[R&F] Civilization gives you lots of Government. But doesn't let you govern.

[Bitterman]

So, at the risk of wearing out my welcome, can I try to distill a few thoughts here.

- Policies. Expand legacy cards a little. You get two legacy policy cards when you build a government plaza building; the usual one from your government, and a second one determined by the government building.

- There are also other policy wild cards based around liberty, honour and tradition that you can only use if you’re in a liberty, honour or tradition group government. So, mostly all policy cards are available for all governments (subject to researching the relevant civic), but there are a few restricted cards for each group.

I would be happy just with this.

As for the changes you suggest in relation to Governments, I think it would be too much work to implement (a lot of civs have loyalty bonuses for example), but I completely agree there should be some kind of drawback if you want to change government, and this drawback should be worse the higher the tier is. I also like the unique Casus Belli and dedication.

As for governors I also believe they would be better without those cartoony characters. Maybe working similar to spies (special unit that you move to one of your cities and give you some bonuses).

I don't really care for the GP really, but I hope they expand its uses somewhat with the new expansion.

 

[eternalblue]

I don't really like the way governments are implemented right now.

In CIV V (and in the real world) there were consequences if you tried (more like were forced) to change government. It makes sense and it forces you to think and plan in advance wich one you would pick and why i.e. your a committing to a certain type of government (ideology in V) with its own advantages and restrictions that could greatly affect the gameplay. Right now you can change your government every few turns, wich is unrealistic and make the election like its worth nothing to be honest.

There is also not that much of a difference between governments, aside from two minor bonuses and the card slots. Like other have said, there should be some exclusive cards in each, specially in the Tier 3 Capitalism/Communism/Fascism. Either that or increase the amount and/or impact of the bonuses that come with it. It's also ridiculous that you can interchange policies from one to another.

At last but not least, I miss some kind of interaction between Tier 3 Governments and the Loyalty system. Something like if your neighbour has more culture/citizens than you and a different government, he has bonus pressure against your cities as long as both governments remain different, thus forcing you to choose between adopting his government or dealing with loyalty loss.

Well, I totally agree with this. It doesn't make sense to change the policies and changing them often every few turns ("this turn policies are free"), because "why not?", noticing in that way no real consequences for your empire and the creativity to build and focus on one type of government it's all gone. Yo can exploit your cards changing them if somebody have better military bonuses or whatever to be like him, too flexible for a government type applying whatever you want that buff your weakness.

CIV V can handle that in a simplistic way true via "social policies", but there are permanent consecuences and giving you more challenge to get your objective achiving it on diferent paths (example: if somebody gets the military bonus via Honor, and you are not...gues what? you don´t have good units in combat or defense bonuses, but if you have an economic policy you get more gold instead buying the units, that are not so strong but more units, if you have piety you gain combat bonuses from religion and religious buildings, and you need to focus on that, etc). In CIV VI this it doesn't matter because you can change fast your governments and re-establish your governor in the city you want every time, and you can asign in your slots whatever policy you want having all of them at your disposal and you can change them whenever you want.
So in my opinion, we have a nice civic tree implemented in CIV VI and that is a good addition, but the policies system are worst, because you can just change fast your governments and after that you can choose every policy you want from all of them whenever you want and that is just so exploitable.

 

[Scaramanga]

I like the flexibility of government. Otherwise I'd think I'm on autopilot. I see the civic policy switch as the investment of time and the payment option as a way to lubricate the gears of government, but I haven't used it yet. The ability to put in any policy I feel let's me react to emerging powers and know which square peg goes in which square hole. The pleasant/unpleasant faces of the governors make me feel that I have their personal loyalty, unlike great people and spies, who work for the highest bidder. And the titles I bestow on them mean I trust them in their abilities, rewarding me with their (literal) loyalty. I really don't need emotional investment in my form of government, I should be able to do whatever is expedient, but naturally some policies should work best with some governments.

 

[Forster]

I would like to see the governors expire, allowing you to replace one when a governor dies. This would require a governors to be developed for each age and with different benefits. It is bad enough that the civ leader lives for 6,000+ years.

 

[UWHabs]

I would like to see the governors expire, allowing you to replace one when a governor dies. This would require a governors to be developed for each age and with different benefits. It is bad enough that the civ leader lives for 6,000+ years.

You'd have to completely change how the promotions worked if you suddenly had to replace them every era in-game. Never mind now having to take time to set them up again. I think the reason they work right now is a little bit like the old social policies in V - you pick something now, and have to live with it for the rest of the game. My main flaw with them is that many of promotions are so limited that they don't really do anything. I mean, +20% towards campus buildings is nice, but I'm only going to build 1-2 campus buildings in a city once I've settled him in there, and it's not nearly strong enough for me to want to move him around and waste turns to use that promotion in other cities. At least the 30% for space projects can be a big bonus at the end game when you need it. Although I guess you can't make every promotion crazy, and the opening and double great people ones are strong enough on him anyways.

 

[Crenickator]

I would like to see Policy Cards limited by Government type.
Some cards should be outright banned for certain governments, some nerfed by half, and some buffed by double, depending on what type.

For example, a Merchant Republic would receive buffed trade cards, while being unable to use the 50% military production cards. Furthermore, they can receive in their place cards that would reduce the cost of purchasing units for gold that would be unavailable to Monarchies or Theocracies.
Theocracies would be similar, and lose the military production cards, but at the same time have cards that reduce costs or expand items that can be bought with faith.

 

[acluewithout]

Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I think some people are being a little tough on the policy card system.

Having a few "unique" wild cards that can only be used by certain governments or groups of governments, and or are like additional "legacy cards", would be good. It would deepen the legacy card system and make your government choice a little more weighty. But no more than one or two cards for each government or group, tops.

Beyond that, having lots of cards limited to certain governments, or having lots of cards with drawbacks or that work differently for different governments, would get messy very quickly. What's more, it's unnecessary, because the current system already gets at what people are driving at - that certain governments are better at running certain policies associated with those governments.

In no particular order:

- Cards are easy to compare. The current system "weights" cards by dividing them into groups: military, diplomatic etc., and by giving them different bonuses. Other than that, cards are identical: they all take up one slot and have no negatives (ignoring dark age cards). This makes it really easy (or transparent) to compare cards and decide which to use. If cards work differently for different governments, and or have unique negatives, the system becomes less transparent, because it's more complicated and so harder to weigh governments and cards against each other.

- At the moment, for example, it's easy to see that Democracy is better at running Economic Cards than say Communism, because it has more economic card slots and each economic card has the same cost (i.e. One slot). And you have a rough idea of how powerful that is, because each economic card is roughly the same power (albeit some cards have stronger affects or are more situational that others). Start making cards have a unique negative drawback or an additional cost for certain governments, and it's not so easy to compare governments and cards, which I think then undermines strategic play.

- Governments are already "good" or "bad" at running certain policies. So, people are saying there is a tension with a Communist Government running Market Economy. But the game already reflects that tension: a player with a Communist Government (unlocked at Class Struggle) has to research a very different civic to get that card (Capitalism), and that civic already has a very non-Communist eureka. And Communism has less economic and wild card slots than say Democracy, so running Market Economy is actually "harder" for a Communist Government, because running the card takes up a greater percentage of its economic or wild card slots.

- Governments do run contradictory policies. To me this is the real problem with this particular topic. Governments in the real world do run policies that don't neatly fit within or cut across the ideological "basis" of that particular Government. In the real world, Communist Governments do follow capitalist policies (see China or Vietnam). But it runs the other way too: many Deomcracies follow very "socialist" policies. And this is true for historical forms of government too: I mean, last time I checked, the democratic Athenian classical republic was not adverse to a bit of slavery, war, etc.

- Particularly given there are only 3 flavours of government per era, and 9 - 10 flavours overall, I'm not sure being too rigid about what polices each government can run is a good idea.

 

[UWHabs]

Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I think some people are being a little tough on the policy card system.

Having a few "unique" wild cards that can only be used by certain governments or groups of governments, and or are like additional "legacy cards", would be good. It would deepen the legacy card system and make your government choice a little more weighty. But no more than one or two cards for each government or group, tops.

Beyond that, having lots of cards limited to certain governments, or having lots of cards with drawbacks or that work differently for different governments, would get messy very quickly. What's more, it's unnecessary, because the current system already gets at what people are driving at - that certain governments are better at running certain policies associated with those governments.

In no particular order:

- Cards are easy to compare. The current system "weights" cards by dividing them into groups: military, diplomatic etc., and by giving them different bonuses. Other than that, cards are identical: they all take up one slot and have no negatives (ignoring dark age cards). This makes it really easy (or transparent) to compare cards and decide which to use. If cards work differently for different governments, and or have unique negatives, the system becomes less transparent, because it's more complicated and so harder to weigh governments and cards against each other.

- At the moment, for example, it's easy to see that Democracy is better at running Economic Cards than say Communism, because it has more economic card slots and each economic card has the same cost (i.e. One slot). And you have a rough idea of how powerful that is, because each economic card is roughly the same power (albeit some cards have stronger affects or are more situational that others). Start making cards have a unique negative drawback or an additional cost for certain governments, and it's not so easy to compare governments and cards, which I think then undermines strategic play.

- Governments are already "good" or "bad" at running certain policies. So, people are saying there is a tension with a Communist Government running Market Economy. But the game already reflects that tension: a player with a Communist Government (unlocked at Class Struggle) has to research a very different civic to get that card (Capitalism), and that civic already has a very non-Communist eureka. And Communism has less economic and wild card slots than say Democracy, so running Market Economy is actually "harder" for a Communist Government, because running the card takes up a greater percentage of its economic or wild card slots.

- Governments do run contradictory policies. To me this is the real problem with this particular topic. Governments in the real world do run policies that don't neatly fit within or cut across the ideological "basis" of that particular Government. In the real world, Communist Governments do follow capitalist policies (see China or Vietnam). But it runs the other way too: many Deomcracies follow very "socialist" policies. And this is true for historical forms of government too: I mean, last time I checked, the democratic Athenian classical republic was not adverse to a bit of slavery, war, etc.

- Particularly given there are only 3 flavours of government per era, and 9 - 10 flavours overall, I'm not sure being too rigid about what polices each government can run is a good idea.

Yeah, this is all true. We do also have to remember the system has to work for everyone, so having a massive system of 200 cards with lots of pluses and minuses really could confuse a lot of people. Maybe to simplify things:
-Each government should provide, say, 2 new wildcard policies that are only active for that government. Whether that's simply automatically giving the legacy card for the government, and when you build the government building it "locks it in" to be able to used later, or we get new ones, I don't really care.
-However, only wildcard or dark age policies can go into wildcard slots. You would then have to change the civs like America again - maybe they would simply get an extra diplomatic slot, or maybe they have a special ability where they can use diplomatic cards in a wildcard spot. I dunno, something like that. But that would also help care less about the fact that economy slots are way better than the other slots.
-I would also improve the great people wildcard cards. Early game having a straight +2 is fine, but especially between Pingala being able to double the points in a city, it's useless to run the cards late. I mean, when I'm rocking 50GPP per turn, what use is running a card to give me +4 to that? Or if I'm not up to that level, the great people still cost a ton of GPP, so even running the card will take forever.

That way, it even further encourages the differences. I would probably then also change Communism in the late game to remove an economy slot and maybe a military one and give them more wildcard slots - basically, they shouldn't be as good at military as Fascism, not as good at the economy as Democracy, but have more wildcard slots as a sort of holistic view of the empire. Maybe do other changes too like give Democracy a 4th economy card instead of their 2nd wildcard, take away one of Merchant Republic's cards for an extra economy one (so that each tier of government has one choice with 1/2 their cards as economy cards), etc... And most importantly, overall this means that even if the economy cards are way over-balanced than the others, it means you have a legit choice whether to take the government with extra slots. Like, if I know that I can only ever run 1 military card, it makes me think really hard about Democracy, because often times I do actually want to run a 2nd card. Or suddenly I may not want to run Communism because I know I'm then limited to 2 economy cards, and not the 4-5 like I can run if I used it right now.

 

[Sostratus]

-However, only wildcard or dark age policies can go into wildcard slots.

In isolation, I like this idea; The biggest issue with the governments right now is that more wildcards = more economy slots (+ legacy cards) = better. Economy cards are just the best cards. That's okay- there's nothing wrong with that inherently, but the 'trade offs' they made in the slot allocations just don't hold up well given what we know now. The prime example: the game really likes a military vs other stuff dichotomy with its choices; but military cards have little marginal value. To me this is because of the power of the agoge line (+50% melee, anticav,ranged production) and professional military (-50% upgrade costs.) An economy slot can give you more of any yield; a diplo slot can give you more influence, better alliance, better spies, or governor perks; military cards, until very late, really focus on either producing and upgrading military units or defensive cards in the mid game. But most of the time, you can just slot agoge line cards to build units, or professional military to upgrade. You don't really even need both at once. Agoge applies to melee and ranged units, too- the complete army starter pack. Thus, monarchy is crippled because there's almost no reason to want that 3rd military slot over what you for it. You could make do with a 2M+1W if you had a pressing need for 3 military cards.
This issue, imo, is best, is best addressed by splitting the agoge line into two card lines: agoge retains melee/anticav, and some new line comes in that features ranged & siege class units (late game, rope in the support units production card too.) This accomplishes two things:

1. You cannot get production bonuses for a combined arms force with just one card
2. The very expensive Siege units have a card to boost them

Then, there's suddenly a lot more value to having more than one slot for peaceful players, making classical and merchant republic feel like they are sacrificing, while giving a little extra power to players who might actually use multiple military slot governments (siege boost.)

The second biggest issue is that the tier 2 governments don't unlock at the same time; most games I never even research the civics for monarchy and theocracy. That would be an easy and phenomenal fix.

Maybe do other changes too like give Democracy a 4th economy card instead of their 2nd wildcard,

I don't like the idea of democracy as the economy government. Because the economy government will be better than the others by the virtue of economic cards being so outstanding. I actually think that for balance, all tier 1 and 2 governments should have 1 wildcard slot, and the tier 3 governments should all have 2. (possibly 3 for fascism because, guys, they need it.)
We could have something like this:
Dem 1-3-2-2
Fasc 3-1-1-3 or 3-2-1-2
Com 2-3-1-2
The split between communism and democracy is thus between military vs diplomacy and their inherent abilities (boy do I have opinions there.) Fascism is for war but it leaves you with enough flexibility to do other things. Remember; we want players to have a real choice! Not just "Always democracy" (although post spring patch they've started to make strides.)

Like the other governments, I feel the tier 3 ideologies should have specialities more defined by their major and minor bonuses and legacy cards (especially if we expand on those!) than just how many econ cards they can slot at once.

Off topic pet peeve: since we can slot a legacy card giving us the government major bonus while being in the government, it makes those bonuses incredibly hard to balance (this is bad) and further advantages governments with more wildcard slots. I don't think that should be a thing, or the legacy cards should give different bonuses.

Edit: I accidentally posted with whatever the key for it is before I finished writing.

 

[Bitterman]

That way, it even further encourages the differences. I would probably then also change Communism in the late game to remove an economy slot and maybe a military one and give them more wildcard slots - basically, they shouldn't be as good at military as Fascism, not as good at the economy as Democracy, but have more wildcard slots as a sort of holistic view of the empire. Maybe do other changes too like give Democracy a 4th economy card instead of their 2nd wildcard, take away one of Merchant Republic's cards for an extra economy one (so that each tier of government has one choice with 1/2 their cards as economy cards), etc... And most importantly, overall this means that even if the economy cards are way over-balanced than the others, it means you have a legit choice whether to take the government with extra slots. Like, if I know that I can only ever run 1 military card, it makes me think really hard about Democracy, because often times I do actually want to run a 2nd card. Or suddenly I may not want to run Communism because I know I'm then limited to 2 economy cards, and not the 4-5 like I can run if I used it right now.

Yeah Communism should be the most versatile of all three, providing they could whitstand both times of war and economic development. Although I don't know if more wildslots would work, since those are basically "What you Want Whenever you Want" slots and may be a little bit unbalanced in comparison with the others.

But if one would want to make Democracy more economic-oriented, we can't just leave yellow cards as OP as they are right now. In this regard I see fou possible solutions:
-Nerf all late-game yellow cards so Democracy don't be a go-go choice.
-Buff all late-game red cards so the rest can keep with Democracy (more science and production oriented cards).
-Make Democracy Diplomacy/green card oriented instead of the OP economic/yellow card oriented.
-Tweak a little bit their base production bonuses, and make them less powerful (maybe X% production towards districts instead of flat production per district) or diplomacy focused.

 

[acluewithout]

I'd be sad if you had to slot wild cards: there's a good dynamic at the moment where, although wild cards slots can take any card, there are cards which can only be used in wild card slots.

I also really like how Communism and Democracy have the same number of economic slots from a role playing perspective, but perhaps that hinges on how you view "Communism in Civ".

Other than that, there's some really good stuff in the posts above. Yes, we need more Military Cards - and more useful ones - to make the military slot better; yes, +% production and +%discount upgrade cards need a re-work; yes, the great people point cards need a boost.

 

[Scaramanga]

The way I would choose tier 3 government is:

Fascism: diplomatic relations are bad and I lack resources and land
Communism: diplomatic relations are bad but I do not lack resources and land
Democracy: diplomatic relations are good and I do not lack resources and land

Communism lacks wildcards because they have a dismal view of past government legacy, especially monarchy and capitalism, and the need to control great peoples' activity themselves. Military/economic are the most pervasive policies in the game anyway right up from Chiefdom.

 

[seankhan]

Goverments follow mandates given by the people.so giving the ai control over how your empire is shaped would be a disaster,they could however add some universal alliance settings,like topple a regime,or trade restrictions,the things we see in the news everyday.i think your talking about dictatorship,but i could be wrong.

 

[AlannaT]

The way I would choose tier 3 government is:

Fascism: diplomatic relations are bad and I lack resources and land
Communism: diplomatic relations are bad but I do not lack resources and land
Democracy: diplomatic relations are good and I do not lack resources and land

What do you choose if diplomatic relations are good but you lack resources and land?

 

[Scaramanga]

What do you choose if diplomatic relations are good but you lack resources and land?

I would probably still choose Democracy and trade for those resources since relations are good for deals. Or adopt the government of my most powerful friend for even better relations. Another factor is how many districts I have for great people power, which skews things in favour of fascism or democracy.

What do you choose if diplomatic relations are good but you lack resources and land?

But, I don't think friendliness with me is reason enough for good diplomatic relations. If I'm Spain it doesn't make sense to have good relations with someone of another religion even though they like me. The agendas have to *click*.

 

[mitsho]

Policy Cards are incredible. At the same time as they provide massive choice every few turns, they don't differ all that much. There's a builder line, a settler line, a housing line, an amenities line. And the economic ones are the diverse one. There's no real difference between all the +X to Great Person Type OR between the +X% to building that unit type OR between the adjacency cards to X district. Even worse, this means micromanaging is the best way to go without a clear UI showing you which card helps you how (excluding mods). Staying with districts, I'd rather have one card helping all adjacencies and another give more yields and a third helping build the districts. Clear, intuitive bonus instead of complex ones (but more strategic and thus better for power players) and the stronger ones being better when micromanaged but a good choice of medium ones you can forget about.

Having finished with the rant above, that is of course not the actual topic of this thread. I see that governments are rather bland, but they are supposed to offer gameplay flexibility, so that is okay for me. I do think they could enhance the flavour a bit more by f.e. putting a title in front of the leaders you converse with. So that you easily see which government the other players are in. They need to overhaul the gov. screen completely, each card needs a symbol giving you an impression what kind of state you are running. Civ5's trees did that very well. And something can be done with the governors (but of course they are here to stay the way they are).

I think that would already go a long way.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I like the way government types and policy cards interact in Civ 6. I think it's one of the best designed systems in the game. I'm quite critical of the development team in some areas, but I think they did a really good job here.

Governments and the policy card system are one of the things I would prefer the development team not mess with at this point. Modders can make tweaks for those who'd like to see them work differently, but to me this system works as is, and I would not like to see the development team spend any time on it.

Governors have their own whole thread right now. For me, they add nothing and detract nothing. Again, I'd prefer to see the development team leave them as they are. They're fine.

The government plaza and it's unique buildings have only two problems for me: the effects of the tier one buildings are uninspired and the names of the tier one buildings are insipid (you can supply a more derogatory adjective if you prefer). The tier two buildings on the other hand are actually quite interesting. Again, though, there's nothing here that needs development team time in my opinion, as there's nothing here that materially impacts the enjoyability of the game for me.

I appreciate people sharing their thoughts on what could be improved in this area, but after reading through all the comments, I have to say I'd be quite pleased to see Firaxis leave this whole topic alone.

 

[acluewithout]

@Trav'ling Canuck Yes, I really like the Policy Card system too, and agree Governors are a bit nothing either way. And I don’t want FXS to now screw up either. But my point of view is that I’d rather FXS build on what’s good (Policy Cards), or at least average (Governors, Government Buildings) rather than introduce new stuff.

Policy Cards are a good example: I don’t want to see “only this Government can use Cards z,x, y” or “cards z, x, y cost xxx gold and amenities”, but I do think some small changes would really develop the card system: eg a few more Legacy Cards and maybe some more “Industrial Cards” perhaps linked to having certain physical infrastructure.

Railways and strategic resources are good examples of the opposite. I agree railways should be a big deal, but most of the suggestions I see are versions of “have a new unique district to build” or “players will build there own railways” which just fill me with dread - it just sounds like just so much more micro. Similarly, there are lots of suggestions to have strategic resources be consumable. But the game is built around them not being consumable, and changing that would just bork the game. I’d like strategic resources be more important, but that could just be “if you have two coal, your factories and power plants provide double production bonuses”. Likewise, railways could just be “IZ and Harbour adjacency bonuses are doubled” or something else relatively passive.

But of course reasonable minds could disagree with that, and I can completely understand if you think there are other things that are more important.

To me though, the biggest gaps in the game are this: there is no real “age of exploration”, “colonisation” or “decolonization”; there is no real feeling of an “Industrial Revolution”; and the “Governance” system lacks focus and character after R&F, and needs to actually focus on building on the system in Vanilla. I’ve posted about all three recently.

More and more, I really think the three are connected. By which I mean, if FXS focused on the current Governance system (including loyalty and Governors), then there’s a lot there they could do to improve exploration / colonialism and industrial revolution parts of the game.