Feedback: Civics
- Thread starter Xyth
- Start date
Hello!
I played this mod and loved it. There are some suggestions, though, mainly concerning civics.
I found out that early civics are basically too good compared to more modern options. Not only they offer good bonuses, but also they are all low dissent, and that makes them preferred option even if modern civics provide better bonuses. I could practically play the whole game running tribalism, tradition, subsistence...
My suggestions:
Government:
Chiefdom: Increase dissent to medium/high, so that monarchy is better option eventually.
Theocracy: Very useful, much better than any other government IMO, I stayed in theocracy almost the whole game. Ability to spread religion before monasteries are even available makes theocracy almost a must early on, happiness bonus is very nice, and it's low dissent, so I used it even after democracy became available. Rather than nerfing theocracy, I'd rather boost other options.
Aristocracy: With medium dissent and dubious bonuses (Espionage is rarely critical, so monarchy and even chiefdom's bonus in capital is better than aristocracy's), I'd never use aristocracy at all. Maybe change espionage bonus to something else, like free army upkeep or something else?
Confederation: I actually like it, it can save you a lot of gold if you can handle the dissent.
Democracy: Again, by the time it becomes available, +50% GPP is not much, especially because it is more like 10-20% due to stacking with other GPP bonuses available at the time (Parks, schools, civic square, wonders....) And high upkeep and medium dissent do not help at all. It seems weird that I had to stay in theocracy to avoid rebellions, because people preferred it to democracy. While I (historically and realistically speaking) can see that indeed democracy might not function well in some cases and may be less stable than some authoritarian regime, my suggestion would be to make democracy low or even no dissent civic, so that it becomes viable to change to democracy to lower dissent. Also, maybe boost GPP bonus to 100%, or add +50% culture bonus in all cities?
Law:
Tradition: Fine, I guess
Restitution: Health bonus is nice if you need it, but maybe low dissent? Tradition gives more happiness and stability than restitution, and thematically shouldn't it be the other way around? I'd also increase upkeep from low to medium or high, to offset dissent reduction, and it would also fit thematically (state pays for courts of justice and for compensations)
Retribution: Meh, not exciting, but fine I guess. Espionage, again, is not something exciting (for me at least). I suppose this civic is ok, but then again I could also stay in Tradition and not care for this civic at all, and that is, in my opinion, not a good design. Civics should be exciting and provide interesting choices and decisions, not 'meh, whatever' choices. I'd probably make this one low or no upkeep, medium dissent, and make it provide city maintenance reduction or something. Or rather than happiness from jails, it could provide a free jail in every city?
Authoritarianism: I loved this one! I'd even say that it could be medium or high dissent, but since I used it mainly to quell dissent (every unit = 1 happiness = -5 dissent) it would be counter productive
Probably keep this one as it is.
Liberty: Nice. However, Equality is probably better, due to maybe better bonuses and lower unrest.
Equality: I like it.
Labor:
Subsistence and Agrarianism: I used it for probably half of the game due to bonus to omnipresent camps, and realistically shouldn't adopting agrarianism be "better" for developing civ? Meanwhile, agrarianism has higher dissent, and farms were very rare in my civ due to a) irrigation was not being spread by farms when civic became available, so I was restricted in where I could place farms b) availability of other improvements (orchards, plantations, pastures). Overall, I had more camps than farms or pastures, so I never switched, and I also kept my dissent lower that way. Maybe increase dissent from subsistence and reduce from agrarianism?
Slavery: Rushing production is nice. Hammer bonus is useless early on until trade routes produce at least 4 commerce. In my game it only happened after I discovered another continent and traded overseas. Before that, I had 4 or 5 trade routes in city that generated 1-2 gold each, but in total I got no additional hammers. But I actually like it that way - it simulates slave trade across continents, I guess. I'd keep it high dissent, but reduce upkeep to low or none (because free labor), to make slavery viable even in civs that have some dissent issues.
Professionalism: Again, I had more camps than workshops (you can't spam workshops due to health), so subsistence was better AND had lower dissent.
Industrialism: Good for generating great engineer. Maybe add workshop bonus as well?
Social welfare: Nice BUT!! damn AI kept spawning hundreds of doctor specialists in my cities. I know that's unrelated issue, but please check it out. Same as spy specialist in vanilla BTS, AI loves to spam them and it is way less useful than merchant, engineer or scientist.
Economy:
All fine I guess, but Regulated trade really won the day. +100% gold in capitol - where I had holy city and two corporations, would be better than any other civic even without extra trade route. Maybe switch extra trade route to free trade instead, OR keep it, but add it to free trade as well? Should free trade really be high dissent? Redistribution and central planning could also get something more...interesting.
Military:
Clan warfare seems really interesting, but I couldn't run it due to ... dissent However, for civs without such issue, I guess it's ok.
Mercenaries also seem interesting, especially when you need to upgrade, but I haven't used that. I'm not sure how much gold is earned after combat.
Thematically, It seems weird that I have to use vassalage in industrial era if I want to draft units. I'm not sure how to fix it, I'd probably rename warrior code to conscription, keep +25% army construction bonus and add draft to it, and change vassalage so that it provides free upkeep instead.
Society:
Tribalism: +100% military upkeep made this civic superior to most later civics, which I really don't like. Maybe increase dissent rating to medium, and reduce this upkeep bonus to +50% or just remove it.
Caste System: Bonus was really not good enough for high dissent civic. Especially when alternative is tribalism early on, and other civics later. Either make it allow all specialists, or add some other bonus.
Estate System: Alright, I guess. But other civics are more interesting and offer better bonuses.
Citizenship: I loved this one, saved me a ton of money (even more than tribalism
)
Nationalism: This one is alright as well. Maybe additional unrest/unhappiness from other cultures (or double "we yearn to join our motherland" unhappiness?)
Multiculturalism: If culture remained after completely conquering other civs, this would be a great civic. This way, my empire was mostly culturally homogeneous, even though half of it was conquered from other civs. Still, interesting.
Additional suggestions: As you guess, dissent really was a challenge for me in this game. While I had enough happiness, and even health, civics generated too much dissent that only core cities could fight with culture, and conquered cities couldn't at all. While I could generally easily defeat rebels, I was rather focusing on avoiding constant rebellions as I felt that was a way game was meant to be played (plus rebellions do destroy the infrastructure in the city, so it's better to prevent them). I guess that the problem is that there just isn't a way to actively fight dissent. I'd add some additional ways of reducing dissent:
Spies and secret police: Spy could spend espionage points to remove some dissent, or spy specialist could reduce dissent under authoritarianism
Artist and priest specialists could also increase happiness and/or decrease dissent
Luxury slider could provide additional reduction of dissent, in addition to standard increase of happiness.
Garrison could decrease unrest (but not increase happiness!) even when NOT under authoritarianism, except when in liberty.
I played this mod and loved it. There are some suggestions, though, mainly concerning civics.
I found out that early civics are basically too good compared to more modern options. Not only they offer good bonuses, but also they are all low dissent, and that makes them preferred option even if modern civics provide better bonuses. I could practically play the whole game running tribalism, tradition, subsistence...
My suggestions:
Government:
Chiefdom: Increase dissent to medium/high, so that monarchy is better option eventually.
Theocracy: Very useful, much better than any other government IMO, I stayed in theocracy almost the whole game. Ability to spread religion before monasteries are even available makes theocracy almost a must early on, happiness bonus is very nice, and it's low dissent, so I used it even after democracy became available. Rather than nerfing theocracy, I'd rather boost other options.
Aristocracy: With medium dissent and dubious bonuses (Espionage is rarely critical, so monarchy and even chiefdom's bonus in capital is better than aristocracy's), I'd never use aristocracy at all. Maybe change espionage bonus to something else, like free army upkeep or something else?
Confederation: I actually like it, it can save you a lot of gold if you can handle the dissent.
Democracy: Again, by the time it becomes available, +50% GPP is not much, especially because it is more like 10-20% due to stacking with other GPP bonuses available at the time (Parks, schools, civic square, wonders....) And high upkeep and medium dissent do not help at all. It seems weird that I had to stay in theocracy to avoid rebellions, because people preferred it to democracy. While I (historically and realistically speaking) can see that indeed democracy might not function well in some cases and may be less stable than some authoritarian regime, my suggestion would be to make democracy low or even no dissent civic, so that it becomes viable to change to democracy to lower dissent. Also, maybe boost GPP bonus to 100%, or add +50% culture bonus in all cities?
Law:
Tradition: Fine, I guess
Restitution: Health bonus is nice if you need it, but maybe low dissent? Tradition gives more happiness and stability than restitution, and thematically shouldn't it be the other way around? I'd also increase upkeep from low to medium or high, to offset dissent reduction, and it would also fit thematically (state pays for courts of justice and for compensations)
Retribution: Meh, not exciting, but fine I guess. Espionage, again, is not something exciting (for me at least). I suppose this civic is ok, but then again I could also stay in Tradition and not care for this civic at all, and that is, in my opinion, not a good design. Civics should be exciting and provide interesting choices and decisions, not 'meh, whatever' choices. I'd probably make this one low or no upkeep, medium dissent, and make it provide city maintenance reduction or something. Or rather than happiness from jails, it could provide a free jail in every city?
Authoritarianism: I loved this one! I'd even say that it could be medium or high dissent, but since I used it mainly to quell dissent (every unit = 1 happiness = -5 dissent) it would be counter productive
Probably keep this one as it is. Liberty: Nice. However, Equality is probably better, due to maybe better bonuses and lower unrest.
Equality: I like it.
Labor:
Subsistence and Agrarianism: I used it for probably half of the game due to bonus to omnipresent camps, and realistically shouldn't adopting agrarianism be "better" for developing civ? Meanwhile, agrarianism has higher dissent, and farms were very rare in my civ due to a) irrigation was not being spread by farms when civic became available, so I was restricted in where I could place farms b) availability of other improvements (orchards, plantations, pastures). Overall, I had more camps than farms or pastures, so I never switched, and I also kept my dissent lower that way. Maybe increase dissent from subsistence and reduce from agrarianism?
Slavery: Rushing production is nice. Hammer bonus is useless early on until trade routes produce at least 4 commerce. In my game it only happened after I discovered another continent and traded overseas. Before that, I had 4 or 5 trade routes in city that generated 1-2 gold each, but in total I got no additional hammers. But I actually like it that way - it simulates slave trade across continents, I guess. I'd keep it high dissent, but reduce upkeep to low or none (because free labor), to make slavery viable even in civs that have some dissent issues.
Professionalism: Again, I had more camps than workshops (you can't spam workshops due to health), so subsistence was better AND had lower dissent.
Industrialism: Good for generating great engineer. Maybe add workshop bonus as well?
Social welfare: Nice BUT!! damn AI kept spawning hundreds of doctor specialists in my cities. I know that's unrelated issue, but please check it out. Same as spy specialist in vanilla BTS, AI loves to spam them and it is way less useful than merchant, engineer or scientist.
Economy:
All fine I guess, but Regulated trade really won the day. +100% gold in capitol - where I had holy city and two corporations, would be better than any other civic even without extra trade route. Maybe switch extra trade route to free trade instead, OR keep it, but add it to free trade as well? Should free trade really be high dissent? Redistribution and central planning could also get something more...interesting.
Military:
Clan warfare seems really interesting, but I couldn't run it due to ... dissent
However, for civs without such issue, I guess it's ok. Mercenaries also seem interesting, especially when you need to upgrade, but I haven't used that. I'm not sure how much gold is earned after combat.
Thematically, It seems weird that I have to use vassalage in industrial era if I want to draft units. I'm not sure how to fix it, I'd probably rename warrior code to conscription, keep +25% army construction bonus and add draft to it, and change vassalage so that it provides free upkeep instead.
Society:
Tribalism: +100% military upkeep made this civic superior to most later civics, which I really don't like. Maybe increase dissent rating to medium, and reduce this upkeep bonus to +50% or just remove it.
Caste System: Bonus was really not good enough for high dissent civic. Especially when alternative is tribalism early on, and other civics later. Either make it allow all specialists, or add some other bonus.
Estate System: Alright, I guess. But other civics are more interesting and offer better bonuses.
Citizenship: I loved this one, saved me a ton of money (even more than tribalism
)Nationalism: This one is alright as well. Maybe additional unrest/unhappiness from other cultures (or double "we yearn to join our motherland" unhappiness?)
Multiculturalism: If culture remained after completely conquering other civs, this would be a great civic. This way, my empire was mostly culturally homogeneous, even though half of it was conquered from other civs. Still, interesting.
Additional suggestions: As you guess, dissent really was a challenge for me in this game. While I had enough happiness, and even health, civics generated too much dissent that only core cities could fight with culture, and conquered cities couldn't at all. While I could generally easily defeat rebels, I was rather focusing on avoiding constant rebellions as I felt that was a way game was meant to be played (plus rebellions do destroy the infrastructure in the city, so it's better to prevent them). I guess that the problem is that there just isn't a way to actively fight dissent. I'd add some additional ways of reducing dissent:
Spies and secret police: Spy could spend espionage points to remove some dissent, or spy specialist could reduce dissent under authoritarianism
Artist and priest specialists could also increase happiness and/or decrease dissent
Luxury slider could provide additional reduction of dissent, in addition to standard increase of happiness.
Garrison could decrease unrest (but not increase happiness!) even when NOT under authoritarianism, except when in liberty.
Simon_Jester
Prince
- Joined
- May 13, 2011
- Messages
- 495
I second a lot of these suggestions. It's good that Xyth has made the early civics attractive enough that they're still competitive...
The problem is that with the introduction of the dissent mechanic in many cases they're SO competitive that it's dangerous to abandon them. Especially if you build your civilization up to about the maximum size it can handle without dissent becoming a problem- if you do this with the low-dissent early civics, you can't afford to switch over to midgame civics without suddenly having half a dozen cities that will be predictably rebelling from your empire within 20-30 turns.
Dissent in conquered cities is clearly intended to be a major limiting factor on conquest- the question is, have we gone too far? A lot of conquest strategies would now be utterly impossible on large-ish maps, I suspect; I generally play on large maps so I don't know what happens on the smaller ones.
...
I WILL note that there is one thing you can do to limit the spread of dissent in a city, although it's ghastly when you think about it. You can deliberately engineer famine by taking citizens off the main food-producing tiles and putting them to work as miners or specialists. Each unit of population loss has the effect of decreasing dissent by 10 points (assuming the city was happy and healthy before the famine).
So if some outside factor like changing civics or loss of access to some resources causes a sudden dissent increase throughout your empire, the odds are that you'll have at least a few cities now experiencing significant positive dissent... and starving them down to a more manageable size may be the only way to go.
...
On a more positive note...
Dissent has one interesting feature: it creates 'churn' in the AI world, because any AI civilization that looks like it's going to become extremely large tends to experience dissent-induced breakdowns. The AI doesn't really know how to handle dissent, aside from the limited 'automatic' handling it does just by trying to keep its cities happy, healthy, and cultured.
Human players can counter this up to a point, which can become a relative advantage.
The problem is that with the introduction of the dissent mechanic in many cases they're SO competitive that it's dangerous to abandon them. Especially if you build your civilization up to about the maximum size it can handle without dissent becoming a problem- if you do this with the low-dissent early civics, you can't afford to switch over to midgame civics without suddenly having half a dozen cities that will be predictably rebelling from your empire within 20-30 turns.
Dissent in conquered cities is clearly intended to be a major limiting factor on conquest- the question is, have we gone too far? A lot of conquest strategies would now be utterly impossible on large-ish maps, I suspect; I generally play on large maps so I don't know what happens on the smaller ones.
...
I WILL note that there is one thing you can do to limit the spread of dissent in a city, although it's ghastly when you think about it. You can deliberately engineer famine by taking citizens off the main food-producing tiles and putting them to work as miners or specialists. Each unit of population loss has the effect of decreasing dissent by 10 points (assuming the city was happy and healthy before the famine).
So if some outside factor like changing civics or loss of access to some resources causes a sudden dissent increase throughout your empire, the odds are that you'll have at least a few cities now experiencing significant positive dissent... and starving them down to a more manageable size may be the only way to go.
...
On a more positive note...
Dissent has one interesting feature: it creates 'churn' in the AI world, because any AI civilization that looks like it's going to become extremely large tends to experience dissent-induced breakdowns. The AI doesn't really know how to handle dissent, aside from the limited 'automatic' handling it does just by trying to keep its cities happy, healthy, and cultured.
Human players can counter this up to a point, which can become a relative advantage.
Thanks for taking the time to drop by and post your feedback. Much appreciated.
The starting civics are intended to be reasonably competitive throughout much of the game, depending on one's strategy. Prior to the civics review in 1.23, some of the starting were Medium or even High dissent, but this was causing issues with the AI, so I switched them all to Low. There's undoubtably still a few balance repercussions to resolve as a result of that change.
Economically, Monarchy does become a better option than Chiefdom quite early. In the early game it's the civic most worth switching to Medium dissent for.
An espionage economy is a viable strategy, albeit not a particularly popular one. Aristocracy definitely needs a third effect though.
Yeah, Democracy can afford to become Low Dissent, especially now that it's shifted so much later in the tech tree than it used to be.
While theocracies today are rather authoritarian, there are many examples in history of stable theocracies that weren't.
I want to swap Restitution and Retribution's upkeep and dissent ratings, but need to give Retribution a third effect before I can do so.
Not every civic choice is going to be exciting for every strategy, but in this case it's because it needs a third effect.
Free buildings can't be done via civics. I'm very limited in what bonuses I can give to civics in comparison to most other aspects of the game.
Authoritarianism: I loved this one! I'd even say that it could be medium or high dissent, but since I used it mainly to quell dissent (every unit = 1 happiness = -5 dissent) it would be counter productive
Yep, this is the anti-dissent civic, designed to keep your populace cowed if they're getting rowdy.
I agree there is an issue here, but bear in mind that these civics are highly terrain dependant. Empires closer to the poles will probably always find Subsistence preferable to Agrarianism, and this is intentional. I'm going to reduce the dissent of Agrarianism to Low though.
Rushing production is such an effective mechanic in the early game that I'm always a bit hesitant about making Slavery any better than it is. The production via trade routes bonus not really kicking in till you get oversea trade routes is important from this angle too, alongside having a historical justification. Lowering Slavery's upkeep to Low does makes a reasonable amount of sense though, will consider it.
But only if you have more camps, which many civs won't because they either didn't start in suitable terrain or they've chopped their forests.
Not sure there's anything I can do about this unfortunately. I can't make changes to that part of the AI.
Hmm, not sure about this. Regulated Trade can certainly rake in the gold, but Free Market can be very lucrative and provides more flexibility. Probably doesn't need to be high dissent though.
Wealth earned is equal to the experience of the unit defeated.
You can also draft with the Honour tenet. HR used to have a Conscription civic but we scrapped it because conscription is something that is or has been a part of most military systems, while the game mechanic is tied to a specific civic. We decided to use it to represent the mass levying of peasants by feudal lords instead. Probably should have changed the word 'draft' to 'levy' or such to make it a bit clearer.
That was a while ago though, and the Military civics didn't really change much in the recent review, so I'm open to rethinking this.
Only for militaristic players, and it certainly can't compete with Citizenship even for them. Nationalism and Multiculturalism will be much stronger in any civ that's invested in Villages and Towns too. I think Tribalism is okay as it is, the real problem is that Caste System and Estate system are currently too weak.
I intended for these civics to have additional culture-related bonuses that had to be scrapped (technical challenges). Still pondering what to do instead, but they definitely need to be stronger than they are now.
Yeah, this civic is intended more for peaceful/diplomatic players than conquerors.
What difficulty level were you playing on? Except on the easier levels I never really tuned the dissent system for civil wars to be avoided entirely. It's possible but it's not optimal. Remember that when a civil war happens, every city that doesn't secede has its dissent reset to Stable. Use this to your advantage. Golden Ages too: they can reduce dissent considerably, so if you've got one planned it doesn't hurt to have dissent rise for a while beforehand.
I never intended for dissent to be actively fought against. It's meant to accumulate gradually, a long term repercussion for short term mismanagement, or for too much expansion without appropriate investment in acquired cities.
That said, I intend to give Great Doctors the ability to perform Humanitarian missions, which will reset dissent in the targeted city (and give diplomatic bonuses if performed in a foreign city). Or something like that.
I cannot make specialists grant happiness (or health) unfortunately. While I can make them reduce dissent, I cannot teach the AI to understand that they do.
The culture slider already has an indirect effect on dissent, as culture and happiness can reduce it. Allowing the espionage slider to reduce dissent makes a certain amount of sense, but see my comments below.
Dissent is meant to become a problem around then. Either because it's getting too high, or because you miss out on other things trying to keep it low. The AI generally gets its first civil wars around the late Classical or early Medieval, and I'd expect human players to do so too.
Civic dissent scales with mapsize so it shouldn't be drastically different. It's a very complex system though, so there's undoubtably still some tuning needed here.
This is why I designed dissent so that civil wars are more or less inevitable. The Human player will always have an advantage over the AI, no matter what. Making dissent management less passive or more direct just increases that advantage further. Making dissent management too easy means doing so for the AI as well, and that's where we start wondering why we bother having a dissent system at all
Thank you for your answers, Xyth!
What I liked the most about the mod was that everything seems so well thought-out and fleshed out. From units to civics to techs, like an expansion pack. For example, civics offer 2-3 clear, strong benefits that can change the way you play - I don't like when mods clutter everything and make every civic give +5% of this and -10% of that and every civic has dozen irrelevant effects.
I also liked that (AI) empires can fracture, providing weaker empires an opportunity to strike, and making game interesting.
If you need ideas for aristocracy, benefits most often associated with aristocracy are cheaper army maintenance, cheaper city maintenance (those duties are relegated to feudal lords), bonus culture (patronage of the arts), bonus commerce from trade routes of specialists (merchant elite), or from farms (landed elite).
Same goes for estates.
Castes could make all specialists better - scientists provide more science, artists more culture etc., but also provide less GPP. Just an idea.
Restitution could provide less unrest and more health/happiness, although at high financial cost, while retribution would be opposite - low cost but high unrest/unhappiness/unhealth.
I was playing on monarch difficulty. I also used LOTS of golden ages to fight unrest 3 or 4 golden ages triggered by great people (I had lots of great priests and generals though), one by Taj Mahal and one by National Wonder, plus Mausoleum that increased golden age length by 50%
P.S. Unrelated, but have you thought about forts spreading culture to adjacent tiles? I like this feature in other mods
What I liked the most about the mod was that everything seems so well thought-out and fleshed out. From units to civics to techs, like an expansion pack. For example, civics offer 2-3 clear, strong benefits that can change the way you play - I don't like when mods clutter everything and make every civic give +5% of this and -10% of that and every civic has dozen irrelevant effects.
I also liked that (AI) empires can fracture, providing weaker empires an opportunity to strike, and making game interesting.
If you need ideas for aristocracy, benefits most often associated with aristocracy are cheaper army maintenance, cheaper city maintenance (those duties are relegated to feudal lords), bonus culture (patronage of the arts), bonus commerce from trade routes of specialists (merchant elite), or from farms (landed elite).
Same goes for estates.
Castes could make all specialists better - scientists provide more science, artists more culture etc., but also provide less GPP. Just an idea.
Restitution could provide less unrest and more health/happiness, although at high financial cost, while retribution would be opposite - low cost but high unrest/unhappiness/unhealth.
I was playing on monarch difficulty. I also used LOTS of golden ages to fight unrest
3 or 4 golden ages triggered by great people (I had lots of great priests and generals though), one by Taj Mahal and one by National Wonder, plus Mausoleum that increased golden age length by 50%P.S. Unrelated, but have you thought about forts spreading culture to adjacent tiles? I like this feature in other mods
lindsay40k
Emperor
This is something that's always bugged me. Throughout history, the most dangerous situation for an establishment has tended to be the food riot. The people of Civilization are literally happy to die of famine. They only really kick off when they've got a massive food surplus - raising population - and no spices and wine to go with it. I think a ploy of 'deliberately starve the population down until they are happy to eat cake' needs to lead to guillotines, not gratitude.
What if every time population starves, it generates a
just like the whip? The AI doesn't like to lose population, so it should integrate well and not cause constant revolutions. Even open up a new method of siege warfare... starve the cities down until they rebel. Again, something the AI is halfway competent at, given their love of a cheeky blockade.
Nightstar
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2012
- Messages
- 408
Starvation would still be a net positive with regards to dissent, though. The city would still have one less unhealth, and the extra unhappiness would merely counterbalance the one the population would have generated. Plus there are situations where the population is starving *because* excess unhappiness is making people refuse to feed themselves. In those cases it would far too easily create an unstoppable feedback loop.What if every time population starves, it generates a
Perhaps instead we could have negative net food add some amount of dissent directly to the instability meter? One point per negative food strikes me as too low, but five or more might be a bit too much?
Thank you. I've never been a fan of big mods that just add stuff for the sake of adding stuff, and strive to ensure everything is integrated and meaningful in HR.
Civics are much harder to design and balance this way, but it's worth it.
Yeah, makes for more dynamic and unpredictable games. I'm pleased with how it's turned out, though there's always further balancing to be done. I know some players don't like their own empire fracturing, but that's necessary to balance it happening to the AI. I've had some great games where a well-resourced province of mine became barbarians and it was a tense race against two neighbouring civs to recapture it.
Suggestions noted, I'll have to have a think about what will work. The challenge of designing civics is that I can't directly teach the AI to understand the value of any custom effects I add to them, so I have to be very careful how and where I use them. I also don't like to duplicate effects so civic design is quite the logistical challenge at times!
P.S. Unrelated, but have you thought about forts spreading culture to adjacent tiles? I like this feature in other mods
This would be a neat feature to add. I'll have to see if I can figure out a way of coding it in Python that won't be too performance taxing. Other mods achieve this via C++, which I'm unable to use as it's unsupported in the Mac version of BTS.
This is something that's always bugged me. Throughout history, the most dangerous situation for an establishment has tended to be the food riot. The people of Civilization are literally happy to die of famine. They only really kick off when they've got a massive food surplus - raising population - and no spices and wine to go with it. I think a ploy of 'deliberately starve the population down until they are happy to eat cake' needs to lead to guillotines, not gratitude.
What if every time population starves, it generates a
Interesting ideas. I agree that it would be good to do something about this situation. The simplest solution might be to just add a large chunk of dissent to the city whenever starvation causes population loss. No feedback loop with either unhappiness or unhealthiness, and I can make it scale if necessary.
lindsay40k
Emperor
Actual starvation should be the dissent trigger, as opposed to consumption of food reserves. I hadn't considered the risk of feedback loop, which would be manageable in most cities where a food resource subsidises various specialists or miners, but crippling in a flood plain city where each population loss worsens the famine.
Soviet elf
Chieftain
1. Labor. I agree with Kapor. Subsistence is too good, it's the best labor civic. Just compare forest+camp+subsistence (+2
, +1
) to quarry (+1), mine (+2,1
), non-riverside forest+lumbermill (+2 ), lumbermill+industrialism (same as f+c+s, but available much, much later). It's good early, it's good later when gunpowder adds +1c to camps (by the way, shouldn't firearms give bonus to camps, not gunpowder? I don't think than bombards are useful for deer hunting). And it's low upkeep, low dissent.
In my games all AI civs used subsistence even after agr-sm, slavery and prof-sm were available. Only exceptions are leaders using their favorite civic.
Also I agree that agrarianism is weak because farms are weak - they require irrigation, many other improvements (orchards, plantations, camps) have extra bonus from terrain and extra bonus from medieval/Renaissance tech. May be, irrigation should be available much earlier and farms should receive +1
with crop rotation (and +1 at fertilizer too)? Also industrialism should be more productive/industrial, less terrain-dependent/more universal, more bonuses, it's useful only for great engineers, otherwise subsistence is better. Workshop bonus is more fitting for ind-sm than for artisans - may be, swap effects of prof-sm and ind-sm on improvements?
2. Forts + Vassalage + Estate system. +2, +2, +forest/jungle/savanna bonus, no pollution, can be constructed everywhere. Better than workshops, mines, even than subsistence camps. Of course, this combo also brings higher dissent and higher costs, that's a disadvantage. I find "fort economy" very strange and unrealistic.
3. Gov-t. Personally I use monarchy, only during Golden ages I sometimes temporarily swap to theocracy to build some missionaries. All other civics in the category look unimportant for me. +50% in capital is very valuable bonus with synergy with Academy, university and planned economy. Probably, you could remove +50% from monarchy, leave only +50%. Or make it +50% in capital, but -10% in all other cities.
4. Economic civics. I like that mod recognizes existence of gift economy and ancient centralized economy. Well. But it's absurd that there is no classical/medieval private market economy, all you have are gift economy and 2 sorts of planned economies (do you really need 2 of them?). Free market is too late. And food bonus for reciprocity is strange, synergy with Great lighthouse and international trade is strange, food from trade is more fitting for free trade. And also I always disliked environmentalism civic in BtS. Env-sm/sustainability is not an economic system, their description (recycling, renewable energy) is represented through buildings and player actions, and health bonus from civics actually encourage opposite of what they describe - high pollution, coal power etc. My proposal: remove "sustainability" completely, add some ancient/classical market economy (like "coinage" at currency).
I disagree with Kapor - for me planned economy is the best choice (for +100%
in capital) until free market, FM is very good too (+50% from trade is a big advantage, but high dissent hurts, from corporations and unlimited merchants are unimportant). Possible idea: make FM only "+25%, +50% from trade" (no other effects).
5. Actually I liked civics in previous versions of the mod more. There were classical era market civic, slavery improved plantations, free market at economics etc. And I don't like 6x6 tenets system and don't find it interesting, 6 religious civics are better. "Elegance" of civics is important for author, but tenets have many similar and unimportant effects and look inelegant/bloated for me.
, +1) to quarry (+1), mine (+2,1), non-riverside forest+lumbermill (+2 ), lumbermill+industrialism (same as f+c+s, but available much, much later). It's good early, it's good later when gunpowder adds +1c to camps (by the way, shouldn't firearms give bonus to camps, not gunpowder? I don't think than bombards are useful for deer hunting). And it's low upkeep, low dissent.In my games all AI civs used subsistence even after agr-sm, slavery and prof-sm were available. Only exceptions are leaders using their favorite civic.
No. Forests are common. Even if some city has no forests, subsistence is very useful for many other cities in the empire. Current situation isn't "subsistence is the best for civs in cold regions", it's "everybody uses subsistence, it's the most useful civic almost everywhere". And it's totally unrealistic and not historical. All major civilizations with high population were based on agriculture, not hunting and gathering. It's also very strange that subsistence hunting camps are the best production improvement for building wonders and monuments. My proposal: remove camp bonus from subsistence.
Also I agree that agrarianism is weak because farms are weak - they require irrigation, many other improvements (orchards, plantations, camps) have extra bonus from terrain and extra bonus from medieval/Renaissance tech. May be, irrigation should be available much earlier and farms should receive +1
with crop rotation (and +1 at fertilizer too)? Also industrialism should be more productive/industrial, less terrain-dependent/more universal, more bonuses, it's useful only for great engineers, otherwise subsistence is better. Workshop bonus is more fitting for ind-sm than for artisans - may be, swap effects of prof-sm and ind-sm on improvements?2. Forts + Vassalage + Estate system. +2
, +2, +forest/jungle/savanna bonus, no pollution, can be constructed everywhere. Better than workshops, mines, even than subsistence camps. Of course, this combo also brings higher dissent and higher costs, that's a disadvantage. I find "fort economy" very strange and unrealistic.3. Gov-t. Personally I use monarchy, only during Golden ages I sometimes temporarily swap to theocracy to build some missionaries. All other civics in the category look unimportant for me. +50%
in capital is very valuable bonus with synergy with Academy, university and planned economy. Probably, you could remove +50% from monarchy, leave only +50%. Or make it +50% in capital, but -10% in all other cities.4. Economic civics. I like that mod recognizes existence of gift economy and ancient centralized economy. Well. But it's absurd that there is no classical/medieval private market economy, all you have are gift economy and 2 sorts of planned economies (do you really need 2 of them?). Free market is too late. And food bonus for reciprocity is strange, synergy with Great lighthouse and international trade is strange, food from trade is more fitting for free trade. And also I always disliked environmentalism civic in BtS. Env-sm/sustainability is not an economic system, their description (recycling, renewable energy) is represented through buildings and player actions, and health bonus from civics actually encourage opposite of what they describe - high pollution, coal power etc. My proposal: remove "sustainability" completely, add some ancient/classical market economy (like "coinage" at currency).
I disagree with Kapor - for me planned economy is the best choice (for +100%
in capital) until free market, FM is very good too (+50% from trade is a big advantage, but high dissent hurts, from corporations and unlimited merchants are unimportant). Possible idea: make FM only "+25%, +50% from trade" (no other effects).5. Actually I liked civics in previous versions of the mod more. There were classical era market civic, slavery improved plantations, free market at economics etc. And I don't like 6x6 tenets system and don't find it interesting, 6 religious civics are better. "Elegance" of civics is important for author, but tenets have many similar and unimportant effects and look inelegant/bloated for me.
Feedback noted and appreciated. I intend to make a number of changes to civics in 1.24, but haven't got time to focus on them yet. I'll post details here when I do. Just a few comments for the moment:
I think I'll shift it to Rifling.
I agree Farms are too weak. Considering something along these lines.
Forts are meant to clear terrain features, will fix.
Under these civics, Forts basically become feudal estates, not just military structures. Balance isn't right though.
I think I'll shift it to Rifling.
Also I agree that agrarianism is weak because farms are weak - they require irrigation, many other improvements (orchards, plantations, camps) have extra bonus from terrain and extra bonus from medieval/Renaissance tech. May be, irrigation should be available much earlier and farms should receive +1
I agree Farms are too weak. Considering something along these lines.
2. Forts + Vassalage + Estate system. +2
Forts are meant to clear terrain features, will fix.
Under these civics, Forts basically become feudal estates, not just military structures. Balance isn't right though.
Many mods restrict forts to be unbuildable in adjacent tiles, which could solve this problem and also create a nicer picture with farms interspersed with castles. Not sure if that is feasible to implement in Python though.
Doable in Python, but too detrimental to performance. Having a limited number of forts per city might be more feasible though. I'll see how my next pass on the civics goes first though.
I'm making some changes to civics at the moment, and I'm thinking of doing something quite different with Redistribution. Upkeep and Dissent not defined yet, as I'm still trying to get a sense of how (im)balanced something like this might be:
Interested in your thoughts on this.
Redistribution
Requires Record Keeping
• +50% wealth in capital
• +50% trade route yield as food
• No foreign trade routes
Requires Record Keeping
• +50% wealth in capital
• +50% trade route yield as food
• No foreign trade routes
Interested in your thoughts on this.
Nightstar
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2012
- Messages
- 408
Looks interesting. I like bringing back the "no foreign trade" aspect that's currently lacking. At the moment you're pretty harshly punished economically if you keep your borders closed, and I think this would help mitigate that somewhat.
I assume that Reciprocity and Regulated Trade would lose their current "trade as food" and "wealth in capital" bonuses, and that the Orchard and Quarry yield bonuses would be moved somewhere else?
I assume that Reciprocity and Regulated Trade would lose their current "trade as food" and "wealth in capital" bonuses, and that the Orchard and Quarry yield bonuses would be moved somewhere else?
Yes. I'll post a draft of all the changes when they're ready.
Subsistence
Low Upkeep
Medium Dissent
• +1 production from Camp
• +1 commerce from Harvest Boats
Fishing Boat association removed, and Harvest Boats give commerce instead of production. More significantly, dissent raised to medium which should help keep balanced it better.
Agrarianism
Medium Upkeep
Medium Dissent
• +1 production from Farm, Pasture
• +1 commerce from Watermill
Farms now give a production bonus instead of commerce, and Water Well health replaced by Watermill commerce. Note that Farms will gain +1 food at both Crop Rotation and Fertilizer in 1.24.
Slavery
Low Upkeep
High Dissent
• Can sacrifice population to finish production
• +1 commerce from Plantation, Quarry
I liked the production from trade routes bonus here, but I found a better place for it (Multiculturalism). Since Agrarianism was buffed a bit, Slavery needed to be too, so it's now Low upkeep and its former Plantation and Quarry associations are back.
Professionalism
Medium Upkeep
Low Dissent
• Unlimited Artists
• +1 production from Workshop
• +1 commerce from Workshop
Decided this was where Unlimited Artists fit best. Faster improvement building will probably go somewhere in the Law or Society categories. Dissent is now Low, to help compensate for Workshop pollution.
Industrialism
High Upkeep
Medium Dissent
• Unlimited Engineers
• +1 production from Mine, Lumbermill
• +50% chance to attract Production Corporations
Mine instead of Watermill, production instead of commerce (the railroad bonus of these improvements has switched from production to commerce to compensate). Corporation bonus has changed to suit the new corporation spread system in 1.24. With Industrialism, production-focused corporations are much more likely to move to and remain in your cities.
Social Welfare
High Upkeep
Low Dissent
• Unlimited Doctors
• Can spend wealth to finish production
• No unhappiness from Corporations
No changes, this one is working well.
Low Upkeep
Medium Dissent
• +1 production from Camp
• +1 commerce from Harvest Boats
Fishing Boat association removed, and Harvest Boats give commerce instead of production. More significantly, dissent raised to medium which should help keep balanced it better.
Agrarianism
Medium Upkeep
Medium Dissent
• +1 production from Farm, Pasture
• +1 commerce from Watermill
Farms now give a production bonus instead of commerce, and Water Well health replaced by Watermill commerce. Note that Farms will gain +1 food at both Crop Rotation and Fertilizer in 1.24.
Slavery
Low Upkeep
High Dissent
• Can sacrifice population to finish production
• +1 commerce from Plantation, Quarry
I liked the production from trade routes bonus here, but I found a better place for it (Multiculturalism). Since Agrarianism was buffed a bit, Slavery needed to be too, so it's now Low upkeep and its former Plantation and Quarry associations are back.
Professionalism
Medium Upkeep
Low Dissent
• Unlimited Artists
• +1 production from Workshop
• +1 commerce from Workshop
Decided this was where Unlimited Artists fit best. Faster improvement building will probably go somewhere in the Law or Society categories. Dissent is now Low, to help compensate for Workshop pollution.
Industrialism
High Upkeep
Medium Dissent
• Unlimited Engineers
• +1 production from Mine, Lumbermill
• +50% chance to attract Production Corporations
Mine instead of Watermill, production instead of commerce (the railroad bonus of these improvements has switched from production to commerce to compensate). Corporation bonus has changed to suit the new corporation spread system in 1.24. With Industrialism, production-focused corporations are much more likely to move to and remain in your cities.
Social Welfare
High Upkeep
Low Dissent
• Unlimited Doctors
• Can spend wealth to finish production
• No unhappiness from Corporations
No changes, this one is working well.
AbsintheRed
Deity
I would like to remind you about the potential issues with unlimited doctors.
That is if they still give one food to the city.
That is if they still give one food to the city.
Doctors won't provide food in 1.24, but I'm still experimenting with what they'll provide instead.
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