Civic Redesign

[Leoreth]

Okay, my first milestone for 1.9 is redoing the civic system. I'm not completely happy with it, because I don't think it always fulfills the goal of having a meaningful choice all of the time and at the same time represent historically reasonable forms of government.

Also, it's been brought up already that some civics are optimal no matter which strategy is pursued, especially State Property and Representation.

I've thought things through and my current result is that the best way here would be to add a sixth civic to each column. That's specifically because I intend to bring back Environmentalism, and also because I want to include a City States civic into the Government category to represent classical and medieval republics. The actual Republic civic will then be moved into the Renaissance.

The City States civic should be expressly designed to be able to support closely placed cities, and should have disadvantages for large civs, to help civs that usually have tight city placement like Greece or Italy. I'd like to hear some suggestions on how to achieve that elegantly. My current idea is through (free) specialists, because they're independent on the available number of tiles, counterbalanced by (drastically) increased city upkeep to make it only viable if you're small. I'm open to other proposals here.

Then I'd like to hear your general thoughts on which civics are too powerful / used too often and which are not viable enough to be used.

I already have changes in mind for Rep and SP, and it's also already decided that all religion civics except Secularism will give 1 unhappiness per non-state religion. Other than that, it's pretty much open ground.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

Doesn't Italy's UP already gives it free Specialists? The Greece UP makes them starve for Specialists anyway.

China will have <= 8 cities almost all the time, and AI Greece, Korea, Ethiopia, Carthage, Babylon, and Egypt will all have a maximum of 4~6 cities all game. It will be hard to distinguish them by the number of cities.

My suggestion is to straightforwardly buff the Italian UP. And its UB too, give it 2 Engineer slots or something. They lack Production. Greece needs no buff at all - 50% of the 3000 BC games I've loaded in 1.8 see Sparta with half of all the Classical Wonders built in it. Sparta, with like 2 land tiles. Do you really want to buff that?

What you really need to change are:

(1) Socialism. Remove the +100% Culture bonus. I'm sure nobody wants that, just like how no conquering civ would want to build the Eiffel Tower (which is the exact opposite to BTS, thank you Stability system!). If Socialism gives a small Culture penalty instead I'm sure it will be everyone's favorite civic.

(2) State Church. It's OP. Reduce the GP rate bonus to a reasonable amount (like 25%, plus some Happiness bonus) or replace it.

(3) Commonwealth. Does anyone use this besides me (I just like the name)? It does nothing 99% of the time. The only case where it makes any perceivable difference (which I still think is just placebo effect) is an early expanding America (horrible Economy).

(4) Free Market. Buff the late game corporations: the code needs to encourage spread of new corps. As it is now old corps (Steel Industry - why would any Capitalistic civ want that? Gifting Irons!!!!!!1111one) get entrenched and mess up your economy entirely.

We also need new late game corps to make Free Market worth it:

Textile Industry: Silk, Dye, Sheep, Cotton - so that China has *some* motivation towards Free Market.

Addictives Industry: Coffee, Tea, Tobacco, Wine - assuming you'll add those former three.

BTS had 5 late game none-food corps, and they don't have Cotton, Coffee, Tea, or Tobacco (CCTT). You currently have 4, 1 of which (Computer Industry) only spreads after the game is long since won (or lost).

 

[Leoreth]

I'd rather have the break-even point for City States around 3 cities, after that it should be a disadvantage. This civic is intended for civs that decide to turtle and not expand out of their (small) core. Civs that are currently designed to be competetive there without the civic could be consequently toned down, then (i.e. Italy's UP replaced, Greece's modifiers tweaked). Because the problem with Greece currently is that it doesn't lose its current benefits even if it expands.

Socialism will be renamed Egalitarianism and become available with Democracy. It's rather odd that a culture bonus is a disadvantage in RFC but I do see your point. Does it need another effect to make it worthwhile?

State Church as a civic will probably be removed anyway, but I intend to include Scholasticism as a religious civics with ~25% GP birth with state religion instead.

Do you have a benefit in mind for Commonwealth?

The code does not favor "entrenched" old corporations per se, there is no benefit for corporations that are already there in the calculation. The actual reason for Steel Company's prevalence might be that there are more cities with Steel allowed than for other corporations, I'll check that. Do you think Free Market should give further boosts to corporations, like +50% commerce yield?

 

[Tlönitte]

If you are seeing commonwealth in its modern conception then one of its effects could be an extra stability boost for liberating/gifting cities, where very large unstable empires could come back from the brink by adopting commonwealth and liberating their conquests and colonies

 

[BenZL43]

Here's my analysis :

Greece usually built/own 3-5 cities :

Spoiler :

-Athenai
-Sparte
-Byantion
-Angora
-The city in Southern Italy, Herculaeum? (Forgot)

AI Rome usually own :

Spoiler :

-Roma
-Pompeii
-Mediolanum
-Valentia/Nova Carthago
-Barcino
-Lutetia Parisiorum
-Burdigala
-Bona Mansio
-Lugudunon/Massalia

AI Phoenicia usually have

Spoiler :

-Sur
-Qart Hadast
-Qart-Hadast (Nova Carthago)
-One city in Sicily (forget)
-One city in Libya (forget)

iirc only few nations that usually own 3 cities (4 if lucky) max..

Spoiler :

-Korea
-Maya
-Aztec
-Inca
-Mali
-Babylon
-Khmer
-Thailand

Apart from Babylon and Maya, iirc all of them are small/regional empire.

Here's my original idea for City States with a bit improvisation to balance :

Spoiler :

-no Capital city, so no distance to palace maintenance cost (Greek League don't have capital, although Athenai is the most prominent one)

-Limited to around 7-10 cities in the defined region/continent?
Example :

Spoiler :

Greece limited to Mediterranean and Persia
Rome limited to Mediterranean only
India limited to Indian continent only
Phoenicia limited to Mediterranean only
China limited to Far East only
Babylon limited to Mesopotamia only
Egypt limited to the Nile only

Any city built outside the defined area will suffer -2 Stability/city

Only available in Ancient/Classical era

 

[Leoreth]

No city distance maintenance would encourage the wrong city placement imo.

 

[BenZL43]

Well, the stability penalty should still take effect and then implement the -2 stability per city founded outside where they should..
Also, imo, even with no cdm, Greece won't found city in Siberia or Nubia anyway

EDIT :
I think with no cdm too, the Greece might actually go barbar and conquer the known world, as Alexander said, because there'll be no economic penalty
Also, the city states should only be able to be applied until the end of Classical Era, so if the civs survive to Medieval Era, there should be a civic changing thing//

 

[Leoreth]

I'm more concerned about what players decide to adopt. The AI can be controlled anyway.

 

[strijder20]

iirc only few nations that usually own 3 cities (4 if lucky) max..

Mali shouldn't be on that list. In my current game, they own 9 cities, and I've seen them do so many times before.

I suggest a free specialist and 2 free commerce in every city which is within 7 tiles of your capital.

 

[IrishDragon]

Many of the city states were traders so maybe give them a bonus in trade route yield or extra commerce. For penalties maybe if your city density/land drops below a certain threshold you get big stability penalties, or just if you go over a certain (small) number of cities.

Probably too specific for this mod, but it would be cool if you got some uu's of you had the city-state civic and certain cities, eg. Spartan warrior or Venitian Galleass or somesuch, or even allow these cities to build them if they're around and independent

 

[Leoreth]

I suggest a free specialist and 2 free commerce in every city which is within 7 tiles of your capital.

Making it dependent from their distance to the capital is a good idea.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

Socialism will be renamed Egalitarianism and become available with Democracy. It's rather odd that a culture bonus is a disadvantage in RFC but I do see your point. Does it need another effect to make it worthwhile?

State Church as a civic will probably be removed anyway, but I intend to include Scholasticism as a religious civics with ~25% GP birth with state religion instead.

I like the names Egalitarianism and Scholasticism. Scholasticism sounds great. Can't wait to get my Augustine and Aquinas.

Egalitarianism:
- Unlimited Merchant, Artist, Scientist
- No Instability/Unhappiness in Cities from Foreign Culture

Do you have a benefit in mind for Commonwealth?

Commonwealth Option 1:
- No (or -50%) Stability penalty from Number of Cities. Mega-England can really benefit from this civic.

Commonwealth Option 2:
- +1 Stability for each city in Historical or Contested (but not Core) Areas.

Commonwealth Option 3:
- Tlönitte's idea: +1/+2 Stability from granting Independence to a city.

You can use a combination of these options.

I'll also take a look at the code for the original Commonwealth and see how it can be made more effective.

The code does not favor "entrenched" old corporations per se, there is no benefit for corporations that are already there in the calculation. The actual reason for Steel Company's prevalence might be that there are more cities with Steel allowed than for other corporations, I'll check that. Do you think Free Market should give further boosts to corporations, like +50% commerce yield?

+50% yield for Corporations could be good, but I think the current problem with Corporations is that resources are too concentrated and limited so that only a few dominant civs can use them.

If you want to go Corporate, and you are not England/Portugal/Netherlands, you're pretty much obligated to invade the Middle East. IRL that is just not the case - Germany, Sweden, Australia and Japan are among the most advanced Corporate & Free Market societies today, and they never had any direct control over the Middle East Oil. Or any Oil of any significance.

Which is why I think it's essential for you to add Textile Industry back. It will make China & Japan much more inclined towards market economy.

 

[Jet]

I hate the civics in 1.8. The modmod would be noticeably more fun for me if they were reverted to the civics in the unmodded game. Theocracy, Republic, Absolutism, Parliamentarism, Capitalism, Totalitarianism, Socialism, and Mercantilism all blow. A couple civs' UHVs get shafted by not having Caste System.

 

[Leoreth]

A little sneak preview:

Spoiler :

 

[ramz711]

^ Me likey. How soon before they're in the SVN?

 

[Leoreth]

I've added some civic effects that aren't in the XML, so it takes some time to include them into the game interface and make the AI recognize they're there. I also have to update the civic part of the stability code, so it'll some days at least.

 

[strijder20]

Looks great, did you make a lot of changes to the existing civics too?

 

[Leoreth]

Umm ... Vassalage has its vanilla stuff, Capitalism comes later (Corporation), but gives +2 commerce on towns, all religion civics except Secularism give non-state unhappiness, Representation and State Property were nerfed, Republic gives extra war weariness, is what I can think of now.

 

[ramz711]

How exactly did you decide to nerf SP? And does it have any kind of synergy with Totalitarianism and/or Autocracy?

 

[ColonialFailer]

Limiting area fights the destruction of history attitude, and is not so nice anyways.
Thassalocracy?
Special event for Greece on City States during early eras called Sortition ''failed''/''succeeded''?
Forced Labor -> Slavery? IMO it sounds like a failed way of being more politically correct.