Cheeky, the C2C supreme commander should get a free pass on short SVN relevant comments. ^^
Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)
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Oh no, straight to the prison without collecting the start corner money.
Thwow him to the floor, please.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Yeah they have an issue with that. Nothing that can be resolved overnight though. That's a bigger problem.
So the new release is practically imminent?
First off, employees can be entrusted with power not originating from themselves. Misuse of power by the state is not all that different from misuse of power by private individuals. Anyone can conduct dishonest and fraudulent actions, so your argument that all economical power should be placed in the hands of private individuals is not, how I see it, a "cure all" for dishonest conduct. Public servants are under far more scrutiny than employees/owners of companies can ever be, employees can betray their employers best interest and a company can betray their customers best interest, in the same way public servants can betray the peoples trust.
My point is that there is no proof that the state intrinsically conduct business in a more dishonest manner than what private individuals do. I'm trying to make the point because you imply that there will be less dishonesty/deviation if it was made to be the "feature instead of the bug" in society by not having the state handle economical issues. You sidestep my points by nitpicking on the definitions of words, like "corruption" which means something different in a court of law than in the common tongue. I don't believe you were unable to imagine what I meant by "corruption" in the context where I used the term.
Ah, the tangent makes more sense now. I was rather arguing that lower tax rate is not necessarily an advantage. My opinion on how high or low the tax rate need to be is not absolute in any way, it is very dependent on what can reasonably be afforded, what the state sacrifice when lowering or what the state is gaining by raising it; is this or that worth higher or lower tax or not. If a state is wasting a lot of money, it is important to figure out how to make it more efficient without sacrificing personal safety and quality of service. If one manages to save a lot of money, then tax cuts are the natural next step unless there is a majority call in the parliament to spend the money on something else.
Tangent alert.
I mentioned citizen salary earlier, it is really the most efficient redistribution method one can think of, there is minimal bureaucracy involved because everyone gets the same amount with no special rules other than A) Citizenship and B) "come of age" (typically above 18 years). It makes a lot of other government spending into wealth redistribution obsolete or at the very least facilitates for expenditure cuts within that area. Complex pension systems would make no sense for the state to waste time and effort with, heck even private companies could simplify some accounting/bureaucratic systems as e.g. they would no longer really have to pay for the sick-leave of their employees, which both makes it easier for an employee to take sick leave when its needed, and makes the company a bit more economically flexible. Most income tax system has a certain amount of income per year limit that is tax free, with citizen salary the tax accounting can be simplified a bit by having everyone start paying tax from the first penny earned with no special rules that makes it necessary for the state to pay back tax at the end of the year if someone has earned less than the limit. Tax rules that are more straight forward are in principle cheaper to maintain and manage.
Apropos taxes and government efficiency: I'm fiercely against the road toll tax system found all over today, it is especially bad in Norway, it is the most expensive tax system in history. First off they are typically managed by the private sector who does it for profit. When it was first introduced there was physical booths with a lift-bar blocking the road, and a dude/gal sitting in the booth that counted the money drivers threw at them. It is far more automated today with sensors and such, but it still cost a lot to maintain on a national basis. It is self evident that a large portion of the road toll tax is not money that will be used for maintaining infrastructure unless you count the road tolls as part of the infrastructure. If you want to call such a system socialistic, then I would answer that it is perverted socialism.
I'm pretty sure you agree with my opinion on this.
There's nothing wrong with that scale imo, though I would not attribute any of the steps in it a "willingness to perform violence" grade.
A person could sincerely believe that with the right autocrat violence could to a point cease to exist, along the line of Plato's philosopher king concept. A pacifist could in principle wish for a totalitarian state.
Scandinavian countries are best said to be at etatism/statism/interventionalism in that scale, though abuse from the state is a rare thing.
Nothing in the essence of libertarianism is stopping true libertarians from believing that violence can be the best solution even if there are peaceful alternatives.
Then you have the anarchists who thinks everyone could be nice to each other in a society without authorities, and if they are proven wrong they would say that society isn't worth it, or rather than humanity doesn't deserve it.
Or you may have the anarchists who thrives on violence and want's it to be an integral part of life within the society.
Socialism in itself has nothing to do with violence, even the complete opposite, social darwinists, can be pacifists.
It is true that totalitarian states statistically have more internal injustice. But that is not a good reason to attribute the term any meaning regarding violence or injustice. That was an extreme example but many people attribute all kinds of neutral words with negative and positive meaning, and that can cause misunderstandings and conflicts between people who in essence aren't in disagreement about anything; they are simply over-interpreting both their own words and the words of others.
Neither fascism nor communism is in my view necessarily totalitarian.
As a communist myself I am compelled to protect democracy because it protects the majority, communism is all about empowering the majority, Marx spoke about the worker class, the proletariat, but that was the majority of the time and he made it quite clear overall in his arguments that communism was all about the majority; empowering the people/workers and so on. Communism without democracy is imo quite perverted.
Fascism certainly leans toward totalitarianism as it would strengthen the power of the hierarchy and the cohesion of the country by making it easier to ensure that everyone "march in the same direction" so to speak with a typical fascist top down control of mind and emotion.
Communism and fascism has nothing to do with disrespecting the rule of law, anyone can do that. I'm simply pointing out my opinion that intricate and overly specific definitions of words makes the words useless as it would be incorrect to use them to e.g. describe a group of people who have wildly varying opinion on many things but are united in certain things. All criminals are not murderers, and all communist are not criminals.
This conversation is reminding me (tangent alert) of the shameful fact that a large portion of Norwegians today use the phrase "compared to" as a universal preposition, instead of words like "for", "of", "with", "to", and "regarding". It is something that drives me nuts because they often then say the opposite of what they actually mean, like a politician saying: "We currently have an important problem to solve compared to those hit by this natural disaster, and the big question is how we can best deal with it compared to their best interest?" I hear nonsensical sentences like this every day, here's a typical example from sports commentator : "He looks real tired compared to that slope.". ^^ No wonder I'm fixated on the meaning of words, and the caution in how to best use them. The funny part is that Norwegians seems to think it sounds more educated and professional to use that phrase, the decline of enlightenment gets worse and worse every year, when language fails, logic fails.
The implementation of libertarianism can come in many forms, there's not one single word than can possibly encompass a complete political system with all its details; will you agree to disagree?
This discussion feels like it is reaching it's natural end, I'll go into no non-C2C-discussion mode for awhile now, this thread is getting cluttered, sorry about that.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
If it's not by the end of this weekend I'm probably going to start melting down. lol
Noriad2
Emperor
- Joined
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I very much appreciate the large amount of work that you and other modders have put into making C2C to what it is today, and I understand the urge to get a new release version out of the door, but I still recommend an absolute minimum of 3 days of freeze and play-testing after each significant update before turning it into a release version. Game-breaking bugs can be introduced with every update and it would be a shame if the release version had a suddenly appearing game-breaking bug after all the time and effort that was put into it.
Mostly because there are much more people they hurt. Of course the employer should find some way to protect his/her/its best interests, but that doesn't have to worry the general public (other than the police / the courts).
"Feature not bug" meant the point that private actors are self-serving. Nothing else.
I think there are different ways to have that, there is even a (at least superficially) similar proposals coming from the libertarian side: A negative income tax for low (or non-existant) incomes, replacing all other forms of social support by the state. The libertarians in Germany tried to implement it in 2009 ("Bürgergeld"), but although they became part of the coalition the conservatives simply shot the idea down. 4 years later the libertarians were voted out of parliament for the first time, I think at least partially because of that. The idea is that the tax office (which already has to know your income) handles the social support as well, the amount of social support being dependent only on your (lack of) income, doing away with the entire welfare administration, and making absolutely sure that the net income per gross income is always increasing. This support would also be paid for children (you would probably not like this, since it would almost always lead to a massive increase of child support by the state - then again, children are expensive).
To be fair, taxes are usually not bound to a certain purpose, at least not in Germany (cameralistics).
I don't think it is related to socialism, it is another aspect. But it certainly doesn't sound good.
No, I wouldn't either. I said private/public distribution of power. Both extremes are usually very violent.
There is massive critic against that concept, both from Kant (Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch) and from Popper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher_king#Criticism).
It's about not initiating violence. Libertarianism doesn't say so much about violence in response.
Pacifism and peace-loving are two different things Pacifism can even entrench the "rule of the strong", simply by not intervening (just imagine the British and French not intervening in 1939).
Democratic Socialism is all about trusting the adult people completely at the voting booth (democrats) and considering them to be toddlers in need of protection when they are customers at the market (socialism). Sorry if that's a bit strongly phrased, but I don't think it's wrong. I'm curious how you make sense of that.
Sorry, but I have to disagree on that. If words can mean anything, it's really hard to have a discussion at all. And there will be many misunderstandings. Can you imagine how much confusion there is because American liberals are European social democrats, whereas American libertarians are European liberals? And the European usage of the word is the original one.
It is related. Perhaps anyone can do that, but for communists and fascists is pretty much mandatory, at least where "higher goals" are concerned. I think a communist or fascist disobeying an order because it is illegal would be in a world of trouble, even if the party was not in charge. And if the party was in charge, they would just vanish. Even when they rule (and thus can make the laws), they wouldn't accept certain ideas - like the fact that the law must precede the crime.
Sorry, but I cannot say anything about that. I may be able to speak English rather well (if I may say so myself), and I know a bit French and Latin, but that's it.
It can be a guiding principle, and if that is kept it can quite clearly "create" policies. There are points where people disagree while both holding this guiding principle (as I pointed out), and there are deviations, sure. But when there is too much deviation, you don't clear up anything by keeping the term. Sometimes they still do, if the term is considered positive, but that's self-deception or fraud. If people call themselves libertarians and support a dictatorship I would almost certainly consider that fraud. If people call themselves libertarians but desire government interventions ("bailouts"), it's the same thing, on a lower level. So yes, there are different points in the political spectrum that can be called by the same name, but they should be close together. People hear libertarianism and think corporatocracy or corporate welfare - you cannot imagine how much that irks me. Corporatocracy is "high society etatism" with massive interventions from the state. It also violates legal equality.
Yes, I'm sorry too. For rambling as well.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
It's not about age relativity but about power relativity. No common person can possibly avoid being taken advantage of by strong economic powers in the system if there is not a protection provided for them. The capacity of those who have great wealth to demand more and more out of the hides of those scrabbling to survive is limited only by the amount of wealth that's already been accumulated. There must be a governmental body to limit that power that comes with wealth or the normal person has no hope at all. Remember, it takes money to make money and even doing that is a risk of what money you put on the table to do so. Larger sources of wealth can always outbid you into oblivion and the ability to compete is largely a measure of your ability to maintain loss without collapse.
Thanks for a good discussion, I appreciate someone who can debate disagreements calmly even though both sides sometimes says stuff that can spark some feelings. If you want to discuss loose ends from this discussion you are welcome to PM me.
P.S. I agree with TB's post above, socialism is not about patronizing or considering people as helpless beings.
Done. And thank you as well.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
I am melting down but then it is hot here again. Hopefully not going up to 40C again. Maybe I should go an look at the pictures my friends sent from Finland last week, -4C there (outside).
Just yesterday we had -8°C (= 17.6°F).
DC0
Prince
Have game speeds been adjusted recently? After recent save game breaking update I had to start a new game. And pace in prehistoric is now really fast, compared to my previous experience. I set a game to slowest game speed in advanced setup.
Both production and technology cost calculation were modified recently.
Do you have SVN 9898?
There should be old technological pace, but buildings and units are built faster now.
Strongest effect of reduced production costs is felt in latest eras (where they are needed most) and lowest difficulties (to scale them with technology cost modifiers, or at least it is end goal).
All production cost handicaps are transferred to player.
That is AI will build buildings and units with same speed on all difficulty levels.
Instead of it player will see higher/lower production speed depending on handicap.
This will make lower difficulty levels more causal - everything related to production is faster for player on lower difficulties.
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Just making another request to make Deity not such a GIANT step up from Immortal level. Perhaps giving them an Immigrant or Civilian Captive that can only join the first city instead of two bands of homo sapiens where they can easily get a second city with.
Noriad2
Emperor
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2014
- Messages
- 1,153
To win at deity, you need to study strategies. You can't just do whatever and expect to win.
There's a bunch of tips and strategy articles on vanilla civ 4 BTS on
https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ4-strategy-tips.155/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ4-strategy-articles.156/
Not all strategies are valid for C2C but you can get many good ideas from them.
It is said that only 1 % of players are capable of consistently getting a victory on BTS deity.
It took me lots of study and many months of playing to get my first deity win on BTS. And C2C is generally easier than BTS, that's why there was a nightmare option added.
Check out deity games on youtube, too.
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My only complaint regarding Deity here is that they get the option to have a second city, not that they start with 2 population for 1 city, or the technology advantage, etc. etc. Some AI do this, some AI do not ( so 1 city, 2 population vs. 2 cities 1 population ) and that can lead to confusing situations and power balancing issues between the AI.
