Civics Improvements Suggestions

Vokarya · Oct 23, 2017

Pepo said:
I would say a system similar to what they got in the USSR and now they have in China. You can participated in government, but you need to be part of the ruling party. It isn't despotism because the leaders maybe be replace within the legal framework. In general, I would say an oligarchic civic that focus on warfare for the late game period, as currently Federation, democracy and republic focus more on the peaceful side

That's what Single Party in the Rule category is supposed to represent. Despotism pretty much covers any totalitarian government. I think with Despotism's extra unhappiness reduced from +50% to +34%, Despotism will be viable for longer. Or you could run Monarchy + Single Party.

Buried in the XML code are Fascist and Communist governments, but they were dropped. If we didn't have the Rule category, I would probably have brought one of them back.

Pongui · Nov 5, 2017

If we're still looking for an Atheist building I suggest Community Center. We use these in secular countries to fill most of the roles churches had. They're busiest on Sundays!

About reining in huge empires. Isn't Revolutions supposed to do the heavy lifting? We're assuming people play with Revolutions on... yes/no?

I'd like Green to be available (though not necessarily desirable) from the start. Then Sitting Bull's favorite civic is not a high-tech science-fiction. Rather it's the antithesis to wholesale squandering of the Earth.

Green should give no direct health benefit. In practice :health:

acts as an offset to :yuck:

, enabling players to be dirtier.

Baron03 · Nov 5, 2017

Short backstory (sorry that this is a long post)
I love RoM AND, and civics have definitely changed a lot over the years. I know I'm a little late to discuss economic civics changes, but my background is in economics (and some history) and I wanted to provide some suggestions from that perspective. Although this is a game, so playability will trump most else. And I could be completely wrong about what I'm putting forth.

For the early economics civics (currently barter, slavery, coinage, and guilds) I like that "Slavery" is moving to the society category. However, this leaves a large gap between Barter and Coinage. And I don't like the suggestion of "Tribute" being added. It's more of the name, because it doesn't make sense to be placed within the economic category. Tribute is basically the opposite of a subsidy, and might belong in the Foreign Policy category. I don't know the exact effects being planned for it, but maybe it just needs a different name. Either way, no one wants to be stuck with Barter's current penalties.

My main suggestion would be to re add Manorialism (regardless of whether the suggested Tribute is added or not). I am certain that it is a much better fit than Tribute. It would emphasize the rural economy whereas Guilds emphasizes the early urban economies. The name is a tad deceiving because we immediately think of European Feudalism and serfs farming land. There could be a better name, but I see Manorialism applying to large agriculture based economies. It does a fair job with this. Unlike feudalism (which it is tied to) Manorialism is mainly an economic system itself and lasted for many centuries in some areas. So it shouldn't just be relegated to the Feudal Social category civic. It is not just a European phenomenon either. The Shōen system of Japan and the Open Field System during most of the Zhou Dynasty also apply, for example.

Similarly, Coinage doesn't just represent using coins or money. Coinage represents commodity currencies, that is, money with value in itself rather than fiat currencies of paper today. So metal coins, knife money from the State of Yan, and so on. (I think that coinage should have a negative effect related to inflation, but I am unsure about how that would work).

I don't remember what Manorialism had in terms of effects, but here are a few ideas to go from. They would revolve around the farm more or less.

Spoiler :

Specific examples for effects:

Spoiler :

Side notes:
1. You could change the Barter civic's penalties, but that could change the balance of the game quite a bit.

2. Subsistence was once an economic civic, but Manorialism is similar to that. Pastoralism could be another early suggestion too, but I think it is too minor. I think the Feudal civic should decrease city maintenance a little, but monarchy already does this a lot.

3. Switch Mercantilism's +30% coin from domestic city connections with its -30% coin from foreign city connections, so their bonuses are switched... Coinage has the exact same bonus at 20% and Mercantilism was about exporting so I think it is more accurate to have that change.

In short, tribute doesn't make sense as an economic civic, kind of like slavery being in the economic category. In the line from barter to coinage and guilds, Manorialism fits neatly in early economics compared to tribute. It isn't unique to medieval Europe and represents larger scale farming, and more rural economies in general.

Vokarya · Nov 5, 2017

I'm not going to do Manorialism as anything other than a Medieval Era civic. I think that is what players will expect, and it's really bad to try to force them to learn that it means something different in this game. I can see where the idea is coming from, but that's too big a hurdle to clear.

Tribute is absolutely staying; it's filling the mechanical niche that Slavery is leaving behind. I think you are misinterpreting the direction the tribute is going. The Tribute civic represents large quantities of tribute being taken by you as the ruler to directly feed your personal projects. So it gets more production out of your cities at the cost of some negative effects. It's almost an early version of Planned.

I'm not as concerned as some people seem to be with historical accuracy. I want to get the theme of civics across with enough separate abilities to make them mechanically distinct without trying to explore every possible interaction. That is one of the things that I found very bothersome about the original civics. Mercantilism will be the "self-sufficiency" civic: -50% foreign trade income, but +15% commerce all cities and 1 free Specialist per city.

That said, we don't have an Economy civic that really focuses on improvements, and I think Manorialism would be a good fit there. Something like this:

+50% Worker speed.
Improvements grow 50% faster.
+25% food for cities to grow.
-10% commerce in all cities.

Baron03 · Nov 6, 2017

Oh. So it represents corvee/statute labor. Sorry for the mix up and confusion!

Pongui · Nov 7, 2017

Vokarya said:
Manorialism .... Something like this:

+50% Worker speed.

Improvements grow 50% faster.

+25% food for cities to grow.

-10% commerce in all cities.

So the civic means "I'm good at this". But doesn't that - in practice - reverse what it's supposed to do? Under Manorialism a player uses less workers, and more likely destroys farms to start other improvements.

I think civics should reward playing by the policy of the civic. They shouldn't act as a crutch for neglecting what they claim to represent.

<Nexus> · Nov 8, 2017

Pongui said:
So the civic means "I'm good at this". But doesn't that - in practice - reverse what it's supposed to do? Under Manorialism a player uses less workers, and more likely destroys farms to start other improvements.

I think civics should reward playing by the policy of the civic. They shouldn't act as a crutch for neglecting what they claim to represent.

Agree. I'd rather make it a "yes to farms - no to towns" civic.

I'd make it this simple:

+2 from Farms
-1 from Farms
(use the same rev. values as Feudal)

Manorialism is basically an anti-urbanizaton civic that focuses on producing food but not to feed the masses but to sell it.
So you build Farms instead of Cottages to generate :commerce:

but you also need more Farms to feed your population.
Involving worker speed and improvement growth just to enforce those xml tags into an Economy civic is obviously pointless.
IMO

Samson · Nov 8, 2017

Zeta Nexus said:
Agree. I'd rather make it a "yes to farms - no to towns" civic.

I'd make it this simple:

+2 from Farms

-1 from Farms

(use the same rev. values as Feudal)

Manorialism is basically an anti-urbanizaton civic that focuses on producing food but not to feed the masses but to sell it.
So you build Farms instead of Cottages to generate but you also need more Farms to feed your population.
Involving worker speed and improvement growth just to enforce those xml tags into an Economy civic is obviously pointless.
IMO

Would that not make them just cottages that do not grow, prior to crop rotation?

<Nexus> · Nov 8, 2017

Samson said:
Would that not make them just cottages that do not grow, prior to crop rotation?

Hmm...
My original idea was:

+1 from Farms
-1 from Cottage line
+25% food needed for cities to grow.
-50% from foreign connectedness (so it won't be a very good civic after the Age of Exploration when you are connected to much of the world)

Vokarya · Nov 12, 2017

What I wanted for Manorialism is a civic to prioritize improvements over anything else, but not focusing on any particular type of improvement, and more emphasis on the decentralized nature.

Instead, I'm thinking of using my Manorialism idea instead as abilities for the Feudal Society civic. Feudal doesn't do much on its own. Non-revolution effects are:

+25% city defense in all cities [overlaps with Nobility]
-1 happiness all cities [seems arbitrary]
+50% production of Walls/High Walls/Castle

If we swap all of these for the Manorialism proposal, and raise Nobility's city defense bonus from +15% to +25%, I think that will give Feudal something very workable.

Vokarya · Nov 12, 2017

I've also been thinking about the Slavery civic. For anyone new to AND, the "whip" mechanic is disabled due to the AI's crippling themselves through over-whipping. So that means we need other mechanics. Otherwise the whip would count for a lot.

As a Society civic, Slavery needs to be distinguished from Caste; both currently have increased production and happiness penalties, with a few other distinguishing mechanics. I'd be more comfortable with Caste being the +production civic early on.

Keep the unlimited Slave specialists and the chance to create a slave from combat.
- These are the signature mechanics of the Slavery civic, although the enslavement from combat will be shared with Raiders.
Replace the -1 happiness in all cities and the happy bonus for civics without Slavery with +25% unhappiness from population. Alternatively, +20% unhappiness from population and increase Slave specialist unhappiness from 0.5 to 1.
- Population-based unhappiness seems more appropriate here than a flat bonus. Even without a large slave population (represented by Slave specialists), if slavery is accepted, there will be a small slave population that will breed dissent.
- I feel that the happiness bonus for civics not running Slavery is strange, because it's only used here. It also feels like a "prop" more than a proper balancing factor.
- Also, remove the +1 unhappy from Slave Market so that unhappiness doesn't stack too high. The Slave Market generates a free Slave specialist that will provide an additional +1/2 unhappiness.
Replace the +10% hammers and +10% commerce with:
- +1 food from Farms
- +1 hammer from Mines/Shaft Mines
- +3 commerce from Plantation
- This puts an emphasis on unskilled slave labor. I want to keep the number of improvements affected low, but I could also see this affecting Woodcutter and Lumbermill. Eventually, these bonuses phase out (once Modern Mines and Dome Farms come on the scene).

<Nexus> · Nov 14, 2017

Slavery:
It's a good start but I have a few thoughts. I think we should either make one more step or one less.
My problem is that the Slave specialist is not so well integrated into the game and these changes highlight it even more.
Let's consider removing the Slave specialist from the mod. Just in theory...

Vokarya said:
Population-based unhappiness seems more appropriate here than a flat bonus. Even without a large slave population (represented by Slave specialists), if slavery is accepted, there will be a small slave population that will breed dissent.

Unhappiness should mainly come from the size of the slave population.

If there is a Slave specialist than it comes from their number. Plus the " -1 happiness in all cities" is correct to represent the constant risk of becoming a slave felt by the citizens.
If there is no Slave specialist than your above proposal (+25% unhappiness from population) is completely appropriate.

Vokarya said:
I feel that the happiness bonus for civics not running Slavery is strange, because it's only used here. It also feels like a "prop" more than a proper balancing factor.

I think it is a good mechanic. It doesn't directly punish you but a bonus for your rivals is a penalty for you. Should be kept.
Even... should be used elsewhere, like Liberal -1 for those not running it.

Vokarya said:
Also, remove the +1 unhappy from Slave Market so that unhappiness doesn't stack too high. The Slave Market generates a free Slave specialist that will provide an additional +1/2 unhappiness.

Agree.

Vokarya said:
Replace the +10% hammers and +10% commerce with:

+1 food from Farms

+1 hammer from Mines/Shaft Mines

+3 commerce from Plantation

This puts an emphasis on unskilled slave labor. I want to keep the number of improvements affected low, but I could also see this affecting Woodcutter and Lumbermill. Eventually, these bonuses phase out (once Modern Mines and Dome Farms come on the scene).

Again the Slave specialist. Where does the extra production comes from?

If there is a Slave specialist than your suggestion is counter productive since players are not encouraged to assign their population to Slaves instead to work the tiles. (This idea would work great if specialist could work tiles something like in Colonization but )
If there is no Slave specialist than the above bonuses are perfect and truly represent free, unskilled labor.

Conclusion:
Take one step more and remove the Slave specialist from the mod.
Or take one step less, (EDIT) ~~leave Slavery as it is~~ make Slavery simple and change only the Slave specialist (I suggest +1 :food:

, +1

, +4

, 1

and 1

) and remove the :hammers:

% and

% bonus.

These are my thought on the topic.

IPEX-731BA5DD06 · Nov 14, 2017

On Slavery, if you GOING to make amendments, I suggest the happiness is adjusted.

RUNNING slavery, you should receive +1 :mad:

(hey Bro, don't enslave ME!!) in your population, as well as the +1 :mad:

/Population (GET OUT OF MY SPACE) from overcrowding over size 4-6 (arbitrary nomination, due to difficulty level)

Civ's NOT running slavery, SHOULDN'T receive a bonus at all, its the 'normal' way they want to be treated. By having a slave economy, the general populace is at risk of falling foul of slavery, due to debt, crime, revolts, etc.

Free slave specialist, represents the 'freedom' of the master to luxuriate. Production/commerce etc, same of balanced against potential loss of 1

Production. (stated well before)

Relations with OTHER civs,
One running slavery and other aren't, +1 :mad:

(hey don't enslave our populace) :shifty:

both running slavery,neutral.(hey lets trade our slave commodity) Or +1

, "Lets enslave those emancipated fools" :nono:

both not, neutral. (Yeah, we've emancipated the slaves) :grouphug:

<Nexus> · Nov 16, 2017

Question:
Is there any relation between the number of Slave specialists in a city and the chance of having a Slave revolt event? Or is it only the civic?
I know that there is a bSlave tag for CIV4SpecialistInfos.xml but it's not even used - unlike in C2C. So what's that tag for?

Vokarya · Nov 16, 2017

Zeta Nexus said:
Question:
Is there any relation between the number of Slave specialists in a city and the chance of having a Slave revolt event? Or is it only the civic?
I know that there is a bSlave tag for CIV4SpecialistInfos.xml but it's not even used - unlike in C2C. So what's that tag for?

The Slave Revolt event is keyed to civics only. It does have a population requirement of 4 and a fairly high <iWeight> of 500, but for some reason it's only active in 80% of games. I don't think the XML is set up for any trigger conditions that require specialists. You could do something with Python, but there's no Python for the Slave Revolt event.

Afforess created the <bSlave> tag. It might have been put there for something that was later dropped.

Vokarya · Nov 17, 2017

What I definitely want to do with Slavery is simplify the happiness mechanics. Right now, Slavery combines (1 angry from civic) + (0.5 angry per assigned Slave specialist) + (1 angry from Slave Market) + (0.5 angry from free Slave from the Slave Market). That adds up to 2.5 angry + 0.5 per additional slave specialist. It's a lot of hidden information to consider.

Removing the flat unhappiness from the Slavery civic and the Slave Market and raising the unhappiness from Slaves to 1 per specialist gives 1 angry (free Slave from Market) + 1 per specialist. Adding +25% unhappiness from population would be, for a size 8 city, 3 angry + 1 per additional slave. I think that would be a good reason to keep city populations small. It doesn't round up, but it does stack with additional unhappiness from other civics like Despotism or Conscription.

As far as Slave specialists go, I don't think they are properly balanced. An Engineer specialist gives +2 hammers and +3 GPP for a Great Engineer. A Slave specialist gives +3 hammers, but also -1 health and a projected -1 happiness. -1 health is worth 0.5 points of yield and -1 happiness is worth closer to 1.5 yield (if it means a citizen doesn't work a tile, that citizen consumes 3 food for no benefit). So that adds up to somewhere between +1 and +2 hammers, which isn't any better than an Engineer specialist and doesn't give GPP. So raising Slaves to +4 hammers and +1 gold wouldn't be out of line, or maybe even more if you think GPP are more valuable.

I want to keep the bonus to improvements so that there can be a benefit without using slave specialists. As far as the happiness situation goes, I want to introduce it and then tune it, and it would be easier to tune without so many different moving parts.

gay_Aleks · Nov 18, 2017

Vokarya said:
An Engineer specialist gives +2 hammers and +3 GPP for a Great Engineer. A Slave specialist gives +3 hammers, but also -1 health and a projected -1 happiness

However, the thing is, Engineers come in a very limited number depending on Era, while Slave specialists can be, in theory, unlimited.

Vokarya · Nov 18, 2017

Tolni said:
However, the thing is, Engineers come in a very limited number depending on Era, while Slave specialists can be, in theory, unlimited.

True, but I don't think city sizes are so high that a lot of citizens can be spared for specialists of any type. So I think +4 :hammers:

/ +1

/ +1

for the Slave specialist should be fair against the +2 :hammers:

/+3

for the Engineer.

Vokarya · Nov 18, 2017

Also, I was doing some code-delving and I found a case of a useless bullet point. The Secular civic gives -200% to stability penalties from non-state religions, but in the Python code, the very first check for calculating stability effects from religion is if( pPlayer.isStateReligion() ) :, so if you don't have a state religion at all, then everything involving stability from religion is ignored. I could change the effect to +2000% stability penalty for non-state religions and "Non-State Religion" as a bad effect under Revolutions still doesn't show up.

Therefore, we can delete this point and nothing else will change.

Vokarya · Nov 18, 2017

Another thing that I don't particularly like is just how many bullet points certain civics have when it comes to Revolution, especially Religion civics. Religion civics currently are affecting the RevIndex in up to 5 different ways:

One-time bonuses for switching to the civic.
Direct additions/subtractions to local and national stability.
% changes to national stability using the "religious freedom" variable.
% changes to stability from state religion and non-state religions.
Changes to stability from owning the state religion holy city or having the state religion holy city owned by "heathens" (meaning rivals with a different state religion).

I think the religious civics that do allow a state religion shouldn't have anything in category #2. Even if you don't have a religion, the number of benefits from switching out of Folklore are sufficient.

There are two civics that would be really affected by removing their flat RevIndex changes.

Divine Cult is a little less prone to revolution, by taking out +1 national stability per turn and -2 local stability per turn. These should roughly cancel out.
State Church is a little more prone to revolution, by taking out +1 national stability per turn with no corresponding change to local stability. By the Medieval Era, you have more tools to deal with revolution.

It will make things a little cleaner without hurting anything.

Civics Improvements Suggestions

Deity

Deity

Baron

Deity

Baron

Deity

Traveler of the Multiverse

Deity

Traveler of the Multiverse

Deity

Deity

Traveler of the Multiverse

Deity

Traveler of the Multiverse

Deity

Deity

from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Deity

Deity

Deity

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