Civics: need modification?

[Optimizer]

Most preferably, I would like civic choices to change a player's strategy dramatically. Playing as an absolute monarch with slavery should have a completely different feeling from playing as a democratic leader with labor unions.

This can be done in a number of ways:

* War or peace. Depending on war weariness, extra happiness, military upkeep costs and unit productions, some civics are better for a warmonger than others.
* Expansion or consolidation. Certain civics allow you to build -or conquer - lots of cities, while others make it preferrable to improve the land and cities you already have.
* Development or stability. Some civics give more science, culture, production and great people than others, usually at the cost of happiness.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Most preferably, I would like civic choices to change a player's strategy dramatically. Playing as an absolute monarch with slavery should have a completely different feeling from playing as a democratic leader with labor unions.

This is definitely what I would hope for, though, I'm not sure how to obtain that end exactly.

 

[Optimizer]

As I wrote before, most of the game mechanisms in the Civ series are designed as if the player were an absolute dictator, controlling economy, science and everything.

I think that more things should happen outside control of the player, without adding too much randomness, to model actions of private enterprise, local political leaders, religious authorities and other social entities. Growth of cottages and spawning of Great People are some of them.

 

[dh_epic]

The problem is that something like blind research might be too much a handicap for "democratic" countries. Sure, it makes historical sense that your research is determined by people other than yourself. But at the end of the day, you might get very screwed in the process.

 

[CellKu]

As I wrote before, most of the game mechanisms in the Civ series are designed as if the player were an absolute dictator, controlling economy, science and everything.

I think that more things should happen outside control of the player, without adding too much randomness, to model actions of private enterprise, local political leaders, religious authorities and other social entities. Growth of cottages and spawning of Great People are some of them.

That is a very interesting idea! I saw a random events mod in the mod forum. Perhaps there could be a similar mod that is more adapted to the civics system in a way that certain civics provide for more random events. This randomness, however, should be balanced by some advantageous features to make it interesting to select civics with random events. Moreover, as I agree with Optimizer that there should not be too much randomness, it would be great if there was some room for the player to actually influence the situation in a way that increases or decreases the likelihood of certain events.
IMHO if there are too many events occurring out of the blue that will ruin the mod.

CellKu

 

[Grave]

Are there some of you who aren't exactly satisfied with the civics options --perhaps even as simple as changing a few names. I've just started to think about this, some I don't have any concrete suggestions, but for some reason many of the options don't quite seem right to me.

My main concern is that it seems you could almost keep some of the most basic Civics and still have a very successful empire. I'm thinking things need to be tweaked so that it's obvious if you stick to the "old way" you're going to start to lag behind.

EDIT: Scroll down the thread to view some of the civics ideas. Check out subsequent pages for even more ideas from other Civers.

For even more ideas, check out Arbitrary Guy's ideas in this thread.

Also, check this out!

If it's even possible... I'd like to see each leader have multipule favorite civics. Maybe two, or three...

I don't know enough about coding to make it work. I tried, but kept getting errors when loading up the mod.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I haven't read more than the OP, but in response: I really like the idea of needing (at certain point(s)) to change techs to avoid becoming obsolete as a nation. But modders remember, if the civ is already ahead in tech, and this civic brings them even farther ahead, this can be a bad thing.

 

[Optimizer]

I haven't read more than the OP, but in response: I really like the idea of needing (at certain point(s)) to change techs to avoid becoming obsolete as a nation. But modders remember, if the civ is already ahead in tech, and this civic brings them even farther ahead, this can be a bad thing.

Could be true. I try to follow the principle not to make any civic inherently better than another - they should all be good at different occasions. However, some civics would be better together with developed infrastructure (like State Property in the original rules).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

funny you should mention that, Optimizer. In the mod I am working on I have altered Slavery and Serfdom. Now the former grants greater hammers from Mines and quarries, whilst providing a small food benefit from plantations (though this might change) along with the population sacrifice. Serfdom, OTOH, provides extra food and gold from farms, plantations and pastures. My thinking behind this is you will only pick the labour civic which best suits your situation. If you have lots of farms and pastures, then you might adopt a serfdom civic (which, I might add, will make Feudalism a better governmental philosophy for you). If, however, you are blessed with metals and stone, then slavery might be more up your alley.
Hope that makes sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[korn469]

I was working on modding civics tonight when I ran into two problems with my mod. The first problem is that civ4 doesn't have a global happiness setting. Instead it has a largest city happiness setting, a state religion, and a nonstate religion happiness setting. The second problem is that it doesn't have a setting to modify build times, it only has a state religion build time modifier. So I'm deciding how exactly to press on. Though here's my proposed civic stats. For now I'm not proposing any changes to the default settings.

Government

Monarchy (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Monarchy
Cost: Low
+1 Happines per military unit
+50% Hammers in the Capital
-1 Happines in all cities

Republic (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Code of Laws
Costs: Low
+25% Construct buildings rate
+2 Happiness in largest cities
+50% to number of cities cost

Representation
Tech: Constitution
Cost: Medium
-50% to number of cities cost
+3 Science per specialist
+2 gold per military unit

Police State
Tech: Nationalism
Cost: High
+2 Happines per military unit
Can pop rush
-50% Culture

Economics

Serfdom
Tech: Feudalism
Cost: None
+50% Worker rate
+1 Food from farms
Cottages take twice as long to grow into towns

Mercantilism
Tech: Banking
Cost: Low
+1 Hammers from mines, limbermills, workshops
+1 commerce from plantations, windmills, watermills
no foreign trade routes

Free Market
Tech: Economics
Cost: Low
Can gold rush
+2 Trade routes per city
-4 Health

Socialism (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Industrialism
Cost: High
+4 Happiness in every city
+4 Health in every city
-10% commerce in every city

Ideology

Feudalism
Tech: Feudalism
Cost: None
Units build using food and shields
+1 gold from farms
-1 gold from cottages, hamlets, villages, towns

Democracy
Tech: Democracy
Cost: Medium
+100% Culture
+25% Commerce in all cities
-50% Military unit production

Communism
Tech: Communism
Cost: Medium
Unlimited specialists of any type
+50% Hammers in every city
-4 trade routes

Fascism (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Fascism
Cost: Medium
+100% Military unit production
-50% War weariness
5 Unhappiness in all cities

Governing Class

Aristocracy
Tech: Divine Right
Cost: Low
+1 Gold per specialist
+10 Free military units
+50% Number of cities cost

Bureaucracy
Tech: Civil Service
Cost: Medium
-50% City distance cost
-50% Number of cities cost
-2 Happiness in largest cities

Theocracy
Tech: Theology
Cost:Medium
No nonstate religion spread
Build missionaries with a monestary
+3 Happines in cities with state religion
-2 Happiness per non state religion

Universal Sufferage
Tech: Democracy
Cost: Low
+2 Gold from towns
+1 Hammer from towns
+100% War weariness

Civil Rights

Slavery
Tech: Bronze Working
Cost: Low
+1 Free specialist per city
Can pop rush
-50% Great people points

Pacifism
Tech: Philosophy
Cost: None
+100% Great people points
+2 Culture per specialist
-4 experience

Free Society
Tech: Liberalism
Cost: Medium
+25% Research
+100% Growth rate from cottages to towns
No state religion

Mobilization
Tech: Military Tradition
Cost: High
+3 Experience
+15 Free units
Draft 6 units per turn
-50% Construct buildings rate

 

[Colonel Kraken]

This thread just keeps getting better and better.

I hear ya, Korn. I wish Firaxis had given us more ability to develop and/or assign additional tags; or, at least, defined more tags than they were going to use for the more obvious stuff: like happiness civ-wide!

Good work. I simply haven't had the time to delve into such a time consuming project as modifying Civics.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I agree that extra tags in XML, along with an ability to 'mix-n-match' tags from various schema would help a lot. However, Python CAN let you work around things, if you are patient (which I am not just yet )
Consider doing this Korn-though I confess its a bit of a hack.

To the def BeginPlayerTurn section of the CustomEventManager, add a few lines which tell python to look what civic the player is in and-if the player is in the right civic-it automatically puts a building (or buildings) in all your cities.
Then, in XML, create a building which either adds global happiness (i.e. a National WOnder), or a standard building which adds happiness in whatever city it is built (but you may need to either disable the building somehow, or make it so ridiculously expensive that no-one would actually build it!)
Anyway, just some thoughts.
As for me, I am now almost finished the government section of my Civics mod-I will post it here when its done for some feedback.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[RED DIAMOND]

It great to see a thread like this where guys are sharing ideas on civics. I had my own mod going adding tons of civics and the AI is having a ball using them. Its great to be able to mix and match to customize your civ so much better now with increased civic options. Oh happy day!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, maybe a FEW too many zeroes, but you get the idea. I am uploading part1 of my CivicMod. So far, all I have done so far is to change all the government civics, add a new civic option-Ideology (with 3 ideologies so far completed)-and change the first two of the labour civics. Please be fair, but also be honest. If there is something about my changes you don't like, please feel free to tell me, and don't hesitate to suggest alternate changes, I am ALWAYS open to suggestions. In the meantime, however, please enjoy.

p.s. due to size constraints, I have removed ALL but those files which I have actually modded-and those I felt were in some way critical to the operation of the mod. If for some reason the mod doesn't work, I suggest that you copy all of the missing asset files from your main game into the mod folder. Hope it isn't neccessary though.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[RED DIAMOND]

OK, maybe a FEW too many zeroes, but you get the idea. I am uploading part1 of my CivicMod. So far, all I have done so far is to change all the government civics, add a new civic option-Ideology (with 3 ideologies so far completed)-and change the first two of the labour civics. Please be fair, but also be honest. If there is something about my changes you don't like, please feel free to tell me, and don't hesitate to suggest alternate changes, I am ALWAYS open to suggestions. In the meantime, however, please enjoy.

p.s. due to size constraints, I have removed ALL but those files which I have actually modded-and those I felt were in some way critical to the operation of the mod. If for some reason the mod doesn't work, I suggest that you copy all of the missing asset files from your main game into the mod folder. Hope it isn't neccessary though.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Great Work! Because I have spent the last couple of days developing my own additional civics to add to my game, I won't use the mod as is. HOWEVER, this is a GREAT mod to be distributed as an example of how to change/add civics to make each persons gameplay better.

Funny thing is, I have some of the same names for my new civics, the only difference is in the actual meat of what the new civic does. Most of the time civics boil down to personal gameplay preference. So, IMHO the more civics ideas implemented the better.

 

[RED DIAMOND]

OK, maybe a FEW too many zeroes, but you get the idea. I am uploading part1 of my CivicMod. So far, all I have done so far is to change all the government civics, add a new civic option-Ideology (with 3 ideologies so far completed)-and change the first two of the labour civics. Please be fair, but also be honest. If there is something about my changes you don't like, please feel free to tell me, and don't hesitate to suggest alternate changes, I am ALWAYS open to suggestions. In the meantime, however, please enjoy.

p.s. due to size constraints, I have removed ALL but those files which I have actually modded-and those I felt were in some way critical to the operation of the mod. If for some reason the mod doesn't work, I suggest that you copy all of the missing asset files from your main game into the mod folder. Hope it isn't neccessary though.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie, there is some VERY creative work in this MOD dude. Great job!

 

[Shqype]

I disagree with fascism:

Fascism (can't mod it in as written for now)
Tech: Fascism
Cost: Medium
+100% Military unit production
-50% War weariness
5 Unhappiness in all cities

5 Unhappiness is too much... perhaps change it down to 3 or something... keep in mind that under Fascism not many people complained (probably because they were too scared to). But keep in mind Hitler's state of Germany... the people were mesmerized by him and did everything he said. A true fascist government is able to pull such a thing off, successfully, which does not coincide well with the 5 unhappiness penalty.

 

[korn469]

Aussie Lurker

I don't have access to civ4 right now (my computer won't run civ4, but my roommate's computer does so we share his), so I looked over the xml files in your mod, but I couldn't check them against a game of civ4. I only checked the governments. Here are the listed xml values tell me if they are right.

Dictatorship
tech: writing
cost: low

Bonuses
+10 percent military production
2 free units
+10 percent hammers
-20 percent war weariness
specialists +3 gold
-5 percent city distance cost

Penalties
-1 happiness in largest cities
+5 percent city number cost
-1 health in every city
-10 percent worker speed
specialists -1 research

Oligarchy
Tech: Priesthood
Cost: Medium

Bonusues
+5 percent great people points
+5 percent military unit production
+1 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 2 units per turn
-10 percent war weariness
+1 trade route
+10 percent food in every city
specialists +1 gold
specialists +2 culture
plantations +1 commerce
villages +1 hammer

Penalties
none

Monarchy
Tech: Monarchy
Cost: low

Bonuses
+5 percent great people points
+1 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 1 unit
+1 happiness in largest cities
-10 percent war weariness
+1 trade route
+10 percent commerce in every city
specialists +3 culture
Pastures +1 food
Winery +1 commerce


Penalties
none

Republic
Tech: Constitution
Cost: Medium

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
-10 percent city distance cost
+1 health in every city
+20 percent worker speed
+10 percent military production
+2 happiness in largest cities
+2 trade routes
+10 percent hammers in every city
specialists +3 gold
can gold rush
quarries +1 hammer
towns +1 commerce

Penalties
+10 percent city number cost
+1 gold per military unit

Police State
Tech: Fascism
Costs: High

Bonuses
-10 percent city distance cost
+20 percent military production
+2 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
draft 2 units per turn
-2 percent war weariness
+5 percent food in every city
+10 percent hammers in every city
specialists +3 research
mines +1 hammer
plantation +1 food

Penalties
+10 percent city number cost
-2 health in every city
-10 percent worker speed
-2 happiness in largest cities
-1 trade route
-5 percent commerce in every city
specialists -2 culture

Parlimentary Democracy
Tech: Democracy
Cost: High

Bonuses
+10 percent great people points
-5 percent city number cost
+2 health in every city
+20 worker speed
+10 percent cottages to towns growth rate
+2 trade routes
+10 percent food in every city
specialists +3 research
can gold rush
farms +1 commerce
towns +1 food

Penalties
+5 percent city distance cost
-1 percent free military unit upkeep population percentage
+1 gold per military unit
+10 percent war weariness

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Thanks for the compliment, RED DIAMOND, it really does mean a great deal to me. The one thing I wanted to avoid was 'no-brainers', instead tying peoples choices to both temporal and geographical situations.
For instance, on the face of it, an empire with lots of farms and pastures would be best off adopting serfdom and feudalism as their labour and ideology choices-respectively....or would they? Certainly feudalism and serfdom will give greater benefit to those with these terrain improvements, but such an empire would already be fairly awash with food-so perhaps a Plutocratic Slave-based system would be best instead? Now, I have only manipulated a fraction of the entire civic system, but I hope that even this has created some interesting decisions for players-and this is even before I tackle the Python side of it (which I hope to use to ADD free specialists, particularly in the ideology side of it), and even with what I feel are the limitations highlighted by Korn-though, as I said above, this editor is FAR less restrictive than the old Civ3 one IMO.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[korn469]

I disagree with fascism:


5 Unhappiness is too much... perhaps change it down to 3 or something... keep in mind that under Fascism not many people complained (probably because they were too scared to). But keep in mind Hitler's state of Germany... the people were mesmerized by him and did everything he said. A true fascist government is able to pull such a thing off, successfully, which does not coincide well with the 5 unhappiness penalty.

Shqype

As you said, in Nazi Germany most people didn't complain because they feared the Gestapo and other branches of Hitler's secret police forces. If people could have freely expressed their dissent without any fear of retribution, I don't think that Adolf Hitler would have been quite as popular. Even if all segements of the German people except for Jews, Poles, Gypies, Homosexuals, and Communists loved the Nazi party, I think I can find the justification for some discontent. However, if you combine Fascism with Police State in my proposed values you'd have the following:

Bonuses
+100 percent military unit build rate
-50 precent war weariness
+2 happy citizens per military unit
can pop rush

Penalties
-5 unhappy citizens in all cities
-50 percent culture

Or basically with three military units in every city you'd have +1 happiness (+6 from 3 military units -5 from fascism). Along with less war weariness, pop rushing, and the ability to build military units twice as fast, and a heavy culture penalty.