General discussion for civics

[Thunderbrd]

Much as I like that idea in principle, I think that regrettably, the effects won't work in a good way in Civ. I've seen it done in other games (especially Victoria 2), and it didn't work right. The problem is that humans are much better at making decisions than the AI is, meaning that human civilisations - especially ones played by skilled players - have a massive incentive to maximise public production just to stop the AI wasting production on dumb stuff.

How is that a problem? Our civilization spends an exorbitant amount of wasted production on 'dumb stuff'. A planned society should be far more superior. But the trade off is that people aren't as motivated in such a planned society, so there tends to be a major reduction in production on a public queue. If the AI was done properly, it would be an interesting option anyhow.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think your assuming that the state was the primary innovator of technology throughout human history. How foolish!

Of course it hasn't been, which is why it's silly that our current model as it stands, puts the state forward as the primary innovator of technology.

State funded research is meant to be represented by research producing buildings and the assignment of scientist specialists

Actually - that's the other way around. What specialists one has is the activity of the private domain and excess productivity of its citizens and where they choose to put their excess efforts and how they've developed specialized expertise. That there is any player control over specialists decisions and what tiles to work is where things are a bit off from the model of the player as the state. The benefits derived from buildings one has is the result of the private industry being active thanks to such buildings being present. This is where the divided build queue would also then make more sense.

IMHO like others have stated I feel like the player represents the soul of the nation and the totality of it's people. Hence the ability to freely switch civics, determine where they spend their surplus capital, or what buildings they construct (instead of simply zoning it out despite running capitalistic civics). Leaderheads represent the soul of the regime and it's nuanced ways of conducting governance (a.k.a. the ruling class). A rival regime that contests the current ruling class and desires to bring in a truly new ruling class of it's own to replace the old one is represented by the revolution/civil war mod comp.

In the effort of design there are many similar outlooks I share with you here except that the choices the player has are the choices the state has. In fact, as stated above, it should really be that to influence specialist selections should cost some gold (subsidies) to do so, or something that you have to DO to influence the allocations. I suppose the interesting thing about so many options is that the game design in all honesty allows for players to SEE it more however they wish, which makes it much like a song - you hear the lyrics to mean different things you relate to than another fan of the same song.

 

[pi4t]

How is that a problem? Our civilization spends an exorbitant amount of wasted production on 'dumb stuff'. A planned society should be far more superior. But the trade off is that people aren't as motivated in such a planned society, so there tends to be a major reduction in production on a public queue. If the AI was done properly, it would be an interesting option anyhow.

The problem is one of game balance: a planned society run by the player is far superior to a planned society run by the AI, but a free society is the same whether it's linked with an AI or player controlled civilisation. So you'll end up with one (or both) of two things:

1) Add so many bonuses to the private queue that it becomes competitive with a player-run public queue. If you do this, then the AI will always be much better off using the private queue, meaning AI controlled planned societies will be very weak, and will be crushed by AI controlled free societies.
2) Keep the private queue bonuses in check so that the private queue is equal in power to a public queue run by an AI. But then for the player, it will always be optimal to use the public queue as much as possible, because a player run public queue is so much better than an AI run public queue.

I can only see two ways around this problem.
A) Make the private queue's decision making so incompetent that player-run and AI-run public queues look pretty similar by comparison. And then give it big efficiency boosts to compensate for this. I'm honestly not sure this is possible - even having the citizens make completely random decisions on what to build might not be enough.
B) Give the private build queue more bonuses for the player than for the AI. I think the tidiest way to do this would be to give the player's private queue the same benefits that the AIs get in from the difficulty level.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The problem is one of game balance: a planned society run by the player is far superior to a planned society run by the AI, but a free society is the same whether it's linked with an AI or player controlled civilisation. So you'll end up with one (or both) of two things:

1) Add so many bonuses to the private queue that it becomes competitive with a player-run public queue. If you do this, then the AI will always be much better off using the private queue, meaning AI controlled planned societies will be very weak, and will be crushed by AI controlled free societies.
2) Keep the private queue bonuses in check so that the private queue is equal in power to a public queue run by an AI. But then for the player, it will always be optimal to use the public queue as much as possible, because a player run public queue is so much better than an AI run public queue.

I can only see two ways around this problem.
A) Make the private queue's decision making so incompetent that player-run and AI-run public queues look pretty similar by comparison. And then give it big efficiency boosts to compensate for this. I'm honestly not sure this is possible - even having the citizens make completely random decisions on what to build might not be enough.
B) Give the private build queue more bonuses for the player than for the AI. I think the tidiest way to do this would be to give the player's private queue the same benefits that the AIs get in from the difficulty level.

The way to address this, aside from bonusing the private with extra production, which is already stated, is to make the AI's for each queue value different things. We already have to have an AI that values its overall play strategy (public) but for the private queue, you make it value what the people want over strategic competitiveness of the nation. Sometimes they'd be in agreement, albeit rarely. It's a matter of just programming the two AIs with different priorities and value systems. Different leaders and some random and ingame current dominant societal 'ideas' would influence much, including where the AI wants to be in its civic selections that control which queue has greater share of dominance.

IF, btw, your first statement is always true:

a planned society run by the player is far superior to a planned society run by the AI

then we never have a good game to play against an AI because currently all we have are fully planned societies as it stands now.

 

[Joij21]

then we never have a good game to play against an AI because currently all we have are fully planned societies as it stands now.

I wouldn't say it's so much a planned economy so much as the player or AI represents the zeitgeist or soul of the economy/totality of all the citizens' thoughts, desires, and ambitions (short of the rebellious and criminal ones). The player in essence is the law abiding and culturally/socially normative mindset of the nation.

I really don't think we should turn the player into solely the role of the state as that would mostly mean the player would be limited to the control of just military units throughout most of the game. Neither do I think we have to complicate things by creating separate building ques. The player can represent both the private and public sector as well as the public-private relationship inherent to earlier societies via commons.

Actually - that's the other way around. What specialists one has is the activity of the private domain and excess productivity of its citizens and where they choose to put their excess efforts and how they've developed specialized expertise. That there is any player control over specialists decisions and what tiles to work is where things are a bit off from the model of the player as the state. The benefits derived from buildings one has is the result of the private industry being active thanks to such buildings being present. This is where the divided build queue would also then make more sense.

Except Sid Mier used caste system, and mercantilism to perfect the specialist based strategy. One which is the state deciding what you shall be for the rest of one's life at birth, and the other being a interventionist government regulating the market to create free specialists.

IMHO it was the cottage spam strategy in the base game that was meant to represent a privatized capitalistic economy. Especially since neoliberalism often leads to suburban sprawl with boomers speculating on property values for their retirement since the state in this kind of system refuses to give them an end of life safety net.

 

[Joij21]

In the effort of design there are many similar outlooks I share with you here except that the choices the player has are the choices the state has.

There hardly is a state in the prehistoric when the game begins. It's Alpha males and females! And before you build those buildings it's essentially nothing, thus proving it has to be the zeitgeist.

 

[Maltazard]

Hmm, well, let me also clarify what I meant with "national spirit" then. It's not quite the right term, after all nation is a modern concept. What I meant is that when I play Civ, I don't identify as the State or the leader, but rather I identify fully as the whole Civilization.

So, if at some point I'm playing the Romans and we have a major gold surplus and are somewhat backwards, I'll put 100% into the tech slider and expect that all sectors of my civilization, as they can be identified by age and technology appropriate notions ("public property" as intended in ancient greece has very little to do with public property as intended in modern States - let alone getting into feudal, monarchist or dictatorial systems) are going to pour their resources into technology. If, later on, I need more gold or culture, throught the slider I'll steer my whole Civilization, whose soul, spirit, zeitgeist or whatever you wanna call it I embody, accordingly. If I ran my civilization poorly I'll have to cut back on expenditure and rebuild an economy capable of supporting more expenditure.
At no point I would ever put a distinction between private and public actvitity in all of this though, it adds excessive complexity for very little reward and takes away control from the player. Again, when I'm playing, I am the Romans, not Julius Caesar, not the government of the Romans, I embody the whole civilization, all of its faces, and I feel this has been implied in the name of the game quite aptly.

Writing this I just realized why I like Civ so much: it makes me Deus ex machina of a whole civilization. So cool!

 

[Joij21]

Hmm, well, let me also clarify what I meant with "national spirit" then. It's not quite the right term, after all nation is a modern concept. What I meant is that when I play Civ, I don't identify as the State or the leader, but rather I identify fully as the whole Civilization.

So, if at some point I'm playing the Romans and we have a major gold surplus and are somewhat backwards, I'll put 100% into the tech slider and expect that all sectors of my civilization, as they can be identified by age and technology appropriate notions ("public property" as intended in ancient greece has very little to do with public property as intended in modern States - let alone getting into feudal, monarchist or dictatorial systems) are going to pour their resources into technology. If, later on, I need more gold or culture, throught the slider I'll steer my whole Civilization, whose soul, spirit, zeitgeist or whatever you wanna call it I embody, accordingly. If I ran my civilization poorly I'll have to cut back on expenditure and rebuild an economy capable of supporting more expenditure.
At no point I would ever put a distinction between private and public actvitity in all of this though, it adds excessive complexity for very little reward and takes away control from the player. Again, when I'm playing, I am the Romans, not Julius Caesar, not the government of the Romans, I embody the whole civilization, all of its faces, and I feel this has been implied in the name of the game quite aptly.

Writing this I just realized why I like Civ so much: it makes me Deus ex machina of a whole civilization. So cool!

That's more or less how I've always seen it. Rather than an immortal leader who never dies from the stone age to near future.

 

[JosEPh_II]

That made you sound like one:

Digital chips under skin are absolutely unnecessary - just have normal devices collecting all your data for advertising purposes, so you have personal advertisements.
Have some authoritarian regimes seize that data.

Every country has its own pseudohistory, that makes them sound better/more powerful than they used to.

You better wise up raxo. Klaus Scwhab, Bill Gates, Yuval Harari and the WEF council in conjunction with the UN and the WHO are planning just such a thing. I can provide video clips from their latest Davos Meeting were they tell you that is exactly what they will do to everyone. Klaus Schwab's 4th Indusrial revolution is the 4th Reich. This information is easy to find as they are not hiding their Agenda. they want a One World Order or NWO as fast as they can grab the power to do it.

 

[JosEPh_II]

The Constitution does not call for such things the Declaration of Independence does. However it does so not in a legal sense (since rebellion can never be legitimized as legal) but rather a moral sense, that is if a state no longer gains consent from the people then the state is automatically unjust and it would therefore be morally righteous for the people to overthrow it.

The people nevertheless still have to win the civil war, if they fail they will be hung for treason or die on the field of battle.

The Declaration of Independence Listed all the reasons for the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution lays out, with the Bill of Rights, How this Independence will be instituted and maintained. Especially when the Gov't is no longer for the People or by the People. We have reached that point. The current Admin is in fact a coup and they are selling America to the Chinese. Have been selling America to them since 1971 when Nixon visited them back then. Deals were made and the US Gov't has been funneling money to China for decades. Pres Trump put a choke hold on that while he was in office. The current Admin is deeply in bed with XI.

Are you American? Natural Born?

 

[pi4t]

IF, btw, your first statement is always true:

then we never have a good game to play against an AI because currently all we have are fully planned societies as it stands now.

Well...yeah. That's why the AI gets a bunch of artificial numerical bonuses to be competitive. It would be lovely if the AI's decision making could be improved until it's on a par with players, but realistically, that's never going to happen within the constraints of Civ's architecture. Or even within the constraints of all current programming in general. So instead, we have the AI 'cheat', giving them bonus resources roughly equal to those that players get from skill.

If the human switches to private production, they give up their key advantage, at least as far as build queues are concerned. But if AIs switch to private production, they still keep the bonus resources that simulate human skill optimisations.

The only reasonable solution that I can see is to fold the difficulty level bonuses, or at least some of them, into the bonuses from private production, rather than having them stack. It makes sense to do that, IMO: if bonuses from difficulty level are a buff for all the AIs in the game to make them as strong as a human making decisions, then that should also apply to AIs that are helping human players. But counterintuitively, it means that the bonus received from private production should be higher - at least for the human - at higher difficulty levels, because playing if you choose a high difficulty level, you're telling the game that you're much more skilled than its AIs and it should compensate accordingly.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I wouldn't go so far as to say those claiming the U.S. is a republic are like Russians and Chinese nationalists. That just seems a little too insulting and they're technically correct, the U.S. isn't a true democracy, at least not at the Federal, state, and county levels. It sort of is at the municipal level with the exception of cities and their boroughs operating as mini republics. Hence a democratic republic.

More specifically the United States of America is a federal constitutionalist democratic republic with neoliberal mainstream political views and egalitarian social views with an emphasis libertarianism.

The US is a Constitutional Republic period. But the ones that want the USA destroyed add in the words Democracy and Federal. The USA will return to the Constitution Republic it is supposed to be. Not what the Bidenites/socialists want it to be.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@Blazenclaw,
I have some Civics tweaks I need added. Let me know if you will add them for me. I will then give them to you in a PM. Also, the New Civic screen does not work properly IF you chose the Let me see Option when a New Civic choice can be made. Posted screenshots and save game in Bug sub forum

 

[raxo2222]

You better wise up raxo. Klaus Scwhab, Bill Gates, Yuval Harari and the WEF council in conjunction with the UN and the WHO are planning just such a thing. I can provide video clips from their latest Davos Meeting were they tell you that is exactly what they will do to everyone. Klaus Schwab's 4th Indusrial revolution is the 4th Reich. This information is easy to find as they are not hiding their Agenda. they want a One World Order or NWO as fast as they can grab the power to do it.

I know, that rich people are up to something, but they aren't demons from hell.
They want to protect their interests with grace of drunk elephant.

Also pretty sure antiglobalist socialists would eat rich too, especially those people you mention.

The US is a Constitutional Republic period. But the ones that want the USA destroyed add in the words Democracy and Federal. The USA will return to the Constitution Republic it is supposed to be. Not what the Bidenites/socialists want it to be.

Well Canada and other nations have no problem with being unitary democracy.
Also didn't y'all invade Iraq and other places to introduce democracy?

 

[JosEPh_II]

I know, that rich people are up to something, but they aren't demons from hell.
They want to protect their interests with grace of drunk elephant.

Also pretty sure antiglobalist socialists would eat rich too, especially those people you mention.


Well Canada and other nations have no problem with being unitary democracy.

Also didn't y'all invade Iraq and other places to introduce democracy?

Why do you like rabbit trails?

Why do you like rabbit trails? And are you sure about that? Harari and Schwab want to put computer chips in unborn children's heads while still in the womb. They have said so in videos that were made Public by them. Harari carries on about Human cyborgs being an actual thing now. He openly says that the God of the Hebrew Bible only created Organic things, trees, giraffes and humans that kind of thing. (He acknowledges there is a God, but He and friends are bigger and better gods) But they (Klaus and friends) will create better things by machines. Bill G and B Obama praised his book detailing this abomination. They both have publicly said they want depopulation. And only the elite will make the decisions. If you as a slave can not perform a desired function for them then you are totally expendable and unwanted. Not worth the resources to keep you alive. There is Documented Video evidence of them Publicly saying these things. They think they are unstoppable and are quite brazen in their openly despicable disregard for human life.

Canadian citizens hate Trudeau. He is only hanging on by a slim margin in their Parliament. He was aided by the Backers of the WEF just to get his position as it is, and to hang on to it in the last election. The Canadian people do Not like what their Gov't has done to them. Nor being called a "unitary democracy".

So, I'm done with this twisted idiocy on display here. Continue to play the ostrich. That is your choice.

 

[raxo2222]

Why do you like rabbit trails? And are you sure about that? Harari and Schwab want to put computer chips in unborn children's heads while still in the womb. They have said so in videos that were made Public by them. Harari carries on about Human cyborgs being an actual thing now. He openly says that the God of the Hebrew Bible only created Organic things, trees, giraffes and humans that kind of thing. (He acknowledges there is a God, but He and friends are bigger and better gods) But they (Klaus and friends) will create better things by machines. Bill G and B Obama praised his book detailing this abomination. They both have publicly said they want depopulation. And only the elite will make the decisions. If you as a slave can not perform a desired function for them then you are totally expendable and unwanted. Not worth the resources to keep you alive. There is Documented Video evidence of them Publicly saying these things. They think they are unstoppable and are quite brazen in their openly despicable disregard for human life.

Canadian citizens hate Trudeau. He is only hanging on by a slim margin in their Parliament. He was aided by the Backers of the WEF just to get his position as it is, and to hang on to it in the last election. The Canadian people do Not like what their Gov't has done to them. Nor being called a "unitary democracy".

So, I'm done with this twisted idiocy on display here. Continue to play the ostrich. That is your choice.

Because its fun. Those are nice ideas for playing as evil internationalist organization. Or modding in one.
In fact Terra Invicta lets you play as one - The Initiative.

Also it makes sound like Milton Friedman and Chicago Boys is too much capitalism in capitalism.
What you described could be as well lore for cyberpunk game - hatred of runaway capitalism - no matter if you want to remove it altogether or just regulate it

We do have Mind Control, Megacorporations and few other civics like that in game.
Make them as evil as you want.

This mod is full of transhumanist stuff - see all Human Mod national wonders
Human cyborgs are a thing there, you didn't play far enough.
You can create artificial life starting with bacteria, then make more complex animals, and eventually entire fantasy planets, galaxies and universes.
That is your civilization eventually can rival with God.

That is you and they played way too much Caveman2Cosmos ;^)

Spoiler :

Also lots of tech inspirations came from this site.

They went after trade unions, poor, women, LGBT, ethic minorities, and everyone else that aren't like me - I sleep.
Then they went after me - looks like I'm last person here. Should have kept things perfectly balanced.
And Timmy f. died.
Extraterrestrial civilization found this tomb world, +50 to research, good thing we balanced our ethics.

 

[JosEPh_II]

 

[Thunderbrd]

but realistically, that's never going to happen

And yet that's where we work on things the most at this point.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Hmm, well, let me also clarify what I meant with "national spirit" then. It's not quite the right term, after all nation is a modern concept. What I meant is that when I play Civ, I don't identify as the State or the leader, but rather I identify fully as the whole Civilization.

So, if at some point I'm playing the Romans and we have a major gold surplus and are somewhat backwards, I'll put 100% into the tech slider and expect that all sectors of my civilization, as they can be identified by age and technology appropriate notions ("public property" as intended in ancient greece has very little to do with public property as intended in modern States - let alone getting into feudal, monarchist or dictatorial systems) are going to pour their resources into technology. If, later on, I need more gold or culture, throught the slider I'll steer my whole Civilization, whose soul, spirit, zeitgeist or whatever you wanna call it I embody, accordingly. If I ran my civilization poorly I'll have to cut back on expenditure and rebuild an economy capable of supporting more expenditure.
At no point I would ever put a distinction between private and public actvitity in all of this though, it adds excessive complexity for very little reward and takes away control from the player. Again, when I'm playing, I am the Romans, not Julius Caesar, not the government of the Romans, I embody the whole civilization, all of its faces, and I feel this has been implied in the name of the game quite aptly.

Writing this I just realized why I like Civ so much: it makes me Deus ex machina of a whole civilization. So cool!

That's more or less how I've always seen it. Rather than an immortal leader who never dies from the stone age to near future.

It's cool that different players see it different ways. Obviously from a mod design perspective we still have to come at it with something of a bit less allegorical concept or things are even more difficult to determine what to do with stat-wise. It might be interesting to consider reviewing all civics and buildings for varied defined 'player role' perspectives that could be packaged into differing options. Which is in part one reason we have so many options as it is.

 

[Joij21]

The Declaration of Independence Listed all the reasons for the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution lays out, with the Bill of Rights, How this Independence will be instituted and maintained. Especially when the Gov't is no longer for the People or by the People. We have reached that point. The current Admin is in fact a coup and they are selling America to the Chinese. Have been selling America to them since 1971 when Nixon visited them back then. Deals were made and the US Gov't has been funneling money to China for decades. Pres Trump put a choke hold on that while he was in office. The current Admin is deeply in bed with XI.

Except the government can amend amendments including the Bill of Rights. So the government could remove all it's legal obligations to not infringe upon people's rights legally if the people freely consent to give it up.

You assume that the military would take action via a coup da tat which would be impossible and incredibly likely to fail with dire consequences unless one has a five star general or admiral on board. Though preferably you would want at least half the Pentagon to agree to such a coup for it to be successful without incident. Without which all other insurrections or rebellious activity will be easy to put down as they would have no legitimacy from a faction with real militaristic power on the ground since without any five star commanders many units within the United States would be in disagreement with one another and to avoid consequences they may find it safer to rat out to the top brass and reign in the disloyal units.

Ain't no way the Pentagon is at such a point of contention with Biden and his administration whatsoever. He is their commander in chief and they are obliged to follow him per the Constitution. Plus Biden has yet to do something so outrageous where it would make political sense to oust him. Suspecting him of being a sell out to the Chinese is just that speculation, one needs scientifically proven proof that he did blatantly illegal things that would constitute treason. As far as I know such proof does not exist, hence it would be politically non prudent and illegitimate to take such extreme action.

The US is a Constitutional Republic period. But the ones that want the USA destroyed add in the words Democracy and Federal. The USA will return to the Constitution Republic it is supposed to be. Not what the Bidenites/socialists want it to be.

What are you talking about? We are a federation by definition! Our states act as mini republics separate from the central government. That's why our central government, the Union, is referred to as "Federal" as in being a byproduct of the congregation of the states who assemble via their representatives in a "Congress" derived from the aforementioned word congregation.

It was the Continental "Congress" that is a congregation of the colonies questioning wether or not to succeed from Britain which signed both The Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. The federation of the states and therefore the federal government itself predates the Constitution itself.

Are you American? Natural Born?

My, my, how racist and bigoted to assume I must be a foreigner for not believing in your definitions of things.

Yes, and yes.