v0.01 ALPHA: Expanded Civic System and Other Changes

Aussie_Lurker said:

The question is, should I make yield and commerces changes contingent on a Priest, or the presence of the State Religion?

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If this bonuses will give to priests, they will be very powerfull, and anyone will use only priests, when you want this formula, you must rebalance other specialists on other civics(for example: merchants bonuses with economies civics).

I thought, it can not be done with xml, it can be nice have that formulas, but it is not very important, because when you play and have state religion, you still spread your state religion into every city.

Aussie_Lurker said:

@Roland. I am specifically talking about the City Maintainance costs (both distance and Number of Cities).
For example. I have a civic (Imperialism) which is supposed to reduce the Distance from Capital costs by around 25%. However, when I set the <iCityDistanceModifier> to -25%, it comes up in the Civic Screen saying 'No Distance Maintainance Costs'. The same happens when I try and change the Number of Cities cost as well. Do you see what I mean now?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

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Ah, ok, I see the problem now. Probably you don't know exactly what the modifier does (there doesn't exist a modifier named iCityDistanceModifier, so I guess that naming was just used for explaining the problem to me). My guess would be one of three possibilities:

1) The ingame text is wrong and there still is a distance maintenance. Maybe the game has only the choice between 2 types of texts and puts one of them in the civics section that describes the effect of what you've changed to the civic closest (in the opinion of a computer).
2) The modifier has a value between 0 and 25 at the map size that you're testing it. The reduction of 25 is not a percentage reduction, like you think but a percentage point reduction. So the value becomes below 0 and rounded to 0 by the game.
Note that if you're changing a variable that is map size dependent, that it might be difficult to find a reduction that is fair on every map size.
3) The game doesn't accept modifiers to this variable between 0 and -100 and rounds the modifier to -100%. This is what you're thinking.

I would ask a question about it in this thread. There is some research into city maintenance modifiers in that thread and they probably know what the problem is.

Good luck!

Both the city distance upkeep modifiers (CDM) and city number upkeep modifiers (CNM) do work. A quick test with different CNM-values (standard map, 25 size 1 cities, Noble difficulty, Gandhi) had the following city upkeeps;
The differences between -25% and -50% will increase with more cities -- up to a point, since CNM is anyway capped (as is shown in the thread to which Roland linked). Anyway, the point is that the reduction does work, it's just not reported correctly on the civics screen. "No city number maintenance" (or something to that effect) shows regardless of the reduction. "No distance maintenance" is reported whenever the chosen civics amount to (at least) 100% reduction of CDM and seems to work more or less OK.

(EDITed for some clarity)

Ahhh, thank you muchly Holistic-it is nice knowing that it is a text-based error, and not a mechanical error (still hope they fix the text error though, as it is a bit annoying). To everyone else all I can say is 'Trust me, those maintainance modifiers for organisation civics are NOT making them maintainance free )

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Some comments, and for legibility I bolded the names of the civics. I hope I do not come across as overly negative, since I think the system looks good even in its alpha-stage.

First and foremost; 7 by 7 civics is... many. Not necessarily too many, but given the layout of the civics' screen and the lack of general effects such as in SMAC, it gets rather hard to get a good overview. Some trimming might be in order. Of course, the names of the civics make some "synergies" easier to spot than others. Also, the "baseline" civics have actual effects, which makes them more interesting, but I'd still suggest that their net effect should remain zero. I.e. one baseline-civic's bonus would be another's penalty. Like Roland suggested, modifying the upkeeps could be a good idea (perhaps even add a fifth setting (Very High, corresponding to the present "High")?).

Besides City Number Maintenance acting up, War Weariness also has a tendency to do so (-80% WW (from Oli-Sur-ML) was reported as "No WW"), as do food- and hammer-bonuses from trade routes. Do they in fact work at all? At least the information in the City Screen when Barter is in effect is very erroneous. Somewhat unexpectedly, Caste System shrank borders due to the free specialists (citizens) giving negative culture when run with certain other civics. Since I'm used to Caste System being a decent way to expand borders of new or newly conquered cities faster, this was not a very nice "surprise" (free artists would remedy most border-shrinking, though). Martial Law's unhappiness from conscription was instantly balanced by happiness from military presence, maybe by design? It's too bad that conscription-bonuses in CivicInfos also enable conscription. The only civic name that I'd suggest changing is Ethnic Segregation to "apartheid", since the latter is shorter. However, isn't apartheid already to some degree represented by Caste System? I.e. as in caste determined by ethnicity?

As for culture-modifiers, I actually feel they're too harsh at the moment (at least for the early available civics). Perhaps this is by design (or my playstyle), but the problem is that the penalties can't be easily "countered" until Drama is available. It also makes the land-grabbing phase even harder, especially when Obelisks give no culture if the wrong civics are selected. Should probably test it with a Creative leader next time, though (I tested with Mansa Musa). This could either be "remedied" by either removing the culture penalties (not a good idea, since I don't really know what you wish to model with the culture penalties - perhaps happiness penalties could serve equally well?), or introduce the penalty when a certain technology is discovered (is this possible?), or have certain civics give certain buildings culture bonuses (again, possible?).

Techwise, the upmost branch of the early tech tree (well, the two of them) is the only one not associated with civics, and some could be moved there (I'd suggest City States, at least with Sailing as a prerequisite tech if City States gets its own tech). I'd also suggest moving Universal Suffrage to either Electricity or Radio (or a new of its own), off the Industrialism-branch.

As for Slavery, the pop-rushing feature seems rather undervalued. Pop-rushing means (or should mean) that food becomes the main source of production; hammer- and commerce-bonuses to tiles work against the main feature of Slavery - which is why I also suggest pop-rushing remain exclusive to Slavery, and why farm-bonuses under Serfdom make the civic seriously "overpowered", as long as it enables pop-rushing. The +2 food bonus from farms should perhaps be lowered to +1, or scrapped altogether. Pastures and plantations are more "situational", but even then a +2 food bonus is simply too much (since it in effect enables an extra citizen, which somewhat goes against serfdom being a "rural" civic). I'd suggest giving food-bonuses to otherwise food-scarce improvements instead (such as workshops, mines, quarries etc.). Other than the unexpected border-shrinking, Caste System looks better. But why the increased unit support cost and high upkeep? If it is to balance the improvement-yield bonuses, I'd actually suggest at least removing the hammer-bonus from improvements (and perhaps even just give plantations, quarries and workshops one extra commerce).

Enabling cash-rushing (through Professional labor) already at Guilds might be a slightly too early. Again, I prefer smaller bonuses to improvement yields, but that's just me. Given that Professional labor enables cash rushing, commerce-bonuses might be slightly more "useful". Similarly, Organized labor might benefit more from commerce-bonuses to improvements (as long as cash-rushing is enabled). Military Conscription offers highly limited benefits (both conscription and free units can be had from other civics), and breaks the tendency of labor-options having effects on improvement yields. Perhaps hammer-bonuses would fit? Or for that matter, faster military unit-production? I'd also suggest replacing either Military Conscription or Professional with (or just add) a "Industrialized" labor civic (or something to that effect, basically reflecting the adjustment to workdays measured by hours). Industrialized would enable cash-rushing and significantly increase "urbanization" (i.e. Improvement Upgrade Rate), Organized would not have cash-rushing and have a smaller upgrade rate.

Like Military Conscription, Dictatorship seems rather weak at the moment. The culture-penalty is positively crippling if Caste System is "accidentaly" in effect. While this might be by design, I don't really see how the two concepts would be incompatible. Making it have more "synergy" with e.g. Martial Law might also be a good idea. Oligarchy is slightly more useful, but could perhaps have synergies with Property Rights or Plutocratic (since oligarchies are not an uncommon result of increased economic power)? As for Monarchy, the republican in me fails to see the difference to Dictatorship, but otherwise, it looks quite good, although the bonuses in themselves work for slightly different ends. Perhaps the GPP-modification could be more pronounced (at the expense of the bonus trade routes or the unhealth (which makes it slightly harder to actually do something useful with the GPP-bonus)).

Republic also looks good, but again I'd suggest "profiling" the civic (by perhaps altogether scrapping the GPP-bonus). The culture-penalty to specialists, again, is not very nice without Theatres (Drama as a tech prereq (would work for a ancient Greece-style democracy)? Or maybe a new tech with Drama and Code of Laws as prereqs?). Democracy is already quite nicely distinguished from Republic with bonuses to science instead of gold, but if Republic is "profiled" towards trade, Democracy could be profiled towards GPP (with the health-bonus and all). Although, GP:s are of less use by the time Democracy is available. Police State in its current shape doesn't really seem to warrant a High upkeep, and by the time it's available, health is more of a limit to city growth than happiness (which make the penalty somewhat "harsher", although with the penalty to GPP and trade routes, makes megacities less attractive). Again, profiling could be an idea (e.g. even harsher penalty to GPP and health, no happy-bonus (except maybe from Jails?), but more free units and even less WW).

As for the Ideology-column, I prefer the somewhat more neutral "Values"-term of SMAC, but it's easy enough for me to change for my own use. Survival (finally) makes arctic starts easier (perhaps even too easy). Plutocratic (Wealth?) also looks good, although I'd return the unlimited artists to Caste System (sorry 'bout the ranting, I just hadn't seen newly built cities' borders shrink before). Feudalist also looks pretty good (but isn't the food-bonus already somewhat modelled by Serfdom in its current form?). Faster city growth and more unhappies from large cities make for prime pop-rushing cities, though (but doesn't IMHO really "fit" as a model for feudal societies, where peasants "should" work the fields). If it is possible through Python, I'd also suggest that the XP-bonus should not be "general" but given by Castles.

Militaristic (Power?) is perhaps available slightly too early for the culture penalty (perhaps more science-penalty -- or perhaps a GPP-penalty instead?). As for Socialist, the happyfaces from Hospitals make them more valuable, and the health bonus somewhat superfluous (though nice). Since culture to some degree models propaganda, a bonus could actually make sense (actually somewhat more than a hammer-bonus). Why the science-bonus and extra trade-routes from Fascist ideology? Without foreign trade (which does make sense), the actual benefit from trade-routes is anyway rather limited. Unlimited priests from Theocratic does make sense, but with Angkor Wat this could be slightly unbalancing - is this a "placeholder" for extra priests from temples?

Why does City State enable drafting, and why not a happiness-penalty instead of culture-penalty? Oh, and as placeholder art, the City Ruins-button could work. Imperial looks quite good, but should (and will?) be available later than Monarchy, or after whatever tech grants Dictatorship -- or Hegemonic for that matter. For Hegemonic, how about a happiness penalty from Courthouses (the "symbol" of the hegemon) instead of a culture penalty? The new Nation State looks good, as does Devolved (though perhaps it should/will be available later than Liberalism?). Federalism also looks good, though I'd move it to Constitution.

I think I'll stop here, and I hope the input is at least of some use.

(EDITed for (some) clarity)

Wow, that is a LOT of info Holistic-it is going to take a lot of time for me to sort through it all ! A lot of what you say definitely makes sense, and I will look at starting to implement some of them. One thing I wanted to explain, though, was my thinking behind 'City-States'. For me the Great Age of the City-State was during the Early to Late Classical Eras-which to me is best represented by Polytheism. It might be possible to move it to either Bronze or Iron Working-or Sailing as you suggest. I should also point out though that Polytheism might be appearing just a little bit later in the game after I introduce the Shamanism Tech. As for its Culture and Conscription effects, I felt that a nation running city states will have precious little 'National Identity'-which is what high culture values allow a player to achieve-so I wanted a situation where someone running the civic might have a reasonable culture border around their cities, but not sufficient to link them up into a cohesive national border. With conscription, again it relates to the nature of the city-state, that people might be more inclined to rush to the defense of their CITY, than to the more nebulous concept of the nation. Anyway, hope that makes some sense .

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

That does make sense. As for conscription, it offers very little at early stages of the game anyway (worst case scenario, a 15-hammer warrior takes as many pop-points as a 110-hammer rifleman). A defense-bonus (which I assume can be given through python?) could maybe be an alternative (and to some degree compensate for the slightly slower establishment of cultural defenses)?

Two corrections to my above post (which probably needs a lot more corrections, but anyhow); Barter is not the culprit, I just hadn't noticed the food-bar on the City Screen reporting (e.g.) 4 + 134986798 food before I switched to Barter (the city still grew at its normal rate, though, it's just the City Screen giving the wrong information (which might be a problem in my end)). Likewise, it's not really the Culture-penalties in themselves that are the problem, unless when the penalties total (?) or exceed 50% pre-Drama (or whatever tech enables the culture slider).

Hiya Holistic. Thanks again for your advice, and I hope to implement some of them later this week, and post a new update.

Here are a couple of key issues:

1) As I said before, I hope to move around some of the early techs-and add some new ones-and am even considering moving the start date of the game back 500 years or so (to be fair, some of the earliest cities are thought to date back as early as 5000BC).

2) I will be using Python extensively for the Ideology Civics, as I will have them grant an automatic specialist of a specific type (and remove the 'unlimited specialists'). So, for instance, Militaristic will grant a bonus Soldier, wheras Plutocratic will grant a bonus Merchant. As far as fascist goes-you mustn't forget that Fascist governments tend to strongly support science and business in order to 'advance the state'-meaning that I am thinking of having this grant a Free Merchant and Scientist (or Soldier and Merchant). Feudalism will grant a Free Farmer and Priest, wheras Soclialism will probably grant a Free Farmer and Citizen, or a Free Farmer and Engineer (not sure which yet).

3) So have you actually determined if the Economic civics really do effect trade route yields? I certainly hope so, and it seems odd that the tags would be there if they didn't work

4) I do see Apartheid and Caste system as being quite distinct, as the first represents the segregation and ghetto-isation of non-nationals, thus making it easier to make said city mono-cultural, wheras the latter involves segregating the society according to social class and profession, thus making it easier to create specialists in certain field. My original hope for the former was to have it boost the assimilation rate of your nation, but at a cost to happiness in multi-ethnic cities (much the same way as with multi-religious cities). By the same token, I was going to have equal rights work in reverse (lower assimilation, but bonus happiness in multi-ethnic cities)-guess this will have to wait until the SDK comes out.

5) I am looking at toning down the civics costs and culture penalties as you suggested-particularly for the earlier civics, I might try and see if I can move existing flat culture penalties to certain specialists in some cases.

6) I do want to have another look at the Martial Law and Slavery civics, especially in regards to population costs for the latter, and happiness costs for the former. I think I will also remove the Pop-Rush ability for Serfdom, as it makes this Civic much too powerful-which is exactly its problem in the vanilla game.

7) Your idea for Conscription is actually very good. There really were no specific plot yield bonuses that made sense for this one. Though I have-as much as possible-tried to thematically link the options in each civic category, there will always be the exception. I have forgotten though, how many civic options have conscription attached to them?

8) Monarchies and Dictatorships are sufficiently different, IMO, to warrant seperate treatment. e.g. Charles I was a Monarch, wheras Oliver Cromwell was a Dictator-the first got his power from birth and bloodline, the latter from appointment by parliament. Dictatorships, by their nature, tend to be short lived affairs-evolving either into more democratic systems, or by becoming more monarchic and the establisment of a new line of succession.

9) I agree with your views on certain civics acting synergistically, and had certain combos in mind when I originally put them together. Truth is that, I have revised the various options so much, I think I may have lost some of them by the final version. Oligarchy with Plutocracy, though, should be more synergistic once I give the latter the free merchant and artist specialist (yes, unlimited artist WILL be moved back to Caste System alone ).

10) Lastly, for now, I do want to add more culture-boosting improvement, such as Mausoleums and Sacred Groves, as well as some wonders and improvements which are only available when you are in a particular civic (like Pantheons, The Temple of Zeus and Temple of Artemis during Pantheistic, or Temple of the Sun and Moon-and Sacrificial Altars-when you are in Sacrificial).

Anyway, I hope that helps to explain some of my thinking when it comes to the future of this mod-and, no, I didn't find your comments too harsh-this is exactly the kind of feedback I need, as it really helps me to get my thoughts into order for when I put out version 0.02

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Re 2) For socialism, Engineer & Farmer would sort of correspond to the hammer and sickle -- but not be that "realistic" (given the number of starvations (more or less) resulting from "socialist" policies). Engineer & Citizen might be the way to go?

Re 3) I was quite wrong. Trade-bonuses do work, it's just that it takes a while to get trade routes that actually give a hammer or food bonus under e.g. Barter (+4 trade routes for +1 food (4*30% rounded down), +5 trade routes for +1 hammer; the gold penalty only appears on +10 trade routes).

Re 7) City States, Nation State, Martial Law and Military Conscription enable conscription. In fact, if NS, ML and MC are run at the same time, six (!) units can be conscripted.

Aussie: Just wanted to say "GREAT WORK!"

I've been waiting for someone to take on the civics...definitely an area that was begging for some expansion and modding! I'll follow along with you guys while you get the kinks worked out. I can say from experience that making changes like these can be really challenging and you're going to get a lot of feedback, but it seems you're off to a great start here and this mod could easily become a "must have".

To be fair, Holistic, when I say 'Socialism', I am most definitely NOT referring to the sort of systems used by nations such as the Soviet Union (this is Communism, and is best represented by State Property IMO). What I am referring to are existing Social Democratic states like Sweden, Denmark and Norway, as well as nations which may have existed if full on socialism was implemented properly. My point is that Socialism is merely an ideology which seeks to protect and elevate the 'proletariat' over the upper-classes.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I like this mod. Trying to pick the civics which balance out the negative effects of each other while collectively giving the bonuses to your civ you want. Be aware though, it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot with the many negative bonuses some civics give for specialists, especially the -culture ones. Your cities automatically make specialists if they feel the need for them, which can easily result in your citíes becoming culturally starved and having a sphere of influence of only 1 square, at which point you can't assign specialists to work the fields instead, meaning even MORE negative culture per turn. Evil Spiral of Death. Took me a whole lot of time as well as help from dreadful starvation to get one of my larger cities out of this, at which point it had 1 or 2 population.

I say remove the -culture penalties for specialists. Add instead -food perhaps? For keeping the artistic, productive and commercial elite well-fed and happy?

Aussie_Lurker said:

To be fair, Holistic, when I say 'Socialism', I am most definitely NOT referring to the sort of systems used by nations such as the Soviet Union (this is Communism, and is best represented by State Property IMO). What I am referring to are existing Social Democratic states like Sweden, Denmark and Norway, as well as nations which may have existed if full on socialism was implemented properly. My point is that Socialism is merely an ideology which seeks to protect and elevate the 'proletariat' over the upper-classes.

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Oh, I didn't get that. Then again, the terms are extremely mixed up. The reason why I concluded that you were trying to represent e.g. the Soviet system is that "socialism" was used by Marx to describe the transition-step between capitalism and communism (hence USSR, not USCR). Rather amusing that you used the terms in the opposite way (which is also possible, and probably more common). For less... misunderstandings "social welfare" could be an alternative, but doesn't really "sound" like an ideology (and repeats "welfare" in civics names).

Aussie_Lurker, I checked again, and I'm sure now that the problem is on my end. Now that I think about it, I have not been able to get ANY Civ4 mods to work right.

About the shrinking boarders I hear about, I can say right now that sounds extreme. Instead, you should have LESS culture, not NEGATIVE culture. For a -25% culture penalty, 8 culture/turn becomes 6 culture/turn.

It's true, I had one city with a whopping negative 83 culture because I'd pretty much forgotten about it.

And what gives the negative culture isn't the -25% culture civics, it's the civics that give culture penalties for every specialist working in the city - meaning that when the city's culture goes negative, the city radius shrinks to just the city square - meaning that there aren't any land tiles for your people to work, so they all become specialist, meaning even MORE culture penalties etc.

Hi
Nice to see you propose a mod, your interventons are always pertinent.
I remember in particular your discutions with Eddie_Verde ideas in civ3.
That way, the idea of NO PRE CIV TRAITS, coutch my attention .
Yes, a new category with the TRAITS. If that is possible, i think it should be priority, because i belive they gives you realy new poins of gameplay.

Cheers

Barbecue said:

It's true, I had one city with a whopping negative 83 culture because I'd pretty much forgotten about it.

And what gives the negative culture isn't the -25% culture civics, it's the civics that give culture penalties for every specialist working in the city - meaning that when the city's culture goes negative, the city radius shrinks to just the city square - meaning that there aren't any land tiles for your people to work, so they all become specialist, meaning even MORE culture penalties etc.

Click to expand...

Then it sounds best not to have negative culture from specilists. Just negative culture from the civic directly, as I have described.

Just a quick note Barbeque, you can't have specialists effect food yields via civics-only directly under SpecialistInfos-I have merely applied penalties as the XML system allows. I might do stuff like that, though, when I tackle Python. I might say, though, that applying -'ve culture via specialists seems MORE fair to me, as the player then chooses if they are going to take a culture hit-rather than having it forced on them. i.e., if you are running a legal civic where your specialists give a -2 culture penalty, then you know not to specialise a city if it has less than +2 culture per turn.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Well, I just never micromanage cities as a rule. It hurts lazy players like me

The changes sounds great, yet since i dont have the hold on the cd right now:


I want screenies