I'll start out with an example, In the US we have social sequreity takes up 1/4 of the entire buget. There is nothing that represents any issues such as the before mentioned, public education and so on. I think there should be some sort of public finace slider that you would have to balance with the tax and entertainment sliders and balance out your buget more
Govermental Issues
- Thread starter Colonel
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dh_epic
Cold War Veteran
I think it's an interesting idea. In Civ 3, however, the tax money you keep is whatever you don't give back to your people for "luxuries", and what you don't spend on science.
The money you keep can only be spent on a few things (pardon me if I forget anything obvious) -- trading with other Civs, rushing improvements or soldiers (in free market governments), and hoarding just in case you want to run a defecit.
I know it's not the first time I've pointed to it, but I think Tropico has a neat idea: "Edicts". These edicts have a cost, an effect, and a duration. For example, you issue an edict called "Book Burning" that reduces the number of intellectuals in your cities by 50% perhaps quelling any resistance or dissent they cause. Or you can spend $500 on a Literacy Program, that boosts your highschool and training programs. Or you can spend thousands on Mardi Gras, boosting tourism but leading to more crime. These are just examples that are sensitive to the context of Tropico.
I think it would be really neat if you COULD spend money on things that boost your citizens' happiness -- and other more complex factors. I'd love to spend 2 extra gold per city to make Health Care a right, instead of a privelege. Or doing something more dastardly, like spending 150 gold to buy off the media. Or 50 gold to outlaw all media but my public station!
It really does open the game up for a variety of effects -- with pros and cons.
Maybe this is what they mean by "civics".
The money you keep can only be spent on a few things (pardon me if I forget anything obvious) -- trading with other Civs, rushing improvements or soldiers (in free market governments), and hoarding just in case you want to run a defecit.
I know it's not the first time I've pointed to it, but I think Tropico has a neat idea: "Edicts". These edicts have a cost, an effect, and a duration. For example, you issue an edict called "Book Burning" that reduces the number of intellectuals in your cities by 50% perhaps quelling any resistance or dissent they cause. Or you can spend $500 on a Literacy Program, that boosts your highschool and training programs. Or you can spend thousands on Mardi Gras, boosting tourism but leading to more crime. These are just examples that are sensitive to the context of Tropico.
I think it would be really neat if you COULD spend money on things that boost your citizens' happiness -- and other more complex factors. I'd love to spend 2 extra gold per city to make Health Care a right, instead of a privelege. Or doing something more dastardly, like spending 150 gold to buy off the media. Or 50 gold to outlaw all media but my public station!
It really does open the game up for a variety of effects -- with pros and cons.
Maybe this is what they mean by "civics".
jkp1187
Unindicted Co-Conspirator
Ha ha...I like Tropico, too....I wonder, though if Civ is a little too grand-scale for the edicts?
This is not the first time I've mentioned it, either, but the "social engineering" model from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri really was cool. It had four different tracks: Economy, Politics, Moral Values, and Future Society, and you could have different settings on each one. The settings you chose would have different effects -- positive AND negative -- on income, population growth, corruption (called "efficiency" in the game,) war weariness, and unit morale (akin to experience). The "default" option for each meant no benefits or penalties.
For example: choosing Free Market economics meant your society got a large benefit to tax revenue, but an even larger penalty for pollution. "Green" economics did the reverse. Planned economics gave you a reduction in income, an increase in corruption BUT a concomitant increase in city PRODUCTION.
In governments, Democratic government increase efficiency, but decreased the effectiveness of SPIES. Police State reduced war weariness, but increased corruption.
What made all this cool was that you could really customize your society. You could have a free-market economy, but have a police state, so you could fight wars successfully.
Here's a description about how these worked: http://members.tripod.com/ACHeaven/cards/societymodel1.htm
(if you check out the links, you'll see descriptions of everything).
The only "down" side to it was that there was no anarchy -- you just paid a certain amount of money (money was called "energy" in the game,) and the more changes you made, the more it cost. For example, just changing from free market to plannet would cost ~ $8, but if you wanted to change from democracy to police state, too, it would go up to ~ $24. I think this would be better represented in Civ IV by increasing the amount of time in anarchy, depending on how extensive the changes you wanted to make were. So just transitioning in economics would take, say, 1-2 turns of anarchy. That PLUS politics would go from 3-6, and changing everything at once would be, say, 10 turns.
Opinions?
This is not the first time I've mentioned it, either, but the "social engineering" model from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri really was cool. It had four different tracks: Economy, Politics, Moral Values, and Future Society, and you could have different settings on each one. The settings you chose would have different effects -- positive AND negative -- on income, population growth, corruption (called "efficiency" in the game,) war weariness, and unit morale (akin to experience). The "default" option for each meant no benefits or penalties.
For example: choosing Free Market economics meant your society got a large benefit to tax revenue, but an even larger penalty for pollution. "Green" economics did the reverse. Planned economics gave you a reduction in income, an increase in corruption BUT a concomitant increase in city PRODUCTION.
In governments, Democratic government increase efficiency, but decreased the effectiveness of SPIES. Police State reduced war weariness, but increased corruption.
What made all this cool was that you could really customize your society. You could have a free-market economy, but have a police state, so you could fight wars successfully.
Here's a description about how these worked: http://members.tripod.com/ACHeaven/cards/societymodel1.htm
(if you check out the links, you'll see descriptions of everything).
The only "down" side to it was that there was no anarchy -- you just paid a certain amount of money (money was called "energy" in the game,) and the more changes you made, the more it cost. For example, just changing from free market to plannet would cost ~ $8, but if you wanted to change from democracy to police state, too, it would go up to ~ $24. I think this would be better represented in Civ IV by increasing the amount of time in anarchy, depending on how extensive the changes you wanted to make were. So just transitioning in economics would take, say, 1-2 turns of anarchy. That PLUS politics would go from 3-6, and changing everything at once would be, say, 10 turns.
Opinions?
Mr. Blonde
Dr. techn.
Isn´t upkeep for city improvements representing public financing already? You not only pay the upkeep for improving and renovating the building but also the staff for its intended function. By implementing a public finance slider maybe you could determine the effectiveness of city improvements (varying benefits from universities/factories/churches). But who would want to let the improvements run on minimum efficiency, you had a reason to build them intentionally. Imo this idea clearly needs some tuning to be of value.
sealman
Hater of Babylonians
Mr. Blonde said:
Yep it is.
dh_epic
Cold War Veteran
But in that case, every government type and every ruler puts an equal amount of money back into public financing -- with the exception of governments who pay a bit more for their military. My problem with this isn't that it's unrealistic, but that it's completely unstrategic. These are pretty important, direction-changing decisions.
I disagree with the anarchy in between gov'ts. I mean if you think about it, they are all just shadow governments (re: illuminati) and we are the puppetmasters. The effect of the gov't is only viewable by the AI perception of it. It should be MUCH easier to switch from Republic to Democracy, etc etc etc
Mewtarthio
Emperor
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2004
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Well, even the Illuminati have to fake revolts to make the transition acceptable, right? Besides, no Anarchy would make the Commie war, Demo peace thing even more common.
Mr. Blonde
Dr. techn.
@colonel
What impact would this slider have?
My suggestions would be health->pop growth; education->science; administration->corruption luxuries->happiness.
Anyhow, more sliders mean more MM at the end of the turn.
This would make granaries and courthouses obsolete or st least their impact would have to be rethought. Any suggestions?
What impact would this slider have?
My suggestions would be health->pop growth; education->science; administration->corruption luxuries->happiness.
Anyhow, more sliders mean more MM at the end of the turn.
This would make granaries and courthouses obsolete or st least their impact would have to be rethought. Any suggestions?
dh_epic
Cold War Veteran
The catch with said sliders is you wouldn't be playing with them every turn... you'd probably find a satisfactory level, and tweak when you find you have too much / too little money, or research is going too slow, or people are suffering.
I think we'd be talking about various quality of life issues that affect your empire ... if qualify of life is low, people are more willing to dissent, or even leave (and emmigrate to another country). But if quality of life is high, people get pissed when you do things like go to war.
Also, I don't know of any country that is a democracy that fails to hold basic standards of literacy. Raising this standard could be a pre-requisite for a government type, or other major decisions.
Ideas like that would be tied together with these factors... I think the effects would be subtle, but manifold.
I think we'd be talking about various quality of life issues that affect your empire ... if qualify of life is low, people are more willing to dissent, or even leave (and emmigrate to another country). But if quality of life is high, people get pissed when you do things like go to war.
Also, I don't know of any country that is a democracy that fails to hold basic standards of literacy. Raising this standard could be a pre-requisite for a government type, or other major decisions.
Ideas like that would be tied together with these factors... I think the effects would be subtle, but manifold.
