2 World Wars and Competitive Score Victory

[King Phaedron]

World War 1 and 2, as Events that begin in the World Congress, likely in the Modern and Atomic Age: The conflicts will exist between the player with the highest game score, and the second highest game score, regardless of whether they are allies. The events happen automatically, putting the whole world into war for the duration.

Each Civilization will vote to join either the Apex or Axis powers, which will be first come first served, until one team reaches full capacity. Team balance cannot exceed 60% to 40% ratio, so if 12 Total Civs, the outcome would either by 6 vs 6, or 7 vs 5. If everyone wanted to join a single team, then it's first come, first served. As with other scored competitions, teams will have peace, open borders, and shared visibility. Alliances and trade deals with opponents will be canceled.

During World Wars, earn game score for attacking and defeating enemy units. Score Victory will now be competitive with Science and Culture victory in the later game, and you can win if you reach a high enough threshold. You would need to milk both World Wars quite a bit, and have a good game score to begin with. Game Score may be added to other types of competitions to a lesser degree.

Although everyone is put into war, there are no grievances generated, however, there is Surprise War level grievances for capturing cities, except for cities owned by the target, either the player with the highest or second highest game score. Capture of these are subject to half or normal. There will also be internal competition score, and the winners receive the normal prizes of diplomatic favor with gold tier getting a diplomatic victory point, and/or increased game score.

On Immortal and Deity, the AI will get more game score then human players when units attack or defeat other units. Peace cannot be made until the full competition has run it's course, after which peace is automatically locked in, and wars cannot be declared until the normal number of turns has passed. Friendships and Alliances will need be declared and reformed. This will normally not be a problem, but will be strained for some Civs, like Vietnam who doesn't like players it was at war with in the past.

During World Wars there may be a production bonus for making units and building walls for cities under 10 population. The AI should have no qualms about sending out units to be offensive. Even if they are normally defensive, behavior should be modified as the competitions will heavily influence final game scores and may lead to victory. If one is trying to win in some other way, it may still be advantageous to fight, as eliminating units would help to limit the game score being won.

Finally, at the start and finish of both world wars, we could add some educational narration concerned with the actual context of said wars. I see nothing, but win in adding these to the game, so I'm going to give you a poll. Who knows, maybe we can make it happen.

 

[King Phaedron]

Barbarians would not count, but some random insurgents could appear to keep things interesting, especially to pillage and bother players who don't put anything on defense, and to cut down on the overall benefits of pillaging by doing it first.

Protestors: Civilian units that become available during world wars to protest the wars. Send them into someones borders, and activate a charge to reduce that players game score. They are eliminated when touched by enemy units. Protestors are a great investment for the AI, and anyone going for a different game victory, who wants to keep everyone else, especially human players, from farming too much game score.

 

[greenOak]

I like the idea of world wars, but the way you outlined how it would work feels too contrived and rigid. It shouldn't be restricted between the two strongest powers, and players should have the option of staying neutral (while occurring diplomatic penalty with everyone at war). IMO the cleanest implementation of world wars would be through an ideology mechanic - essentially both sides supporting opposing ideologies. The rewards of winning such a war could be something like strengthening your ideology or outright forcing that ideology on your opponents which could give you a bunch of different economic and cultural bonuses.

A war score system could work for this, but I don't see why it would be necessary. I also don't believe there should be a set time for such wars - "white peace" should be an option in the event of a stalemate, and players should be allowed to drag the war on for as long as possible if they please.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I like the idea of world wars, but the way you outlined how it would work feels too contrived and rigid. It shouldn't be restricted between the two strongest powers, and players should have the option of staying neutral (while occurring diplomatic penalty with everyone at war). IMO the cleanest implementation of world wars would be through an ideology mechanic - essentially both sides supporting opposing ideologies. The rewards of winning such a war could be something like strengthening your ideology or outright forcing that ideology on your opponents which could give you a bunch of different economic and cultural bonuses.

A war score system could work for this, but I don't see why it would be necessary. I also don't believe there should be a set time for such wars - "white peace" should be an option in the event of a stalemate, and players should be allowed to drag the war on for as long as possible if they please.

Several things.

World War One and Two were similar in their End Effects if not their beginnings.
One was the last of the simple wars between Monarchs, which they didn't realize would warp into a Nationalist Absolute War between nations, an thus become impossible to stop diplomatically until one side had been beaten to a pulp. Contrary to post-war German propaganda, it was the German military that asked for an armistice, not the German civilians - the army acknowledged that by November 1918 it was incapable of fighting any more and archive records show that the German military units averaged less than half their authorized manpower - they were done, and there were no resources left in Germany to rebuild them.
Two was an Ideological War with a twist: Communism and Democratic Capitalism/Imperialism on one side, the most unlikely of teams, versus sheer militaristic Imperialism on the other. Given that Halder, the German army's chief of staff at the beginning of the war, said afterwards that here was no time in the war when they should have surrendered because no war is lost until you give up, there was no chance of stopping that war until the same conditions (one side incapable of fighting) were reached.

That, I think, is the key point rather than Ideology, since the ideologies involved were so strangely mixed in World War Two: the USA deplored British Imperialism almost as much as they detested Soviet Communism, while the USSR never trusted any capitalist state, by Doctrine. On the other hand, a mechanic that removes any Diplomatic way to stop the war makes the war Total in the modern sense regardless of the 'ideology' of any specific participant. Ideology should be a part of that, but not all of it: Nationalism as extreme as that of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, racism, Historical Grievance, Cultural Inferiority/Superiority complexes (Hitler really admired the British Empire and never seems to have realized how incompatible that was with his other goals) - all should play a part of some kind.

 

[greenOak]

Didn't mean to imply that both world wars were ideologically driven, just that ideology mechanics strike me as the most natural way to create world wars in a civ like game.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Didn't mean to imply that both world wars were ideologically driven, just that ideology mechanics strike me as the most natural way to create world wars in a civ like game.

Mea Culpa.

Actually, as long as we include Nationalism as the major driving Ideology in combination with other factors like Fascism and Communism and Imperialism, that could be a good way to show the 'negative' side of the ideologies: they might increase your Loyalty Factor, but they can also drag you into wars you cannot easily get out of . . .

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Actually World War can happen ONLY IF two parties have strong alliance systems that each side has total area covers several continents. NOT ALL Historians agree that the Great War of 1914-1918 is the FIRST world war. Churchill even considered The Seven Years War to be The First World War. since it fits 'World War' definitions as well.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Seven Year's War and the Napoleonic Wars are both considered 'World Wars' by some historians because of the geographical extent of the fighting: Seven Year's War battles took place from Ohio to India as well as all over central Europe, the Napoleonic Wars involved Europe from France to Moscow, Egypt to Denmark, and just about every political group west of Persia and east of the Mississippi (although, technically, the War of 1812 in America was a separate but simultaneous action: the United States was not allied with any other European power at the time).

But, for the purposes of this discussion, both wars were 'classic' dynastic struggles:
Seven Year's War: Prussian King versus Austrian Queen, with allies of Britain, France, and Russia
Napoleonic Wars: French Empire under Napoleon against, at one time or the other, Everybody supported by Britain.

Ideology was specifically missing from both conflicts, as was, until the last half of the Napoleonic Wars, Nationalism. The French revolution concentrated French Nationalism, but German and Russian nationalism didn't manifest until 1813 and 1812, respectively (the war against France in 1813 - 1814 is called the War of Liberation in northern Germany, but as many Germans fought for France as against France during the previous 10 years.

This also meant that both wars could be ended by traditional Negotiation, unlike the Ideologically-driven wars of the 20th century that ended only with the utter defeat of one side or the other. In this the Napoleonic Wars most closely resembled the ideological wars, but only because nobody in Europe felt safe with Napoleon in charge of anything, so the war had to end with his removal from any kind of political power. Even then, while Ideology kept the Germans fighting to the bitter end in 1945, Frenchmen simply stopped showing up for conscription after 1813 because they were tired of fighting and there was no pressing reason to fight for Napoleon: France was, as a nation, not threatened with complete destruction, only Bonaparte.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

The Seven Year's War and the Napoleonic Wars are both considered 'World Wars' by some historians because of the geographical extent of the fighting: Seven Year's War battles took place from Ohio to India as well as all over central Europe, the Napoleonic Wars involved Europe from France to Moscow, Egypt to Denmark, and just about every political group west of Persia and east of the Mississippi (although, technically, the War of 1812 in America was a separate but simultaneous action: the United States was not allied with any other European power at the time).

But, for the purposes of this discussion, both wars were 'classic' dynastic struggles:
Seven Year's War: Prussian King versus Austrian Queen, with allies of Britain, France, and Russia
Napoleonic Wars: French Empire under Napoleon against, at one time or the other, Everybody supported by Britain.

Ideology was specifically missing from both conflicts, as was, until the last half of the Napoleonic Wars, Nationalism. The French revolution concentrated French Nationalism, but German and Russian nationalism didn't manifest until 1813 and 1812, respectively (the war against France in 1813 - 1814 is called the War of Liberation in northern Germany, but as many Germans fought for France as against France during the previous 10 years.

This also meant that both wars could be ended by traditional Negotiation, unlike the Ideologically-driven wars of the 20th century that ended only with the utter defeat of one side or the other. In this the Napoleonic Wars most closely resembled the ideological wars, but only because nobody in Europe felt safe with Napoleon in charge of anything, so the war had to end with his removal from any kind of political power. Even then, while Ideology kept the Germans fighting to the bitter end in 1945, Frenchmen simply stopped showing up for conscription after 1813 because they were tired of fighting and there was no pressing reason to fight for Napoleon: France was, as a nation, not threatened with complete destruction, only Bonaparte.

Yet in case of france. 'Bourbon Tyranny' and excessive revenge is what follows.
Napoleonic Wars. Bonaparte Family VS any remaining Bourbons. (Especially in Spain and Italy) even to this day IMAO No Bourbons living today ever forgive Bonaparte for what Napoleon I has done.
(and it seems Bismarck never liked this family, particularly in terms of Spain monarchy restoration, he favors Bourbon, and it is clear that even as 1870 bitter rivalty between Bourbon and Bonaparte is still real. and any surviving Bourbons at that time would want to see a final demise of Bonaparte clan. i think once anyone in the Bourbon clan learned that Napoleon's last successur was working in British Army as Light Cavalry commander and deployed in Zulu Wars, near Ulundi. they decided to supply Zulu King with guns or even assassins to kill their Last Nemesis.)

Did the United States really happy with his return? or didn't the Presidency trust him as well?
(And why a peace talks between US and GB is done in Ghent? whose idea?)

 

[Patine]

Several things.

World War One and Two were similar in their End Effects if not their beginnings.
One was the last of the simple wars between Monarchs, which they didn't realize would warp into a Nationalist Absolute War between nations, an thus become impossible to stop diplomatically until one side had been beaten to a pulp. Contrary to post-war German propaganda, it was the German military that asked for an armistice, not the German civilians - the army acknowledged that by November 1918 it was incapable of fighting any more and archive records show that the German military units averaged less than half their authorized manpower - they were done, and there were no resources left in Germany to rebuild them.
Two was an Ideological War with a twist: Communism and Democratic Capitalism/Imperialism on one side, the most unlikely of teams, versus sheer militaristic Imperialism on the other. Given that Halder, the German army's chief of staff at the beginning of the war, said afterwards that here was no time in the war when they should have surrendered because no war is lost until you give up, there was no chance of stopping that war until the same conditions (one side incapable of fighting) were reached.

That, I think, is the key point rather than Ideology, since the ideologies involved were so strangely mixed in World War Two: the USA deplored British Imperialism almost as much as they detested Soviet Communism, while the USSR never trusted any capitalist state, by Doctrine. On the other hand, a mechanic that removes any Diplomatic way to stop the war makes the war Total in the modern sense regardless of the 'ideology' of any specific participant. Ideology should be a part of that, but not all of it: Nationalism as extreme as that of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, racism, Historical Grievance, Cultural Inferiority/Superiority complexes (Hitler really admired the British Empire and never seems to have realized how incompatible that was with his other goals) - all should play a part of some kind.

Notably, total war hasn't truly occured since the World Wars. Diplomacy is always an option and attempted in every war since (often instigated by non-belligerents and/or multi-national organizations), even if it doesn't bear immediate fruit and ends up buying into the infamous proxy war system. The nuclear deterrent is certainly part of that, but I would garner the experiences of the World Wars, om a conventional level, considering we have bigger tanks, faster aircraft with bigger bombs, and ships that rarely HAVE to make port, the notion is just nightmarish.

 

[Evie]

I think one world war had been enough for that for *much* of the western world. Appeasement didn't come out of the blue.

But then as now, sometimes one tyrant with little regard for human life, a chip on his shoulder and a good propaganda apparatus in the right country is all it takes to narrow the options down to surrender or war.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

IF a war is horrible enough, it acts as a deterent for about one generation or so. The Thirty Year's War convinced most of Europe that a Religious War is a Bad Thing and they never really tried it again. Germany and the Germans bought a false narrative of what happened in WWI that made them think they could get away with a Nationalist war a second time, and as a result on 12 May 1945 (after the Red Army took Prague and obliterated the last German military units on the ground) there wasn't a square centimeter of ground anywhere in the world under German control: both Germany and Austria had ceased to exist legally as States and were under the control of Allied military officials.

Unfortunately, parts of the world never got Religious Wars out of their system and dictators never learn from other people's mistakes, so the wars continue. Even without WMDs modern weapons can obliterate most of man's constructions, so the one certainty is that, despite all the pious pronouncements of the politicians, civilians will die by the thousands along with the soldiers.

To quote someone who really, really knew what he was talking about:

"There has never been a Good War, or a Bad Peace."
- William T. Sherman

 

[BuchiTaton]

Actually, as long as we include Nationalism as the major driving Ideology in combination with other factors like Fascism and Communism and Imperialism, that could be a good way to show the 'negative' side of the ideologies: they might increase your Loyalty Factor, but they can also drag you into wars you cannot easily get out of . . .

This bring me back to my attempt to organize a gamey system for ideologies/civics...

Some changes. First using the name Civics instead of Ideologies to preserve more of CIV's traditonal nomenclature plus allow to use Ideology as a main category. Second, there are six main categories covering the most significative aspects of your government with tripartite and mutually exclusive options (similarly to CIV4 system), while there are also a secondary free category where you can put a set of "free" civics (similarly to CIV6 free policy cards) and the different free civics you can get are linked to your main civics (similarly to CIV5 policy trees). Each main civic is a whole different way to play some aspect of the game with exclusive mechanics, while free civics are mostly limited to bonuses.

The main civic categories are these:

Society	Pastoralism	Agrarianism	Maritimism
Polity	Clericalism	Monarchism	Republicanism
Authority	Absolutism	Elitism	Constitutionalism
Ideology	Fascism	Capitalism	Socialism
Loyalty	Centralism	Vassalism	Federalism
Dependancy	Colonialism	Imperialism	Multilateralism

- Society civics are obtained at Neolithic* Era from the food resource used by the settlement that turn into your first City, for example Maize provide Agrarianism, Camels Pastoralism and Fish Maritimism. Between others characteristics Agrarian societies have Food and Production bonus, Pastoral societies have militar focus like their pastorial villages that have warrior denizens instead of laborer denizens plus they can train Horse Archers, and the Maritime societies have trade focus plus allows to train Canoes an earlier naval line unit.
- Polity civics are available since Classical Era being related to the emergence of formal philosophical schools and organized religions. In gameplay terms they are related to how the player manages happiness and gain bonus from this. For Monarchies is a local (city by city) based focus through Consorts and royal Houses, for Republics is a civ wide focus by means of Legistators representing each kind of denizens, and about Theocracies is achieving religious objetives knows as Commandments.
- Authority civics are unlocked from Renaissance Era onwards as the sources of authority that sustain your government. Absolutism allows to do a Decree certain number of turns, with Elitism you can do Pacts with your denizen elite classes for bonus in exchange of certain privileges, and for Constitutionalism happy denizen group provide bonus from their Elections.
- Ideology civics are disponible with Modern* Era covering the main ideological currents that arose from the challenges of the industrialized societies. Here Capitalism needs you to facilitate the apogee of Corporations to gain bonuses (mainly in term of yields), meanwhile for Socialism the objetive is satisfy your denizens (mostly Labourers) needs to unlock the bonuses, and regarding Fascism the focus is to have only one national heritage and official belief to impress with your actions (mostly at the expense of others denizens and players).
- Loyalty civics are about the administration of the cities that are fundamental part of your homeland. With Centralism turn the cities into Provinces that can be assigned to one of your Ministers, for Vassalism the cities become Vassals that can be elevated in rank using different ways, and in the case of Federalism cities are States that generate their own governors with random bonuses.
- Dependancy civics represent the level of suzerainty allowed to the minor nations you control. For Colonialism your Colonies can be controled as regular cities, plus tax and immgration bonuses (but higher discontent), meanwhile Imperialism allows to demand tribute of a specific kind from your Protectorates, regarding Multilateralism this options provide the most autonomy to the Members of your Commonwealth that would support your World Congress goals and help you in any defensive war being a great diplomatic option.

The free civics (secondary civics) comes from the main civics being compatible/related to those in some narrative logical way through decision events. Between many others include things like:
Parlamentarism, Presidentialism, Enviromentalism, Pluralism, Humanism, Activism, Suffragism, Abolitionism, Progressivism, Liberalism, Egalitarianism, Legalism, Manorialism, Supremacism, Populism, Consumerism, Marcantilism, Slaverism, Protectionism, Corporatism, Lobbism, Nationalism, Patriotism, Globalism, Interventionism, Isolationism, Secularism, Laicism, Fundamentalism, Syncretism, Monasticism, Esotericism, Mysticism, Occultism, Monotheism, Dualism, Proselytism, Romanticism, Positivism, Syndicalism, Pacifism, Jingoism, Totalitarianism, etc.

In this system you can be a Capitalist Constitutional Monarchy, with a homeland divided in kingdoms and protectorates for your foreign dominions, and have a tradition as a maritime society. Additionaly to these structural civics you can add others (wildcards) like for example Nationalism that allows us to represent a nationalist policy that reduce war weariness but also affect negatively your diplomacy. Meanwhile Patriotism could be a different free civic that gives you morale bonus but only apply in defensive wars.
As said, which wildcard civics you could get is affected by your choice of main civics, so Nationalism would be fixed(or have a synergy bonus) to Fascism but would be optional for Capitalism.

 

[Evie]

I'm not against this system, to a point, but I think you define each of those category a little too narrowly, perhaps with a tunnel vision toward addressing one choice at one point in time and failing to consider the later relevance of that category. You also seem falls prey to the rock-paper-scissor school of "three options for everything that are vaguely alleged to each be strong against one and weak against another".), resulting in a lack of option in each category, and some options having to overlap between categories. Finally, you seem to be a little too married to certain terminology choices (isms everywhere being the obvious one) at the cost of using truly obscure terms when not making them up or misusing them entirely. Finally, *all* your civic categories are social, and reflect different aspects of society, so the "society" category is strangely named.

All that said.

Your Society category defines people's relation to their resources and surrounding, and is in practice more of an *Economy* category. It is also the most obvious case of tunnel vision among your options: while it accurately reflects the fact that there are three great socioeconomic models in early cultures, it completely ignores that by the mid-game, around the renaissance to industrial revolution, these three models are completely obsolete, and leaving the category wasted on a choice that is no longer meaningful is a misuse of resources. Best to add later model of human to resource relations, certainly including Mercantilism (focus on the resources that have the most worth in themselves), Industrialism (focus on the resources that have the most use in the production of other things) and so on.

The polity section is a terminological mangle (polity does not mean how a society is ruled but simply is a catch-all term for socio-political entities; clericalism is an obscure and broad concept only partically related to religious rule, and even republicanism seems to eschew simpler terms for the sake of getting an 'ism' in there. On top of which the insistence on a three-option system result in this category strangely overlapping with the next. So, to clarify, this category as I see it should answer the question: "who holds the power". In which case the options become theocracy (the priests), aristocracy (a hereditary elite, often with military background), autocracy (a single ruler), bureaucracy (a professional government apparatus), democracy (the people), with other possible options .

Authority is a good category on principle, but the options you picked for it are as often as not about "who rules" rather than "why do they rule". Constitutionalism (belongs here, represent rule of law essentially) Authoritarianism (they rule because of the naked threat of force), Feudalism (they rule because of a complex web of personal fealty), Divine Right (they rule because either god says so or they are god), Fascism/Nationalism (they rule because they are the embodiment of national pride), Traditionalism (they rule because of ancient customs which thry maintain) would all be valid options.

I'll take a look at the others later. Needless to say many of those would need to be available earlier in the game and gradually expand with new options rather than appearing with all options at a single point.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I'm not against this system, to a point, but I think you define each of those category a little too narrowly, perhaps with a tunnel vision toward addressing one choice at one point in time and failing to consider the later relevance of that category. You also seem falls prey to the rock-paper-scissor school of "three options for everything that are vaguely alleged to each be strong against one and weak against another".), resulting in a lack of option in each category, and some options having to overlap between categories. Finally, you seem to be a little too married to certain terminology choices (isms everywhere being the obvious one) at the cost of using truly obscure terms when not making them up or misusing them entirely. Finally, *all* your civic categories are social, and reflect different aspects of society, so the "society" category is strangely named.

Well in short the part about be gamey system adress anything. CIV have worked with these kind of incosistences, inaccuracies and liberties as I pointed from the inspiration of CIV4, 5 and 6. So I would not excuse my artificial systematization, but I find it OK for a game like CIV.

Now, about the tripartite options. I must clarify that just because they are three each time dont make them into a "rock-paper-scissor" system. These different options in none of the categories are designed to be strong or weak against any of the others. Beyond the thematic bonuses these are mean to be ways to play the game with their own mechanics, with their own objetives, notorious pros and cons. Something more significative that the regular positive and plain bonuses.

Your Society category defines people's relation to their resources and surrounding, and is in practice more of an *Economy* category. It is also the most obvious case of tunnel vision among your options: while it accurately reflects the fact that there are three great socioeconomic models in early cultures, it completely ignores that by the mid-game, around the renaissance to industrial revolution, these three models are completely obsolete, and leaving the category wasted on a choice that is no longer meaningful is a misuse of resources. Best to add later model of human to resource relations, certainly including Mercantilism (focus on the resources that have the most worth in themselves), Industrialism (focus on the resources that have the most use in the production of other things) and so on.

That is why I said " tradition as a maritime society", the title of Maritime, Agrarian and Pastorial societies would be more significative at Neolithic* Era, Ancient, Classical and Medieval, but dont we have something like "legacy bonus"? Regularly I see people remarking the positive value of keep some reward from previous decisions, and for a game about history and where you can look for ancient artifacts to display in a museum. Would not be nice to have some legacy in later game from the way your ancestors lived?
Remember that I want to get culture also from material products of the common people (Ceramic, Textiles, Jewelry, Cuisine, etc.) and traditions from each heritage. The idea of get bonuses from they way of life of your ancestors is part of this. After all why cant we have a bonus for cavalry in Industrial Era as patorial society if our culture was know as great horse riders? Or why cant we get amenities and religious bonus from our ancient harvest festivities? Legacy, history, customs, tradition, all linking the roots and present of any society.

Mercantilism is still part of the "wildcard civics" that can be used by CIV regarless any kind of society they started, as is also economic Liberalism. Industrialism is so obvious, explicit and inevitable in CIV eras system that is kind of pointless to present it as something to choose.
Here is where I point out, yes tripartite option seems limiting but in those three there are options while where is the decision value of later models about just be "better" than the preivous ones?
Industrialism is presented as the only way to advance to the final eras, eras full of techs, mechanics and others civics that clearly are part of those industrial societies, select or replace the "obsolete" previous options add nothing to gameplay since you were already forced to advance.
Still good news, I already had the idea to address that by a text when you advance to Industrial Era about how your original "society" type was replaced by Industrialism and now the previous appears as legacy.

*By the way, in "Economy" apart from Merchantilism and Industrialism there are many other options that could fit into the economic model, but must note the cases of Socialism and Capitalism, that for gameplay design related to eras and mechanics would be inconvenient to be in the same category.

The polity section is a terminological mangle (polity does not mean how a society is ruled but simply is a catch-all term for socio-political entities; clericalism is an obscure and broad concept only partically related to religious rule, and even republicanism seems to eschew simpler terms for the sake of getting an 'ism' in there. On top of which the insistence on a three-option system result in this category strangely overlapping with the next. So, to clarify, this category as I see it should answer the question: "who holds the power". In which case the options become theocracy (the priests), aristocracy (a hereditary elite, often with military background), autocracy (a single ruler), bureaucracy (a professional government apparatus), democracy (the people), with other possible options .

Yep Polity as entity, either Republic, Monarchy or Theocracy, these mixed with Authory type gives us things like:
Republic + Absolutism = Dictatorship
Republic + Elitism = Oligarchy
Republic + Constitutionalism = Democracy
Absolute Monarchy
Feudal Monarchy
Constitutional Monarchy
Theocracy with a Divine King figure.
Theocracy as the Papal States with all the cardinal shenanigans included.
Theodemocracy why not.
Here I already covered the main options. Bureucracy is better as "wildcard" addition with focus for Elitism main but maybe usefull for others mains. This also allow to show why add -ism is useful since Bureucracy usualy mean the non-elected administrative workers that are a thing in most forms of goverments for urban societies since ancient times. Meanwhile the use of Bureucratism emphasize the focus in that sector of your government as a group with real political weight.

Authority is a good category on principle, but the options you picked for it are as often as not about "who rules" rather than "why do they rule". Constitutionalism (belongs here, represent rule of law essentially) Authoritarianism (they rule because of the naked threat of force), Feudalism (they rule because of a complex web of personal fealty), Divine Right (they rule because either god says so or they are god), Fascism/Nationalism (they rule because they are the embodiment of national pride), Traditionalism (they rule because of ancient customs which thry maintain) would all be valid options.

Yep this always was source of Authority, but with focus in the objetive humans that have a word about that authority not the ideology. So all the citizens, an elite or just the leader itself. Meanwhile...
- Feudalism is (Monarchism + Elitism) already about Nobility that by the way are the Warrior denizen class (remember that this system is based in these classes), plus some "wildcard civics" like Manorialism for extra synergy with this, Colonialism, and Agrarianism.
- Divine Right is clearly redundant with all the Theocracies and assumable for Absolute Monarchy.
- Traditionalism as a "wildcard civic" is OK to get more emphasis for culture/religion gameplay (included the mentioned traditions and of course the started society choice ). But as a main civics is too vague and overlaps others with evident focus in tradition like Monarchy, Theocracy and Fascism.
- Would use Fascism as a main in the ideology category since Nationalism emerge earlier and can be asigned to the agenda of some governments regardless they were from other main like Capitalism.
For Fascism I know some people dislike the tripartite deterministic WW2 focus (in topic) but is what most people want, an in this system you still can be a Fascist Monarchy or a Facist Republic, like you can be a Socialist Monarchy (Grenada) or a Socialist Theocracy (want something different what about a Liberation Theology utopia put into practice).

I'll take a look at the others later. Needless to say many of those would need to be available earlier in the game and gradually expand with new options rather than appearing with all options at a single point.

The wildcard/free civics are like their category say free, they can be mixed with most of the options from the main categories. Those are supposed to represent more specific policies and agendas in many different topics (economy, diplomacy, religion, etc.). In gameplay terms are more simple mostly being bonus, lacking the mechanics of the main categories.

Again this system is in no way perfect or supposed to be a proper representation of historical administrative and ideological models. But it is designed with the idea to allow more real options, narrative depth and unique mechanics. Not forget that civic changes comes from the interaction with denizens in action>decision mission system with pros and cons from your choices. Take that in mind because the more options are added without a guide the ammount of possible outcomes turn to be inconvenient for a game like CIV.
So the categories, options and moments when you must select a main civic could seem "deterministic" but that is accord to CIVs gamey design.

 

[Evie]

On economy, while legacy bonuses can be nice, they should not hog up an entire civic category in the later stages of the game. They should be something you gain after having the civic for a definite amount of time, not something you have to retain the civic for the whole game.

I will admit I waffled back and forth on capitalism/free market vs industrialism, but I agree capitalism may work best for late game civics, in which case socialism (or collectivism) is a necessary counterpart. I would, however, keep Mercantilism because it is very much an economic system too, dealing with the mass accumulation of resources. Manoralism would be an option as a Medieval (or Antique) version of Agrarian unlocking knights as a unit.

Polity remain entirely and wholly a wrong term for a civic category - even with your explanation, it just doesn't mean what you're trying to make it mean, and your equations of which combination of "polity" and "Authority" lead to what governments are suspicious at best and downright wrong in most case: a dictator could rely on absolute power or a constitution rather than on personal authority,democracy could eschew a constitution ("tyranny of the majority"), many monarchies that relied on the power of the aristocracy were no longer feudal in nature and so forth. Moreover, it's unintuitive: people have to guess which combination of unfamiliar words correspond to what forms of government they know. Being a democracy should be a direct matter of picking "democracy" as an option, not of being locked into a specific selection of multiple civics. Here, you are over complicating things. Moreover, you say that authority would only become available with the Renaissance, meaning that players wouldn't be able to define their actual government until halfway through the game - this despite the fact that many government forms predate that. All in all, this is a poorly thought out system.

I think part of the problem with "polity"/Authority (beyond your insistence that it's the two of them together that define government type) is that they seem to work backward from how I would have them work given the name : you have "polity" as "what do they derive their authority from" (hereditary inheritance and "authority" as "who actually rules" (the one, the few or the many). In this case pretty much all names except maybe Absolutism are out of place: Constitutionalism meredly indicate that there are written rules limiting the power of the state, not who holds actual power; and elitism is simply the belief that some men are better than others ; what you are talking about (the rule by a small elite) would actually just plain be Aristocracy on paper (and usually oligarchy in theory - which is another system that's not limited to republicanism!) which, while it is often associated with hereditary nobility, isn't actually limited to that.

In any event, I am increasingly convinced that separating these two categories for the sake of creating combined governments creates an unintuitive mess for the sake of having nine options : a single civic category with six options can achieve largely similar results in a much simpler and more intuitive way. Rule by a god-king is seldom ever theocratic in practice (Egypt was not a theocracy), so can be lumped into monarchy, and theodemocracy is not only speculative but would just, in practice, be democracy. Meanwhile, an absolute ruler is not markedly different whether he names himself king or lord protector, so the distinction between monarchic absolutism and popular absolutism is also dubious. Taken together, there is no need to have a 3x3 grid of possible government foms, and they can be collapsed into a more limited number of civics in a single category that allow more of a what you see is what you get approach rather than having to form unintuitive combinations to reach specific governments.

------

Now, on to the three additional categories:

Ideology...come off as an attempt to shoehorn the so-called ideological clashes of the twentieth century into a unified category, but beyond that notion of World War Two as a clash of ideologies, has little to go for it. As you pointed out yourself fascism is a mode of government while capitalism and socialism/communism are forms of economic organization. Moreover, the idea that they must be in opposition, while true of Capitalism/Communism, is pure hindsight based on how history actually played out: neither communism nor capitalism saw fascism as an irreconciliable adversary (the way they saw each other) until Hitler went to war with them. In a world without German Revanchism/Lebensraum, Italian fascism and the somewhat related Japanese hypernationalism enduring without getting themselves in an ideological clash is not outside the realm of possibility. Meanwhile, post cold-war, the greater ideological clashes have been between capitalism and traditionalism/fundamentalism, which somehow always seem to be left off when dealing with more recent political ideological clashes, despite its enormous importance. But again, capitalism and traditionalism/fundamentalism where perfectly happy to get along, right up until communism vanished.

Loyalty and Dependancy...oh my. I get the distinction you're making, but I am not convinced it's beneficial from a game perspective - these perhaps most of all depend so much on how important governors and colonies and city states are and how they work, so it is impossible to judge them. I want to like the category (though I have minor word choice quibbles), but your breakdown of how they work and of the difference between them simply seem overfocused on specific mechanisms that I don't think are worth dedicating an entire civic category to, without a complete overhaul (particularly the governors - having an entire civic category for "how governors are appointed" seems like overkill to me, but perhaps in the right system it might make sense. I don't think I can reasonably form an opinion on them as it stands.

All in all, while the general idea of a civ 4 style civic system seems sound, and you bring some good idea to it, I think your idea requires significant improvement to be usablel in a reasonable way.

 

[BuchiTaton]

All in all, this is a poorly thought out system.

Here you are looking only the names of the categories not the game mechanics that are the true significative part, names are just labels.

Like said I wanted to have a gamey system similar to previous CIV games that also take many liberties, just look at CIV4 civics options in each category, we can be sure that Firaxis know they are using wrong some terms in their games but they keep doing it for gameplay reasons. I mean what about the use of civilization itself, or could we defend the famous academic renowed "Canadian civilization"?
So again I intentionally wanted to add new categories with close tricotomic options for certain moments in the game, that artificiality is part of CIV design as a game, like the closed civs, tech tree, economy, etc.

Polity remain entirely and wholly a wrong term for a civic category - even with your explanation, it just doesn't mean what you're trying to make it mean, and your equations of which combination of "polity" and "Authority" lead to what governments are suspicious at best and downright wrong in most case: a dictator could rely on absolute power or a constitution rather than on personal authority,democracy could eschew a constitution ("tyranny of the majority"), many monarchies that relied on the power of the aristocracy were no longer feudal in nature and so forth.

We can name it Authocracy, Authoritarism or Absolutism but the fact is that in practice the ruler retain praticaly full control, also figures like this can be found in Republics or Monarchies (even the more "Divine" forms in Theocracies). If we care about proper names for the categories and options then would we ignore if our goverment is a Monarchy or a Republic and only care that is Authocratic, or would we need to add way more different governments for each of those possible options?
Also again the mechanics, the "polity" category is about happiness. For Monarchies is a local (city by city) based focus through Consorts and royal Houses were you have a diplomatic game entities that control certain parts of your civ. For Republics is a civ wide focus by means of Legistators representing each kind of denizens, so you take decisions thinking in the different kind of denizens. About Theocracies is achieving religious objetives knows as Commandments, so obviously the religious gameplay here is way more significative.

Moreover, it's unintuitive: people have to guess which combination of unfamiliar words correspond to what forms of government they know. Being a democracy should be a direct matter of picking "democracy" as an option, not of being locked into a specific selection of multiple civics. Here, you are over complicating things.

The example of combination was to show that the goverments that you distinguished could be represented by a combination of "polity" and "authority" categories. If you dont like Constitutionalism name it Democracy, is that easy. But again dont most people thing in "Constitutional Monarchy" as a democratic form of monarchy? We can be picky about if this is always true but that add little to the game. Meanwhile again, should we just care about the Democracy part and forget about the monarchy? We realy need to add separated forms of monarchy just because combine two categories dont meet a proper label?

Moreover, you say that authority would only become available with the Renaissance, meaning that players wouldn't be able to define their actual government until halfway through the game - this despite the fact that many government forms predate that. All in all, this is a poorly thought out system.

Again CIV work with arbitrary distribution of elements into eras. By the time you reach Renaissance you already had either Monarchy, Republic or Theocracy (cough cough CIV6's renaissance Theocracy with ancient egyptian art), as the Enlightenment this period is know by the strugle of power and revolutions about the way nations are governned, you know Feudalism to Absolutism and Constitutional movements that in some degree are linked to democracy.
Yes of course we can go all "um actually..." about proper names and proper eras about these labels, but for CIV model that is fine and add part of the flavor most people expect for these eras (again cough cough Classical Republic and Merchant Republic).

I think part of the problem with "polity"/Authority (beyond your insistence that it's the two of them together that define government type) is that they seem to work backward from how I would have them work given the name : you have "polity" as "what do they derive their authority from" (hereditary inheritance and "authority" as "who actually rules" (the one, the few or the many). In this case pretty much all names except maybe Absolutism are out of place: Constitutionalism meredly indicate that there are written rules limiting the power of the state, not who holds actual power; and elitism is simply the belief that some men are better than others ; what you are talking about (the rule by a small elite) would actually just plain be Aristocracy on paper (and usually oligarchy in theory - which is another system that's not limited to republicanism!) which, while it is often associated with hereditary nobility, isn't actually limited to that.

Yes Oligarchy is not limited to Republic I did examples of that for Monarchy and Theocracy to. One more time the example was to show that Oligarchy could be represented in their different forms as a combination of Elitism plus the other category. Even more remember the denizen social classes system?
I already talked before about the elite class status that apply to different classes depending the combination with your "polity" Monarchy already set Warrior class as the elite class representing Aristocracy, Theocracy set Cleric class as the elite, and for Republic the default elite could be the Trader class but "wildcard civics" could change it for example Positivism turn Scholar class into the elite, making Elitism an adaptable option for Republics.
Anyway, you dont like the label Elitism? Then call it Oligarchy the gameplay as a combined aspect is the same.

In any event, I am increasingly convinced that separating these two categories for the sake of creating combined governments creates an unintuitive mess for the sake of having nine options : a single civic category with six options can achieve largely similar results in a much simpler and more intuitive way. Rule by a god-king is seldom ever theocratic in practice (Egypt was not a theocracy), so can be lumped into monarchy, and theodemocracy is not only speculative but would just, in practice, be democracy. Meanwhile, an absolute ruler is not markedly different whether he names himself king or lord protector, so the distinction between monarchic absolutism and popular absolutism is also dubious. Taken together, there is no need to have a 3x3 grid of possible government foms, and they can be collapsed into a more limited number of civics in a single category that allow more of a what you see is what you get approach rather than having to form unintuitive combinations to reach specific governments.

The system of CIV4 is way more "messy" in terminology and consistency terms and people had no problem to play with it, even more I dare to say is one of the more liked ones in CIV series.
Now lets change some names that you thing are wrong. So is unintuitive to have Democratic Monarchy or an Oligarchic Republic?
What about Theocracies? Of course is natural that monarchies and theocracies overlaps a lot by the use of divinities as justification for the authority of royalty but still the game could use some arbitrary separation to allow gameplay focus, that is how CIV do it all the time.

Ideology...come off as an attempt to shoehorn the so-called ideological clashes of the twentieth century into a unified category, but beyond that notion of World War Two as a clash of ideologies, has little to go for it. As you pointed out yourself fascism is a mode of government while capitalism and socialism/communism are forms of economic organization. Moreover, the idea that they must be in opposition, while true of Capitalism/Communism, is pure hindsight based on how history actually played out: neither communism nor capitalism saw fascism as an irreconciliable adversary (the way they saw each other) until Hitler went to war with them. In a world without German Revanchism/Lebensraum, Italian fascism and the somewhat related Japanese hypernationalism enduring without getting themselves in an ideological clash is not outside the realm of possibility. Meanwhile, post cold-war, the greater ideological clashes have been between capitalism and traditionalism/fundamentalism, which somehow always seem to be left off when dealing with more recent political ideological clashes, despite its enormous importance. But again, capitalism and traditionalism/fundamentalism where perfectly happy to get along, right up until communism vanished.

And this why we still can have "wildcard civics" like Fundamentalism and Traditionalism.
The tripartite system of Capitalism/Fascism/Socialism is something that CIV do because is what most people expect. This system allow to have Capitalist Monarchies like UK and Capitalist Republics like USA, at the same time Fascist Republics like Germany and Fascist Monarchies like Japan. Of course here we are taking some liberties for broad and multifaceted definitions, but thi system allows us to be at Contemporary Era as Authocratic Monarchy with Fundamentalism and Traditionalism as additional focus. Even Theocracy combined with Fascism, Capitalism or Socialism give us interesting results, some with isolated historical examples and others as practical aplication of theorical models (dont people here want alt-history societies?).

Loyalty and Dependancy...oh my. I get the distinction you're making, but I am not convinced it's beneficial from a game perspective - these perhaps most of all depend so much on how important governors and colonies and city states are and how they work, so it is impossible to judge them. I want to like the category (though I have minor word choice quibbles), but your breakdown of how they work and of the difference between them simply seem overfocused on specific mechanisms that I don't think are worth dedicating an entire civic category to, without a complete overhaul (particularly the governors - having an entire civic category for "how governors are appointed" seems like overkill to me, but perhaps in the right system it might make sense. I don't think I can reasonably form an opinion on them as it stands.

The loyalty options are quite simple to understand. Centralism is about assign your thematic ministers to cities making it better for small empires since you have few ministers. Federalism is more about random bonuses but turn into a better option the bigger is your empire. Vassalism is the more demanding but if your play it well the investment and down sides worth it for some powerfull bonuses.

Dependency is about control level over City States, and is not as mechanic complex as could seem. Colonialism turn CS into something almost like regular cities, Imperialism is closest to current CS, and Multilateralism for the most authonomous CS to boost diplomatic gains as the "good guy".

All in all, while the general idea of a civ 4 style civic system seems sound, and you bring some good idea to it, I think your idea requires significant improvement to be usablel in a reasonable way.

What about the change of labels:
- "Legacy" instead of "Society", so is clear from start that your early way of life leave a mark in your culture.

Theocracy/Monarchy/Republic​

Autocratic/Oligarchic/Democratic​

Nationalism/Capitalism/Socialism​

Suggest the names for the categories of these tripartite options.

 

[Evie]

Re loyalty and dependency, yes, they are easy to understand, but their usefulness to the game is not - because it seems to depend largely on governors, which I assume you have some ideas of how you'd like to implement them, but I don't know that idea so I can't comment on whether that kind of idea is even needed. For most implementation of governors that I have seen suggested (or implemented in the game) to date, they are simply too peripheral to warrant an entire set of civics centered on them. Even having city states specific civics I find questionable.

The idea that government forms (that is, "polities") should be about "how are citizens made happy" in game terms seems wholly nonsensical to me. That there should be a category that ties into happineess can be argued (although a reverse case that all categories should have civics that play into happiness can be made), but tying it to political system seems entirely random.

The idea of having different class and a civic that determine which of these holds power is reasonable, but then, why should it be limited to three civics in the main category for three classes and the rest as wildcards. And Republicanism as a civic that sets a particular group above others make little sense.

(The term constitutional monarchy is somewhat of a misuse ; constitutional monarchies tend to be democratic because they involve parliamentary structures as the real power ; but it does not follow that constitutional = democratic. Even if two terms can be mistaken for one another, if the common term is the most easily understood one we should use that one).

On the whole, I simply remain unconvinced by your implementation of your system. It seems to me to have been significantly over-thought, and have lost in the process much of the solid simplicity that made the Civ 4 system so workable in favor of overly detailed specificity.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Re loyalty and dependency, yes, they are easy to understand, but their usefulness to the game is not - because it seems to depend largely on governors, which I assume you have some ideas of how you'd like to implement them, but I don't know that idea so I can't comment on whether that kind of idea is even needed. For most implementation of governors that I have seen suggested (or implemented in the game) to date, they are simply too peripheral to warrant an entire set of civics centered on them. Even having city states specific civics I find questionable.

Dont think about the governors, in practice they are only a label for the bonus that cities get. This mechanic is about your cities. Only in one option the thematic bonus comes from a fixed number of CIV6's governor like figures, in other the bonus is random and in the other you need to invest and manage pros and cons.
Governors are only a flavor instrument but if it is too complex just think directly about the cities, as provinces, states or vassals that have different ways to gain bonuses.
Maybe you are confused by the Loyalty label for the category so be free to suggest another name for the category.

The idea that government forms (that is, "polities") should be about "how are citizens made happy" in game terms seems wholly nonsensical to me. That there should be a category that ties into happineess can be argued (although a reverse case that all categories should have civics that play into happiness can be made), but tying it to political system seems entirely random.

Talking about Loyalty. Happiness in CIV is a way of control, if people is not happy they could revolt and of course low happiness can be linked to others negative effects and high happiness to positive effects.
So we have two sides, for gameplay system where denizens(population) are more significative we can turn loyalty/happiness in one system. For the flavor justification think about how the way people perceive as good/just/proper their goverment affects their happiness, and that perception itself is affeceted by the kind of society people was rised. So..
- In Monarchies the net of aristocratic ranks and their inner dynamics affected in one way or the other the common people. Favor or undermine one Noble House authority affect all the realms at their charge, therefore you can direct you efforts to rise the conditions in the particular realms of certain Noble Houses as needed.
- For Republics some level of representation of the many groups of powers is a characteristic element, so the different identitarian parameters like social classes and ethno-cultural heritage can get a representative in a senate like mechanic, so if you take a decision that benefits artisans this apply empire wide.
- About Theocracy the idea is that your population have a religion centered way to legitimize authority so a leader that fullfit their religion commandments would get their aproval while blasfemous actions would affect it negatively.

Again category names can be changed for happiness and loyalty, maybe order, legitimacy and authority can be changed too. But the mechanic still is about how to manage population.

The idea of having different class and a civic that determine which of these holds power is reasonable, but then, why should it be limited to three civics in the main category for three classes and the rest as wildcards. And Republicanism as a civic that sets a particular group above others make little sense.

In gameplay terms Autocracy is about made direct powerfull decrees but balanced by being mono thematic, fixed by a number of turns and have some downside.
Oligarchy allows to do pacts with elite classes to gain particular bonuses, here you need to invest to favor certain classes. For Democracy you call to elections and if depending of what denizen classes were "happy" at the moment of the election their would provide bonuses, so if you manage to have all your classes happy all them would provide bonuses (something that is not as simple since decisions could have pros and cons for different classes).

Also about Republics you didnt get it. Trader class as the default elite for Republics came from the interation of Oligarchy+Republic, if you have Democracy+Republic there are NO elite class. Even more "wildcard" civics like Egalitarianism and Pluralism help to reduce the strugle between denizen groups.

(The term constitutional monarchy is somewhat of a misuse ; constitutional monarchies tend to be democratic because they involve parliamentary structures as the real power ; but it does not follow that constitutional = democratic. Even if two terms can be mistaken for one another, if the common term is the most easily understood one we should use that one).

Yes I know, and also I offered to just changed it to Democracy.

On the whole, I simply remain unconvinced by your implementation of your system. It seems to me to have been significantly over-thought, and have lost in the process much of the solid simplicity that made the Civ 4 system so workable in favor of overly detailed specificity.

Clarifications and changes from suggestions are there.

I think is natural to not achieve a system that meet everybody desires, still I am traying to build something with actual form instead of vague expectations of proper historical representation.

 

[Evie]

I wouldn't take the time to write this long a criticism of it if I didn't think your work deserve serious consideration for its thoroughness and effort,

I may not be in favor of the result, but I deeply respect the work you've put into it.