptions of what that civic would change in the country society, like, "Despotism: "brief description"; increase military presence but decrease social order" or something like, so they know theyll be.. 'repressed' by living on a despotic country.

Right now there are 7 civics lines: Government (9 kinds), Labor (7), Economy (6), Legal (7), Culture (10), War (6) and Religion (6). I didnt created any rpg-like option yet, like 'Mageocracy'... Divination spells would ruin any real like legal system! Im a lawyer, i would love to "detect lies"...

Anyway. I dont think every Civic needs a disvantage. Upkeep is bad already! I like to conquest, but its hard to do so at 40% science! I have to aim for holy cities but then it becomes a war of extermination, me against everyone! Now you placed a higher distance upkeep on most gov civics!

Red Diamond, i would LOVE to put my hands on your civic mod... please? :)

Kinda off topic
Red Diamond, i would LOVE to put my hands on your civic mod... please? :)

Well remember its not a public mod, but you can check out the attached files.:cool:

Gekko']btw, it seems to me that slavery giving +1 production for mines would be too powerful for such an early civic. I recommend changing that to quarries only, and upping the commerce from plantations to +2 or +3. otherwise mine spamming may become an issue. and how many cities exactly will the happiness penalty apply to?

Serfdom: I'd never change 1 food with 1 commerce, but maybe that's only me. now if it were +2 commerce it would be useful instead ;)

I like your Slavery suggestion, and I may adapt it.

The "happiness in largest cities" bonus/penalty seems to apply to your 6 largest cities (by default) based on what I see in the civics screen in the game.

The problem with adapting your Serfdom suggestion is, the -1 food in exchange for +1 commerce is meant to be a trade off, an advantage/disadvantage setup that the player must consider. The reasoning is that in Serfdom, the lord of the manor takes his big share of the serfs' crops and gets rich off it, to put it simplistically.

You're forgetting that I'm trying to "balance" the civics with good and bad points. Giving +2 commerce would not present a dilemma for the player at all. Remember, you can get faster workers with this civic.

Well remember its not a public mod, but you can check out the attached files.:cool:

Get your own thread, threadjacker!:D :lol:

But seriously, thanks. I might "borrow" some of your ideas, if you don't mind, that is.

Anyway. I dont think every Civic needs a disvantage. Upkeep is bad already! I like to conquest, but its hard to do so at 40% science! I have to aim for holy cities but then it becomes a war of extermination, me against everyone! Now you placed a higher distance upkeep on most gov civics!

I respect your opinion, but I don't think the upkeep costs really amount to anything game-breaking. As I said, I playtested these changes for a couple of weeks, and I was able to run a sprawled-out empire with over 10 cities. I had to work at it by building courthouses, a forbidden palace, etc., but I think this mod makes those buildings that much more valuable. I wasn't able to run research at 100% all the time during the mid-game, but I had too many cities to begin with, which isn't really a good strategy in CivIV anyway, right?

I think the maintenance costs are managable, the demerits don't outweigh the merits, and having negative aspects to civics is more interesting. That's my opinion, and I made this mod for people who might share that opinion. You are free to ignore this mod, if you choose, of course.

The problem with adapting your Serfdom suggestion is, the -1 food in exchange for +1 commerce is meant to be a trade off, an advantage/disadvantage setup that the player must consider. The reasoning is that in Serfdom, the lord of the manor takes his big share of the serfs' crops and gets rich off it, to put it simplistically.

But trading off one food for one commerce is never going to be beneficial. Consider a city with two farms. Serfdom costs you two food and rewards you with two commerce. However you'd be better off 'losing' the two food by creating a specialist, which will be worth more than the two commerce. This becomes an even better solution the more farms the city has. The odd city might be better off if it has only one farm and it merely loses the annoying 1 food that oscillates it between growth and starvation, but I can't see that happening for every city in your empire. The default 50% boost to worker speed was never worth much at this stage of the game, with the result that serfdom is one of the most unused civics of the default game. It therefore isn't really much of a bonus to compensate for the lost food. I don't think anyone will use this civic in this current arrangement, so I think the lord of the manor may need to get rather richer off his serfs to make it a viable choice.

But trading off one food for one commerce is never going to be beneficial.

Good argument. I like good arguments like this, with facts and solid reasoning.:)

I will change Serfdom to -1 food +2 commerce sometime later today and upload it with a new version number (I'm at work now...).

It's an interesting mod. I personally thought a lot of your changes were kind of harsh or counterproductive to the civilization that uses them, but they're based on historical fact. However, basing things on history isn't always the best idea. For example, the bad effects of state property are found only in communist governments that failed. However, it always seemed to me that civics were executed well by default, keeping only the errors of the civic and eliminating the errors that leaders who have used that civic in the past have made (I hope that makes sense the way it's worded). And, why doesn't your state property civic have hard currency? Every nation with state property has/had hard currency.

I would like to point out that the point of free religeon giving +10% research was that there was no state church to in any way influence what people were doing research on, even in the US however such religeous groups get in the way of such things as stem cell research and human cloning yet they have to be backed up by morals that those outside of that specific religeon may believe in. Such things as saying that there should not be any research into spaceflight because god put us on this earth would not work to stop such science today.

Also every government civic you have except for police state has a + to distance modifier for upkeep, and you could easially say that even managing the police throughout the entire country would be a lot of work so it should be increased as well, and at that point you may just as well remove the maintinence increase because all governments then have increases. I think you might want to reconcider the maintenence increase for governments.

Looks good however, I may try it out sometime soon here if I get the time, just trying to provide a bit of constructive criticism.

Get your own thread, threadjacker!:D :lol:

But seriously, thanks. I might "borrow" some of your ideas, if you don't mind, that is.

Ah, sure, but I will not take credit for everything. Some of the stuff I put in is from ideas from the great people here in the forums.:cool:

I would like to point out that the point of free religeon giving +10% research was that there was no state church to in any way influence what people were doing research on, even in the US however such religeous groups get in the way of such things as stem cell research and human cloning yet they have to be backed up by morals that those outside of that specific religeon may believe in. Such things as saying that there should not be any research into spaceflight because god put us on this earth would not work to stop such science today.


Yes, I agree with ya, except in the time of Da Vinci research into spaceflight or anything else showing the truth of science vs the lies/misunderstanding of controlling religious powers, would get ya killed. The majority of people in their ignorance would have and did support the church based on "moral" issues in that time(ie. the Earth is the center of the universal blah blah blah).

All that to say, in the future all the moralist people and governments influenced by religious extremists and common ignorance will find the issue of human bio-engineering just as silly as people dying for showing the Earth was not flat and was never the center of the universe IMHO.

BTW, there were plenty of those god put us on Earth folks in the 60's, they were just overruled by the "heathen" culture and President:D

Exactly, however if the government had an official religeon, and that religeon was against spaceflight, do you think that the government would still have built such extensive spaceflight capabilities? I don't know, but it is something to think about.

It's an interesting mod. I personally thought a lot of your changes were kind of harsh or counterproductive to the civilization that uses them, but they're based on historical fact. However, basing things on history isn't always the best idea. For example, the bad effects of state property are found only in communist governments that failed.

Thanks for the compliments.:)

Please tell me which communist government did not fail? Which State Property governments continue to run as (idealistically pure) State Property without any of the negative effects that I have included in my mod?

Communist (State Property) states that embrace capitalism (China, Vietnam, etc.) don't really count as communist states anymore, don't you think? The "Communist Party" may run the country with an iron fist, but are they State Property if they allow Free Market reforms? I've never been to China, but what little I see and read makes it sound like they are very capitalist. Even North Korea has its "free trade zone."

State Property is not Free Market, is it? For example, an extremely simplistic shoehorn of modern-day China into CivIV's civics would perhaps be Free Market with Representation (but with only one party - would that be Despotism instead, or require Police State?). I would not classify it as State Property. Would you?

However, it always seemed to me that civics were executed well by default, keeping only the errors of the civic and eliminating the errors that leaders who have used that civic in the past have made (I hope that makes sense the way it's worded).

That is fine, but as I stated before the whole point of this mod is to represent both the good and the bad, in order to make choosing a civic require weighing advantages vs. disadvantages. This is the focus of my mod. If you want me to remove that, then we are left with all idealistic utopian (and in my opinion, completely fantasy) civics. If that is what you like, then great, but that is not what this mod is about. I tried to include the errors that were generally made by historical leaders who used that civic, if those errors were common, because I view those errors as likely to occur with that civic.

And, why doesn't your state property civic have hard currency? Every nation with state property has/had hard currency.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_currency):
"In some economies, especially planned economies or economies using a soft currency, there are special stores which only accept hard currency. Examples include Intershops in East Germany or Friendship stores in the People's Republic of China in the early 1990's. These stores offer a wider variety of goods, many of which are scarce or imported, than standard stores."

"For example, during the Cold War, the ruble in the Soviet Union was not a hard currency because it could not be easily spent outside the Soviet Union and because the exchange rates were fixed at artificially high levels. After the fall of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the former Soviet Union's ruble was rapidly depreciating, while the purchasing power of the United States dollar was more stable, making it a harder currency than the ruble. A tourist could get 200 rubles for a dollar ($1 USD) in June 1992, and 500 rubles per USD in November. A worker getting paid 2000 rubles a month who planned to buy foreign merchandise would be better off exchanging rubles for dollars at the earlier rate than the later rate. 1000 rubles would buy $5 USD in June, and that $5 USD would be worth 2500 rubles in November."

Also every government civic you have except for police state has a + to distance modifier for upkeep, and you could easially say that even managing the police throughout the entire country would be a lot of work so it should be increased as well, and at that point you may just as well remove the maintinence increase because all governments then have increases. I think you might want to reconcider the maintenence increase for governments.

OK, interesting point.

What is the difference between Civic Upkeep and City Distance Maintenance Cost?

Obviously Firaxis must think they are different somehow because they separated them. Also, we have Number of City Maintenance cost too, if you look at the XML for civics and eras.

What are the differences?

My opinion is that Civic Upkeep is running expenses for that civic, and City Distance is corruption/inefficiency due to distance from the center of administration (the capital). That definition of City Distance dates back to when we had the concept of "corruption" in earlier versions of Civ.

So the civics I gave City Distance penalties to are ones that I think would create opportunities for corruption/inefficiency the further away you are from the capital.

That is why I didn't give Police State a City Distance penalty, and that is why State Property eliminates the City Distance penalty altogether.

Is that acceptable? (By the way, this is a paraphrase of what you will find in the Civilopedia...)

Hi do any of you civics modders know if its possible to add constraints between civics. I.e universal suffrage cannot be chosen with slaverery, or police state cannot use free speach

or even monarchy requires organised religion or theocracy :mischief:

Hi do any of you civics modders know if its possible to add constraints between civics. I.e universal suffrage cannot be chosen with slaverery, or police state cannot use free speach

or even monarchy requires organised religion or theocracy :mischief:

I wish it could be done! At the best we will need Python skills, at worst we will have to wait for the SDK. Maybe somebody else knows more about this than me.

Armandeus- Thanks for this excellent civics mod. I've enjoyed reading the debate on this thread. Nowhere else in the forums have I found conversation which adresses politics in Civ 4 via the civic settings with such detail or sincere effort to add history and realism. If I may, I'd like propose some ideas and put forth a few suggestions.

One thing which is completely absent from the Civic settings is civic choices which influence diplomacy. For example: The state property civic should be recognised as an alternative to open markets(capitalism). These two civic choices should be in opposition to each other. The nation which chooses state property should have a negative diplomatic number to nations which have open markets and vice-versa. The country which practices state property should have an incentive to spread state property to foriegn nations(export the revolution). Capitalist nations should have reasons to attempt to contain the spread of state property(The best way is to spread free markets). Free market nations should only trade with other free market countries(this provides incentive to spread capitalism around the world). State property nations should generally have positive diplomatic realations with other communist countries.

The 19th and 20th centuries saw diplomatic eligiances influenced by political ideology more than any other force. In previous centuries, eligiances where often determined by religious ideology- which is already well reflected in Civ 4. Other opposing civics could be hereditary rule against representation.

I like the idea of state property reflecting collective farms and the factory being the proposed setting for the "worker's paradise".

I believe Facism needs more work. It needs some benefit during peacetime simply for game balance. Perhaps some production benefit and faster worker speed. Facism should also produce troops with a little experience to reflect the focus on military even during peace and added promotions which could reflect fanaticism(the SS). This would also reflect the typical dictatoral order to fight to the last man- no conditional surrender.

Again- thanks for the mod and thanks to everyone who has contributed their thoughts to this topic. Civic choices should be among the most important features of Civ 4.

Thanks for the compliments, Marshall Thomas!
As far as I know there are only 2 instances where civics influence diplomacy. One is where you get a bonus point for having that leader's preferred civic. The other one is Emancipation, which causes unhappiness in other civs that don't have it (does that count?).
I'm just guessiing, but it seems what your very good idea requires is Python programming skills. Somewhere there must be a file that gives out those pluses and minuses for having a leader's preferred civic, and so on, when you are in the diplomacy dialog. If someone who knew Python could add bonuses/minuses for what you describe (comparisons between your civics and that leader's) then we could have what you suggest.
It's not possible in the civicsinfo.xml file, however.
I plan to use this balanced civics mod as a base to add one new civic per category, in order to implement a few ideas of mine. Maybe you will like them. I will post the file here soon.

Thanks for the compliments.:)

Please tell me which communist government did not fail? Which State Property governments continue to run as (idealistically pure) State Property without any of the negative effects that I have included in my mod?


There has never been any "idealistically pure" communist government in history, in fact, many, including myself, would argue that no communist or socialist governments had ever existed at all. If we are using the traditional definition of what socialism is. Lenin for example, was quite open that he did not feel that socialism could exist in Russia without revolutions in other (European) countries that were more advanced, particularly Germany, when the revolution happened but did not succeed, Lenin then reverted to a rather brutal police state-capitalist system that he believed would only be temporary until the world revolutions overtook Europe. He died early on however, then Stalin came to power and dramatically abandoned any "notions" of "socialism" that had ever existed, if any had in the first place. Don't want to turn this into a history discussion here but just thought you might want to keep that in mind.

With regards to "states failing", I guess it would have be in the eye of the beholder what they consider to be "failure" For many, turning a backward peasant state like Russia into one of two industrialized superpowers in the world is a major accomplishment. It seems that Civ IV glorifies those leaders and states that were aggressive and increased their civs power dramatically, even if it did not last very long (a la Napoleon, Alexander, etc etc)

Not trying to defend the USSR here, I despise that gov as I feel it is or was an enemy of socialism, openly advised against revolutions in other countries (such as Spain, Cuba, Indonesia, China, etc etc) BUT what I am saying is that we must be very careful when analyzing other states, paricularly when they have been classifed as "enemy" state by most of the governments that I'm sure the majority of people here live under. There is a strong argument to be made that, as brutal as countries like the USSR were, using the Civ IV model of war, empire and power that we are using, they did dramatically industralize their countries, increase their size, land and power and thus, could reasonably be considered a "success"

Thanks for the insight.

First, I am neither trying to be "politically correct" nor am I trying to be jingoistic and fanatically anti-communist (or anti-whatever) with this mod. "Enemy state" status or whatever in the real world had no bearing on my choices when modding these civics.

This argument began when someone commented that I ruined "his favorite civic," State Property, and how ideally such a civic would have none of the negative attributes I gave it. He was missing the point of the mod entirely. (Nevertheless, I didn't ruin anything for him anyway - nobody is twisting his arm to make him use my mod in his game.)

People were trying to argue against my "grittier" version of the civics by telling me about the virtues of communism or police states in their purest idealistic form. The question of mine that you quote above, asking for an example of this "successfully idealistically pure State Property country," was meant to illustrate that the person I was originally discussing this with was basing his criticism on an idealistic version of the civic, and I am not, and I wanted to show that to him.

I asked for an example of a State Property government that fits his idealistic description which did not fail to stay "true" to that ideal. He wanted me to stick to his ideal, and I was trying to show him that I am more interested in history than ideals, which are only ideas anyway.

We can use the more utopian vanilla version of the civics, or do what I am trying to do, or do something else. That's why Firaxis made the game moddable. I made this mod because the utopian version bored me. If you like the utopian version better, then that's fine with me. Please use it. I am not interested in modeling the ideals, but instead the historical advantages and disadvantages of that civic.

I posted my mod here to share it with anyone who might be interested, and to get constructive feedback. It's unfortunate if some are offended by my refusal to abandon my mod because it does not align with their ideals.

As for Police State, State Property, Theocracy, or any other "negative" civics: I myself have found them useful when I play Civ IV (yes, even in the way that I modded them here!), and I often choose them when it suits me. I am not saying that Police State or State Property are useless filthy civics and so I hate them and want to mod them into oblivion.

I recognize their usefulness in the game, just like everyone else.

I also recognize your point about Firaxis choosing successful (meaning powerful) civilizations, and representing their civics. I have no problem with that, except what I said about the civics being a bit too idealistic (for my taste). If Firaxis wanted to be perfectly politically correct, many of the leaders would not be in the game, and neither would some of the countries or civics. But they did not take things to such an extreme, and neither will I.

I asked for constructive criticism, which I appreciate highly. Correct my history, give me a better way to represent the positive or negative aspect of a civic, tell me specificially how a change I made unbalances the game.

However, I really don't want to get into a flame war about what ideal communism is, or any such other tangent. As I said, the whole point of this mod is not the ideal civic, but the approximate historical representation of it (within what the game allows), including its advantages and disadvantages. Ideals are actually irrelevant to my mod, as interesting a topic as they may be. I'm more interested in abstractly simulating what actually happened.

- I'm more interested in abstractly simulating what actually happened. -

Communism "actually" changed the URSS, from 90% rural population to one of the world industrialized superpower. But i do belive that Stalin is a spawn of satan (actually i dont); he kiled 20kk russians! Placing all Goulags close to each other, you have a concentration camp bigger than the French territory. Hitler was a noob compared to Stalin.

Ive been reading alot about communism. In Civ terms, state property didnt ruined URSS by itself; a continuous Military State, an Inumame Legal Sistem (Barbarism with Bureaucracy i would guess), with excessive usage of Slavery civic and the world worst human being leading it, helped alot. I think you tried to put all the "bad" aspects of URSS into one civic, when State Property is only the economic civic. A State property with Emancipation, Free Speech, Universal Sufragge, and pacifism/free religion can be a nice little place to live :)

Your mod is cool, but too evil

-edit: actually i think i 'misread' your topic. I missed the factory bonus and the workshop bonus. So the workshop end with +3 hammers, a mine-of-grass. Still a good civic.

Hitler was a noob compared to Stalin.

I don't deny that. But I am not fixated on the Soviet Union.

I was trying to simulate the good and bad economic results of State Property. I was not trying to simulate either a utopian ideal or simulate Stalin's regime exclusively. I am not convinced that State Property is without negative points as an economic system. To clarify, I think that capitalism, or any other economic philosophy, ultimately has good and bad points. I am not attempting to single out State Property for extra punishment.

Ive been reading alot about communism. In Civ terms, state property didnt ruined URSS by itself; a continuous Military State, an Inumame Legal Sistem (Barbarism with Bureaucracy i would guess), with excessive usage of Slavery civic and the world worst human being leading it, helped alot.

I think you are right. But I am not trying to put all of that into State Property.

Do you deny that "State Property" has negative economic effects as well? Is it the ideal economy?

I think you tried to put all the "bad" aspects of URSS into one civic, when State Property is only the economic civic. A State property with Emancipation, Free Speech, Universal Sufragge, and pacifism/free religion can be a nice little place to live :)

I think you, and the many others who continuously point this out to me, are idealizing State Property and want me to think it has no negative aspects worthy of simulation in a Civ 4 civic.

Your mod is cool, but too evil

Thanks, I guess.

-edit: actually i think i 'misread' your topic. I missed the factory bonus and the workshop bonus. So the workshop end with +3 hammers, a mine-of-grass. Still a good civic.

I'm not sure how to take the "mine-of-grass" comment (do hammers have to represent actual physical ore, or can they not represent production value?), but how exactly would you like me to redo State Property so it would please you?

You do realize that I only listed the changes I made to the civics, right? You do realize that when I did not change the default setting, I did not write it in my list in the first post? Even though I wrote that in the first post, it seems that I may need to rewrite my listing to include what I did not change as well as what I did. Everybody seems to want to ignore my note and instead assume that I nerfed all the civics. At least that is the impression I get from these comments.

Well done Armandeus, this is really getting great. I guess I will add this to the next version of my mod which is soon to come (hopefully, if nothing goes wrong :D ) :goodjob:

Thank you, Gekko. I'm glad you approve.

When I get some more free time next week, I plan to make two versions of this: the first with no new civics, and another with some new civics added (I plan on adding one for each category, and maybe replacing a couple default ones). Please feel free to add either one to your mod.

I want to reiterate that I am very grateful for constructive criticism. It is helpful when someone tells me not only that there is a problem with my civic or a disagreement they have, but also when that person gives a concrete suggestion as to how to fix it in the mod. Otherwise, we just get into a philosophical discussion and it is usually unclear to me how I should adjust my mod to please that person.

Armandeus, your mod is extremely cool and is definitely the direction in which I'd like to see Civ4 go in many areas. I'm in complete agreement that choosing civics should be a matter of taking the bad with the good, and that positive choices should usually have some negative consequences as well.

That being said, the one civic I found to be unbalanced in my games was Bureaucracy. Completely eliminating the number of cities maintenance penalty I found to be too much. AI players who chose bureaucracy soared ahead of everyone else (perhaps this is WAD, but I didn't like it). I have been experimenting with scaling back the maintenance penalty reduction to -50% and -33%, and have found these to be more balanced settings. One problem I've had, though, is that even when I change the penalty reduction, the civics screen still says "No Number of Cities Maintenance Penalty." Do you know why this is and how I can fix it?

While I'm on the topic, I've also been trying to mod in some similar balancing measures for religion choices in the game, giving the different religions advantages and disadvantages. In this process, I've been trying to include a mechanic for non-state religions causing unhappiness (minority communities should get uppity in societies dominated by one religion, and I want to force civs to build temples for non-state religions to make these unhappy communities content rather than boosting overall unhappiness). When I modify CivicInfos.xml, making NonStateReligionHappiness "-2", on the Civics screen for Paganism and Free Religion it shows up normally, but under Organized Religion, Theocracy, and Pacifism, it shows up as, "+126774 per [praying hands]" Any ideas on why this is or how to fix it (the unhappiness mechanic is working, but this little problem is terribly ugly, and bothers me immensely)?

Armandeus, your mod is extremely cool and is definitely the direction in which I'd like to see Civ4 go in many areas. I'm in complete agreement that choosing civics should be a matter of taking the bad with the good, and that positive choices should usually have some negative consequences as well.

Thanks!

That being said, the one civic I found to be unbalanced in my games was Bureaucracy. Completely eliminating the number of cities maintenance penalty I found to be too much. AI players who chose bureaucracy soared ahead of everyone else (perhaps this is WAD, but I didn't like it). I have been experimenting with scaling back the maintenance penalty reduction to -50% and -33%, and have found these to be more balanced settings. One problem I've had, though, is that even when I change the penalty reduction, the civics screen still says "No Number of Cities Maintenance Penalty." Do you know why this is and how I can fix it?

I realized that myself recently. The reason is, the number of cities maintenance cost is set in the globalsettings.xml (or some similar name - I'm not at my home PC now) in the main XML folder. It is set depending on the map size. The highest setting is 45, I think. So if you give a maintenance adjustment over 45, it will always seem like you are giving free maintenance. Look in that file, and give a number that will still make sense on the smallest map. I have to do this with my mod here in the future.

When I modify CivicInfos.xml, making NonStateReligionHappiness "-2", on the Civics screen for Paganism and Free Religion it shows up normally, but under Organized Religion, Theocracy, and Pacifism, it shows up as, "+126774 per [praying hands]" Any ideas on why this is or how to fix it (the unhappiness mechanic is working, but this little problem is terribly ugly, and bothers me immensely)?

It drives me nuts too. I asked another forum member, and he told me that state religion happiness has to be set to 0 for non state religion happiness to work as a negative number. So for example, you give Theocracy 0 happiness bonus (the default - remember you still get the bonuses for the buildings) for the state religion, and -2 or whatever for non-state religions. This is also something I haven't had time to try myself, but when I do, I will add it to this mod.

i have a few problems with this mod, one it seems that free market seems overly powerful compared to the other economic models, the penalties which you enforced to state property seemed too harsh compared to its benefit.. perhaps in free market you could balance it somehow as in periods of depressions and booms? (market economy yo)


Your reasoning for free religion generating culture instead of science is a little odd, since once a government is seperated from the church, they would most likely allow more scientific research that would otherwise be disallowed by the church, such as the origins of the universe or theory of evolution, i dont see how culture applies to free religion.

oh and police state, you should somehow add a military unit happiness bonus because of what you stated as martial law

Thank you, Gekko. I'm glad you approve.

When I get some more free time next week, I plan to make two versions of this: the first with no new civics, and another with some new civics added (I plan on adding one for each category, and maybe replacing a couple default ones). Please feel free to add either one to your mod.

this sounds really cool to me. I suggest you check out Kael's Fall from Heaven mod, he added a couple more Civic Categories (i.e. columns, IIRC he added medical system and school system) , cause adding more categories would be extremely nice IMHO :goodjob:

-Do you deny that "State Property" has negative economic effects as well? Is it the ideal economy?-

No, no, i tried to say that State Property didnt ruined the URSS "by itself", it was only ONE of the reasons URSS didnt lasted. Im not a communist fanboy. I love reading those old books from Marx and John Reed (Reed's book about the communist revolution is one of my favorites, but i dont know the english title for that book), but i dont belive communism would work.

The BEST way to represent communism in CIV terms, i saw in one mod, dont remember wich one; Fall from Heaven or Europa Europa, one of those. Make Cottages/Town give -1/-2 gold, but +1/+2 hammer. What does that change? First, with all those hammers from your cottages, you will be able to industrialize (ie: build troops and factories, etc), BUT, in the long run, you will suffer to pay the civic upkeep, and all that gold you are not getting anymore will make you lag behind in technology; tell me thats not what happened IRL. So you will not only have to decrease your Beaker %'s, but each 10% will be worth less (you with Science at 60% will be getting less beakers than an equally powerfull non-communist AI with 60% funding)

So, you asked how to please me? :) Make cottages/town give -1/-2 gold but +1/+2 hammer.

I always play creative/financial, in all mods i play, even if i have to play a Halfling nation (in Fall from Heaven). I am a big fan of the cottage spam strategy, simple because ill have so much gold ill always be the first to get new guns and those prizes from techs (Free great people, free tech with liberalism, etc). Losing half of my gold from cottages to get hammers isnt so atractive as it looks like; for the first time i didnt played the socialist civics! I had to play a fancy "freedom, equality, emancipation etc" nation :)

Well just my 0.02 gold (or 0.01 gold and 0.01 hammer :) )

Armandeus: "I realized that myself recently. The reason is, the number of cities maintenance cost is set in the globalsettings.xml (or some similar name - I'm not at my home PC now) in the main XML folder. It is set depending on the map size. The highest setting is 45, I think. So if you give a maintenance adjustment over 45, it will always seem like you are giving free maintenance. Look in that file, and give a number that will still make sense on the smallest map. I have to do this with my mod here in the future."

Probably GlobalDefines.xml? What effect does this number have on actual gameply -- I'm concerned about throwing off the maintenance settings that I'm trying to balance!

"It drives me nuts too. I asked another forum member, and he told me that state religion happiness has to be set to 0 for non state religion happiness to work as a negative number. So for example, you give Theocracy 0 happiness bonus (the default - remember you still get the bonuses for the buildings) for the state religion, and -2 or whatever for non-state religions. This is also something I haven't had time to try myself, but when I do, I will add it to this mod."[/QUOTE]

I don't think this works, since in your mod, Theocracy IS set to 0 for state religion happiness, but still comes up as the dreaded "+12734" (or whatever). I solved my problem by altering the default non-state religion happiness modifier in GlobalDefines.xml to -2 instead. I figure that under civics with no state religion, religions WANT to be state religions, or at least in control of government policies, and are frustrated and feel underrepresented when they are not (IMHO, witness American politics). This solution works for me, though it's still frustrating for those who'd want, say, Theocracy to make non-state religions MORE unhappy than other religion civics.

Oh, and I do agree with Vietnamese Guy about free market. In my version, I simply removed the income bonus, figuring that having no penalty to income, more trade routes, and free trade with other civs (not Mercantilism) is bonus enough, considering the "boom" that civs undergo in the Renaissance era. I'm in a constant war in my mod to keep civs (including my own!) from becoming full-blown Napoleonic-era powers by 1500 or 1600!

Armandeus, another cool mod you should check out if you plan to go for more civic types, is the Gender mod. just my 0.2 gold. ;)

I'm impressed with this mod - I agree that the vanilla civic choices seemed to have only positive impacts. The negative impacts force me to make balanced choices, instead of beelining for the bottom civics (plus Free Market), as I usually do.

Anyway, because I agree with the tweaks, this works well for me. Thanks!

I've cooked this into my own fusion mod, and I'm playtesting it now. More later.

Regarding Theocracy in the next version of this mod, my suggestion is to make it give +2 unhappiness for each non-state religion present in a city. ( I THINK I've read somewhere someone succeeding at doing this...)
that way, I will be able to add Religious Victory to my mod without it making theocracy horribly overpowered :D
Religious Victory could certainly be a great addition to the game IMHO, and I would recommend you add it in your mod too.
if you want more infos about it, check out this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144052

Gekko']Regarding Theocracy in the next version of this mod, my suggestion is to make it give +1 unhappiness for each non-state religion present in a city. ( I THINK I've read somewhere someone succeeding at doing this...)
that way, I will be able to add Religious Victory to my mod without it making theocracy horribly overpowered :D
Religious Victory could certainly be a great addition to the game IMHO, and I would recommend you add it in your mod too.
if you want more infos about it, check out this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144052


in EE3 theocracy gives -2 unhappiness for every religion, which makes sense because then the unhappiness isnt cancelled out by temples..

As you can tell from my icon and sig, I must admit I am coming to this with my own personal bias and baggage, yet I think the main arguements from those such as me who would prefer to live in a society with state property over a free market one is that you call this "Civics mod: Balence", which would imply that you give each a fair set of advantages and disadvantages. However what seems to be stepping on toes it the great difference between Free Market
+10% to trade and State Property
Anarchy Length 2
-10% great people
-25% foreign trade yield
-10% gold in commerce
+1 happiness with factory
+1 hammer with workshop, but removed +1 food for watermill

Now, one cannot help but think you prefer one over the others, for many (myself again included) would argue that capitalism has a great deal of baggage that goes along with it, namely - happiness due to inequality, - health due to the poor conditions of the working class and a complete lack of healthcare for the working class, a minor - to production due to lots of money and energy being spent on things that don't matter (private golf courses for example).

Now, in the interest of logic, I cannot understand how you can call free trade and state property civics balenced. If you were to call this "opinion mod", it would be fine, but balenced it is not.

We can flame and counter flame about the merits of Communism against Capitalism, however as you have stated, that isn't what we're here to talk about. We're here for constructive criticism to help your mod. Well for the interest of the name of the mod and the intention in which you appear to have in it's creation.

I hope all of this helps the mod in some way, but even when looking beyond the right wing vs left wing debate,however unfortunetly this mod is far from balenced.

(I tried to keep this post not so ranty, I know I didn't do a good job and I don't want to discourage you from working on mods)

-Leif

in EE3 theocracy gives -2 unhappiness for every religion, which makes sense because then the unhappiness isnt cancelled out by temples..

yep that's it. thanks for pointing it out! :)

I have to agree with Leif here. You gotta choose between Balance or Realism. Due to your mod name, i think the choice is pretty obvious. The civics are balanced in the original game; some of them are useless, but none is too good. The example Leif used is perfect: free trade = only goodness, state property = MANY heavy penalties. Not balanced.

-Do you deny that "State Property" has negative economic effects as well? Is it the ideal economy?-

No, no, i tried to say that State Property didnt ruined the URSS "by itself", it was only ONE of the reasons URSS didnt lasted. Im not a communist fanboy. I love reading those old books from Marx and John Reed (Reed's book about the communist revolution is one of my favorites, but i dont know the english title for that book), but i dont belive communism would work.

The BEST way to represent communism in CIV terms, i saw in one mod, dont remember wich one; Fall from Heaven or Europa Europa, one of those. Make Cottages/Town give -1/-2 gold, but +1/+2 hammer. What does that change? First, with all those hammers from your cottages, you will be able to industrialize (ie: build troops and factories, etc), BUT, in the long run, you will suffer to pay the civic upkeep, and all that gold you are not getting anymore will make you lag behind in technology; tell me thats not what happened IRL. So you will not only have to decrease your Beaker %'s, but each 10% will be worth less (you with Science at 60% will be getting less beakers than an equally powerfull non-communist AI with 60% funding)

So, you asked how to please me? :) Make cottages/town give -1/-2 gold but +1/+2 hammer.

I always play creative/financial, in all mods i play, even if i have to play a Halfling nation (in Fall from Heaven). I am a big fan of the cottage spam strategy, simple because ill have so much gold ill always be the first to get new guns and those prizes from techs (Free great people, free tech with liberalism, etc). Losing half of my gold from cottages to get hammers isnt so atractive as it looks like; for the first time i didnt played the socialist civics! I had to play a fancy "freedom, equality, emancipation etc" nation :)

Well just my 0.02 gold (or 0.01 gold and 0.01 hammer :) )

In the beginning of this thread I had a lot of comment on this civic, but I like this one and I agree with it, also I would like to say that I made myself look like a socialist but I only support PURE communism in the best way anything less and I hate it and then I support liberalisme in high forms, I know that sounds realy stupid but for the most part I am not a socialist or communist but a liberalist. Also I hate the USSR, because they didn't had PURE communisme, but as you said state-property did help there economy.

In the beginning of this thread I had a lot of comment on this civic, but I like this one and I agree with it, also I would like to say that I made myself look like a socialist but I only support PURE communism in the best way anything less and I hate it and then I support liberalisme in high forms, I know that sounds realy stupid but for the most part I am not a socialist or communist but a liberalist. Also I hate the USSR, because they didn't had PURE communisme, but as you said state-property did help there economy.

Define "Liberalist" ,because a liberalised economy is free trade.

Define "Liberalist" ,because a liberalised economy is free trade.


I mean in policits the opposits of the socialisme and communisme but not fascime. I mean Right but then in the way of very much free dom and not to a fascistic police state. I hope this clears thing up

I disagree with the police state extra revolution times. Sometimes, a police state is th only way to keep a country's economy running. This is why, in germany, people voted for hitler and his nazi party, because the police state they offered was the only way out of the country's economic problems. They VOTED for this, there was no revolution.

I looked through the entire thread, and some of the ideas I liked, and some I do not. In particular, Free Markets and State Property are not balanced. I have compiled a list of changes from other's and my own ideas, that I would like you to take a look at. You might find some of these changes you can use. Just remember, I am still making changes to it, and I need a sixth civic for all categories except the economics catagory.

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
High Upkeep
+1 happiness per military unit in city
+25% commerce in capital

Oligarchy
Currency
Low Upkeep
-25% City distance maintenance (A step up from despotism)
+25% City number maintenance (The elite clash for the highest position)

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

Police State
Fascism
High Upkeep
+50% military unit production
+2 experience to new units
+2 happiness per military unit in city (Secret police keeps order)
-50% war wariness
<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 so cities are more isolated)

(Unitary or Imperial)
Monarchy
Low Upkeep
+10% production in capital
+2 happiness from palace
-1 happiness in largest 6 cities

Vassalage
Feudalism
High Upkeep
+2 experience to new units
Free units <+6 base, +20% pop>

Federal
Paper
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> (Who would volunteer to go back to this civic?)

Decree
Writing
Low Upkeep
+25% culture
+1 happiness from palace

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

Jurisprudence
Constitution
Medium Upkeep
+25% culture
+10% science
+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)
+ 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)
(I would like this civic to give even more war wariness after Mass Media is researched. Is this possible?)


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)
-50% growth of Cottages, Hamlets, and Villages (urbanization isn't encouraged)
-1 happiness from (something) (serfs do not like being overworked)

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>


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
+1 commerce per specialist

Lassie-Faire
Economics
Low Upkeep
+2 trade routes (Many business incentives)
+25% production from forge, factory (Factories are worked overtime to increase production- and profit)
-2 health (Industrialists do not care about the environment. They see it as something to be used and abused)
-10% commerce (The corporation takes more for themselves)

Regulated Market
Industrialism
Medium Upkeep
+1 trade route per city (Some business incentives)
+10% production from forge, factory
+1 commerce, production, and science per specialist (Some government investments)
+3 Health

State Property
Communism
Low Upkeep
+1 Free Specialist (Investments can be directed to specific ends)
+1 Food from watermills, workshops
-25% Commerce trade yield (Individual initiatives are not encouraged)
-(1 or 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 all tiles already producing food <if not possible, +1 food from farms and watermills> (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.

I'd like to thank everyone for their comments, and especially thank everyone who gave detailed changes they would like me to make. I will go over them soon and make changes to this mod accordingly.
I'm sorry I haven't commented in a long time. I've been super-ultra-busy with work and I haven't even looked at this forum or played Civ 4 in over a week. I should have more time in a week or so to work on this mod and discuss things here.

Keep it coming Armandeus ! :D

I especially like CoV's ideas.

I especially like ToV's ideas.
Thanks, but just temember, those are not all my ideas. See the credits. And also, I have made changes to it since I posted it. I am constantly made some changes, and if you want to debate about them, do it in this thread: Civics: need modification? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137032&page=12)

Back to the topic at hand, I really hope the idea's I have presented will be used, since I personally have the modding skills of a small child. Or worse, an inanimate object, such as a potato. The point is that I am relying onthers to use my ideas.

I know you want to have a penalty for each civic, but sometimes the upkeep and / or the opertunity costs are enough. Instead of giving Pacifism a high upkeep, for example, work to make it's base effects more damaging. (I have done this by reducing the number of free units) Look into ideas such as these as you make changes. Above all, make it balanced. (That's what you promised in your title!)

OK, I updated the mod using some of the ideas presented here. The changes are in the first post of the thread.

I used a little of what ToV mentioned. However, I won't be copying exactly the conclusions reached in the "Civics: need modification?" thread. That's a mod for someone else to make. Also, some of the suggestions there are not possible using only the CIV4CivicInfos.xml file (which is what I am doing here). For example, "+25% commerce from markets, grocers" is not possible using the variables and parameters in CIV4CivicInfos.xml. You can add happiness or health for buildings, but not commerce or production. You can do it for improvements, but not for buildings.

Giving happiness penalties for non-state religions is difficult to mod right now, so I will try working on that later (if it is necessary).

I hope my additions and subtractions are more worthy of the title "balanced" than before. I will keep playtesting these changes, and reading everyone's constructive criticism.

I still need some more free time before I can make the other version I mentioned with some new civics in it. Basically my ideas are:

Get rid of Emancipation. It is less of a civic in itself than it is a denial of another civic. Doesn't changing your civic from Slavery to something else mean that your civ no longer practices slavery, therefore emancipating the slaves? The only purpose I see to Emancipation is in giving a strategic penalty to other civs still using Slavery (the "anger" penalty). Once all other civs have changed from Slavery, the penalty no longer affects them, and this final "best" civic is no longer meaningful to your civ. Instead, I'm thinking of replacing it with a civic representing organized labor.

For this mod, I'll keep the default categories, but I want to add one extra civic to each category. For example, for Labor, I'd like to add a civic representing flex time, working from your home, increased leisure time, etc. as the final "best" civic (after Organized Labor/Unions whatever). Other civics I'll add may come in the middle of the sequence. I have a few other ideas, but I'll talk about them later.

I think you've done some fine work here. Overall, though, I'd say you have made things tougher on players and maybe much tougher on the AI. I would encourage you to study how the AI handles the revised civs. It appears to me that the AI will implement any new, higher-ranked civ that it gets access to. So you should certainly examine the interplay between civs and techs.

Balance should not mean that all civs in a category are equally strong. There should be a progression as one moves up the tech tree.

I think you've done some fine work here. Overall, though, I'd say you have made things tougher on players and maybe much tougher on the AI. I would encourage you to study how the AI handles the revised civs. It appears to me that the AI will implement any new, higher-ranked civ that it gets access to. So you should certainly examine the interplay between civs and techs.
Balance should not mean that all civs in a category are equally strong. There should be a progression as one moves up the tech tree.

Thanks for the compliment. However, I haven't really noticed the AI getting significantly crippled in any games I've been playing with this mod. Maybe I'm missing something. If there is something specific, I would like to know about it.

My reasoning for changing the research bonus to a cultural one for Free Religion is one example of my attention to the relation between techs and civics.

The AI may implement new civics just because they are new. That is OK, I suppose, because they are in basic historical order, just like in the vanilla game. That means that there will be periods of prosperity and hardship similar to history. It doesn't seem like a major problem to me. I have noticed some AIs holding on to older civics in games I've played, so maybe the AI is better than we think. (?)

I don't think I'm striving to make all civics in a category "equally strong." I'm not comparing them to each other (except to avoid duplication). Rather I am comparing them to what I think generally happened historically concerning that particular civic. With that in mind, I try to give both negative and positive aspects to each civic, so the player (or AI) has to consider the good with the bad, which I think is interesting. That is what I mean by "balance."

I updated the mod again slightly. See the first post.

Armandeus, the civics look much more balanced now. However, I would suggest you do three things.

1) Re-write the list on the front page so it includes all effects that it will include including the original effects. This way, it is much easier to see if it is balanced.

2) I personally would give free Speech a much higher war wariness penalty, such as +50% or higher.

3) You said that your main complaint with pacifism is that the extra +1 gold does not have much effect, because of the free units. To fix this, simply reduce the number of free units.

Tov, I like your suggestions.

1. You're right, I need to do that as soon as possible.

2. I was actually going to do that, but I thought a big penalty would upset a lot of people. I will do that soon.

3. That's a good idea, but I think the number of free units is 0 by default, and I think Pacifism is set at the default. I'm not sure how to reduce free units further. Maybe I could try a negative number, but I doubt it will work. Hmm.

Great mod. I'd like to find a way to have buildings built slightly faster under Slavery, just to add something that makes this civic a bit more attractive - but I see no way to do this with the switches available to us.

I've tweaked war weariness for Free Speech as 35. After this round of adding mods to my fusion mod, I'll playtest and report back.

In general, thanks for this mod, as it inserts more decisions into the game.

Armandeus, you know how you have problems with the Distance and City Maitetaince Modifiers. I thought you would like to know that Aussie_Lurker has found that it is simply a text error.

ToV, can you give me a link to the post where he describes this? Thanks.

Here is the link:v0.01 ALPHA: Expanded Civic System and Other Changes (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159338&page=2) It is on the third or fourth post on the page. I should mention that technically Aussie_Lurker did not discover this. Holistic did.

Get rid of Emancipation. It is less of a civic in itself than it is a denial of another civic. Doesn't changing your civic from Slavery to something else mean that your civ no longer practices slavery, therefore emancipating the slaves? The only purpose I see to Emancipation is in giving a strategic penalty to other civs still using Slavery (the "anger" penalty). Once all other civs have changed from Slavery, the penalty no longer affects them, and this final "best" civic is no longer meaningful to your civ. Instead, I'm thinking of replacing it with a civic representing organized labor.

I know I come after the debat but :
I think that emancipation has a negative penality against ALL non emancipation civics : ie : servage and caste system : not only slavery.
IMO, emancipation looks like what we think we have now in most western countries : all people are supposed to be equals in rights...etc. and we disapprove of systems where some cathegories of people are less equals.
on the other hand I have currently no idea of bonus-malus to add to it.

I had a question on your slavery civic :
is a 2unhappy people really playable at high level? (I don't play at monarch but I've read about it): when your city is limited to pop 3 due to happiness, a +2 unhappy is a big drain on your biggest city (not capital) ie : you cannot have cities bigger than 1 pop. or you especially make one at 4 to have the malus and it is perpetually in a revolution state.
I understand the will of it, but if on prince we can easily have 7-10 pop city : a 2unhappy is a balanced enough malus, but on higher levels... I'm dubious.

I hate necromancy but I noticed that this was not updated for BTS. I did that but did modifications of my own.

One I have a question about. I added to Pacifism <civicpercentanger> equal to that of emancipation. Does anyone know how this works? I know for emancipation it affects this civic so I'm assuming that if you ahve this in differnt civic categories it affects only that category.

Armandeus, Very nice work.

I agree with your pacifism +100% war wearniess-as you say, it IS pacifism...

The only thing i would be carefull about is clutter in both percentages and the amount of benefits per civics.

Re %s, i would suggest limiting yourself to a "pallette" of 20%, 50% 100%; purely in the interest of simplicity and immediately seeing the benefits/disadvantages of a certain combo of civics. Adding up 10s and 15s can be a bit tedious, and the AI can exploit them right quick sometimes!

Re the amount of benefits/Disadvantages, the same rule would apply- simplicity in order to maintain clarity. I understand that small changes can add a real 'flavour' to a civic but i would, personally, caution against having more than 3-4 max benefits/disadvs for any civic. It simply gets a bit micro-managerial to weigh up every instance, and then some benefits will inevitably be lost in the noise. A few strong, efficient and clear benefits/disadvantages to each civic would be best.

These are only personal comments, I really think youve done a very nice job here. Alot of them ive come tomyself- eg the slavery+plantations, +1 happy from factory under State Property, commerce+production from towns under UniSuff, etc. Good to see there are like minds out there :)

Regards,
HDK