C2C - Civics Discussion Thread

[EldrinFal]

I always feel bad using a civic that I don't agree with morally. It always bothers me when I wind up with Atheist as opposed to Secular. Nothing kills me more than using slavery but it sometimes gets the job done. Does anyone else dislike civics regardless of the effects in-game?

I'm with you on that. Slavery and Mind Control I tend to avoid, though I've taken to slavery more recently out of necessity. Mind Control needs to be worked on though.

 

[Koshling]

All this talk of mind control just reminded me. I was thinking that in the galactic era, with man-machine interface type techs, direct mind->mind communication should be possible (and the concept of individual become blurred). This could feature into the language civic (binary telepathy), education (mind-accessed databases), or a totally different government model (technological collective - aka the Borg).

 

[Schwarzbart]

With the remove of Defcon how about give Closed Border also the effect Foreign Corperation have no effect (at last it would be a realistic effect of Closed Border).

 

[Hydromancerx]

With the remove of Defcon how about give Closed Border also the effect Foreign Corperation have no effect (at last it would be a realistic effect of Closed Border).

That seems reasonable.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The idea of trash as a unit is hilarious to me and would certainly create a new challenge to deal with in a NEW way, BUT having said that, it could turn out to be a headache and although initially funny, end up as more of an annoyance.

Random and occasional spawning of rat units could be interesting though. They are almost like barbarian units spawning INSIDE cultural borders, with the additional effect of creating plagues in your cities if they reach it and successfully carry out that "mission." I would see them like spies kind of, where they go to the city square and then have a command to Spread Plague, which would have a certain % chance to be created. Or cause temporary unhealthiness like Poisoning a Water Source.

But allowing Healers or similar units only to kill them.. hmm... I suspect they would need a special flag (Vermin) and then we'd need a Unit Type or Promotion that allows attacking them. Not something we've seen in the mod before.

This will require a rewriting of the Great Wall. Which I have a plan for even designed the code. If a player has The Great Wall it throws out any barbarian units within the cultural borders. This is the reason why we don't have the slave revolt giving rampaging slaves.

 

[EldrinFal]

This will require a rewriting of the Great Wall. Which I have a plan for even designed the code. If a player has The Great Wall it throws out any barbarian units within the cultural borders. This is the reason why we don't have the slave revolt giving rampaging slaves.

The Vermin would be almost the reverse of Barbarians because I am guessing you didn't want them to leave the cultural borders?

I wonder if this could make use of the Cat Breeder more? Use them in some way to assist in getting rid of the vermin, just as they actually DID.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Anyway, the tax rate already performs the purpose...<snip>... you can pretty much always run at 100% science for a huge gold surplus.

This is so situational and is not true in all cases. It just gets posted too much and is not a 100% all the time thing.

I too will not use certain civics. Even if they provide big bonuses like Slavery. And some others I totally disagree as to why they get some science bonus among other bonuses over another series aka Atheist and Secular vs Free Church and even State Church. And don't give me that old tired history lesson cause the whole world did not live thru the Spanish Inquisition.

Then we have Gov't Civics that get happiness bonuses when history has shown that those type Gov'ts do not produce happy citizenry, Fascist and Communism. But they've been given outlandish bonuses in areas that are they do not in real life excel in.

But I realize even with these points of view we all play differently and need to compare the different ways to come up with a consensus so as to not favor one style over another.

JosEPh

 

[Hydromancerx]

Right now we have ...

- Anarchism (Req None)
- Chiefdom (Req Chiefdom)
- Despotism (Req Bronze Working)
- Monarchy (Req Monarchy)
- Republic (Req Democracy)
- Democracy (Req Representative Democracy)
- Federal (Req Refiling)
- Fascist (Req Fascism)

Using Afforess' Rewritten Civics I propose we convert some of them such as ...

-----

Oligarchy (Req Aristocracy)

• Medium Upkeep
• Longer Anarchy length
• +25% City Maintenance costs
• +10% distance costs
• +10% Commerce in capital
• +15% Science in capital
• Population is somewhat rebellious

-----

Plutocracy (Req Currency)

• Low Upkeep
• Longer Anarchy Length
• +15% Distance Costs
• +15% Commerce in Capital
• +15% Production in Capital
• +5% Science output
• -50% Corporations Maintenance
• +2 unhappiness in largest cities
• Population is rebellious

-----

Theocracy (Req Theology)

• Medium Upkeep
• Requires "State Church" or "Divine Right"
• +1 Happiness in all cities
• Cities grow 20% Slower
• +10% Culture
• +10% City Defense
• Non-state Religions are much more rebellious
• State Religions are much less rebellious
• -2 diplomacy with all other nations, "You are no God!"

-----

What ya think of these? I think they may have merit with some tweaking. it also would give us some variety to the same old choices.

 

[Praetyre]

Od as it seems, my only beef is literally with the last item on the list. I can see Divine Cult giving that penalty, but a theocracy rarely has it's Earthly leader as a literal deity. Nobody actually worshipped the Caliph, Ayatollah or Pope, for instance.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Od as it seems, my only beef is literally with the last item on the list. I can see Divine Cult giving that penalty, but a theocracy rarely has it's Earthly leader as a literal deity. Nobody actually worshipped the Caliph, Ayatollah or Pope, for instance.

That could easily be taken off. Note these are what Afforess had listed.

I think perhaps Plutocracy could have some bonus to Banks or something.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Theocracy: the slower growth is not right. The opposite is true, Families are encouraged. Should have growth bonus not penalty.
Agree also with Praetyre on last item.

Plutocracy: Why 5% Science bonus? Commerce should be for Empire not just Capital.

Oligarchy: City Maintenance Costs a bit high at 25%. And Science bonus should be for Empire not just Capital.

JosEPh

 

[strategyonly]

Theocracy: the slower growth is not right. The opposite is true, Families are encouraged.
Agree also with Praetyre on last item.

Plutocracy: Why 5% Science bonus? Commerce should be for Empire not just Capital.

Oligarchy: City Maintenance Costs a bit high at 25%. And Science bonus should be for Empire not just Capital.

JosEPh

I totally agree with both of them, on certain items that is.

 

[BlueGenie]

Theocracy isn't just a religious leader, it's also when a leader is believed to be appointed by God, or even be a God him or herself.
Prime examples would be Egypt and their Pharaohs, and China with a God appointed Emperor, even believed to be son of one.


Oligarchy for me would indicate a more stable economy so the increased Maintenance costs don't feel right. Doesn't have to be a single family either, a bunch of wealthy merchants or several aristocratic families could be the ones ruling. Thus slightly Decreased National rebelliousness but higher increased Local Rebelliousness. Same reason for +Commerce in all cities. I'd take away the bonus to science though, setting it as +15% gold in all cities instead.

Plutocracy, isn't that merely a version of Olgarchy where the wealthy and powerful rule?

 

[Hydromancerx]

Plutocracy, isn't that merely a version of Olgarchy where the wealthy and powerful rule?

One could say a Monarchy is similar to an Olgarchy too.

 

[BlueGenie]

Monarchy is more a ruling family that rules via hereditary right. Oligarchy CAN have families/aristocracy that rule but with a greater chance of others taking over said rule as their position more based on power and/or wealth.

 

[JosEPh_II]

2 other Civics that seem out of place and OP: Pacifism under Military and Secular under Religion.

Pacifism should be under Society and not Military imho. The 100% is way too OP.

In most games since it's inclusion into Civics the AI has an affinity that negates most leader's traits. Warlike leaders will embrace it as soon as they can get it. Now couple this with Secular the 2 Civics combined give a 133% bonus to Culture! 6 of the 8 Ai in my current game use Pacifism and of those 6, 4 also use Secular. And this is a common occurrence in all the games I've started.

Secular is not a Religion but a Society state of mind. It should also be under Society.

Secular also has a huge Production bonus. It also carries no negative value of any consequence. A Secular society is also a hedonistic society and the members are generally more concerned with self gratification than community, community service, and patriotism. If anything it should suffer a production reduction. And along this same theme a Secular society has never been proven to be an advanced Scientific community. It doesn't deserve the added research bonus.

In actuality both these Civics could be absorbed into some of the other Society Civics. Or outright eliminated.

The main point though is that Pacifism with 100% Culture has warped the AI's gameplay and add in Secular's bonuses one would think that you had enabled the Start up Game Option of "Always Peace". It's time to prune the Civics tree, it's gotten top heavy.

JosEPh

 

[EldrinFal]

2 other Civics that seem out of place and OP: Pacifism under Military and Secular under Religion.

Pacifism should be under Society and not Military imho. The 100% is way too OP.

In most games since it's inclusion into Civics the AI has an affinity that negates most leader's traits. Warlike leaders will embrace it as soon as they can get it. Now couple this with Secular the 2 Civics combined give a 133% bonus to Culture! 6 of the 8 Ai in my current game use Pacifism and of those 6, 4 also use Secular. And this is a common occurrence in all the games I've started.

Secular is not a Religion but a Society state of mind. It should also be under Society.

Secular also has a huge Production bonus. It also carries no negative value of any consequence. A Secular society is also a hedonistic society and the members are generally more concerned with self gratification than community, community service, and patriotism. If anything it should suffer a production reduction. And along this same theme a Secular society has never been proven to be an advanced Scientific community. It doesn't deserve the added research bonus.

In actuality both these Civics could be absorbed into some of the other Society Civics. Or outright eliminated.

The main point though is that Pacifism with 100% Culture has warped the AI's gameplay and add in Secular's bonuses one would think that you had enabled the Start up Game Option of "Always Peace". It's time to prune the Civics tree, it's gotten top heavy.

JosEPh

I started this thread because I knew the civics needed attention. It's taking time, but I've been putting them onto a spreadsheet. Going through them with a fine tooth comb, I've noticed many have some kind of gray text description at the top that mentions bonuses NOT listed in the bullet points. I'm unsure if those ARE included in the actual mechanics of the civics or are part of some description and not included at all.

I understand your point about Secular being a "state of mind" but I think the categories represent how your nation deals with those aspects-- or policies in regards to those aspects. So Secular would imply that religion is intended to be separate from the controlling government. With that in mind, I think there are some Civics that are dependent on others, and some that are so opposite they shouldn't be allowed to be active at once. I'd even go so far to say that some traits should allow/disallow some civics, but that's a whole nuther issue

A lot of changes are being made to this very fluid mod and two civics (DEFCON & GST) have already been removed. It will be interesting to see how that affects gameplay and consider those new changes as we look at larger changes to the remaining Civics.

Keep the input coming!

 

[Koshling]

One thing that occurs to me in regard to the ai is that I could very easily tweak the ai civic choices to put much greater weight on the leader traits. That would give more variation and more 'personality'. The downside that makes me slightly hesitant is that it would also leave the ai playing a less optimal game. We could balance this up maybe by actively attaching trait-dependent modifications to each civic (or civic dependent to each trait). For example a militaristic leader adopting pacifism would get a negative modifier that reduced the effectiveness of that civic, and so on. This would apply to the human player too, which also has the benefit (IMO) of making you think a bit more about the traits you choose.

 

[EldrinFal]

One thing that occurs to me in regard to the ai is that I could very easily tweak the ai civic choices to put much greater weight on the leader traits. That would give more variation and more 'personality'. The downside that makes me slightly hesitant is that it would also leave the ai playing a less optimal game. We could balance this up maybe by actively attaching trait-dependent modifications to each civic (or civic dependent to each trait). For example a militaristic leader adopting pacifism would get a negative modifier that reduced the effectiveness of that civic, and so on. This would apply to the human player too, which also has the benefit (IMO) of making you think a bit more about the traits you choose.

I'm not sure an "optimal" game means every AI using the same strategy or path to victory though. Especially since it would also mean the player can treat them all the same (for the most part). Also, I think if Peaceful-type leaders choose peaceful routes, it may be an option for players to consider their opponents. A player may want a very peaceful game where war is uncommon, so he could choose AIs that tend towards peace. A player who wants to go for utter domination could choose all war-type AIs.

Modifying civics based on Leader traits would be interesting and I think add a bit of extra flavor that would make Leaders more distinct, and as you said, make choosing a Leader a bit more thought-provoking.

Other opinions would also be welcomed.

 

[climat]

That would be interesting. Balancing it would be difficult, though.

I agree with Joseph that pacifism is overpowered, but disagree about secular.
Just lower culture boost of two civics and that would be fine.
Also, it is not necessary to move them into society option imo.