Adding a 'moral' element to the game

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hi guys,

this thread is, in part, inspired by DH_Epics thread on 'Rewarding Historical Play'. In that, he mentions that there is no moral apsect to the game, and this is a situation which I believe needs to be rectified, as I briefly mentioned in that thread. One way to do this is to introduce two major concepts-a 'morality/atrocity' scale, and an 'atrocity level'
The 'morality scale' might range from 0-10. As you pick up new sociological techs, your morality scale will gradually increase! This has many positive foreign and domestic benefits. It increases overall happiness, reduces corruption, and makes your people less susceptible to propaganda and war weariness. In addition, it gives you, the player, much more control over both the governments you can have, and the degree to which you can alter the social engineering settings. Internationally, your morality, compared to other civs, may enhance or decrease your culture and reputation depending on who has the higher morality!! This will, of course, effect your diplomatic relations with other civs! Of course, the flip side of these benefits is that, as your morality goes up, the kind of negative actions you can take become more limited. For instance, at Morality:0, pretty much survival of the fittest is all that matters-and ANYTHING goes!!! However, when you reach morality:1 certain actions are viewed as 'bad' by your people, and would rate as an 'atrocity' (albiet a very minor one)! Once you reach Morality:10, then even backstabbing a nation or reneging on agreements would constitute an atrocity. Essentially, all negative actions would have an 'atrocity level' from 10 to 1 (with 10 being very minor and 0 being heinous), if an action has an atrocity level equal or less than your current morality, then you have commited an 'atrocity' in the eyes of your people! The greater the 'atrocity', the more your 'atrocity level' increases by. As your atrocity level increases, your peoples happiness and productivity also decline, and you increase the chance of revolution, war weariness and/or civil war! In addition, it will effect your relations with other civs, above and beyond your morality level! How other civs view your level of atrocity will depend on that civs morality level, not yours! For instance, your civ has a morality of 5, and view your atrocity level of 20-30 without concern. However, the neighbouring civ, with a morality of 8, will probably view you through narrowed eyes, and don't be suprised if you have a 'coalition of the willing' turning up on your doorstep.
Lastly, if you have a sustained high atrocity level, your morality levels can actually DROP, making a moral victory much harder to achieve. The flip side of this is altruism! Though atrocity levels will decline over time, naturally, you can speed the process by performing kind and selfless deeds! Each good deed has a rating from -1 to -10, showing how much it reduces your current atrocity levels! Atrocity levels could be made negative in this fashion, which would not only enhance your local and foreign standing but, if you sustain a negative atrocity rating, your morality can INCREASE!!!
Anyway, I admit that I am just rambling, but I would like to know what people think of the general THRUST of this idea!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Blasphemous]

The general thrust is great and the suggestion of implementation is just simple and appropriate enough to work.
I'd really love to see this suggestion implemented in cIV.

 

[Mewtarthio]

The altruism needs a little work (true, I just seeded the continent with hydrogen bombs, then roasted the children and force-fed them to their mothers before slowly killing everyone, but it's all good because I just gave my powerful neighbor a million bucks!), but it's a good idea.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Your idea would require some work. First I think that there are currently not enough possibilities to perform atrocities except razing cities and the killing of foreigners when in Fascism. Maybe keeping slaves is also an atrocity? We should not forget that the view on these acts has changed a lot over years. Slavery was considered a normal way to treat defeated paople in ancient times. Is nuking a city an atrocity? When the drop on Hiroshima was performed it was considered a neccessity (or propaganda made this view common...). Also there is hardly ever the need to perform these acts in civ3, they just give not enough profits (slavery is nice but not really neccessary in my opinion). Atrocities I can think of to be implemented would be to kill resistors (2 per unit and turn), to make something like nerve stapling in SMAC when unrest is plaguing a city and maybe chemical and biological weapons. Is WW and production really lower in countries with low morale (maybe ethics is a better word for your proposal)? Just think of germany in WW2, WW and a drop in productivity came only after people were demoralised by militaristic losses and bombing raids.
Your concept is imo rather complicated. Atrocities should influence reputation but not your people´s productivity. As I proposed elswhere, WW could be influenced by a civ trait (I think of militaristic), otherwise I´m happy with the current system.

 

[Blasphemous]

Blonde, I think the idea is that only things viewed by your own people as atrocities will bother them, while things that other countries view as wrong will give you trouble with those countries.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

I wanted to point out that the moral level of your people (if implemented) should not affect WW and productivity but only your reputation. There is no difference between people and government at the moment, nor will there be in civ4. This means that your governmental form represents also the morale level of your people and influences the productivity (corruption) of your people. The proposed morale system is already here with reputation, governments and WW. However there should be an enhanced atrocity system, which means that performed atrocities will cause more/less unrest among your people, depending on your government and hit your reputation more/less depending on the other civs government. Preferred/shunned government at the moment do not have enough impact on reputation. However, there should be more governments with more and different productivity boni and mali which allow more or less atrocities.

 

[dh_epic]

First off, I disagree with Mr Blonde -- yes Civ 3 doesn't really seperate the government from the people, but Civ 4 absolutely NEEDS to for it to be interesting. Otherwise it's Age of Empires with turns. You lose out twice as much. Civ 4 will never have the speed and intensity of Age of Empires. But if your people are mindless drones who obey your will all the time, then you will have no depth, either.

Aussie, this is a great idea. The general thrust is great. While there would be much real life debate, there *would* need to be a general scale of atrocity there. For example, selling weapons to a nation who is basically atrocious would be like a 3. Slavery would be like a 7. Genocide would be like a 10. Unprovoked war would be like an 8.

The problem is the altruistic acts. These need to be well defined, otherwise it is very easy to abuse (like Mewtarthio pointed out). Without crossing threads, when Britain liberated France and gave it back to its people, this was no random act. This is different from giving 1000 gold to some random nation, and it's even different from conquering a city and randomly giving it up. There are a few specifics:

- Germany is the aggressor
- Germany has a high atrocity / low morality
- France has been conquered
- France has a lower atrocity / higher morality
- I, Britain, invade occupied France AND give it back to France

So if France instigated it, it wouldn't count, even if they were getting their butts wooped. France would have a high atrocity level for instigating war, so helping them could not be a moral act.

Or if Germany were particularly democratic and wonderful, invading territory that they have occupied / conquered recently would not be seen as an act of liberation. It could not be considered a moral act.

Or if I liberated France and then gave it to Egypt, it certainly wouldn't be seen as a moral act. Not that it would be necessarily seen as an atrocious act either.

At any rate, the devil's in the details, but I think those can be worked out. I think a lot of people underestimate the checks and balances you can put on systems of reward / punishment to make sure that the RIGHT people get the reward.

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

What if I want to play as the megalomaniacal dictator? This option should be allowed just as much success as being a benevolent leader. Perhaps an optional tech (called absolute despotism?) to be researched that would "turn off" the ethical/moral treatment mechanism in the game?

This idea has very interesting implications but ALL the implications need to be looked at otherwise the proposed idea will constrain the players into a single dimension of playing in order to succeed. Civ is about alternate outcomes to history.

What if Hitler won WWII? What would happen if the USSR conquered the world like Rome did? These are possibilities that have to be allowed to succeed (ie score BIG on the hall of fame and not just be a footnote game on the board) if this idea is to be implemented at all.

[edit]
I recently played a game in which I decided to be the megalomaniacal dictator for life. I ROP-raped Babylon (then largest empire second only to mine) and completely destroyed it in 1 turn (although a couple of outlying cities took 3 more turns to mop up but by then it was over for King Nebby) during the Industrial Age. I went on to conquer the rest of the world. I didn't care about my reputation or anything else. I did as I pleased. This is the option that needs to be allowed and allowed to be the best score for a long time to come.

 

[Blasphemous]

DZ, immorality will be it's own reward just like it is now... Enslaving or massacering an enemy will make the world hate you but it can be worth it, if you don't care about your reputation.

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

DZ, immorality will be it's own reward just like it is now... Enslaving or massacering an enemy will make the world hate you but it can be worth it, if you don't care about your reputation.

But your score should not be dependent upon the "morality" of your empire. IT should be a measure of how well you accomplished your goal.

 

[Blasphemous]

But your score should not be dependent upon the "morality" of your empire. IT should be a measure of how well you accomplished your goal.

Well, generally speaking this can be a self-balanced mechanism... Large empires will get a high score for their Power and Territory and Population and Production, but small counries can get a high score simply by being altruistic.
It will just be another way to win other than that... Right now we have spaceship victory, right? You can win simply by having a good industry and by being ahead in science (or you can use espionage and war to slow down your enemy's progress on the spaceship). There are benefits to investing in industry and science, but you can win just as well by ngelecting science and industry, staying in despotism, using ICS and steamrolling over your enemies with archers or swordsmen. Both are vaild ways to win and they cannot coexist very well. Similarly moral victory will not work well with large despotic empires but large despotic empires can still win by being large, and errr... despotic. xD

 

[Mr. Blonde]

@Blasphemous: large empires can be more altruitistic, because they have more to give, whereas small empires simply struggle with the use of all available tricks to survive... The more secure your position, the more altruitistic you can be. How do you want to catch up in tech once you are behind if not with pointy stick tactics (we all have experienced this kind of situations), how do you prevent a despotic state from domination by playing nice. Without power you are eliminated by the strong too early. The loser in a competition will always have sympathy, but he is still a loser...
Morale (or an ethic level) would be complicated to measure and to balance (see current diplo win...)within the game, too complicated for the AIs to handle I´m afraid. The game is designed to reward domination in an area (military, technology, and culture) civ4 will hopefully keep the spirit.

 

[Blasphemous]

@Blasphemous: large empires can be more altruitistic, because they have more to give, whereas small empires simply struggle with the use of all available tricks to survive... The more secure your position, the more altruitistic you can be. How do you want to catch up in tech once you are behind if not with pointy stick tactics (we all have experienced this kind of situations), how do you prevent a despotic state from domination by playing nice. Without power you are eliminated by the strong too early. The loser in a competition will always have sympathy, but he is still a loser...
Morale (or an ethic level) would be complicated to measure and to balance (see current diplo win...)within the game, too complicated for the AIs to handle I´m afraid. The game is designed to reward domination in an area (military, technology, and culture) civ4 will hopefully keep the spirit.

Obviously the idea requires tweaking, but the game can be designed so it's hard to raise a large empire and stay altruistic and compassionate (like it is in real-life).
Also, hopefully, the game will be designed so your size is not the main component of your strength. It can't be *that* hard to do because even mods for Civ3 manage it (Rhye's of Civ for instance, where China and Russia are powerful but England and Greece are as well).

 

[nothing here]

NAY. Arr..... whatcha needs a good broad range roll base to make it work. That comment about slavery and genocide and unprevoked attacks being at set levels can not work in accordance to reality. This again needs a base range for all yer little ideas to work. What if half the worlds culural heritage is slavery. What if most people have become so discusted with another civs unprevoked attacks that genecide is considered as a means of whiping the devil race from the lands and the high seas. Yer says I, Yar to maken a free range base to make it all possible and adaptable to change. The world changes, in order to adapt, yer be needen free range.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Ahhh, its great to see that I have sparked a lot of comment on this issue! As I said in the initial post, I accept that what I put forward was only a rough outline, and would need to be smoothed out and refined for gameplay balance, and other factors, before it could be implemented! That said, though, I definitely feel that SOME kind of morality should be implemented into the game!

@nothing here: If you read my initial post, you will see that my 'morality scale' allows for the idea of 'relative morality'! If someone is only up to 'Social Tech' level 5, for instance, they and their people might think nothing of enslaving foreign peoples! Their neighbours, however, at 'social tech' level 8, though, will look down on it-and scorn their culture appropriately!! Of course, the model is not as simple as that, as it would also be effected by military and economic strength (Just look to China for a RL example of this!)

This last point highlights my feelings that you can't consider any new 'morals' rules in isolation of other factors. For instance, I firmly believe that economic and tech superiority should be to some extent 'de-coupled' from the physical size of an empire, thus allowing civs of smaller population and/or land mass to become very rich and/or advanced by dint of good placement and/or good management! This would make it possible to have a very small nation to be in a position to be altruistic towards its larger, but perhaps weaker, neighbours!!Also, consider what your effect your social engineering settings will have on 'atrocity scales'. For instance, a highly nationalistic civ might oppose slavery in general, but see nothing wrong with enslaving the peoples of a wholly different culture group to them! A highly religious civ might abhor the killing of civilians generally, but think nothing of the slaughter of thousands of so-called 'heathens'!
Anyway, its great to see this topic get a proper airing!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[CivEconomist]

A very interesting idea, perhaps even more governments would need to be developed to give incentive to moral people.

 

[nothing here]

Ahhh, its great to see that I have sparked a lot of comment on this issue! As I said in the initial post, I accept that what I put forward was only a rough outline, and would need to be smoothed out and refined for gameplay balance, and other factors, before it could be implemented! That said, though, I definitely feel that SOME kind of morality should be implemented into the game!

@nothing here: If you read my initial post, you will see that my 'morality scale' allows for the idea of 'relative morality'! If someone is only up to 'Social Tech' level 5, for instance, they and their people might think nothing of enslaving foreign peoples! Their neighbours, however, at 'social tech' level 8, though, will look down on it-and scorn their culture appropriately!! Of course, the model is not as simple as that, as it would also be effected by military and economic strength (Just look to China for a RL example of this!)

This last point highlights my feelings that you can't consider any new 'morals' rules in isolation of other factors. For instance, I firmly believe that economic and tech superiority should be to some extent 'de-coupled' from the physical size of an empire, thus allowing civs of smaller population and/or land mass to become very rich and/or advanced by dint of good placement and/or good management! This would make it possible to have a very small nation to be in a position to be altruistic towards its larger, but perhaps weaker, neighbours!!Also, consider what your effect your social engineering settings will have on 'atrocity scales'. For instance, a highly nationalistic civ might oppose slavery in general, but see nothing wrong with enslaving the peoples of a wholly different culture group to them! A highly religious civ might abhor the killing of civilians generally, but think nothing of the slaughter of thousands of so-called 'heathens'!
Anyway, its great to see this topic get a proper airing!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Listen youngster, Yarr, I meant nothen by it, but if you want further scrutinous explaination, yers a got one commen to ya says I.
First off then, yersa mentioned nothen of religeous play. And further more lad, if yer wanten to be talken influences of real cultural values to imitate real life. And further more object to it. Then I'll be asken yers thes, WHy did it happen in real life arryways, imean anyways. And if yer wanten to take this one abroadside, Then abroadside we shall take this! If yer see'en a gap in communication, then no harm done just tells me laddy boy.

 

[dh_epic]

I think it's really strange that people are complaining that this will force players down a certain path when this idea is meant to do the exact opposite.

Right now domination is the only recourse. Conquest is even a smart tactic if you want to be a cultural powerhouse, a tech powerhouse, or an economic powerhouse. You'd be foolish not to be a conquesting megalomaniac. Disregard your reputation, go ahead.

I don't have a problem with the above except that it's the only, or clearly the most profitable choice.

I think this idea is supposed to make it possible for America to go toe to toe with Germany. Germany wins if they conquer the world, but America doesn't need to conquest the world to win -- they only have to save it (over and over again). With enough balancing, both options could be equally viable. And when two options are equally viable, that's when you've truly opened up gameplay.

As of now, to be altruistic isn't just a worse option than conquest... it's actually *penalized*.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think part of the problem DH, is that people are simply afraid of these kinds of wholesale changes, as they feel they might lose their easiest route to victory! I remember seeing identical arguments before the Civ3 release, when people were discussing ways to eliminate Infinite City Sleaze! Man, you should have heard the howls of outrage-anyone would have thought those making the suggestions were guilty of HERESY!!!
I would love to see many more paths to victory-ones which are either partially or completely uncoupled from domination! It will make the game much more palatable to a wider array of people!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

 

[dh_epic]

Well glad to hear this isn't the first time, so there's hope that eyes will open.

I just don't understand how a suggestion can be made to offer an equal alternative, and people suddenly start complaining "I don't want to be forced to do it your way!"

That's like having only Coca-Cola for 20 years, but when Pepsi is introduced, people begin complaining that everyone will be forced to give up Coke!

What was the discussion to eliminate the Infinite City Sleaze like? I can't say I'm familiar with the concept itself.