Government with communal corruption plus trade bonus?

[Sakharov]

Hello! Now I'm trying to come up with sorta "intermediate" government with both communal corruption and trade bonus. Let's call it "Socialism" or "Social Democracy? BTW, the name is a good question too.
How do you think to keep the balance? Of course, it would have low war weariness, but what about unit support? Somewhat like stock republic (1/3/4)? Maybe also nerf communism?

 

[wekham]

Now, I'm not the biggest expert in Civilization mechanisms, but nerf communism seems about right: A much less militarized approach of the government. I would call it a Social Democracy though, in my humble opinion

 

[Predator145]

Communal corruption is extremely strong once you've exceeded your OCN. Add commerce bonus on top of that and you have a gov that can would both out-research democracy and pay off unit support better. So I'd say zero unit support. It is a democracy after all. You can't force people to house and feed your troops for free (that also means cash rushing, not whipping). Social Democracies are capitalist economies with welfare states, thus the commerce bonus.

 

[wekham]

Communal corruption is extremely strong once you've exceeded your OCN. Add commerce bonus on top of that and you have a gov that can would both out-research democracy and pay off unit support better. So I'd say zero unit support. It is a democracy after all. You can't force people to house and feed your troops for free (that also means cash rushing, not whipping). Social Democracies are capitalist economies with welfare states, thus the commerce bonus.

Oh yeah i forgot that, thanks

 

[timerover51]

Hello! Now I'm trying to come up with sorta "intermediate" government with both communal corruption and trade bonus. Let's call it "Socialism" or "Social Democracy? BTW, the name is a good question too.
How do you think to keep the balance? Of course, it would have low war weariness, but what about unit support? Somewhat like stock republic (1/3/4)? Maybe also nerf communism?

It would have high war weariness, as money spent on the war is not being spent on making the citizens happy. Production should be higher than communism, but lower that a republic or democracy.

 

[Civinator]

The mods RARR and RAR have the government Social Democracy and here are the stats:

 

[timerover51]

While the worker rate looks a little high, the rest of the stats appear to be spot on.

 

[Civinator]

While the worker rate looks a little high, the rest of the stats appear to be spot on.

There must be some differences to the other 12 forms of governments in these mods.

 

[Predator145]

I'd say worker rate should be maybe only 50% of base to represent the work-life balance this gov promotes. Your workers will be striking if you don't give them their 30 hour work weeks. Zero maintenance+communal corruption+commerce bonus is too strong IMO. This would just eclipse democracy. City improvement maintenance shouldn't be free since it's out of the taxpayer's pocket. The high unit maintenance cost to upset it is easily circumvented by the human player who can find ways to freeload with minimal military. But the AI will get buried by it. So this gov is tailor made for a human player that just conquered the whole continent, sits safely with minimal military and looks for a space/diplo victory. It's a bit too strong for that IMO and gives little reason to use anything else.

 

[tjs282]

Communal corruption plus Commerce-bonus would produce an insane amount of Commerce. I think that would need nerfing, perhaps by one or more of:

• Low/zero free-unit support and/or high unit maint. (3gpt?) to eat the excess Tax-Gold

• High WW to discourage warmongering

• Low rate-cap (50% in Firaxis Editor, 40% using the QEditor?) to represent reduced autocratic control over the economy

 

[timerover51]

Rick's Battleground has a Social Democrat government type very similar to Civinator's, but the unit maintenance cost is 5, which is pretty high.

 

[Fergei]

In my experience the AI is reluctant to enter into Communal Corruption compared to almost any other corruption type (although I have only tested this in ancient, industrial and modern eras). I know there is a breakdown somewhere of the reasons which impact on AI government selection, but in my experience it pays particular interest to the trade bonus (well duh!) and total unit support costs. If you have problems getting the AI to adopt your Social Democracy you could do incredibly minor tweaks to unit support and see what happens. If the AI immediately always switches into Social Democracy you could increase support cost per unit.

Personally, I agree with workers being less productive than 150% but I would argue Social Democracies are more effective at scale (e.g. in big cities compared to lots of small villages, where costs skyrocket as we are seeing with low birth rates and the pressures on schools and health buildings). So I would give some unit support for large settlements (12+ only) to encourage adoption as a late game government rather than immediate adoption by the AI when it becomes available. This would also simulate efficiency of this government type when it has a high proportion of well developed, large settlements - rather than a spread of rural towns and villages.

In my experience, modifying the free unit support levels for small, medium and large settlements is the most straightforward way to encourage/discourage adoption of a particular government type in a certain era (e.g. I reduce Monarchy free unit support for large settlements/metropolises because I do not want a modern era with Monarchies!).

 

[Predator145]

We know that in stock game Vanilla and PTW, the AI will go communism when WW gets out of hand instead of monarchy. But in C3C it will go Fascism most of the time over Communism. So that means Problematic corruption+2/4/8 unit support+4MP+2Draft < Communal corruption+5/5/5 unit support+4MP+2Draft < Nuisance corruption+4/7/10 support+4MP+2Draft+Pop loss+Xenophobia+200% workers.

By modding Fascism to have problematic corruption (remedied by a 0 shield corruption reducing SW that brings it back to nuisance), the AI now always chooses Communism when WW becomes too much to bear. Even though I've also removed the pop loss and xenophobia. A mid size/small AI at war will now always go for Communism.

The AI however, does always value Democracy over Republic, despite the latter having more unit support but a bit more corruption unless WW is involved. It doesn't seem to be able to factor in it's city number when choosing govs.

So Social Democracy, without C3X perfuming, will be very unappealing to the AI with its zero unit support. Communal corruption seems to rank below Nuisance corruption in the eyes of the AI because it doesn't seem to be able to factor in it's own city number.

 

[Fergei]

Yes, I nerfed Fascism unit support and buffed Communism unit support to try and get a 50/50 AI split. This then brought Monarchy back into the AIs choices too so I nerfed that unit support too. I also added an industrial era, high corruption, trade bonus but no WW government type into the mix. You make the tiniest change to unit support and the AI will overwhelmingly flock to one government type. Very tricky to balance.

EDIT: I hadn't really picked up on Republic being overlooked by the AI when Democracy is available. I'll look at that and have a think. But it is less of an issue if I have added in another industrial era government type.

 

[C0rTeZ48]

The mods RARR and RAR have the government Social Democracy and here are the stats:

View attachment 712417

I just noticed that it does have bonus commerce. Yes, considering it will give about 15+ commerce to every tile, it will be pretty strong, however:

By the time you get Communism (f.e., the later Industrial Era), all your core cities will already have produced every city improvement they will need to build, and they will only be producing units from that point on. On a Deity game I have on a very large map, with Communism I could build about 700 units, where I had about 300 units by that point (you wouldn't need 700 units to begin with, even on Deity). My maintenance cost was only about 450. Yes, my non-core cities were turned into semi-core cities with only about 30-40% corruption, by which they actually turned out useful in building some city improvs in them. But even if I would have build every city improvement in them (which would already take about 20-30 turns or so), I would max only at 900-1000 maintenance cost. Given once again that I was also producing many units in my core cities, a potential switch from Communism to Social Democracy would then give me about 900-1000 gold in turn for zero maintenance cost, but also raise my unit cost to more than 1500, likely in the 2000 range. However, it also gives me about 15 gold per city, which when given 33% corruption, would give me another 1000 gold. So that is a 0-500 net gain.

However, it does have high WW compared to no WW and I would have to go through an anarchy phase first, which are significant downsides. It also offers no ability to draft (which combined with granaries and slight plus of food per city, would also make me lose out on about 1.5-2 shield per turn, per city (which would equal to about 150-200 shields). Given that hurry production is a 1:4 ratio, and upgrading units 1:3, a 1:3.5 ratio is fair, which would equate to 525-700 gold you're now losing each turn (unless you would abuse the Leonardo's Workshop exploit, where you deliberately pillage resources, build units down the upgrade line, then annex these resources and upgrade them for a 1:1.5 ratio). So it would now actually be a guaranteed gold loss each turn. Worker efficiency from 100% to 150% is a small bonus, but by this point in the game, you would already have plenty of slave laborers, which are already free to begin with.

So in all, even then I doubt its worth a switch from Communism to Social Democracy. In theory, it may be more handy if you are pretty isolated, and would go for a space/diplomacy victory. But you likely already have achieved victory by that point in the game, or are about to do so.

Unfortunately, even many pro players haven't studied the government balancing system in depth, so this leaves many, many mods with unbalanced governments.

 

[C0rTeZ48]

I'd say worker rate should be maybe only 50% of base to represent the work-life balance this gov promotes. Your workers will be striking if you don't give them their 30 hour work weeks. Zero maintenance+communal corruption+commerce bonus is too strong IMO. This would just eclipse democracy. City improvement maintenance shouldn't be free since it's out of the taxpayer's pocket. The high unit maintenance cost to upset it is easily circumvented by the human player who can find ways to freeload with minimal military. But the AI will get buried by it. So this gov is tailor made for a human player that just conquered the whole continent, sits safely with minimal military and looks for a space/diplo victory. It's a bit too strong for that IMO and gives little reason to use anything else.

Communal corruption plus Commerce-bonus would produce an insane amount of Commerce. I think that would need nerfing, perhaps by one or more of:

• Low/zero free-unit support and/or high unit maint. (3gpt?) to eat the excess Tax-Gold
• High WW to discourage warmongering
• Low rate-cap (50% in Firaxis Editor, 40% using the QEditor?) to represent reduced autocratic control over the economy

I think I am inclined to disagree, it does have some nuance to it

 

[Predator145]

I just noticed that it does have bonus commerce. Yes, considering it will give about 15+ commerce to every tile, it will be pretty strong, however:

By the time you get Communism (f.e., the later Industrial Era), all your core cities will already have produced every city improvement they will need to build, and they will only be producing units from that point on. On a Deity game I have on a very large map, with Communism I could build about 700 units, where I had about 300 units by that point (you wouldn't need 700 units to begin with, even on Deity). My maintenance cost was only about 450. Yes, my non-core cities were turned into semi-core cities with only about 30-40% corruption, by which they actually turned out useful in building some city improvs in them. But even if I would have build every city improvement in them (which would already take about 20-30 turns or so), I would max only at 900-1000 maintenance cost. Given once again that I was also producing many units in my core cities, a potential switch from Communism to Social Democracy would then give me about 900-1000 gold in turn for zero maintenance cost, but also raise my unit cost to more than 1500, likely in the 2000 range. However, it also gives me about 15 gold per city, which when given 33% corruption, would give me another 1000 gold. So that is a 0-500 net gain.

However, it does have high WW compared to no WW and I would have to go through an anarchy phase first, which are significant downsides. It also offers no ability to draft (which combined with granaries and slight plus of food per city, would also make me lose out on about 1.5-2 shield per turn, per city (which would equal to about 150-200 shields). Given that hurry production is a 1:4 ratio, and upgrading units 1:3, a 1:3.5 ratio is fair, which would equate to 525-700 gold you're now losing each turn (unless you would abuse the Leonardo's Workshop exploit, where you deliberately pillage resources, build units down the upgrade line, then annex these resources and upgrade them for a 1:1.5 ratio). So it would now actually be a guaranteed gold loss each turn. Worker efficiency from 100% to 150% is a small bonus, but by this point in the game, you would already have plenty of slave laborers, which are already free to begin with.

So in all, even then I doubt its worth a switch from Communism to Social Democracy. In theory, it may be more handy if you are pretty isolated, and would go for a space/diplomacy victory. But you likely already have achieved victory by that point in the game, or are about to do so.

Unfortunately, even many pro players haven't studied the government balancing system in depth, so this leaves many, many mods with unbalanced governments.

You get benefit from switching to communal the moment you've expanded past OCN. And no, that's not when the game is already clinched unless you play on a difficulty where your victory is not a question of if but when and how.

If you're in communism on your own medium sized continent with 20 cities and are racing against run away AIs on other continents you won't do that with communism's bad research rate. In stock game, you'd use demo/rep. But since switching gov is not worth it most people would simply stay republic from start to finish. But in a mod where anarchy is short or removed all together, the presence of SD like the above would totally invalidate Democracy most of the time.

You have a ton of units and cities in communism. Of course it's not worth switching. But that doesn't mean SD is not overpowered for what it's suppose to do.

 

[C0rTeZ48]

You get benefit from switching to communal the moment you've expanded past OCN. And no, that's not when the game is already clinched unless you play on a difficulty where your victory is not a question of if but when and how.

If you're in communism on your own medium sized continent with 20 cities and are racing against run away AIs on other continents you won't do that with communism's bad research rate. In stock game, you'd use demo/rep. But since switching gov is not worth it most people would simply stay republic from start to finish. But in a mod where anarchy is short or removed all together, the presence of SD like the above would totally invalidate Democracy most of the time.

You have a ton of units and cities in communism. Of course it's not worth switching. But that doesn't mean SD is not overpowered for what it's suppose to do.

Well when you're at OCN your most corrupt/wasteful city will most often only be about 65% (given no WLTKD). It has to be quite a bit over OCN first before communism starts becoming interesting. Even on Sid difficulty on larger maps without using exploits, one can have cities far over the OCN by the Medieval Era, long before Communism gets available. Engineers and factories/power plants aren't even available yet by that point, so you're simply better off using them as scientist farms, even if you could be under Communism somehow in the Medieval Era.

Sid games can be won with Conquest/Domination victories on smaller maps before the Industrial Era. Yes, on very large maps those victories may not be won even by the Modern Era (without using exploits, that is), but Spaceship and Diplomacy are about to be won. I'm assuming Social Democracy is an early Modern Era gov. Even if I tried to win a conquest/diplomacy Sid game on a 40% Huge map I would have nearly the same ratio of cities, units, and city improvements (the game I mentioned was a won Domination game from a 40% Standard map). So the stats would still be about the same (especially for units since they would be important to win the game for most victories), which would still not make Social Democracy worth the switch in those cases. Never mind even getting into 7-9 turns of Anarchy as non-religious civs!

Even on Sid difficulty, whether it be archipelago, continental or pangaea one could attain the tech lead during the Industrial Era, which should prevent any other AIs win a Spaceship victory. You would have had plenty of time to conquer other nations and grow stronger and further in tech, even without making use of large exploits like the Great Library elevator or trade route pillaging.

I've shown with math it usually doesn't add up switching to. The unit support cost is simply too high. If it was 4 rather than 5, it started becoming worth the switch. With 3 it surely would have been. With 2 it would have been overpowered. That's why it's so important to do plenty of calculations first. People unfortunately end up making unbalanced govs that simply aren't worth switching to. The precise number matter absolutely. The slightest change can make all the difference.

On high difficulties, the real only use for this government as it is, is when playing on very large archipelago/continental maps with a heavy defensive strategy where one could afford very low amount of units, and where you want to achieve specific late-game victory conditions like histographic or cultural ones. And perhaps Spaceship victory as well if you remove the Anarchy peroid away altogether, like you mentioned.

 

[Predator145]

Well when you're at OCN your most corrupt/wasteful city will most often only be about 65% (given no WLTKD). It has to be quite a bit over OCN first before communism starts becoming interesting. Even on Sid difficulty on larger maps without using exploits, one can have cities far over the OCN by the Medieval Era, long before Communism gets available. Engineers and factories/power plants aren't even available yet by that point, so you're simply better off using them as scientist farms, even if you could be under Communism somehow in the Medieval Era.

Sid games can be won with Conquest/Domination victories on smaller maps before the Industrial Era. Yes, on very large maps those victories may not be won even by the Modern Era (without using exploits, that is), but Spaceship and Diplomacy are about to be won. I'm assuming Social Democracy is an early Modern Era gov. Even if I tried to win a conquest/diplomacy Sid game on a 40% Huge map I would have nearly the same ratio of cities, units, and city improvements (the game I mentioned was a won Domination game from a 40% Standard map). So the stats would still be about the same (especially for units since they would be important to win the game for most victories), which would still not make Social Democracy worth the switch in those cases. Never mind even getting into 7-9 turns of Anarchy as non-religious civs!

Even on Sid difficulty, whether it be archipelago, continental or pangaea one could attain the tech lead during the Industrial Era, which should prevent any other AIs win a Spaceship victory. You would have had plenty of time to conquer other nations and grow stronger and further in tech, even without making use of large exploits like the Great Library elevator or trade route pillaging.

I've shown with math it usually doesn't add up switching to. The unit support cost is simply too high. If it was 4 rather than 5, it started becoming worth the switch. With 3 it surely would have been. With 2 it would have been overpowered. That's why it's so important to do plenty of calculations first. People unfortunately end up making unbalanced govs that simply aren't worth switching to. The precise number matter absolutely. The slightest change can make all the difference.

On high difficulties, the real only use for this government as it is, is when playing on very large archipelago/continental maps with a heavy defensive strategy where one could afford very low amount of units, and where you want to achieve specific late-game victory conditions like histographic or cultural ones. And perhaps Spaceship victory as well if you remove the Anarchy peroid away altogether, like you mentioned.

That's the point, it's meant to be niche. Like Feudalism. SD is not meant to be "worth switching" 99% of the time. It's niche is that of a gov for a civ that has no need for military and is looking for to win peacefully. In in that it already does insanely well. In real life, nations that are social democracies have very little military spending, huge welfare states and rely on powerful allies to protect them. They wouldn't survive on their own in a world with aggressive and powerful neighbors. You can't have both guns and butter.

If you're already on a war path then staying in Rep/Mon for the whole game is the way to go in stock game. Stock game's brutal anarchy makes having different govs later on pretty moot. You'd have to make them super overpowered to even make switching remotely worth it. Not even communism is worth the switch in stock game if you're religious. Scientist farms are too strong. You can just get 9 beakers for doing nothing.

 

[C0rTeZ48]

That's the point, it's meant to be niche. Like Feudalism. SD is not meant to be "worth switching" 99% of the time. It's niche is that of a gov for a civ that has no need for military and is looking for to win peacefully. In in that it already does insanely well. In real life, nations that are social democracies have very little military spending, huge welfare states and rely on powerful allies to protect them. They wouldn't survive on their own in a world with aggressive and powerful neighbors. You can't have both guns and butter.

If you're already on a war path then staying in Rep/Mon for the whole game is the way to go in stock game. Stock game's brutal anarchy makes having different govs later on pretty moot. You'd have to make them super overpowered to even make switching remotely worth it. Not even communism is worth the switch in stock game if you're religious. Scientist farms are too strong. You can just get 9 beakers for doing nothing.

Alright, well in that case, leave it as it is. However, do note that other AIs may also very well end up changing into them, which in most cases nerf them by quite a bit bc of the very high unit cost. For that reason, I'd personally recommend to lower the unit support cost for balancing as mentioned, but in the end it's your mod and your game.

I agree that the anarchy phase in the stock game is far too long. I've been working on a realistic rebalancing mod for many years, and I'm about 80%+ done, and one of the changes needed was bringing the max anarchy period back to 6 turns. I can't get rid of it entirely, first because I do think anarchy periods are realistic, but most importantly bc religious civs actually have 2 turns rather than 1 turns (like non-religious have on Sid difficulty). So I'd end up making one of the religious trait effects weaker than non-religious ones, which is something you don't want for balancing. Therefore, I think anarchy periods for non-religious civs are fine in between 3 and 6 turns.

However, I do strongly disagree that communism isn't worth the switch in the stock game, even if you're religious. Maybe that's the case on smaller maps (for several reasons), but not on larger ones. I was Republic before switching to Communism in my 40% standard map game. I was producing 1030 uncorrupted shields, generating (2907 gold from cities - 1368 corruption and 314 maintenance) = 1225 uncorrupted gold and 3042 total productivity (787 excess food). I had 356 specialists, which were all either engineers or scientists, which would equate to another 1068 beakers, or 712 uncorrupted shields. However, without use of exploits, engineer shields only count to city improvements, not units. Didn't quite name how many of both, but was rather equal. So that's another 356 uncorrupted shields and 534 beakers. So adding beakers to uncorrupted gold, that equals 1386 uncorrupted shields, 1759 uncorrupted gold and 787 excess food. I had no units over the unit support limit.

After I switched to Communism, few turns later I was producing 1952 uncorrupted shields (and still rising due to many factories I was still producing in many former non-core cities), generating (2030 gold from cities - 517 corruption and 457 maintenance) = 1056 uncorrupted gold and 3922 total productivity (964 excess food). I had 282 specialists, of which 167 policeman (which already count towards the stats found in the demographics), and the remaining 115 either engineers or scientists, which would equate to another 345 beakers, or 230 uncorrupted shields. They were about equal as well, so that's another 114 uncorrupted shields and 174 beakers. So that equals 2182 uncorrupted shields, 1230 uncorrupted gold and 964 excess food. Also no units over the unit support limit (duh).

In total, that's a 57%+ increase in uncorrupted shields, a 30% decrease in uncorrupted gold and 22% increase in food. With surplus gold, I was still teching the last Industrial Era tech (Motorized Transportation) in 5 turns from start to finish as Communism, so it was a very welcome change. But most importantly: first of all, my shield production was still drastically increasing, since now all my former non-core cities would soon be producing factories, increasing shields by far more than it already was. And second: uncorrupted gold is about 3.5 as less valuable as uncorrupted shields anyway. That's because wealth is an absolutely worthless thing to be producing at your cities (produce units and conquer enemies instead), and your gold should only go towards teching (which I had enough from), upgrading units (3 gold per shield), or hurry production (4 gold per shield). Also, despite me having a far tech lead, Communism has veteran spies as stealing tech as a back-up anyway, which is actually a more cost-effective method to teching yourself from the mid-Medieval Era. Using that as a base, we get the following stats:

Republic: 1386 + (1759 / 3.5) + 787 = 2675, increasing only marginally
Communism: 2182 + (1230 / 3.5) + 964 = 3497, and shields still rising significantly

So in conclusion, even with a 2-turn anarchy period as I had, you would get your 2 x 2675 = 5350 loss back within 3497 - 2675 = 822, so 5350 / 822 = 6.5 turns. I could lower it to 6 turns as my uncorrupted shields kept increasing significantly.