Civic Discussion

[Sengir]

What civic categories do we want, and what civics should fill up those categories?

Personally, I'd restrict some based on alignment and a couple perhaps on race as well, but mostly they'd be open to anyone.

For a start: what should be the categories?
FFH:
CIVICOPTION_GOVERNMENT
CIVICOPTION_CULTURAL_VALUES
CIVICOPTION_LABOR
CIVICOPTION_ECONOMY
CIVICOPTION_MEMBERSHIP (not a civic really).

BtS:
CIVICOPTION_GOVERNMENT
CIVICOPTION_LEGAL
CIVICOPTION_LABOR
CIVICOPTION_ECONOMY
CIVICOPTION_RELIGION


My suggestion for Arda:
Government
Labor
Economy
Cultural Values
(maybe keep one category to lump some stuff in that is mutually exclusive anyway, like a civic for evil and good, men/dwarf/elf. Dunno, could start with 4 as well).

 

[Berenthor]

Sounds good. We probably are gonna have Civ/alignment specific civics anyway (or maybe an alliance civic like the over- and undercouncil in FFH in which you can ally yourself with the darkness or against it.

Some ideas for the government civics:

• Kingdom --> dwarven, early elves, men
• Stewardship --> men
• Nobility --> later elves
• Council of elders --> ??
• Supreme leader --> sauron

 

[T_F]

Good suggestions. 'Supreme Leader' I think would be better as Theocracy. (and literally! Or maybe the reverse of FFH's God King - the king doesn't call himself God, the god calls himself King!)
I think Council of Elders might be better for later Elves.
'Stewardship' is really a Kingdom that's missing its king, so...
We probably need some kind of tribal thing too, for the early game and some of the men - 'Tribal Chiefdom'? 'Tribe'?
(bit difficult since kinds of government aren't particularly varied in Tolkien - pretty much everyone is a kingdom.


Economic civic ideas:
Hunting and Gathering > everybody at the start, maybe like the Dunlendings and stuff could actually benefit from it
Mining Economy > dwarves, Noldor
something involving forests > Sindar (, some men? Vanyar?)
Agrarianism (maybe without stealing the name) > men, some elves
Something for orcs. How on earth do orcish economies work?

 

[Sengir]

The problem with giving everybody only specific civics, is that it removes choice from the game. Players don't have to think anymore: I'm playing elves, I start with the default civic, later on I can adopt Nobility.

I think it's better to have some general civics in each column (Goverment: Kingdom, Council, Tribal, Meritocracy) and then one or two specifics (eg. Tyrant (evil only))

 

[T_F]

Hmm, true. Maybe with some anyone can adopt them, but certain civs get a bonus for using them (i.e. dwarves with mining). So it's good to use that one, but if your situation is different enough it might be worth it to pass up the bonus.
(but can you imagine forest dwarves? )

With Government, though, limiting one or two and only by Alignment is probably a better idea, yeah.

 

[xmen510]

Those are all good ideas.

 

[Breunor]

As you probably know, my vote is to be as flavorful as possible - that is, I do want the race/civ characteristics to heavily favor the race choice.

My biggest fear for mods like this is that the game becomes BtS with new names and art work but doesn't have a Tolkien 'feel'.

One of the reasons FfH II is so darn good is that it holds the middle ground well. Civ's have incentive to play with their advantages in mind but it isn't so restrictive that it overwhelms choice. Obviously, getting it 'just right' is quite hard.


My view is that for third age Civ's, the elves are monarchial based - often with a powerful leader dominating. So Galadrial is actually a Noldor but is the effective leader of Lothlorian anyway. Elrond rules in Rivendell and Thranduil for Mirkwood elves.

The Dwarves seem to be even more hierarchical. With the elves, we can see Galadrial and Elrond as leaders based on birthright, but also on general wisdom/power. In the Hobbit, it seems like the Dwarves are pretty much 'Thorin is a big cheese' types.

Mordor may be like the elves, with the leadership concentrated based on Sauron's power.

Even the men seem to be like this to some degree. Wtih a powerful leader like Elendil or Isildur, they seem to place a lot of power in the king.

So maybe we have a Civic where the power of the god/king equivalent actually depends on the power of the god king? Then we know that Morgoth and Sauron would clearly use it, and for others, it becomes a choice with some relative power.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Sengir]

I'm not against racial civics, and I agree that they should be a very valid option, but at the same time, I want a player to have the option to pick the eg non-dwarven civics as a dwarf, and not feel stupid for not picking up all the bonuses.

I like the power-scale for Godking/equivalent. Would probably need another xml tag for leader (and maybe ways to increase/decrease it ingame?.... the last part should probably wait until a second round).

 

[T_F]

The power scale certainly sounds good - bonuses from the civic would be modified to a certain degree by the level of power (i.e. Morgoth gets a lot more bonuses from it than Elendil).

If it's variable, there should be some kind of racial upper limit, so you don't get a Galadriel that's more powerful than Morgoth. Maybe if the upper limit isn't absolute, as you get closer to it (or maybe once you surpass it) your alignment starts sliding closer and closer to Evil.
The power scale could also affect king units. (Maybe if your king unit dies and you have a high enough level, you would get a massive drop in power rather than whatever horrible negative effects you would get otherwise, and maybe a chance to get it back if you get your power high enough again. Obviously for Men this wouldn't work.)

This is a really good idea! (Unfortunately, on second thought, it might not be worth it if not enough civs can take advantage of it.)

 

[Berenthor]

I like the idea, but we have to work it out properly. We could also tie it only to certain civs. The king-unit idea of scaling is also very cool. Might actually be pretty cool to use for Sauron and Morgoth to show the decline and resurrection at certain moments of their power.

 

[xmen510]

All great ideas. I can't really add to them.