ModMod Theoretical Discussion: Governments

[albie_123]

Thanks, Thal!

This has helped a lot - it's allowed me to see how to do it myself.

You're the best!

EDIT: A question to Thal,

If I want the yield to show up on the tooltips, which files in the AutoTips folder should I be editing?

 

[mitsho]

Do we want flexibility? I suppose that is fine as long as the flexibility isn't an obvious choice. In CIV it was a no-brainer for every nation to switch to the new civic when it was unlocked. If my situation changes slightly and I get to change governments, isn't it just making every playstyle stronger? It won't actually change the way people play.

It's a fine line to walk regarding balancing I'd say. The SP-System is the stable one, so the Government should let you react in short term. Short term however means a few turns and you do should have a negative for switching, the anarchy of the revolution. There can be a wonder or trait which diminishes that penalty heavily, because that is fun to play (Christo Redentor, Pyramids and Golden Pagoda in Civ4!). If you take away the flexibility of switching, you are back at Social Policies again.

So the fine line is offering a few possibilities and no clear winner. I agree that it is bad when everybody choses the same thing. On the other hand, you can argue that the diversity is regarding playstyles. If you want to play conquest, you chose government X. If you want to play expansionist, you play Y. The Art here is to have a few ways that make conquering viable: Tribal Council, Roman Imperialism or Crusading Theocracy. The last two are however also options for when going wide (the first one) or tall (the second one).

 

[albie_123]

I'm definitely aiming to make it less more of a matter of "switching to the latest" policy, akin to Civ4. That was the rationale in making it so that the longer you stay in one form of government, the better it gets.

Anyway, in the process of adding buildings now that add stability.

Was wondering if anyone had some ideas for names?

I'd like a handful of ideas for buildings that would have the primary bonus of adding governance / stability, with perhaps a few secondary bonuses.

 

[mitsho]

Well, I've already written a bit to that, haven't I?

There's the Courthouse, but it has a different function. Still, it is headscratching that self-found cities don't need Courts

As for other Buildings:

City Hall - Medieval or Industrial
Prison - Industrial (or Jail?)
Police Station - Industrial / Modern
Post Station - (not directly linked....)
Basilica - Roman/Greek/Byzantine Term for a big house where decisions of trade and law were held
Magistrature -
Treasury -
Mandarin's Palace - The Mandarins were the Bureaucrats of "Medieval" China, very well renowned
Guild Hall - Medieval European Meeting Hall of the Guilds that run the city

I hope that helps

 

[albie_123]

I, frankly, have always thought that the "Courthouse" is a really stupid name for the current function, and especially in regards to this mod - it would be perfect for the 'basic' government building! Oh well.

City Hall, Basilica (Maybe Forum, or Senate?), Government House, could all be directly government related. Police Station, Prison, 'King's Guard' (Or something along those lines) could be directed at stability. Guild Hall, Treasury, etc., could be for economic benefits.

Who knows! We've really got endless possibilities, only thing to overcome is my modding skills.

 

[mitsho]

Well a Forum is a Roman Market Place, so it doesn't really fit. Government House is a really generic name . Senate is also very Roman, but you could add a "Local" Parliament as a building. City Council?

Maybe we can replace "Courthouse" with something else, but I don't have a fitting name in mind right now anyways...

 

[sukritact]

You could change the courthouse to a city hall (Seems to make more sense IMHO) so you'd free the name "courthouse" for some other use.

 

[albie_123]

Personally, I've always thought the current courthouse should be replaced by a project, something along the lines of "Integration" or "Suppression", so it doesn't even show up after the city becomes a legitimate city outright.

Oh yeah, Forum won't work, will it? And Government House is generic, yes, but, hey, whatever works!

I think 'senate' is okay though. It is very Roman sounding, but it's certainly not an exclusively Roman idea.

 

[NPcomplete]

I have seen a technical problem for switching governments by constructing mutually exclusive national wonders. In older Civ games, mutually exclusive buildings didn't disable the construction of each other, but they just replaced each other upon completion. That is, if you had a nuclear plant in your city, you could begin the construction of a solar plant even if you still had the nuclear plant. When the solar plant is finished, the nuclear plant disappears, but the nuclear plant does exist until the solar plant is finished.

On the contrary, in Civ5, if you have a nuclear plant in your city, then you cannot start to build a solar plant. This choice doesn't appear in the city construction menu. The only way to construct the solar plant is selling your nuclear plant before you try to do so. If you do it, the game allows you build (or sell) the solar plant afterwards.

My point is: Will the AI be smart enough to notice that, when it wishes to switch its government, it has to sell its current government building before constructing the new one? It sounds a very sophisticated strategy for the AI, doesn't it?

 

[albie_123]

I'm not going the national wonders route anymore, so, moot point, however, whether the AI manages to get control of this system anyway remains to be seen

The first implementation, I should note, will likely only have "Governance" and not "stability", as I think that a sort of parallel happiness - which is what stability would be - is impossible at this stage.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Thal!

EDIT: Here's some early art for the icons for the three government buildings (Senate, Town Hall, Parliament)* and two possible government wonders (Cologne Rathaus and the Curia Julia). Art isn't my strong point, so, these are just placeholders for the time being.

*Some will probably argue against having buildings such as 'senate' and 'parliament' as they appear very democratic and out of place in a despotism. But even militaristic empires such as Sparta had senates, and every communist and fascist dictatorship in the modern era has had a form of parliament. It doesn't have to be functional, of course, to keep the appearance of order going

 

[NPcomplete]

I'm not going the national wonders route anymore, so, moot point, however, whether the AI manages to get control of this system anyway remains to be seen

Ok, I knew that you wished to use the governance, but I was not sure if it was "only governance" or "governance + national wonder."

Regarding the buildings art, these pictures are beautiful Have you considered displaying a specific image when each government is adopted? It could endow the gameplay with an interesting historical flavour. I show some examples in the next figure (for a kind of ancient Republic/Democracy, Empire/Monarchy, Fascism, Communism, modern Republic/Democracy, and a kind of Feudalism). You will surely identify what is depicted in each painting/photo

 

[Thalassicus]

@albie_123
Which tooltips do you want the yield to show on?

Personally, I've always thought the current courthouse should be replaced by a project, something along the lines of "Integration" or "Suppression", so it doesn't even show up after the city becomes a legitimate city outright.

I think "annexation" is the word you're looking for. The downside of hiding the courthouse after construction is it gets some + from Police State, so it might be difficult to remember which cities have been annexed. I'd be okay with changing the name of the courthouse to something else.

By the by, its fully possible to change yields displayed on map terrain. However, its more of a to accomplish, as you would essentially need to account for how to deal with a scenario of one of every yield displaying. Otherwise, I have edited this before at high success (I built the Call to Power Project yieldmap that calculates and displays increments of 5s).

That's good to know! It's worth pointing out culture already loops around to a 2nd row if all the yields display, so I think there's room on that second row for additional yields.

 

[Sneaks]

Culture will actually ALWAYS be on the second row. Its hard coded to only appear there.

 

[Thalassicus]

Can anything else be put there?

 

[Sneaks]

A second yield can probably be managed by offsetting culture's current position. Visually speaking, a tile can probably hold 6 yield icons in total. Whether I can get the second line not to offset if only one second tier yield is present is another question altogether. Speaking of, there is still the issue of Natural Wonder culture yields not displaying on screen.

 

[Thalassicus]

Currently the game displays culture on NWs once they enter our borders. The way to change that would be disable the vanilla culture, add a mod version, and use it to manually scan and add culture for all national wonders at the start of the game. It's been on my todo list for a while, but is not high priority, since the only gameplay effect is a rare tweak in AI city placement.

 

[Pouakai]

If you add a mod version of culture, will it be like a normal yield? I want to know because I was planning a wonder that added +1 culture to all sea tiles but it didn't work.

 

[albie_123]

@albie_123
Which tooltips do you want the yield to show on?

I just wanted it to show up on buildings / wonders that were giving governance, or governance related bonuses.

I'll need to implement some kind of governance 'meter' at the top of the HUD as well, but, that won't be too hard after looking at other mods that have altered the UI.

 

[mitsho]

@Albie_123 I like your building icons. Though they do seem a bit "photo" at the moment, especially the American Parliament one... So this is the government line, right? Will there be a law line as well: Court House - Prison - Police Station? Whereas the government brings more Governance and costs a lot of maintenance, the Law ones give money (fines!), less governance and sthg else? Or would that be too much?

As for the wonders, they do seem a bit euro-centristic. Why not bring back the Shwedagon-Paya (Pagoda), although that would be a bit religious. The Alhambra would also fit, although near Europe. Something from Persepolis or a more modern one, ther should be plenty of lavish palaces from the UdSSR.

But anyways, keep up the good work...

 

[albie_123]

Will there be a law line as well: Court House - Prison - Police Station?

I was thinking Town Guard -> Jail -> Police Station, and this line would bring "Stability", the alternate happiness I was talking about before. But that's a while off yet so I'm not worrying about that.