Hi everyone
Since the first CIV IV mods come out I always search for the perfect civic system. I don't know why I just liked to see a really good system. I found that the civic system from AND is the best (I think it made by Lawrie first). But there are few thing which I think it should be changed. So I decide to collect a bunch of my ideas. Some of them are better than others but I think a few of them definitly made sense and worth to thinking about it.
Sorry if it's too long (and sorry for the spelling errors, the english are not my native language.)
1. Government-Power or Goverment-Power-Politic
The civics from the Government column should describe who govern the nation. In real life pretty much there is only two type of government exist: Monarchy and Republic (actually there was a Democracy in the history, and that was Athen). So most of the civic at this column should be variant of these two (three). That's made a little hard to make the first column. Let's take just monarchy. A monarchy can be divide by "how the ruler get the power" (election or hereditary) and can be divide by "how much power the ruler got" (Despotic Monarchy, Administrative Monarchy, Feudal Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy etc.).
Of course some of the types of monarchy can be describe as a combination of a few civic. For example feudal monarchy=monarchy+vassalage, Administrative Monarchy =Monarchy + Bureaucracy. But for example in AND there is no way to make different beetween Election and Hereditary Monarchy.
But about the power civics:
The civics from the Power column should describe which social class has the most political power: the nobles, the rich people, the military etc. The only problem is the parlament/senate and the president civic. For example the senate civic doesn't describe who got power, who the members of the senate, they elected or not etc.
So because of this I think maybe there should be a third, a Politic column (maybe it's not the best name). These civic would similar to the organization civics from RFC: Dawn of civilization (actually the idea came from myself and latter found out, the DOC have similar). These civics should be describe how the state or the goverment try to execute his will.
Politic
- Direct Rule - the ruler using his military and some of him own men (friends, familiy) - it would replace junta.
- Vassalage - Hierarchical system where the ruler made a contract with some men for military and administrative service.
- Absolutism - Militaristic and bureaucratic system.
- Parliament - A legislature branch making the laws. And it's the most important group.
- President - A strong elected and/or charismatic leader is the first man of the state.
The pros of this idea.
- It has more interesting combination and it would make easier to recreate some real-life civilization. A traditional medieval europen monarchy look like this: (elective/hereditary) monarhcy + nobility + vassalage but the feudal japan monarchy: monarchy + military + vassalage. A modern constitutional monarchy: Monarchy + Democracy (or Majority Rule a better name) + Parlament. Early constitutional monarchy: Monarchy + Nobility + Parlament.
The cons of this idea
- It's not symmetric (more Power civic than Government civic:
Government
Elective Monarchy
Heralditary Monarchy
Democracy
Republic
Single-party state
Power
Elder
Nobility
Bureaucracy
Patrician
?Ploretarian?
Military
Majority Rule
(I write about Chiefdom, Despotism and Federal latter).
Of course there is possible to redesign the goverment-power civics without having a politic column but in this case some of civics from power should be merge into the goverment and the two column should be look like this:
Government
Kingship*
Monarchy
Direct Democracy
Oligarcial Repuplic/Non-representative Republic
Constitutional Monarchy
Parlamentary Monarcy
Parlamentary Republic
Presidental Republic
Single-party State
Power
Elders
Direct Rule/Junta/Autocracy
Nobility/Aristocracy
Patronage/Plutocracy/Bourgeois
?Ploretarian?
Bureaucracy/Civil Servant
Vassalage
Military
Majority Rule/Democracy
*(Despotism and Chiefdom not really substantive civics. Despotism is like monarchy + junta. Chiefdom = monarchy/kingship + tribalism. With the kingship I try to describe a less official rulership.)
The problem with this system there are few contradiction beetweem the civics. For example what is the diffetent beetween monarhcy+majority rule and parlamentary monarchy+majority rule.
2. Bringing back the labour column but keep the society column at the same time.
This maybe a good idea because of the slavery civic. The slavery is not really an economy civic not even an society civic. I can see only two options. The first one is the bringing back the Labour civics (with a few change), which should be look similar to this:
- Corvée (default)
- Slavery
- Serfdom
- Prison labour (like the USSR or Nazi Germany)
- Hired labour (cheap labor, no worker rights - industrialism era)
- Labor Unions
Of course then the feudal civic should be take out from the society column (it's already represented by serfdom) and only one civic should be represent the ancient and the medieval society (probably it should be call Classism or similar)
The other option would be to build the slavery civic into the society column. In this case it should be rename to Oppresion/Oppresed.
3. Redesigning the early economy civics
The early Economic civics are not really economy civics I think. Barter and Coinage only mean what they use to trade. And I'm not sure about the Guild either. The first 3 economy civics should be look like these.
- Self-sufficent - default, pretty self-explanatory. Agriculture and not much trade.
- Palace Economy - This would be an ancient type of command economy. Lot of ancient civilizations used Palace Economy (for example Egypt)
- Merchant monopolism (I can't really find a good name for this). I want to describe this civics as a pseudo free-market/corporatist civic. Where there is no more strong central control but the economy mostly have in the hand of rich merchant, guilds or any other private inc.
Also I think the Free Trade should rename to Laissez-Faire. Both Regulated and Laissez-faire are free trade type economies, but the second one is more free where almost there is not any central control. The rest of the economic civic are fines. But I still find a little weird the Green civic. (Actually I consider it as a future civic).
4. New column: Organization
These civic would describe how the nation organized. Is it highy centralized? Has it a federal goverment? etc.
- City State: -80% Maintance Cost from Distance to Palace, +1
per cities, -75 
in every city, +75 in capital (to offset the lost at the capital), +50% War Weariness, max 3 city.
-Centralized: +50% distance from palace, capital +25%. Strong centralized goverment, like the first empires and the modern small nations.
-Imperial: +100% Great General emergence inside of culture border, -25% War
, +25% Maintance Cost from Distance to Palace, -50% Maintance Cost from Oversea Cities. Still got a strong central goverment, but it can be consider more like as a provincial or a colonial state. (Roman Republic/Empire, British Empire)
-Federal: -80% Maintance Cost from Distance to Palace, -33% from capital, +10% in every city. Like the USA or Germany.
-Devolution (-50% Maintance Cost from Distance to Palace, -50 Maintance Cost from Number of cities.
5. Simpler civic
Some of the civics has too much effect I think. When it is possible the civics should be more simpler and not have ten effects. It would make easier to choose beetween the civics.
For example the old Fascist (or Single-party state which would be a better name) looks like this:
-25% Maintance Cost for Overseas City
+25% Military Unit Production
Cities require +25% more
to grown
-1
In all cities
No war
+15%
, - 15% in all cities
-50%
in all cities
+1
per Specialist
Unlimited spy
+1 from Intelligence Agency and National Security
and how the new one should look like (IMO)
+25% Military Unit Production
-50% War
+2 from Broadcast Tower and Movie Theatre
(The reason why I made these changes: 1. the dictatorship deosn't mean it definitely barbaric, totalitarian or even militaristic. 2. The only things which are common in single-party dictatorhsip: only one party govern the country, they use propaganda and most of them have a charismatic leader.)
An another tip: I think no civic should get bonus from wonders. This would also reduce the number of effects. The wonders should be special by themself and doesn't get bonus from civics.
6. A few small suggestions
- Add Totalitarian society civic (even if there is the oppresed civic in the same category).
- Every columns should have at least on future civic. For example: Government - A.I. Government or Open-source Government, Society: Super-human (from welfare), Labour - Robot workers or Clone workers, Religion: One True Faith (need a better name - idea of the merging of religions) or Machine Cult.
- Some new military civic: Warrior Caste - from the birth the men trained to become warriors (for example: Sparta), Mercenary army - instead of Standing Army (Late Roman Republic, many medieval nation "employ" their soldiers as mercenary), Horde (big barbaric army, when everyone who can hold weapon go into war and conquest (Mongolian), Professional Army (insteand of Voluntary) ro represent the most of the modern army like USA.
- Rename Intolerance to Theocracy. The religion column is about what the relation beetween the state and the church. The intolerance more like a dogma.
Since the first CIV IV mods come out I always search for the perfect civic system. I don't know why I just liked to see a really good system. I found that the civic system from AND is the best (I think it made by Lawrie first). But there are few thing which I think it should be changed. So I decide to collect a bunch of my ideas. Some of them are better than others but I think a few of them definitly made sense and worth to thinking about it.
Sorry if it's too long (and sorry for the spelling errors, the english are not my native language.)
1. Government-Power or Goverment-Power-Politic
The civics from the Government column should describe who govern the nation. In real life pretty much there is only two type of government exist: Monarchy and Republic (actually there was a Democracy in the history, and that was Athen). So most of the civic at this column should be variant of these two (three). That's made a little hard to make the first column. Let's take just monarchy. A monarchy can be divide by "how the ruler get the power" (election or hereditary) and can be divide by "how much power the ruler got" (Despotic Monarchy, Administrative Monarchy, Feudal Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy etc.).
Of course some of the types of monarchy can be describe as a combination of a few civic. For example feudal monarchy=monarchy+vassalage, Administrative Monarchy =Monarchy + Bureaucracy. But for example in AND there is no way to make different beetween Election and Hereditary Monarchy.
But about the power civics:
The civics from the Power column should describe which social class has the most political power: the nobles, the rich people, the military etc. The only problem is the parlament/senate and the president civic. For example the senate civic doesn't describe who got power, who the members of the senate, they elected or not etc.
So because of this I think maybe there should be a third, a Politic column (maybe it's not the best name). These civic would similar to the organization civics from RFC: Dawn of civilization (actually the idea came from myself and latter found out, the DOC have similar). These civics should be describe how the state or the goverment try to execute his will.
Politic
- Direct Rule - the ruler using his military and some of him own men (friends, familiy) - it would replace junta.
- Vassalage - Hierarchical system where the ruler made a contract with some men for military and administrative service.
- Absolutism - Militaristic and bureaucratic system.
- Parliament - A legislature branch making the laws. And it's the most important group.
- President - A strong elected and/or charismatic leader is the first man of the state.
The pros of this idea.
- It has more interesting combination and it would make easier to recreate some real-life civilization. A traditional medieval europen monarchy look like this: (elective/hereditary) monarhcy + nobility + vassalage but the feudal japan monarchy: monarchy + military + vassalage. A modern constitutional monarchy: Monarchy + Democracy (or Majority Rule a better name) + Parlament. Early constitutional monarchy: Monarchy + Nobility + Parlament.
The cons of this idea
- It's not symmetric (more Power civic than Government civic:
Government
Elective Monarchy
Heralditary Monarchy
Democracy
Republic
Single-party state
Power
Elder
Nobility
Bureaucracy
Patrician
?Ploretarian?
Military
Majority Rule
(I write about Chiefdom, Despotism and Federal latter).
Of course there is possible to redesign the goverment-power civics without having a politic column but in this case some of civics from power should be merge into the goverment and the two column should be look like this:
Government
Kingship*
Monarchy
Direct Democracy
Oligarcial Repuplic/Non-representative Republic
Constitutional Monarchy
Parlamentary Monarcy
Parlamentary Republic
Presidental Republic
Single-party State
Power
Elders
Direct Rule/Junta/Autocracy
Nobility/Aristocracy
Patronage/Plutocracy/Bourgeois
?Ploretarian?
Bureaucracy/Civil Servant
Vassalage
Military
Majority Rule/Democracy
*(Despotism and Chiefdom not really substantive civics. Despotism is like monarchy + junta. Chiefdom = monarchy/kingship + tribalism. With the kingship I try to describe a less official rulership.)
The problem with this system there are few contradiction beetweem the civics. For example what is the diffetent beetween monarhcy+majority rule and parlamentary monarchy+majority rule.
2. Bringing back the labour column but keep the society column at the same time.
This maybe a good idea because of the slavery civic. The slavery is not really an economy civic not even an society civic. I can see only two options. The first one is the bringing back the Labour civics (with a few change), which should be look similar to this:
- Corvée (default)
- Slavery
- Serfdom
- Prison labour (like the USSR or Nazi Germany)
- Hired labour (cheap labor, no worker rights - industrialism era)
- Labor Unions
Of course then the feudal civic should be take out from the society column (it's already represented by serfdom) and only one civic should be represent the ancient and the medieval society (probably it should be call Classism or similar)
The other option would be to build the slavery civic into the society column. In this case it should be rename to Oppresion/Oppresed.
3. Redesigning the early economy civics
The early Economic civics are not really economy civics I think. Barter and Coinage only mean what they use to trade. And I'm not sure about the Guild either. The first 3 economy civics should be look like these.
- Self-sufficent - default, pretty self-explanatory. Agriculture and not much trade.
- Palace Economy - This would be an ancient type of command economy. Lot of ancient civilizations used Palace Economy (for example Egypt)
- Merchant monopolism (I can't really find a good name for this). I want to describe this civics as a pseudo free-market/corporatist civic. Where there is no more strong central control but the economy mostly have in the hand of rich merchant, guilds or any other private inc.
Also I think the Free Trade should rename to Laissez-Faire. Both Regulated and Laissez-faire are free trade type economies, but the second one is more free where almost there is not any central control. The rest of the economic civic are fines. But I still find a little weird the Green civic. (Actually I consider it as a future civic).
4. New column: Organization
These civic would describe how the nation organized. Is it highy centralized? Has it a federal goverment? etc.
- City State: -80% Maintance Cost from Distance to Palace, +1
per cities, -75 in every city, +75 in capital (to offset the lost at the capital), +50% War Weariness, max 3 city.-Centralized: +50% distance from palace, capital +25%
. Strong centralized goverment, like the first empires and the modern small nations.-Imperial: +100% Great General emergence inside of culture border, -25% War
, +25% Maintance Cost from Distance to Palace, -50% Maintance Cost from Oversea Cities. Still got a strong central goverment, but it can be consider more like as a provincial or a colonial state. (Roman Republic/Empire, British Empire)-Federal: -80% Maintance Cost from Distance to Palace, -33%
from capital, +10% in every city. Like the USA or Germany. -Devolution (-50% Maintance Cost from Distance to Palace, -50 Maintance Cost from Number of cities.
5. Simpler civic
Some of the civics has too much effect I think. When it is possible the civics should be more simpler and not have ten effects. It would make easier to choose beetween the civics.
For example the old Fascist (or Single-party state which would be a better name) looks like this:
-25% Maintance Cost for Overseas City
+25% Military Unit Production
Cities require +25% more
to grown-1
In all citiesNo war
+15%
, - 15% in all cities-50%
in all cities+1
per SpecialistUnlimited spy
+1
from Intelligence Agency and National Securityand how the new one should look like (IMO)
+25% Military Unit Production
-50% War
+2
from Broadcast Tower and Movie Theatre(The reason why I made these changes: 1. the dictatorship deosn't mean it definitely barbaric, totalitarian or even militaristic. 2. The only things which are common in single-party dictatorhsip: only one party govern the country, they use propaganda and most of them have a charismatic leader.)
An another tip: I think no civic should get bonus from wonders. This would also reduce the number of effects. The wonders should be special by themself and doesn't get bonus from civics.
6. A few small suggestions
- Add Totalitarian society civic (even if there is the oppresed civic in the same category).
- Every columns should have at least on future civic. For example: Government - A.I. Government or Open-source Government, Society: Super-human (from welfare), Labour - Robot workers or Clone workers, Religion: One True Faith (need a better name - idea of the merging of religions) or Machine Cult.
- Some new military civic: Warrior Caste - from the birth the men trained to become warriors (for example: Sparta), Mercenary army - instead of Standing Army (Late Roman Republic, many medieval nation "employ" their soldiers as mercenary), Horde (big barbaric army, when everyone who can hold weapon go into war and conquest (Mongolian), Professional Army (insteand of Voluntary) ro represent the most of the modern army like USA.
- Rename Intolerance to Theocracy. The religion column is about what the relation beetween the state and the church. The intolerance more like a dogma.
