gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Isn't that more suitable for Corporate?
Civics Improvements Suggestions
- Thread starter os79
- Start date
GreedyManul
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2013
- Messages
- 292
Correct. It got removed as it was redundant compared to Private.
I was the one who pulled Corporate because it was so close to Private.
There is very little that the XML allows us to do with civic interactions with corporations. All that is available are the "No Corporations" switch, the "No Foreign Corporations" switch, and the corporation maintenance modifiers.
I think the point of Private should be "You're not spending money on welfare, so what ARE you spending it on?" while offering SOME benefits over Survival. Thus the bonuses to Science and Culture. I also want to reduce all the Science bonuses being given out in the Welfare category. Right now, ALL of Private, Subsidized, Socialized, Superhuman, and Paradise give Science bonuses of varying percentages. I think it would be good for Private and Superhuman (genetically-engineered savants) to get the science bonuses and the other ones to not have any bonus.
The other thing that I am trying to do is cut down the sheer number of effects civics have. We are not going to be as limited as BTS. At most, BTS civics have up to 3 positive abilities and maybe one negative ability (Environmentalism, State Property). But right now, Socialized and Subsidized have 8 effects (2 negative for Subsidized, 3 negative for Socialized) and Paradise has 9 (3 negative), and that is without revolution effects/civic buildings, which I think is just too much. So I'm looking for a few places to set each civic apart from the rest and not have laundry lists of civic effects.
There is very little that the XML allows us to do with civic interactions with corporations. All that is available are the "No Corporations" switch, the "No Foreign Corporations" switch, and the corporation maintenance modifiers.
I think the point of Private should be "You're not spending money on welfare, so what ARE you spending it on?" while offering SOME benefits over Survival. Thus the bonuses to Science and Culture. I also want to reduce all the Science bonuses being given out in the Welfare category. Right now, ALL of Private, Subsidized, Socialized, Superhuman, and Paradise give Science bonuses of varying percentages. I think it would be good for Private and Superhuman (genetically-engineered savants) to get the science bonuses and the other ones to not have any bonus.
The other thing that I am trying to do is cut down the sheer number of effects civics have. We are not going to be as limited as BTS. At most, BTS civics have up to 3 positive abilities and maybe one negative ability (Environmentalism, State Property). But right now, Socialized and Subsidized have 8 effects (2 negative for Subsidized, 3 negative for Socialized) and Paradise has 9 (3 negative), and that is without revolution effects/civic buildings, which I think is just too much. So I'm looking for a few places to set each civic apart from the rest and not have laundry lists of civic effects.
That's why we have sliders. I think that private main advantage is that it offers health at a lower cost than other options. Thus the money that your are saving could go to other things
I think Welfare is more than just health, though. There should be at least one or two civics that focus on something else. Public Works and Private are the ones that should emphasize that.
The Paradise civic could use a little trimming. I said up above it has 9 effects, not counting revolution effects (one bullet point in Paradise's case) or civic buildings (one bullet point, two if switching from another civic with a civic building). I think at least two of these effects aren't very meaningful and should be removed.
- +3 health in all cities. Paradise already has the effect of No Unhealth from Buildings. This by itself is easily equivalent to a double-digit health bonus when you consider all the buildings that contribute unhealth. I don't consider this an unreasonable effect for a Transhuman Era civic. I do think the +3 health is just piling on. Once you eliminate unhealth from buildings, it makes all your other health buildings more effective, as they only have to work against unhealth from population (bigger) and unhealth from a few other sources (certain resources, flood plains, and improvements).
- -2 happiness from Fallout in city vicinity. I don't think Fallout has time to be meaningful. Either it gets cleaned up or you're getting invaded with nukes to soften up your forces. It's flavorful but it doesn't seem like this would ever really matter, so I think we can cut it.
GreedyManul
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2013
- Messages
- 292
It all sounds perfect. Go for it.
I'm probably going to turn my knives on the religious civics next. They seem to be really good at piling up modifiers. Including revolution effects, Divine Cult and State Church have 17 modifiers, Intolerant has 16, and Free Church has 13. Even Secular has 12.
Part of this is the complexity of the revolution modifiers on the religion civics. Not only are there the standard modifiers for civics (local, national, adoption modifiers) but also % change to national stability from religious freedom or oppression, changes in the stability from state religion and non-state religions, and even changes based on the ownership of the holy city of your state religion, and of course many of these get more than one bullet. This is a place where complexity addiction seems to be rearing its head and I wonder if it's possible to tone some of these numbers down.
Part of this is the complexity of the revolution modifiers on the religion civics. Not only are there the standard modifiers for civics (local, national, adoption modifiers) but also % change to national stability from religious freedom or oppression, changes in the stability from state religion and non-state religions, and even changes based on the ownership of the holy city of your state religion, and of course many of these get more than one bullet. This is a place where complexity addiction seems to be rearing its head and I wonder if it's possible to tone some of these numbers down.
I'm actually looking at Despotism now. Despotism's +50% military production is (most likely) far too powerful and unbalancing the early game in favor of military buildup.
The question I'm wondering about is how many bullet points does Despotism actually need.
Chiefdom is the first government civic. It has 2 regular points that are both negative: the +100% maintenance cost for distance and the 3-city limit (but this can be turned off). It also has 5 revolution points: local stability, national instability, increased instability from distance, democracy level (which covers revolutions asking you to change government), and the revolution increase for adopting the civic. So at most, 7 bullet points.
By comparison, Despotism has a total of 14 bullet points. 6 of them are positive: Fixed Borders, +50% unit production, +50% Barracks/Garrison production, +1 military happiness/unit, +25% espionage, and can build Monument of the Dictator. It has 3 negative points: +50% unhappiness from crowding, 1 unhappiness/10% foreign culture, and +100% food for cities to grow. Then it has roughly the same 5 revolution points as Chiefdom, except it has local instability and national stability, and less instability from distance (+25% as opposed to +60%).
I've already been convinced that we don't need the unit production bonus. The growth penalty also seems very steep for this point in the game. I can understand wanting to check city growth, but Despotism's penalty is pretty heavy and seems to come out of nowhere as soon as you try to switch.
How would Despotism look if we cut out the military production, the building production, the espionage bonus, the foreign culture unhappiness, and the growth penalty? You would have this:
The question I'm wondering about is how many bullet points does Despotism actually need.
Chiefdom is the first government civic. It has 2 regular points that are both negative: the +100% maintenance cost for distance and the 3-city limit (but this can be turned off). It also has 5 revolution points: local stability, national instability, increased instability from distance, democracy level (which covers revolutions asking you to change government), and the revolution increase for adopting the civic. So at most, 7 bullet points.
By comparison, Despotism has a total of 14 bullet points. 6 of them are positive: Fixed Borders, +50% unit production, +50% Barracks/Garrison production, +1 military happiness/unit, +25% espionage, and can build Monument of the Dictator. It has 3 negative points: +50% unhappiness from crowding, 1 unhappiness/10% foreign culture, and +100% food for cities to grow. Then it has roughly the same 5 revolution points as Chiefdom, except it has local instability and national stability, and less instability from distance (+25% as opposed to +60%).
I've already been convinced that we don't need the unit production bonus. The growth penalty also seems very steep for this point in the game. I can understand wanting to check city growth, but Despotism's penalty is pretty heavy and seems to come out of nowhere as soon as you try to switch.
How would Despotism look if we cut out the military production, the building production, the espionage bonus, the foreign culture unhappiness, and the growth penalty? You would have this:
- Fixed Borders
- +1 happiness per military unit and +50% unhappiness from overcrowding (these two traits deserve to be together)
- Can build Monument of the Dictator
- Unchanged revolution effects
Does anyone actually run Despotism after the Ancient Era? I don't start wars of conquest until at least Construction (for Catapults) and usually Smithing (for Swordsmen). By that time, Monarchy is available and is a much better government overall. So I can't see the foreign culture penalty being that applicable. Conquest is difficult and culture hasn't started in earnest yet, at least in my experience.
If people are still running Despotism in the later eras, then I can understand keeping the penalty. If not, then I think it isn't very meaningful and should be cut.
Rezca
The Greatest Jaggi
There's been times when I've run Despotism even into the mid to late Industrial, though mostly for the military production bonus and/or espionage boost.
It may be much more viable now that you can control unhappiness easier. Before your changes despotism was probably the worst government civic, as it not only make your cities unhappy but also double city growth time with the only bonus of 50% unit production and espionage. Also I have done early rushes before in the ancient era, so I don't see it as a meaningful drawback
I'm not sure if the unhappiness is easier to control if you're conquering. If you conquered a size 10 city under Despotism, you would have an additional +15 unhappiness: 10 from 100% foreign culture and 5 from increased overcrowding. You could move in 15 additional units to control that city, but then you would need even more units to deal with any other unhappiness.
This is not to say that I'm not listening. One thing that I am noticing is the difference between "evolutionary" civic changes and "decision" civic changes. When the new civic is better in every way from the old, you get an "evolutionary" change where you want to change at the first opportunity. Otherwise, you have a "decision" civic change where you can decide if the new civic fits what you want. For example, changing from the starter civics is almost always an evolutionary change. The starter civics are almost all downside (Tribal and Folklore are kind of mixed, and Junta may be too positive). On the other hand, the Foreign Policy civics are all decision. You don't have to get out of Isolationism and into Appeasement if you are sufficiently strong that you don't need the relations bonus.
So the question is at what point do civic changes generally become decision. I used to think it was after the 2nd round of civics, but now I think it's closer to after the 1st round. I can understand wanting to keep Despotism viable, but if we leave that unhappiness penalty from foreign culture on, I think it's going to backfire horribly.
I don't know. I like the idea of most of the civics being viable. Some civics will not. Some 2nd-round civics (Slavery, Prophets, Charity) wouldn't do very much for a modern civilization.
I spotted another problem with evolutionary civics, in that their effects are similar to technology bonuses but you have to go through Anarchy to activate. So you're just choosing between negatives: stay with your current bad civic, or go through the anarchy period. Choosing between positives is better.
I spotted another problem with evolutionary civics, in that their effects are similar to technology bonuses but you have to go through Anarchy to activate. So you're just choosing between negatives: stay with your current bad civic, or go through the anarchy period. Choosing between positives is better.
So if we want to continue reducing early production, should we cut Tribal's +15% production? Tribal is one of the starter civics that has mixed effects rather than being totally negative. I personally would like to reduce Tribal to just the +50% food for cities to grow, to keep it parallel to the other starter civics that have one negative effect and no positive effects, to push you out of that civic as soon as possible.
And a further simplification to Folklore. Folklore grants +50% production to Ceremonial Altar. You need Priesthood to build Ceremonial Altar, but if you have a religion, the Temple of whatever religion you have replaces the Altar. By the time you get a religion, you should also have Mysticism tech to adopt the Prophets civic (you don't HAVE to have it, as you can go Agriculture - Stargazing - Priesthood) but you definitely need Mysticism to get Mythology. So this bonus is very unlikely to apply once you get a religion.
So I think we should reduce the base cost of Ceremonial Altar to 30 (from 40) and drop the Folklore production bonus. I don't think we need the Standing Stone production bonus either. Between Fire Pit, Ceremonial Altar, Storyteller Circle, and Walls giving culture, there are enough early sources of culture that a city can build some of these to get its first border expansion without needing Standing Stone as much.
So I think we should reduce the base cost of Ceremonial Altar to 30 (from 40) and drop the Folklore production bonus. I don't think we need the Standing Stone production bonus either. Between Fire Pit, Ceremonial Altar, Storyteller Circle, and Walls giving culture, there are enough early sources of culture that a city can build some of these to get its first border expansion without needing Standing Stone as much.
Rezca
The Greatest Jaggi
I've been terribly unlucky with religions for a very long time, so those Ceremonial Altars have been getting a lot of use from me. Sometimes a religion doesn't come my way until the mid to late medieval - unless I go conquer someone who had one.
Usually I get Naghualism or Hellenism, but this current game I missed out on both of those as well, and while our neighbor did land Confucianism.... His only city that had it got captured by barbarians and there's a scary 70+ units wandering around by it so that's a no-go for some time there.
That being said, dropping the production bonus on one or both and reducing the cost on the altar sounds just fine. It's not like the Standing Stone is hard to build without that bonus either
