Representation vs Universal Suffrage (balance of government civics)

I'm interested to know how people perceive the balance between representation and universal suffrage; and also the other government civics (monarch and police state).

In the mod I've been making, I've made some minor adjustments to serfdom and environmentalism, and some indirect changes to mercantilism, and I'm now pretty happy with those civic branches being well balanced. I feel they are balanced in the sense that each civic has a time or a situation in which is it is useful. For example, slavery is very useful to building infrastructure in small cities, but it's usefulness wears off as your cities get big - and which time you should adopt one of the other civics.

I don't think the government civics are well balanced, but I'd like to get some other opinions before changing anything.

In my experience, representation is the best – and I think that maybe it is too powerful. I rarely switch from representation to universal suffrage, because my research rate relies on the representation bonus. I usually have quite few specialists because of the food surge from biology and then from corporations. If I get the pyramids then I always skip monarchy completely, and just stick with representation for the entire game. Police state is pretty weak. I almost never use it, but it is situationally useful. It could handle a small buff, but it's probably ok as it is.

Here are the 'problems' as I see them:

• Monarchy doesn't really have a place. It's only useful at the start of the game because it's the only option you have. Once representation becomes available, monarchy is obsolete. Compare this to the Labour branch. If you got access to all the labour civics at the start of the game, slavery would still be the best. Similarly with the Legal branch – bureaucracy is the best in the early game, but not in the late game. Monarchy is never the best, because representation is too powerful.
• Late game specialists are only powerful if you have representation. I might have plenty of towns when you first get universal suffrage, but as the game goes on I am likely to get more and more specialists, and so representation get better and better. Early game specialists are comparable to early game tile improvements, which is good; but late game specialists can only compete with late game tile improvements if you have representation.

Ok. So here are a couple of possible changes... I'm not particularly convinced with either idea, but I'd like to know what other people think (the idea are not meant to be applied at the same time [although they potentially could be]):

1. Remove the happiness bonus from representation.
   The point of this idea is to solve the first 'problem' that I outlined above. It would make monarchy the civic of choice for the early game. If representation didn't have the happiness bonus, then it would be outclassed by monarchy in the early game. Representation would become powerful later in the game once you got your happiness fixed up using other sources. Universal suffrage would be slightly better than it is now, relative to representation.
   
2. Specialist bonuses to all the government civics. Something like this, monarchy: +2; police state: +2; representation: +3; universal suffrage +2.
   The point of this idea is to solve the second 'problem'. Specialists get a bonus that depends on your government type, and so they are useful all through the game. (By the way, culture is a bit more powerful in my mod than in the normal game.) Universal suffrage would kind of have a self-synergy, with it's rush-buying and + specialists; all the government civics would be relatively stronger vs representation; and monarchy would become useful as a culture civic, which may be desirable at certain points of the game.

So. I'd like to hear what other people think. Firstly, what do you think of the balance of the government civics as they are currently. Am I right about representation being a bit too powerful? Is universal suffrage powerful enough? Secondly, what do you think of my suggestions? Would universal suffrage be too powerful with the gold boost? Would the simpler change – removing the happiness bonus – be the better change? Do you agree that the 'problems' that I'm trying to fix are actually problems?

I'm keen to get some feedback so that I don't just balance the game based on how _I_ play, but rather balance it for everyone.

[edit]
I'm pretty sure +2 per specialist for universal suffrage would be too powerful. +1 is probably closer to good balance. Tell me what you think.

I dont think the gov civics are hugely unbalanced, sure some of them could use a little change but nothing big.

I dont think removing the happiness from Rep would make a big difference, it would make Rep more expensive, in that you would have to build more infrastructure to increase the happy cap, but it would still retain its power.



Monarchy is fine, its big benefit is that it comes so early, thats one of the things that make it powerful, that and its pretty easy to use, although it can be expensive.

Rep comes pretty late, it could possibly use with a increase in cost to high, but with or without that I dont think it matters that much.

For PS I think your addition is good, it would make sense that a police state would be able to spy better.It could also use a cost reduction to medium.

US is pretty good how it is,it gets used often enough and is in general a pretty strong civic.

The real problem i see with Rep,PS and US is that they all come around the same time, so you dont get to really use one for a while before you have to choose.

The only ones I could agree with changing is Rep and PS the other two are fine how they are.Also from readin your post I get the impression that you want these bonuses in addition to what the civics already provide.Which for the other 3 I can understand, but which seems that it will make Rep even more powerful, which i thought isn't what you wanted.


I dont think the choice is simple with Labor civics, Caste System is often very tempting.And Emancipation early would make a big difference, cottages would become much more powerful.

I don't see a problem really.

Monarchy is the only early government civic available unless you have Pyramids. It is a very powerful civic as it is because it raises happiness cap by 1 per unit.

The choice between Representation and Universal Suffrage is pretty clear. Representation is for SE/HE and Universal Suffrage is for CE.

Police state is generally used for war times.

- You act as if there aren't earlygame situations where monarchy is superior to rep
- You act as if "time becomes available" isn't a material consideration of whether something "has a place" and its relative power
- You assume improperly that +3 beakers/spec can somehow compete with massed towns. US is a civic for massed towns. When you have 20+ towns, all of a sudden the 20 hammers would take a lot of specs to match. Also, cities with towns are less biased toward food unless you have a powerful corp and enough resources (a game-winning situation regardless)
- You're completely forgetting tile improvements like workshops, which under the right circumstances own alternatives straight up, especially when building projects. Late game specs do need rep to shine, but there's no reason you HAVE to run a lot of late game specs.
- If you had all labor civics at turn 0, emancipation, caste, and even serfdom can compete with slavery depending on map. Emancipation would frequently beat it.
- PS along with some other structures gives IMMUNITY to war-weariness, and is a GLOBAL and INSTANT boost to unit production while in the civic. It's a one trick pony but it is very good at its trick.

Seriously, the "balance" between monarchy and rep is driven by when they become available. Cottage setups might skip rep entirely, going monarchy ----> US. However, even for spec games the mids might be too costly to get. Having 4-5 or even 2-3 extra cities in monarchy can easily trump rep using fewer, especially because the REAL draw of early specs is the GPP they provide.

Serfdom can actually use the help; right now it comes late enough that players needed enough workers w/o it before it's available. Having it attached to an AI-loved tech that goes against the metagame doesn't help either.

Environmentalism is one of those "it hurts others more than me" civics. It makes windmills VERY good and carries a substantial amount of to ease the production of factories/power, but is otherwise weaker than SP/FM. However, when you're all cottages and they're all workshops, it doesn't take much sense to figure out that forcing UN environmentalism is beneficial to your relative position. Regardless, in health-starved cities it's effectively +6 in a good chunk of your cities (invariably the largest, most productive). Does that really need buffing?

I think you should not look at the Government Civic as its blank state.

Monarchy comes really early in the game and gives happiness boost when you needed it the most. It is unfair comparing it with Rep/US as they come rather late in the game (and Democracy is a dead end tech).

Granted Police State is situational, it can outshine all the other 3 when you get dragged into long wars.

When talking about balancing civic, you should also take account to when they become available and their tech path.


Of course , all these points are moot, if you managed to build The Pyramid

Lalabunny said:

I think you should not look at the Government Civic as its blank state.

Monarchy comes really early in the game and gives happiness boost when you needed it the most. It is unfair comparing it with Rep/US as they come rather late in the game (and Democracy is a dead end tech).

Granted Police State is situational, it can outshine all the other 3 when you get dragged into long wars.

When talking about balancing civic, you should also take account to when they become available and their tech path.


Of course , all these points are moot, if you managed to build The Pyramid

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Pyramids are not to be built lightly. In the wrong situation building them can weaken your position or hand you an L.

In the right situation they can be a game-changer. But there's ALWAYS a tradeoff with early wonders, especially the more expensive ones.

xenex said:

I dont think the gov civics are hugely unbalanced, sure some of them could use a little change but nothing big.

I dont think removing the happiness from Rep would make a big difference, it would make Rep more expensive, in that you would have to build more infrastructure to increase the happy cap, but it would still retain its power.



Monarchy is fine, its big benefit is that it comes so early, thats one of the things that make it powerful, that and its pretty easy to use, although it can be expensive.

Rep comes pretty late, it could possibly use with a increase in cost to high, but with or without that I dont think it matters that much.

For PS I think your addition is good, it would make sense that a police state would be able to spy better.It could also use a cost reduction to medium.

US is pretty good how it is,it gets used often enough and is in general a pretty strong civic.

The only ones I could agree with changing is Rep and PS the other two are fine how they are.Also from readin your post I get the impression that you want these bonuses in addition to what the civics already provide.Which for the other 3 I can understand, but which seems that it will make Rep even more powerful, which i thought isn't what you wanted.

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Actually, for the specialist bonus idea that I posted, I meant that rep would be left as-is, with +3 science; but that the other government civics would all gain a specialist bonus on top of what they already do. I've started a multiplayer game with my friend to test the idea. My main concerns from testing so far are that the monarchy bonus might overshadow the usefulness of artists, and it might help too much for cultural victories. But it's early days yet. I'm still not convinced it's a good idea.
About the other idea; the no rep happiness idea; my thinking is that it would make relatively little difference in the late game, but make a big difference in the early game. And so monarchy would be the civic of choice for a big chunk of the game; before you start getting lots of happiness from other sources. One problem with this idea is that it would be a significant indirect nerf to the pyramids - and I like the pyramids the way they are. Maybe my whole line of thinking about this monarchy stuff is a bit pointless. What I'm trying to achieve kind of has as much to do with what I think is 'elegant' as it has to do with balance. Maybe it would make more sense to just tweak the upkeep costs as you suggested rather than mess with the actual bonuses the civics give. Or maybe I should just leave it alone.

I'm quite interested in how often other people use universal suffrage though. Like I said, I only use it rarely but I'm not sure sure if that's just my play style and my habits, or because representation is genuinely stronger.

TheMeInTeam said:

- You act as if there aren't earlygame situations where monarchy is superior to rep
- You act as if "time becomes available" isn't a material consideration of whether something "has a place" and its relative power
- You assume improperly that +3 beakers/spec can somehow compete with massed towns. US is a civic for massed towns. When you have 20+ towns, all of a sudden the 20 hammers would take a lot of specs to match. Also, cities with towns are less biased toward food unless you have a powerful corp and enough resources (a game-winning situation regardless)
- You're completely forgetting tile improvements like workshops, which under the right circumstances own alternatives straight up, especially when building projects. Late game specs do need rep to shine, but there's no reason you HAVE to run a lot of late game specs.
- If you had all labor civics at turn 0, emancipation, caste, and even serfdom can compete with slavery depending on map. Emancipation would frequently beat it.
- PS along with some other structures gives IMMUNITY to war-weariness, and is a GLOBAL and INSTANT boost to unit production while in the civic. It's a one trick pony but it is very good at its trick.

Seriously, the "balance" between monarchy and rep is driven by when they become available. Cottage setups might skip rep entirely, going monarchy ----> US. However, even for spec games the mids might be too costly to get. Having 4-5 or even 2-3 extra cities in monarchy can easily trump rep using fewer, especially because the REAL draw of early specs is the GPP they provide.

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I thank you for your contribution, but do you really need to be so combative? I don't feel like I assumed any of those things that you accused me of. "You're completely forgetting tile improvements like workshops" – as if you can't have workshops and specialists at the same time! I appreciate your opinion, and I know you are a skilled player, but give me a break! How much benefit do you think you'll get from universal suffrage if you've got all those workshops anyway?

I'm just saying that I tend to use representation far more often than anything else; and that I want the usefulness of monarchy to be more closely related to what it does rather than when comes. I used slavery and bureaucracy as examples of civics that would be useful in the early game even if you had access to all civic. The point is that I want monarchy to be like that as well — for my mod. Maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough. I agree that the main benefit of monarchy currently is that it comes early in the game. I just reckon that it would be better if that wasn't the only reason people chose it.

Anyway, you're right that 20 towns is going to get an enormous boost from universal suffrage. I never meant to imply that universal suffrage is anywhere near useless. It is definitely powerful in the right situations. I'm just saying that when I play, I almost always decide that representation will be stronger. It isn't that I'm building nothing but farms and massing as many specialists as I can. I'm most certainly not doing that. It's just that in the late game, most cities are likely to have a couple of specialists, super-specialists, military instructors, or whatever, and I estimate that I'll get more benefit from the specialist boost than from the town boost. How many points of commerce do you think each hammer is worth? 1.5? 2? 3? When count my specialists and count my towns, I generally decide that representation will help me more. It's partially because there's a bit of surge in population around that time, and new towns take a long time to grow.

As for the buff to environmentalism that I mentioned, it actually relates to some new game mechanics that I've introduced, so I'll save that discussion for another thread.

I apologize, I was still in a bad mood over a discussion over on civ V GD about "fanboi-ism" and someone who should know better hand-waving the GUI in civ V. Some of that bled over here .

You can't really split the "how useful it is in the absolute sense as opposed to when it is available". That is a FUNDAMENTAL consideration in civ IV, with a lot of things! Cottages vs other improvements, expansion vs small empire + wonders, building wealth/research instead of buildings, etc. Return on investment is a HUGE part of civ, and the fact that monarchy is the earliest non-default civic in the branch is a powerful part of its draw. It also opens up some novel moves like chain-whipping units into a city and putting the overflow into globe, or just chain whipping in general in a desperate bid to MASS military, though the city will be useless when they move out.

Bureaucracy, if you have a good oxford set up, might take a LONG time (or even until the game is functionally over) to lose its value over nationhood or FS, especially depending on #cottages. Your using bur as an example is somewhat self-defeating as a point by the way; if nationhood were available early on it would be one of the most devastating civics in the game, and FS/vassalage would have draws also (FS less so).

Commerce converts to hammers at roughly 1 = 3 for rush buy, 2 with kremlin. However you have to factor multipliers too and that complicates things considerably.

If you're running 2 rep specs in 12 cities, you're getting a max 72 beakers/turn from rep that you wouldn't in another civic. Of course, that's pre-multiplier, but so is commerce and hammers from other civics. 12 cities in the late game can easily put up close to 2000 beakers; and if you're running towns they can convert the extra hammer DIRECTLY into gold or beakers via wealth/research. Rep specs aren't end-all-be all, there are situations where you might prefer one of the other civics even if to that point you've been fairly spec-heavy.

Anyway I didn't mean to come of ass brash (on this thread) as I did, my bad on that, but definitely consider that civ in general makes the "less now might be worth more than more later" evaluation a part of the core experience, and that monarchy is one of many features that represent that.

I only use US after I've captured lots of cities to buy the infrastructure for the largest, combined with Slavery for the small ones.

karadoc said:

Specialist bonuses to all the government civics. Something like this, monarchy: +2; police state: +2; representation: +3; universal suffrage +2.

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I like the Monarchy and Police State ideas, but think Rep would be better as +2 and no happy bonus. Even then I'm sure I'd stick with Rep, the others are very situational - I wouldn't be running PS in peacetime for example just for the +2 and lose the or .

US +2 is over-powered imo, perhaps +1 as you suggested?

If you really want to give Monarchy a late-game edge, then you can have it to add 2 gold per village/town.

So let me see if i got this right, with your way Rep would be +3 for each specialist and +3 ?

Something that I realized now was how Monarchy would effectivly obsolete monuments, which in my opinion isn't something you want to do, even more so because their on the same path.

xenex said:

So let me see if i got this right, with your way Rep would be +3 for each specialist and +3 ?

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No. I can see why you thought I might have meant an extra +3 science, but really I just meant to leave representation completely unchanged. Only the other civics would get a buff.

xenex said:

Something that I realized now was how Monarchy would effectivly obsolete monuments, which in my opinion isn't something you want to do, even more so because their on the same path.

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I agree that it would be bad to obsolete monuments. As it turns out, monuments would still be worth building for early-game culture wars because of the changes I've made to the spread of culture; but they wouldn't be worth building just for a quick border pop... a citizen specialist would do a better job of that, and that probably isn't a good way for it to be. Another possibility is to switch the bonuses I suggested so that universal suffrage gets extra culture and monarchy gets extra gold. But if it's like that, +2 per specialist from monarchy would probably be too good for the early game, and +1 wouldn't really be enough for it to claim a mid/late game niche anyway, it would just be an early game boost for a civic that doesn't really need it.
ywhtptgtfo's suggestion of giving monarchy a commerce bonus for towns would fit the bill of being a decent late-game buff. But I'm worried that it would have too much strategic overlap with universal suffrage or something. I don't know. I just can't seem to find a change that I'm really happy with.

TheMeInTeam said:

You can't really split the "how useful it is in the absolute sense as opposed to when it is available". That is a FUNDAMENTAL consideration in civ IV, with a lot of things! Cottages vs other improvements, expansion vs small empire + wonders, building wealth/research instead of buildings, etc. Return on investment is a HUGE part of civ, and the fact that monarchy is the earliest non-default civic in the branch is a powerful part of its draw. It also opens up some novel moves like chain-whipping units into a city and putting the overflow into globe, or just chain whipping in general in a desperate bid to MASS military, though the city will be useless when they move out.

Bureaucracy, if you have a good oxford set up, might take a LONG time (or even until the game is functionally over) to lose its value over nationhood or FS, especially depending on #cottages. Your using bur as an example is somewhat self-defeating as a point by the way; if nationhood were available early on it would be one of the most devastating civics in the game, and FS/vassalage would have draws also (FS less so).

Commerce converts to hammers at roughly 1 = 3 for rush buy, 2 with kremlin. However you have to factor multipliers too and that complicates things considerably.

If you're running 2 rep specs in 12 cities, you're getting a max 72 beakers/turn from rep that you wouldn't in another civic. Of course, that's pre-multiplier, but so is commerce and hammers from other civics. 12 cities in the late game can easily put up close to 2000 beakers; and if you're running towns they can convert the extra hammer DIRECTLY into gold or beakers via wealth/research. Rep specs aren't end-all-be all, there are situations where you might prefer one of the other civics even if to that point you've been fairly spec-heavy.

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I guess I was a bit off the mark with my claim about early game civics and so on. I still feel like there is something a bit wrong with monarchy though. It seems to me that most civics have situation in which you use them because of how they help you, but with monarchy you just use it because it's all you've got. To see what I mean, just imagine if monarchy only gave +2 happiness in your largest cities (instead of its current bonus) – so that it really was just a less powerful version of representation. In that case it would still be useful for how early it is, but it's just a fundamentally weak civic and I'd be determined to change it. I think the current monarchy is a bit like that, but to a lesser extent.

But... Your chain-whip towards globe theater strategy is a good example of how monarchy can help you in a way that no other civic could. (By the way, I hadn't thought of that strategy before, and it sounds pretty powerful. So thanks for that.)

And you're right that universal suffrage hammers are more flexible in terms of what they can do for you compared to representation beakers – but on the other hand the specialists themselves are pretty flexible. You can have a bunch of engineers when you want more productivity, or artists if you need more culture, and so on. One thing I particularly like about specialists is that you can target your gold production on the cities that have all the gold multiplier buildings. ie, put merchants in those gold cities, so that you can run your research rate higher to get a strong benefit from research multiplier buildings (because those are more common).

Anyway, the bottom line seems to be that not everyone agree with me about universal suffrage being weaker than representation.

It isn't, consistently. Here's a game where I never used it. Look at the beakers from late-game; that's from 11 cities and 2 of them are culture-flipped junkers.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10079283&postcount=19

As for monarchy, it has quite a few benefits unique to it.

- When really pushed for , it's the only unlimited source.
- MANY AIs call it "favorite civic". The diplo benefits from having their favorite civic (IE trades @ friendly that wouldn't happen otherwise and having become impossible for them to declare on you) can easily beat rep.
- The chain whipping I mentioned
- Early growth sizes > rep potentially, and for the cost of warriors or archers/pop.

Late game using it isn't common because farms tend to benefit more from rep and towns from US, but if you're going say hammers spam on a lot of cities it might actually NOT be worth switching out of it, especially if you have significantly more than the #cities rep boosts.

There are also some alternatives to it, early-game depending on situation:

- Pyramids with stone (most obvious one)
- 3+ calendar resources = calendar > monarchy
- Drama (theater + 10% culture slider = 3 , often cheaper than the units and hammer competitive even if you're CRE)

Given its low cost and high availability most of the time you'd still trade into it and switch w/o mids, but it's an important part of the game, and while switching into it is generally obvious, when to switch out of it may or may not be.

TheMeInTeam:

I'd be interested in your opinion on the following as it's slightly related to this thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=401859

Cheers

squoink said:

TheMeInTeam:

I'd be interested in your opinion on the following as it's slightly related to this thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=401859

Cheers

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I'm thinking your earlygame has some fundamental flaws, though they're hard to pinpoint with limited info.