Ideological Pressure and Influence Balance Discussion

[Gazebo]

Well what we are saying is most of the time the mechanic doesn’t provide any unhappiness. So the new system won’t change a thing.

We aren’t arguing about how much unhappiness the system should grant. We are arguing as to whether it should exist

I feel like it's a mechanic worth keeping to some extent, but perhaps not in this same manner? In the past, I'd considered something like this: an 'ideology power' created by each ideology strand. I'd code it as a free policy granted by each Ideology upon adoption.

i.e.

Autocracy: Generates negative Public Opinion in civilizations following Order and Freedom for every owned Puppet city in your empire.
Order: Generates negative Public Opinion in civilizations following Autocracy and Freedom for every owned Wonder in your Empire.
Freedom: Generates negative Public Opinion in civilizations following Autocracy and Freedom for every City-State Alliance

Something along those lines. Little bonus missions for each ideological strand that slowly put pressure on other civs. Tourism wouldn't be a part of it.

G

 

[Bromar1]

I feel like it's a mechanic worth keeping to some extent, but perhaps not in this same manner? In the past, I'd considered something like this: an 'ideology power' created by each ideology strand. I'd code it as a free policy granted by each Ideology upon adoption.

i.e.

Autocracy: Generates negative Public Opinion in civilizations following Order and Freedom for every owned Puppet city in your empire.
Order: Generates negative Public Opinion in civilizations following Autocracy and Freedom for every owned Wonder in your Empire.
Freedom: Generates negative Public Opinion in civilizations following Autocracy and Freedom for every City-State Alliance

Something along those lines. Little bonus missions for each ideological strand that slowly put pressure on other civs. Tourism wouldn't be a part of it.

G

I like it. Would give non touristy civs an actual opportunity to try to sway the late adopters

 

[CrazyG]

I feel like it's a mechanic worth keeping to some extent, but perhaps not in this same manner? In the past, I'd considered something like this: an 'ideology power' created by each ideology strand. I'd code it as a free policy granted by each Ideology upon adoption.

i.e.

Autocracy: Generates negative Public Opinion in civilizations following Order and Freedom for every owned Puppet city in your empire.
Order: Generates negative Public Opinion in civilizations following Autocracy and Freedom for every owned Wonder in your Empire.
Freedom: Generates negative Public Opinion in civilizations following Autocracy and Freedom for every City-State Alliance

Something along those lines. Little bonus missions for each ideological strand that slowly put pressure on other civs. Tourism wouldn't be a part of it.

G

This is far more interesting than the current version.

 

[Gazebo]

This is far more interesting than the current version.

I agree. Y’all brainstorm on what would work.

G

 

[CrazyG]

I agree. Y’all brainstorm on what would work.

G

Are you thinking its a default part of the ideology, or a tenet that you must spend a policy to get? We could also make it part of the national wonder of the ideology. Your model is a fine start

Freedom: The most natural thing is to tie it to great people. Maybe make it for every academy, manufactory or town which you control?

Autocracy: it should be every puppet or courthouse, so that it includes cities you conquer and annex, not only conquer to puppet.

Order: I don't think we need to give any further benefit to someone who has accumulated a ton of wonders. Order is often appealing to the kind of empire who has very few wonders. I can't think of a good one for order.

 

[amateurgamer88]

Just throwing some ideas out.

Freedom: Great People or Trade Routes (works a bit like Portugal's UA but generate negative Public Opinion instead of yields)

Autocracy: Puppets and Courthouses or Vassals or Difference in Military Strength (between those following Autocracy and other Ideologies)

Order: Spies (generates negative Public Opinion in foreign city) or Corporation (tied to offices in some way or how much you spread)

 

[Gazebo]

Are you thinking its a default part of the ideology, or a tenet that you must spend a policy to get? We could also make it part of the national wonder of the ideology. Your model is a fine start

Freedom: The most natural thing is to tie it to great people. Maybe make it for every academy, manufactory or town which you control?

Autocracy: it should be every puppet or courthouse, so that it includes cities you conquer and annex, not only conquer to puppet.

Order: I don't think we need to give any further benefit to someone who has accumulated a ton of wonders. Order is often appealing to the kind of empire who has very few wonders. I can't think of a good one for order.

I was thinking it would be an adoption bonus (kind of like how normal policy branches have an opener). I'd include the text in the blank area when you select an ideology and on the ideology panel.

G

 

[pineappledan]

I wouldn’t put it into specific actions like GPs, puppets, etc. I wouldn’t appreciate being penalized for going diplo victory with authority, or science victory with freedom. Such a system would super-reward specific play styles for choosing specific victory conditions (domination authority, diplo freedom)

Instead, why not have it so pressure is based on your demographic standing, but each ideology has a slightly different demographic scoring system?

• Freedom triple-weights GNP and double-weights Literacy rank
• Order triple-weights GDP and double-weights Crop yield
• Autocracy triple-weights Land and double-weights Soldiers

So your ideological pressure scales with your “superpower” status, which is augmented by what your populace has been culturally trained to value. You are motivated to boost your demographic rankings, both by augmenting your own presssure, and by denying high rankings to other players that might weigh certain traits more highly

This returns a bit of concern for gross, empire-wise yields, which is lacking in the current, city-focused happiness paradigm.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Just slinging some ideas out there.

Autocracy:
Charter of Carnaro
Your trade routes to other civilizations (and their trade routes to you) are not affected by war-time and cannot be pillaged (but you can pillage theirs). They increase the ideological pressure against civilizations they target. Trade routes from civilizations that do not follow Autocracy do not increase tourism against you.

You gain influence every turn with Militaristic and Religious city states.

Order:
Bread Book
Laborers in your cities generate ideological pressure, in addition to culture and GAP. Laborers only consume 1 food.

You gain influence every turn with Maritime and Cultural city states.

Freedom:
Invisible Hand
Great works and great person tiles in your territory generate ideological pressure, and you generate ideological pressure when you expend any great person.
You gain influence every turn with Mercantile city states, and generate ideological pressure for every city state ally and declaration of friendship you have.

Your spies in puppeted cities can attempt a coup to bring the city under your control (though you will have the option to liberate it.)

 

[crdvis16]

I wouldn’t put it into specific actions like GPs, puppets, etc. I wouldn’t appreciate being penalized for going diplo victory with authority, or science victory with freedom. Such a system would super-reward specific play styles for choosing specific victory conditions (domination authority, diplo freedom)

Instead, why not have it so pressure is based on your demographic standing, but each ideology has a slightly different demographic scoring system?

• Freedom triple-weights GNP and double-weights Literacy rank
• Order triple-weights GDP and double-weights Crop yield
• Autocracy triple-weights Land and double-weights Soldiers

So your ideological pressure scales with your “superpower” status, which is augmented by what your populace has been culturally trained to value. You are motivated to boost your demographic rankings, both by augmenting your own presssure, and by denying high rankings to other players that might weigh certain traits more highly

This returns a bit of concern for gross, empire-wise yields, which is lacking in the current, city-focused happiness paradigm.

This seems like the best solution. I agree that some of the others too strongly favor specific playstyles as Dan points out in his first paragraph. But the yields he bases it on here are pretty universal/thematic to the ideologies themselves so it feels consistent and kinda/sorta historical. I imagine Bite would like this better than tourism as the mechanic to apply pressure for autocracy, for instance.

Would ideological pressure essentially work the same way, just with your pressure not being applied via tourism? But the same unhappiness->dissidents->rebels/revolt and the option to flip? Obviously the levers would have to be fine tuned to avoid either too much pressure leading to hegemony or too little and it being of no consequence.

Also, would we bother doing anything further with tourism, or just leave it as a sorta niche yield that mostly only matters if you're pursuing a culture vic?

I think this system could replicate the long, theoretical game example I gave and keeping that dynamism is worthwhile in my opinion.

 

[Txurce]

I wouldn’t put it into specific actions like GPs, puppets, etc. I wouldn’t appreciate being penalized for going diplo victory with authority, or science victory with freedom. Such a system would super-reward specific play styles for choosing specific victory conditions (domination authority, diplo freedom)

Instead, why not have it so pressure is based on your demographic standing, but each ideology has a slightly different demographic scoring system?

• Freedom triple-weights GNP and double-weights Literacy rank
• Order triple-weights GDP and double-weights Crop yield
• Autocracy triple-weights Land and double-weights Soldiers

So your ideological pressure scales with your “superpower” status, which is augmented by what your populace has been culturally trained to value. You are motivated to boost your demographic rankings, both by augmenting your own presssure, and by denying high rankings to other players that might weigh certain traits more highly

This returns a bit of concern for gross, empire-wise yields, which is lacking in the current, city-focused happiness paradigm.

I like the logic behind this, but would it contribute to more separation between the leaders and the pack?

 

[tu_79]

I like pine dan solution too. That would be the trigger. But is it fine for ideological pressure to cause increasing unhappiness?

 

[pineappledan]

*shrugs*, this brings me back to that local vs. International happiness discussion. What if late-game buildings just opened the floodgates on needs reductions, but placement in terms of global yields took over as the larger source of happiness?

For example, what if Stadium gave a flat -5 from boredom, police gave -5 from distress, stock market gave -5 from poverty, and medical lab gave -5 from illiteracy.

Then ideological pressure, calculated off a demographic placement calculation, takes over as a larger portion of total , either distributed to all cities based on population, or as a flat modifier to all cities.

 

[Gazebo]

I wouldn’t put it into specific actions like GPs, puppets, etc. I wouldn’t appreciate being penalized for going diplo victory with authority, or science victory with freedom. Such a system would super-reward specific play styles for choosing specific victory conditions (domination authority, diplo freedom)

Instead, why not have it so pressure is based on your demographic standing, but each ideology has a slightly different demographic scoring system?

• Freedom triple-weights GNP and double-weights Literacy rank
• Order triple-weights GDP and double-weights Crop yield
• Autocracy triple-weights Land and double-weights Soldiers

So your ideological pressure scales with your “superpower” status, which is augmented by what your populace has been culturally trained to value. You are motivated to boost your demographic rankings, both by augmenting your own presssure, and by denying high rankings to other players that might weigh certain traits more highly

This returns a bit of concern for gross, empire-wise yields, which is lacking in the current, city-focused happiness paradigm.

The biggest problem with this is that it’s a rich get richer scenario. The top dogs will pressure everyone else and they’ll have to spend hammers fighting happiness while the top dogs continue to get stronger. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of demographics, but I do think that, by itself, it’ll punish the lower half of players.

Perhaps it should be bloc based? Combined average of all ideology partners for demographics?

G

 

[Txurce]

The biggest problem with this is that it’s a rich get richer scenario. The top dogs will pressure everyone else and they’ll have to spend hammers fighting happiness while the top dogs continue to get stronger. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of demographics, but I do think that, by itself, it’ll punish the lower half of players.

Perhaps it should be bloc based? Combined average of all ideology partners for demographics?

G

I agreed with the rich-get-richer problem. The bloc approach is interesting, if controlled so it doesn't result in everyone choosing the same ideology, kinda like it is now.

 

[Stalker0]

The problem is, any scenario where you give a new bonus or a penalty, and that is based on how well the Civilization Is doing, you create a rich get richer scenario.

What you could do is give a civilization that joins an ideology some percentage of the ideologies leader yields as a bonus ( The leader gets no bonus). The more civs that join the block of Ideology, the weaker the percentage gets.

This makes ideology a catch-up mechanic, and encourages several diverse blocks Instead of one large one

 

[Txurce]

The problem is, any scenario where you give a new bonus or a penalty, and that is based on how well the Civilization Is doing, you create a rich get richer scenario.

What you could do is give a civilization that joins an ideology some percentage of the ideologies leader yields as a bonus ( The leader gets no bonus). The more civs that join the block of Ideology, the weaker the percentage gets.

This makes ideology a catch-up mechanic, and encourages several diverse blocks Instead of one large one

A lot of interesting ideas out there. What I like about this one is the diversity angle. Cultivating this is paramount to me, because it makes for a more interesting, conflict-filled game, and matches RL.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

The problem is, any scenario where you give a new bonus or a penalty, and that is based on how well the Civilization Is doing, you create a rich get richer scenario.

What you could do is give a civilization that joins an ideology some percentage of the ideologies leader yields as a bonus ( The leader gets no bonus). The more civs that join the block of Ideology, the weaker the percentage gets.

This makes ideology a catch-up mechanic, and encourages several diverse blocks Instead of one large one

I like this a lot.

 

[pineappledan]

If you are looking for a carrot for ideology diversity, I think policy cost reductions are the way to go, not yields. Yields for latecomers will interfere with the demographic rankings.

How about this?

• First-adopter gets their free policy, as usual.
• All Second adopters have a 10% policy cost discount, divided equally amongst all second-adopters (ie. 5% discount for 2 second adopters, 3.33% for 3 each, etc.)
• Every time a second adopter takes a new policy, the First mover gets 100, scaling with era.

So there’s a major up-front and continuing incentive to be first to claim an ideology. There’s also a major policy cost incentive to go with the ideology with the fewest number of followers. You have to balance your confidence in keeping empire happiness with your desire for more policies

Doing a bloc happiness calculation makes sense. maybe modified by empire size as a proportion of ideological bloc to some degree tho

 

[CrazyG]

• First-adopter gets their free policy, as usual.

• All Second adopters have a 10% policy cost discount, divided equally amongst all second-adopters (ie. 5% discount for 2 second adopters, 3.33% for 3 each, etc.)

• Every time a second adopter takes a new policy, the First mover gets 100, scaling with era.

Are you giving the second adopters a free policy? If not this is way better for the initiator.

I think a reality of ideologies is that at this stage of the game, the rich do get richer. What is important is that there is room for 3 or 4 rich guys and not only one.

On the note of influence, I acutally don't like the yields idea. There isn't a yield that represents freedom well (I often have pretty low gold as freedom). We all seem to agree that autocracy is related to military strength, but the calculations for your own military power are kind of wacky (it goes down every time you take a city).