A few thoughts on the governments in Civ6, a rare bit of Civ6 that I don't think I like (another bit are these stupid fir trees as the only forest on the planet 
). Government customization by exchangeable policy cards is a nice idea, but what I miss is that governments have nothing to do with politics, ideology or society. Despite of lot of options and customization, government design seems to be very bland compared to the ways they worked in some previous Civ titles.
Civs I-IV attempted to represent fundamentally different effects that different government types have had on the workings of a society and on the behaviour of population. Like in the real world, each gov/policy was a trade-off between a bonus or unique ability on one side and some limitation on the other. So we had tough choices like Slavery that enabled hurrying of the production by forced labour, but added a risk of slave revolts; Fundamentalism that cut unhappiness but halved research. With Nationalism you could draft population in army, but loose some happiness doing so. Emancipation would wreck a havoc in nations that still had serfdom, war wariness balanced economic and cultural advantages of Free Speech/Democracy choices, and so forth. To say nothing of such brave decision that the Senate could override player in Republic and Democracy in Civ1 and 2…not that anyone wants *that* back....
By contrast, in Civ5 and even more Civ6 there is nothing like that, governments and social policies are merely arbitrary labels for different packages of added bonuses, which player can choose according to its need, without accepting any negative trade-off. That's 1) not remotely similar to actual governance, 2) not very strategic thinking neither. They don’t even try to represent historical differences between, say societies in feudal monarchy and democracy. Difference between them: +2 here, +25% there, more slots for random bonuses, well that's it… No unique abilities, no unique consequences. Much less imaginative than design of leaders and civs. I see a lot of room to spice up government system, in expansion or mod.
). Government customization by exchangeable policy cards is a nice idea, but what I miss is that governments have nothing to do with politics, ideology or society. Despite of lot of options and customization, government design seems to be very bland compared to the ways they worked in some previous Civ titles.Civs I-IV attempted to represent fundamentally different effects that different government types have had on the workings of a society and on the behaviour of population. Like in the real world, each gov/policy was a trade-off between a bonus or unique ability on one side and some limitation on the other. So we had tough choices like Slavery that enabled hurrying of the production by forced labour, but added a risk of slave revolts; Fundamentalism that cut unhappiness but halved research. With Nationalism you could draft population in army, but loose some happiness doing so. Emancipation would wreck a havoc in nations that still had serfdom, war wariness balanced economic and cultural advantages of Free Speech/Democracy choices, and so forth. To say nothing of such brave decision that the Senate could override player in Republic and Democracy in Civ1 and 2…not that anyone wants *that* back....
By contrast, in Civ5 and even more Civ6 there is nothing like that, governments and social policies are merely arbitrary labels for different packages of added bonuses, which player can choose according to its need, without accepting any negative trade-off. That's 1) not remotely similar to actual governance, 2) not very strategic thinking neither. They don’t even try to represent historical differences between, say societies in feudal monarchy and democracy. Difference between them: +2 here, +25% there, more slots for random bonuses, well that's it… No unique abilities, no unique consequences. Much less imaginative than design of leaders and civs. I see a lot of room to spice up government system, in expansion or mod.
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I'm sure the scaling will allow a little more accumulation...?
