[Modmod]Dawn of Knoedel - Comprehensive Rebalance Project

[merijn_v1]

Elephant in Northern Africa deplete.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I expect you would update modmod and keep this place focused on this modmod. Really nothing else matters.

*epic rant*

Dayum son, you got schooled.

Anyhow, I'm gonna delay the next update for a while (a few days I think) because I want to fine tune some things I noticed while playtesting as Egypt and England.

Among the changes:

Caravels require Gunpowder
Increase cost of Scientific Method (to compensate for the free tech for first to discover it, I got it way too soon in my England game)
Scientific Method, Biology and Physics all Renaissance era instead of Industrial
Chariots except for Egypt's War Chariots should not upgrade to Knights, it felt silly that I could build them as cheap happiness providers well into the Renaissance as England)
Patronage instead of Drama allows turning commerce to culture (so it's not completely useless for civs that don't plan on building any of its wonders)
Give culture slider innate happiness back, that is one happy face for every 10% of commerce turned into culture even without theatre and amphitheater.

I think I am going to save any map changes for the version after this, if I implement them at all.

I might make it so you can trade wheat, rice and corn only after some Industrial tech like is already the case with seafood and livestock. Frankly I don't know why that's not already the case, seems inconsistent to me. Rice imports from Asia saved my health in the England game, in the 1500s when I only just learned how to sail across the world.

I am seriously considering adding a Sewers building, in both the England and Egypt games I had constant problems with health. Most of the time in the England game I was exporting happy for health whenever I could, even without surplus resources. I was trading my only Whale for Wine and only Fur for Rice or something like that. Before I kept shipping off more and more of my units off to colonize the world and thus lost a good part of my military police happiness health was always the bigger constraint to growth than happiness, and tbh I like that as the new meta.

As for Soviet Elf's latest post in the Suggestions and Requests thread: I'll think about the power plants, but the rest isn't really within the scope of this modmod. I will definitely not remove basic health from food resources, but might add sewers. While the Pyramids specifically were not built by slaves, I do believe Egypt did have slavery, and Agrarianism would give them what, 2 commerce and 1 Hammer at best? While I would love to change some of the current civics, I just don't know what to replace them with, and I am really not convinced of Coinage at all, sorry. I more or less already implemented the part about watermills and workshops, though I really don't want to make watermills equivalent to farms in food yield. I don't really want to remove food from coast either. It was imo a good call from Leoreth to remove the food from Ocean, but unworkable coast is really pushing it.

 

[Fresol]

I might make it so you can trade wheat, rice and corn only after some Industrial tech like is already the case with seafood and livestock. Frankly I don't know why that's not already the case, seems inconsistent to me. Rice imports from Asia saved my health in the England game, in the 1500s when I only just learned how to sail across the world.

Hmm, I don't see why rice is harder to preserve than bananas, when the latter provides more earlier.

And you can feed pork that is produced in China to citizens in Aksum as long as they are both under your control, but not to the neighboring Tibetans? And how exactly are sheep harder to transport than elephants? The system does not make sense. We should pay more attention to gaming experience, not silly rules like these.

 

[Leoreth]

Hey we agree on some things

 

[AbsintheRed]

Oh, if we're in the process of randomly and presumptuously expecting things of other people, I think you should work on your manners.

It's not even like your complaint is justified, this is the only thread where things have gotten comparatively silly, and it's not even related to DoC itself. I think Knoedel can set the tone under which he wants to operate this thread himself, and frankly so can I for the rest of this subforum.

Have you ever considered that it's a nice diversion to have fun around here when you spend hours of your free time modding? That's right, I'm rather thin skinned to this kind of entitled complaint right now because I am sleep deprived because I stayed up late modding. Personally I like that this mod's little subcommunity is a little bit more lighthearted and familiar. It's not as if friendly banter would get in the way of other discussions. Have you looked at the forums of similar mods this size? They aren't full of all business discussion, they're just dead. I like this much better.

Not that I need to justify anything to you though. Even if your baseless insinuation was right I'd be perfectly within my rights not to work on the mod and just waste my time here for a change.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Hmm, I don't see why rice is harder to preserve than bananas, when the latter provides more earlier.

And you can feed pork that is produced in China to citizens in Aksum as long as they are both under your control, but not to the neighboring Tibetans? And how exactly are sheep harder to transport than elephants? The system does not make sense. We should pay more attention to gaming experience, not silly rules like these.

If you keep making sense like that I might just implement my elfian comrade's suggestion regarding health and resources.

 

[calad]

Oh, if we're in the process of randomly and presumptuously expecting things of other people, I think you should work on your manners.

It's not even like your complaint is justified, this is the only thread where things have gotten comparatively silly, and it's not even related to DoC itself. I think Knoedel can set the tone under which he wants to operate this thread himself, and frankly so can I for the rest of this subforum.

Have you ever considered that it's a nice diversion to have fun around here when you spend hours of your free time modding? That's right, I'm rather thin skinned to this kind of entitled complaint right now because I am sleep deprived because I stayed up late modding. Personally I like that this mod's little subcommunity is a little bit more lighthearted and familiar. It's not as if friendly banter would get in the way of other discussions. Have you looked at the forums of similar mods this size? They aren't full of all business discussion, they're just dead. I like this much better.

Not that I need to justify anything to you though. Even if your baseless insinuation was right I'd be perfectly within my rights not to work on the mod and just waste my time here for a change.

(I dont care)

 

[Leoreth]

Good, then remember that before hitting the post button next time.

Nice Saitama face though.

 

[Soviet elf]

Chariots except for Egypt's War Chariots should not upgrade to Knights, it felt silly that I could build them as cheap happiness providers well into the Renaissance as England)

1. Chariots. I always disliked that chariots are cheap and weak and sort of useless in Civ4. Why it's more expensive to equip peasants with spears and shields than produce whole chariots, buy/raise 1-2-3 horses for each one and produce same weapons infantry uses anyway? In reality chariots were more expensive than horse archers or infantry.

Spoiler :

My vision of proper chariot: str 5 at least, probably, even 6, but more expensive than horse archer and swordsmen and also with city attack penalty. High str, but not so high str/. Also I would change location of "the wheel" tech - it would require pottery or AH (pottery would require only agriculture), roads would be possible without it (Incas had good road system, but no wheel), but TW would give +1 movement on roads instead of engineering. TW will be pre-req for HBR and math (catapults need wheels). May be, even move 1st TR from default to TW.

While the Pyramids specifically were not built by slaves, I do believe Egypt did have slavery

2. All civilizations before emancipation in industrial era have some slaves. With exception of a few Chinese Emperors who banned slavery (and such laws were repealed after them). Even in Ancient Persia, where Zoroastrianism strongly frowned upon slavery and Cyrus the Great banned enslaving conquered people, slavery wasn't outlawed completely. Right? However, there is a huge difference between "slavery is legal, slaves exist, but they are small percentage of population, usually domestic servants for aristocrats, and treated relatively well, slavery isn't significant for economy" and "big percentage of population are chattel slaves, economy/plantations/mining/public works rely on slave labor".
Ancient Egypt for the most of its history was the first type. Popular image of Ancient Egypt with legions of slaves is incorrect.
And also slavery is available very early (at masonry in RFC: DoC, I think), so if player wants to use slavery instead of agrarianism, it's not a problem.
3. Mills - again. Your offer: +1c at engineering? I think, watermills should be either at least 2h or 1f1h from the start. If you dislike 1f1h, then 2h. Mines are +2h, earlier and require only a hill. And usually 1h > 1c, and if somebody wants commerce, cottages are much better and universal. Also Romans actively used watermills, and I suppose they didn't have "engineering" tech, which unlocks trebuchets, medieval castles and medieval Wonders.
4. My vision and logic about civics:

Spoiler :

Labor civics - focused on who workers are, where, why and how they work, what they receive. Economic civics - focused on interaction between government and business, property, trade, regulation.
"Capitalism" - enough said.
"Guilds" - better suitable for labor civic. Workers are self-employed skilled artisans, organized in guilds. "Guilds" are very pre-industrial and contradict "industrialism" (wage labor in factories, reduced role of skills, longer working hours), but also focus on increased role of cities and artisans in contrast to farms/agrarianism. Guilds are compatible with different economic policies on trade, they definitely can coexist with mercantilism, though state privileges to guilds contradict idea of free trade, of course.
Ancient central planning/state property - "State property isn't a new idea. Bronze age palace economies, Ancient Egypt economy were "central planning". Marx called it "Asiatic mode of production". Some Marxists say Soviet economy was just a modern version of AMP. Bonus for workshops is like caste bonus in BtS: almost useless early, but useful with techs improving workshops."
While ancient planned economies existed, in the Iron age most of them were replaced by economies based on private property and markets. (Current version of) HRW mod has ancient planned economy, but no ancient/medieval market economy, and it also looks strange and unrealistic. Roman Empire had market economy. In Ancient China there were debates among scholars about better economic system, Confucians advocated for freer markets, Legalists wanted more state property, state monopolies, state workshops and disliked trade. I think, it would be both realistic and interesting to have a choice between economic systems in classical/medieval era, also with different focus hammers: vs. ). What tech should unlock "ancient private economy" and how civic should be called? I choose currency and "coinage". Name isn't important for me, btw.
"Environmentalism" - enough said.

I don't really want to remove food from coast either. It was imo a good call from Leoreth to remove the food from Ocean, but unworkable coast is really pushing it.

5. Oceans are useless anyway, my citizens never work ocean tiles without recourses. Removing food only from oceans is a restriction on useless pop-n in AI cities, no real change for player. My proposal is for realism. If you want more productive coasts, you can add +1c/coast (or even +1h) to some other buildings (market? customs house?). And coastal tiles are weak and not very important even now, it's better to work a cottage.

And how exactly are sheep harder to transport than elephants?

6. Ivory is easy to transport. The problem is that it's possible to build war elephants with imported ivory.

Spoiler :

I remember, in one Civ3 mod war elephants required 2 sources of ivory. I liked it. So it was impossible to build WEs with imported ivory and also there were a choice between exporting extra ivory and preserving elephants for the army. Not sure if it's possible or easy in Civ4. Another possible solution is ivory req-t in city BFC to build a WE, but it may be too restrictive.

 

[sercer88]

6. Ivory is easy to transport. The problem is that it's possible to build war elephants with imported ivory.

Spoiler :

I remember, in one Civ3 mod war elephants required 2 sources of ivory. I liked it. So it was impossible to build WEs with imported ivory and also there were a choice between exporting extra ivory and preserving elephants for the army. Not sure if it's possible or easy in Civ4. Another possible solution is ivory req-t in city BFC to build a WE, but it may be too restrictive.

There is a solution to this, but it would require a big restructure of how the game works.

How can I describe this simply? In this game citizens of a city work a nearby tile to generate food, production, and commerce. While that mechanic has a simple logic to it, it is definitely not the only way to represent the way cities in real life actually gather those resources. Whether you think about ancient cities gathering resources from the ends of their empires to build great wonders or modern metropolis' importing vast amounts of food from various sources - another way to model this action is to create a "caravan" type of unit which can either be directly produced in another city and then transport it's cargo (food or production) to another city, or maybe even create new resource "improvements" which automatically spawn these types of units themselves. They could either appear on the spot of the improvement or in the nearest city ready for the civilization which controls them to transport them.

When Civ 5 arrived, I had high hopes for the new trade routes system, hoping that these units could be modified to emulate this empire-wide transfer of goods. I haven't looked very closely, but I sure didn't see it anywhere. Then when I came back to Civ 4 and to Dawn of Civilization and encountered the "slave" unit for the first time, I immediately thought again about the possibility of implementing a system like that.
I understand it's a completely game-changing mechanic and possibly even impossible to implement with the way the game works.
A system of mobile production or food (or other resource) units could solve some of the problems with realism that have been pointed out recently.
I'm not a modder so I have no idea how to make this change or if it's even possible, or worth the effort.

 

[need my speed]

Idea: A caravan-esque unit can move to a tile, acquire its yield and potential resource, and bring it to a city. Said city will enjoy the increased yield and potential resource for an X amount of turns. This tile cannot be in the BFC of a receiving city. This tile can be outside of your borders (but perhaps there'd be a reduced amount of turns, then?). The tile's yield or resource isn't affected at all.

 

[clanky4]

Dawn of Micromanagement

 

[need my speed]

Dawn of Micromanagement

That is an excellent point, yes. 'Course, in theory you could automate it... A city produces Y hammers per turn, this caravan-esque non-unit costs X (where Y>X) hammers per turn, you click on a fancy 'trade routes' button in the city screen, where you can see all the incoming and outgoing (including destination; city name or tile coordinate) caravans for this city, where you can add new caravans (provided Y>X), and where you can select a caravan to then go to the main map and select a destination tile.

That would be a lot of work though.

 

[cudfather]

About the Egyptian Slavery vs Agrarianism matter: Agrarianism does nothing for Egypt. It can have 2 farms (Nile delta) and no plantations until pretty late in its game.

Yes, legions of slaves is what you think about when you hear "Egypt", and it's not historically correct. But DoC is a game, and a game should to some extent cater to expectations. People expect Egypt to run slavery. So let them have it. It's not like some ancient Egyptians come onto this forum and tell us they're offended

 

[sercer88]

Idea: A caravan-esque unit can move to a tile, acquire its yield and potential resource, and bring it to a city. Said city will enjoy the increased yield and potential resource for an X amount of turns. This tile cannot be in the BFC of a receiving city. This tile can be outside of your borders (but perhaps there'd be a reduced amount of turns, then?). The tile's yield or resource isn't affected at all.

Good! Maybe I'm not the only one who has put some thought into this!
I was thinking there would have to be obvious loss of yield if this unit transferred it's cargo to another city not in BFC. However, it's also possible that just waiting the X-number of turns for the unit to go from one point to the other is enough of a "loss of yield"

Dawn of Micromanagement

Oh totally. But many (maybe most?) already micromanage in some other way. This would only give the human player more options and allow greater immersion into the game and add realism to this very historic mod. (Not just talking about Imp. Knoedel's modmod either I guess I should say.)

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

(I dont care)

Very well then, let us all return our focus back to my vendetta with Leoreth. Capitalistic pigdog wants to ruin my perfect utopia with his ludicrous nerf to Central Planning.

1. Chariots. I always disliked that chariots are cheap and weak and sort of useless in Civ4. Why it's more expensive to equip peasants with spears and shields than produce whole chariots, buy/raise 1-2-3 horses for each one and produce same weapons infantry uses anyway? In reality chariots were more expensive than horse archers or infantry.

Spoiler :

My vision of proper chariot: str 5 at least, probably, even 6, but more expensive than horse archer and swordsmen and also with city attack penalty. High str, but not so high str/. Also I would change location of "the wheel" tech - it would require pottery or AH (pottery would require only agriculture), roads would be possible without it (Incas had good road system, but no wheel), but TW would give +1 movement on roads instead of engineering. TW will be pre-req for HBR and math (catapults need wheels). May be, even move 1st TR from default to TW.

2. All civilizations before emancipation in industrial era have some slaves. With exception of a few Chinese Emperors who banned slavery (and such laws were repealed after them). Even in Ancient Persia, where Zoroastrianism strongly frowned upon slavery and Cyrus the Great banned enslaving conquered people, slavery wasn't outlawed completely. Right? However, there is a huge difference between "slavery is legal, slaves exist, but they are small percentage of population, usually domestic servants for aristocrats, and treated relatively well, slavery isn't significant for economy" and "big percentage of population are chattel slaves, economy/plantations/mining/public works rely on slave labor".
Ancient Egypt for the most of its history was the first type. Popular image of Ancient Egypt with legions of slaves is incorrect.
And also slavery is available very early (at masonry in RFC: DoC, I think), so if player wants to use slavery instead of agrarianism, it's not a problem.
3. Mills - again. Your offer: +1c at engineering? I think, watermills should be either at least 2h or 1f1h from the start. If you dislike 1f1h, then 2h. Mines are +2h, earlier and require only a hill. And usually 1h > 1c, and if somebody wants commerce, cottages are much better and universal. Also Romans actively used watermills, and I suppose they didn't have "engineering" tech, which unlocks trebuchets, medieval castles and medieval Wonders.
4. My vision and logic about civics:

Spoiler :

Labor civics - focused on who workers are, where, why and how they work, what they receive. Economic civics - focused on interaction between government and business, property, trade, regulation.
"Capitalism" - enough said.
"Guilds" - better suitable for labor civic. Workers are self-employed skilled artisans, organized in guilds. "Guilds" are very pre-industrial and contradict "industrialism" (wage labor in factories, reduced role of skills, longer working hours), but also focus on increased role of cities and artisans in contrast to farms/agrarianism. Guilds are compatible with different economic policies on trade, they definitely can coexist with mercantilism, though state privileges to guilds contradict idea of free trade, of course.
Ancient central planning/state property - "State property isn't a new idea. Bronze age palace economies, Ancient Egypt economy were "central planning". Marx called it "Asiatic mode of production". Some Marxists say Soviet economy was just a modern version of AMP. Bonus for workshops is like caste bonus in BtS: almost useless early, but useful with techs improving workshops."
While ancient planned economies existed, in the Iron age most of them were replaced by economies based on private property and markets. (Current version of) HRW mod has ancient planned economy, but no ancient/medieval market economy, and it also looks strange and unrealistic. Roman Empire had market economy. In Ancient China there were debates among scholars about better economic system, Confucians advocated for freer markets, Legalists wanted more state property, state monopolies, state workshops and disliked trade. I think, it would be both realistic and interesting to have a choice between economic systems in classical/medieval era, also with different focus hammers: vs. ). What tech should unlock "ancient private economy" and how civic should be called? I choose currency and "coinage". Name isn't important for me, btw.
"Environmentalism" - enough said.

5. Oceans are useless anyway, my citizens never work ocean tiles without recourses. Removing food only from oceans is a restriction on useless pop-n in AI cities, no real change for player. My proposal is for realism. If you want more productive coasts, you can add +1c/coast (or even +1h) to some other buildings (market? customs house?). And coastal tiles are weak and not very important even now, it's better to work a cottage.

6. Ivory is easy to transport. The problem is that it's possible to build war elephants with imported ivory.

Spoiler :

I remember, in one Civ3 mod war elephants required 2 sources of ivory. I liked it. So it was impossible to build WEs with imported ivory and also there were a choice between exporting extra ivory and preserving elephants for the army. Not sure if it's possible or easy in Civ4. Another possible solution is ivory req-t in city BFC to build a WE, but it may be too restrictive.

Well I figure a chariot unit represents a far smaller unit of people than an axe or spearman unit.

Agrarianism is absolutely useless for Egypt in game terms.

So what is it you are suggesting for the labor category again? Central Planning, Coinage and Guilds? That leaves at least two slots empty.

When Civ 5 arrived, I had high hopes for the new trade routes system, hoping that these units could be modified to emulate this empire-wide transfer of goods. I haven't looked very closely, but I sure didn't see it anywhere.

I guess you didn't play Brave New World then.

About the Egyptian Slavery vs Agrarianism matter: Agrarianism does nothing for Egypt. It can have 2 farms (Nile delta) and no plantations until pretty late in its game.

What do plantations have anything to do with anything? I already said the only benefit Egypt would get is 1 hammer (from horse) and 2 commerce (from Wheat and that one grassland tile), though I guess it could get quarries up a turn faster.

 

[Soviet elf]

So what is it you are suggesting for the labor category again? Central Planning, Coinage and Guilds? That leaves at least two slots empty.

1. No, you have misunderstood me. My proposal for labor: default civic, slavery, agrarianism, guilds, industrialism, PW. Capitalism removed, guilds added, PW requires communism. CP and coinage are in economic category with mercantilism and FM/FT.
Is it so important to have exactly 6 civics in each category? I really dislike idea of env-sm as economic system, I think it's better to remove it even without replacement, and also it's very late, it's not an option for most of the game. Equal number of civics everywhere isn't important for gameplay at all, only for symmetry in civic screen. If you really want a replacement, possible ideas of economic civics: 1) (moderate) "protectionism" (taxes/limits foreign trade, but not bans it); 2) some boring mixed/regulated market economy; 3) "corporatism"; 4) "state capitalism".

2. By the way, slavery in BtS is very overpowered (and very unrealistic too). I don't remember about pop rushing in RFC: DoC, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's more useful than agrarianism for everybody and even better than industrialism for .

3. About caravans and food.

Spoiler :

Caravan units with one-time missions? No. Too much micromanagement.
Caravan units? No again. Land caravans with camels/horses/oxen moving food would be very unrealistic. It's another thing many people misunderstand - before invention of railroads land transport was very expensive and inefficient. Water and railroad travel were more than x10 cheaper than carriages. People traded very compact/lightweight and valuable goods like silks, spices, ivory by land, but not staple food. Another reason why I dislike from food resources, btw.
Caravans working like crawlers in SMAC and collecting yield from distant tiles without need for citizens (and for and )? No! 0/10. At least in SMAC it was justified by advanced level of robotics, but in Civilization it would be absurd.
I liked food trade in MoO2, where you can build freight ships, they automatically move food between systems (but growth doesn't use surplus food in MoO2), they don't appear on map (but planets still can be blockaded by enemy ships), they also cost maintenance. But with growth based on food and different technology levels, such system isn't possible in Civ4 directly.
It would be realistic and not bad to have clippers, modern freight ships, trucks that can create constant delivery of from one city to another (like Civ2 caravans could) with maintenance costs, but it will be very complicated to mod.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I'll probably upload a new version before the end of the day. Currently I'm thinking about whether or not to remove the double production bonus for Public Transportation and Laboratory from Central Planning and instead just give extra happiness or health to the former from it.

I've been thinking about civics a lot in general in fact, because I am very unhappy with a good third of the current set. Let me tell you what I figure:

I am not really happy with Theocracy as a government civic, both by itself and because you can run Secularism at the same time, which is a bigger contradiction than Vanilla's Police State with Free Speech. I think it should be replaced with something like Aristocracy, where the power lies with a bunch of nobles, with or without a figurehead monarch, like de facto the Roman Republic or the Holy Roman Empire. Not really happy with that either, since it might as well be represented by Dynasticism with Vassalage, but I can't think of anything else except for maybe direct democracy, but the few instances where it could be argued a civ was running it is adequately represented by City States. Party Leadership for post Stalin USSR and post Mao PRC? Not really that convincing either. The only thing I could think of would be throwing out the entire society category to justify Aristocracy.

The most problematic situation of all is with Labor and Economy, and frankly I think about just merging the two into one. The options here would then be Slavery, Agrarianism but with a better name, Mercantilism, Free Market/Capitalism/Corporatism and Central Planning.*

Next up is Religion, where Theocracy replaces Fanaticism, Secularism is renamed to Tolerance (that might justify Theocracy as a government civic actually) and Scholasticism replaced with State Ideology or better Totalitarianism if I throw out the Society category.

Military is actually the only category where I am okay with everything as it is.

*The now missing category slot can be filled with an Ideology Column as an easier alternative to building a whole new religion-esque game mechanic for it from the ground up. Options would be Monarchism/Conservatism, Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism/Authoritarianism and... Environmentalism. jk dunno, Democracy maybe for ancient Rome and Greece? Reĺigion perhaps? But that again would mesh with the Religion category.

Thoughts? Opinions? I don't care about effects at the moment, they can be added later, for now I just want a sensible and aesthetically pleasing (that means the same number of civics per category and a round number of categories) civics roster with no possible paradoxes.

 

[need my speed]

Absolute Monarchy + Fundamentalism (or whatever the appropriate names of the civics are) = Theocracy, I would say. I faced this problem too; initially I had a Clerical Oligarchy, an Ecclesiocracy, and a Theocracy as possible governments. But if you choose Secularism as your religion civic, that would make no sense.

So I settled on the following: A Clerical Oligarchy can stand in for Ecclesiocracy too, a Theocracy is Absolute Monarchy + Fundamentalism, and a Clerical Oligarchy is possible even in a secular nation; the state religion might be secular, but the various leaders of the various faiths come together to make decisions. This would probably be a religiously tolerant nation that very much believes that morality (and wisdom and so forth) are derived from religion. It'd probably be a bit more intolerant towards atheism, but, so is the USA, and the USA is a secular nation.

The only problem I have with this is 'State Atheism'. Technically it could work - the 'religious' authorities of Clerical Oligarchy could be those involved with wiping out religion - but functionally it'd be weird, so eh... Isn't there a tag to require one to have a state religion, though? If not in Beyond the Sword, then in this mod at least? That'd solve all problems related to this.

Why would you merge Labour and Economy? I can see a clear distinction without any contradictions: https://lambda.sx/OSB.png

I wouldn't advise ideologies or political parties or such, for that is very much correlated to civics (how can one run a communist ideology with a capitalist economy? How can one have a political party in favour of trade in an isolated mercantilist civilisation?). You could perhaps add something about foreign policy? Or structure: https://lambda.sx/HjZ.png

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Hm, I guess Oligarchy could be a better name for Aristocracy.

Half of the Economy civics make no sense. What the hell is "Industrialism", especially with regards to Capitalism? Any civ that focused on Industry and wasn't capitalist was running Central Planning, so why not just take that as alternative? And if there is a Capitalism civic then Public Welfare makes no sense as alternative to it, all modern welfare states are capitalist. Hell, all modern civs are/were either capitalist or pseudo-socialist, so if Capitalism is a civic its only not outdated alternative has to be Central Planning. Capitalism as a civic has to go, this is Nationhood all over again, and Industrialism to a lesser extent has the exact same issue.

Your suggestions for Economy have way too much Capitalism in them. ( Then again what doesn't? ) Palace Economy and Merchant Capitalism especially seem redundant as they are basically nothing more than a pre-modern version of Socialism and Capitalism.

Corveé and Serfdom are too similar, Indentured Servitude is overshadowed by Slavery going on at the same time, Industrial Labor is either too specific or too generic, not really convinced by civilian conscription, Labor Unions could work I guess, Automatization would come even later than Environmentalism and really isn't within the scope of a mod focused on history.

Let's see, Slavery, Serfdom, Caste System, "Industrialism" but with a better name and I guess Public Welfare/Labor Unions could work I guess.

how can one run a communist ideology with a capitalist economy?

That's what I'm wondering too, but Deng Xiaoping didn't seem to care.

I'm not sure about Foreign Policy, but I can't think of any convincing counter arguments for now. Structure imo has too much overlap with Society, so it's either one or the other.

Edit: Another idea for a category popped into my head: Focus. Basically it has one option for every other category, that is Government, Society, Economy/Labor, Religion and Military, and all it does is double the effects of whatever civic you have in the category you are focussing on. So if you have Focus Government and are running Republic you get triple cottage growth and +100% Great People Rate, if you run Focus Religion and have Fansticism you get +50% unit production and so on. You'd also get twice the positive diplo modifier of civs that have a given civic as a favorite if you aee running it and focusing on its category.