Are the three ideologies a little too simplistic?

[Mesix]

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maybe I should update my signature...

 

[mrwho]

Well, why did the workers (Solidarity) protest against socialism in my country (Poland) in 1980s? And why the socialist government imposed martial law to stop these protests? I'm 33, I remember obligatory participation in 1st May parades and empty shelves in shops. This was ALL socialism.

Because a country calling itself socialist and actually being socialist are two massively different things. By a lot of people's definitions there has never been a truly socialist country. A government that imposes martial law is not socialist by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[ShahJahanII]

Socialism is the opposite of freedom. The state run things in a socialist society, there is very little freedom.

THIS, people, This...

Thank you for a gross oversimplification (the state runs "things") of a complicated issue.

Let's talk about politics on internet forums! That's a good idea. What could possibly go wrong?

Of course they are simplistic. Its a videogame! A strategy level on top of that. Everything is a rough top level representation of everything!

Gameplay-wise I would advise against anything that disadvantages you by the AI simply DoW you. That feels "gamey". You should actually need to loose the war in a way. Also people do not like negative effects. That always does not feel right. Only positive (smaller) effects is the way to go.

Best post on the thread so far.

I think the three ideologies in the game are well picked, but not well developed. I would like to see more uniqueness in what they deliver. Autocracy should make warmongering easier and Freedom should make warmongering more difficult IMHO. I would like to see a downside to each of the ideologies. The downside should be out shined by the upside of course, but there should be a clear decision in which ideology to take making the late game play out completely different depending on the choice you make.

Freedom could have increased war weariness (unhappiness if you are at war) and increased warmonger penalties in diplomacy offset by an increase in research.

Order could have a food penalty which would limit growth offset by an increase in productivity.

Autocracy could have decreased military maintenance and offer happiness if you are at war offset by reduced gold or perhaps tourism penalties.

Now we are having a conversation. While I don't like the thought of the ideologies having penalties, we can talk about how much each ideology should cater to specific victory conditions.

 

[pilot00]

Socialism is the opposite of freedom. The state run things in a socialist society, there is very little freedom.

THIS, people, This...

Looky here now at that! I didnt knew that we were oppressed for the last 30 years

Well, why did the workers (Solidarity) protest against socialism in my country (Poland) in 1980s? And why the socialist government imposed martial law to stop these protests? I'm 33, I remember obligatory participation in 1st May parades and empty shelves in shops. This was ALL socialism.

Nop, that was some fools (merchants mostly wasn't it?) who wanted to cease power and were using the word Socialism in order to gain followers. Socialism as a political system and form of Governance calls for democratic elections. Its the mentality that state affairs are handled that are different.

And BTW you do understand that solidarity movement was funded by the US in order to undermine Soviet control right? All other actions can be described as secondary.

 

[Mesix]

Now we are having a conversation. While I don't like the thought of the ideologies having penalties, we can talk about how much each ideology should cater to specific victory conditions.

I don't think they should necessarily cater to different victory conditions. I think they should have completely different play styles and have synergies with different combinations of civ UA, religious beliefs, and earlier social policies. It should be equally viable to win any victory condition under any ideology.

edit: Perhaps a conquest victory should be a bit tougher under Freedom on second thought. Autocracy might also produce less tourism making a cultural victory tougher.

 

[That Other Guy]

Penalties would be more interesting if you had the option to opt out of the ideology system. Since that isn't present, I would rather avoid them directly.

Maybe if each tree had an plus/minus tied to the number of tenets you had adopted? ie,
Freedom: -2% building maintenance costs, +2% unit upkeep (both per tenet adopted)
Order: +2 hammers in every city, city state influence decays 1% faster (both per tenet adopted)
Autocracy: -2% ideological unhappiness, -0.5% science (both per tenet adopted)

These are about as well balanced as a breakfast of marshmallows, I'm sure, but I think it's a reasonable way to go about the issue that helps further specialize your civ away from the non-preferred VC for the ideology.

 

[cakes]

they're supposed to be vague and somewhat related to theory only. i don't know why people want the results from real-world application included in the ideologies. it defeats the purpose

 

[Polisurgist]

Now we are having a conversation. While I don't like the thought of the ideologies having penalties, we can talk about how much each ideology should cater to specific victory conditions.

I like the fact that each one has tenets that can apply to multiple victory conditions, and that you can see what those are before going into them. I especially like how each one supports those victory conditions in a different way. Building up a massive military through Arsenal of Democracy feels different than doing it through Order or Autocracy.

From a balance perspective, if the ideologies were more narrowly focused on specific conditions (like giving actual penalties for warmongering in Freedom), then the ideology flip mechanic would be overly powerful. You could shut down a domination victory entirely just by picking Freedom and having a ton of tourism.

This kind of happened to me in my recent game. I was Poland, going for a culture victory and Austria and Sweden had gone Autocracy and Order, respectively. Each was clearly gearing up for a Dom victory after a pretty peaceful early game, but I forced each one to flip to Freedom. It didn't utterly destroy their militaries, but they clearly changed how they were going about the military option. It really did change their behavior without crippling their ability to win.

 

[de_baser]

they're supposed to be vague and somewhat related to theory only. i don't know why people want the results from real-world application included in the ideologies. it defeats the purpose

thiiiiiiiiissss

 

[Gehennas]

It seems to me Freedom could be split into socialism and corporatism/neo-liberalism, lets be honest, that political divide is there and it's massive, and whatever you think of socialism it isn't communism.

I disagree. In Civ5 ideology simulates the world division in XX century, not political traits or goverment types. In-game ideology conflicts represent WW2 and cold war.

Also, ideology is not alaways a something declared officially. It is just how the official propaganda wants the population to think.

 

[Tiggurix]

Order: +2 hammers in every city, city state influence decays 1% faster (both per tenet adopted)

Now THAT would be MASSIVELY overpowered. Each ideology has 16 tenets, all in all, so if this were the case for Order, one could get 32 (!) free hammers, in EACH city, at the "cost" of +16% influence decay... Yeah, I think I'd say "THANK YOU!" to the extra hammers.

I think the Ideologies are mostly fine as they are. I certainly think that they shouldn't have any downsides, aside from not meshing with the rest of the world, but ideological conflicts are fun!

 

[That Other Guy]

Now THAT would be MASSIVELY overpowered. Each ideology has 16 tenets, all in all, so if this were the case for Order, one could get 32 (!) free hammers, in EACH city, at the "cost" of +16% influence decay... Yeah, I think I'd say "THANK YOU!" to the extra hammers.

16 social policies is an awful lot, given that not all of those are otherwise useful.

But yes, those would make terrible gameplay stats - I spent just a couple of minutes on them, and most of that was googling a picture of the ideology selection screen so I could remember which VC each ideology was supposed to be bad at.

I imagine something more like this would be better?
Order: +0.5 hammers in each city, city-state influence decays 0.5 ppt faster (both per tenet)

 

[CommunistCookie]

Socialism is the opposite of freedom. The state run things in a socialist society, there is very little freedom.

THIS, people, This...

You have no idea what socialism is.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

Penalties would be more interesting if you had the option to opt out of the ideology system. Since that isn't present, I would rather avoid them directly.

Maybe if each tree had an plus/minus tied to the number of tenets you had adopted? ie,
Freedom: -2% building maintenance costs, +2% unit upkeep (both per tenet adopted)
Order: +2 hammers in every city, city state influence decays 1% faster (both per tenet adopted)
Autocracy: -2% ideological unhappiness, -0.5% science (both per tenet adopted)

These are about as well balanced as a breakfast of marshmallows, I'm sure, but I think it's a reasonable way to go about the issue that helps further specialize your civ away from the non-preferred VC for the ideology.

Yes, those are not well balanced but I wanted to say, it's a very cool concept of giving ideologies this kind of "personality" or "style" per tenets. Very cool indeed and I would love to see something like it implemented.

 

[ImperialChaos]

edit: nvm; I am thinking of the economic system.

They are much stronger than before. I don't see a need for much change. Autocracy needs some kind of help, though. I never pick it. It's either Order or Freedom for me.

 

[ellgieff]

Socialism is the opposite of freedom. The state run things in a socialist society, there is very little freedom.

Incorrect. But thanks for playing!

see also: Anarcho-Syndicalism

 

[warlordtheft]

Pure Capitalism: Except for common goods such as roads, police, fire-departments, and national defense, markets (supply and demand) determine the cost of said products and services.

Pure socialism: All things are provided by the government. No one owns property, natural resources. In theory everyone would be supplied all their needs and no one would live in poverty.

Fascism: All is owned by the state for the purposes of the state. Including their citizens.

In RL, none of these government types exist. Communists (an attempt at pure socialism) failed due to government corruption and as Hayek would point out the lack of motivation for workers to work.

Capitalism failed in the U.S. at the turn of the 19th century when there were no new lands and free natural resources to discover (creating an absolute limit on availaibity). After which you started seeing laws passed that were more socialist in nature (anti-trust acts, social security, the establisment of the federal reserve, etc. etc.).

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: This forum is supposed to be about Civ5's expansion, BNW. If you wish to argue about political definitions, then we will close the thread. Enough trolling please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[superliminal]

I do like the idea of capitalist enterprises being better represented, perhaps by ideologies affecting trade or income is some way.

What if one of the high-level freedom tenets had something representing multi-national capitalism? Like leeching gold or production with civilizations you have high influence over? Perhaps at a cost you can't quite control (maybe like recessions or bubble/burst patterns). It would also be interesting to see the exploitation of natural resources, maybe in the form of city-state benefits even when not allied?

Order could have something similar in the state retaining a higher percentage of income or production/ providing better defensive culture against Freedom oriented influence.

I also think there ought to be better culture benefits for autocracy, maybe in the form of giving higher benefits for stolen great works, giving the player a greater incentive to go to the war with cultured civs.

As a whole though, as far as having three ideologies to demonstrate the variety of world government organizations, I think it works pretty well.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Needs to be remembered that they're called ideologies. They're supposed to represent the three factions that battled it out on a worldwide scale during the two world wars and the Cold War. Socialism was never really part of that battle besides freedom civs seeing it as a gateway to communism.