[R&F] Are governments too similar?

[Aristos]

Yes, they are too similar, and the solution is painfully simple:

Make at least some of the policy cards (the most obvious) exclusive to a given government type (i.e. Free Market only in Democracy). In fact, I asked the devs via Twitter if/how we could edit that in order to create a mod. Answer? Of course not a single word from them, they just ignored me blatantly.

 

[UWHabs]

If governments in Civ 6 are too similar, it's because, by and large, no matter when they occur in the game, they are all based on 20th-21st century governments and their interactions with their population. Historically, government types were much more distinctive, but the distinctions were as much in what they could NOT do, or do well, as in what they could. That makes a more distinctive depiction of them pretty problematic from a game design standpoint: nobody wants to be told that having a God King Theocracy means that your economy is going to suck big time, or having a completely democratic-assembly-type government like Classical Athens means that you can't move the same unit twice without asking permission.

Gamers want Positives and Bonuses, not, as a rule, Restrictions and Limitations.

For me personally, the biggest drawback to the governments is the almost complete Freedom of Choice they give the gamer. I can switch from Monarchy to Republic/Democracy/Communism and then back to Absolute Monarchy (if I so desire) without any major and/or lasting effect on Loyalty, Economy, or Diplomacy.
WTH?
It should be hard, disruptive, and potentially violent (civl war, revolution, etc) to change governments. In fact, some kind of internal strife should be almost a certainty when you change government types, and so it should be a major decision when and to which, if you are playing well, and should require some preparation to accomplish. And a major disruption to your Civ, like losing cities in a war, or suddenly expanding your influence by colonizing a whole new continent, or changing/having it changed for you your religion in most of your cities, should result in, potentially, a change in Governments Not Of Your Choosing.

And the governments you can choose should much more limited by the government you already have, and the Social Policies and how long they've been in place, and even the size of your population. Try creating an Absolute Monarchy and its centralized decision-making in a multi-continent-spanning multi-ethnic (as in, lots of conquered cities and city states) Civ: can't be done, or at least, cannot be maintained for more than a few decades/turns without Unrest, Corruption, Revolt, and all the other historically interesting but game player frustrating Events.

But again, the problem with My Personal Perfect Civilization Game is that too many restrictions and negatives might make a fascinating set of realistic, historically accurate problems in Civ/Government management, but also, and I fear for too many people, make for a massively frustrating and unpleasant game...

Brings up some interesting questions - maybe the government types should have a much larger correlation with governors/loyalty? For example, say in a Classical Republic you could not choose what a city built unless if it had a Governor in it. Or if in a Monarchy, any city without a governor had like -5 to loyalty? I know the current game design seem to have as few "negative" bonuses as possible, but to me, I always thought the game that did it best was Alpha Centauri. In that case, each trait had a sliding scale, where certain combinations of economic and government policy would be virtually unusable as the devastation to either the environment or economy or something else was simply too much to handle.

 

[Sostratus]

Are governments too similar?
Well, others have already beat the relative insignificance of most* government bonuses horse to death. (*Except cases like oligarchy rushes.)

Civ6 is a very visual game, and from a level of looking and playing on the most common screen - the world and your empire- you really cannot tell what government you're in. It's quite quantitative.

Now, in fairness, governments are a vessel for holding policy cards. Do governments need to be different beyond their card layouts? (Which I would argue they do poorly, but it is their function, nonetheless.)
As Boris mentions,

Gamers want Positives and Bonuses, not, as a rule, Restrictions and Limitations.

For me personally, the biggest drawback to the governments is the almost complete Freedom of Choice they give the gamer.

Civ6 is very fundamentally built around the first point. Only dark age cards really violate that rule. It's totally fine to balance things around opportunity cost in a game, though. [+300, -200] is the same as +100. In the end we are competing with other civs for victory. Virtually all RTS games operate on that opportunity cost principle.
It may be better to put qualitative bonuses at the government level. Fairly distinct abilities that a player can see or feel as they play the game. A perverse example of government really affecting game-play is that democracies have no neighborhoods. This is not very good design, but its noticeable. What if a monarchy had only a one turn time to establish governors? While micro intensive, it changes how you can play your empire. While I'm not feeling creative today, if each government had an ability along those lines that would adjust how you approach game play by virtue of simply being in that government, it would be a very effective way to make the feel different.

We could always just up the numbers so the bonuses they give now are more pronounced, but that will lead to the same thing we have now. I suspect most people did not respond to the OP after sitting down and running some spreadsheets to discover outputs and turn times only vary by x and... you get the idea. We all intuitively feel that government is basically a meta-policy card we slot as we play.

Also, I remember the thread where this came up

First, I like Legacy Cards, as these add another dimension to Government choice, but having just one Legacy Card per Government feels a bit weak.

and I still stand by the idea. I also don't think legacy cards should ever be copies of the government's existing ability due to balance.

 

[acluewithout]

I also don't think legacy cards should ever be copies of the government's existing ability due to balance.

Agreed. Double Oligarchy in particular is very silly.

 

[c4c6]

In fact, I asked the devs via Twitter if/how we could edit that in order to create a mod. Answer? Of course not a single word from them, they just ignored me blatantly.

Maybe they smelled a rat? Imagine they gave you a exhausting and really helpful answer (despite being under timely pressure). Wouldn't your follow up be like: "Well then, and when can we expect to receive the DLL sources needed to implement your great hints?"

So long I prefer to think along ways which can be done in LUA. Eg. take the existing game, rise the unit maintenance costs MUCH (hardly sustainable for all the time) and call that state "mobilisation". Have in the "demobilisation" state the normal maintenance costs, but only a restricted number of core units movable and penalties in Experience points for the immobile auxiliary units. (only for the human player)