Ideas on New Governments

IMHO the following would make a good set of governments:

Chieftain: Starting government, no war weariness, rampant corruption away from the capitol, chance of outlying provinces rebelling is high. Tile penalty applies (i.e. 3+ food etc. are reduced by 1). Support for troops is fairly good, however, rebels get the troops that the cities come with.

City States: Corruption is still high but is universal (the capitol would really not exist in a city-state system anyways, although the palace would still be kept). Support for units is ok (maybe 2 per city), but would not increase due to city size. A senate would be allowed to ask for certain improvements such as more roads, more irrigation, more luxuries etc. Refusal would cause something similar to WW in Civ3. The difference is that this would be a Rebellion Factor (RF) and would cause rebellions at high levels. Distance from capitol would also be a factor in RF (even though it would not affect corruption). (Tile penalty would only affect one thing, i.e. food or corruption) Rebelling cities might form another civ or simply remain as independent cities. The troops in those areas would be likely to join the independent faction.

Despotism: Somewhat similar to current Despotism but with limited tile penalty (similar to CS above except that commerce could be one of the limits). Support for units would be fairly good, but cost of extra units would be higher (2 instead of 1). Corruption would not be nearly as bad as in Chieftain but would be up there and would be dependent on how close to the capitol (and not matter for how many other cities are closer). RF would still be high away from the capitol but the troops would be more loyal so a rebellion would see the troops expelled from the territory and these units could try to help retake the rebellious provinces. The size of the civ before RF becomes a factor would still be fairly low (and, of course, dependent on map size).

Imperialism: (Think Roman Empire) similar to Despotism, no tile penalties would occur. RF would be lower than in Despotism and this would be the time when a FP could be established. City support for troops would be pretty good and would not have the extra cost. Corruption would be lower than in the above gov’ts but still a problem, especially away from the capitol. Tax collector would be introduce here (i.e. the tech leading to this gov’t would be required before any citizens would be allowed to switch to tax collectors). Coinage would be a good Civ advance to have this gov’t come about.

Republic: Similar to current one except that corruption would be higher and universal. Either that, or corruption would have universal spread in certain ranges, i.e. within 4 squares of capital all cities, including capital, have same corruption. From 5 to 10, new corruption level. Support for troops would be city-size based. Tile commerce bonus. RF would be higher than in Imperialism and a senate would be able to ask for things as in CS above. WW would be significant but would be greatly lessened if the Republic was the defender. Troops in rebellious provinces likely to join rebels.



Feudalism: very different from C3C. Corruption would be on a par with Republic (slightly better than Imperialism) but would be based on the capital. RF would be fairly high due to the likelihood that a rival noble would be trying for the throne. Troops in outlying provinces would be very likely to join rebel faction. This could be based on how many troops are actually there (i.e. only the quantity of troops actually supported by the rebel cities would join the rebels, the others would be expelled). The difficulty of troops traveling from the capital to the outlying cities would also greatly affect the RF. No tile bonus or penalty and otherwise fairly similar to C3 Monarchy.

Monarchy: Similar to C3 Monarchy. Corruption would be less than in Feudalism or Republic and would be based on proximity to capital. RF would be dependent on distance from capital and how difficult it is for troops to get to the target city. Unit support would be similar to Civ 3. Troops would be less likely to join any rebel faction. RF would be less than Feudalism.

Colonial Monarchy: Similar to Monarchy above but would allow some sort of building project to gain a reduction in corruption away from the capital. Troops would be unlikely to join any rebels (being expelled instead). How long it takes units to get to the target cities would affect RF and would definitely include sea travel if the civilization had any harbors.

Constitutional Monarchy: Cities would have fairly decent support for troops. Corruption would be based on proximity to capital. Nobles would be allowed to ask for goodies (see CS above) and failure to comply would cause unhappiness or RF points (or both). Corruption would be less than in Monarchy. Units would be unlikely to join any rebel faction (instead being expelled). Commerce tile bonus would apply, otherwise similar to Colonial Monarchy.

Representative Government (or early Democracy): Similar to Democracy in C3C. No support for standing armies, although coastal cities would each support one combat navy. Conscription of troops would be as follows: Each city of a certain size would be allowed to conscript one unit. This would not cause any unhappiness in the city unless the unit was destroyed by some sort of combat action. This could occur only if the civ is at war. These units automatically disband after the war is over. These units would be supported automatically (even if their home city was conquered or destroyed by the enemy). A senate would be allowed to ask for goodies as in CS, with similar hits for failure. Corruption would be low, but still out there and would depend on proximity to capital.

Communism: similar to C3 except that corruption should be based on proximity to capital. Switching out of communism would cause a commerce penalty where any tile producing more than 1 commerce would have a –1 penalty for 10 turns.

Fascism: similar to C3C except: workers would not be faster than Democracy. Captured workers would receive a penalty (i.e. work even slower). Corruption would be fairly high and dependent on capital proximity. Commerce tile bonus would occur (but would be somewhat offset by the corruption). Cities with a majority of foreign citizens would not support any units. Relations with certain governments would have a negative modifier (i.e. Communism, Democracy, Const. Monarchy, City States, Republic, Rep. Gov’t, etc.) to reflect the xenophobic nature of the government.

Democracy: corruption would be low and universal (not capital proximity related). As in Rep. Gov’t above, the first conscript unit would not cause unhappiness unless destroyed. If a war exists cities of certain sizes would be allowed to conscript more troops (to a limit) but these would cause unhappiness until disbanded (but would keep causing it if destroyed). All conscripted units would disband when war was over. Again, this would have to be a defensive war or one forced on the civ through an alliance. Cities would support standing armies if within a certain distance from a rival border. Interior cities would not give any freebies. Cost of standing armies would be fairly high. Navies would gain support from coastal cities.

Socialism: No support for standing armies or conscripts (although conscription would be allowed). Similar benefits (tile bonus, etc) to Democracy above. WW would occur whenever ground and air combat units were stationed outside of the civilization and whenever naval units were in foreign territory (out in the ocean is ok). Air units would be allowed to be on carriers, but would cause WW if they fly into another civ’s airspace. These restrictions would include units in allied civ territory. Corruption would not exist at all. Certain buildings would not require maintenance (library, temple, etc.)

With all these added goverments would it ever be worth changing to some of these new goverments when new ones are right around the corner? In My games I usualy only make one goverment change during the entire game.

In response to that, I would suggest that the transition time to a new government should be somewhat dependent on which gov't you had before. Going from Rep. Gov't to Democracy would be virtually free. Going from Monarchy to Col. Monarchy might be one turn. Going to Const. Monarchy, however, would cause some chaos (as it did during Cromwell's time in Britain). Also, I would lessen the time that one has for Anarchy all around.

Incidentally, the ability to go to similar gov'ts would require that the Civ2 system of choosing the new gov't be implemented again (which I happen to believe was better than that in Civ3).

Just one important governtment-type missing in there -- Fundamentalism/Theocracy. It should probably be similar to Fascism, but have a lower corruption, higher support ability and higher support costs, as well as some sort of penlty to Science and to other, non-Fundamentalist, governments (if religion is implemented, always at least Polite toward Fundamentalisms of the same religion).

OOPS! Forgot about that one. Thanks, Cuivienen. I agree that Fundamentalist should be included. I think that RF should be very high, however, since fundamentalist governments typically alienate people, not bring them together. I also believe that the Fundamentalist gov. in Civ2 was very, very unrealistic. No unhappiness? Bah!

What about city states? every no corruption but low optimal muber of cities.

City-states are more like independent countries. They can war with each other, trade with each other, etc. "City-state" would not be a viable form of government.

I don't like the idea of more units, more techs, more options,...
it makes the game more difficult to play and to balance. The essence is the way you conquer (diplomatically, military, demographically, ...) the world. Adding fifteen governments would not change the game. It makes it only harder to understand the game and to balance it...

Hi!

Fascism: I don't think that slaves would be slower.
Nazis in the WWII made lamps and other things(soap) from people who were in the concentration camps.
Nazi leaders calculated, that in that way, slave would yield -I think- a net of 1,6 RM(Reich's Mark) for each "processed" slave.
As to compare some prices:

Panther Tank~120-150.000 RM
Tiger Tank~200-250.000 RM.

Switcing out of Communism:
This should be only to LOW-INFRASTUCTURE cities.

The phenomena that you tried to simulate was because the Wasava-pact, so Every nation in that pact was heavily overmilitarised.
In the '60-'70 Hungaries military forces(with reserves) was 1.000.000. The population was around 10.000.000, so every 10. person was somehow attached to military.
This may not seem high at first, but don't forget, that children until age 18, women and elderly people wasn't really connected to the military.
Albania didn't have any Air Defense, because there was a bunker for every 2 or 4 peoples.
So in other words: we didn't build almost any iprovements, but military units!!! And took loans from Western-Countries. Of course the interests was paid in democracy mainly.
Around 1996-8 the loan interests was around 20% of the public finances(800 billion Forints<budget(govermental income) around 4.000 billions Forints>).
1 USD was around 250 Forints(don't know exactly).

Socialism:

Click to expand...

What exactly do you mean by that?
No corruption???

That's all.

I think this is a little overboard on number of govs. I like a few ideas in them, though.

Maybe have a few standard govs, but allow each of them to have a couple subclasses, which is similar to what you propose, but these could be changed gradually without any anarchy period (only anarchy when you switch main classes).

So, for instance, Democracy could include socialism or a more free market based. The socialism maybe would have higher growth, but would definately have more corruption (less efficient).

Fasicm should have faster captured workers, but they could also die from being overworked.

I really like the idea of having colonial monarchy.

Subclass govs would work well. So Democracy goes Social Democracy or Corporate State (its in the government mod on the mods threads), Communism goes both right and left as well. What if you could only switch to those subclasses if you had researched different govs, so only Social Democracy if you've researched communism AND democracy, or only Colonial Monarchy if you've done Monarchy AND Feudalism (not an exact fit, but you get the idea). That way you'd reward the player who does all the research (or trades for it) as opposed to the quickie era change. Anyway, just some thoughts.

I was not trying to give too many governments, all of which would be needed in cIV. I was suggesting possibilities of extra ones. Whether or not more types come is up for grabs as far as I am concerned. If I want the governments I listed above, there is only the fact that the editor does not have good variables stopping me from creating them. The editor needs to allow a lot more possibilities for corruption choice in governments.

Right now corruption has minimal through catastrophic, with communal being a specialty one. Given the individual tweaking that you can do with support for units, ww, etc. it seems amazing to me that the Firaxix folks didn't include at least a slidebar for various corruption choices.

In addition, I think that perhaps the Fascism government should either be eliminated or changed to reflect that it just didn't work! Consider that the longest running fascist government was Franco's. Perhaps one of the additional alterations for Fascism would be that all banks and stock exchanges would give a one-time bonus of x gold but then function at 1/2 efficiency for the duration of the government (to reflect taking the wealth of all those bankers and others and putting them in concentration camps).

One of the problems with much of the thinking that I have seen in all of these threads is that most writers are equating the player with the government. Granted, the correlation is easy, especially considering the responses from the advisors, but, the player is supposed to be the driving force behind the civilization. Thus, the ideas on commerce miss the fact that the private sector is part of the civilization and therefore the money made in the private sector is part of the civilization. The government is a major part of the civilization, but it is not the only part of the civ. When a civil war splits the civ, the player should actually be able to choose which side he wants to lead.

When you are chosen in 4000 B.C. you are not the individual leader, you are the zeitgiest, the driving force behind the civilization. Thus, great leaders can come about given certain events (many of the names are actually political leaders of the culture) but you are the one still directing the civilization. This needs to be remembered when posting threads for changes on the cIV game.

pond said:

I don't like the idea of more units, more techs, more options,...
it makes the game more difficult to play and to balance. The essence is the way you conquer (diplomatically, military, demographically, ...) the world. Adding fifteen governments would not change the game. It makes it only harder to understand the game and to balance it...

Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree with this to some extent. As it is its often almost impossible to know whether changing over to another government would result in a better corruption level than your current gov. And rather than wait 6 turns of anarchy just to find you are in a worse state than before some people either stick with the same gov all the way or will save, make the change and then load up again (cheaters!).

I do think there should be more customisation of govs but the choices should be fairly simple. One idea is to seperate government from ecconomy.

The following are models of government;
Despotic rule (rule by a single person)
Aristocratic rule (rule by the rich, inherited)
Executive/military rule (rule by an executive group or heirachy)
City state representetive (voting by city)
Limited representetive (voting by individual, but limited to a certain "Citizen group")
Senate representetive (shared power within an elected executive group or heirachy)
Full representetive (full democaracy with direct voting on every issue, would need special tech like computerised voting)

While these are models of ecconomy;
Slave/serf labour (the government owns everything and the people work for the government)
Controled ecconomy/Redistributed ecconomy (a capital driven ecconomy with heavy state controls on ownership and personal wealth with some welfare)
Unrestrained ecconomy (a capitalist ecconomy with a government which only take enough taxes to administrate itself)
anarcho-sydicist socialist ecconomy (worker co-operatives own the means of production and all profit/surplus is returned to the system)

These two groups should be mixed and matched together to create a wide veriaty of governements. (for example Executive/military rule & Slave/serf labour =communism)
I also agree that changing government or ecconomy should be easy or difficult based on how similar the new form is compared to the old.
I'd also like to see an option where you can preview the effects of a new ecconomic model on your ecconomy, perhaps by buliding a city improvement or researching a special tech (a bit like future tech).

Mewtarthio said:

City-states are more like independent countries. They can war with each other, trade with each other, etc. "City-state" would not be a viable form of government.

Click to expand...

Was an ordinary organization of state structures in the earliest civs, like Sumeria and Babylon...

I think that with the current system of 6 turn anarchy, more governments add nothing to the game; even C3C seems to overdo it for my taste. I usually only make one switch per game (to Republic or less likely, Monarchy), unless I'm playing a religious civ.

If you don't understand why, consider how long it will take for Democracy's slightly better corruption and worker speed to repay the loss of 6 turn's worth of production in a mature empire (as an example) ...

However...

Balam said:

Subclass govs would work well. So Democracy goes Social Democracy or Corporate State (its in the government mod on the mods threads), Communism goes both right and left as well.

Click to expand...

I really like this idea. If the designers really want to add more governments, they should perhaps rather make it a two-tiered system, with a few very generalized government types, each with a number of variants ("subclasses").

I'm with Smoking Mirror. The limitations of the current governments are a result of trying to cram too much into a single concept rather than a problem with the number of choices. Add a third axis to his government/economy axes (possibly the expanded religion that Soren mentioned) and you'll get a lot of easily understood options.

Though I haven't had a chance to read ALL of this thread, I can say one thing for certain. The fact is that, if Soren is to be believed, the whole entire corruption system is due for a COMPLETE overhaul. This means that it will be very hard to discuss the corruption effects of governments-or any kind of corruption effects for that matter-until we know more about what the new corruption system will look like!
If it were up to me, I'd hope to see Corruption seperated out into Crime and Waste. Crime would, especially in the early game, be a matter of distance from the capital (the 'Wild Frontier' effect ), Large city sizes, technology and trade in contraband resources. Waste would be an issue of small city size and technology-nothing at all to do with distance. Though waste would be more of an issue if you traded shields and food between cities-but thats a completely different issue!
Anyway, regardless of the model they use for corruption, I will have a more thorough look at this thread, and then post my proper opinion !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

More governments would very welcome

Some could be introduced from conquests, such as imperialism from rise of rome and others like blood cult from Mesoamerica.

Like I say though, whether the governemts are Two axis (Gov+ecconomy) or just one axis (fixed gov) What we realy need is a ecconomic preview! so that you don't spend 6 turns of anarchy only to have to spend another 6 just to get back to a usefull gov. Admitedly it is interesting to not be sure if a revolution is going to be a good choice or not, but 12 turns of non production is just way too much.

Also the length of anarchy and extent of curruption and unhappyness should be adjusted by how close the gov change is from the original.

Concerning the transition between governments:

(1) Its already been suggested that anarchy-free transitions is a somewhat strange attribute for the Religious trait. Its a large enoug advantage that I often pick religious civs just for that ability, and it doesn't real feel "realistic" at all.

(2) Civs already have preferred and shunned governments, right? How about adjusting the period of anarchy based on that? Transitioning to a preferred govt would be quicker, a shunned govt would take longer.

(3) How about some Wonders to allow anarchy-free transitions? Maybe Magna Carta to allow anarchy-free transition to democracy, or Das Kapital for communism (yeah, Russia's transition to communism in RL wasn't free of anarchy, but Marx was a German, so in RL, it wasn't Russia that built Das Kapital anyway ) I'm sure clever people could come up with some other examples (especially if the number of govt types was increased) but there's no need to have one for every single govt type anyway - having just a few would be interesting.