A Total Conversion of this Mod which should be Implemented Upon DLL Release

[3335d]

Civilization V: Geopolitics

Phase I: Political Control

Spoiler:

The cultural border system currently present in Civilization V should be set aside and replaced with a new system of political control which more closely reflects reality. This measure should incorporate, among other factors, the player's gold per turn, population, culture, science, and happiness. These yields should also be considered for the nearest city to a tile owned by the player. The number of units near a particular tile should also be considered in determining political control.

Centrifugal factors, which aim to pull a civilization apart rather than hold it together, should also be an important part of the game. History shows all too well that most empires only survive for a few hundred years, if that. To be more realistic, centrifugal factors should be a special case of political control. These centrifugal factors, if not dealt with, should pose a real threat to your empire's stability.

The equation for calculating political control should be:

Spoiler:

[(gold per turn+army size+science output+cultural output+faith output)/(distance from capital+1) + (gpt of nearest city+strength of nearest 5% of units/distance from city for each unit+science output of nearest city+faith output of nearest city+culture output of nearest city)/(distance from city+1)] + [central government bonuses/(distance from capital+1)]+[local bonuses/(distance from nearest city+1)] + % policy bonuses

Some buildings should affect a specific aspect of political control, such as the Tax Office, which should provide a bonus to political control based on gold per turn output in a city.

Centrifugal factors should be calculated with a similar formula to that of political control, excluding the global factors but also factoring in indicators such as an empire's happiness. As with political control, social policies should modify centrifugal factors. When switching between two mutually exclusive policy trees, the change in political control per turn, centrifugal factors will rise in a city by twenty times the amount that political control per turn was eroded, but this will be a one-time rise, rather than a per-turn rise.

Political control, as stated earlier, is a per-turn factor, so one-time boosts to it are not intended to be anything more than a stopgap until a more permanent source of political control can be found. The same applies for centrifugal factors.

When total centrifugal factors (not per-turn centrifugal factors) approach a certain percentage of the owner of the tile's total political control, damage may result to improvements due to a breakdown in law and order. In the case of this happening to cities, gold may be lost and the city will eventually break away to form a new minor civ or join an existing one. Spies also have the ability to instigate changes in political control in unstable cities in order to cause harm to their opponents by taking away resources, inducing a city to become independent, or even increasing their own nation's political control at the expense of that of the dominant power and others. Additionally, if a city(ies) become(s) independent, then by a simple linear distance-related relationship deltas for roads, rails, and techs, other cities worldwide will see an increase in centrifugal factors that may induce them to revolt. This effect dies down in the turns following a successful revolution.

Phase II: Immigration and Trade

Spoiler:

Immigration and trade were never important in Civilization, but given their historical importance it is only fit that they take their rightful place in the game. The rate of immigration will be determined by the following forumula:

Spoiler:

As is clearly visible here, immigrants will move to locations that are stable, have high populations, have low taxes, and are wealthy. Immigrants should also assimilate at a rate of (city controller culture/(total immigrant culture)) immigrants per turn until the percentage of immigrants of a particular ethnicity reaches the percentage of that ethnicity's culture concentration in a city. A city with 30% Mongolian, 20% Indian, and 50% American (dominant) culture of population 20 and 50% Mongolian immigrants will see 1 immigrant per turn assimilate for every 4 turns. Immigration should also incorporate culture, science, etc. based on the formula, but at lower weights than that of gold. Immigrants should grant bonuses to the city based on the status of the origin civ where they arrived, and trading vehicles from the origin civ should give +1% gold per immigrant from the origin civ to the city, taxable at whatever rate the player wants to. Immigrants should also establish businesses that provide various benefits to the cities and slow assimilation.

Trade should also be changed. Vehicles sponsored by corporations should travel to different cities, carrying a particular good that they will sell at a profit. There will be a concept of "overhead" dealing with the cost of providing food, water, shelter, and later fuel for those taking the vehicle on a trade route. Corporations will not take certain routes if overheads are higher than the expected value of the good they are carrying. Overheads grow linearly with distance, and will be made greater on a percentage basis with rough terrain (forests, hills, deserts, etc.) and lower by social policies, techs, monopoly buildings (which will now be built by corporations but can be seeded by the player), and infrastructure (roads and rails). Different vehicles can change overheads differently.

Corporations will always seek to travel on the most profitable routes before moving onto less profitable routes. As a result of this, economies will only become truly global in the modern era, with combustion and subsequent technologies. Trade will take a certain amount of turns to reach their destination, making them vulnerable to barbarians and enemies. This will also be a factor in determining if a corporation will take a route.

New technologies will unlock new classes of corporations making entirely different products or providing different services, and there may in fact be corporations whose sole purpose is distribution of goods for smaller corporations that cannot afford to do it themselves. Different social policies will also catalyze the formation of new corporations, stirring competition in the marketplace and driving your economy. Corporations may be taxed on the basis of revenue or profit.

The new system will allow great centers of trade to grow and flourish. Larger cities will have higher demand and the ability to build high-up monopoly buildings, reducing outbound overheads and increasing the value of incoming vehicles. With this, the old model of infinite city sprawl will be dead as a new, more networked economy emerges.

Phase III: Politics and Ideologies

Spoiler:

A new political system should be implemented. In Civilization, the hallmark feature of the game is being an immortal communist autocrat. In real life, all of us know that the world simply does not function in that fashion. Therefore, a new political system should be implemented.

Based on the amount of culture that a civilization earns, Constitutional Policies can be adopted in the same way that normal policies are - under control of the player (for the most part - there are some exceptions). These policies will be split into the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial pages, each with five branches exploring different general ways of running these government bodies. On top of this there will be ideologies, explored not by the player but by the people. The residents of each city will adopt the ideology that will provide the greatest economic, cultural, scientific, faith, or happiness benefit to them, based on how much of each the city produces. The ideology branches will be Conservatism and Liberalism, each with separate policy pages on Social Policy, Foreign Policy, Fiscal and Monetary Policy, and later in the game, Environmental Policy. These policy pages will contain five different branches each, representing different flavors of conservatism and liberalism. The rate at which ideologies advance through their branches will be determined by the stability of government and different ideological policies.

Political parties will adopt different ideology branches based on the ideologies of the people, in an attempt to gain their votes. Even as the ideology of the populace changes, there will be a friction among the populace to continue to support political parties, and for political parties to retain their own ideologies. Voters will have a lower friction, though, meaning that they can change parties more quickly than parties change themselves, allowing new parties to rise. The populace will also vote not only based on how well the ideology would perform in theory but also on how well the parties holding the ideology have done in practice. Whether a country is at war with another will also influence voter decisions.

These ideologies grant certain bonuses to the party and will provide benefits to the empire as well when their supporters possess legislative power - however, their main advantage is to allow for different actions to occur. While a conservative budget will likely have lower spending and tax rates than a liberal one, this is not set in stone, but is merely more likely. These ideologies merely change the peak of the distribution function for policies passed in various arenas, rather than dictating the exact policies that will be passed. This means that a party need not necessarily always follow its ideologies in making decisions. The distribution function for policies passed will also be affected by other parties in the legislature, although their influence on this will be weighted by the percentage of seats they hold.

The key policy passed by a legislature will be the national budget. This will be subdivided into the ideological pages listed earlier. Fiscal ideologies will determine the rates of taxation for the duration of the budget and from what sources this will be derived, as well as the overall size of the budget and the amount that goes into -producing buildings; social ideologies will determine the money that goes into patronization of the arts, religions, sciences as well as spending on social housing and welfare; foreign policy governs spending on diplomatic corps, embassies, and militaries; and environmental policy decides how much money will go into protection from pollution and enforcement of anti-pollution regulations. In addition, 30% of the money allocated by the legislature will be free money, which can be spent on any purpose desired. The rest (if there is any remaining after taxes) will be surplus, if there is no deficit. The surplus can also be spent on the desired purpose.

Different laws will also give the player the ability to perform certain actions and make various regulations. Certain environmental policies passed may allow for a CO2 cap to slow global warming, for example, and may require a certain range for this cap. The number of possibilities is staggering here, and the player will be kept thinking and must be able to plan for the worst.

Heads of state and government should also die in the game, and they should be replaced by whatever constitutional mechanism the player provides. Each head of state and head of government should have a unique ability based on the nature of the civilization when they were put into office.

Of course, the option remains of being a communist autocrat (no more immortal until you get the right tech, but assassinations could still happen). But on the whole a new dimension is added to the game.

Phase IV: Planetary Civilization and Beyond

Spoiler:

In the Digital and Information Eras (which should be renamed Information and Nanotech), humanity should be working towards a planetary civilization and even later be expanding out into the Solar System and then to the stars. There are a few features which should be implemented in order to enhance the game experience in the late game, making it more immersive for the player rather than being, in essence, a repeat of what the player has been doing for the past 1,000 turns.

Here are a few features that should be implemented to make this a possibility:

• Underwater and subterranean cities
• Space colonization (made possible with parallel maps, not just "space terrain")
• Spherical maps
• Space mining and manufacturing
• Political control on a galactic scale
• A new layer of random events that provide new strategic decision-making opportunities
• New technological eras
• The new immigration and trade system on a galactic scale
• Politics on a galactic scale
• New victory conditions

Political control for space colonies should be calculated based on the Lua-defined "distance" between the different maps, as well as a term representing how fast spacecraft can go as well as other factors. Researching new technologies and building certain buildings in your capital or elsewhere will increase your political control in space. Immigration and trade will also be based on similar terms, but different buildings will affect it, of course. Spaceship speed, however, will not be a single value - it will vary with distance, representing the different technologies used to travel in different regions of space. For example, you would probably use a plasma drive to reach somewhere within a stellar system, rather than a full-blown warp drive.

Politics on a galactic scale is quite straightforward, using the previously mentioned political system but applying it to a broader region. Religion will spread using a similar pressure mechanic adjusted for spaceship speed and distance. The same applies for underwater and subterranean cities, or even sky cities if the atmosphere of a celestial body is dense enough.

To accommodate the quantum leap in human technology that this represents, new technological eras will have to be created. The final techs of the information (renamed to Nanotech) era, such as Free Space Saturation and Wormhole Detection, will be moved aside in favor of less anachronistic technologies such as Solar Sails, Artificial Gravity, Plasma Drives, and Room-Temperature Superconductivity. These technologies should lay the groundwork for an exploration of the stellar system of the player and perhaps other nearby ones.

A new era after the Nanotech Era should be the Stellar Era, where the player researches technologies enabling them to build structures such as Dyson spheres and molecular assemblers, capable of creating almost any components imaginable. Other technologies in this tree should give the player the ability to regularly send manned missions to the stars and even establish space colonies. This technology tree will end with the Warp Field Theory technology, enabling the player to build faster-than-light craft.

Further great advances in technology, including the ability to harness the energy of blue supergiants, black holes, pulsars, magnetars, and eventually of spacetime itself will characterize the Galactic Era, which will enable the player to administer a galactic empire. Huge advances in destructive force also come with peaceful power - a player by this time will gain the power to destroy entire stellar systems. A player, however, may opt for the peaceful route, spurred by the flourishing of culture catalyzed by the extensive galactic space lanes.

The game will eventually converge on an endpoint involving the ability of the player to manipulate matter on a stellar and even galactic scale, culminating in the ability of the player to construct a new universe entirely.

Accommodation of these new technology trees necessitates an entirely new set of victory conditions so that the game does not end too early. The victory conditions of the game will themselves meet certain conditions in order to be able to bring victory to the player that meets one of them.

pre-Stellar Era Victories:
Diplomatic: United Nations AND nuclear weapons arsenals must be reduced by 75%
Science: Construct a Mars Colony
Domination: Conquer all world capitals
Cultural: Utopia Project (more policy trees required)
Economic (new!): Control 50% of world exports and 35% of world GDP AND construct the World Trade Organization Wonder.

Stellar Era Victories:
*Diplomatic: World Government (gives player planetary control - required in essence to advance even if you do not get a victory from it)
*Science: Establish five interstellar colonies and control them for 50 turns OR Terraform Mars or Venus to become more habitable
Domination: Control 50% of colonies and cities on Earth
*Cultural: Utopia Project (same as pre-Stellar)
*Economic (new!): Control 30% of stellar system-wide exports and 20% of GDP AND construct the Solar System Stock Exchange.

*Not valid if alien contact occurs

Galactic Era Victories:
Diplomatic: Galactic Federation (construct a Galactic Capital project, then get at least 20% of the Galaxy's empires controlling at least 20% of its population to join your federation diplomatically)
Science: Harness at least 1% of the power of your galaxy's supermassive black hole.
Cultural: Galactic Cultural Center (requires at least 10 extraterrestrial social policies)
Domination: Control at least 20% of the galaxy's inhabited planets having conquered at least half of that.
Economic (new!): Control 40% of galactic GDP as well as three of the ten wealthiest stellar systems in the galaxy.

post-Galactic Era Victory:
Science: New Universes (construct a new universe and then travel to it).

Phase V: Dynamic Civilization Trait System

Spoiler:

This is an image of a hierarchical chart that I created to explain my dynamic traiting system, bypassing existing unique abilities and start biases in favor of a new system that takes into account a civilization's circumstances and decisions. My new trait system would also necessitate the addition of a new, Nomadic Era.

Spoiler:

Phase VI: Realistic Religion

Spoiler:

Religions should be started without human or AI intervention as a function of the civilization's total Faith output, Science output, GPT, Culture output, number of religious buildings, existing religions in the empire, existing religions in the world, and a random factor. There should be no limit on the number of foundable religions in one game. When religions are founded, their beliefs should arise based on the circumstances of the holy city (ie a production-based city will have a production-flavored belief set)

Existing beliefs should be buffed and new ones added. Great Prophets should arise spontaneously.

However, religions should also have an added level of strategic depth by not only giving useful bonuses, but by fostering extremism as well; some beliefs, such as Literal Creationism, should grant an x% science penalty and a 2x% faith boost for each follower, but should have a chance each turn of spawning Barbarian units with a +100% boost against cities, a +100000% boost vs. nuclear weapons, and a -10% science modifier in a city for every Barbarian unit with that promotion in the city's radius. An Interfaith Cooperation wonder (Globalization?) should reduce the risk of religious barbarian unit spawning by 50% and gradually cause beliefs such as Literal Creationism to disappear from the map.

Missionaries and Inquisitors should arise at random but should also be buildable to boost desirable religions and harm undesirable religions. A Religious Tolerance SP should give +5% to for every belief in a given city, +10% to for every separate denomination in a city, and +15% to for every religion being practiced in a given city. It may seem OP, but given that this is Community Call to Power it seems the only way to make religion a force to be reckoned with in the late game.

Denominations should arise when two different religions share at least 80% of the same beliefs. However, these will have different religious buildings than the "mainline" religion. Religious buildings should be different between different religions and should not only contribute to the common pool of Faith but generate specific bonuses for the spread of a particular religion. Religious buildings should arise randomly based on how powerful a religion is in a given city, but you may always build buildings of any religion desired artificially in order to enhance a favored state religion. Some religious buildings should enable Missionaries and Inquisitors to be built, but they should be built with Production rather than Faith.

In addition, a new tile improvement, the Monastery, should be available at Priesthood. It should give +3 and +1 , buffed to +5 and +2 at Theology and again to +10 , +5 , and +3 at Televangelism. The Holy Site should give +10 , +2 and +2 , buffed to +20 :c5faith, +5 and +5 at Theology, and +50 , +10 , and +10 at Televangelism. However, Great Prophets will not spawn at a rate directly under the control of the player, and should spawn more rarely in any case, making them even more valuable. Faith should not be usable to spawn non-prophet GPs unless a religion in a city has a belief called Divine Inspiration, which gives GPs as a function of both the produced by the city and its local circumstances.

A player may also use social policies and units to promote specific beliefs in different cities of his empire and others.

This will create a religion system with a much greater depth and power than has ever been present in Civilization. Also, the Preacher modcomp should be integrated into this.

As Great Prophet appearance and movement will be random, the creation of Holy Sites should NOT take up a tile improvement allocation, merely be a tile improvement (it's possible). Great Prophets should only be necessary to found a new religion or create a Holy Site, not to add beliefs onto an existing religion.

Development Status

Spoiler:

• Technologies - UI Work Done - SQL to Begin Soon
• Policies - UI Work/SQL In Progress
• Political Control - In Progress
• Immigration and Culture - High Priority
• Trade - High Priority
• Religion - Medium Priority
• Alien Contact - Medium Priority
• Politics and Government - Medium Priority
• Underwater and Subterranean Cities - Medium Priority
• Random Events - Low Priority
• Multiple Maps - Low Priority
• New Victories - Low Priority
• Space Colonization - Low Priority
  
  ETA: None at the moment
  Update 12/7/2012: Development has been on hold for a while and will resume on December 21. The high-priority components of the modmod will be complete soon after as Fires, Chrome, and Horem return to help me improve the mod. Also, other modders of components that I intend to use (such as the Emigrations mod) are changing their mods to be something more like I intend for this modmod, so such systems will be quickly completed.
  

Credits

Spoiler:

• Horem
• FiresForever
• chrome-rome
• Gedemon
• 3335d
• Whoever wants to playtest or contribute can gain a slot here!

[Cannes]

Wow! Crazy ambitious! I like it!

[Lrd Dread]

Cannot wait!

Would love to be the beta tester for this!

[3335d]

Originally Posted by Cannes

Wow! Crazy ambitious! I like it!

Originally Posted by Lrd Dread

Cannot wait!

Would love to be the beta tester for this!

Thanks to you both. I feel honored.

[3335d]

Added Phase IV to my plan.

[Aerolight]

I cant wait to see that update...

[Cannes]

Phase IV!! OMG!
Is this even feasible?
I have a very very highend computer, but it feels the stress bigtime already in late era games on huge maps. With multiple starsystems and whatnot we will need home quantum computers to run the game!

[3335d]

Originally Posted by Cannes

Phase IV!! OMG!
Is this even feasible?
I have a very very highend computer, but it feels the stress bigtime already in late era games on huge maps. With multiple starsystems and whatnot we will need home quantum computers to run the game!

Don't worry, there is plenty of room for optimization of the base GnKs.

[dinobot386]

you should also overhaul religion, it shouldn't be something that a civ founds, but instead arises on its own (preferably in the appropriate civ) with no cap on the amount that can arise other than how many are on the list (including mods that add new religions) and have the potental to keep the empire together or tear it apart if there are significant conflicting religions in an empire

[3335d]

Originally Posted by dinobot386

you should also overhaul religion, it shouldn't be something that a civ founds, but instead arises on its own (preferably in the appropriate civ) with no cap on the amount that can arise other than how many are on the list (including mods that add new religions) and have the potental to keep the empire together or tear it apart if there are significant conflicting religions in an empire

I mentioned the idea in an earlier thread, that should certainly be added!

[dinobot386]

Another idea would be if a city splits off from the main empire, it can become another player so long as the game can actually handle it. Since you're planning on having leaders change this can open up adding a new civ with a different leader. The way it should work is if part of the empire breaks off, it essentally makes a clone of the parent civ (for example, part of Mongolia breaks off, the new civ is still recognized as "Mongolia" by the game), this way it keeps units and buildings, as well as any skins from RED or something similar, although I could see exceptions like Rome spawning Byzantium and England spawning America if they aren't already in that game

[bladex]

@ Phase IV: ZOMG i just c....

[3335d]

Originally Posted by dinobot386

Another idea would be if a city splits off from the main empire, it can become another player so long as the game can actually handle it. Since you're planning on having leaders change this can open up adding a new civ with a different leader. The way it should work is if part of the empire breaks off, it essentally makes a clone of the parent civ (for example, part of Mongolia breaks off, the new civ is still recognized as "Mongolia" by the game), this way it keeps units and buildings, as well as any skins from RED or something similar, although I could see exceptions like Rome spawning Byzantium and England spawning America if they aren't already in that game

It would be most convenient to make them a minor civ and do all the necessary UI modifications to make them look major. DLL coding can produce traits. Changing the number of max civs appears to be more of a challenge than previously thought, and it should be possible to give minor civs the ability to build cities. Until a more elegant fix can be found that is the way it would be.

By the way, if centrifugal factors are the largest factor in the politics of a city, that city becomes independent. Violence will take place before then.

[Lrd Dread]

Didn't civ 2 do this? I know Civ 3 did somthing similar. If your culture was low and your pop was angry, cities could leave you and join other civs, or be a satelite city..

[3335d]

Originally Posted by Lrd Dread

Didn't civ 2 do this? I know Civ 3 did somthing similar. If your culture was low and your pop was angry, cities could leave you and join other civs, or be a satelite city..

Civilization III had corruption built into it. This is in some way a reintroduction of the concept, though it becomes much deeper than it ever has been before with espionage. Spies can incite violence or rebellion in unstable cities, cities break apart into independent countries, and your legislature makes decisions on domestic as well as foreign policy.

By the way, I have added Phases V and VI!

[Cannes]

Originally Posted by dinobot386

you should also overhaul religion, it shouldn't be something that a civ founds, but instead arises on its own (preferably in the appropriate civ) with no cap on the amount that can arise other than how many are on the list (including mods that add new religions) and have the potental to keep the empire together or tear it apart if there are significant conflicting religions in an empire

I agree that the way religion has been introduced into GnK feels a bit tame, just another resource... however, religion has through the ages always been a tool of power and political control. I suggest prehaps not making drastic changes, but randomize the first two phases of religion, so that they are out of the players control, but as the religion develops it becomes the political tool it was in the past...

On another note, the reintroduction of both corruption and pollution would be cool.

[3335d]

Originally Posted by Cannes

I agree that the way religion has been introduced into GnK feels a bit tame, just another resource... however, religion has through the ages always been a tool of power and political control. I suggest prehaps not making drastic changes, but randomize the first two phases of religion, so that they are out of the players control, but as the religion develops it becomes the political tool it was in the past...

On another note, the reintroduction of both corruption and pollution would be cool.

Pollution and global warming would be good to add, and corruption could be represented well enough by spies, political control, and the unrest coming with them.

A certain religion can be adopted as the state religion, allowing us to include both the spiritually empowering and cruelly oppressive sides of religion in one game.

As for my multiple maps/gigantic maps ideas, the user gargoyle575 has devised a way of reducing the size of the .dds files for terrain and improvements, yielding a vast savings in memory. My mod will also eliminate specific start biases for civilizations, thereby saving on a few lines of Lua as well (though only about a second of load time would be cut that way). In addition, there is a concept called viewports that I just discovered that allows the horrendously inefficient game engine to be aware of one section of the map at any given time, while the DLL (that we have optimized) sees the rest, and puts some in the hard drive. In this fashion, we can save dramatically on memory space and CPU time.

Expect to see 1,000 x 1,000 maps with 5UPT, but that also create a "tactical map" on which armies fight! Better yet, see multiple of these!

[KIEJ.MANIK]

"
Based on the amount of culture that a civilization earns, Constitutional Policies can be adopted in the same way that normal policies are - under control of the player (for the most part - there are some exceptions). These policies will be split into the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial pages, each with five branches exploring different general ways of running these government bodies. On top of this there will be ideologies, explored not by the player but by the people. The residents of each city will adopt the ideology that will provide the greatest economic, cultural, scientific, faith, or happiness benefit to them, based on how much of each the city produces. The ideology branches will be Conservatism and Liberalism, each with separate policy pages on Social Policy, Foreign Policy, Fiscal and Monetary Policy, and later in the game, Environmental Policy. These policy pages will contain five different branches each, representing different flavors of conservatism and liberalism. The rate at which ideologies advance through their branches will be determined by the stability of government and different ideological policies."

Wait there's only going to be conservative and liberal ideologies now?

[3335d]

Remember, I'm not favoring just two worldviews. Different combinations of ideological policies, and different flavors of either conservatism and liberalism, mean that there will not simply be two diametrically opposed worldviews, but complete leftism, complete rightism, and everything in between.

[KIEJ.MANIK]

Didn't this mod have many different ideologies as well as many goverment options, that's what I found attractive about it, specifically the Anarchism one, that really impressed me, you guys still have it like that right, have yet to see anything saying it isn't, wish there was a more comprehensive list of what this mod has right now. I wouldn't scrap that, I really liked the wide ranging government systems and ideologies that were there last time I checked, that is the main reason I am intent to purchase gods and kings since I have the money now, to play this mod for that specific feature