Civics Balance Discussion

Looks good so far I think. Might be a bit weak, but it seems preferable to Guilds when it becomes available. Production for Custom House is at Naval Dominance right now, but it doesn't need to be. Maybe the Plantation commerce idea to round it off?

Yeah, I was thinking five effects are too many but one is a drawback so it makes sense.

That doesn't completely answer the question which effects these civics should have. I think thematically Egalitarianism somewhat exists in the intersection between Representation and Public Welfare, so effects could be moved between those. Some additional ideas for currently unused effects:
- double Statesman slots (most appropriately Representation I think)
- reduced corporation unhappiness (suits Public Welfare in my opinion)

However things are assigned I feel that the free specialist is so strong that it should probably come with some sort of drawback in the same civic.

Perhaps in the organization tree the buff should be +1 free statesman rather than +1 free specialist. This both limits the universal utility of a free specialist of any kind, and it addresses this issue that there are very few places to get statesmen once your castle becomes obsolete (about the same time representation becomes available in fact). It makes sense that both representation and egalitarianism should have methods of increasing the number of statesmen in your empire. What about moving the happiness in largest cities buff to representation combined with double statesmen slots, then add +1 free statesman to egalitarianism. This makes egalitarianism a clear step up from representation, worth the sacrifice of slavery, and competes with a very powerful totalitarianism. To jazz up vassalage and prevent too many statesman slots being available if constitution is researched before economics, make the statesmen slot in castles dependent on running vassalage (not sure if this is even possible). If such an effect is possible, direct rule could also add a statesman slot to the palace. With these changes, totalitarianism also forces you to forgo much of your access to statesmen and great statesmen to reap the large stabilizing benefits, which makes sense as totalitarianism suppresses political participation. You could also pull the statesman slot off jails, which seems downright strange but I understand you were trying to create more ways for people to get access to statesmen.

This change makes your organizational civic a governmental narrative about what part of your population participates in government. Under direct rule only a small cadre in the capital do. Under vassalage political participation becomes decentralized but is restricted to lords. Under representation the potential for participation is there doubling the courthouse bonus while under egalitarianism it becomes universal. Totalitarianism on the other hand restricts political participation as much as possible.

Reducing corporation unhappiness might fit better in the economic tree. How about environmentalism, which needs additional ways to combat unhappiness before it can be useful? The opposite effect could be added to Free Market as a penalty.

I think historically Planned Economy has been pretty good at heavy industry, and it also includes stuff like modern China so I wouldn't be so generalizing with that statement.

I like that the production comes from specialists, but 1 is already the lowest possible value so there isn't much wriggling room for a nerf.

Perhaps the civic should have another drawback instead? Reduced corporation yield/spread? City maintenance?

I agree that planned economy needs a drawback to bring it in line with the other economic civics. How about -1 commerce from windmill and town in addition to the watermill? This does not create too much clutter in the civic and further commits the player to choosing planned economy because of what it does well (building hammer producing improvements). Decreased corporation spread also seems appropriate but alone is probably not a sufficient drawback. Maybe bar all corporations except the steel industry (those communists are always obsessed with steel production at the expense of everything else, see great leap forward). Decreased corporation yield is awkward because corporate yields are already such low whole numbers to begin with that they are difficult to chop up.

Capitalism - One potential replacement for +10% commerce is +% to trade route value to synergize with both mercantilism and free market but not central planning. This is still kind of boring but it does make capitalism appealing for civilizations with good trade routes and international relationships that facilitate trade which makes sense.

Industrialism - Maybe Central Planning's factory/coal plant production buff would be more appropriate over here. Perhaps replacing the +10% production bonus with +1 hammer for watermill and windmill is comparable and encourages the player to build industrial improvements and forgo the advantages of towns.

Military- My first reaction to pacifism was meh, but it makes sense that the late game is more than just the simple choice between armies and navies. It's kind of strange to have so much of the game limited to so few civics (especially since mercenaries is not useful to many civs). I'm also not sure I like such a large single buff as +1 specialist there though and I don't see how the bonus is logically connected (I guess if you don't have an army those people are doing something else, but was Gomer Pile really going to be a scientist if only he didn't join the army?). Perhaps a diplomatic bonus combined with a small trade modifier (that's apparently my solution to everything).

I also think that naval domination should have a slight economic bonus, or should be a greater experience buff than standing army because a naval combat is just less important in the game than an land combat. I suggested a while ago and still like +1 hammer on fishing and whaling boats. This helps cities dominated by ocean tiles with little access to hammers keep up with everyone else if they commit to a naval military plan.
 
An alternate idea that I just had while writing this: how about an effect that instead of no foreign trade routes, only eliminates the yield modifier of foreign trade routes? Or would that basically end up being the same effect?

The big differences are:

You can get sustained peace bonus: +150%

Porcelain Tower would be useless under Merchantilism.

A trade route may give your city 1-2 and give 3-6 for the foreign city that it's trading with. Is somewhat against what merchantilism supports.


Would you like something like Doubleproduction when building wealth? Although I doubt the AI will use it.
 
The big differences are:

You can get sustained peace bonus: +150%

Porcelain Tower would be useless while using Merchantilism.

A trade route may give your city 1-2 and give 3-6 for the foreign city that it´s trading with. Is somewhat against what merchantilism supports.

It is not totally against economic theory that a free trade nation would earn greater rewards than the mercantilistic nation it is trading with.
 
It is not totally against economic theory that a free trade nation would earn greater rewards than the mercantilistic nation it is trading with.

Well, I just thought from what I read on wikipedia that Merchantilism civs won't want other civs to earn more than you and that's why you get penalties for trading with richer civs and no foreign trade routes.

If the bonus for foreign trade routes is removed only the civs you are trading with get benefits of trading with them, you get the same amount(unless sustained peace), and the useless porcelain tower.
 
As I understand it they want to export a lot and import very little earning a huge trade surplus. Another way of putting it is that they want to give the other countries a lot of stuff only requiring only a little back...
 
The last three civics of the Labor (is that what it's called?) column never made sense to me. Capitalism is what brought about Industrialism in the first place, and all states with public welfare are capitalistic as well. If we are strict enough with the definition of Capitalism to exclude these two as subtypes of it, then Capitalism isn't much more than the Free Market civic.
 
As I understand it they want to export a lot and import very little earning a huge trade surplus. Another way of putting it is that they want to give the other countries a lot of stuff only requiring only a little back...

That's why 1 :commerce: for you and 3 :commerce: for them is not what they want. Is like export resources for the value of 1 and import for the value of 3
 
It is like 3 coin to them but 1 goods compared to 1 coin but 3 goods for the other part.
 
I think late game towns should give +1:food: one way or another to model suburbanization and the population explosion of the 20th century.
 
Yeah, I was thinking five effects are too many but one is a drawback so it makes sense.
I won't consider those stability related lines "effects" per se anyway. I mean, all civics have some impact on stability, it's only mentioned when the impact is significant enough to influence the way you play the game.

Perhaps in the organization tree the buff should be +1 free statesman rather than +1 free specialist. This both limits the universal utility of a free specialist of any kind, and it addresses this issue that there are very few places to get statesmen once your castle becomes obsolete (about the same time representation becomes available in fact). It makes sense that both representation and egalitarianism should have methods of increasing the number of statesmen in your empire. What about moving the happiness in largest cities buff to representation combined with double statesmen slots, then add +1 free statesman to egalitarianism. This makes egalitarianism a clear step up from representation, worth the sacrifice of slavery, and competes with a very powerful totalitarianism. To jazz up vassalage and prevent too many statesman slots being available if constitution is researched before economics, make the statesmen slot in castles dependent on running vassalage (not sure if this is even possible). If such an effect is possible, direct rule could also add a statesman slot to the palace. With these changes, totalitarianism also forces you to forgo much of your access to statesmen and great statesmen to reap the large stabilizing benefits, which makes sense as totalitarianism suppresses political participation. You could also pull the statesman slot off jails, which seems downright strange but I understand you were trying to create more ways for people to get access to statesmen.

This change makes your organizational civic a governmental narrative about what part of your population participates in government. Under direct rule only a small cadre in the capital do. Under vassalage political participation becomes decentralized but is restricted to lords. Under representation the potential for participation is there doubling the courthouse bonus while under egalitarianism it becomes universal. Totalitarianism on the other hand restricts political participation as much as possible.
The idea is great, but I don't know if statesmen are significant enough in most peoples' games to build an entire tree around it.

Reducing corporation unhappiness might fit better in the economic tree. How about environmentalism, which needs additional ways to combat unhappiness before it can be useful? The opposite effect could be added to Free Market as a penalty.
Yes, or in the Labor tree.

I agree that planned economy needs a drawback to bring it in line with the other economic civics. How about -1 commerce from windmill and town in addition to the watermill? This does not create too much clutter in the civic and further commits the player to choosing planned economy because of what it does well (building hammer producing improvements). Decreased corporation spread also seems appropriate but alone is probably not a sufficient drawback. Maybe bar all corporations except the steel industry (those communists are always obsessed with steel production at the expense of everything else, see great leap forward). Decreased corporation yield is awkward because corporate yields are already such low whole numbers to begin with that they are difficult to chop up.
Those ideas both sound good.

Capitalism - One potential replacement for +10% commerce is +% to trade route value to synergize with both mercantilism and free market but not central planning. This is still kind of boring but it does make capitalism appealing for civilizations with good trade routes and international relationships that facilitate trade which makes sense.
That could work.

Industrialism - Maybe Central Planning's factory/coal plant production buff would be more appropriate over here. Perhaps replacing the +10% production bonus with +1 hammer for watermill and windmill is comparable and encourages the player to build industrial improvements and forgo the advantages of towns.
I like the faster Factory/Coal Plant at Central Planning though because fast industrialization is an actual historical achievement of those economies.

Military- My first reaction to pacifism was meh, but it makes sense that the late game is more than just the simple choice between armies and navies. It's kind of strange to have so much of the game limited to so few civics (especially since mercenaries is not useful to many civs).
I think that's part of the problem. On the other hand, there will never be enough civics to cover all types of militaries appropriately. I think it makes more sense to capture "eras" in military doctrine here, which I think it does rather well.

I'm also not sure I like such a large single buff as +1 specialist there though and I don't see how the bonus is logically connected (I guess if you don't have an army those people are doing something else, but was Gomer Pile really going to be a scientist if only he didn't join the army?). Perhaps a diplomatic bonus combined with a small trade modifier (that's apparently my solution to everything).
The bolded part was basically the idea. You could think of other, less powerful effects as well that might also be appropriate. For example, +100% culture, +2 culture per specialist, happiness in largest cities. Basically whatever remains after the Organization tree is done. Upkeep might be lowered to No Upkeep if it is otherwise too weak.

And well, positive trade modifiers are right now unused as well, and it makes sense here. It remains a choice if I decide against it for Capitalism.

I also think that naval domination should have a slight economic bonus, or should be a greater experience buff than standing army because a naval combat is just less important in the game than an land combat. I suggested a while ago and still like +1 hammer on fishing and whaling boats. This helps cities dominated by ocean tiles with little access to hammers keep up with everyone else if they commit to a naval military plan.
Currently it gets some economic benefit from Custom House production, but that might move to another civic. Water improvements are always a good tool for minor buffs because they are generally worked everywhere but few in number.

The big differences are:

You can get sustained peace bonus: +150%

Porcelain Tower would be useless under Merchantilism.
I thought the sustained peace bonus was the foreign trade bonus? Way to go on knowing the rules of the game I'm modding.

Porcelain Tower is supposed to buff internal trade routes, so of course it will still work under Mercantilism. I might only need to change how its effect is worded so that it cannot be misinterpreted.

Would you like something like Doubleproduction when building wealth? Although I doubt the AI will use it.
Yes! I still intend to nerf all of these conversion processes by 50%. There already is a civic tag to improve them although I believe it is not commerce type specific (that can be changed though).

I think late game towns should give +1:food: one way or another to model suburbanization and the population explosion of the 20th century.
While appropriate, I think that would throw the game balance off too much.
 
The idea is great, but I don't know if statesmen are significant enough in most peoples' games to build an entire tree around it.

Upon reflection the direct rule idea isn't good, but I still think castles shouldn't have that statesman slot unless you are running vassalage (assuming this is possible). I generally try to target a statesman as I enter the late renaissance because I will have to completely overhaul my civics. A statesman is also a godsend for an admin building for any major colonial empire with distant colonies. Maybe representation should have the free statesman and egalitarianism should make it a free specialist.

Currently it gets that from

Whoever is directing this is a master of suspense!
 
I thought the sustained peace bonus was the foreign trade bonus? Way to go on knowing the rules of the game I'm modding.

Porcelain Tower is supposed to buff internal trade routes, so of course it will still work under Mercantilism. I might only need to change how its effect is worded so that it cannot be misinterpreted.
I checked it. The sustained peace bonus is the foreign bonus. I thought it was just a bonus for peace and not foreign trade :D :D
Well, then customs houses would be useful under merchantilism
 
Upon reflection the direct rule idea isn't good, but I still think castles shouldn't have that statesman slot unless you are running vassalage (assuming this is possible). I generally try to target a statesman as I enter the late renaissance because I will have to completely overhaul my civics. A statesman is also a godsend for an admin building for any major colonial empire with distant colonies. Maybe representation should have the free statesman and egalitarianism should make it a free specialist.
Sure it is possible to implement, although that kind of relationship is unprecedented and seem kind of complicated to me

Whoever is directing this is a master of suspense!
There are only so many ways I could agree with you in that post, so I thought why bother even writing (post edited).
 
I think late game towns should give +1:food: one way or another to model suburbanization and the population explosion of the 20th century.

I actually played for a while with this in my working copy and enjoyed it although it made balance kind of screwy. Just go to the CIV4Improvementinfos.xml file in assets/XML/terrain and replace the line under Towns that says:

"<TechYieldChanges\>"

with

" <TechYieldChanges>
<TechYieldChange>
<PrereqTech>TECH_REFRIGERATION</PrereqTech>
<TechYields>
<iYield>1</iYield>
</TechYields>
</TechYieldChange>
</TechYieldChanges>"

This change is triggered by refrigeration but you can use whatever you want.
 
Yet another round:

Representation (Constitution):
Medium Upkeep
+2 happiness in the X largest cities
+1 happiness with Courthouse
Double Statesman slots

Egalitarianism (Democracy):
High Upkeep
Double slots for Artist, Scientist, Merchant
+1 production for Town
Extra unhappiness for civilizations without Egalitarianism
(slave effects still apply, but they are so much of a special case that I don't think it makes sense to document them there)
(Democracy is delayed a bit by requiring Liberalism now)

Public Welfare (Mass Media):
High Upkeep
-25% corporation unhappiness
+2 research per specialist
Double production for Hospital, University

Pacifism (Radio?) replaces Warrior Code:
Low Upkeep
+100% war weariness
+1 gold per military unit
+1 free specialist

My thoughts on this composition:
- I like this Representation for what it represents
- associating the free specialist with a civic with many drawback is the only way the bonus can work I think
- if more civs adopt Egalitarianism, it should outperform Representation in happiness, leading to it being phased out
- Representation worth getting vs Absolutism?
- Egalitarianism strong enough to justify high upkeep?
- 25% reduction enough for Public Welfare?
 
I'm pretty happy with the changes to Representation and Egalitarianism. Given how much you've been paring down the options available for happiness, Representation seems like a pretty essential civic for rebalancing things.

For Public Welfare, I'd argue the reduction should be "-50% to corporate unhappiness." Besides the fact that I don't think -25% would have a discernible effect at all, recall that in the real world, the creation of a welfare state was responsible for basically taking the wind out of the sails of the socialists, 'Wobblies', and other anti-capitalists of (America's) Progressive Era. Likewise for Britain and continental Europe -- the general dissatisfaction with early capitalism was why Marx believed revolution was inevitable, but the unhappiness largely dissipated once a welfare state was put in place. -50% seems like a reasonable reflection of that.

As for Pacifism, I'm honestly struggling to imagine any circumstances in which I'd actually be willing to use it. An extra :gold: cost per unit is huge, especially in the late game once armies are grown so large. The bonus of a free specialist per city just wouldn't be worth it, unless I had an incredibly robust economy (in which case I'd probably be able to add an extra specialist in each city using population, without the massive additional expense per unit).
 
I'm pretty happy with the changes to Representation and Egalitarianism. Given how much you've been paring down the options available for happiness, Representation seems like a pretty essential civic for rebalancing things.
Okay good.

For Public Welfare, I'd argue the reduction should be "-50% to corporate unhappiness." Besides the fact that I don't think -25% would have a discernible effect at all, recall that in the real world, the creation of a welfare state was responsible for basically taking the wind out of the sails of the socialists, 'Wobblies', and other anti-capitalists of (America's) Progressive Era. Likewise for Britain and continental Europe -- the general dissatisfaction with early capitalism was why Marx believed revolution was inevitable, but the unhappiness largely dissipated once a welfare state was put in place. -50% seems like a reasonable reflection of that.
I almost went for the 50% myself already, so yeah.

As for Pacifism, I'm honestly struggling to imagine any circumstances in which I'd actually be willing to use it. An extra :gold: cost per unit is huge, especially in the late game once armies are grown so large. The bonus of a free specialist per city just wouldn't be worth it, unless I had an incredibly robust economy (in which case I'd probably be able to add an extra specialist in each city using population, without the massive additional expense per unit).
It's okay if it's situational. I still have some possible additional benefits in mind, such as culture modifiers or trade modifiers (if not used elsewhere), also upkeep could be set to No Upkeep which is not insignificant for large empires.
 
I actually played for a while with this in my working copy and enjoyed it although it made balance kind of screwy. Just go to the CIV4Improvementinfos.xml file in assets/XML/terrain and replace the line under Towns that says:

"<TechYieldChanges\>"

with

" <TechYieldChanges>
<TechYieldChange>
<PrereqTech>TECH_REFRIGERATION</PrereqTech>
<TechYields>
<iYield>1</iYield>
</TechYields>
</TechYieldChange>
</TechYieldChanges>"

This change is triggered by refrigeration but you can use whatever you want.

How screwy did it make the balance and in what ways?
 
Representation - Seems like it's in a solid place. Absolutism would obviously be superior if happiness weren't an issue, but when does that ever happen.

Egalitarianism - Breaking up the synergy between en masse specialist slots and the specialist science bonus was good. It also makes sense that public welfare would synergize with egalitarianism. Maybe doubled specialist slots for egalitarianisms could include statesmen as well. It seems strange that the shift from representation to egalitarianism would limit political participation.

Pacifism - Upon reflection I am not a fan of pacifism as a military civic within the context of DoC. While there are historic examples of pacifist societies, they are hardly the type to be represented by player controlled civilizations. I understand that you wanted to find a place to put the free specialist and that it had to be a civic with genuine downsides but pacifism doesn't fit the game or history. Gameplay-wise very few civilizations can responsibly run an army small enough with an empire wide enough to justify the free specialists. Wars also often last much longer than players have control over. This seems like a trap civic that players with less experience may fall into. I actually liked your idea for professionalism and would rather come up with an ancient era alternate to mercenaries or a pre-enlightenment alternate to levy armies rather than an end-game alternative.

How screwy did it make the balance and in what ways?

Late game populations in high food areas exploded and once available specialist slots got maxed out there were a lot of citizens in cities. Granted, this was back before population scaling; because of city scaling I was building more spread out cities than I would now. Screwy may be an overstatement but after playing a few games with the change I reverted it.
 
Pacifism - Upon reflection I am not a fan of pacifism as a military civic within the context of DoC. While there are historic examples of pacifist societies, they are hardly the type to be represented by player controlled civilizations. I understand that you wanted to find a place to put the free specialist and that it had to be a civic with genuine downsides but pacifism doesn't fit the game or history. Gameplay-wise very few civilizations can responsibly run an army small enough with an empire wide enough to justify the free specialists. Wars also often last much longer than players have control over. This seems like a trap civic that players with less experience may fall into. I actually liked your idea for professionalism and would rather come up with an ancient era alternate to mercenaries or a pre-enlightenment alternate to levy armies rather than an end-game alternative.
I don't think there are enough possible military bonuses to come up with another military civic, and historically it also becomes problematic because going into a different level of detail also raises questions about the other civics.

I see Pacifism as an opt out of what the Military columns as a whole represents, similar to how Secularism exists in the Religion column. I've also seen the problem of Pacifism as a strict concept not really being applicable to history in the scope of DoC. However there are countries that deliberately reduced the capabilities of their military and remain sceptic to its use as a tool for anything other than self defense, most notably Germany and Japan. Pacifism may not be the correct word to represent that outlook, honestly I mainly chose it because it has a clear meaning in the context of this tree and already existed in BtS.

I briefly considered other names such as Non-Interventionism (too long) or Self Defense (maybe?) but didn't find them satisfying. If anyone has a better idea to name such a civic, I am open to suggestions.

By the way, I also plan to associate additional stability bonuses for defensive pacts with such a civic.
 
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