The 'Ultimate' Civics Expander and Balancer Mod

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know that I have finished stages 1 and 2 of my Civics Balancing project, and felt it safe to post it here. Please download it, use it, and give me any feedback on how it might be improved.

EDIT: Updated Phase 2 to v 0.02: Universal Sufferage now grants +1 Gold and +2 Culture from Specialists.

The changes to civics in Stage 1 are as follows:


Stage 2:



Oh, and here are a few pics to whet your appetite.

Stage 1:



and Stage 2:



A couple of other things. I plan to hold off on stage 3 until AFTER I can add more tags to the CivicsInfo XML-in order to do the final draft justice. Things like State Religion Commerce/Yield Modifiers, and Building Yield/Commerce Modifiers and the like are in the offing (or so I hope ).
Oh, and please note that this is for VANILLA CIV4 only. I will only do a WARLORDS version after the SDK modifications are done-unless you ask Stages 1 and 2 specifically, of course.
Anyway. hope you enjoy it and remember, all feedback is appreciated.

Aussie_Lurker.

Very, very MINOR update to Phase 2 of the Balanced Civics Mod. I have already included the new version in my sig, so check it out.

Change: Universal Sufferage: +2 Health per city has been removed, and has now been replaced by a +2 Culture and +1 Gold commerce per Specialist modifier.
For everything else, I have decided to take the advice of Hourly-Daily and Impaler by keeping the values as is.

EDIT: 23/08/06. I am sorry for the delay, but am now proud to announce the release of Civics_Balancer_Phase2 for Warlords. Not only have I updated the mod for warlords, but have made some other 'tweaks' to other parts of the game. Namely:

1) Organised Religion now becomes available with Priesthood, and Orthodox becomes available with Monotheism.

2) Both Polytheism and Meditation now require Priesthood which-in turn-requires Mysticism. I am hoping that this will end the 'Isabella the Bhuddist' scenario AND the situation where 1 civ gets a run on ALL the early religions (In truth, I am also considering swapping Bhuddism with Taoism-given that Taoism was around LONG before Bhuddism).

3) I have swapped the effects of Pyramids and The Parthenon, as I feel that a Greek Wonder should grant all Government Civics-given that almost all our modern governments were first trialled in Greece or Rome. I am thinking of making further modification to Pyramids, but will for now leave them as is.

Anyway, check it out either via the attachment provided, or via the link in my Signature. I hope to have more info on Phase 3 soon too!

Aussie_Lurker.

Looks interesting. If you having problems with the quick uploader, maybe try uploading it to the File Database and linking to it.

Thanks for the advice, Jeckel, that worked. So guys, if you want to download either of these mods, please check out the following links:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1027

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1028

or, better still, check you my sig .
As I said above, if you like it-please let me know. If you HATE it, please let me know (but also tell me WHY you hate it-I can't improve it if you don't). If you have ANY suggestions as to how I can improve either mod, please let me know.

Aussie_Lurker.

GJ, Aussie

Some more input: I think Jurisprudence is overpowered. I haven't played this yet, but just looking at it, it seems incredible. And barter should probably have some kind of increased maintenance cost or decreased trade routes because w/o a stable currency it is impossible to know how much something is really worth.
Any of the other economic civics could be Cash economies (except barter) so you should probably throw it out. State property is really vague (I know its in vanilla, but still). Perhaps you should replace these with planned economy (maybe production bonus coomerce and/or food penalties) and monopolies (needs a better name), which could give huge commerce and maybe production bonuses in exchange for unhappiness and unhealthiness.
Again, this is a great mod

OK, just a couple of things Bertking. Firstly, Jurisprudence comes with a HIGH maintainance cost (actually, I might release a new version of Phase 2 with extra maintainance cost levels-very high and very low. Leave it with me ), yet is less powerful in many ways than Bureacracy. However, I might try toning done the hammer and gold benefits to a +10%. Before I do, though, please actually try it 'In Game'. If you still feel its overpowered, then I will certainly take another look at it.
Also, with barter, what you have to remember is that it is (a) limited only to cottages and hamlets (so is only of any use when you have first built these terrain improvements) and (b) the civic reduce the gold producing effects of these improvements. i.e. you swap the normal gold of cottages and hamlets for food and hammers-seems fair to me . Also, though, I am thinking of 'nerfing' cottages by having them REMOVE food from the square they are on (thus hopefully cutting back the sure 'strategy' of 'Cottage Spamming'.)

Aussie_Lurker.

Do you have any idea how to make this (stage 2) Warlords compatable? Would the changes have to be in XML, Python, or both?

A few questions regarding flavour:

Why does Police State lower health?
Why does Universal Suffrage lower war weariness? War weariness generally represents dissent and protest (See Jail, Police State, and so forth punishing protesters). These things would be encouraged in a democracy, not lowered. I mean, just look at modern day reaction to war. The citizens of western democracies don't like it, and even if they do like it it's not because of the type of government.
I don't know about Theocracy as a government civic. While I'm not thrilled about the way "religious civics" were handled in the core game, the system in place doesn't really allow for anything better. How could you have Theocracy and Free Religion at the same time? And why couldn't you have a Theocratic Oligarchy, or a Theocratic Democracy, or any other permutation?
What is the difference (in flavour) between Decentralised and Barter? And why should the former come before the latter?
Why does Pantheism lower culture?

@BertKing. Having read through the CivicsInfo XML, I can say that it would be dead easy to make it Warlords compatible. There is only one additional tag in the Warlords XML which is not present in Vanilla. If I get time, I might try and do it tonight.

@DryHad. Trust me, I am not completely thrilled with it either, but please remember that this is kind of a 'work in progress'. I wanted a theocratic government type in the civics, and couldn't think of any other way of doing it. I have considered the 'Theocracy+Free Religion' Dichotomy, and I think you can see how I chose to solve it. Every non-state religion under theocracy grants a -2 happiness penalty, and Free Religion has NO State religion. Upshot, you are getting a net -1 happiness penalty for every religion in a city. Unless you are keen on a combination of War Weariness reduction and slight science boost, there will be no real benefit in running these two civics together (it can happen in-game, but there will always be some anomolies).
As for the Universal sufferage. Well thats just an out-and-out error on my part. Its supposed to INCREASE war weariness, not decrease it.
Lastly, why does police state reduce health? Well we have to have some way to represent all those dissidents who conveniently 'disappear', don't we? It seemed like the most rational penalty for this government type IMO.
Just so you know though, Dryhad, the 3rd stage will have a seperate 'Ideology' Column. When I have that, Theocratic will become an 'Ideology', leaving it open to have a Theocratic Oligarchy or Dictatorship-or anything else for that matter. Hope that answers all your questions, and I hope you are enjoying the mod in spite of the 'anomolies'.

Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie_Lurker said:

@DryHad. Trust me, I am not completely thrilled with it either, but please remember that this is kind of a 'work in progress'. I wanted a theocratic government type in the civics, and couldn't think of any other way of doing it. I have considered the 'Theocracy+Free Religion' Dichotomy, and I think you can see how I chose to solve it. Every non-state religion under theocracy grants a -2 happiness penalty, and Free Religion has NO State religion. Upshot, you are getting a net -1 happiness penalty for every religion in a city. Unless you are keen on a combination of War Weariness reduction and slight science boost, there will be no real benefit in running these two civics together (it can happen in-game, but there will always be some anomolies).
[...]
Just so you know though, Dryhad, the 3rd stage will have a seperate 'Ideology' Column. When I have that, Theocratic will become an 'Ideology', leaving it open to have a Theocratic Oligarchy or Dictatorship-or anything else for that matter. Hope that answers all your questions, and I hope you are enjoying the mod in spite of the 'anomolies'.

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Ok, that makes sense. It's always interesting to see how people handle the religious civics.

Aussie_Lurker said:

Lastly, why does police state reduce health? Well we have to have some way to represent all those dissidents who conveniently 'disappear', don't we? It seemed like the most rational penalty for this government type IMO.

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Hmm, I don't know. Unhealthiness in Civ4 always seems to represent polution or something like that. "Disappearances" don't really fit with what's already there. I'm not sure how you'd represent that, though. I'd personally leave it out altogether. The Civ4 system doesn't really accomodate the actions of single citizens.
Also on Police State, but otherwise unrelated, I think the message for Civic-bonus happiness is "We just enjoy life". It's got something of a dark comedy to it in this context, doesn't it ?

Also, you didn't answer my question regarding Pantheism? Or is that just a typo like Universal Suffrage?

Food is probably closer to the population model. If you're looking to model disappearances (and add a worthy penalty), a little less food per city wouldn't be out of the question.

Thanks, DH_Epic, I will take a look at that.
@Dryhad. Sorry, didn't see those last 2 questions at the bottom of your original post.

OK, as far as Decentralised vs Barter. Well for starters I don't even LIKE the name 'Decentralisation', in this context, and will be changing it to Subsistance. That, then, is the key 'flavour' difference between them-Subsistance essentially represents everyone making do for themselves-growing and eating their own food, and keeping just enough to replant/breed up for the following year.
However, with the advent of pottery, a means exists to store food for longer-term storage and carrying-meaning that people are able to trade their goods at nearby population centres (cottages and Hamlets-though I am thinking of changing it to Hamlets and Villages instead). However, as the population are merely trading one set of goods for another, the ability to generate cash from these trades is exceedingly limited-hence the boost to food and hammers, but the reduction in gold. It is not until the advent of currency and-therefore-a cash economy, that goods get traded for cash.
As for Pantheism having reduced culture. Well Pantheists are more accepting of the cultural and religious beliefs of other peoples and, therefore, they become early hubs of 'multiculturalism'. As such, their own 'national' culture becomes more easily diluted-but the greater exchange of ideas and cash kind of make up for it. If it makes you feel better, though, I have already made modifications to the CivicsInfo SDK files, which will allow me to limit commerce and yield bonuses to cities containing the State Religion only.

Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie_Lurker said:

OK, as far as Decentralised vs Barter. Well for starters I don't even LIKE the name 'Decentralisation', in this context, and will be changing it to Subsistance. That, then, is the key 'flavour' difference between them-Subsistance essentially represents everyone making do for themselves-growing and eating their own food, and keeping just enough to replant/breed up for the following year.
However, with the advent of pottery, a means exists to store food for longer-term storage and carrying-meaning that people are able to trade their goods at nearby population centres (cottages and Hamlets-though I am thinking of changing it to Hamlets and Villages instead). However, as the population are merely trading one set of goods for another, the ability to generate cash from these trades is exceedingly limited-hence the boost to food and hammers, but the reduction in gold. It is not until the advent of currency and-therefore-a cash economy, that goods get traded for cash.

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Fair enough. Decentralisation is kind of stupid when "Free Market" also exists.

Aussie_Lurker said:

As for Pantheism having reduced culture. Well Pantheists are more accepting of the cultural and religious beliefs of other peoples and, therefore, they become early hubs of 'multiculturalism'. As such, their own 'national' culture becomes more easily diluted-but the greater exchange of ideas and cash kind of make up for it. If it makes you feel better, though, I have already made modifications to the CivicsInfo SDK files, which will allow me to limit commerce and yield bonuses to cities containing the State Religion only.

Aussie_Lurker.

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But multiculturalism is usually represented by an increase in culture (see Free Speech). Seriously, accepting other cultures doesn't make me think of culture being reduced! Just because the culture isn't necessarily linked to a certain group of people doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it doesn't benefit the nation.

Actually, as I see it, the bonus culture from Free Speech comes about as a result of the free-flow of ideas, and the ability for all people to speak their mind (though a bonus to science would fit this too IMO). A multicultural society would, by its very nature, see its dominant culture diluted by the influx of other cultures. What is important, though, is not to see this civic in isolation, but to see it in synergy with other civics choices.

Aussie_Lurker.

Yeah, I'm with Aussie. You need to focus on the effects more than the cause.

You might say "Communism doesn't lead to more food!" -- no, but a lot of Communist states led to big surges in population growth, which is what food ultimately does.

It makes sense that pantheism isn't multicultural the same way that Free Speech leads to a huge boost in culture. Pantheism does kind of water down the idea of "my god is stronger than your god", and thus waters down a sense of (proto-)national identity.

Aussie_Lurker said:

Actually, as I see it, the bonus culture from Free Speech comes about as a result of the free-flow of ideas, and the ability for all people to speak their mind (though a bonus to science would fit this too IMO). A multicultural society would, by its very nature, see its dominant culture diluted by the influx of other cultures. What is important, though, is not to see this civic in isolation, but to see it in synergy with other civics choices.

Aussie_Lurker.

Click to expand...

Ah, but you assume there is a dominant culture. Does culture necessarily represent a purely national culture that nobody else shares? I would argue, no. Multicultural societies don't tend to loose identity because there are multiple cultures. Instead, they make multiculturalism their "thing" (You're Australian, surely you've heard this nonsense flying around?). It's not an economic benefit, it's actually a cultural thing. Also, notice what happens when there is no state religion. All religions contribute culture equally. Is that a national thing?

Also, you'll want to make the effects of civics intuitive. Something people can look at and say "Oh, that makes sense". Now while you may put up a very good argument for lowering culture in this civic, it's not going to be the first thing people think of. Even less so if it must be considered in conjunction with others. A civic that encourages cultural tolerance is not going to intutively link to a culture reduction.

Well, don't just criticise my decision-by all means make a suggestion for a better penalty . Trust me I am ALL EARS .

Aussie_Lurker.

If I was doing it, I'd just reduce the benefits. However, it's you're thing and if you think it has to have a penalty... Once you get the extra XML entries, maybe a reduction in Priest/Great Prophet functionality would be a better way of representing that. Maybe even remove priests completely. I don't know.

Maybe Pantheism isn't the way to go. Maybe "Philosophical" or something like that, to represent the implementation of Confucianism for example.