Ideologies

This system might be a bit complicated, and I don't know if it's too late to suggest such a radical change, but

how about making ideologies shape a lot of the game, dynamically but forcing the player to listen to the people's opinion?


Let me explain:

Ideologies would be somehow linked to civics so that running the wrong civic (ie the one the people don't like, based on ideologies, so communists like State Property and hate Free Market) would cause unhappiness in cities and the right civic would cause happiness. There would be many ideologies, some being political, some economical, some social and some others some others. The ideologies could be spread like religions (with propagandists [=missionaries]) but they would also spread according to the civics and happiness of the empire. This is complicated to explain but I hope this example of Russia helps: (vanilla civics shown)

pre-1917
Russian citizens are unhappy, and a new ideology, communism, spreads to their cities. Now the people begin to demand that the state switch civics to State Property.

1917
Russia switches to State Property, people are happy for a while, except those who don't follow communism.

late 20th century
Russian citizens are unhappy. Because the state is running Police State and State Property, the citizens think their unhappiness is caused by those civics and convert to ideologies opposing them, ie capitalism and [democratic political ideology (liberalism?)].

after 1991
Russia switches to Free Market and Universal Suffrage/Representation, but as the people aren't any happier now, nationalism and statism spread among some of the unhappy people.



The ideologies I've thought about and the civics they'd be linked to:


Mostly social/political

Liberalism
-supporting freedom, insisting that the traditional values need to be revised

Conservativism/Traditionalism
-somewhat opposed to rapid social change, insisting that traditional values would lead to a better society

Statism
-opposing freedom, supportive of strong leadership, claim that the masses aren't smart enough to lead

Religion (all religions in one?)
-any moderate religious people who are able to peacefully coexist

Fundamentalism (for each religion)
-opposed to religious freedom and other religions, consider own religion superior and heeds the religious texts literally

Nationalism

Mostly economical

Environmentalism
-opposed to environmental exploitation

Capitalism (need a better name after the Cold War?, if Liberalism is about economy as well, this could be Laissez-Faire)
-supporting free market and economic freedom (if split to two, Liberalism about free market and Laissez-Faire more extreme, about minimal state intervention)

Communism
-want that the state should control the economy




Civics:
(in red: not available at start)

name -ideology which favors said civic

Political

Spoiler :
Discord
(no organised government)
Autocracy -statism
(one leader in rule)
One-party system -statism
(the party in rule)
Republic -liberalism
(democratic nations)
Direct democracy -liberalism
(direct democracy)
Meritocracy
(post-modern, the ruling class is selected by testing the individuals in some way, and the most succesful in these tests are chosen to lead, like in Platon's "utopia")


Social

Spoiler :
Disorder
(everyone minds their own business to survive)
Authoritarian -statism
(the state says what's acceptable)
Fundamentalism -fundamentalism
(IT'S WRITTEN IN THE HOLY BOOK, YOU OBEY IT!)
Traditional -conservativism/traditionalism, religion?
(traditional values)
Total freedom -liberalism
(need better name, what doesn't (directly) harm others is socially acceptable)
Technocracy
(post-modern, the society is all geared towards technology)



Press & Speech

Spoiler :
Ignorance
(people are busy surviving, they have no time to think about much else)
Propaganda -statism
(the press is used as a tool of the government to influence people's thoughts directly)
Censorship -statism
(the press is nominally independent, but if the gov't doesn't like what it says, it doesn't say it)
Biased press
(the press is "free", but strangely nobody questions some "truths")
Objective press -liberalism
(the press is free to say what it wants, and it sure uses that freedom. No state ideology)
Enlightened citizenry
(post-modern, the citizens have unlimited access to all information in the world, the government doesn't even try to affect their opinions. No state ideology, espionage penalty (the openness is bad for secret issues), tons and tons of war weariness, happiness, culture and science bonuses)
Thought control
(1984)


Legal and Civil Rights

Spoiler :
Rule of the strongest
(me is da boss. u do wat me sez)
Religious law -fundamentalism
(See Fundamentalism in Social category)
Martial law
(the military does the police's job)
Judicidal courts
(there are laws which apply to most of the people)
People's courts
(the people decide what to do to criminals in each case individually, makes some happier but allows prejudice/discrimination)
Human rights
(everyone has the unbroken right to live... etc)
Cybernetic
(post-modern, cases are fed to a complex computer program which tells what to do)



Economy
Labour

(basically the same as in the civics thread)


Environment
(new, to allow more diverse solutions to GW etc)

Spoiler :
Exploitation -laissez-faire
(What, should we do something? the businesses can do it on their own)
Regulation
(inefficient but the only way in the early game to cut environmental damage without radical society changes)
Naturalism -environmentalism
(need a better name, the whole society is built around the idea of keeping the nature intact)
Technological solutions
(post-modern, technology is used to solve environmental problems [if there is any environment left when the civic becomes available])




Now, as you can see, many combinations of multiple ideologies are possible adding a lot of diversity to the game. A civ can make both liberalists and environmentalists happy, but making both communists and laissez-faire capitalists happy is impossible, as is statists and liberalists




What do you think?
 
UN Patriot has the best ideas for this, hands down.

With that said: The types of government to be used should be:

Government:

Communism: -25% food & research in all cities (millions starved under it), +100% $$ in capital (where else does the money go when the state controls it), no corporations (if we use them) (Russia [might as well be], Cuba, Venezuela, China)

Capitalism: +25% $$ in all cities, +25% Research Rate in all cities (worlds best advancements have come under capitalism), +1 unhappiness in all cities (stupid people get hammered in capitalism) (USA, Japan, etc.)

Socialism: -25% $$ in all cities, +1 health in all cities, +1 happy in all cities (dumb people like re-distribution of the wealth), (Canada, EU, [should be USA])

Religious Fundamentalism: -25% Research in all cities, +3/-3 happy/state religion in/not in city, +50% military unit production (countries in the middle east, North Korea, Africa, etc.)
 
UN Patriot has the best ideas for this, hands down.

With that said: The types of government to be used should be:

Government:

Communism: -25% food & research in all cities (millions starved under it), +100% $$ in capital (where else does the money go when the state controls it), no corporations (if we use them) (Russia [might as well be], Cuba, Venezuela, China)

Capitalism: +25% $$ in all cities, +25% Research Rate in all cities (worlds best advancements have come under capitalism), +1 unhappiness in all cities (stupid people get hammered in capitalism) (USA, Japan, etc.)

Socialism: -25% $$ in all cities, +1 health in all cities, +1 happy in all cities (dumb people like re-distribution of the wealth), (Canada, EU, [should be USA])

Religious Fundamentalism: -25% Research in all cities, +3/-3 happy/state religion in/not in city, +50% military unit production (countries in the middle east, North Korea, Africa, etc.)

I would jsut lie to point out there has never been a Communist country in human history. The USSR, China, Vietnam, are all Socialist countries.

perhaps instead of socialism you could have:
Welfare State
-25% $$ in all cities ro reflect costs involved, +2 health in all cities, everyone has access to free healthcare, +1 happy in all cities from some form of security in life and +1 population growth through healthcare and social security. (EU, UK\NATO)
 
Correct on socialism vs. communism, but it is easier to call it communism and socialism than call it 75% state control, and 90% state control.


Economy:

Communism/Socialism: -25% food & research in all cities (millions starved under it), +100% $$ in capital (where else does the money go when the state controls it), no corporations (if we use them) (Russia [might as well be], Cuba, Venezuela, China)

Capitalism: +25% $$ in all cities, +25% Research Rate in all cities (worlds best advancements have come under capitalism), +1 unhappiness in all cities (stupid people get hammered in capitalism) (USA, Japan, etc.)

Socialism/Welfare State: -25% $$ in all cities, +1 health in all cities, +1 happy in all cities (dumb people like re-distribution of the wealth), (Canada, EU, [should be USA])

Religious Fundamentalism: -25% Research in all cities, +3/-3 happy/state religion in/not in city, +50% military unit production (countries in the middle east, North Korea, Africa, etc.)

Government:

Monarchy: +3 happy in capital, +3 healthy in capital, +25% distance penalty from palace

Republic: +3 happy in all cities, +25% wonder construction, -25% military production

Police State: -1 happy in all cities (loss of rights), +25% military production, -10% wonder constuction

Totalitarian/Dictatorship: -3 happy in all cities, +50% military production, -25% wonder construction

Legal:
Same as in Civ4/others ideas...

Labor:
Same as in Civ4/others ideas...

Religion:
Same as in Civ4/others ideas...
 
I don't exactly like where this is going. No doubt, the ideologies aren't finalized, but we need to slim down some of the suggestions here. I also think that capitalism and communism are too last-century, and no longer relevent. Fundamentalism should be there only when it already pertains to a state's policy, such as in Iran, Israel/Palestine, and Tibet. Liberalism and conservatism don't work on the global scale, considering different countries will have different definitions.
 
I share Bahmo's unease, (though possibly for different reasons).

Looking at UNpatriot's arguments, the idea that unhappy citizens are more receptive to other ideologies is interesting.

Real world, ideologies are currently static due to the effect of changing birth rates. The opinions of Gen X and Gen Y will never matter, as most voters/consumers are baby boomers - by the time the baby boomers have died out, new generations will be born whose opinions will then be decisive. As we have no idea what they will consider important, 'realism' is going to be impractical.

Can I recommend the use of a 'too hard basket'?
Keeping ideologies tentative until solid lists of nations and desired initial alliances have been hammered out? And being prepared to make brutal modifications during playtests? If too much effort is put into this question now, people will be less willing to throw that hard work away later - when the practical needs of the mod are known.
 
I've been having the same feelings as Bahmo on this thread for quite a time but I never really had an idea how to put it. So thanks, Bahmo, for expressing it.

First of all: what is this thread about? It started with the goal to replace Civ's religions by certain ideologies. The latest posts seem to use ideologies as a civic system. So where are we going from here?

What are ideologies? Ideologies are whole systems of thoughts, kind of world views. So they indeed have something in common with religions. This makes them predestined for the Civ's religion system.
The civic system however, breaks down political systems into different aspects. While in Civ 1-3 you could choose between Monarchy and Democracy (i.e. ideologies as political systems) the civic system makes it possible to form your own "ideology". This is reasonable and should not be overthrown. I try to express it more graphic:

IDEOLOGY = CIVIC A + CIVIC B + CIVIC C etc.

So IMO ideologies are made up of a constellation of certain civics and should not be a civic themselves.

OK, now I say ideologies should work as religions. But how? I'd like to put the Cultural Ideology model back into discussion. This is because I don't see the relevance of different ideologies in 21st century. There is an explanation why we have difficulties to agree on a set of political ideologies for this mod. As (not only) philosopher Slavoj Žižek says: We live in a post-ideological era.

- There actually are no different ideologies that matter like in the 20th ct. when there was a struggle between the strong ideologies capitalism, communism and nazism. One ideology has won this battle and is now in effect in every corner of the world: That is capitalism. Unlike it has been claimed in this thread also in Russia and China capitalism
is the one and only. Small exceptions like Cuba, Vietnam or North Korea don't matter enough to justify a whole religion-like political ideologies system.

So this is why I suggest cultural ideologies. Look at NikNaks' first post in this thread for the details. Each cultural ideology (CI) stands for a whole set of economical, political, cultural and religious ideas that the majority of an ethnicity/cultural group are sharing. This means for "western" e.g. capitalist economy, individuality, christian roots, democracy etc., for "eastern" it would be more towards a collectivist society model, buddhist roots etc.
Thus an existent CI in one city would also mean that a certain ethnicity lives there. This makes melting pot cities possible, as well as the ethnic cleansing feature from the "features" thread. Civs with the same CI would have a slight relations bonus just like the same state religions gain. But having the same civics should give even more.
 
I think Insane's idea of allowing a player to essentially form his own ideology by mixing civics is a good one. To maintain the goal of realism to the actual world situation, however, at the AI level there need to be some things set more-or-less in stone. This means certain favorite civics and certain favorite ideologies. The only problem is exactly what the ideologies are.
 
So how I understand this: For every CI we should in general specify one favourite civic of each category. Then we should look at every civ more closely and slightly altering the favourite civics to match reality. For not all states of the same CI have the same system. CI just shows an overall tendency.

I'm not sure how to achieve this. Can we link this civics preference to the current state CI? So if maybe Mexico changes its state CI from Amerindian to Western (or the other way round) in 2019 the civics preference would switch, too? Or do we have to fix it to every civ in the beginning and it won't alter? Which would mean no big difference in choosing.

Both would mean that we choose preferred civics for each CI and then apply them for every civ with that state CI and finally make slight modifications to match the singularity of this civ.
 
First I'd start with a list assigning a state CI to each of our game's civs.

Spoiler :

United States of America (Western, any other CI present)
Canada (Western)
Mexico (Amerindian)
Venezuela (Amerindian)
Colombia (Amerindian)
Peru (Amerindian)
Brazil (Amerindian)
Argentina (Amerindian)
Chile (Amerindian)

Kazakhstan (Muslim)
Georgia (Orthodox)
Belarus (Orthodox)
Ukraine (Orthodox)
Russia (Orthodox)

Algeria (Muslim)
Nigeria (African)
Egypt (Muslim)
Ethiopia (African)
Sudan (Muslim, African e.g. in Darfur)
Angola (African)
South Africa (African, strong Western)

Israel (Jewish)
Palestine (Muslim)
Iran (Muslim)
Syria (Muslim)
Saudi Arabia (Muslim)
Pakistan (Muslim)
India (Hindu)
Sri Lanka (Eastern)
China (Eastern)
North Korea (Eastern)
South Korea (Eastern)
Thailand (Eastern)
Vietnam (Eastern)
Myanmar (Eastern)

Taiwan (Eastern)
Japan (Eastern)
Australia (Western)
Philippines (Western)
Republic of Indonesia (Muslim)

European Union (Western, presence of any other CI)

Permanent Neutrality (Switzerland (capital), Costa Rica, Liechtenstein Turkmenistan.) (I'd say Western, since a majority of western countries. But Costa Rica should also have Amerindian and Turkmenistan only Muslim)

NATO (UK-capital, Turkey, Iceland, Norway, Croatia, Albania.) (Western, but others present in UK, Turkey, Albania should be Muslim)

Independent African States (Morocco (capital), Libya, Zimbabwe, Kenya.) (hmmm...2:2 between Muslim and African...)

African Union (all African countries that aren't represented elsewhere) (African, since outnumbering Muslim countries)

Failed States (Somalia, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Chad.) (Muslim since Somalia and Chad are, EG African and ET Western)

Minor Nations

-South American Socialist Allies (Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay). Vassal of Venezuela. (Of course Amerindian)

 
Then I'd try as an example to assign favourite civics to a Western state CI. I'll only take them from those lists NikNaks posted at the beginning of the Civics thread. Of course they are not complete.

Western:
Labor: Organized
Economics: Corporatist
Government: Parliamentary
Religion/Society/Ideology: Messianism
 
To keep things organized: let's move the ideologies discussion from the art thread here:

I made icons for ideologies. Here they are:



from left to right
African, Amerindian, Eastern, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Orthodox, Western

I first made icons for Cultural Ideologies since it's the ones we have a undisputed list of. If we decide to go for Political Ideologies and can agree on a list then I'll of course make icons for them instead. Although it's no secret that I think political ideologies are a difficult subject in a present day mod (after the capitalism walkover...).

But anyway, let me know what you think of those icons. At the moment I have no access to the SVN so maybe someone else can blend the icons in the right files. If needed I'll make smaller versions for the city bar including those with a star for "holy cities". And pedia buttons of course.

ianinsane:"I made icons for ideologies. Here they are:
Although it's no secret that I think political ideologies are a difficult subject in a present day mod (after the capitalism walkover...)."

Regrettably, you are correct. The modern world is less ideologically-sensitive than the old, Cold War world, thanks to neoliberalism. People care less about being right and more about being rich.

However, as pretty as your buttons are, using cultures as ideologies is still a forced and inappropriate idea. A country can't convert to or adopt a different culture than the one it already has, and being nicer to people with the same culture is less in line with the modern world situation (where trade is the main factor in international relations), not more. I still stand by my old idea of most of the ideologies I wanted to add; the only difference is neoliberalism, because, as I've said, it is in many ways more of an anti-ideology than anything else, and Obama does not believe in it to the extent that Clinton and Bush did.

Bahmo: "A country can't convert to or adopt a different culture than the one it already has"

Of course not. The cultural ideology has to be present to "convert" to it. Being present in a city different Cultural Ideologies represent people of different ethnics who share different values and beliefs.
I'd say one of the recent "conversions" happened in Bolivia. This would be equal to a change of State Cultural Ideology from Western to Amerindian. Another one would be the end of the Apartheid in South Africa: State Cultural Ideology switched from Western to African.

Bahmo: "and being nicer to people with the same culture is less in line with the modern world situation (where trade is the main factor in international relations)"

No. For example the difficulties for Turkey to become member of the EU come from the problems the old EU states have with Turkey's different culture. And this is being frankly admitted.

This is exactly how the modern version of official racism works. It is justified not by biological means as it was the fact 50-100 years ago but by cultural means ("they don't share our values..."). And it does affect international relations as shown above. We must have means to simulate this.

We already have means to simulate
- trade related effects to relations ("...appreciate the years you supplied us with resources...")
- politically related effects to relations ("...you have wisely chosen your civics...") <--- that's why I don't see the necessity of adding another political relations factor with political ideologies

What's clearly missing are means to simulate the culture effects on diplo relations. This should be weighed much less than the trade and politically related effects but there has to be a penalty when a Western or Jewish civ is negotiating with a Muslim civ. And there has to be a bonus when two Latin American civs are negotiating with each other.

Bahmo: "People care less about being right and more about being rich. "

I'm on my way out the door and unfortunately can't really get involved in this discussion until tomorrow, but I must say, I couldn't agree with this statement less.

There is a huge, worldwide resistance to neo-liberalism and in favour of social justice. Primarily in the global south.

No poor country has ever voted for neo-liberalism.
 
Now that you put it that way, the ideological basis you propose is more appealing.

A number of things do still need to be considered, however, such as a fleshing out of exactly what different cultures value, and whether or not a culture has enough expectations of its people to serve as a political force. Amerindian, for example, seems to be valid, as it inherrently values good use natural resources, which is in line with South America. Orthodox, I really don't think that has enough sway over the people to be a valid ideology, and since it's originally Greek, not Russian, that's another problem. The need for a pan-Slavic ideology of some sort is apparent, as it's such a large part of the world's population, but it should be more modern.

Turkey, I believe, is far more Western in its values than it is Islamic at this point, if not so Western as the West is. Perhaps even Egypt is. The sticky issue of no admittance into the EU can be acomplished simply by making Turkey an independent Civ in the mod.

One more thing, I think if we go this route, it makes a lot of sense to not use any counterpart to missionaries. Though perhaps they could be justified as "propaganda," I think a better idea is to use buildings to spread the ideology. If we still want to utilize the immigration component at some point, that, too, could spread different ideologies. Perhaps a unique slum building could exist for each foreign ideology, and it would be built automatically when an ideology spreads to a city.
 
Now that you put it that way, the ideological basis you propose is more appealing.

Cool! I always tend to need many failed attempts to explain ideas... lol

Orthodox, I really don't think that has enough sway over the people to be a valid ideology, and since it's originally Greek, not Russian, that's another problem. The need for a pan-Slavic ideology of some sort is apparent, as it's such a large part of the world's population, but it should be more modern.

You're right. I'm not too happy with the classification Orthodox, too. The ideas for the different Cultures originate from Samuel P. Huntington's thesis of "Clash of Civilizations". Although his theory is highly controversial at large and I personally don't want to adopt it I found his classification to be a good starting point. We already merged his Sinic, Buddhist and Japanese culture group into one "Eastern" cultural ideology after someone from the Philipppines in this board claimed that they would "all be the same" :). Another reasonable change we made was to replace "Latin American" by "Amerindian". So what about changing "Orthodox" simply into "Slavic"?

Here by the way is Huntington's map, which served as an inspiration. This is not my suggestion for ideology distribution:
Spoiler :


Turkey, I believe, is far more Western in its values than it is Islamic at this point, if not so Western as the West is. Perhaps even Egypt is. The sticky issue of no admittance into the EU can be acomplished simply by making Turkey an independent Civ in the mod.

Yes, I believe so, too. But conservative politics in the EU don't. And there is some shifting towards Islamic under the current administration. And you're right, Turkey will be it's own civ. That's the proper way to deal with that issue. I just used that example to point out that these cultural differences affect international relations.

One more thing, I think if we go this route, it makes a lot of sense to not use any counterpart to missionaries. Though perhaps they could be justified as "propaganda," I think a better idea is to use buildings to spread the ideology.

I'm totally with you. Missionaries would be highly unrealistic. Would be cool if some resources, like Hit Movies from Hollywood, could spread ideologies, too. Although that might give to much advantage to the Western ideology, but maybe we can have a second Wonder (Bollywood) to counter that.
Another way of spreading could be corporations, and friendly military units stationed in a city for a long time. But the best way would indeed eventually be immigration. The idea concerning unique slum buildings is very interesting!

Another thing I have been wondering about lately is if we should represent African American population by having African ideology in the cities at the American coasts? Probably not...what do you think? But there should definately be some Amerindian at the Mexican border and in California.
 
It's good to see some healthy discussion here. I'd agree with the change from Orthodox to Slavic, but if there is a better word to describe it, I'd be happy to switch again.

In reference to that map, I'd say make Japan a Western/Eastern combo, instead of its own culture. There are many other changes we can make, as well, and in some cases, it may even be on a city-by-city basis.
 
Of course, we'll have to do it city-by-city. London or NYC for example should have every cultural ideology present. Sudan should have African cities in the south and Muslim cities in the north. But nevertheless there should be a state ideology. And I think for Japan that would still be Eastern. Although there might be strong Western presence in Japanese cities.

When/if this is agreed on then I can make a list with all our cities, researching what culture is present in them.
 
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