[R&F] Civ's implementation of Colonialism, Captialism, Socialism, Communism, Feudalism, Imperialism, etc.?

[MP | Moongazer]

Civilization is a game that represent human's development throughout the history, so is that a good idea to implemented these concept into a Civ game?
If so, how it can be successfully implemented? I see that there are certain policies in the government system of Civ 6 that represent these idea. But I only see the positive side of these concept, not the actual negative effect that existed in history (like the exploitative tendency of capitalism, the dictatorial way of govern in communist or socialist state, economic crises are common under a capitalist state, etc.).
With these concept I can see how my choice of policies is actually impact my nation.
Also, the happiness system in the game is a little bit vague (although somewhat better than civ 5), like how class struggle, civil unrest, separatists problem can be resolved just because your country has enough luxuries? How a nationalist be happy when his/her country was conquered by another empire just because they have more "entertainment complexes"? Civil wars and wars of independence are very likely to happen in a large multi- continental colonial empire, but somehow in game these empires proved to be the most flourished way to win.

 

[Uberfrog]

I think the Civ series has a bit of an identity crisis when it comes to history.

The central concept of Sid Meier's Civilization series subscribes to the notion of history as a progressive march from the stone age to the stars, with nations rising, and generally not falling unless at the hands of a superior rival (Rise & Fall changes this a bit, but not significantly). It also generally portrays itself in quite a light-hearted light. A lot of people objected to Civ VI's return to colourful cartooniness, but the substance of Civ has never been interested in delving particularly deeply into the negative aspects of history. Slavery is generally omitted entirely (most glaringly in the Colonization spin-off), crudely abstracted (Civ IV's civic that lets you delete population to finish construction), or left to innuendo (Civ VI's policy cards such as "Corvée" or "Triangular Trade").

And yet it needs to include these significant historical systems and ideologies to fulfil its fantasy of playing a recognisable, if alternative, version of the history of the world. So the systems you mention are just used as flavour text for Governments, Civics, Policies, awarding positive modifiers without any real relevance to what they claim to represent. We're stuck with a game that needs to acknowledge the existence of, say, Imperialism and Authoritarianism, but without wanting to seem too heavy for players who just want to build their little virtual empire.

Rise & Fall slightly bucked this trend with Dark Age Policies bringing negatives alongside positives (as a few regular policies like Police State have always done). It's interesting, but I would like a future instalment of the franchise to double down on meaningful pros and cons between different government types and policies, and I think it would help make the different eras feel substantially different to play, too. I know that different strategy games are able to add a little more meaning to complex historical ideas, and the newly-released Frostpunk looks like a game that doesn't seem afraid to ask its players to make moral choices. But I don't think Civ is the series (or Firaxis the studio) to make a historical strategy game that's interested in representing this stuff in a more nuanced way. Or at least without the freedom of science fiction (as in Alpha Centauri) to handle issues that may be considered too controversial to touch in a historical setting.

 

[MP | Moongazer]

Well said.
I always like Civilization because it is a rare game that tell the story of human development throughout the ages; it tells the story about what make us human today without being neither a war game or a city builder. It makes me feel proud for being a human. And as you said it may be a good idea to just leave out the dark part from our history and focus on our achievement (or is it? ).
Perhaps one day we will have a game that has elements from both of the 4X genre (like Firaxis's Civs) and those Paradox Grand Strategies (EU IV, HOI 4,...).

 

[humble serf]

I guess you could argue that the downside of any given government is that you don't get the advantages of the other government options -- sure, you'd make more money through trade if you let the merchant patricians rule, but right now you need a strong monarchy to maintain control over your subject city-states.

The late game stresses this even more by making all three modern-era governments "leaves" of the civics tree, so there's no reason to research any of them except the one for the government you want, and then you get 4 themed policy cards along with your choice of government. Of course, you could always just get around that by spending a few turns unlocking Class Struggle and then adding "Collectivisation" and "Five-Year Plan" to a capitalist government. Ideology is a tricky thing to portray, and the focus on customisable governments via policy cards in Civ 6 makes it even harder.

It's been suggested elsewhere, but I think forcing civs in a Dark Age to fill their Wildcard slots with Dark Age policies would be a good way of showcasing the downsides of a failing ideology -- Robber Barons, for example, is a great concept for portraying a particularly exploitative capitalist society.

 

[MP | Moongazer]

Also changing ideology in Civ 6 does not punish heavily like in Civ 5; in civ 5 you could lose the game if your country went into a political reform. What do you guys think?

 

[humble serf]

I wasn't a huge fan of the way BNW handled ideology (Autocracy should have bonuses to the Science victory rather than the Culture victory, and Order should have bonuses to the Diplomatic victory), but it was far better than Civ 6's mix-and-match free-for-all. Changing ideology at any point in the atomic or information era should be a huge deal, and come with a lot of cost-benefit analysis.

Also, I'm warming up to the idea that certain policy cards should only be available to certain governments, especially from the industrial era onwards. Imagine "Liberal Party" and "Conservative Party" policy cards being available to Democratic governments, each with a different benefit to offer. When you switch from the Liberal card to the Conservative card, it's as if your country just had a general election. Communist governments could choose between "Stalinist Faction" and "Trotskyist Faction" (although ideally with more generic names), and Totalitarians could choose between WWII-style Fascism and Cold War-era non-alignment in the vein of Robert Mugabe or Saddam Hussein.

 

[acluewithout]

I think the tendency to give governments, policies etc substantial bonuses but minimal or no negatives (beyond opportunity cost) is better in terms of gameplay.

Likewise, leaving things like slavery to abstraction is probably better - the alternative seems to involve too much micro-management. At most, perhaps the Aztech ability to create builders from kills could be generalised under a policy card - or maybe just capturing settlers should give you a builder. Or a dark ages card that lets you build builders cheaply but you lose pop when you do like a settler. I’m other words: keep it simple.

Unlike others, I think Civ does simulate history. It’s just that it’s a fantasy version of history. In that fantasy, every advanced government is just better. And Dark Ages are just one or a number of potential Eras that you pass through on the way to the stars.

 

[MP | Moongazer]

I think that Democracy is not a "capitalist government"; it just worked out well with capitalism in the real world. Just want to prevent any negative implication

 

[humble serf]

That's a debate for the real world; in Civ 6 I'd say the Democracy government puts your civ squarely on the in-game equivalent of the America-France-Commonwealth side of WWI, WWII and the Cold War. Soviet Russia and Nationalist China were both Allied Nations in WWII despite having different ideologies (from a Civ 6 perspective), but nevertheless I'd say that Democracy in Civ 6 means NATO, SEATO, NAFTA and the EU.

How about this for ideology though: every ideology grants access to a new mechanic shared by other civs of the same ideology, similar to a simplified version of the HRE from EU4. Democratic civs gain access to the Allied Treaty Organisation, Communist civs get access to Comintern and Fascist civs get access to the Interpartite Pact. These would function as miniature World Congresses enabling ideological allies to cooperate, pool resources and work together, while also granting specific benefits unavailable to civs following different ideologies. That way there wouldn't be any direct drawbacks to your choice of government, but you'd have to seriously consider whether you needed the bonuses granted by the Interpartite Pact more than you needed to maintain your alliance with Communist Persia, for example.

There would also be a global United Nations above the three ideological congresses, and the two tiers of international organisations could interact in all sorts of interesting ways.

 

[MP | Moongazer]

That's a debate for the real world; in Civ 6 I'd say the Democracy government puts your civ squarely on the in-game equivalent of the America-France-Commonwealth side of WWI, WWII and the Cold War. Soviet Russia and Nationalist China were both Allied Nations in WWII despite having different ideologies (from a Civ 6 perspective), but nevertheless I'd say that Democracy in Civ 6 means NATO, SEATO, NAFTA and the EU.

How about this for ideology though: every ideology grants access to a new mechanic shared by other civs of the same ideology, similar to a simplified version of the HRE from EU4. Democratic civs gain access to the Allied Treaty Organisation, Communist civs get access to Comintern and Fascist civs get access to the Interpartite Pact. These would function as miniature World Congresses enabling ideological allies to cooperate, pool resources and work together, while also granting specific benefits unavailable to civs following different ideologies. That way there wouldn't be any direct drawbacks to your choice of government, but you'd have to seriously consider whether you needed the bonuses granted by the Interpartite Pact more than you needed to maintain your alliance with Communist Persia, for example.

There would also be a global United Nations above the three ideological congresses, and the two tiers of international organisations could interact in all sorts of interesting ways.

Wow that's actually a very creative idea. With this war and trade between ideologies feel way more interesting. You don't go to war just because of territory or resources anymore; also the diplomacy game will be very complex and enjoyable. This may even potentially solve the boring late game problem with civ 6.

 

[humble serf]

It also throws open the possibility for some leaders added in the expansion to interact directly with the new mechanics. Let's say you can "level up" your ideological congress the same way you level up an Alliance, by trading and cooperating with other members of the congress. This would grant more powerful bonuses to all civs who share your ideology: if you're a Communist, you get a bonus to (for example) science and production once Comintern reaches level 2, and an even larger bonus once it reaches level 3.

Then, as part of the same expansion, Nikita Khrushchev is added as an alternative leader for Russia (he's one of the post-1900 leaders I most want to see in the game):

• LUA: Secret Speech. Earn points towards levelling up your ideological congress twice as fast. +10% production towards district projects for every level your ideological congress advances. (really this is for Spaceport projects, which would push Khrushchev towards his most logical victory type)

 

[Phrozen]

I think that Democracy is not a "capitalist government"; it just worked out well with capitalism in the real world. Just want to prevent any negative implication

They just tend to go together. You can have authoritarian government with capitalism: Singapore, South Korea, and Chile all historically have had very authoritarian governments with capitalist economics. It just that once people have economic freedom and growing wealth they start to want other freedoms as well.

 

[acluewithout]

I’m pretty sure the next expansion will do something with ideologies. I like the ideas in this thread too.

I hope ideology also impacts on loyalty; say, you exert more loyalty on Civs win a different ideology and or your citizens are more loyal if your ideology is ‘dominant’ (however that would be measured - maybe tourism?).

I really like the idea of your ideology changing your diplomatic options: different bilateral alliances; different regional alliances; perhaps different mechanics when you vassal a state; and different casus belli.

On the loyalty thing: I’d love it if, after you unlock ideology, you had a “loyalty map” or “lense” but that, instead of showing loyalty by Civ, it showed loyalty by ideology. Cities belonging to different ideologies would then flip based on loyalty pressure from all nearby cities with a different ideology. So say Germany Communism, Sumeria and Sythia Democracy; you have a Germany city near a Sumer and Sythia city; the German city would be pressure by both the Sumer and Sythia city unless Germany changes ideology (but that might break its existing alliances and or changing governments might cause Anarchy).