Civics Changes Discussion

Leoreth · Aug 11, 2016

Like everything else, I'll use the opportunity to change the civics roster along with the new tech tree. Right now, I mostly sorted the existing civics into new techs. Here they are, also for reference during discussion:

Spoiler :

Another thing that might be relevant, but that I don't think I have ever talked about here is that improvements changed substantially:

Spoiler :

The most prominent change is the introduction of unhealth and unhappiness from improvements. These only apply when the improvement is worked. As you may have noticed, in the case of workshops, this takes the place of -1 food, making them more useful (Central Planning has been changed in reaction to this). There are (late game) buildings that allow cities to ignore this effect. In addition, watermills have been given a clearer role compared to windmills and workshops.

But moving on to civics, let me give some general thoughts on what I think about civics in general, and the current civics lineup in specific.

In general I think every (or almost every) column should represent a progression through history, ending in a civic that represents modern western liberal societies. This civic does not necessarily have to be the most powerful civic but there should be strong incentives to adopt it from an economic perspective. Being tied to a UN resolution also ties into this.
Designing civics within a column is subject to two competing goals: technological advance should unlock more useful civics but at the same time at least some older civics should remain valid choices so there is strategic variety
Civics should mostly be balanced within their column, and not be compared to those in other columns. By extension that means that one powerful civic in a column necessitates strong effects for the others there as well.
I want to stick to the principle that more complex forms of government can be expressed as a combination of two civics from different columns, for example Constitutional Monarchy = Dynasticism + Representation, or Mixed Economy = Public Welfare + Free Market.
Real life ideologies should consistently match strategic styles in the game. For example, authoritarian civics were themed around military and espionage economy, communist civics around workshop economy and large empires, capitalist civics around cottage economies and mixed economies around specialist economies. In general I'm very happy with this loose association and would like to maintain it.
Dynamic names are not to be neglected. For instance, the fact that monarchic and republican names continued to exist into the modern era needs to be reflected in the civics lineup without locking modern monarchies into outdated civics. Right now this is accomplished by the combination of Government and Organisation columns.
Some civics effects add central mechanics to the game that are essential to how it plays out: pop rushing and happiness from military units. Both provide interesting interactions between different game elements and I don't want to remove them, but the problem is that their power makes their columns hard to balance, especially if it is desired that their civics are abandoned over the course of the game (i.e. Slavery).
Military civics: this column is a strong candidate for removal right now. I initially introduced it because I liked the idea of choosing between different military related abilities, but this didn't really work in my opinion because a) there aren't enough military themed benefits to create enough choices for an entire column, making choices less interested and b) the existence of the column basically gave a military benefit for free, you only had to choose which one. This became even worse when the choice was obvious most of the time.
Religious civics: they haven't been touched for the longest time. I have seen suggestions for another "no state religion" leader cult or state atheism choice here but I think two "no state religion" civics are more than enough. Secularism is the default late game liberal civic and should stay. I'm open to modeling Pantheon differently but right now I couldn't think of a better way than the current civic. But I'm willing to change the theming of the other civics and then change the effects to match. In my mind, these civics describe how the state religion is organised (or not): decentralised religion (e.g. Islam), centralised but independent of the government (e.g. Catholicism), centralised and controlled by the government (e.g. Orthodoxy).
Economy civics: I think Mercantilism, Free Market and Central Planning are set. I know people have criticised Environmentalism in the past but I also want to keep it the concept, maybe with a different name. Guilds on the other hand isn't a very good civic, both because it is uninspired in terms of effect, and because it's unapplicable to later stages of the game. Maybe Protectionism instead? Or an earlier type of economy, for example Redistribution? Palace Economy?
Labor civics: As already mentioned Slavery dominates this column so the later civics need to be strong. I like the current setup of having one cottage economy and one specialist economy focused civic here for the late game. Industrialism feels out of place though, especially because the difference to Capitalism is not really clear. Maybe both should just be merged to "Employment" or "Wage Labor"? I could also see a distinction between early industrial wage labor and more modern service sector driven economies. In general, I think Labor should be about modifying improvement yields, while Economy civics provide more general global modifiers.
New civics column: I have been thinking about something like a "Values" or "Society" column that describes the guiding values of a society, and maybe how the leading social class of the society is constituted. For example, what I could see here for instance is a Aristocracy -> Meritocracy -> Bourgeoisie -> Totalitarianism -> Egalitarianism progression. This could take the place of the current Organisation column. I think the civics here match well to the effects already present in that column (some can even completely migrate), but they seem more universally applicable across history and geography than those in Organisation right now. Only problem I see is that it would disrupt the current dynamic names "solution" for republics and monarchies described above.
Government column: I think Dynasticism, Autocracy and Republic (i.e. happiness vs. military vs. economic growth) are the central solid civics here (names could be changed though, e.g. now that Monarchy is not a tech name anymore it could replace the name for Dynasticism). I could envision removing City States and Theocracy (moving to or being represented by something in Religion). Depending on how radically Organisation is changed or replaced more changes might be required.
Another speculative new column: something like Territory or similar, that describes how the civilization is constituted administratively. City States might move here, and maybe Vassalage, as well as stuff like Thalassocracy, or a civic reflecting loose steppe empires. Open to suggestions here.

Everything open for discussion as always. I think I've given some parameters on how I approach designing the civics system so you can have an idea of what I would agree with, but feel free to ignore them if you think you can persuade me otherwise. Feedback to all of my ideas welcome of course. As you can probably tell from the rambling style of this post, not much is set in stone right now.

Publicola · Aug 11, 2016

First question: are we locked in on six civics in each category? How many categories can we have total?

The biggest issue I'm seeing with the civics options currently available, is that they don't share the same granularity as the new tech tree. For instance, the 'Economics' civics currently have 1 medieval option (Guilds), 1 Renaissance option (Free Market) and 3 modern options. In fact, most civic categories tend to be back-loaded for the modern era, which basically forces the earlier eras to pick between far fewer categories.

Getting down to specifics in each category:

Government civics: City-States are too weak an option. I'd add a bit of an economic bonus (+1 trade route), and change the city maintenance to a military malus (since city-states historically had a lot of trouble coordinating their armies against outside threats). Alternately, since 'City States' really only applies to ancient Greece (between Dynasticism and the Parthenon, Greece rarely if ever uses the 'City States' civic), perhaps we could change it more profoundly? One possibility would be an 'Oligarchy' civic, representing the rule by a noble elite rather than a dynastic monarch. Alternately, we could keep the 'loose collection of quasi-independent states' idea and rename the civic 'Federation' -- which could stand for Greek city-states just as much as it could represent the Holy Roman Empire. It'd also be a nice contrast to the top-down approach to early empires modeled with 'Dynasticism.'

One possibility for making Dynasticism attractive even through the modern era, would be to rely on those new projects and wonders that give bonuses to specific civics. Given how long dynastic monarchies have been around, there should be plenty of options throughout most eras of history to make Dynasticism a viable option.

Organization civics: in general, how are you distinguishing 'Absolutism', 'Autocracy' and 'Totalitarianism'? I agree that Totalitarianism is a 20th century civic, but I'd be inclined to move 'Absolutism' toward the late Renaissance, with James I and Louis XIV. The problem is, between those two, what is left for 'Autocracy'?

One problem with this category is it is also heavily back-weighted -- the first real option (Vassalage) comes into play in the Middle Ages, then there's a second option for the Renaissance, then three more arrive with the modern. Given how the early empires of Assyria and Babylon were defined by their innovative approaches to management and organization, this seems like a pretty major flaw.

Labor civics: I agree that the distinction between 'Capitalism' and 'Industrialism' is pretty vague, all the more because the two so often overlap in the real world. I'm be inclined to move 'Capitalism' (or its effects) to the 'Economics' category. On the other hand, there's another issue with how much overlap there is with the 'Economics' category itself. I'll have to give more thought to this later.

One possibility for disincentivizing Slavery in the late-game would be to add an 'Egalitarianism'-like effect to a more modern civic. So, both 'Industrialism' and 'Public Welfare' would include "unhappiness for civs running Slavery" in their list of effects.

As for your brainstorming other civic categories, I quite like the 'Territory' idea, though it does overlap quite a bit with the concept of 'Organization' civics. Even if you don't incorporate it, I would love to see a Thalassocracy civic, to represent Carthage, Indonesia, Portugal, Netherlands, etc.

As for 'Society', I'd emphasize the "how the leading social class of the society is constituted" since the current civics don't do well with that. (Perhaps retitle it as 'Culture' civics?) Instead of progressing to Totalitarianism/Egalitarianism, this civic category could provide different options for happiness and/or culture. Something like:

Warrior Code: extra culture per military victory, extra happiness per military specialist
Civic Duty: extra culture per turn without anarchy, extra happiness per statesman
Merchant Kings: extra culture per trade route, extra happiness per merchant
Pop Culture (or Celebrity Culture): extra culture per population, extra happiness per artist

Not sure if this works, but that's the idea: to reflect what your society prioritizes and how the social elite are selected -- warriors, statesmen, merchants, celebrities, etc.

Publicola · Aug 11, 2016

I had another thought for how to distinguish between 'Government' and 'Organization' civic categories.

Government -- how your civ is governed officially
Organization -- how your civ is governed in practice

Thus, 'Monarchy' would fall within the first category, but it'd be the second one that tells you if it is a feudal monarchy or absolute monarchy or constitutional monarchy, etc.

If this is the case, then we should probably remove 'city-states' and 'theocracy' from the current options. I'm still in favor of replacing city-states with Federation or Thassalocracy, and theocracy could probably be merged with (or replace outright) the Fanaticism civic since they're both military-centric religious civics.

Alternately, I'm noticing that quite a few of the current 'Organization' civics add or remove limits on your 'Government' -- feudal monarchs were bound by the will of their vassals, while absolutist monarchies had much more authority over those nobles, while totalitarian monarchies (North Korea) would have total control over the entire population.

Thus, we could divide the categories like this:

Governance -- how your civ is governed
Authority -- what limits exist on your ability to (and extent of) your government

Or we could use all three -- Government, Administration, Authority.

Force44 · Aug 12, 2016

That was a great post Leoreth.

I think you outlined your ideas very clearly.

I might have made some different design decisions

(most notably the decision for every civic to monopolize a niche, I would have allowed sharing so that some ancient civics do become truly obsolete and gradual civic specialization/differentiation becomes possible.

e.g.

04e3r4c | 4e04r3c | 3e4r04c | <- ancient
08e3r2c | 2e08r3c | 3e2r08c | <- medieval/classical
12e2r0c | 0e12r2c | 2e0r12c | <- modern

each collum reprecesents a civic collum
each letter represents a property (e.g. e for ability to expand r for ability to research new techs and c to conquer your rivals)
each number represents the strength its respective category

note that though the numbers might be the same the (ability of the) civic doesn't have to be the same.)

but I really like this new way of gathering input (priori as opposed to previously posteriori) (I believe it fosters the community) and I'm sure the civics will turn out interesting.

I think even the current civics turned out interesting so as far as I'm concerned you already have a really good track record.

Leoreth · Aug 12, 2016

Publicola said:
First question: are we locked in on six civics in each category? How many categories can we have total?

The biggest issue I'm seeing with the civics options currently available, is that they don't share the same granularity as the new tech tree. For instance, the 'Economics' civics currently have 1 medieval option (Guilds), 1 Renaissance option (Free Market) and 3 modern options. In fact, most civic categories tend to be back-loaded for the modern era, which basically forces the earlier eras to pick between far fewer categories.

We aren't locked into anything on principle, but there are a few practical constraints. First of all, more than six categories begins to make the interface awkward. Number of civics per column is a similar problem, but more manageable.

But my observation is that you run out of effects in general once you go significantly beyond 30 civics with special effects. If we can come up with new things then that isn't a problem, especially if the number of columns remains the same, because then the overall number of benefits doesn't change.

ezzlar · Aug 12, 2016

Interestering ideas!

- I like the combo mechanics since they improve game immersion
- As I have written before I would prefer negative bonuses also. I would make chosing a civic over another more meaningful since the difference would be greater. It is also easier to balance the civics in the same column since the positive effect can be made stronger since it also comes with a penalty. And on a personal view I find it strange that some oppressive civics dont come with more penalties since living in those socities creates more individual harm. I am thinking of cultural and great person appearences in totalitarian societies and economic effects and environmentalist in socialist ones. Capitalist ones are somewhat captured in the corporation mechanics (but not in the civics).
- Regarding the religion column. The distinction between Animism and Pantheon feels unclear to me. Just like two different versions of "worship everything". I dont have any better suggestions to mimic the Pantheon effect (creating wonders is the only thing it is good for) but like the idea about decentralized compared to state centralization etc. If anything should be added it could be Religious Tolerance or something. A somewhat lighter version of secularism where you still have a state religion. Or change Secularism to Atheism and move it more into the future than now.
- A general thought about stability bonuses. Combination of civics gives bonuses but it is unclear how much. That makes it hard to estimate the effects, also on the downside. Make them visible in numbers? Should some civics have a singular bonus? Like Dynasticism giving a permanent +2 stability bonus.
- RFCE has the Stability column which could be similiar to the Territory bonus. Subjugation, Vassalage, Empire, Nationhood.
- And speaking of nationhood and the idea of one nation with similiar culture, religion, people etc. It could be a modern version of Territory bonus with some maluses for other religions and foreign culture. The alternative would be something like Globalism/Open society. Cant think of a good term but I think you get the idea.
(- On a side note. When religion is dead late game maybe we could add migration depending on choice of civics. And add civic tolerance for foreign culture being added to your own. In civ games you usually have 100% own culture for your own cities the whole game. And unhappiness effect in nationhood could for exemple be at 20% foreign culture "We dont like the foreign influence" or mitigated with the other modern civic. Nationhood could on the other hand give some stability like bonus)
- Commerce bonus is much stronger than all other bonuses. Balancing should reflect this. Early game happiness is the only strong competitor with a experience bonus for units on a third place. Seriously, why would you ever sacrifice commerce/science for culture, conscription, espionage, production, health etc? This also ties in to penalties, if there is only bonuses you would need to compensate for lack of commerce would so much that reaching the civic could alter game balance since the civs without it would be handicapped.
- I like the contruction bonus with some civics but they should be better tied to when they appear in game. Guilds is somewhat good placed. Stable and barracks construction far far too late and they are also cheap from the start. University construction far too late. Customs house far too early. Castle/drydock/factory somewhat ok.
- Production bonuses I miss: Banks, maybe at mercantilism? (not a so useful civic). State religion buildings. Courthouse (maybe at representation?)
- Come to think of it, production bonuses is one of the reasons for an eager change of civics. I love the feeling when I research Guilds (and get that knight as well, totally unbalanced).
- I dont like pop rush at slavery (or wood chop for that matter, cant the forest stay and you only chose between mine or lumbermill and that you later can change between them?). I would give slavery a bonus on heavy working tiles, lets say a commerce bonus on quarrys and plantations. Or maybe production. Slavery would then be an interesting choice between agrianism and slavery. Free peasantry could be the next civic in line?

Some of my suggestions contradict each other and some dont fit in the global sense of game design but I leave that to you!

Good luck with the changes!

J422 · Aug 13, 2016

Some propositions for a "Territory" column :

City States (current effect)
Thalassocracy (extra commerce on water or extra trade routes on coast cities - Increased maintenance for number of cities.)
Empire (extra stability on city conquest - -25% culture ?)
Federation (no distance maintenance costs - -25% production)
Nation State (Extra stability from core tiles)

For the 6th one : something about colonialism ? Vassalage ?

These need to be balanced out, of course.

ozqar · Aug 14, 2016

Not a big change, but perhaps we can rename Pantheon to Syncretism?
As a concept, Pantheon (all the gods) refers to the bunch of deities/gods worshipped in a particular religion or set of beliefs. All theistic religions have Pantheons, be those Zeus and co., Osiris and co., Quetzalcoatl and co. Hinduism, of course, also has a Pantheon.
The word refers to polytheistic religions, but it's not a stretch to understand the monotheistic god of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as being the sole god present in the Pantheon for those religions.
Point of all that is that "Pantheon" does not describe a religious doctrine, organization, or anything else that can be considered a civic.
Syncretism, on the other hand, refers to the historical practice - found in all religions - of incorporating (instead of denying) the gods of other religions into their own. This was most notably the case with the Romans, who incorporated the whole Greek Pantheon into their own, as well as the Pantheons of all other conquered peoples. In Christianity we see a lot of pagan symbolisms and entities being incorporated as demons (as in the case of pagan deities from Europe) or as saints (as in Latin America, where Catholicism made saints from the Mesoamerican and African gods). No point in giving examples for other religions, but this basically happened everywhere.

As a civic, Syncretism should provide faster conversion rates into the state religion, converting temples and providing happiness and culture, especially in recently conquered or assimilated cities.

Then we could, finally, and please, a place to polytheist religions next to the other "major" religions. A simple "Traditional Polytheism" would do to cover the religions of all civs before the arrival of major religions. This would cover everything, the Harappans (before Hinduism), the native American civs, the civs in the Mediterranean, etc. We can tie the wonders that are currently conditioned to the Pantheon civic into this "Traditional Polytheism" religion. Of course, I'd love to see actually different types of polytheisms there in the religion screen, but in the meantime and for practicality, this would work.

Leoreth · Aug 14, 2016

I don't think a generic Polytheism religion would work.

Imperator Knoedel · Aug 15, 2016

Oh look, that thing I have been clamoring for for years is finally here. Yay. I would be ecstatic if I hadn't been converted to Civ5 a few weeks back. Oh well, my suggestion is to just take the civics roster of my modmod with minor modifications. Assuming not everybody has a mental picture of that and considering I can't make a screenshot right now let me describe it:

Replace Theocracy with Oligarchy, which just gives a free specialist in every city.
Throw out half the labor category, replace Agrarianism, Industrialism and Public Welfare with Serfdom, Caste System and Socialism.
Replace Environmentalism with Public Welfare.
Replace Fanaticism with Theocracy and Scholasticism with Tolerance.

Totalitarianism should have high upkeep and reduce great people birth rate or something, but make up for it by giving +1 Production for every unhappy face.

Ani Taneen · Aug 17, 2016

I've been thinking about this for quite some time. Nearly a year actually.
Let me begin by stating that if we need to aim for 6 columns (limits help create design space), then I'd vote for the full removal of the Religion and military column. RI uses a values system for religion. In DOC that could allow players to choose movements and religious denominations from a different screen. (Except Catholics, where the Pope gets to choose for all). As for military, well these benefits can be spread to other equally appropriate civics.

Another challenge is that the current tech-tree has many end game techs that should carry civics, making the progression quite extreme at the end. Finally, I propose that in order to maximize design space, the first row of civics be useful.

As a result I propose the following columns and civics. Please note that I'm currently putting bonuses into each, and will probably edit this post later this week.

Leadership
These civics represent the leader of your civilization. It would be great if we increased the likelihood of events that reflect the leadership (Death with no heir, elections with no clear winner). These events could have more short term impactful effects. Furthermore, Leadership gives a city wide bonus
- Chiefdom - I'd move the happiness bonus from Monarchy to here.
- Oligarchy - (Tradition) Represents the Classical Republics and City Leagues. Trade route bonuses
- Monarchy - (Nobility) Bonuses to the Palace, happiness from castles
- Theocracy - (Theology) Prevents foreign religion spread
- Autocracy - (Psychology) May remain unchanged
- Democracy - (Representation) Bonuses to cities working on Villages and Towns
Management
The "Territory" column, these should change how your civilization looks.
- City State - Mostly unchanged, specialists in big cities should give 1 extra culture.
- Thalassocracy - (Navigation) Merged with Naval supremacy bonuses. Landlocked cities should be highly unpopular.
- Vassalage - (Feudalism) Bonuses to having Vassals and castles.
- Imperialism - (Exploration) Similar to the resettlement from Vanilla RFC, settlers can join cities and only be built in your core.
- Unitary - (Statecraft) Similar to "representation" from Vanilla, the "small" empire civ
- Federalism - (Representation) The "large" empire, among its bonuses is improvements to the administrative center.
Authority
These civics represent the right by which you rule. Their effects are empire wide. It would be really cool if switching to them triggered an event which let you further define their bonuses.
- Traditionalism - double production for cemetery and pagan temple
- Legal - (Law) Represents the ancient edicts (law of Moses, code of Hammurabi, etc). Bonuses to cites in historical and contested areas.
- Divine - (Priesthood) Great person and military unit bonuses (from scholasticism and fanaticism)
- Absolute- (Judiciary) Bonus to the Capital. It be great if you could sacrifice pop in other cities to speed up production in your capital.
- Totalitarian- (Psychology) May remain unchanged
- Constitutional - (Civil Liberties) Rewards players for having a diversity of specialists? Im not fully sure how to design it.
Economic
Your Civ's monetary policy. These should be empire wide bonuses
- Barter - Rewards cities for having health resources (wheat, fish, sheep, etc).
- Commodity - (Currency), Rewards players for working luxuries and strategic resources, for having open borders and trading resources
- Mercantilism - (Economics) Unchanged
- Capitalism - (Consumerism) Unchanged
- Managed - (Macroeconomics) Replaces Central Planning
- Globalized - (Globalism) a merge between multilateralism trade and the corporation unhappiness reduction of public welfare.
Labor
Your Civ's division of labor. These effects should be aimed mostly at tile improvement
- Tribalism - Improves farms, pastures, and fishing
- Slavery - (Masonry) Personally, I feel that the pop sacrifice system should go to totalitarianism or absolutism (or both). But Slaverys mistake is that slaves are only useful under slavery, You will see that change below. Slaves can be used to build mines and plantations. Extra gold from these
- Manorialism - (Feudalism) replaces agrarianism, slaves can be used to build farms and pastures. Extra production from these.
- Organized - (Guilds) Replaces guilds. Bonuses from workshops and mills. Slaves can only join cities
- Corporate - (Consumerism) Resources give extra gold when the city has a corporation that works that resource. Slaves are useless. It be great if workers could be sped up using gold.
- Socialized - (Activism) Replaces environmentalism.
Structure
These civics represent how the society is structured. Bonuses are to specialist and It also represents how the warrior class is selected. To be honest i havent given it much thought yet
- Eldership -
- Meritocracy - (Philosophy)
- Caste System - (Artisanry)
- Aristocracy - (Patronage)
- Citizenry - (Humanities)
- Egalitarianism - (Civil Rights)

Finally, Id say that there are two game concepts Id like to challenge. The first is that civics become outdated, and that is punishing. Rather I feel that negative modifiers to stability should come from unlocking techs. Activism should make running slavery, imperialism, manorialism, caste system, etc. a terrible idea. That tech could even grant a free change of civics.

Which leads me to my second proposal, Civics should be modified by techs. We have many, many techs that would make sense if they could modify your civics, rather than have separate civics. You could have one organized labor, rather than two: guilds, and labor unions. With each tech unlocking different things.

Social values: This is a neat concept that could be tied to culture, rather than science (civics are unlocked via techs).

Imperator Knoedel · Aug 17, 2016

Capitalism is more a form of labor organization than an economic system, and like with the current roster the alternatives in the same category you propose make no sense. I could maybe kind of see Mercantilism and Managed (I really like the term Central Planning though) as something apart from Capitalism, but what is Globalized supposed to be and how is it not capitalistic?

Maybe it would be better to just go back to a 5x5 matrix to avoid contradictions and redundancies and have every civic be truly unique, including the default ones.

Leoreth · Aug 17, 2016

Okay, first of all thanks for this proposal. I like the out of the box thinking here and a lot of this will definitely go into my own plans and considerations. I also like the focus on what kinds of civics should be in the game first, and their effects second. We did the tech discussion in a similar way and I think that worked great.

I'll start with the high level stuff:
- I think an extra section only for religion (separate from civics) overcomplicates things, so there needs to be a civics column relating to religion if only to control for the presence of a state religion
- I'm not sure what exactly you have in mind with civics becoming outdated: I think in the current system at least the starting civics are designed to be replaced by the others (because they generally represent modes of society that were only present in very early/"primitive" cultures), and there's also the stability pressure on some of them later in the game
- Conversely, civics evolving with tech in my opinion is more appropriately represented by techs unlocking new civics
- I'm not sure what values as separate from civics would add to the game. In general as with religion I am skeptical about adding another system like this (since choices need to carry effects which requires possible effects and adds overall more positive multipliers), but if you want you can elaborate on what you have in mind

In general I think all of your categories are good categories to have, and I like the selection of civics for each category individually. However, I'm not sure if some things are not spread too thin. For instance, what is the conceptual difference between a civ with theocratic leadership and divine authority, and what does it mean if only one of them is present? This affects both the fluff behind the civics and its potential effects. So maybe there is some merging necessary/possible between the categories.

In light of Imp. Knoedel's comment though, I don't think we should obsess too much over definitions of words in a different context. The civic system in general benefits from context sensitive and broader interpretations.

As for effect design decisions, the current pop rushing mechanic has to come with early civic and one where you are encouraged abandoning it in the late game, simply because it is such an integral part to how the early game plays.

Likewise, military happiness is so useful that it should go to a civic that comes comparatively early, but isn't available from the start, and is plausible for the entire duration of the game.

Ani Taneen · Aug 17, 2016

Leoreth said:
Okay, first of all thanks for this proposal. I like the out of the box thinking here and a lot of this will definitely go into my own plans and considerations. I also like the focus on what kinds of civics should be in the game first, and their effects second. We did the tech discussion in a similar way and I think that worked great.

Thanks

Leoreth said:
I'll start with the high level stuff:
- I think an extra section only for religion (separate from civics) overcomplicates things, so there needs to be a civics column relating to religion if only to control for the presence of a state religion

Fair enough, I personally argue that if the primary need for the Religion Civic is to control for the presence (as opposed to the utility), then as a space saving measure, a reworking of the religion screen may be beneficial. Furthermore, it would allow the creation of a foundation upon which more choices regarding religious benefits may come.

Leoreth said:
- I'm not sure what exactly you have in mind with civics becoming outdated: I think in the current system at least the starting civics are designed to be replaced by the others (because they generally represent modes of society that were only present in very early/"primitive" cultures), and there's also the stability pressure on some of them later in the game
- Conversely, civics evolving with tech in my opinion is more appropriately represented by techs unlocking new civics

I appologize, let me rephrase. The goal is to address the desire for civics to have trade offs and be serious choices for the player (rather than logical evolutions). I'd argue Negative stability should be granted from specific techs. This forces a player to choose between a civic that fits their civilization and technological development, As an example, The assembly line could be very damaging to any Manorial or organized labor. Likewise Labor Unions could add benefits to organized labor, making that civic a viable option in the later game.

Leoreth said:
- I'm not sure what values as separate from civics would add to the game. In general as with religion I am skeptical about adding another system like this (since choices need to carry effects which requires possible effects and adds overall more positive multipliers), but if you want you can elaborate on what you have in mind

To be honest, this is my weakest area of my proposal. In part because it is an artifact of an earlier design. My vision is that there is a pool of societal values, these can be unlocked as a reward for hitting an overall cultural rating. In a strange twist of player logic, revolutions and civic changes may force you to loose some unlocked values, giving you some quiet contemplation before you change civics other than simply your stability.

Leoreth said:
In general I think all of your categories are good categories to have, and I like the selection of civics for each category individually. However, I'm not sure if some things are not spread too thin. For instance, what is the conceptual difference between a civ with theocratic leadership and divine authority, and what does it mean if only one of them is present? This affects both the fluff behind the civics and its potential effects. So maybe there is some merging necessary/possible between the categories.

I'd argue that Ancient Egypt was a Divine Monarchy while modern Iran is a Constitutional Theocracy. Again, these work in the absence of a dedicated religion column.

What I invision is that each column affects a very specific area of the game, especially the socio economic columns. In such way that all the economic columns would deal with trade routes and or resources, while the labor column deals with terrain improvements, and the structure column effects are all about specialists.

With that logic, Maybe Leadership should deal primaraly with Happiness and Administartive with expansion, spability, and recruitment.

Which leaves My vision for authority, the most outlandish proposal I have. How great would it be, if instead of a flat bonus. They each trigger an event at the begining of revolution where you choose the bonuses? You write your Edicts (Legalism, Absolutism), Your Mandates (Divine, Totalitarianism), or your Constitution.

Imperator Knoedel · Aug 17, 2016

The Islamic Republic of Iran has Republic in Government and Theocracy in Religion.

Ani Taneen · Aug 17, 2016

Imp. Knoedel said:
The Islamic Republic of Iran has Republic in Government and Theocracy in Religion.

I agree, however the political system of the Islamic Republic is based on the 1979 Constitution.

Publicola · Aug 18, 2016

Ani Taneen said:
1. Leadership
These civics represent the leader of your civilization. It would be great if we increased the likelihood of events that reflect the leadership (Death with no heir, elections with no clear winner). These events could have more short term impactful effects. Furthermore, Leadership gives a city wide bonus

Chiefdom - I'd move the happiness bonus from Monarchy to here.

Oligarchy - (Tradition) Represents the Classical Republics and City Leagues. Trade route bonuses

Monarchy - (Nobility) Bonuses to the Palace, happiness from castles

Theocracy - (Theology) Prevents foreign religion spread

Autocracy - (Psychology) May remain unchanged

Democracy - (Representation) Bonuses to cities working on Villages and Towns

I initially agreed with Leoreth that 'Theocracy' and 'Divine (Authority)' had too much overlap. However, I found it was easier to find the contrast, by looking at it through the lens of "ecclesiocracy" (direct rule by church leaders) vs. "divine right of kings." The only question is whether we need to go that granular to pick up a system of government that only fully describes Tibet and modern-day Iran, and (disputably) only has a partial match to the original Islamic Caliphates, the early Byzantine empire and the Shang dynasty of China. The vast majority of cases (even of the three listed before) would be better described as 'divine right' -- governing by assumed authority from God, with rulers taking a ceremonial role in the church (rather than church leaders taking an administrative role in the state).

We can go either way, but if we remove 'Theocracy' that frees up an extra "Leadership" slot if needed. Personally, I'd like to see an early "Direct Democracy" civic to contrast with the later civic (that I'd rename "Republic"), but I'd not sure the ancient Greek city-states and early Roman republic are sufficient reason to include a new civic to represent them.

Also, on an unrelated note: I'd prefer to replace "Oligarchy" with "Aristocracy." Oligarchy is the technically correct name, but 'aristocracy' better reflects the nature of the civic and common usage of how it was applied in history.

Ani Taneen said:
2. Management
The "Territory" column, these should change how your civilization looks.

City State - Mostly unchanged, specialists in big cities should give 1 extra culture.

Thalassocracy - (Navigation) Merged with Naval supremacy bonuses. Landlocked cities should be highly unpopular.

Vassalage - (Feudalism) Bonuses to having Vassals and castles.

Imperialism - (Exploration) Similar to the resettlement from Vanilla RFC, settlers can join cities and only be built in your core.

Unitary - (Statecraft) Similar to "representation" from Vanilla, the "small" empire civ

Federalism - (Representation) The "large" empire, among its bonuses is improvements to the administrative center.

I'd prefer to rename this category "Governance" instead of "Management." I'd also like to rename "Unitary" to "Centralization" or just "Centralized," to represent the more common usage.

My bigger critique is that those final two civics should not be exclusive to either "small" v. "large" empires -- after all, both the U.S. and Germany have a 'federal' system, just as both China and Italy are considered 'unitary.' Size shouldn't play quite as much of a role for these as it should for 'Imperialism' (which should be obviously the best for massive continent-spanning empires).

One possibility would be to give effects to both 'Federalism' and 'Centralized' that are inverses of each other, so one might help with maintenance but hurt with happiness while the other helps with happiness but hurt maintenance. Or something like that, just powerful enough where it'd be obvious to pick one, but difficulty to choose between them.

Alternately -- and I'd much prefer this instead -- move the 'Unitary'/'Centralized' civic so it appears much much earlier in the game. After all, the current list doesn't include any civic that would adequately represent the Assyrian/Babylonian/Persian empires and their innovations in administrating a land-based empire, which seems like a pretty glaring oversight. Nor can we say that centralized forms of government are a particularly modern innovation -- the real difference between a "Kingdom of France" under Louis XIV and the Sumerian Empire was not one of centralization, but of the machinery of the bureaucratic state.

...And now I'm wondering if it'd be possible to include a "Bureaucracy" civic anywhere. Perhaps make the connection to the "Legal" (Authority) civic clearer? After all, I'd argue that civic should represent all law codes, not just ancient ones like the code of Hammurabi but more recent ones like the Code of Justinian, or the Napoleonic Code, etc.; and in every case, those 'Legalism' (?)-based governments required an extensive bureaucracy and court system to function.

Ani Taneen said:
3. Authority
These civics represent the right by which you rule. Their effects are empire wide. It would be really cool if switching to them triggered an event which let you further define their bonuses.

Traditionalism - double production for cemetery and pagan temple

Legal - (Law) Represents the ancient edicts (law of Moses, code of Hammurabi, etc). Bonuses to cites in historical and contested areas.

Divine - (Priesthood) Great person and military unit bonuses (from scholasticism and fanaticism)

Absolute- (Judiciary) Bonus to the Capital. It be great if you could sacrifice pop in other cities to speed up production in your capital.

Totalitarian- (Psychology) May remain unchanged

Constitutional - (Civil Liberties) Rewards players for having a diversity of specialists? Im not fully sure how to design it.

I'd probably push 'Constitutional' to the next column of techs -- "Constitution" is the obvious fit, though I don't like the too-similar names. Perhaps rename the tech to something like "Parliamentary Law' or 'Limited Government'? Totalitarian definitely fits in the modern era, but their places on the list should be swapped to reflect that.

However, that's minor compared to my big issue with this list. Frankly, I'm not even sure if it belongs in this category or how well it'd fit, but it was such a huge historical tidal shift that its omission should be pretty glaring. For a list of civics describing the "right by which you rule," there is a noticeable lack of the modern ideology that answers that question: namely, nationalism. Nationalism supplanted 'tradition' and 'divine right' entirely, and reoriented the world to draw borders between large-scale ethnic groups rather than between land holdings of various feudal lords.

The problem for this category, is that nationalism undergirds both of the modern-day civics -- 'Constitutional' assumes the 'social contract' theory of states, while 'Totalitarian' assumes that all things are permissible if they are in the will and in the interests of the People. All the same, I'd really like to ensure there's some way to represent the impact of 'nationalism' on this civic category.

I really like the changes you made to the 'Economic' civics list, especially since it spaced out the tech pre-reqs so it wouldn't be so clumped around the modern era.

Ani Taneen said:
5. Labor
Your Civ's division of labor. These effects should be aimed mostly at tile improvement

Tribalism - Improves farms, pastures, and fishing

Slavery - (Masonry) Personally, I feel that the pop sacrifice system should go to totalitarianism or absolutism (or both). But Slaverys mistake is that slaves are only useful under slavery, You will see that change below. Slaves can be used to build mines and plantations. Extra gold from these

Manorialism - (Feudalism) replaces agrarianism, slaves can be used to build farms and pastures. Extra production from these.

Organized - (Guilds) Replaces guilds. Bonuses from workshops and mills. Slaves can only join cities

Corporate - (Consumerism) Resources give extra gold when the city has a corporation that works that resource. Slaves are useless. It be great if workers could be sped up using gold.

Socialized - (Activism) Replaces environmentalism.

However, I'd encourage you to change the "Organized" civic to something that better reflects the medieval rise of cities, and the increasing prominence of concentrated (specialist-heavy) populations over dispersed (fieldworker-heavy) villages and farms.

Personally, I'd like to call this civic "Middle Class" or even "Bourgeoisie," since this is what those terms originally meant -- a new 'class' of people who lived in towns, who filled the space between the nobility and the serfs.

For the last civic, I'd either use 'Organized' or 'Socialized' and make it enabled by the "Labor Unions" tech. It'd be up to the other 'Economic' civics -- specifically "Capitalism" vs. "Managed" -- to determine whether this is applied in a First World model of unions+social safety net, or in the Second World model of outright socialism. (For the record, I'd prefer to keep the original name of 'Central Planning,' but ymmv).

As for the 'Structure' civics, I'm not really sure what you're going with here -- was this inspired by the 'Social Values' civic category proposed above? Either way, I really like your idea of borrowing from Civ VI and keying 'social values' off of culture rather than tech, and I'd prefer to keep that set of options separate from the civics. Anyway, the 'Military' civics list is still remarkably useful and usable in its current form, so I'd prefer to keep it as is.

Ani Taneen said:
Finally, Id say that there are two game concepts Id like to challenge. The first is that civics become outdated, and that is punishing. Rather I feel that negative modifiers to stability should come from unlocking techs. Activism should make running slavery, imperialism, manorialism, caste system, etc. a terrible idea. That tech could even grant a free change of civics.

Which leads me to my second proposal, Civics should be modified by techs. We have many, many techs that would make sense if they could modify your civics, rather than have separate civics. You could have one organized labor, rather than two: guilds, and labor unions. With each tech unlocking different things.

I could not agree more. This would be an ingenious way to set up a time-limit on certain techs, to make earlier civics sufficiently powerful without ruining the game balance for later civics (because those early civics would be weakened by later tech modifiers), and to differentiate the same civic being applied in different eras (thalassocracy in ancient Greek vs. the Venetian Republic). We'd need to be careful about the particulars, but I really like this idea.

As for 'Religious' civics... yeah. On the one hand, I entirely agree that we need something to indicate whether we have a state religion or not. On the other hand, if that's the only reason we need a civic category, we should probably reconsider.

Leoreth, how possible is it to modify the 'religion' screen directly, without relying on civics? Specifically, I'm wondering if we could move some/all of the religious civics to the 'religion' screen, perhaps along with some of the 'Social Values' civic options outlined in this thread. Would it be possible to mod Civ IV to resemble the religion mechanic in Civ V, where you can 'customize' your state religion directly?

If that's unfeasible, then we may need to go to seven civic categories. I really like having three government civics, and I really like the division created by Ani Taneen (Leadership/Management/Authority), but I also agree that the current Military and Religion categories are decidedly necessary for gameplay.

Finally, in response to Leoreth earlier:

Leoreth said:
But my observation is that you run out of effects in general once you go significantly beyond 30 civics with special effects. If we can come up with new things then that isn't a problem, especially if the number of columns remains the same, because then the overall number of benefits doesn't change.

I don't really think this should be a worry. There's plenty of brainstorming material out there -- whether in other mods or in Civ V and VI -- to draw upon if we need ideas. And most of the discussion so far has been concentrated around "what types of civics do we need to stay true to history" rather than "what civic effects should we get to make the game awesome."

Once we've finalized the list of civics, put up another thread or update the original post to make it clear that that task is done, and that now you need suggestions for civic effects (with or without the tech modifiers as well). I've already seen plenty of new effects proposed throughout this thread, so I can't imagine it'd be too difficult to come up with more. I proposed various effects giving extra culture from in-game achievements or events, Ani Taneen suggested bonuses for specific resources and improvements, and that's not even to mention that his list gave limits on what civics would affect what game elements. (One possibility would be to restrict the "Leadership" civics so each of those choices only affected your capital city, for instance...). I can't speak for him, but there's plenty more where that came from.

Ani Taneen · Aug 18, 2016

Publicola said:
Leoreth, how possible is it to modify the 'religion' screen directly, without relying on civics? Specifically, I'm wondering if we could move some/all of the religious civics to the 'religion' screen, perhaps along with some of the 'Social Values' civic options outlined in this thread. Would it be possible to mod Civ IV to resemble the religion mechanic in Civ V, where you can 'customize' your state religion directly?

HR mod moved the religion civic to a new screen called tenets.

Xyth said:
Tenets

There are no religious civics in History Rewritten. Instead, there are 36 religious tenets that let you customize the effects of your state religion. Tenets can only be changed when a Great Prophet triggers a reformation, and if they share a state religion, a reformation in one civilization can inspire or impose tenet changes in others!

borhap88 · Aug 18, 2016

Ani Taneen said:
HR mod moved the religion civic to a new screen called tenets.

It seems to be cool

Publicola · Aug 19, 2016

Ani Taneen said:
HR mod moved the religion civic to a new screen called tenets.

...That's a lot of content.

As awesome as it might be, I really don't think we should add such a massively detailed system to the mod. And I really don't think Leoreth would add it.

On the other hand... I know there have been some ongoing discussions about revamping the religion system, to better differentiate between the various religions (in a way that doesn't hinge solely on what wonders they enable). Something like a trimmed-down 'Tenets' system might make a decent addition.

Specifically, if we reduce the whole thing to 1-3 'Tenet' categories (perhaps the current set of religious civics and/or mix-and-match from the History Rewritten list; a 'social values' category might also fit here), then leave the second half of the screen for selecting the religion itself.

We could probably borrow some of the 'Tenet' effects to properly differentiate the religions from each other. Each religion should have a passive property (that applies to every city that the religion spreads to) and an active property (that applies to every civ that makes it their official state religion). The question is whether these properties should be solely positive, or whether there should be a balance of positives and negatives to make life more interesting. For instance:

Buddhism:
Passive: +1 :c5happy:

Active: no anarchy for changing tenets or state religion

Or, if we're giving both positive/negative effects, Buddhism's active property might look like this instead:

Active: additional +1 :c5happy:

, no anarchy for changing tenets or state religion, -10% to :gp:

generation.

Perhaps that's too imbalanced, but the basic concept should be clear -- whether to leave each religion with small effects, or to give them bigger effects with obvious costs & benefits. Or we could do both: some religions are minor but purely positive, while others are more impactful while being a mixed blessing.

A third way to distinguish between different religions would be to give different effects to the 'Great Temples' of each religion -- in other words, a Catholic cathedral might have a very different effect than an Islamic grand mosque or a Taoist gong. One possibility would be to borrow the 'Revelation'-category effects from HR's tenet system -- "25% chance of free _______ specialist when constructing a Cathedral", etc. Or we could make our own set of Great Temple effects for each religion.

That's the idea, at any rate. A revamped religious screen, with each religion offering slightly different effects, and a set of 'tenet' categories that function as religion-specific civics.

Having them on the same screen would enable you to change religions & change tenets at the same time without having to undergo two periods of anarchy. It would also consolidate the 'religion' mechanic and distinguish it from the 'civic' system, in the same way that the current 'espionage' mechanic is not so completely bound up in the civics system. Finally, it would let us add a level of granularity to the religious system, corresponding to the new granularity in the tech tree.

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Blue Period

Simperator Knoedel

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Blue Period

Warlord

Simperator Knoedel

Warlord

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Prince

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