Civ VII idea for Policies

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Im for the civics/policies/ideologies to be more organic based on an action>event>decision system. For example, when you defeat an enemy faction (either BC/CS/Civ) for the first time instead of get a militar oriented "Honor" branch you get a decision event like this:
"My leader our heroic warriors have emerged victorious, bringing glory to all our nation. Now only remains the question of how to retribute our troops"

a) "The blood of our heroes was shed for this land, the less we can do is to honor their legacy with titles and riches" > HONOR​

b) "This victory is without question a divine blessing. Call the warriors and all the people to reverence at the shrines." > DEVOTION​

c) "They have served well their leader. Organize some celebrations and then redistribute the troops wherever are needed." > AUTHORITY​

The option you pick allows either open that branch (if is not open yet) or a free node (if is already opened) within it. Or alternatively the system can be directly pick policy/ideology cards of the proper type for the deck.

That might be a better option for opening the branches, than what I suggested. Of course, maybe founding a pantheon might add in the option of Devotion in the decision, or instead if you've discovered the Writing tech the option might read "Look what we have accomplished. We shall need to record our great achievement." > RATIONALISM
Also, instead of directly picking the civic/policy cards it could be a boost of culture/inspiration towards the next one in that branch, since I still believe that culture should be the primary way to progress.

 

[BuchiTaton]

So basically the affinity system from civ:BE?

A far as I know not.
Dont in CIV:BE the culture is used in different lines of Virtues related to yields, while techs are the ones that direct you to an affinity?

Both of those system are pretty much accumulate (culture and science for each system) to advance through the branches you want. While the idea here is to have events (or we can call them missions if we have a list of possible to do) triggered by very diverse conditions (defeat something, discover resources, research techs, ally somebody, have X number of factories, etc.) that present you X number of options to decide. From the option you choose you get advance in some ideology branch (or alternatively a direct policy card deck).

That might be a better option for opening the branches, than what I suggested. Of course, maybe founding a pantheon might add in the option of Devotion in the decision, or instead if you've discovered the Writing tech the option might read "Look what we have accomplished. We shall need to record our great achievement." > RATIONALISM
Also, instead of directly picking the civic/policy cards it could be a boost of culture/inspiration towards the next one in that branch, since I still believe that culture should be the primary way to progress.

Personally I would be happy even if we keep "civic branches" with the bonus from the decision events. But in a system of civics/ideologies/policies as cards without a proper tree, the use of culture still would be revelant since the cards would have a value from their tier (and type accumulation modifiers) so culture is spent to pick and change cards. Now the tier itself would be related to eras so of course you can NOT select a industry or global communication related card in Classical Era.

 

[pineappledan]

Dont in CIV:BE the culture is used in different lines of Virtues related to yields, while techs are the ones that direct you to an affinity?

No, you got culture that you could spend on new policies, but the choice of policies was determined by your affinity, which was based on event decisions. The 3 affinities could also be combined into hybrid affinities.

 

[BuchiTaton]

No, you got culture that you could spend on new policies, but the choice of policies was determined by your affinity, which was based on event decisions. The 3 affinities could also be combined into hybrid affinities.

OK, I see there are other way to gain those "affinity points", looking for these they are named "Quests".
Certainly there are a kind of these Quests that have multiple options for different Affinities, but also are others exclusive for an already defined Affinity and other unrelated to any kind. Then under that model I would like only the kind that make you decide, that way we have some narrative behind the building of our society and more ideological coherence. After all many ideologies/policies are mutually exclusives and mostly implemented reactively making them the perfect aspect of the game to be represented with a mechanic like this.

 

[dagriggstar]

I love the idea of abolishing older policies and I loved the civ 5 end game with ideological pressure. Actually I'm playing a game in 6 right now, going for cultural victory, and it feels illogical that I am changing my government to whatever most of my opponents have, like they are pressuring me lol

Going back to civ 5 social policies (or something similar) over civ 6 civics would be an improvement I agree, but I can't say that it really excites me.
A controversial take might be to only introduce culture as a game yield somewhere in the mid-game....

 

[pineappledan]

I've made a mock list of policies and ideologies.
There's simply too many cool, iconic WWII units, so I actually doubled the number of ideology unique units.
I opted to avoid infantry units, because they're generally less charismatic than the big pieces of military hardware. It also probably makes the most sense for WWII-era UUs to be limited to strategic resources. This helps provoke more aggressive behavior if people are induced to grab land so they can build their UUs. I tried to get some diversity of unit types while minimizing unit overlap.

Liberalism: Universal Carrier (Replaces Light tank) // Tribal Class (replaces Destroyer)
Conservatism: A6M Zero (replaces fighter) // Yamato Class (replaces Battleship)
Socialism: P38 Lightning (replaces fighter) // B17 Flying Fortress (replaces Heavy Bomber)
Communism: T34 (replaces Cavalry Tank) // Red Army (modelled after the Chinese Red Army, Replaces Infantry)
Fascism: Stuka (replaces Ground-Attack Aircraft) // U-boat (replaces Submarine)

What do you think would be a better arrangement of the ideologies and units? What would make the UUs for which ideologies?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Here's the list of what I'd roughly want from each government:
Autocracy: Extra production towards monuments and wonders. Monuments provide a Great Work slot.
Oligarchy: Extra combat experience when training land units and a boost of production in conquered cities.
Classical Republic: Extra great people points from city-states of their kind.
Feudalism: Unlocks a Serf unit, a special kind of civilian unit. A serf unit will double the amount of yields when sent to a tile to work permanently.
Monarchy: May create an alliance with another civ by initiating a Royal Marriage. They also serve as a spy for you.
Theocracy: Unlocks the ability to build a Grand Master's Chapel which allows you to spend faith on units and to change policies
Merchant Republic: Gain trade route capacity for each shipyard and bank in the city. May propose special blockades in World Congress.
Democracy: Unlocks the ability to host their own Congress and pass a resolution for themselves, once per era.
Fascism: Unlocks a Nationalist UU. When stationed inside a city it will not revolt.
Communism: Unlocks unique city project Collectivism (converts food to production)

 

[ManoftheHour333]

I've thought about this a decent amount and I also agree that a hybrid system between 5&6 is best. Other people here have thought much more about this that myself but I'll throw my opinion into the mix.

In a nutshell, code of laws should immediately force you to pick an ancient/classical era government. In each government you'll have the choice to go down 2-3 certain policy trees. These trees overlap so that a policy tree like tradition is available in at least 2 types of government. Like they are in VI, governments all have pros and cons but this should be much more pronounced...and a different discussion! Anyways, the policy tree bonuses would be accrued from generating the in-game currency of culture and would operate more in-line to V; non-transient buffs that help you often throughout the game. This is similar to what pineappledan described a while back which was hilarious to me since years ago I've mentioned something like this-good minds think alike!

What I'd like to see in addition to those static policies are "at will policies". These policies would be tied to the science tree and once unlocked, could be added to your government for a one-time reduction in culture. They wouldn't be nearly as constantly available as policy card are in VI; only ~5 an era would be available. But, they provide big bonuses and additional ways to play. Each government should be able to adopt a certain amount with more isolationist governments (Which have really powerful adoption bonuses and the best policy trees) being able to adopt less of these flexible at will policies while democratic governments (Which have maybe less powerful bonuses/trees) being able to adopt more. This would make it so that you're not locked into only a certain set of trees a'la Civ V and can pivot if needed to other playstyles that those governments/trees may facilitate better. Once you've filled up your at-will policies, you could swap them out with new ones but you shouldn't be able to go back...one interesting idea could be to "conserve" a really powerful early game at-will policy for a timing push of production, science, faith, etc. instead of using it when it initially is available. Might add some strategic depth. Lastly, certain wonders should allow you to either a) re-use an old at-will policy or, b) allow you to adopt an additional at-will policy to any government.

It also allows you to entirely forgo these at-will policies if it's better to wait for the natural progression of that social policy tree. If you want to sit back and hit a bunch of powerful governmental social policies (Ones that are more important for consistent growth, production, happiness/amenities, etc.) and not waste culture on the often-smaller bonuses of the at-wills, that might be a better strategy in certain governments or scenarios. It just gives you a lot of options and is IMO a lot simpler for a AI to be able to utilize than the card swapping min/max that we have now. But it also rewards people that can find the best synergies with both types of policies as well. Either way, I think that this system is the best of both worlds; streamlining gameplay decisions to avoid bloat while allowing for a bunch of flexibility with certain governments, policy tree, and at-will card bonuses. Best of all it gets rid of the civic tree and the constant reslotting in VI which Ive grown so tired of!