A proposal for ideology names

[tu_79]

As requested by MeowZedong:

Why was ideologies moved to atomic era? Historically industrial era was the birth of conflicting ideologies (the birth of Marxism (Order) atleast and Fascism (Autocracy) shortly afterward), kinda upsetting since generally by the atomic era the game is wrapping up, and ideologies is one of my favorite parts of the game

Also, is there anyway to manually change the names of the ideologys, i always found them to be pretty misleading pretty easy to be more specific to the actual 3 main political ideologies since the industrial revolution, Freedom being Liberalism (the technical name for capitalism), Order being Marxism, and Autocracy being Fascism

More concernced about the timing of the start of ideology, always seems to be so late unless you like spam culture to try to rush to 18 policies

Main issue here, should ideology names use their most known names? Right now, ideologies are behaving truly like Fascism, Communism and Liberalism.

 

[Funak]

Counter-issue, why should we change them when everyone knows exactly what they mean?

 

[CrazyG]

The one that strikes me as odd is Autocracy. It doesn't seem to match the other two, something like "Power" or "Strength" would fit the pattern more

but its not something I would consider very important

 

[Enginseer]

Except these are general terms that refer to any THREE major type of government preferred. A government may choose to emphasize on freedom, order, or autocracy (?) and still be a dictatorship or a democracy.

Although I may agree to rename autocracy to something more general such as pride or something of the likes.

 

[MeowZedong]

Counter-issue, why should we change them when everyone knows exactly what they mean?

Because it's probably a pretty easy th ing to do and would greatly improve historical accuracy. Liberalism, Marxism, and Fascism are WAY more accurate they the current, especially in a game that is based on history and reps using massive amount of historical data in it's design and gameplay. I give firaxis a lot of credit for their research, but this is a pretty blatant ideological bias that can be easily fixed by renaming to the technical 3 modern ideologies. Not having a political argument but-
"Freedom"=Liberalism (free trade, competition and market economics , private ownership of production, rose in response to the overthrow of fuedalism)
"Order"= Marxism (worker control of production , dialectical materialist economics, rose as an alternative to liberalism in response to class struggle)
"Autocracy"-Fascism (a little more tricky to define, but was considered the "3rd alternative" to both Liberalism and Marxism, both of which (in theory, not practical use by a people) predate modern fascism)

All of the in-game bonuses, the names of the leaders like President (liberal democracy, liberalism) and Chairman (proletarian democracy, Marxism ), all point to these 3 ideologies yet they still named them the way they did lol. I'm not asking that y'all like make Marxism "freedom" or anything, I just want historical accuracy when I play a game based on historical data.. lol especially when in this patch lengths were gone to further historical accuracy even more.
Of course gameplay comes first, it's a video game after all, but this is a pretty simple fix that does nothing but increase accuracy.

 

[MeowZedong]

Except these are general terms that refer to any THREE major type of government preferred. A government may choose to emphasize on freedom, order, or autocracy (?) and still be a dictatorship or a democracy.

Although I may agree to rename autocracy to something more general such as pride or something of the likes.

I think there's way too many ties to ideology in the names of bonuses and such to say it's not completely based on modern ideologies... if you're going to say it's general ideas like "Pride" and "Freedom" you're going to have to get rid of all the ties to ACTUAL ideological tenets. Youd have to rewrite the entire ideology tree to make that accurate and not a deliberate misrepresentation


also, thanks OP for posting this for me, i was getting to it but have been busy af with work lol

 

[Enginseer]

I think there's way too many ties to ideology in the names of bonuses and such to say it's not completely based on modern ideologies... if you're going to say it's general ideas like "Pride" and "Freedom" you're going to have to get rid of all the ties to ACTUAL ideological tenets. Youd have to rewrite the entire ideology tree to make that accurate and not a deliberate misrepresentation


also, thanks OP for posting this for me, i was getting to it but have been busy af with work lol

that's why u can choose from a list of tenets which u cant choose them all.

 

[MeowZedong]

Theres definitely a point to be made about the relationship of the state to the people, whether its democratic or autocratic being separate its ideological foundation, but the ideological tenets clearly show these are about the ideological foundations, and not the relationship

that's why u can choose from a list of tenets which u cant choose them all.

i dont understand what you mean, the tenets are tied to an ideological foundation (tho some are... strange.. like syndicalism being under autocracy and not order, when syndicalism is an actual marxist ideological tenet, and a part of "communism") , so of course you can only choose from one branch. what are you saying?

 

[MeowZedong]

Im trying not to critique the tenets themselves because i dont expect video game designers and or modders to be historians or political theorists (though i respect the amount research theyve done here, which is more then most games do), im just sayin if youre going to have so many obvious ties to the 3 modern ideologies, they can atleast be named accurately after the real world ideology they reflect lol

 

[Matutin]

Honestly, as a German, I'd be more willing to take autocracy than fascism... Don't know why, maybe I'm a bit biased...

 

[Jakman217]

I think they chose the names to evoke their real-world counterparts without dredging up more than the necessary amount of political drama. And their generic enough that you can fill in the gaps yourself without tying the ideology down to hard or including some form of bias via actual political terms. Cause let's be honest, there is an unfortunate number of places where all three of those alternative names would be seen as the evil incarnate.

 

[MeowZedong]

Honestly, as a German, I'd be more willing to take autocracy than fascism... Don't know why, maybe I'm a bit biased...

Well my original comment was me asking how to do it just for my own version of the game, but id imagine the people in africa and latin america starving and slaving under liberalism could say the same thing. Ive never taken "Freedom" for this reason.

I think they chose the names to evoke their real-world counterparts without dredging up more than the necessary amount of political drama. And their generic enough that you can fill in the gaps yourself without tying the ideology down to hard or including some form of bias via actual political terms. Cause let's be honest, there is an unfortunate number of places where all three of those alternative names would be seen as the evil incarnate.

fair point, again, my original comment was for my own game, because i despise seeing liberalism as "freedom" while hundreds of millions are starving and suffering daily and are forced to work is horrid conditions for slave-like wages

also, how is "freedom" being the name of whats obviously liberalism not a political bias? ;p

 

[Jakman217]

also, how is "freedom" being the name of whats obviously liberalism not a political bias? ;p

Freedom means a lot of things to a lot of people. To some it could mean those conditions are allowed to exist because 'the market demands it', to others it's a sign of failure that must be fixed. Some would call universal healthcare or freedom of religion to be not integral to freedom. The difference is that you bring with it exactly what you want to bring with it. If you have a problem with the word freedom, I'd call that a failure more on your part than on the game.

 

[MeowZedong]

Freedom means a lot of things to a lot of people. To some it could mean those conditions are allowed to exist because 'the market demands it', to others it's a sign of failure that must be fixed. Some would call universal healthcare or freedom of religion to be not integral to freedom. The difference is that you bring with it exactly what you want to bring with it. If you have a problem with the word freedom, I'd call that a failure more on your part than on the game.

i dont have a problem with the word freedom, i love freedom. Freedom comes from opportunity and access, how much "freedom" does an illiterate starving peasant have, if they lack the opportunity to grow, and must spend their live selling their labor to those who own the means of production to survive?i do have a problem with market-based economics and the fact that freedom is being used to describe an ideology built on the "choice" between slavery and starvation lol. Under liberalism freedom only exists for those who can afford it, especially those who own the means of production and don't need to sell their labor. again not going to have a debate here, no resolution will come from it, i was just wondering how to change it in my own game to be more historically accurate.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Not at computer right now, so I can't get the details, but look at the source code for the Civ Names by Policies mod. It renames Order to Communism, with a simple SQL statement if I recall correctly. It should be pretty easy to adapt that code to the other ideologies.

 

[Jakman217]

[Civ Install Folder]/Assets/Gameplay/XML/NewText/EN_US/CIV5GameTextInfos_Civilopedia.xml and
[Civ Install Folder]/Assets/DLC/Expansion2/Gameplay/XML/Text/en_US/CIV5GameTextInfos_Civilopedia_Expansion2.xml
are the places I found that you would probably start to change that.

You'll probably need to comb through most of the XML in both of those folders for completeness and consistency.

 

[De_Genius]

"Why was ideologies moved to atomic era?"

They were ? I am just asking since I always unlock them by having 18 policies first, so I usually unlock them during Industrial era anyway.

 

[MeowZedong]

Thank you! And De_Genius really? Is that going heavy on culture or anything or just standard play? I'm currently playing Japan on epic/large and am about half way thru the industrial era and have 14 policies, looking like I'm going to get 18 only a bit before the atomic era. And thats with japan and its culture bonus..

 

[tu_79]

I also find the names disturbing for what they actually do.

Autocracy. It literally means that there's one, and just one, undisputed leader, who rules as he wants. Actually, autocratic countries are those where the leader has the power to dictate laws, under no restrictions. They don't care about people feelings, only about doing what they think it's the right thing, be it a glorious country (expanding through wars) or feeding the people.

Order. In Order, you follow the rule of your immediate superior. It reminds me of the old order, meaning Aristocracy and kingdoms. Classical monarchies don't give a damn for the people concerns, they rule only with the kingdom necessities in mind (in other words, increasing power for the already in charge)

Freedom cannot be mistaken. It's free market and liberalism, even if the word freedom means more things.

For a while, I thought that Order was intended for old monarchies (Arabia, Morocco, Japan), Autocracy was intended for all kinds of dictatorships (fascist Germany and Italy, communist Rusia and China) and Freedom for the liberal democracies (America, Belgium, modern England). I turned out to just represent Fascism, Communism and Liberalism with other misleading wording.

 

[Legen]

They were moved, can't remember the reason why. It may be ok to move back by one era, I have games that finish before any AI can pick an ideology.

About renaming the I prefer to keep them more generic to mitigate political biases, and I wouldn't mind changing Autocracy to something like "Power", "Unity" or "Arms". People sometimes confuse Authority with Autocracy and vice versa, a new name may fit better.

Or maybe it's Authority that should be renamed back to Honor.