Civic Feedback Requested

[TheJopa]

Now that I think about it, maybe the liberty civic should be the one giving that unhapiness penalty instead. In addition, perhaps the liberty civic cannot be adopted by evil civs (therefore excluding sacrifice the weak).

Could work, but it shouldn't have alignment restictions, evil civs can have it too, think balseraphs or neutral lanun. They would have liberty, but more in the sense of anarchy, government not intervening in personal lives.

 

[TheJopa]

Anyways, I wasn't replying to you post. The reduced maintenance bonus of Military State is cancelled by its High maintenance costs, that's what I said. Generally, if I just stick to the starting Low maintenance civic in this branch, I will spend as much as if I adopted Military State to support +X military units because of the much higher civic upkeep, unless I am a very little civ (edit, correction: not even, since the +X depends on your civ population). The problem is that you also get a whopping -25% to culture.

If you are organized or if you have few but large cities, and really use EVERY free troop, it pays off. But real benefit is that you get to draft as well, and a bonus to military unit production (Which is, indeed, too small at the moment)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, the unhappiness penalty would be best for Liberty (which shouldn't be able to coexist with slavery civic, even though they are in different categories).

That would also make the Overcouncil's ability to make it a global civic more powerful (if all the Overcouncil civs adopt it, and the unhappiness is per civ to adopt it, then the penalty for the other civs becomes quite high). Also, when even the Evil civs adopt it to counter the unhappiness, it will seriously weaken the Undercouncil's slave trade ability (making this resolution a subtle offensive weapon)

 

[westamastaflash]

Ops! I don’t think I made my earlier point clear enough. Military state gives you free support for Military units.

Check out http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/unit_maintenance.php

There are two sorts of unit support:
Unit support, which depends on the total number of units.
Military unit support, which is zero unless you have the pacifism civic.

So the reduced maintenance part of the military state only applies when you have the pacifism civic. In fact Military sate is very good chioce if you want to have a large army while getting the 50% GP boost, but fairly useless otherwise.

Military state is good for rushing production with gold early since you don't get any of the other techs that do this for awhile.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Yeah, the unhappiness penalty would be best for Liberty (which shouldn't be able to coexist with slavery civic, even though they are in different categories).

Nonsense, one is what your culture values, one is how they manage labor. There are many ways for civic to contradict. It will be allowed--but hopefully, eventually, with some events that cause trouble if you do.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, that makes sense. But it does seem like civs running bother liberty and slavery should carry some heavy penalties. I'm thinking rampant slave revolts, unhappiness penalties, and maybe making a civil war event more likely (although it should be possible otherwise, and still fairly rare with these civics)

(you could certainly argue that running these two civic together was the main causes of the American Civil War)

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Certainly it was, (though I probably wouldn't bother to argue it here). IMO, there should be negative events from civic dissonance, but not to the point of making the game unfun when doing so.

 

[westamastaflash]

Yeah, that makes sense. But it does seem like civs running bother liberty and slavery should carry some heavy penalties. I'm thinking rampant slave revolts, unhappiness penalties, and maybe making a civil war event more likely (although it should be possible otherwise, and still fairly rare with these civics)

(you could certainly argue that running these two civic together was the main causes of the American Civil War)

One could argue that Imperial Rome ran liberty and slavery. It just was liberty for *some*. Liberty and slavery can easily go hand in hand when some sects of the population truly believe that freedom IS slavery.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

First, I don't really think they were running Liberty. They were mostly running Consumption, or possibly Social Order.

Second, they did sufferer from frequent slave revolts, and had plenty of civil wars (although I don't think many of us would argue that their civil wars were caused by these conflicting civics)

Third, slavery wasn't nearly so harsh back them. Slaves had many more rights. For example, slaves had the right to own their own property, including other slaves (vicarii). The most educated people in the empire were slaves (mostly Greek or Jewish scholars/ bureaucrats, scribes, obviously not the common laborers), and slaves had a very good chance of gaining their freedom. In many ways, ancient slavery was really closer to serfdom.

 

[westamastaflash]

First, I don't really think they were running Liberty. They were mostly running Consumption, or possibly Social Order.

Second, they did sufferer from frequent slave revolts, and had plenty of civil wars (although I don't think many of us would argue that their civil wars were caused by these conflicting civics)

Third, slavery wasn't nearly so harsh back them. Slaves had many more rights. For example, slaves had the right to own their own property, including other slaves (vicarii). The most educated people in the empire were slaves (mostly Greek or Jewish scholars/ bureaucrats, scribes, obviously not the common laborers), and slaves had a very good chance of gaining their freedom. In many ways, ancient slavery was really closer to serfdom.

Wow you've thought a lot about this :-D

I can see your point on all of these topics (I AM SPARTACUS). But I still think that slavery / liberty are not necessarily at odds, providing you have a caste system of sorts in place, or (FFH-style) mind-stapling.

Rome is probably more social order... Hmm lots to think on...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well if you have a caste system in place, then you are running Caste System, not Slavery (although one cast may basically be slaves)

Still, its isn't fitting for it to coexist with Liberty (actually, Caste System and liberty shouldn't mix well either). A Society that values liberty, wouldn't use mind stapling.

Of course, you could also argue that the concept of liberty comes from knowledge of slavery (hence the frequent references to the Brittain trying to subject the colonies into slavery, made by slave owners). But still, the idea of liberty would eventually spill over into the slave community, and would cause some problems.

 

[xienwolf]

Actually, you can rather easily run Liberty with Slavery (RL). The mindset is the important thing to remember. The slaves were seen as property/animals (objects) not people (Hell, America's constitution declared them as 5/8 of a person at one point).

But most importantly, the slaves were degraded to the point they ALSO thought they weren't people.

True though, eventually in each of those societies, the slaves did rise up in some fashion, though often with the assistance and possibly even prompting/motivation of a non-slave.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

5/8ths? I assume you mean 3/5ths? Anyway, that was purely for purposes of determining a states representation in congress(and the electoral college). It also didn't count native Americans at all (well, those who were not taxed. I think they were treaties as citizens of their own tribes, independent nations within our borders, instead of citizens of the US)

 

[xienwolf]

Ah, 3/5, slightly better then Still declares them "legally" to be less than a person.

 

[Morganknight]

I think most people would concur that Agriculture is very possibly the most powerful Economic civic option if not the most powerful civic in general. Powerful farms, the accompanying rapid growth of cities and the ability to create fabulous specialist economies are a staple of FfH as near as I can tell. The game would be a totally different experience and develop at a completely different pace if Agriculture were not a civic option. As it stands, most people I play with will not switch from Agriculture. While some of the other Economys are excellent in their own way, it is a very special circumstance that would cause a player to switch.

I have a series of proposals that address this and I am confident would improve the game.

1. Make farms buildable without a technology requirement.

2. With the discovery of Agriculture, all farms would automatically produce one additional food and one less hammer without changing civics.

3. The Agriculture civic would become available with the Agriculture technology but would merely provide +1 Health in all cities.

4. If some of the other Economy's are deemed to be too powerful with these new farms (possibly Conquest and/or Guardian of Nature) have farms produce less food under those civics. Perhaps Sacrifice the Weak would reduce farm food output as well?

5. ...Potentially introduce a new economic civic that would become available with Engineering or Machinary that would actually cause farms to produce one less food and one more hammer.


In essence, I am saying that any civic that is being used 98% of the time in any given game of FfH should just be turned into a feature of the game. Keep the basic FfH experience the same, but open up all of those other cool economic options without feeling like you're sacrificing one of the cooler aspects of the game.

I hope this makes sense to someone else besides me, lol.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Ah, 3/5, slightly better then Still declares them "legally" to be less than a person.

5/8 is 62.5%
3/5 is 60%

It's slightly worse actually

 

[westamastaflash]

As it stands, most people I play with will not switch from Agriculture.

This may be true in multiplayer. However, I've found that in single player, if I'm playing as the Lanun, I almost never build farms - Since my cities are almost always full of ocean tiles, I'm building workshops and mines to crank up production, since i'm getting 3 food / water tile w/ my lighthouse.

Foreign trade then becomes almost imbalanced, since the AI loves open borders treaties, I can end up with 8 trade routes / city generating 5-10 commerce per trade route midgame.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Spoiler :

Ah, 3/5, slightly better then Still declares them "legally" to be less than a person.

That was an anti-slavery provision.
Independance from Britian would not have been possible without all, or at least most, colonies cooperation, including the slaveholding ones. Slavery was very much a "civic" which contradicted the values the early Americans were trying to form a country around, but that doesn't change the fact that many of the people at the time (in the southern colonies like much of the world) relied on slaves and wouldn't give it up easily. (NOT an excuse, of course, just stating what the founders had to work with)

But they knew they wanted to lessen the spread of slavery, and to restrict it. If they could do so without a war (which ultimately the could not, but they of course wanted to avoid a war between colonies in the future) they would need to give more influence to free states than to slave holding states, right?

Slaves could not vote. Counting a slave as a whole person for purposes of representation would not mean that they got any more rights or recognition, just that the poeple chosen by their "owners" (and thier neighbors, since of course most southerns didn't own slaves) would get more power in congress. That's the key, the "3/5 provision" was a compromise designed to weaken the slave holding states power.

The constitution was not easily written, but it is the oldest constitution in effect today. The founders did not want to make war among themselves (or split up to allow european powers to reassert control) immediately after the revolution, so they made thiscompromise.

Of course, the supreme court did call all blacks basically non-people in the Dred Scott case, briefly ensrining that into US federal law, but also outraging huge numbers of people and was part of the impetus toward civil war.

But sure, depending on how you define liberty, technically I guess it could coexist with anything, but the tension will be there.

 

[xienwolf]

5/8 is 62.5%
3/5 is 60%

It's slightly worse actually

I meant better for my argument

 

[Grey Fox]

Here's an old thread I started cause I wanted this discussed.

Rank the Civics

It doesn't have that many posts, and it's from June, but it might be useful.