Make your own civics contest!

[frob2900]

I like your thinking though. How does this sound?
hamlets, villages, towns: -1 commerce. Farms: +1 commerce. Medium upkeep.

This civic would be a good choice for larger empires still developing and dealing with providing enough food and production rather than more commercially-apt empires. It also fits much better with a specialist strategy, which is fine. Finally, it means plains-dwelling empires (which, to keep everyone fed tend towards lots of farming) wouldn't be as disadvantaged against grasslands-based empires while running this civic.

Yes, indeed. This is very good. Like you said, it also gives a nice option to boost Specialist Economies from the middle-ages forwards (lets face it, the SE starts lagging toward the end-game).

Personally, I also think something should be done about serfdom. How about making serfdom produce +10% in all cities when running Aristocracy simultaneously. This would be a very interesting Civic combination option, both realistic and making Serfdom just a bit more worthwile (imho it's one of the weaker civics).

It would also force an SE player to think more carefully about choosing either serfdom or caste system (since caste system has been boosted in BtS it seems like an obvious choice at the moment).

 

[snipafist]

I agree that something needs to be done with serfdom. By the time you get there, you've completed most of the work you wanted to get done anyways. Further, slavery remains a useful tool for cities where serfdom would be useful. By the time serfdom arrives, it has the most use for boosting worker productivity in clearing jungles. BUT jungle-planted cities often have more population that production by a mile, and they're late-comers, so slavery is the natural choice to whip some granaries/libraries/temples etc. out of them. I personally think serfdom should grant some kind of bonus to farms as well, but I'm at a loss as to what is appropriate. +1 hammer/each? Seems a little much, but it's a pretty bad civic right now.

 

[frob2900]

I personally think serfdom should grant some kind of bonus to farms as well, but I'm at a loss as to what is appropriate. +1 hammer/each? Seems a little much, but it's a pretty bad civic right now.

If you don't like the serfdom-aristocracy coupling being made explicit (by requiring aristoc. to be run to get a serfdom bonus), how about just making serfdom give +1 from farms also? That way there is still synergy.

Or perhaps a +5% or +5% in all cities. (+1 per farm is also too powerful I think)

[EDIT] Unless you make it: +1 from farms, -25% in all cities (to simulate the fact that most of the population is condemned to a life of serfdom and never have a chance to make it "big")

Also (sorry about the repeated edits), how about allowing Mass Levies to draft 1 unit per turn (rather than the 3 from nationalism). This was actually an option in a modpack I played, and it was a really good gameplay option and fits in well with "Mass Levies".

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Identitiy

Tribal
Default. No effect, low upkeep

Culture
Requires Drama
Low upkeep
+1 per 5% spending

Religion
Requires Theology
High upkeep
+1 and +1 from Priest specialists
can have unlimited priests

Nationhood
The old legal civic

Ideology
Requires Fascism
High upkeep
+50% cost for enemy espionage missions
+1 espionage points from every specialist

In addition I would add another legal civic to replace Nationhood:

Federalism
Requires Guilds
No upkeep
+100% yield from domestic trade routes
+2 from all specialists
(This civic should improve Mercantilism in the late game)

 

[snipafist]

If you don't like the serfdom-aristocracy coupling being made explicit (by requiring aristoc. to be run to get a serfdom bonus), how about just making serfdom give +1 from farms also? That way there is still synergy.

Or perhaps a +5% or +5% in all cities. (+1 per farm is also too powerful I think)

[EDIT] Unless you make it: +1 from farms, -25% in all cities (to simulate the fact that most of the population is condemned to a life of serfdom and never have a chance to make it "big")

Also (sorry about the repeated edits), how about allowing Mass Levies to draft 1 unit per turn (rather than the 3 from nationalism). This was actually an option in a modpack I played, and it was a really good gameplay option and fits in well with "Mass Levies".

I don't know if I want to include a drafting option for the levies system. I figure it's going to be pretty darn good at unit-spamming as it is, so I don't want it to be overwhelmingly powerful for a unit-spam rush. Therefore, I think it'd be best to leave drafting out of it (not to mention it makes Nationalism better).

I think changing Serfdom to +1 hammer/farm (to represent minor peasant labor on the side) with a -50% great person rate would be ideal. -50% GPP might not hit very hard if you're not concerned about great people at that point in the game, but it's noticeable. -25% doesn't seem like you're giving up much for the extra production.

 

[frob2900]

I think changing Serfdom to +1 hammer/farm (to represent minor peasant labor on the side) with a -50% great person rate would be ideal. -50% GPP might not hit very hard if you're not concerned about great people at that point in the game, but it's noticeable. -25% doesn't seem like you're giving up much for the extra production.

Yeah, +1 farm and -50% sounds good. Also it seriously competes with slavery as a production civic.

With the +50% worker speed and the +1/farm, it's even more the civic you want to run to develop new land (tile improvements and buildings in new cities + growth). Yeah, I like it

 

[Bahacles44]

Health Care

*Natural........../NONE..../no effect
*Shamanism...../NONE...../Mysticism/ +1 in cities w/ jungle/
*Hospice........./NONE...../Divine right/ +1 in cities w/ aqueduct
*Subsidized...../MEDIUM./Medicine/ +2 in all cities w/ hospital// Coal Plant, Factory + (Max +1)
*Public-Funded./HIGH...../Radio/+3 in all cities

Education Policy

*Natural................./NONE...../no effect
*Oral Tradition........./NONE...../Calendar/ Monument +1
*Apprenticeship......./LOW....../Feudalism/ Market +10%
*Scholastic............./HIGH....../Education/ All cities +2, Town +1
*Dynamic Learning..../HIGH...../Computers/ All cities +20%, Town +2, +10%

Obviously, not fleshed out a lot, but just a thought...

Interesting. But Public-Funded health care should be minus 3 health (Cuba anyone?). To get the +3 health try free-market; with maybe a -1 ding to happiness for those too poor or lazy to improve their lives enough to benefit maximally from the superior health care the free market system provides.

 

[snipafist]

Interesting. But Public-Funded health care should be minus 3 health (Cuba anyone?). To get the +3 health try free-market; with maybe a -1 ding to happiness for those too poor or lazy to improve their lives enough to benefit maximally from the superior health care the free market system provides.

Idealogue much? Looking at Cuba's GNP and per capita income, its healthcare is phenomenal. When it comes to free market health care, the people in the middle get about the same, the people at the bottom get much worse, and the few at the top get better. I'm all for a system that provides for the majority. Although I doubt you'd really see it differently, because apparently those who can't afford free market health care are "too poor or lazy." Regardless, I think you're making the critical mistake of looking at a wealthy country's health-care options and thinking "This is due to the free market!" and not looking at it and thinking "This is because we're a rich country!" European health-care is quite excellent (esp. the northern European countries), and they're quite socialist with wealth below that of the US.

 

[frob2900]

@cassembler: The Health care civics have potential. I'm not so sure I agree with the education civics, though.

Interesting. But Public-Funded health care should be minus 3 health (Cuba anyone?). To get the +3 health try free-market; with maybe a -1 ding to happiness for those too poor or lazy to improve their lives enough to benefit maximally from the superior health care the free market system provides.

Nonsense. The US healthcare system is behind most of the European nations (that have public funded healthcare) according to the WHO. However, this is not the place to debate this. There are threads for this in the Off-Topic forum.

 

[kristopherb]

military
tribal
standing army-15% city defence-med- archery
legions-75% more GG points-med- BW
national service-+2 exp to archery, gunpowder +1 -low-vassalage
conscription-allows drafting 3 per turn (less population losted)-high- civil service
paid--6 war +50% war -low -assembly line

goverment
constitutional monachy-(same as representation) +25% to courthouses-high- vassalage

 

[Bahacles44]

Idealogue much?.

No, but I am a thinker.

I agree this really isn't the best forum for this particular discussion; my original point was just to propose what I thought would be a better option than Public-Funded Healthcare, which to me sounds an awful lot like Subsidized Healthcare. I thought the -1 to happiness would add in interesting dynamic to the civic options, whether it reflects the attitude of the man sitting in the hallway of the hospital overnight watching his severed toe dissolve in a jar of water because there weren't any doctors willing to come in on the weekend to do the surgery (in England) or the disgruntlement of those who want everyone else to provide for their needs collectivistically.

That's all I meant.

 

[Grimus]

You're good at this Frob!

Snipafist, those are really great ideas... man, it's too bad there's not a military category civic in the game. That would've been a great new addition back when they introduced Warlords and its military theme.

 

[Angst]

Literature

Oral Tales Low Upkeep

Classical Writing High Upkeep, +2 in all Cities, +1 from Library
Requires Literature

Stories In Arts Low Upkeep, +1 in all Cities
Requires Literature

Romantic Writing Medium Upkeep, +1 in 6 largest Cities, +1 in 6 largest Cities
Requires Nationalism

Realism Medium Upkeep, +10% in all Cities, +1 from Library
Requires Printing Press

 

[Rusty Edge]

I like this idea a lot. I'm all for more civics!

In fact, I wish you could select multiple civics in each column. I don't see any reason why you can't run Representation alongside Universal Suffrage, or Organized Religion with Theocracy. Or Representation and Hereditary Rule to create a constitutional monarchy. The possibilities would be endless!

The penalty for running multiple civics would, of course, be increased maintenance. Some combinations would not work so well together (Theocracy and Free Religion, e.g.), so they would have an even higher cost and/or lmited effectiveness (for example, Theocracy would remove the happiness-from-any-religion bonus in FR to account for the fact that while all religions would be legal, not all would allow a position in government, etc.; you would keep the science bonus, however). Finally, some would be completely incompatible (Slavery and Empancipation come to mind).

Just a thought.

I don't know if the answer lies in being able to run multiple civics, or whether we need more columns with more choices . Aussie Lurker modded the civics . I liked his addition of unions in the Labor column.

I would like to see more government choices. Earlier versions of civ have featured Constitutional Monarchies and Federations.


Of course I have this suspicion that after all of the time and thought and effort is over and we come up with a new fun and flexible system that models our personal utopias, all other civilizations will fall before the ones that are happy from legalized drugs , healthy from state provided healthcare, and productive from slavery .

 

[Lurking Liu]

Identitiy

Tribal
Default. No effect, low upkeep

Culture
Requires Drama
Low upkeep
+1 per 5% spending

Religion
Requires Theology
High upkeep
+1 and +1 from Priest specialists
can have unlimited priests

Nationhood
The old legal civic

Ideology
Requires Fascism
High upkeep
+50% cost for enemy espionage missions
+1 espionage points from every specialist

In addition I would add another legal civic to replace Nationhood:

Federalism
Requires Guilds
No upkeep
+100% yield from domestic trade routes
+2 from all specialists
(This civic should improve Mercantilism in the late game)

There, see? Now this is a very good example because each one does something different from each other civic, and there are no penalties to taking any given civic.

Theology with Angkor Wat looks absolutely disgusting =)

 

[frob2900]

There, see? Now this is a very good example because each one does something different from each other civic, and there are no penalties to taking any given civic.

Theology with Angkor Wat looks absolutely disgusting =)

The "Culture" and "Religion" civics are horribly overpowered compared to the others.

In fact, the "Culture" one is so insanely overpowered that I'd never run anything else.

 

[Norbert]

This is great stuff you guys!!! So far the leaders are:

GOOD SAMARITAN: I really like the Identity category you came up with. The only improvement I can suggest right now is to buff Nationhood (SLIGHTLY) to make it competitive is what looks like a strong category.

And the "team" of Snipafist and frob, for a combination of reasons. I really like the aristocracy idea, especially with frobs addition to serfdom and the change to aristocracy...Vassalage really does feel like it belongs there. Balance and originality are there, and your ideas have received props...

everyone.

The prize, BTW, will be something sweet I will write that can be sigged, signifying you as the Champion of the '07 create the civics contest...and, being as I am woefully incompetent as a modder, I will TRY ( no promises) to convince one of the better modders to make a BtS-compatible mod of your category.

Finally, frob, what's with your avatar? I thought Paris was holding a toilet plunger for the longest time...

 

[Lurking Liu]

Oops, meant Religion, not Theology.

Anyhow, I didn't mean it's ready to ride out of the gate, just that it's a good example. This is something that might actually see the light of day, not like some of the others that have basically said "No Upkeep: Shoot yourself in the foot, get a small bonus."

 

[Norbert]

Oh, and while, I understand the sentiments about National Health care systems and the aura of infallibility surrounding them, I don't want this thread moderated, so take it to the off-topic forum guys. (and no civic categories that would deliberately inflame such discussions.)

 

[frob2900]

Finally, frob, what's with your avatar? I thought Paris was holding a toilet plunger for the longest time...

Toiler plunger?? Pah. It's a giant oversized yellow cocktail drink!

Sorry, I can't think of anything really witty to write, I'm just lmao:ing too much at the thought of a drunk Paris Hilton running around with a giant toilet plunger...





[MORE SERIOUS EDIT]

Anyhow, I didn't mean it's ready to ride out of the gate, just that it's a good example. This is something that might actually see the light of day, not like some of the others that have basically said "No Upkeep: Shoot yourself in the foot, get a small bonus."

I'm afraid I think the "Identity" thing, while a good idea, really needs pretty much all the civic options reworked. Some are overpowered, and some make no sense. What's so cultural about a Federalist identity?