It's time to ditch Fascism

[humble serf]

Late-game government options in Civ V and VI share two conflicting problems:

1. The devs (justifiably) don't want to depict a happy-smiley version of national socialism which furthers its interests through purely soft-power means in pursuit of a diplomatic, cultural, scientific or economic victory.
2. Fascism/Autocracy is a boring one-trick-pony government for domination victory only, whereas Democracy/Freedom and Communism/Order are nuanced and customisable, and can more easily be directed towards a range of victory conditions.

As I see it, the only way around this is to drop the "Fascism" label entirely. I'm not trying to be overly censorious here, and I acknowledge that plenty of other violent regimes are playable in-game without controversy. But even from a purely historical point of view, fascism was a major player in world politics for no more than two decades. Both before World War II and over the past 80 years, a wide range of governments have achieved regional and global influence while distancing themselves from the mainstream communist and liberal-democratic blocs, and they have done this without identifying as fascists or launching total wars for world domination. So far, Civ has never really attempted to model this. The franchise regularly expands its representation of different regions, cultures and religions, but when it comes to ideology, all that ever seems to matter are the great powers of 1925-45 and the two Cold War superpowers. Even if the devs added dozens of new Modern Era civs from Africa, Asia and Latin America, this representation would be cheapened if the new civs' only government options are the Politburo, the United States Congress and the blackshirts.

Consider the Non-Aligned Movement. Sure, you could say that in Civ terms, Nehru picked Democracy and Tito picked Communism -- but wouldn't it be better if they had an ideological faction of their own, allowing them to cooperate against the interests of the mainstream liberal democracies and communist states? Wouldn't that be more interesting than reserving the game's third ideology for a clique of civs all pursuing domination victories? Or look at 21st-century Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Dubai -- they're hardly Marxist or liberal-democratic, but clearly their preferred "victory conditions" are economic and cultural rather than militaristic. Then there's the porfiriato, the kemalists, the ba'athists, the peronists, the ayatollahs, Park Chung Hee, Julius Nyerere, the list goes on. Of course these regimes don't all share the same ideology, but there are major ideological divisions within communism and liberal democracy as well, and ultimately each civ customises its own government through policy cards, traditions, and so on.

In any case, has anything resembling any of those regimes ever emerged during one of your civ games? I'd argue this is another reason why so many players find the late-game boring -- every 20th-century civ is either the USA under Kennedy, the USSR under Khrushchev or a fascist war machine. The game ceases to be an open-ended alternate history and turns into a low-res simulation of an endless 1940s, 50s and 60s.

My pitch is to rename the third ideology "Nationalism" (it's not perfect, but I can't think of anything better) and to make all three late-game governments viable for all victory conditions in different ways. Brave New World flirted with this concept in Civ V, but was hamstrung by problems 1 and 2 mentioned above because "Autocracy" was clearly supposed to represent only the Axis Powers of WWII. Fascism doesn't need to be name-checked in-game, but terms like "lightning warfare" (as in Civ V) could be used for Nationalist policy cards oriented towards domination victories.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Once I was playing with Zulus and was excited to choice the Tech tree of fascismus, I told it to my mon and she was angry, she believed this game endors the fascismus in players mind.
After meditade over this issue for years, I start to think she was right, this game, at least in civ5, didn't have any way to show if Fascismus was god or bad, it just play so usefull as democracy or socialismus in tech tree.

So, I think the solution isn't change it name, but this game force to show and prove how and why fascismus is a bad choice.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Italy got Theological-Republican-Democratic-Liberal-Communism which is something entirely on its own... a
pure blend of mess, dogmatic nazism, and rampant corruption.

Matriarchal societies were of Minoican origin instead. Mycene patriarchal society was infiltrated by northern tribes.
Once allied of the Minoans, after the Santorini eruption in 1600AC, they militarily occupied Crete, and started destroying this legacy. Troy was a purely ideological war between these two kinds of societies.
Demetra, was one of the Titan goddess of the Minoans, the one with the torches of liberty that we find in the Statue of Liberty
to be precise. The war is still going on 3600 years later. Women still need to be freed in some patriarchal society entirely.

Nationalism per se doesn't reflect neither of those two core aspects of human society. Except some archaic symbolism for the ancient sun, swastikas, whatever that is, found everywhere in ancient world.
For this reason, there are kind of Nationalism completely different for most Mediterranean countries in Europe, and the Northern ones. Fascism is just another name for a very old believe system that used the shield of Nationalism, but under the hood there was a lot more. And unfortunately it's not going away anytime soon.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Once I was playing with Zulus and was excited to choice the Tech tree of fascismus, I told it to my mon and she was angry, she believed this game endors the fascismus in players mind.
After meditade over this issue for years, I start to think she was right, this game, at least in civ5, didn't have any way to show if Fascismus was god or bad, it just play so usefull as democracy or socialismus in tech tree.

So, I think the solution isn't change it name, but this game force to show and prove how and why fascismus is a bad choice.

CtP had Fascism unlocking some kind of unique units. Same with Communism. Each got their particular militaristic hue.
Which to my eyes is what made them so different in practical terms to the end.
It was really fun and easy to win with Fascism. Units were super strong, like modern day Roman Legionaries upgraded vs clubmans Only US democracy with Sky superiority and Navy Seals could defeat them basically. They also got unique Tanks in CtpII I dont remember, my old CD is long gone...

Aside military options, Civ III got fascismus a very sytrict set of rules. No culture expansion untill all population replacement in captured cities. No revolts but no culture. So very bad if you are against some cultural win adversary.
MAybe it could get some nice Winning screen, or end screen, that could go deeper in the nuances of your gameplays.

Different Ending. A nice thread for itself would be.

 

[Patine]

Late-game government options in Civ V and VI share two conflicting problems:

1. The devs (justifiably) don't want to depict a happy-smiley version of national socialism which furthers its interests through purely soft-power means in pursuit of a diplomatic, cultural, scientific or economic victory.
2. Fascism/Autocracy is a boring one-trick-pony government for domination victory only, whereas Democracy/Freedom and Communism/Order are nuanced and customisable, and can more easily be directed towards a range of victory conditions.

As I see it, the only way around this is to drop the "Fascism" label entirely. I'm not trying to be overly censorious here, and I acknowledge that plenty of other violent regimes are playable in-game without controversy. But even from a purely historical point of view, fascism was a major player in world politics for no more than two decades. Both before World War II and over the past 80 years, a wide range of governments have achieved regional and global influence while distancing themselves from the mainstream communist and liberal-democratic blocs, and they have done this without identifying as fascists or launching total wars for world domination. So far, Civ has never really attempted to model this. The franchise regularly expands its representation of different regions, cultures and religions, but when it comes to ideology, all that ever seems to matter are the great powers of 1925-45 and the two Cold War superpowers. Even if the devs added dozens of new Modern Era civs from Africa, Asia and Latin America, this representation would be cheapened if the new civs' only government options are the Politburo, the United States Congress and the blackshirts.

Consider the Non-Aligned Movement. Sure, you could say that in Civ terms, Nehru picked Democracy and Tito picked Communism -- but wouldn't it be better if they had an ideological faction of their own, allowing them to cooperate against the interests of the mainstream liberal democracies and communist states? Wouldn't that be more interesting than reserving the game's third ideology for a clique of civs all pursuing domination victories? Or look at 21st-century Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Dubai -- they're hardly Marxist or liberal-democratic, but clearly their preferred "victory conditions" are economic and cultural rather than militaristic. Then there's the porfiriato, the kemalists, the ba'athists, the peronists, the ayatollahs, Park Chung Hee, Julius Nyerere, the list goes on. Of course these regimes don't all share the same ideology, but there are major ideological divisions within communism and liberal democracy as well, and ultimately each civ customises its own government through policy cards, traditions, and so on.

In any case, has anything resembling any of those regimes ever emerged during one of your civ games? I'd argue this is another reason why so many players find the late-game boring -- every 20th-century civ is either the USA under Kennedy, the USSR under Khrushchev or a fascist war machine. The game ceases to be an open-ended alternate history and turns into a low-res simulation of an endless 1940s, 50s and 60s.

My pitch is to rename the third ideology "Nationalism" (it's not perfect, but I can't think of anything better) and to make all three late-game governments viable for all victory conditions in different ways. Brave New World flirted with this concept in Civ V, but was hamstrung by problems 1 and 2 mentioned above because "Autocracy" was clearly supposed to represent only the Axis Powers of WWII. Fascism doesn't need to be name-checked in-game, but terms like "lightning warfare" (as in Civ V) could be used for Nationalist policy cards oriented towards domination victories.

The problem is, the label, "Fascist," after WW2 became subjective, polemic, and even perjorative. Depending on who you ask, Franco and Salazar remaimed Fascists for 20 more years, Pinochet, Peron, and the Trujillo Brothers were Fascists, "Tropical Fascism," is used for five to eight Cold War African regimes, Zhirinovsky is a Fascist, Trump is a Fascist, Meloni is a Fascist, Orban is a Fascist, La Pen is a Fascist, Erdogan is a Fascist, Bolsonario is a Fascist, several leaders of typical coalition partner parties of Netanyahu are Fascists, etc. Are all - or any - of these Post-WW2 leaders really Fascists, and where do we draw the line of the definition, considering the movement is already mostly very variable in nature by national context, as it is.

 

[humble serf]

The problem is, the label, "Fascist," after WW2 became subjective, polemic, and even perjorative. Depending on who you ask, Franco and Salazar remaimed Fascists for 20 more years, Pinochet, Peron, and the Trujillo Brothers were Fascists, "Tropical Fascism," is used for five to eight Cold War African regimes, Zhirinovsky is a Fascist, Trump is a Fascist, Meloni is a Fascist, Orban is a Fascist, La Pen is a Fascist, Erdogan is a Fascist, Bolsonario is a Fascist, several leaders of typical coalition partner parties of Netanyahu are Fascists, etc. Are all - or any - of these Post-WW2 leaders really Fascists, and where do we draw the line of the definition, considering the movement is already mostly very variable in nature by national context, as it is.

Well, exactly. Even if we assume that all of those leaders were/are fascists:

1. None of them identified as fascists.
2. They (generally) did not launch wars of conquest against their neighbours, which is the primary element of fascism emphasised in Civ V and VI.
3. Since 1945, there have been several other non-liberal and non-communist regimes which have been just as influential as the ones you listed, and Civ ignores this aspect of Modern-era politics entirely.

Perhaps more importantly, from a purely game-design perspective, I don't like the idea that my choice of victory condition should dictate my choice of government (or vice versa). Modern Era ideologies should be about forming power blocs with like-minded civs in pursuit of common goals, not just pushing the accelerate button for a particular victory condition. Switching the name to "Nationalism" and incorporating figures like Nehru, Nasser, Tito and Rashid Al Maktoum would allow the third ideology to be decoupled from the domination victory without as much controversy.

 

[Patine]

Well, exactly. Even if we assume that all of those leaders were/are fascists:

1. None of them identified as fascists.
2. They (generally) did not launch wars of conquest against their neighbours, which is the primary element of fascism emphasised in Civ V and VI.
3. Since 1945, there have been several other non-liberal and non-communist regimes which have been just as influential as the ones you listed, and Civ ignores this aspect of Modern-era politics entirely.

Perhaps more importantly, from a purely game-design perspective, I don't like the idea that my choice of victory condition should dictate my choice of government (or vice versa). Modern Era ideologies should be about forming power blocs with like-minded civs in pursuit of common goals, not just pushing the accelerate button for a particular victory condition. Switching the name to "Nationalism" and incorporating figures like Nehru, Nasser, Tito and Rashid Al Maktoum would allow the third ideology to be decoupled from the domination victory without as much controversy.

Also, Civ2 had a Government type called Fundamentalism, and an anaogous one in Civ3 called Theocracy (though Civ3 also had Fascism), which, between quite a few different religions taken to a distorted extreme, is both more prevalent and common today, and goes back MUCH further into history. Though, it too, could be controversial, though for different reasons.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

As I see it, the only way around this is to drop the "Fascism" label entirely. I'm not trying to be overly censorious here, and I acknowledge that plenty of other violent regimes are playable in-game without controversy.

Fascism is not needed to make a good civ game. It's the sign of a failed state even if they make the dubious claim that trains run on time.

Consider the Non-Aligned Movement. Sure, you could say that in Civ terms, Nehru picked Democracy and Tito picked Communism -- but wouldn't it be better if they had an ideological faction of their own, allowing them to cooperate against the interests of the mainstream liberal democracies and communist states?

Have the three era split opens up the possibility of more varied political systems. I'd like to see what modern government type you have be a result of the player choices and actions rather then the player simply picking a government.

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

I'm hoping that Age based mechanics will encourage the devs to do something more in-depth with ideologies. Something to do with global politics only makes sense for the Modern Age, no? They've seemingly been trying to address prominent community concerns with past games, and diplomacy/world congress was a big grievance with 6. Maybe there's something planned to interact with the new Influence system?

 

[GeneralZIft]

Two decades? We still have Fascism today... Let alone the so-called Democratic systems that have Fascists anyway. Still a realistic depiction and for gameplay purposes, dictatorial government and war-based gameplay style should be an option.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

My personal issue with how modern ideologies have been represented in the Civ series, can be summarized as:

1. Fascism making you do war good. The Axis lost WW2 precisely because they bought into their own hype too hard to actually get good at fighting (or more importantly, developing proper supply networks)
2. Not enough ideologies. I feel like these games could've done some proper good by portraying modern politics as significantly more pluralistic. It's not just a matter of "Left vs Right" or "Left vs Right vs Third Alternative"; we need proper representation of and distinction between: social democrats, anarchists, environmentalists, neoliberals (as a distinction from classical liberals), neo-monarchists, neo-mercantilists, pan-africanists (and other anti-colonial movements), feminists, religious fundamentalists, state atheists (as in, believing religion is the root of all evil and must educated out of existence), libertarian capitalists, national conservatives, neo-conservatives, etcetera
3. Ideology affecting what you can do as a nation. In real life, what ideology the ruling class adopts has way more affect on regular people's lives, than on what kind of methods the nation can employ to dominate other nations

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Post deleted as current events/politics discussion are not allowed in the game threads. If you wish to discuss those things, please start a thread inthe Off Topic section of the forum. Thanks.