Civics: need modification?

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, now lets look at a governments ideology. Well, this is a bit more straightforward. Plutocracy/Capitalist is going to promote the interests of the wealthy, but often at the cost of other things. So such a government is going to probably get improved yields from merchants and economic improvements (including towns and villages), and maybe even grant 1 free merchant as a specialist (can anyone confirm that a specialist can be created this way?) The downside is that happiness and health suffer (due to lax environmental controls and poorly funded welfare and health care for ordinary people). Feudalism is based on the notion of the 'four estates' of the Nobility, Serfs, Church and Burghers. Thus I might venture that such a system might grant a bonus to unit support and XP, bonus food/hammers from farms and mines, bonus culture from Priests and bonus commerce from merchants. However science, health and happiness would take a hit and either the # of cities and/or distance from Capital city costs should be higher.
Militarist is easy-bonus to XP and unit support (and a small bonus to science) but happiness, health and culture will all take a hit. Universal should grant a fairly wide variety of bonuses (especially health, happiness and science), but maintainance costs for cities should be higher, as should war weariness-and merchant benefits should be lower (higher taxes to pay for everything). Socialist ideologies favours the lower/working classes, and should thus grant a bonus to health, happiness and yields from engineers and citizens, whilst also boosting food and hammers from relevent terrain improvements. However, like Universal, maintainance costs should all be higher, and so should unit costs, and merchants and priests also deliver fewer benefits.
Fascism promotes national culture, science and business over all things-so artists, scientists and engineers-or merchants-should all yield greater benefits-and internal trade routes should yield greater commerce. However, multi-racial and multireligion cities should have a penalty to happiness and/or health and foreign trade routes should yield less income.
Theocratic is another easy one-a bonus to the yield of Priests (and possibly even a bonus priest specialist per city), but a penalty to science and multi-religion cities.
Anyway, there are just a few thoughts on Ideology.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

Man, I never saw your civics suggestions until now, Aussie. I really like them!

One thing I noticed that I didn't expect to like, but I think is quite good... is how there IS some overlap. That Militant Religiousity is a religious value, but Theocracy is also an ideological driver. Or how Environmentalism can appear in two different columns with two different approaches to similar problems.

All in all, I think there's something to be gained from it. But because this is Colonel Kraken's baby, I leave that purely up to him

 

[kolpo]

ECONOMY
How does the economy function?

Barter: Starting Civic. The economy is based on the exchange of goods. If any currency exists, it is not official and not used often.
Command: The government determines how property will be used, collects however much tax and "treasure" it wishes, and may even determine who will do what job. Typically, the government will collect "grain" to distribute to society in times of famine or depression.
Manorial: Peasants hold land from a lord of an estate in return for fixed dues in kind, money, and services
Mercantilism: The belief that a fixed amount of wealth existed in the world and government does all it can to accumulate as much of it as possible. The premise that national wealth and power are best served by increasing exports and collecting precious metals in return.
Liassez Faire: An economic doctrine that opposes governmental regulation of or interference in commerce beyond the minimum necessary for a free-enterprise system to operate according to its own economic laws.
Regulated Capitalism: The free market operates but government has laws to prevent monopolies, harming the consumer, general trade regulation and other laws it may deem necessary to control the behaviors of companies, corporations or individuals.
State Property: A regulated free market is dominated by state owned property, major commodities and means of production.
Thanks!

This is the best civic list I have seen so far, thought I would make some small changes to the economic civic category to better reflect the difference between economic systems(like US economic system VS France economic system vs North Korea economic system)

The part after Regulated Capitalism would I change as following:

Welfare capitalism: the nation uses a mostly capitalistic economy. Properity is protected and most of the property is in private hands. Thought the nation has cheap or free health care, a social security system, public education and some labor regulations(like how many hours you may work each week). Unions are allowed and protected but they are private run. There are some laws to prevend pollution.

State Property: Every item is property of the government. There is no private property, people may not run free enterpises. Farming is done in big collectives and every single factory is in government hands. There is no care about the enviroment at all, pollution is extreme. Unions are run by the state, people may not create there own unions.

I think this would cover most modern economies. There is a GIGANTIC difference between the economic system of Sweden/France and that of North Korea/USSR. So I think that those 2 nations should certainly have a different economic civic. If you want to run a free enterprise in North Korea shall you be shot, if you want to run one in France/Sweden shall you need to follow labor/envorimental regulations but when you do can you start one.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Ok, I have been pondering this heavily, considering the myriad of ideas here and elsewhere. The main thing is to consider how specific or abstract you wish to take it. I really don't know how much to unravel civics and how many choices to make. I don't want scores of meaningless choices. I'm more of a minimalist, yet I want enough choices to make sense.

I had pondered adding an "Authority" category. How is authority vested in the government? How does it obtain its authority? For example:

Tribal: You're the leader of the tribe. Plain and simple. No one questions it.
Aristocratic: Your a member of the learned class, and you're wealthy. Some may question how you do things, but few question you should be in charge.
Dynasty: A noble family passes the inheretince of head of state down through its generations.
Martial: You're in charge because your goons say you are.
Charasmatic: You may be an incredibly popular politician or military commander and your popularity (and your own schmoozing) have propelled you into authority.
Constitutional: Written law says you are lawfully in charge of government.
Divine: The people believe it is God's will you're in authority; or, they may think you're a demi-god.


There were one or two others I had thought of, but my list is at home. The question is, is this sort of thing necessary? Does it matter? There are so many things to consider.

Should there be a category for how easy it is to change your lot in life?

Should there be a category for the type of legal system in place? (Barbarism (might makes right), Blood Feud (you may take revenge on those who have wronged you, but other limitations exist on how you may conduct yourself), Natural Law (we are endowed with certain inalienable rights . . .), Common Law (tradition and stare decisis are the law of the land), Statutory Law (law is based on legislation), Edict (what I say the law is, it is), etc.

Do these things matter? How involved should one get in extrapolating these types of things?

I was just wondering if any of you have any thoughts on the best way to handle these types of things.

 

[Memphus]

@Everyone
Thanks to Colonel Kraken, dh_epic, and Aussie_Lurker especially.
And thank you for a discussion which is non judgemental on certain forms of government/state/religion..etc in that they all have advantages and disadvantages.

Couple of thoughts for consideration after reading this whole thread (it is very interesting).

I really think by adding more choices, like a sixth column, 7-8 civics will actually help the starting trait of spiritual.

As of right now I can go a game and only change civics a handful of times because I hate anarchy...therefore consequently I am adapt to playing with a set of given civics so spiritual is useless.

With more choices and the need to change more often in a game would actually give this trait some merit.

-Other thoughts
would there be any way to implement a one time/couple time random event similar to a nuclear meltdown for the large civics. I am not versed on what could actually be implemented here but something like if you are in the globalization civic and the stock market crashes..you are SOL and better change civics..or do you ride it through and when the economy comes out of the tank you are big time rich (assuming you didn't go bankrupt as well ) I am sure there are many other events that could be attributed to 'balance' some of the civics in all categories. Conversly since as the Civ 4 Manual states golden ages is the flip of the reversed dark ages (more fun) there could be random event bonuses?

-Now this is getting much more complex but
if cetain civics were chosen you the player might lose abilities in a given turn
i.e. (hard to find an example but...) under civic X you only get to tell you city what to build every second/third time, because in between the city chooses for itself.
--because remeber we are enabling all these civics/governments...etc but really there is one person calling the shots US So by gaining some advatages we actually have to relinquish some of our control over the game is very interesting... I for one am not sure if I would want to give up such power

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Thank for commenting in this thread, Memphus!

Certainly, I wish I could have much further reaching consequences for civics choices. Indeed, I wish I could have certain civics from one category to the next mutually exclusive (not just the ones in the same column), and I would love to be able to have some civics as singularly executable (e.g. Free Speech or Emancipation). This would be wonderful. Unfortunately, such things are beyond my simple abilities!

Granted, Firaxis has allowed a lot more of the game to be modified. Unfortunately, they have made it more difficult to accomplish. I was a heavy modder in Civ3, and it was relatively easy for me to accomplish and understand. Disappointedly, even relatively minor things in Civ4 are rather involved and complicated to change.



p.s. Love your sig!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Kraken, I admit that more complex functions-especially those needing python-can be VERY daunting, but making relatively simple changes to the game using XML is quite easy (though a Civ3 style editor interface would be even nicer!) Heck, I have already added a slave and Serf specialist to the game using XML, and have also added a Slave Labour System National project. I also have a pretty good idea of how to make this project ONLY turn up when you are in the Slavery Civic. I have also created a python script (with Snaitf's help) to make the slave specialist appear whenever you are in Slavery.
To me, the extra level of 'complexity' is a small price to pay for far greater flexibility that it allows. I hope to show you what I mean in the coming months, with my Broad_Civic_System mod .

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Fachy]

We need to make it harder to switch civics and religions... 5 turns isn't enough. I've been trying to increase the 5 turns to 200 (for religion), but couldn't find its place in xml

 

[ToV]

I have a few ideas, although they are simply addditons to existing civis than ideas for new civics. Here is a list, with additions in green.

Barbarianism
Low Upkeep
+ 1 unhappiness
(In the Civopedia, it describes it as "strong taking what they want from the weak." I think this would be a cause for some unhappiness.)

Freedom of Speech
Liberalism
No Upkeep
+100% culture
+2 gold from towns
+ 50% war wariness
(This is because most of the war wariness in the modern area came from the Freedom of Speech, which showed the true horors of war. How to combat it? Supress free speech. Thi is what police states do.)

Theocracy
Theology
Medium Upkeep
Halts the spread of non-state religions
+2 exp in cities with state religion
Non-state religious buildings give no benefit

Pacifism
Philosophy
No Upkeep
Doubles Great People birth rate in your cities with state religion
+1 gold per military unit
+ (?)% war wariness
(I don't think any explination is needed for this one)

I also want to make Environmentalism better, but I'm having trouble how. I think that, since in such a society, they would recycle as much as they could, all cities could get a production bonus.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Barbarianism
Low Upkeep
+ 1 unhappiness
(In the Civopedia, it describes it as "strong taking what they want from the weak." I think this would be a cause for some unhappiness.)

Except the weak!

Thank you for your thoughts, ToV!

 

[Fachy]

Ok found the line! But it makes it impossible to switch within 5 turns of changes, and this goes for both religion and civics in the same line. hmmm

 

[Optimizer]

I am testing a Military category, which replaces the Legal one. The current options are:

Militia - default.
Warrior Class (Archery) - low upkeep, a bunch of free units, happiness from military units.
Professional Army (Civil Service) - low upkeep, +1 gold/unit, +3 experience points/unit.
Conscription (Nationalism) - medium upkeep, can draft 5 units/turn, +25% unit production.
Self Defense Force (Constitution) - no upkeep, +100% war weariness, +1 specialist/city.

 

[TBox]

My personal pet peeve with the civics are the maintenance costs. They're pretty much arbitrarily assigned, and have a very rosy view of anarchy.

Let's build a Libertarian government in Civ: The government that spends the least money keeping itself in power. The people will naturally favor: Representation (Or despotism, both are Low), Free Speech, Emancipation, State Property, and Pacifism (All FREE). IOW, people are naturally communal creatures with a tendency to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, resolve situations peacefully, and in general respect their fellow man.

Complete and utter hogwash. In the State of Nature, men are grasping, selfish, and closeminded. Life is, pardon the cliche, nasty, brutish, and short. Look at the fight over civil rights and tell me emancipation is the state of nature... we may have abolished slavery, but we're spending gobs of money to keep from sliding into a virtual Caste System. Look at the budget and projects of the ACLU and tell me Free Speech comes naturally. Look at the utter poverty of failed (and failing) socialist states and tell me we have a tendency to share our goods with others. Look at Iraq, look at Iran and Israel and tell me pacifism is an easy governmental choice.

The only thing I believe is that the people will naturally turn to a despot.

So, for anyone considering a civics mod, I have a Theory of History I want to push: The later in the tech tree a new Civic comes into play, the more expensive it is to maintain... and the more powerful its benefits are to compensate for this. As real wealth in the world increases, we have the resources to imprison our criminals instead of enslaving them, we have the leisure to argue about how things should be done instead of killing the dissenters and getting the seed planted so we don't starve come winter, we have the education to realize... hey... that other guy really isn't so different after all. The pursuit of civilization is a separation of ourselves from the state of nature.... as we can afford it.

No matter what you call them, or what they do, I would have the civics come in a strict order of cost. I'll say 7 civics per category: None, Low, Low, Medium, Medium, High, High. With the two options at each cost level representing a dichotomy of some sort. Not necessarily builder/conqueror, the most popular, but that one will definitely show up at a few branches.

Just for fun, let's take a specific example: Free Speech gives +2 commerce per town. I'd give it a High maintenance. If your civilization is large and well established, with plenty of towns, all that extra commerce can outweigh the organizational cost and create a mountain of new wealth that you just couldn't have without Free Speech. But if you're a tiny backwater living hand to mouth, the upkeep can drag your civilization into the gutter. The civics should be expensive, but they should also promise a good ROI for a sufficiently advanced civilization.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Couldn't agree more TBox. If I change anything in the Civic system, it will be the maintainance cost of Representation, State Property and Universal Sufferage. Why? Well for Rep. and Universal Sufferage, there is the high cost of all those parliamentarians, senators, congressmen etc-not to mention the cost of holding elections on a 3-4 year basis. Plus, it is my experience that representatives in democratic governments can be pretty greedy and corrupt.
State Property also requires at least a Medium Upkeep, to represent the corruption inherent in such systems which I mentioned above (though, it might be possible to reflect this by increasing the # of cities maintainance).
Anyway, be on the lookout for my civics mod, as it will have this and many other changes.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[TBox]

Couldn't agree more TBox. If I change anything in the Civic system, it will be the maintainance cost of Representation, State Property and Universal Sufferage. Why? Well for Rep. and Universal Sufferage, there is the high cost of all those parliamentarians, senators, congressmen etc-not to mention the cost of holding elections on a 3-4 year basis. Plus, it is my experience that representatives in democratic governments can be pretty greedy and corrupt.
State Property also requires at least a Medium Upkeep, to represent the corruption inherent in such systems which I mentioned above (though, it might be possible to reflect this by increasing the # of cities maintainance).
Anyway, be on the lookout for my civics mod, as it will have this and many other changes.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

That's rather a cynical view. A more optimistic view (for Representation/US) is that it's the money spent educating the citizenry so they can make an informed decision.

Although I, too, have been tempted to rephrase that "Funding the PIGs on both sides to see who's best at brainwashing."

But I think, to avoid arguments, it's best to pretend that everything is rosy. We're already skirting serious political debate just talking about this mod.

Edit: Hmm, just noticed how cyncial my *original* post sounds. Color me hypocrite, but I'm not changing anything. Let's just say I woke up slowly. Still stand behind all my statements.

 

[Optimizer]

I have also thought of extending the Civics with a Gender Role category.

Tribal family: default civic.
People in a tribal family are organized much like many other large social mammals. With some exceptions, men provide the society with food and other supplies while women do household work. If marriage exists, it has little economic and legal impact - parents have strong influence on daughters and sons as long as they live. The sexes are collectives with distinct roles but neither has power over the other. Neither gender has higher status - the celebration of differences means stability but stagnation.

Polygamy (Agriculture): +40% food, -30% production
Polygamy means "marriage to many" and mostly means "polygyny" - a custom where a man can have several wives. In most polygamic societies, women are the legal property of men, not unlike slaves. This means that only the wealthiest and most powerful men can marry.

Health and other desires of women are of no concern for the governing class, as their puropses in life are raising children and pleasuring men. The birth rate is high, but the physical and intellectual workforce is limited to the male population.

Patriarchy (Code of Laws): +20% food, -10% production
A patriarchy is a community ruled by old men, literally fathers. In Civ 4, a Patriarchy is a society where public offices, studies and business are mostly a privilege for men.

Patriarchy differs from a polygamy as women are, legally and socially, respected as individuals. Society supposes men to be protectors, breadwinners and representatives of women, and denounce any cruelty against a woman much more than had it been against a man. A woman can occasionally do a man's career - widows and daughters of late powerful men often get this opportunity - but their designated place is at home. A Patriarchy is a softer, slightly more productive, version of polygamy.

Equal Rights (Constitution): +100% Great People
In an Equal Rights society, both sexes are - in theory - entitled the same political, legal and economic rights. To some extent, women can also participate in male entertainment such as sports and drinking. Marriage is an alliance between man and woman as equals. However, the burdens of childbirth and nursing prevent many women from a professional carreer. Authorities censor sexuality to limit undesired pregnancy, and discourage same-sex relationships because their inability to reproduce.

The desire for equal rights will be obvious in populated societies where production and great people will be important for competition.

Family Planning (Medicine): medium upkeep, +100% Great People, +3 health/city, military units produced with food. Subject to UN Resolution.
Family planning is a collective term for techniques such as contraception, abortion, fetal diagnostics and in-vitro fertilization, which separate sexuality from reproduction. In a society with family planning, authorities encourage sexual education, and allow sexually explicit material to be spread. Erotics is public entertainment. There is no view of women as weaker than men, so athletes, soldiers and police officers are respected regardless of sex.

Public nursing allows parents of both sexes to work. The society also accepts same-sex relationships and divorces, allowing many different family constellations. The society becomes more productive, since it accepts the talents of all their citizens regardless of sexual identity.

Radical Feminist Bureaucracy (Communism): high upkeep, Universities and Jails give +3 happiness, no foreign trade.
A Radical Feminist Bureaucracy is a "matriarchal dictatorship" inspired from Marxism. All public authorities are controlled by academics who have corrupted the strife for equality, to place a collective guilt on the male collective and use former sexual oppression as an excuse of authoritarian rule.

The state limits free speech - especially all kinds of sexual messages - to stop alleged sexism, and abridges legal rights in the witch-hunt of "men's violence against women". Like all societies, most sentenced criminals are men, but the Bureaucracy is the only one to use this as justification. Academic gender studies are reformed into authoritarian anti-male propaganda, taught as a mandatory subject on all levels. Achievements for equality are few, since these would destroy the ideologic base of the government. Both sexes are allowed to hold office, and through affirmative action the representation is mostly equal, but many governments have "separatist committees" where only women may participate.

It is not strange that Bureaucratic governments shun the ideals of patriarchy. However, they accuse all other systems to be patriarchal, even each other. Boycotts and protest actions make international cooperation difficult.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Cool stuff, Optimizer!

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

My ultimate goal would be to break up all of the Modable atributes of Civics into "Meters" much like SMAC. So for example their would be a War Weariness meter from +4 to -4 each level giving you a different war Weariness modifier spaning a broad range. The player dosn't directly affect the meter rather they choose among bundled pachages of modifers aka "Civics". FreeMarket might give +3 Economy and -2 Happyness, all these modifiers get combined to determine the final outcome. This system was responsible for much of the deep strategy involved in SMAC (the main exploit being that it was far to easy to switch Civics which has now beed adressed with Anarchy and mininum time between revolutions). Its also a very easily balanced and tweeked system and provides excelent interaction with Wonders and building that provide modifiers as well.

When the SDK comes out this would be my first goal.

 

[CellKu]

Colonel Kranken, I am very intrigued by your threat! Many interesting ideas!

If I may, I would like to add some thoughts to your new civics ideas, especially the "Head of State" column.

1.) What is the difference between your Totalitarianism and Despostism if you have only one individual running the totalitarian government (meaning one individual as leader)? In that case, both gov forms seem to be rather similar to me.
And with regard to several individuals: what makes the group of several individuals different to Oligarchy? That actually leads me to my second point which could be considered as a follow-up on Aussie_Lurker:

2.) For your "Head of State" column you could take into account the ideas of the old Greeks. IIRC, they distinguished the government forms as follows (looking at the main categories, meaning not differentiating between for example direct democracy and democracy by representation):

Government by....."good" form......"bad" form
one.....................monarchy.........despotism
some...................aristocracy.......oligarchy
all.......................democracy........ochlocracy

That does seem to fit your first category if you change your Totalitarianism
(by several individuals) to Oligarchy and your Oligarchy to Aristocracy.

3.) Having said that, I think you should not put Aristocracy in a separate column under "Authority", but rather consider it in your "Head of State"-column. The "learned class" in your "Authority"-column seem to resemble the class of philosophers in Plato's State of philosophers. Thus, you could maybe refer to wisdom/wise people as the selection criterion in that category of "Authority".

 

[TBox]

2.) For your "Head of State" column you could take into account the ideas of the old Greeks. IIRC, they distinguished the government forms as follows (looking at the main categories, meaning not differentiating between for example direct democracy and democracy by representation):

Government by....."good" form......"bad" form
one.....................monarchy.........despotism
some...................aristocracy.......oligarchy
all.......................democracy........ochlocracy

Hmm, doomed to be political. Tangenting off of this good form/bad form idea, I can see the same applied to a lot of more modern civics.. IE, "good" free religion, which advocates a separation of church and state and a secular humanist appraisal of the virtues of various virtues, while still respecting individual religions themselves... and "bad" free religion, which is a pro-athiesm viewpoint that suppresses all religions.

Tagging into my last post about civics costs, the "good" version would have a higher civic cost, but provide the most benefits, while the "bad" version would provide some of the benefits, but have a lower civic cost.

So "good" free religion would have "high" cost, provide +1 for each religion in a city, and give +10% research in all cities. "bad" free religion, which is actually a suppression of religion, would have "medium" cost, and give only +10% research. Both would deny access to any state religion, of course.

But, alas, my agenda is showing. Time to go zip up.