Luxuries is not all good

[Albow]

I was thinking about how luxuries in Civ tend to be a completely good thing. But I think that may be a little over simplified, and just to add some depth and more thinking into the game, how about having a negative effect of luxuries too?

What do I mean:

Well, luxuries tend to make the citizens want even more luxuries and goods. They start to get use to the comfort, they might not be so willing to die for a cause because they are enjoying themselves ... at worst, people become tottally obsessed about things and not about life itself.

How to represent this in the game:

Perhaps luxuries should have a wear-off effect, so that, after a certain time period, they no longer count in making happy faces. However, should the lux become unavailable, then there is going to be a lot of Unhappy people!

This would mean that there would need to be more lux available, but this could come about in the Industrial age, with consumer goods. I would also think it interesting if drugs would be involved (happiness but at a price of increased corruption and slower production perhaps?)

Then , by the Modern Age, you could start having the problem of too many luxuries and people starting to get bored with life. This would be a sort of social decay factor, and would involve additional challenges to keep your Civ fresh and pumping!

Suggestions/comments?

 

[norwegianviking]

Don't like it, to complex, except for the ware off affect, that's good, I also think that maybe more luxeries could become availible when you research certain technologies (not exactly sure how that would work though).

 

[searcheagle]

It could be made simple: after x turns, luxuries become adictive. If the supply is lost, they will cause unhappiness for x turns.

 

[norwegianviking]

THAT, makes sence, but I don't like the addictive part.

 

[Dida]

That's too complicated. Civ4 should be for simplied then civ3, and with less confusing ideas like this one.

 

[Yuri2356]

I also think that maybe more luxeries could become availible when you research certain technologies (not exactly sure how that would work though).

If I might quckly direct you to my Artificial Luxuries thread, it contains the solution to introducing new luxuries: Allow a player to produce them after certain technologies are researched.

 

[norwegianviking]

NOt exactly true that civ 4 shouldn't be more complicated, but the original idea was WAY to complicated, I like searcheagle's version, it's pretty simple.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Quite simple really:

1) Every time you discover a brand new luxury source, any existing luxuries you have will diminish in effectiveness every X turns. For example-lets say you start the game with a source of dyes, which increase happiness by 10% across your trading cities. During the mid-Ancient age, you obtain a tech which makes silks visible to you. After this point, your existing sources of dyes will lose around 1% of their happiness boost every 5 turns.

2) The more cities you try and supply with a single luxury, the more likely that luxury will disappear.

3) After a certain point, too many luxuries will actually create and/or exacerbate corruption within your nation-as a result of decadence. For arguments sake, the first 5% of extra happiness your luxuries provide is 'free' from corruption, but each additional 5% adds 1 level of corruption to the cities which benefit from it!

4) Each turn you have access to a luxury, the greater the NEGATIVE impact should be if you should lose it somehow. For example, if you have a luxury which boosts happiness by 5% across all your cities, and you have had it for around 10 turns, then losing it might cause a 7.5% happiness loss due to the peoples anger (10 turns=(1.5x happiness rating) as a penalty)!

These very easy changes to the luxury system would make the game a GREAT deal more challenging than is currently the case, IMHO!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

 

[Jack the Ripper]

Modern day incence can be a bad thing because it has evolved from pleasing scents used for ritual purposes to inhaled drugs. I think in the second hald of the industrial age incense should have a negitive effect on police (or add corruption points).

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I think simply making some luxuries go obsolete and having the happiness effect vary from luxury to luxury (silk being more popular than incense for example) would be sufficient.

I also whole-heartedly agree about artificial resources... I was pushing for those in Civ3 before Civ3 came out. I think that improvements should produce certain resources and require natural resources to function.