Exel said:
It is possible to add an entirely new civics column. See
this thread.
This is good news!
DH, your ideas are kind of like a national, social ethos. Very interesting. I do have a question: Isn't Globalization more of a national policy than a social "glue"? I imagine it could be considered both: you (society) believes their ways are the best and should be spread around the world. Instead of gaining gold from those who share your civics under Globalization, shouldn't you get happiness --as it's more of a social mentality than a national/economic policy. I don't know. I'm just playing with ideas.
The way I see it is it's not just the social glue but the expansionist glue. To kind of explain things. Forgive me, because I'm trying to find ways to articulate it as I go along. The words don't always match up entirely to what I'm thinking.
Maybe the column should be called "Expansionism":
Ancestry: A primitive notion that we basically expand by giving birth and planting settlers.
Represents the ancient age mentality, of settlers and so forth.
City States: We expand by setting up diplomatic relations between city states who share common goals and offer support to one another.
A more coordinated system than ancestry, and nearly as peaceful.
Imperialism: We expand by killing or imprisoning foreign leaders, and planting our own governors and army.
The definitive expansionist civic.
Vassalage: We expand by a series of military agreements. Rather than kicking your ***, you agree to be my b****. You pay taxes and supply military units. In exchange, you get protection under our larger army.
Less involved than imperialism, but also less dominant.
Nationalism: Nationalism is almost intrinsically anti-expansionist. I can tell we're from the same nation because we dress similar, have the same language, the same values, or maybe the same religion. This idea fractured huge empires, and formed ferocious unity among citizens.
This civic becomes more and more mandatory once it comes along.
Globalization: We don't expand officially. Our borders might not shift very much at all. We expand by spreading our way of life, our ideas around the world. Kind of like an ideological vassalage: you change your civics to ours, we form stronger diplomatic and economic ties, and we promise not to kick your ***. (For the USA, this is the Free Market. For the USSR, this is Marxism. For Osama Bin Laden, this is Islam. They don't want to conquer other nations, but merely persuade them to their way of life.)
This is the civic for a dominant superpower who can afford to focus on international change, instead of domestic concerns.
Anyway, sorry to keep bombarding you with long strings of information... but my point -- Globalization moves you away from national concerns. To some degree, you start neglecting your own people because you become wrapped up in trying to change the world. Hence,
a nation that switches away from Nationalism to Globalization should only do so because they think they're powerful enough to afford it. The way I represented this was that a Globalist loses happiness, but might make up for that if they have a dominant ideology in the world. USA and Europe can be said to be Globalists and are benefiting greatly from it with all the internal dissent it causes. Cuba cannot afford to be globalist, although at one time perhaps they were. This is the tension I want to create -- between Globalization and Nationalism.
Again, the civics stand in relation to one another. Of course, this puts realism and historical simulation first, and gameplay second. Ultimately, these would have to be balanced with gameplay in mind, otherwise the game could become really unfun. But the basis is history.
