I don’t see how syncretism relates to the concept of a free/reformed “state” church.
Civics Improvements Suggestions
- Thread starter os79
- Start date
This is actually later than that. You've suggested Syncretism before. That idea has more merit as a mid-Classical civic, not a Renaissance one. Otherwise you're pretty much going right to Secular. But a lower-intensity religious civic, not as exclusive as Divine Cult or State Church, just might work. I'd really prefer a less-"textbooky" name, though.
More thoughts.
I think we can make MAD a trifle less one-dimensional. Instead of +100% Missile unit production, I think it should get +50% Missile and +50% Bomber production.
I'd like to flatten Personality Cult. Instead of having a bunch of buildings with +2 happiness each, I think we can flatten the civic out and give a flat +6 happiness. It might seem a bit powerful with Shwedagon Paya but Free Church gives +5 happiness (+1 innate, +2 from Temple, +2 from civic) so +6 doesn't seem too bad. If necessary, we can split the happiness bonus among the civic itself and a civic building; I'm thinking Propaganda Office. Propaganda Net is free to all civics; it's meant to be built if you need extreme anti-war-weariness measures.
Other civic building ideas:
Bureaucracy: Replace the current Civil Servants' School with Prefecture (alternate names are a possibility, but I can't find a good one). Instead of -15% maintenance, it gives 1 free Magistrate. Magistrate provides espionage which isn't as valuable as some other commerce types and you might not want to build it if you are trying to specialize a city for a Great Person type.
Atheist: I like the idea of the Temple of Reason. Something like +2 happiness to offset the -1 happiness/religion, +2 culture, +5 science. Communism tech would be a good place for it. The historical example of Revolutionary France doesn't really match up here.
And a civic building for a civic that I haven't yet developed: For the Corporations Rule civic, the Corpzone building. It represents an autonomous corporate area and allows you to train Corporate Security units. These units are very good city defenders but not good at much else. I think they would be cheap hammer-wise but have a +1 gold/turn maintenance, so you rush them until you can afford to replace them with something better.
I think we can make MAD a trifle less one-dimensional. Instead of +100% Missile unit production, I think it should get +50% Missile and +50% Bomber production.
I'd like to flatten Personality Cult. Instead of having a bunch of buildings with +2 happiness each, I think we can flatten the civic out and give a flat +6 happiness. It might seem a bit powerful with Shwedagon Paya but Free Church gives +5 happiness (+1 innate, +2 from Temple, +2 from civic) so +6 doesn't seem too bad. If necessary, we can split the happiness bonus among the civic itself and a civic building; I'm thinking Propaganda Office. Propaganda Net is free to all civics; it's meant to be built if you need extreme anti-war-weariness measures.
Other civic building ideas:
Bureaucracy: Replace the current Civil Servants' School with Prefecture (alternate names are a possibility, but I can't find a good one). Instead of -15% maintenance, it gives 1 free Magistrate. Magistrate provides espionage which isn't as valuable as some other commerce types and you might not want to build it if you are trying to specialize a city for a Great Person type.
Atheist: I like the idea of the Temple of Reason. Something like +2 happiness to offset the -1 happiness/religion, +2 culture, +5 science. Communism tech would be a good place for it. The historical example of Revolutionary France doesn't really match up here.
And a civic building for a civic that I haven't yet developed: For the Corporations Rule civic, the Corpzone building. It represents an autonomous corporate area and allows you to train Corporate Security units. These units are very good city defenders but not good at much else. I think they would be cheap hammer-wise but have a +1 gold/turn maintenance, so you rush them until you can afford to replace them with something better.
<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
Yeah, yeah, it was only a quick idea. A very quick one. I don't even like it so much. I just would like to see a civic name that is not related to Christendom, something more universal. I agree that Free Church is misleading and should be renamed.
I see it the other way. You control the government, not the religion. So it is the the time when the government want to get rid of the shackles of the church (especially the Pope in Europe). I agree that it is around the same time when reformation has happened, but these are two different things I'd like to see as separate.
Maybe Enlightenment could work?
Spoiler Enlightenment :
<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
Err... Why do we need a new civic building for Bureaucracy? Not that it's a bad idea I just don't see the point, sorry
Temple of Reason?
No, thanks. Too steampunk.
Good idea. But wouldn't it be easier to just give it a defense bonus instead of a new unit? Maybe free city defense promotion too?
I'm not against it, just my quick thought.
<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
I think PO could work for PC and Atheist too. Promoting the leader or the state, it doesn't matter.
PPQ_Purple
Purple Cube (retired)
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2008
- Messages
- 5,764
I'd frankly much rather have the maintenance bonus than a specialist. You can get specialists in other ways easily enough anyway. And magistrates give you points toward the most useless of great people so they are like double useless. Where as the maintenance decrease actually does something useful.
This said, I do not know what you want from the civic to begin with. So far it seems to be aimed toward smaller empires simply because it's an alternative to senate which is good for large empires. But I don't really see a direction for it as it is.
Also, I very much think that Bureaucracy should retain lore elements in the building names and such that make it immediately reference Chinese bureaucracy.
Fozman
Warlord
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2017
- Messages
- 133
I think that's the point of the proposed change. Per the discussion a few pages back, I was running Bureaucracy with a huge empire (along with the AI). In part, I think this was possible because of the civic building negating most of the maintenance penalty from the civic.
<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
Than why not increase the maintenance instead? CSS should only soften the maintenance but not eliminate it.
PPQ_Purple
Purple Cube (retired)
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2008
- Messages
- 5,764
That is very odd indeed because I don't really see how that could happen as it directly counters my experiences. I mean, we literally had this discussion.
This said, I think we should reconsider what the civic is for in its entirety anyway. I mean, it's very strange that Bureaucracy is a civic you can NOT use to recreate medieval China when that's literally their thing.
Err... Why do we need a new civic building for Bureaucracy? Not that it's a bad idea I just don't see the point, sorry
Mostly because Civil Servants' School is one of those names I consider too clunky to be good. We're changing buildings, not really adding one. I can leave the art assets intact. Also, I kind of agree that the primary cost to Bureaucracy is its maintenance load and therefore the civic building should do other things than reduce it. Plus Civil Servants' School feels like it should be a national wonder and not an ordinary building.
Temple of Reason?
No, thanks. Too steampunk.
As I said, I was working off of Revolutionary France's Cult of Reason, which was explicitly atheistic. The civic deserves a civic building and this at least has a historical example to work from. The only other one I've ever seen is "Church of the State", which is lacking.
If you define a new unit, then there is so much more you can do with it. "Can only defend" and +gold per turn can only be done with a unit definition, not promotions. What I'm trying for is a very one-note unit. So, compared to other units, its strength would be pretty low but have a high city defense bonus built in. Then promoting it doesn't do as much.
I think Bureaucracy's niche is productivity and stability. Since Bureaucracy is available from the early Medieval onwards, its primary competitors are Nobility and Senate, with Warlords and Theocracy a bit behind. Nobility is the "wide empire" civic; it cuts maintenance for distance to palace and gives city defense which should let you defend cities with smaller garrisons. Senate is the "tall empire" civic; it boosts capital commerce and pushes you towards Republic by boosting Agora. Warlords is a pure-war civic, and Theocracy is kind of grey. The effects I have planned for it are +building production and then +XP from its civic building.
Bureaucracy is unique for where it is in that it is the only Rule civic that increases worker speed (Public Works and Hive do this in other categories). It also has straight +production, which doesn't appear again until Single Party.
Bureaucracy is unique for where it is in that it is the only Rule civic that increases worker speed (Public Works and Hive do this in other categories). It also has straight +production, which doesn't appear again until Single Party.
Is there room for one more military civic? I had an idea. There isn't a military civic that focuses on the navy rather than the army. So this is the one I thought of.
Naval Supremacy (I thought about calling it Rule the Waves, but this sounds more dignified)
Naval Supremacy (I thought about calling it Rule the Waves, but this sounds more dignified)
- Tech requirement: Naval Tactics.
- +50% production of all sea unit classes. It has to be specified by the class rather than the domain.
- +25% foreign connected commerce. An unusual ability for a military civic, but I think it fits.
- -25% distant unit supply. Not as high as Fealty, but still shows your command of the sea lanes.
- Civic building: Admiralty. National Wonder: provides a free Naval Academy in every city.
I'm really coming around to the idea of using the name Reformation for the current Free Church civic. It is tied to European history, but I think it can be used in a more general sense. You command your state religion to get out of the government and pay attention to your people.
<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
Okay, now I get it.
As someone already stated it seems too weak (for me it would be always the last building to build on the list).
How about this?
- -15% maintenance
- a free Magistrate/ 1 Magistrate slot
- requires 3 Courthouses
I know it is from French revolution and I know it didn't work for them either
French atheism was too short lived, too under supported and too non-influential to be a good example here.
When speaking of State Atheism, we need to turn to the Communist Soviet era:
Agitprop or Ideological Department
- National Wonder
- +1
from Engineer and Scientist
Getting to C2C to my taste.
I don't think that adding a new civic choice to an existing category adds that much complexity IF the civic is concise enough. This is only a 3-pointer. A new civic category would add much more complexity and would not be a good idea. Plus, it allows the military category to dip a little into non-military areas.
If I was trying to imitate C2C, this would be WAY more complicated. I'm still grateful that I left that mod.
If I was trying to imitate C2C, this would be WAY more complicated. I'm still grateful that I left that mod.
<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
I didn't say it adds complexity. I love complexity. Complexity that is meaningful.
Making individual civics short and easy to understand is a good thing I strongly support. But it won't solve all problems.
That's simply false.
For example spacing the same 10 civic choices in 2 categories is much better than placing them in just one. Why? Because players (humans and AI alike) will always pick the few (2 or 3) best choices of each category. So in a 10 civics group 7 or 8 are just wasted. Maybe 2 or 3 are good for a short period of time as evolutionary choices but never to be revisited. Having two 5 civics groups you will still see the 2 or 3 evolutionary civics that are okay only in the early game but the rest are the ones that stay viable for the whole game.
The other thing is human decision making: when one has to look at a list to choose the best option, than a long list is frightening and confusing. One cannot compare all the elements of the list, only a few and will...
...choose one that shows the most positives (because he focuses on the positiveness of his choice, no matter if an other option offers a single better element)
...choose one of the shortest - least confusing (because his mind focuses on simplicity)
...choose one that already worked, one that he is used to.
Personal decision making varies from person to person of course but the principle is the same: it's easier to choose from a small list than a long one.
And I'm sure we want to encourage players (human and AI alike) to use all the civic options at some part of the game - especially in that part to which it was designed, be it an era or empire size.
Having 5 to 8 civics in a single category is the ideal. Having more than 10 is problematic, more than 15 is bad.
Overcrowding a category means that one wants to put in it every single thing that ever happened noting the slightest differences (like Parlament/Senate, Warlords/Junta) or putting there content that doesn't really match there. That's what I meant when referring to C2C.
I have two problems with Naval Supremacy:
1) I can't imagine any circumstance to use it. If I want a good navy I will choose the civic that offers the most Xp - even if it produces ships slower (on the long run it's better to have fewer but strong ships than many that are easily sunk). In peace time I always chose Pacifism - Naval Supremacy just cant beat it.
2) What does the Military category stand for?
- Is it the way you recruit your army? (A caste of warriors? Vassal knight? Payed soldiers? Fighting drones and robots?)
- Is it the way you focus your military expanses? (Mobilization drains resources from civic industry? Focus on ship building? Or on espionage?)
Finally: Naval Supremacy is well designed for it's role. It's tricks are right and legitimate. It's just not needed in my point of view or at least the Military category has no room for it. Best solution would be (IMO) to split the category into Army and Military Doctrine and place the civics accordingly (I know you won't), than there would be enough place for it.
Fozman
Warlord
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2017
- Messages
- 133
With ZN on this. Think about how often you change civics in a game. For me, it is typically less than 10. Usually about 5 or 6. Maybe a few more if I'm using a Spiritual leader.
The more civics in a category, the more situational they become. While it is nice to have options, ZNs points make total sense. I tend to use what is familiar and predictable. I only use about 2-5 civics in any given line in any given game I play. I look at the crowded civic categories and wonder why anyone would ever use some of them.
I see what ZN has going on in Chronicles and wish the main mod's civics worked more like that. I think it is a better system. Easier to balance. Civic choices are more meaningful. The idea about two separate military categories should be considered.
I'm not doing another military category.
I think of the civic choices as a shifting window. I agree you don't change civics very often, and when you do, you tend to look at the most recent civics. So not only the starter civics get left behind, but also some of the other early ones once you get deep enough into the game, like Prophets and Charity.
There are civics I've never used: Intolerant and MAD are big ones. But I see the need for them, so I'm not cutting them.
I think of the civic choices as a shifting window. I agree you don't change civics very often, and when you do, you tend to look at the most recent civics. So not only the starter civics get left behind, but also some of the other early ones once you get deep enough into the game, like Prophets and Charity.
There are civics I've never used: Intolerant and MAD are big ones. But I see the need for them, so I'm not cutting them.
PPQ_Purple
Purple Cube (retired)
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2008
- Messages
- 5,764
The shifting window thing is how civics work in general in CIV. Personally I'd like it much more if things weren't that way and all civics were reasonable for most of the game. But like, even if you wanted it that way I am not sure it would be achievable.
