Civics Improvements Suggestions

Spirictum said:

@Afforess

Simply Perfect! That would be a new column right? I've lost track of this thread

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Yes, absolutely

Spirictum said:

Restricted Travel
Early game, people simply don't travel because it's dangerous and not at all promising.

Controlled Borders
It first appeared in organized nations from the classical and early medieval. It is present till today mostly in small countries in state of war, interior turmoil or rebellion.

Free Migration
I'm not pretty sure of examples of this, but it seems very realistic in some periods of the history of many nations of the past and the present.

Open Immigration
Here Brazil and many South American nations join as examples in the late XIXth and early XXth century, and I'm pretty sure many other examples do exist.

Visa Program
I would guess current USA? That seems reasonable to me.

Closed Borders
North Korea is an easy shot to this.

I couldn't think of any other option, this seems really good.

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Good analysis. I couldn't think of anything else either, which is why I stopped where I did. Fun fact, the USA was an open immigration country most of its existence. (I would advocate for full open borders today, but that is not relevant to this thread...)

I like the sound of this. Go for it!

I don't think we need ANY new civic categories at this point. I feel like every category is an additional layer of complexity and we already have enough layers (although a lot depends on which options you have selected). This one also doesn't really "ring" for me -- when every choice needs two words to title it, that doesn't seem like a good thing.

I love the idea

except for one:

Restricted Travel
Early game, people simply don't travel because it's dangerous and not at all promising.

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No, no, NOOO! This one makes me scream.
The most ancient choice should be No Borders.
"people simply don't travel because it's dangerous and not at all promising" and not because the government restricts them. People don't travel, because they don't want and not because they are forced to stay. The government simply lack the ability to control migration at all.
Bonuses/penalties:
-10% in all cities

Vokarya said:

I don't think we need ANY new civic categories at this point. I feel like every category is an additional layer of complexity and we already have enough layers (although a lot depends on which options you have selected). This one also doesn't really "ring" for me -- when every choice needs two words to title it, that doesn't seem like a good thing.

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I think that's a fair concern. I'm not in a particular rush to make the change and don't really like the bonuses for all the civics listed. I will say that Immigration civics have long been considered though, and some kind of mechanic, whether it be civics, or something else, would be desirable.

I like Immigration idea that enmesh espionage.

However, I agree with Vokarya about unneeded complexity.

Solution: Aggressively simplify existing civics, obviously balancing them, making each category much clearer in where they impact distinctively. Then add in Immigration civics. Because it has a Espionage and Diplomatic impact.

os79 said:

I like Immigration idea that enmesh espionage.

However, I agree with Vokarya about unneeded complexity.

Solution: Aggressively simplify existing civics, obviously balancing them, making each category much clearer in where they impact distinctively. Then add in Immigration civics. Because it has a Espionage and Diplomatic impact.

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I think I will just wait and see. I am happy with the current civics.

I agree that we don't necessarily need new civic categories, but impacting espionage and diplomatic with civic choices sounds like very interesting strategy.

Afforess said:

I think I will just wait and see. I am happy with the current civics.

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OK. I don't mind more choices within the current categories, and I've actually warmed up to the newest group. I didn't like it at first, but I do really like the underlying concept and I think it might need just a little polishing -- I'm not sure that Redevelopment is the best name for the last choice, as I think it implies something that was there and needs to be re-developed. But I can get what you're trying to do.

I've thought a bit about different names but I've only come up with sustainable development or sustainability, but I still think that redevelopment sounds better.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13449324 said:

I've thought a bit about different names but I've only come up with sustainable development or sustainability, but I still think that redevelopment sounds better.

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I think of it as either "Patronage" in a civ-to-civ sense or "Big Brother to the World". Maybe something along those lines would fit better?

Vokarya said:

I think of it as either "Patronage" in a civ-to-civ sense or "Big Brother to the World". Maybe something along those lines would fit better?

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Patronage implies a more generous goal than I think redevelopment actually offers. Redevelopment is on the outside, a charitable focus on developing infrastructure for backward nations, but when examined closely, it often is a means of extending ones own culture and is a sort of watered-down imperialism. Redevelopment sort of blindly assumes everyone in the world desires to be like yourself, and that all nations should aspire to have western culture. Overall its positive but I think the negative undertones should not be ignored.

I think I agree with Afforess. My wife is suggesting Foreign Aid as an alternative.

I really have to contest the notion of people not travelling or immigrating before the classical period, which is completely wrong as all the archeological and historical evidence shows.

Well before writing and metal working there were established trade networks as countless archeological finds illustrate. The idea that "people didn't travel because it wasn't safe and didn't pay off" as some people in this forum suggest is contradicted by amber, pottery and stonetool trade (e.g. in neolithical europe)
Also abundand DNA evidence shows, peoples mixed and mingled - without any archeological evidence of large scale conflict


Also, don't forget that

1) population density was nowhere near current standards and
2) the whole modern concept of borders was completely unheard of in Neolithical or Bronze age times

IF you really wanna include an Immigration/Border Civic (which I think is unnecessary) then for the love of God, make it historically accurate

youmakemefart said:

I really have to contest the notion of people not travelling or immigrating before the classical period, which is completely wrong as all the archeological and historical evidence shows.

Well before writing and metal working there were established trade networks as countless archeological finds illustrate. The idea that "people didn't travel because it wasn't safe and didn't pay off" as some people in this forum suggest is contradicted by amber, pottery and stonetool trade (e.g. in neolithical europe)
Also abundand DNA evidence shows, peoples mixed and mingled - without any archeological evidence of large scale conflict


Also, don't forget that

1) population density was nowhere near current standards and
2) the whole modern concept of borders was completely unheard of in Neolithical or Bronze age times

IF you really wanna include an Immigration/Border Civic (which I think is unnecessary) then for the love of God, make it historically accurate

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+1 (whole post)

JosEPh

How about the first Immigration civic be named Neutral and it is exactly that, no effects at all?

As far as I see it, your examples of the ancient period should be classified in the second or third category, but if you think about the early peoples it is accurate to say they didn't move just because they had no promises to move. If it was to make a new settlement, then this is already the role of the settler unit, not exactly part of the migration policy.

Of course people moved, but there weren't migration routes from fixed settlements. Few cases don't change the rule. Mesopotamia, Persia and Hindustan aren't the same thing as the ancient tribes (the first settlements of the world, as the beginning of civ tries to portray).

Just to add that amber, pottery and stonetools aren't the starting point of RAND, as except by the first one, the others are techs that you don't know from the start.

Spirictum said:

As far as I see it, your examples of the ancient period should be classified in the second or third category, but if you think about the early peoples it is accurate to say they didn't move just because they had no promises to move. If it was to make a new settlement, then this is already the role of the settler unit, not exactly part of the migration policy.

Of course people moved, but there weren't migration routes from fixed settlements. Few cases don't change the rule. Mesopotamia, Persia and Hindustan aren't the same thing as the ancient tribes (the first settlements of the world, as the beginning of civ tries to portray).

Just to add that amber, pottery and stonetools aren't the starting point of RAND, as except by the first one, the others are techs that you don't know from the start.

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Again, you don't seem to understand the situation. Migration and trade in early human history was not "a few cases" it was the absolute norm as DNA evidence, archeological evidence and very early written evidence testifies. Migration and movement have been integral parts of humanity since FOREVER. Humans migrated from Africa to Siberia for Pete's sake!

On what do you base the idea that early peoples didn't move, migrate or trade?

"No promises to move"??? There are abundand push- or pull-factors:
- increase of wealth and status because of trade (again COUNTLESS evidence testifies this)
- exploitation of new ressource base
- over-hunting or over farming
- conflicts with other tribes
- safety provided by another tribe or more favorable geography
- promise of milder climate
- religious or spirutual reasons (closer to holy site such as mountain or lake etc)
- finding new partners or founding new family
- adventure
.
.

From the wikipedia article on trade:

"Trade originated with human communication in prehistoric times. Trading was the main facility of prehistoric people, who bartered goods and services from each other before the innovation of modern day currency. Peter Watson dates the history of long-distance commerce from circa 150,000 years ago."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade


So please, either provide some kind of argument to support the idea that humans didn't move, migrate or trade, publish it in a peer revued archeological or historical journal and revolutionise our concept of human history - or stop spreading this nonsense.

@youmakemefart

Once again you seem to be pointing at stages of development that are not the starting point of RAND. Trade is a tech that you don't start knowing, so once again trading will only get to a point where it is portrayed like your description when the tech is discovered, which isn't the beginning of the game.

You can't be so shortsighted, for anything's sake, as to can't imagine humanity before Trade. Which is true to the initial stages of your civilization in RAND.

If you think Trade implies in a migration policy that isn't the starting one created by afforess anymore, then you should defend that the tech Trade enables another migration policy to be used.


Now imagine the tribes of old, where there weren't coins or kings, Chiefdom was the norm, there was few/no Trade between tribes, migrations were to abandon sites and/or to find new ones:
-What was wealth and status to these people?
-Exploitation? In a tribe that hunts, fishes, cuts wood, mines some hills?
-Over hunting or overfarming? I can't see why people would move because of "overfood", only for lack of food.
-To settle another area? Or to join another village? Isn't that more like a random event tied to an early invasion?
-safety and favorable geography once again seem to be better as random events and settlers
-Once more, random events or settlers for climate
-religious or spiritual reasons can also be portrayed by random events and settlers
-adventure?

So if Trade originated around 150,000 BC, then I think we should rework the techtree because AND making it available only after 6000 BC is a shot in History.


Now just to make things clearer, as I think you didn't comprehend from the beginning. Discoveries from realities of long ago are really hard to accurately portray several things because the evidence that remains is small. But, we may presume humanity has stages of evolution similar in many places of different times. If we check the history of Native America, we may see several stages of development at the same time in different locations, being the least advanced that of the amazonian and the tribes along the coast of Brazil and Argentina. There you see Trade as something rare. This brings a lot of knowledge without needing to know from when the first humans started to engage in migration routes.

RAND puts us in this primal state in 6000 BC. In the real world that wasn't the case.

Also it's a civic, a policy, not exactly the behavior of the ones living wherever they live. It's just that the government (in the case of the starting point of RAND, a tribal Chiefdom) doesn't care if you migrate or not, and if people come to the tribe from migration or not. It's not something thinked or developed, it's just one big I Don't Care to migrations. Of course in the evolution of society, these migrations appeared, but when was the local government first interested in controlling migration?


So the civic is more like Restricted Borders: Travel is dangerous and most people live and die without going too far. That's true for the stage of development RAND implies in 6000 BC at the starting point of the game.

Ok, I understand your point now.

You are not argueing the historical correctness of what I am saying but are rather pointing out that in terms of creating a mod and a tech tree it is a necessary compromise with history.

I hope you understand my point that historical evidence is showing that Trade is as old as Homo Sapiens himself