A new "ideological tech tree"

[dylanhatesyou]

This is an idea I have been toying with.

As your nation progresses, different ways of thinking of your Civ develop. These owuld be out of your direct control, but would be affected by when you research certain techs, perhaps dead end techs that have both positive economic/palpable effects and negative ideological traits (i.e. slave teade, etc). With the research of these traits, your economy will improve, you'll be able to build certain improvments, etc. However, this increases the chance of an Ideological Change developing in the minds of your people.
Here's some examples:

Rascism (and thus lowered war weariness against other culture groups, unhappiness of non-native populations living in your civ, etc)

Cultural Pluralism (accepting of all culture groups, more inviting to immigrants from abroad, and higher culture rating ,etc)

Xenophobia (war happiness[opposite of war weariness] when warring with others)

Pacifism (higher war weariness, maybe culture increase? more culture flips to your Civ from foreign Civs)

Laisse-faire Capitalism (higher polluction levels, higher production, higher unhappiness


any ideas? this would make the game have much more depth, and a swift departure from the fact that you control every single aspect of everything.

 

[WildFire]

Where would the Laisse-faire capitalism come into play? Early middle ages or late?

 

[dylanhatesyou]

These ideological changes would be able to be changed later in the game if desired, like and Emancipation Proclaimation tech could be researched. This would end the slave trade (the economic/phyisical side) and perhaps with a Martin Luther King small wonder(or something similar), the ideological effect of Rascism may(probably) or may not be nullified.

 

[dylanhatesyou]

Wildfire - Laisse-faire capitalism would undoubtedly come during the Industrial age, maybe with the research of The Corporation?

There needs to be more techs, undoubtedly.

 

[Dr. Broom]

I don't like the idea of these being initiated by techs because then you don't have any control over it (unless you don't research the tech which could end up screwing you over). What if they were sliders instead that you could adjust as much as you want. So then if you are a warmonger civ you make your xenophobia slider high and your people are happier at war but maybe they have less culture and get mad when at peace. This way the player has a lot of choices to make and can gear his civ toward his playing style. It would need to be well balanced though so that there is no best way to have the sliders.

 

[dylanhatesyou]

Well Dr Broom

I think the slider idea(which many many people have suggested) is a bad idea. It perpetuates the stupid(in my opinion) notion that a government(the player) can control all aspects of the people. How would a government decide to make the people xenophobic, or racist, or pacifist? Maybe it could be affected with a propaganda factory(with a slider) in certain govt types, but honestly, deicidng that your people will be rascist one turn and then culturally accepting the next turn just doesnt make sense.

The fact that techs bring about these changes isnt set in stone either, it just greatly increases the likelyhood that they will occur. Also, many of these factors should come from dead end techs. So, you dont have to get them if you dont want to risk it.

 

[Dr. Broom]

Well i see your point about the sliders, it doesn't make too much sense but what if you could only move the slider a notch say every 20 turns, that way change wouldn't be instant or better even if the game could track your playing style and adjust these factors in an according manner. If you go to war all the time your civilization becomes more and more xenophobic, if you raze a lot of foreign cities your civilization becomes more racist, etc. I wouldn't be too picky about it as long as the player has some control over it.

 

[dylanhatesyou]

Dr Broom, I agree
I think your culture vs neighbors' culture, cultural groups, religion, propaganda, government type, tech level, economic factors, wars, laws, etc should also effect it

I think it should be a complex system that's hard for the player to figure out, but they'll be able to make hunches about. Like, no definitve guide to why the Ideological factors change, but you'll be able to kinda figure it out.

Gee, half my cities were just destroyed after I declared war on a stronger enemy..I wonder why my people are now Pacifists?

 

[Dr. Broom]

Dr Broom, I agree
I think your culture vs neighbors' culture, cultural groups, religion, propaganda, government type, tech level, economic factors, wars, laws, etc should also effect it

think it should be a complex system that's hard for the player to figure out, but they'll be able to make hunches about. Like, no definitve guide to why the Ideological factors change, but you'll be able to kinda figure it out.

Absolutely they should.

I think the player shouldn't have to figure the system out completely, the game manual would provide hints how to guide your civ so that people new to the genre would actually be able to figure things out before losing all interest in it.

 

[dylanhatesyou]

Exactly what I was thinking. Games need some sort of thinking into them, as well as a little chance. Keeps it fresh

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Of course, these kinds of discussions raise some interesting 'historical' questions like: Did Hitler simply manipulate the German people into racism and nationalism (Slide Bars) or were the Germans already like this and just needed an 'outlet' (DylanhatesU's model)? Same could be asked about Osama Bin-Laden. In line with this, I'd like to suggest the following COMPROMISE proposal.

1) Keep the 'slide bar' model BUT impose limitations according to
civ-characteristics, current government and religion, tech choices and current tech levels, and other 'in-game' factors.

2) Impose a 'lag-time' between adjusting a slide bar and seeing a result. This would simulate the time needed for people to come round to 'your way of thinking' .

2a) As I've said elsewhere, there should be interrelationships between the different Social Engineering traits. Sometimes combinations of settings can get unexpected results ! Practice, though, makes perfect!

3) If you adjust by too much in one hit, then the slider will readjust back to a lower level AND you will have sharply increased the possibility of unhappiness, revolts, revolutions and civil wars (i.e. people don't like it when they FIND OUT they're being manipulated!)

4) If you keep your sliders in a too high/low position for too long, then Dylan's idea would come into practice. For instance, if you kept 'Secularism' very low for too long, then you might have a chance of a spontaneously occuring 'ideological tech' like, say, 'Religious Fanaticism'. The plus side of this tech would be that your people would gain 'war happiness' when you declare war on nations with a different religion but, at the same time, there could be negative effects on your research levels AND your relations with other civs.

If this compromise were adopted, then it would reflect the fact that YES a government can manipulate its people, but that the effects of said manipulation are not always immediate, nor are they always what was initially expected.
So what do you think-is this an acceptable compromise?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Commander Bello]

[...]
3) If you adjust by too much in one hit, then the slider will readjust back to a lower level AND you will have sharply increased the possibility of unhappiness, revolts, revolutions and civil wars (i.e. people don't like it when they FIND OUT they're being manipulated!)
[...]

This one I don't like.
Reason: this is going to be confusing and disappointing the player new to such a system,thus making the game unfunny and frustrating.

The player should have a chance to do the things he likes to do and which will benefit him with a positive result. Some bad decisions should just not be allowed by the game. If you would allow the slider to be moved from -3 to +4 (or whatever) and then secretly set back by the engine, but still causing bad effects, most people would be confused and rightfully angry about such a feature.
So, I would like the idea that said slider could be readjusted only to a certain degree, maybe based on what it was set to before. This I regard as being "more realistic" *AND* easy to understand even for a newcomer to the game.

Please keep in mind that not everyone has learned every feature of the game by heart - but still expects to gain some fun from playing it.

 

[rcoutme]

Going along Cdr Bello's idea, if moving a slider too far would be a possible exploit, then limit how far it can be moved in one turn. Make the player keep on adjusting it if he wants it further out. Also, such limits could be 'Difficulty Level' dependent (i.e. Warlord may allow a jump of 4 units per turn, Sid only 1 per turn).

 

[Dr. Broom]

I also agree with Bello.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm okay with the random factors so long as they're not entirely random, and an effect of a sequence of operations that the player can (and should) avoid.

But just as an alternative, not that I'm married to this idea:

What if things like "racism" and such were technologies that you would choose to get yourself out of a tough spot -- like two wrongs making a right? (This would tie into some other threads about dynamic civs. The only way someone would choose a technology like this is if they really believed their civilization might fall apart, into civil war or something.)

Racism might turn all (current) foreign nationals into workers, so you don't have to deal with them affecting your cities. There would also be an overall happiness penalty. But someone would use this if they saw unrest piling up.

Imagine a pacifist technology that automatically ends the current war, and gets you peace for 20 turns, but makes it impossible for you to declare war for even longer (40 turns). This would frustrate enemy civs to no end! But the price you pay at home could be dear.

In case people haven't read my other threads, I'm BIG on giving people dilemmas -- tradeoffs that have pros and cons, rather than "the obvious good choices versus the obvious bad choice".

 

[dylanhatesyou]

I think that new users that didnt understand said slider system would just leave alone until they start to understand whats going on more. When I started playing CivIII, I didnt know hat have the stuff was, and the sliders I just left alone. Leaving the sliders alone wouldnt help nor hurt your Civ.

I really like the idea of ideological change being spurred by a tech gain however. Like, you could gain Philantrophy when you research the Corporation, but you could gain Lassiez-faire Capitalism. Or both. Or neither. Combined with sliders to manipulate these, it would awesome.

 

[Dr. Broom]

Racism might turn all (current) foreign nationals into workers, so you don't have to deal with them affecting your cities. There would also be an overall happiness penalty. But someone would use this if they saw unrest piling up.

That wouldn't make sense, why would your people be unhappy when the foreigners are gone if they are racist it would make them happy but you would have less total citizens leading to decreased production and a weakened economy.

 

[dh_epic]

Ah well, don't get too bogged down in details. I did say "might".

The principal is what I'm into. The idea of having your civ embrace an ideology that protects itself from a danger, but at a cost. Sort of like putting a band-aid on a tumor. Or maybe more like turning to the dark side to survive.

 

[Dr. Broom]

Giving the player options is very important but having those options mean something is even more important. In civ II you might go to a democratic government but you also might not because of the senate while in civ III there is no contest, you go democratic because it is the best government. I am not saying bring back the senate but these and other choices do need to be balanced out to give the choices real meaning.

 

[Verowin]

This option should come available with the invention of "printing press" and the "delay" should become shorter with the invention of "Radio" and even more short with the invention of the TV (which comes from the new tech: Multimedia and than you can build the new city improvement: "TV-Station") The more TV-stations, the more effective your slider will be.