Design: Civics

[Kael]

Are you sure? When you mouse-over the civics, the game lists the benefits and detriments of them. One of the benefits of FT and Republic is that it causes unhappiness in all other civs (i.e., "+1 Trade routes per city, -10% Gold, +20% Culture, Penalty for all Civs without Foreign Trade"). If it was just the tech being researched, then why doesn't the description of the appropriate techs list an unhappiness modifier?

Maybe if I'm motivated later, I'll find out for sure what the situation is. Heck, I'll do that now.

Hmm, interesting. In CIV4CivicInfos.xml each civic has a iCivicPercentAnger value to set this sort of unhappiness. First, I'd have to say that this confirms the unhappiness is caused by adopting the civic, and not by researching the tech.

Second, I find it interesting that Republic is set to 100% and Foreign Trade is set to 200%. Two hundred?! Yikes, no wonder the FT unhappiness is so rampant. Is this on purpose? If so, there is even more need to have an in-game explanation for it.

- Niilo

Vanilla civ uses 400% anger on the one civic (Emancipation) that grants it. In FfH we have 2 civics, one which gives 100% and one which gives 200%. They used to both give the same as vanilla (400% each) but have been knocked down in recent versions so even if they are both in use the aggregate effect is still less than vanilla civ.

 

[SchpailsMan]

I guess it might compromise overall game balance, but anyway I'll suggest swapping the values for Republic and Foreign Trade. From what I gathered of the discussion above, many people find the penalty for Republic more understandable, and therefore acceptable, than the penalty for FT. Aside of any overall balance issue that could possibly incurr (including Republic becoming even more powerful), I think the happiness penalty from Foreign Trade would be less annoying that way.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I understand the foreign trade penalty in theory--these civs have goods that they are eager to trade to your people (as evidenced by them using this civic) but since your leader values the gold in his castle more, he denies you the oppurtunity to buy these strange things!
But that's kinda undermined by the fact that you are trading luxuries already potentially. I'd guess the FT penalty represents all the 'minor luxuries' that your people want but must trade for.
Maybe better would be a happiness bonus to your people based on how many other civs are using it? But that'd be a drastic change in the other direction at the moment.

 

[Sureshot]

Might make sense that foreign trade only gives you a penalty if someone you can actually trade with (i.e. are connected via routes or coastal cities) has the civic selected and you don't.

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

I never had a problem with the unhappiness caused from foreign trade before the new tech tree was introduced. You had decent sized cities, enough happiness resources and the -10% gold was done for by high trade route yield or consumption. I think the problem now is that it comes far too early (even before conquest when i'm not going for the melee unit branch, which was my first choice then) when you just aren't ready for it.

Some suggestions (on civics generally - not just foreign trade):

- Move foreign trade up two or three techs in the trade branch.

- Move fend for temselves to way of the wicked or trade (as replace for foreign trade.) Gives +5% or +10% gold yield (the powerfull people as the leader collect money) and +1 unhappines +2 unhealthiness (the normal people are left alone and just try to survive the opression). That would give an economic boost (despised by the good nations) with an unhappines modifier that you get yourself and not from other nations.

- God king is so powerful that it is the only viable option (so by Kaels words: "No option at all") by far till the late game (at least for those of us that have automated workers on who refuse to build farms for agriculture ). I really like the flavour of your capital beeing very powerfull but i think the maintainance penalty needs to be far higher (like +50% at last - so that it will only work for smaller contries.)

- In the same way I would suggest to further decrease the maintainance cost for city states. Hmmm.... or maybe leave it as it is - it could be a viable option when god king gets plain weaker.

Another thing: I thought i read here somewhere that free religion should give acess to all the religion specific civics. In the new tech tree they all come with the religion specific tech so you can get only those from religions you had sometime in the game (or arete with the pyramids). The promblem is that the agnostic leaders never had a chance to research any of those techs so they a stuck with the normal civics.

 

[Sureshot]

Ya, i know Kael made some changes to City states, so it'll be nice to try it out with the changes. Personally i'd like to see it -100% distance maintenance.

Another thing about civics that has really been bothering me, the rounding!
With a creative civ you get +2 culture, but with a lot of civics that reduce % culture, they do small amounts, like -10% culture. Doesn't sound too bad, EXCEPT that its going to take away ATLEAST 1 culture because it rounds up the amount is takes away. In beginner cities -10% culture becomes -50% O_o if the city has 3 culture it still takes 33% o_o (such that currently the amount they take away if the subtracted amount is in the range 0.001 to 1.0 it takes away 1.0; if its in the range 1.001 to 2.0 it takes away 2.0).

It'd be nice if it rounded in the favour of the city, or atleast worked by scientific rounded (0.0 to 0.5 goes to 0.0; 0.5001 to 1.4999 goes to 1.0; 1.5 to 2.5 goes to 2; 2.5001 to 3.4999 goes to 3.0; etc.).

 

[Xuenay]

- God king is so powerful that it is the only viable option (so by Kaels words: "No option at all") by far till the late game (at least for those of us that have automated workers on who refuse to build farms for agriculture ). I really like the flavour of your capital beeing very powerfull but i think the maintainance penalty needs to be far higher (like +50% at last - so that it will only work for smaller contries.)

I dunno, not really. For one, God King is basically the same as Bureaucracy in Vanilla, and I haven't seen people complain about that as being too powerful. Sure, it's great in small empires, but City States is probably pretty good now that the gold minus got cut, and I've heard people mention that they like using Aristocracy. Monarchy is also good if you have happiness trouble. Republic is the only one that seems a bit weak to me.

 

[Sureshot]

the aristocracy one doesn't make any sense to me, why would you give up 1 food for 2 gold? you're better off building cottages. only use is if you have sanitation, but even then it seems a waste.

 

[Maniac]

Yeah I'd just scrap the Aristocracy civic.

 

[Sureshot]

if it was +1 gold and no food decrease itd be interesting atleast, don't really see what use it is as is though.

 

[Maniac]

I asked the same question before. See post #37 to #42 in this thread. Personally I wasn't convinced by Chalid's reply though.

 

[Sureshot]

it seems like you could potentially find some use after you have sanitation and if you're financial and want the 1 food badly enough (to not get cottages).
it would be nice if there was some other benefit though, like +1 trade routes (since the reason you're prolly getting gold and losing food is because the aristocrats are selling the food?)

 

[Zurai]

I want to keep the culture penalty, I just dont see that a city states government could project as unified a culture as other government forms.

Isn't America essentially a glorified City States government? All of the states are semi-autonomous entities tied together by a loose federal government. Yes, it's a "Democracy" (actually a Republic, but w/e), but the actual organization of the nationwide governing bodies is pretty close to being city-states.

 

[Thonnas]

what about +2 -1 for villages and towns under aristocracy?

guild is pretty weak compared to caste system, maybe needs +1 per specialist?

and how about a reduced # of cities upkeep for fend for themselves? (maybe -35%)

 

[Zurai]

Oh, and an even better example of cultured city states: Ancient Greece. Pure City-State form of government, but Greece and its culture still has impact on our world thousands of years later.

 

[QES]

Isn't America essentially a glorified City States government? All of the states are semi-autonomous entities tied together by a loose federal government. Yes, it's a "Democracy" (actually a Republic, but w/e), but the actual organization of the nationwide governing bodies is pretty close to being city-states.

America is quite quintessentially a Republic. WE oooooze republic. We boarder on oligargicahy aristocratic republic, but we are a republic none-the-less. One who studies history, and takes a look at the ancient roman republic, cannot but help noticing subtle, and sometimes terrible similarities.

The Idea:

Spoiler :

City-states are violently independant. The sort of independance that im sure Texas occasionally wish it had (Just kidding fellas), but much more than we can hope to witness in our time. People belonged to their Polis, and without a polis you were no one. THis was true in ancient china as well. Specifically, were we to be living in a quasi-city-state situation, then when california didnt want to do what the national government thinks it should do, it wouldnt. And war would likely ensue quickly thereafter. The confederacy of the states during the civil war was closer in concept to city-states than we have ever been. Instead of city-states, it would have been state-states. Effectively an alliance, culturally and militarily of seperate nations joined to defend against foreign aggression. Luckily they lost, and a Republican system was maintained. Though i must admit, much of the south does not appear to realize they lost. Anyway the Union preserved, we avoided such independant sectors, and can move forward with some cohesion. While each state does have laws, none of these laws may supercede federal law. Our federal republic is based on the federalist doctorines "made up" back at the time of the revolution. Were these doctorines not have been established, the USA would have been carved up a long time ago by larger economic, military and cultural powers.
City-states function, in the times they do, because there is generally no outward pressure for there to be change. If there is such pressure, the city-state system typically does not function very well for very long. After the war with Persia, the Greek city-states had long periods of inter-city conflict, and eventually a war over the matter. And despotism and empire were the eventual ramifications of such events.

I feel I'm rambling, and im going to stop, and put spoiler tags as to limit the size of this post.
-Qes

 

[Zurai]

Spoilered so people don't have the see the quasi-political nitpicking if they don't want to.

Spoiler :

City-states are violently independant.

No, they aren't. City-states, by definition, are a coalition of cities that govern themselves independantly but have a unified cultural or legal presence. If they were "violently independant" by requirement, there would be and never would have been anything like a city-state.

Specifically, were we to be living in a quasi-city-state situation, then when california didnt want to do what the national government thinks it should do, it wouldnt.

This does happen, though - for instance, California is fighting to legalize certain "recreational drugs" because it doesn't agree with the national government about it. They actually legalized certain drugs directly against Washington's wishes. If that's not doing what the government doesn't want them to do, I don't know what is.

While each state does have laws, none of these laws may supercede federal law.

True, but federal law is VERY limited. For the most part it only concerns inter-state matters. States are, by and large, allowed to govern themselves.

 

[Xuenay]

Random thought - GPP bonus to Aristocracy? Might be fitting, considering how scientists and philosophers usually came from among the more wealthy.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Needs something. Aristocracy is the one civic I've never used--if I wanted cottages, I'd build them. Although I can see it moderately useful if your gold suddenly plumets for some reason and you had alot of farms about, as it's an empire wide change.

Isn't America essentially a glorified City States government? All of the states are semi-autonomous entities tied together by a loose federal government. Yes, it's a "Democracy" (actually a Republic, but w/e), but the actual organization of the nationwide governing bodies is pretty close to being city-states.

Actually, that was probably true under the Articles of Confederation, but not quite today.

 

[Sureshot]

ya, that (GPPbonuses) seems like a bonus that could apply, i thought about that too.. problem is it means you stifle a large junk of the population at the same time (forcing them into manual labour so that the rich don't have to do anything and can be so literary).
but then again, suffering breeds character lol