Civics Improvements Suggestions

Slave labour isn't good labour. It's just cheap and there's a lot of it. There's a mismatch if slaves are nicer than engineers.

Slavery whipping was such an elegant system because it took away the long-term potential of the city with population loss and it gave hammers you otherwise can't have. Of course the computer player can't handle it, but its replacement needs to be as inspired.
 
The best solution is the one introduce in RI I believe. Apart from engineers you also get crasfman to represent the working class of the cities. Imo, the suggestion that was made to make slavery to give bonus from improvements makes much sense, as slaves for agriculture and mine were the primary use. Also slaves as rigth now I believe makes sense, but I would remove the unhappiness from occupation (the suffering of the slaves is after all used by other people so they don't have to work) and give unhappiness from population
 
Would a food penalty for Slave specialists be more appropriate? So Slave specialists could be -1 :food: / +3 :hammers: with no other bonuses or penalties. That would be broadly similar to using the whip; you get more production, but you cut down on your city growth.
Slave Market would continue to be 1 or maybe even 2 :mad: if we did that.
 
More stuff while I'm thinking about it.

Is there a better name and mechanic we can use for Proletariat? I think it sounds like just another name for Communalism. I can see a game purpose for this civic; it gets you out of Tribal's growth penalty to cities without oppressing your lower classes through Slavery or Caste, at the cost of a slightly different penalty. What we currently have is -10% production, balanced out by +1 happy/+1 healthy and the Festival. I wonder if we could use decreased unhappiness from population instead. Might Plebeian be a better name, or is that too fancy? This is a pre-Medieval civic.
 
Also, I think we need to break up Feudalism's civics. Feudalism has three civics right now: Feudal (Society), Vassalage (Military), and Imperium (Foreign Affairs), with a fourth pending: Nobility (Rule) is also slated to move there with the deletion of the Aristocracy tech.

I would like to move Imperium to Politics tech. I don't think it should take that long to get to the civic. I would also like to move the Vassalage civic to Heraldry. Heraldry is a low-trick tech and I would like to beef it up a little.
 
Would a food penalty for Slave specialists be more appropriate? So Slave specialists could be -1 :food: / +3 :hammers: with no other bonuses or penalties. That would be broadly similar to using the whip; you get more production, but you cut down on your city growth.
Slave Market would continue to be 1 or maybe even 2 :mad: if we did that.
No.
I'd rather give them +1:food: and increase the :yuck: and :c5angry: to 1.5 or 2 if needed. So 3 Slaves can feed 1 population but can you still keep your city healthy and happy?
More stuff while I'm thinking about it.

Is there a better name and mechanic we can use for Proletariat? I think it sounds like just another name for Communalism. I can see a game purpose for this civic; it gets you out of Tribal's growth penalty to cities without oppressing your lower classes through Slavery or Caste, at the cost of a slightly different penalty. What we currently have is -10% production, balanced out by +1 happy/+1 healthy and the Festival. I wonder if we could use decreased unhappiness from population instead. Might Plebeian be a better name, or is that too fancy? This is a pre-Medieval civic.
I was thinking of that too and think that Plebeian is very narrow (for my taste at least) and decided to replace Proletariat with Citizenship (Roman model) in Chronicles, though I want to mention that Slavery is in a different category (Labor).

I would like to move Imperium to Politics tech. I don't think it should take that long to get to the civic. I would also like to move the Vassalage civic to Heraldry. Heraldry is a low-trick tech and I would like to beef it up a little.
On the other hand I think "Can have Vassals" could appear much before the Medieval era. Babylon and Rome had vassal kings/states for example.
I understand that it would make necessary to change the name/concept of Vassalage tech too. Is that feasible?
 
No.
I'd rather give them +1:food: and increase the :yuck: and :c5angry: to 1.5 or 2 if needed. So 3 Slaves can feed 1 population but can you still keep your city healthy and happy?

Slave farmers will generate more food with +1 food from Farms. Slave specialists represent slave laborers.

I'm beginning to really like this idea because it cuts down on the number of stacking unhappiness sources. I think +25% unhappiness from population and +1 unhappy from Slave Market will be enough to be a serious happiness hit in the early game.
 
On the other hand I think "Can have Vassals" could appear much before the Medieval era. Babylon and Rome had vassal kings/states for example.
I understand that it would make necessary to change the name/concept of Vassalage tech too. Is that feasible?

I don't want Vassal States to appear too early. I think there is a difference between petty vassals that are too small to appear on the map and bringing another major empire to heel.

That said, I think that entire last column of the Classical Era could be knocked out and rebuilt. Music is pretty nebulous and the only reason I haven't done anything to it is to prevent Theology from being an easy route into the Medieval Era; Sanitation is something that seems to have been lost and rediscovered at many points, it's hard to find a mandatory exit point for it, and I think the early Sewer System may contribute to too much extra health early on; Smithing is a place-filler between Mechanics and Machinery, although it isn't a bad one; and then we have Vassalage as another murky concept. I wouldn't want to remove the column completely. Otherwise the Classical Era is shorter than the Ancient.
 
Just realized that the last point I raised is a paradox for design. That elegance to Slavery is exactly what makes it easy for a dumb A.I. to cripple itself. So that whole machine has to go. :(

Maybe slaves can give more hammers than engineers. Hammers are some kind of abstraction over multiple economic factors; it's not beyond reason. You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize your hands are just tied by mechanics. All you -could- do is give hammers or money on either a specialist or on tiles.... Quick question, who are the slaves meant to be when running Caste vs. not running Caste?

I am compelled by everything you said about Vassalage/Heraldry, but Imperium in Politics sounds wrong. With the same reasoning as the other, merely getting a science and technique of public life isn't the same as starting to think imperially.
 
More stuff while I'm thinking about it.

Is there a better name and mechanic we can use for Proletariat? I think it sounds like just another name for Communalism. I can see a game purpose for this civic; it gets you out of Tribal's growth penalty to cities without oppressing your lower classes through Slavery or Caste, at the cost of a slightly different penalty. What we currently have is -10% production, balanced out by +1 happy/+1 healthy and the Festival. I wonder if we could use decreased unhappiness from population instead. Might Plebeian be a better name, or is that too fancy? This is a pre-Medieval civic.

Proletariat is unusual, but it describes lower classes well. I can think of Laborers or Peasantry (maybe "Free Peasantry" to denote better treatment of lower classes compared to caste and slavery) might be alternatives but peasantry is fairly medieval. Laborers is more of a catch all.

You could use Agrarian? Agrarian is specific to a farmer's occupation, but it fits in well with an early "Agrarian Society" mold. Any of that help? Plebeian is fairly concise to Roman society, but it does the job like Proletariat.

Edit: I also like the idea of adding worker improvement bonuses to the Feudal civic.
 
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Is there anything we want to add in the Welfare civic category? The only thing I really want to do here is cut down on the proliferation of +science bonuses; starting at Private, every single Welfare civic gives a science bonus. I want to cut this down. I don't think we really need any new welfare civics, but I will listen to ideas.

I am fairly close to having a complete list of what I need to do before I roll out a new update. This is not to say that I have done all of it yet. I am still looking for icons for several things. Since I am adding some new civics and some new civic buildings, I need icons for all of them. I don't want graphics files outside of the FPK's, and I don't want to have to keep updating the FPK's, so before I do an update with the new stuff, I want to make sure that I have all of it covered.
 
Since I am adding some new civics and some new civic buildings, I need icons for all of them.
If you give me a list of what icons you need I'd be more than happy to help and create icons. Maybe you will like some of them, if not I won't be offended either. Just wanna help :c5happy:
 
At the moment, I need to find icons for the Tribute civic and the Mercenary Camp civic building.

I'm also looking through the big sci-fi buttons pack for an appropriate icon for the Digital civic. I might be able to find one for Cyberwarfare tech and swap the current icon over to the Digital civic. That pack has a lot of good buttons but I wish they were named rather than numbered. I finally figured out how to browse through them rather than opening them individually using Browse for Images in DXTBmp.
 
So here's what I've got...

Tribute ideas:
tribute1.jpg
tribute2.jpg
tribute3.jpg

I like the 2nd the most.

Digital:
digital.jpg


Here's what I use for a Mercenary Camp:
mercenary_camp.jpg

and here's an other idea:
mercenary_camp2.jpg


And an idea for Cyberwarfare:
cyberwar.jpg


Let me know what you think :c5happy:

DDS files attached in archive.

I finally figured out how to browse through them rather than opening them individually using Browse for Images in DXTBmp.
There is a plugin I'm using. Makes things much easier.
I think this is it:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/dds_thumbnail_viewer.html
 

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The second image for Mercenary Camp is the better one. I agree with you on Tribute.
 
I like the second Tribute one too. The first Mercenary Camp icon looks too artificial. The second one looks okay but is kind of dark. I might try a cropped photo of Valley Forge huts.

The keyboard icons aren't serious enough for my taste. I think the alternate Internet icon from Mars Now will work for Digital.
 
I made a wish list of some civic mechanics that I would like to see to make certain civics stand out more, but I don't think would be too difficult to implement. I could be wrong. This is not a high-priority project.

+X% gold from Pillaging: This is for the in-the-works Raiders civic. The civic itself represents a military based more on part-time raiding than organized soldiers for pitched warfare. It currently will use the enslave mechanic, but I would also like for it to produce more gold from pillaging.

+X% unit production by domain:
This is for the in-the-works Naval Supremacy military civic. One of its effects is to increase the production of all naval units. I can currently do this by increasing the production of each unit combat class (Wooden Ships, Steam Ships, etc.), but this requires five bullet points. If civics had production by domain, it would need only one. Buildings can produce by domain, such as Drydock boosting naval unit production. I would like this ability on civics. Likewise, production by combat class would be nice to have on buildings. For example, Stables could have +50% production for Mounted units, while Knight's Stable gives +50% production for Mounted units and +2 XP. This would put Mounted units on the same XP curve as other units of their era.

+X relations with civilizations with same State Religion: This is for State Church. State Church represents belonging to a powerful, multinational religion with political pull of its own. I think it would be very appropriate for this civic to boost relations with other civilizations with the same state religion. Divine Cult is too limited to a single nation, Intolerant may go after those it feels are "heretics", and Reformation is out of the political business.

Religions have no effect: This is for Personality Cult and Atheist. It would be the equivalent of Corporations have no effect on the Planned civic. All religions would simply not function while the civic was in place. This would take the place of the No state religion and No non-state religion spread on these civics. It would also negate Atheist's unhappiness penalty, but I think there are other ways we can rebalance the civic if necessary.

+X% building production: This is for Public Works. The problem here is actually a game text issue, not a civic XML issue. Buildings that say +X% building production are actually combining a general hammer production bonus with an equal negative unit production penalty. This works for any negative unit production penalty; the production that can be used for anything is shown as a +%, and the production that can't be used for units is shown as production for buildings only. I would like civics to do the same thing.

+X% project production: I was originally aiming this for Cosmopolitan, but I think it would be a better fit for Technocracy. I think Technocracy would encourage big projects like the Internet and space programs. We cannot do production for just projects.
 
What is the original image for the second tribute button? The frame used for the icon has a line on the interior left side (5th pixel from the left edge) that I find to be jarring in-game, so I'd like to use a different frame if possible.
 
What is the original image for the second tribute button? The frame used for the icon has a line on the interior left side (5th pixel from the left edge) that I find to be jarring in-game, so I'd like to use a different frame if possible.
Is it okay now?
tribute2.jpg

The first Mercenary Camp icon looks too artificial. The second one looks okay but is kind of dark.
How about this?
mercenary_camp3.jpg

The keyboard icons aren't serious enough for my taste. I think the alternate Internet icon from Mars Now will work for Digital.
I don't remember that. Anyway, I have one more idea :c5happy:
How about this bicoin?
digital money.jpg


And an other idea for Cyberwarfare. I know it's dark but I think it fits.
Cyberwarfare.jpg


Use any if you like. :hatsoff:
And please let me know if I can help any more :bounce:
 

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The line is still there -- the problem line is on the inside of the frame. I think I need the image unframed, and then I can put the regular frame on it.

I don't remember that. Anyway, I have one more idea :c5happy:
How about this bicoin?
View attachment 482628

If the B could be replaced by something more generic, like a dollar sign or a cent sign, it would be perfect. As it is, I'd rather have something broader.

I'm thinking of using this for Cyberwarfare, and then the current CW icon for Digital.

padlock.png
 
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