Civics Improvements Suggestions

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Nope, actually not.
[emoji38] In the worst case I'll have to make my own little addition to the mod, I really like the idea..

Actually I've answered

 

[youmakemefart]

Actually I've answered

you did, you said -50% is too much of a cultural penalty, but didn't comment on the principal idea.

Ok, before we go in circles here: All I wanted to state is that there is no civic or government form at the moment that represents 20th century industrialised total war efforts; where an industrial society gears EVERYTHING toward war. This was completely different from any form of societies adapting to war before (in more or less agrarian states) This form of industrial total war society occurred in Monarchies, Democracies, Planned Economies and Fascist States. This goes beyond mere conscription, a warrior elite, etc. It means that everything is rationed, civilian factories are converted to produce war material, it means that university research is shifted towards the war effort, propaganda is omnipresent etc.... Winning the war becomes the main objective of a society. It means that war is omnipresent in everything the state does, in the lives of all adults and kids. (This is of course not inherent to industrialised or modern war. There are dozends of examples of countries being at war with life going on as usual for most civilians...)


In my opinion this societal arrangement was so important to history and so universal that it deserves a civic in its own right. (Btw. it is not unique to the two world wars --> e.g. Iran in the First Gulf War, Korea during the Korean War)

My suggestion was, instead of having a "modern conscription" or "mobilisation" civic to mold Vokarya's great idea for a military civic into a "industrial total war society", "total war economy" or "total war" civic...

And for this idea, I would like your feedback and comments.

 

[<Nexus>]

Hmm... You convinced me, so I changed my mind. It was important. We need that civic
Let's see if I get the point: You want to place it not into the Military category but to Society or Econom, right?
That's a very... unique idea. I don't know what the others think about it but I could accept it as an Economy civic, though it would be strange to combine it with Pacifist for example: "We love peace so much that we are always ready for war!"

 

[oldnooob]

A wise man once said "speak softly but carry a big stick" - Theodore Roosevelt

 

[youmakemefart]

Hmm... You convinced me, so I changed my mind. It was important. We need that civic
Let's see if I get the point: You want to place it not into the Military category but to Society or Econom, right?
That's a very... unique idea. I don't know what the others think about it but I could accept it as an Economy civic, though it would be strange to combine it with Pacifist for example: "We love peace so much that we are always ready for war!"

I am glad I have convinced you

No, It should be a Military Civic - as you should be able to combine it with all other civics and because

1) it goes beyond only economic things: propaganda, conscription of men (and women), changes to the education system, elevated espionage and domestic security efforts, heightened prestige for the military, everyone having family members in the army...

2) it symbolises that the society is engaged in total war and the state's main objective now is to win war - BUT NOT HOW it is done: Decisions can still either be made by elected officials (USA in WWII), by communist leaders (USSR in WWII), fascist dictators (Germany in WWII) Monarchs (UK, Germany or Austro-Hungary in WWI), a total war economy can be run by contracting free enterprises (USA in WWII) by having a corporatist systems where companies are closely tied to governments (Germany in WWII) or via planned economy (USSR in WWII)

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Sounds good and I think I like the idea but my point still stands. I think that every civic with more than 33% of main yields (culture, gold, science, food or hammer) is unbalanced. I can make an exception with espionage because it's still underpowered to me.

 

[Afforess]

I agree with 45* about the 33% remark. I would suggest you could add to the civic +1 anger per 10% foreign nationality.

 

[Vokarya]

I don't like to go too far with the yields in any direction either. In fact, penalizing the big yields is kind of a turn-off for me. Penalizing the commerces works, as it shows where your civilization's priorities are. Which happens to play into both of the next two civics I have in mind.

 

[Vokarya]

I agree with 45* about the 33% remark. I would suggest you could add to the civic +1 anger per 10% foreign nationality.

That's a good one. I'm going to be tied up for a little while, but at some point I will sit down and code these.

 

[Vokarya]

So I think something else we are missing is civics to represent Industrial Era and later totalitarian states. Since we lost Fascist, I don't think we have many "dark" civics (at least from my perspective). We have some "light" civics and some "gray" civics (Atheist, Planned, Corporatist, MAD) but I think we could use a couple that do represent the darker side.

These ones are kind of sketched out, and I'd be interested if there are effects that you think I overlooked.

Single Party
Single Party represents various states where one party runs the government. As much as I like to use nouns without adjectives first before adding any adjective, a Party civic would probably be more like . This covers everything from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union and its satellite states.

I found in the SVN very old versions of AND and looked at the old Fascist and Communist governments and compared them to Democracy and Federal. I came up with this as a laundry list of what I think it would do. I am trying to stay away from anything having to do with military and leave that to the military civics and, believe it or not, the religion civics.

• Requires Fascism
• Category is Rule/Power/Legislative/whatever you think of it as.
• High Upkeep
• -2 local stability per turn
• +2 national stability per turn
• -50 instability on changing to this civic
• +25% production
• -20% culture
• Unlimited Spy specialists

Cult of Personality
This has been done in a couple of other mods. This is a Religion civic. I think of it as Divine Cult meets Atheist. The object is to turn the leader into a secular god; the difference between this and Divine Cult is that Cult of Personality does not use the trappings of an existing religion. Religions are simply ignored.

• Requires Propaganda
• Medium Upkeep
• +2 local stability per turn
• +2 national stability per turn
• +8% national stability (Secular gives +8%, Atheist gives +10%)
• No State Religion
• No Non-State Religion Spread
• -20% culture, +20% espionage
• +20% unit production
• -25% war weariness
• +2 happiness from Broadcast Tower/Communication Tower/Network Node, Press Agency, Advertising Agency
• +25% commerce in the Capital

I'm not sure here if I would introduce +1 unhappy per Religion. If I did, I would probably increase the happiness from buildings and/or extend the bonus to Monument and related buildings.

The stability figures for CoP are based on Secular (+1 local stab/+1 national stab/+8% national stability) and Atheist (+2 local stab/+2 national stab/+10% national stab)

Of course, neither of these civics are meant for cultural victory seekers and both are really intended for warmongers. Adopting both of them plus Mobilization would be a warmonger's delight but would cripple culture production.

 

[oldnooob]

I play as a warmonger. I would not use either one of these civic choices BECAUSE of the culture penalties. In my view you do not seem to realize that it is not enough to capture a city and forget it. No, when you capture a city you have to subdue it and expand it as soon as possible because of the way Aforess has redesigned the culture system there will be lots of open space for other civs to crowd a city right next to you almost immediately. In the industrial and later eras the culture areas between cities becomes quite large so if you do not expand your newly captured city asap you WILL find yourself with a brand new unwanted neighbor. Another reason for a warmonger to use culture is to subdue the citizens, depending on the original civ the city was captured from, Anarchy is a really large concern as the city can and will flip back to it's original owner if you do not provide a lot of culture distractions immediately.
Some people describe how they only build certain buildings in certain citys, I build all but two or three buildings in EVERY city. That's what a warmonger has to do to keep the population behind the war effort. Just look at any warmongering civ in history and you will find many cultural distractions for the general population.
The use of propaganda is the most useful and basic tool for any successful civ warmonger or pacifist. cultural buildings are reinforced by (and are a tool of) propaganda.

 

[Samson]

I play as a warmonger. I would not use either one of these civic choices BECAUSE of the culture penalties. In my view you do not seem to realize that it is not enough to capture a city and forget it. No, when you capture a city you have to subdue it and expand it as soon as possible because of the way Aforess has redesigned the culture system there will be lots of open space for other civs to crowd a city right next to you almost immediately.

I may be playing a slightly old version, but for me when I capture a city I get the culture borders that it had before I captured it. I only need culture if another existing city is putting pressure on my new city.

 

[Arakhor]

I play with City Flipping After Conquest as well, but it is off by default.

 

[youmakemefart]

So I think something else we are missing is civics to represent Industrial Era and later totalitarian states. Since we lost Fascist, I don't think we have many "dark" civics (at least from my perspective). We have some "light" civics and some "gray" civics (Atheist, Planned, Corporatist, MAD) but I think we could use a couple that do represent the darker side.

These ones are kind of sketched out, and I'd be interested if there are effects that you think I overlooked.

Single Party
Single Party represents various states where one party runs the government. As much as I like to use nouns without adjectives first before adding any adjective, a Party civic would probably be more like . This covers everything from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union and its satellite states.

I found in the SVN very old versions of AND and looked at the old Fascist and Communist governments and compared them to Democracy and Federal. I came up with this as a laundry list of what I think it would do. I am trying to stay away from anything having to do with military and leave that to the military civics and, believe it or not, the religion civics.

• Requires Fascism
• Category is Rule/Power/Legislative/whatever you think of it as.
• High Upkeep
• -2 local stability per turn
• +2 national stability per turn
• -50 instability on changing to this civic
• +25% production
• -20% culture
• Unlimited Spy specialists

Cult of Personality
This has been done in a couple of other mods. This is a Religion civic. I think of it as Divine Cult meets Atheist. The object is to turn the leader into a secular god; the difference between this and Divine Cult is that Cult of Personality does not use the trappings of an existing religion. Religions are simply ignored.

• Requires Propaganda
• Medium Upkeep
• +2 local stability per turn
• +2 national stability per turn
• +8% national stability (Secular gives +8%, Atheist gives +10%)
• No State Religion
• No Non-State Religion Spread
• -20% culture, +20% espionage
• +20% unit production
• -25% war weariness
• +2 happiness from Broadcast Tower/Communication Tower/Network Node, Press Agency, Advertising Agency
• +25% commerce in the Capital

I'm not sure here if I would introduce +1 unhappy per Religion. If I did, I would probably increase the happiness from buildings and/or extend the bonus to Monument and related buildings.

The stability figures for CoP are based on Secular (+1 local stab/+1 national stab/+8% national stability) and Atheist (+2 local stab/+2 national stab/+10% national stab)

Of course, neither of these civics are meant for cultural victory seekers and both are really intended for warmongers. Adopting both of them plus Mobilization would be a warmonger's delight but would cripple culture production.

I find both of these excellent additions - although I feel there should be some kind of (stronger) drawback.
Maybe a - 10% for Cult of Personality and a +3 Unhappiness per University for both to symbolise the fact that critical thinking in such a society will suffer and politcal dissent by intellectuals...

 

[<Nexus>]

I like the Single Party but not the Cult of Personality. Reasons:
It has nothing to do with religions. Such things were present not only in socialist / communist dictatorship. If we had a Propaganda category it would go there.
We have Divine Cult. Do we really need a specialised tool for every single purpose? I wouldn't be surprised to see this civic in C2C, but I don't think Rand needs it.
As often said: The less is more.

 

[Afforess]

So far, I am not really a fan of all the proposed new civics. They seem to be focused on how player's think a real world government should operate in Civ, and not about how playable the civic is. Civilization is not the real world, and does not emulate the real world. Adding content because it is missing, instead of because it would improve gameplay is a bad reason to add content. I know there isn't a situation where I would adopt these civics.

 

[os79]

Civics should evolve into slightly stronger civics as technologies grant them. Or a World Wonder. Evolving stronger slowly over the eras. Then all of the categories will have a continuum customized to each AI Leaderhead and you, a human, preferences.

 

[<Nexus>]

So far, I am not really a fan of all the proposed new civics. They seem to be focused on how player's think a real world government should operate in Civ, and not about how playable the civic is. Civilization is not the real world, and does not emulate the real world. Adding content because it is missing, instead of because it would improve gameplay is a bad reason to add content. I know there isn't a situation where I would adopt these civics.

I have a quite similar feeling. They are not bad, just... I never felt any of these missing. Not even if they strengthen techs.
I think Mercenaries would be a great idea, but only if it allows the civ to truly >HIRE< mercenaries and not only training units in a bit different setting. Otherwise it's not missing.
Slavery civic was also shunned by stating it is poorly designed. If you could capture enemy units as slaves to hurry food and production it would be a great difference. At least I DO miss that from a game play perspective.

However I would also like to suggest a religion civic:

Syncretism

• Available in the medieval era
• +1 per religion (Our religions have a lot in common)
• +1 in cities with state religion (What is this heresy spreading?!)
• High upkeep
• Can train missionaries without monasteries (and remove this feature from State Church and Free Church. Or if possible allow it only for missionaries of the state church)
• Some culture and gp bonus
• Some war weariness penalty
• Stability penalty without without Holy City ( but no bonus with it, giving S.C. and F.C. an advantage)

Maybe some more bonus and / penalty.
Just a quick idea.

 

[youmakemefart]

So far, I am not really a fan of all the proposed new civics. They seem to be focused on how player's think a real world government should operate in Civ, and not about how playable the civic is. Civilization is not the real world, and does not emulate the real world. Adding content because it is missing, instead of because it would improve gameplay is a bad reason to add content. I know there isn't a situation where I would adopt these civics.

I understand and respect this opinion, however I can't agree.

For me, part of the "fun" of any civ game is reenacting history and steering your civ historical scenarios. Thats why I am so against "Dinosaur Units", "Steampunk" etc. that clutter other mods. I am aware AND can't be a historical simulation but, the fact that it is a good approximation makes it appealing.

In the ideal case a game of AND should be different every time, with different civics making sense in different situations, each with drawbacks and advantages.

However, it practice this doesn't happen at the moment (at least for me). There are some civics I simply never use (Devine Cult, Warrior Caste, Patrician, Federal...) and some I always end up using (Monarchy, Pacifism, Proletariate, Liberal, Representative Democracy...) because there just has never been a situation where it would make sense to change civics - and because playing on "Eternity" setting means that Revolutions are so long anyway that you think very hard before changing them.

Not only is it boring ALWAYS ending up being a representative, liberal democracy - it is completely ahistorical as the 20th and 21th history shows us.

I really, really feel that there needs to be civics for the industrial era and beyond that cover things like: Fascism, one party dicatorships, modern authoritarianism, total war etc...

 

[youmakemefart]

I have a quite similar feeling. They are not bad, just... I never felt any of these missing. Not even if they strengthen techs.
I think Mercenaries would be a great idea, but only if it allows the civ to truly >HIRE< mercenaries and not only training units in a bit different setting. Otherwise it's not missing.
Slavery civic was also shunned by stating it is poorly designed. If you could capture enemy units as slaves to hurry food and production it would be a great difference. At least I DO miss that from a game play perspective.

However I would also like to suggest a religion civic:

Syncretism

• Available in the medieval era
• +1 per religion (Our religions have a lot in common)
• +1 in cities with state religion (What is this heresy spreading?!)
• High upkeep
• Can train missionaries without monasteries (and remove this feature from State Church and Free Church. Or if possible allow it only for missionaries of the state church)
• Some culture and gp bonus
• Some war weariness penalty
• Stability penalty without without Holy City ( but no bonus with it, giving S.C. and F.C. an advantage)

Maybe some more bonus and / penalty.
Just a quick idea.

I think I know what direction you are going in and I like it. I'm just not quite sure if you want it to have a "state religion" or not - if so, in what cases would you use the civic? if you have a "weak" state religion and other religions are numerous?