Civics Improvements Suggestions

[Fozman]

I wouldn't want to add any more negatives to Republic without swapping out one of the current maintenance penalties (probably the distance to Palace one first).

Perhaps cranking up the number of cities penalty to 300%, 400% or 500% would discourage the use of Republic with larger empires? I think that's the best tool at your disposal for forcing larger empires to use Monarchy. Why muddy the waters with another negative effect?

If you wanted to add another positive, perhaps something to do with specialists? If we're expecting "tall" cities to use this, some cities may be running a lot of specialists once they hit happy/healthy caps. However, that might be out of scope here compared to the other bonuses and better left to another civic line. Or, alternatively, continue to let the bonus apply to buildings (and buildings in the Capital).

Otherwise, since Monarchy and Republic are part of a dichotomy pair, the complexity and rating should remain close like they are now.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Defiantly increase the maintenance penalties for larger empires, but maybe do it on a sliding scale of cities V's map size.

Another method could be Land % v's Map % of land. Once you raise over the say 10% mark, your penalized on a sliding scale on ALL cities. Say 10% Maintenance across ALL cities, for each 1% rise in land, or 5% for each 0.5% rise in land. Or better yet 1% for each 0.1% rise in land. Much more gradual and not a threshold wallop.

So now, a smaller empire running republic, can expand, but it will quickly run into much higher maintenance penalties, and will be forced to eventually move to Monarchy or Democracy.

 

[Vokarya]

If we're chopping two points off Monarchy (+1 relations with Monarchs and unlimited Nobles) to bring it down to 5 complexity/5 rating, and we want to keep Monarchy/Republic similar, then we'd better cut some points off Republic too.

As far as specialists go, I haven't changed Agora yet. Agora gives 3 specialist slots (Artist, Merchant, Scientist) so that is enough to absorb a good chunk of excess population. I want to cut the military production off Agora and drop its cost. It's really expensive for a Classical Era building.

 

[Fozman]

Monarchy: Complexity 7 5, rating 7 5.
Monarchy's theme is "big empire". It has seven five separate bullet point abilities, all of them good. This is a lot of bullet points for one civic, especially an early one.

• Fixed Borders
• -50% maintenance from number of cities
• -50% maintenance from distance to Palace
• No unhappiness in capital
• Royal Monument building (nothing special, as it is)

I think these five attributes are pretty much unshakable.

So this is what Republic would wind up with:

• +250% (+300% to +500%) maintenance from number of cities
• +250% maintenance from distance to Palace
• +3 happiness in largest cities
  
• +25% production, commerce in all cities (count as +2?)
  
• Agora (pretty good building, as it is), Statue of Liberty, Supreme Court buildings (leave these off?)

Is this enough or too little? It would clock in at complexity 5 (production and commerce being on one bullet point line) but have a rating of anywhere from +2-4 +1-3 depending on how you count the civic buildings and output boost.

Think you're actually pretty close on this one (consider the items above in red).

Let's see...

• we have two points dedicated to maintenance on both
• a point dedicated to happiness on both
• a special effect on both (fixed borders vs. output boost)
• a civic building on both (although one is much stronger than the other, makes up for the negative rating points)

Unless we think Republic needs to be buffed to meet a +5 rating, this is a good start. Until we have a better idea of the big picture (we'll get there as more civics are analyzed), I think it would be unwise to reinvent the wheel.

 

[<Nexus>]

Can we get better mechanics on the President civic? It's very vague. It gives +15% production and +15% military production, balanced by -1 happiness/20% tax rate. This civic is one of the reasons I don't like the Rule category that much. Some of the others, like Bureaucracy and Virtual, I'm happy with.

This is what I use for President in Chronicles:
axed +15% military unit production, +15% hammers and -1
-20% maintenance for number of cities and distance to palace
+1 diplomatic relations
No unhappiness in capital

Parliament: Requires Liberalism tech, maybe Social Contract. Liberalism isn't that high on the trick count right now and its tricks are limited (free tech, Encyclopedia). This is the popular counterpart to Senate; Senate is more oligarchic. I could see this as boosting happiness and culture.

Parliament is almost the same as Senate. Not enough different.

Autocracy: Requires Absolutism tech. This is the "enlightened despot" of the 18th century. Not sure on the mechanics, but I've wanted to give Absolutism a civic ever since I made the tech.

Single Party is autocratic enough.

Corporations: Requires Megacorporations tech. This is a cyberpunk trope, so I'm putting in the Transhuman Era and not the Modern. It's a government controlled by corporations. Incompatible with "No Corporations" techs. Mechanics would be similar to the Corporate economy civic, but ramped-up since the corporations are in power.

Hmm... Interesting

 

[Arakhor]

Foxman, the idea is make Republic ideal for small empires, not force them into being city-states only.

 

[Vokarya]

I totally understand the need to make Parliament vs. Senate and Autocracy vs. Single Party different. I think we can find appropriate mechanics.

I want to refocus Senate so that it's more of a go-tall civic like Republic. Parliament would make a much better wide empire civic.

Likewise, Single Party has increased production and unlimited Spy slots, which Autocracy will not share. Single Party will be the one of the best rule civics for production; probably Corporations might be equal or slightly behind. I haven't worked it out yet.

 

[Fozman]

Fozman, the idea is make Republic ideal for small empires, not force them into being city-states only.

What about a max city cap like Chiefdom, then?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

The city cap is already a horrible crippling thing. I understand why it's there for, but even than it's basically a cancer. A necessary cancer but a cancer newer the less. I don't think it would be wise to let it metastasize any further than it absolutely needs to.

 

[Vokarya]

The city cap is already a horrible crippling thing. I understand why it's there for, but even than it's basically a cancer. A necessary cancer but a cancer newer the less. I don't think it would be wise to let it metastasize any further than it absolutely needs to.

Agreed to this. I would only use the city cap to hold back very early expansion. After the Ancient Era, there shouldn't be a hard limit.

 

[Fozman]

So, I made a thing today... I don't know if it will help at all, but I wanted to see if I could find a correlation in the effects to make things easier to scope. I can upload the full file if wanted, but these are screenshots of the work.

I did what I could to color code the effects into similar-ish groupings. The first two images are just the raw data and a sort into the most popular effects.

The other two images are showing the percentage of civics in the category with said effect and the distribution (by percentage) of an effect over the civic categories. I set color formatting on these two for over 30%, 50% and 70% to help target correlations.

Spoiler Raw data :

Spoiler Most popular effects :

Spoiler % of civics with effect :

Spoiler Distribution of effects over civic categories :

 

[Fozman]

Agreed to this. I would only use the city cap to hold back very early expansion. After the Ancient Era, there shouldn't be a hard limit.

Yeah, I don't like the idea of a hard limit either, which is why I suggested the maintenance increase first.

However, it seems like something should be done. In my current game (standard size/speed settings), 5 of the top 6 civs on my continent (including myself) are using Republic with 12-18 cities in the Medieval Era (considered to be a large to huge sized empire by revolutions).

 

[Vokarya]

Democracy and Federation aren't currently as complex as Republic, but I think we can possibly find better mechanics.

Democracy is complexity 5, rating +3 (counting all 3 buildings as +1). It's the midpoint between Republic's "go tall" and Federation's "go wide".
Positives in its favor:

• +25% gold in capital
• +25% culture in capital
• +20% science all cities
• +5% culture all cities
• District Office, Statue of Liberty, Supreme Court buildings

Its negatives are:

• +40% maintenance from number of cities
• +40% maintenance from distance to Palace

I'd like to replace the capital mechanic with something else. The science/culture bonus is fine, although the culture doesn't seem to be worth a whole lot. Democracy will have the only culture bonus in the government civic area. Maybe a specialist bonus would work here?

Federation is in really good shape. It's the primary late-game go wide government. I rate it as complexity 6, rating +4 (counting the 2 buildings as 1).

It has 5 positive traits.

• -25% maintenance from distance
• -25% maintenance from number of cities
• -25% overseas maintenance costs
• +15% domestic connectedness commerce
• Provincial Hall, Supreme Court buildings

Its only negative is -25% military production. I think Federation does a very good job of encouraging spreading out, with both decreased maintenance and increased connectedness commerce. Connectedness commerce cares only about number of cities and connectedness buildings, not city size.

 

[Vokarya]

While we're pruning, does anyone have thoughts on cutting the Great General bonuses from military civics? Right now, we have 5 civics using this ability.

• Mercenaries +10%
• Standing Army +25%
• Volunteer Army +25%
• MAD +30%
• Vassalage +50%

My feeling right now is that MAD doesn't need this and could trade off a negative for it, and Vassalage doesn't need to be as high as it does.

 

[<Nexus>]

I totally understand the need to make Parliament vs. Senate and Autocracy vs. Single Party different. I think we can find appropriate mechanics.

I don't feel any need for separate Senate / Parliament and Autocracy / Single Party. You say that the main difference is that one is more dictatorial, the other is more liberal, right? But that can be simply solved by coupling them with Despotism or Democracy.
I am very much against overcrowding any civic category. Rule already has 8 civics. Will be 11 if you add Junta, Theocracy and Corporate. 13 with Parliament and Autocracy. That's insanely much.
And one more thing: if there are more than 10 civics in one category there is a graphical glitch, there is not enough room to properly display more than 10 civics and the F3 screen gets a bit ugly. (It's no problem, if you can fix it)

 

[Vokarya]

There are already 12 military civics and 11 economy civics, and I don't see any graphical glitches there. I will test before I upload anything.

Rule's going to have a lot of civics. I'm fine with that. As long as the concepts have enough mechanical separation, I think it will work. If I thought things were too similar, I wouldn't have proposed them in the first place.

 

[<Nexus>]

There are already 12 military civics and 11 economy civics, and I don't see any graphical glitches there. I will test before I upload anything.

Okay, sorry. That happened in Chronicles only, where there are more categories and the horizontal slider covers some of the small icons - when there were more than 10 of them. So it's not a problem for you, only for me

 

[<Nexus>]

Anarchy or Unhappiness

Just another idea: What if not all civic changes would cause anarchy but only a temporary unhappiness penalty? Surely, in many cases (government, rule, society) anarchy is justified but in some cases (welfare, economy, foreign policy) it seems less realistic. Surely that would need a new xml tag and dll work. Just an idea. What do you think?

 

[Slarki]

I'm against the removal of unlimited noble. It is a playstyle for a specialised specialist economy when you don't have (and most likely never will) enough buildings to have one type of specialists to build certain great people. Like spies only, merchants only for extra good production or artists for a cultural victory.

 

[Vokarya]

I'm against the removal of unlimited noble. It is a playstyle for a specialised specialist economy when you don't have (and most likely never will) enough buildings to have one type of specialists to build certain great people. Like spies only, merchants only for extra good production or artists for a cultural victory.

I want to take it off Monarchy, but keep it on Nobility (Rule) and add it to Feudal (Society). Feudal has terrible mechanics right now.