GeneralZift
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- Feb 25, 2019
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Many people clamouring for more unique governments for Civ7. My suggestion is to take it one step further.
This concept is supposed to be more unique than anything we've seen thus far in Civilization. At least since Civ5, I haven't tried Civ4's government, which I heard was quite intricate.
Keep in mind when you read this, that I weaved in some of my other systems.
For example, the Corruption mechanic from this page: Corruption (and Health, Education)
And the Leader system from this page: Leader Switching
Some governments, like the ones heavily focused on a singular leader (Autocracy, Monarchy, Fascism), interact with the Leader system a lot. Generally speaking their weak point is the Leader. If you eliminate them, it tends to cause a lot of unhappiness, or corruption, which tends to spiral out.
So you need to play careful, move your Leader around, keep your Citizens placated, and so on.
Leaders gain 'traits' like in Civ7, except there is only one smaller tree. You can gain traits naturally as your Leader continues to lead.
But if he dies, or you choose to succeed him at the start of the era, you can choose a more appropriate leader for the time frame, which more appropriate bonuses.
The trade-off comes between switching leaders to keep with the times, or sticking with one guy and maxing out his bonuses.
Each government comes with 1-2 bonuses, 1-2 costs, an upkeep cost per city, a unique ability or mechanic, and you can slot in the Policies just like Civ6/7.
Table of General Information.
Table of Unique Abilities
Inspiration, inspiration. Man did I spend quite a while trying to balance this system in mind, trying to base it in history / reality, but still making all the governments balanced, fun and interesting.
My main goal was to give each government something unique too which represents what they are known for, impacts their gameplay, and lets you totally pivot your empire once you play.
My secondary goal was to allow players to theoretically play older government styles without suffering a heavy penalty like they do in Civ6.
Here's a brief rundown on what I was thinking for each government:
Chiefdom - a very basic government with no benefits or costs. Feast ability exists to introduce players to unique abilities, and allow them to customise their early game by focusing their Feasts on struggling Cities.
Classical Republic - this government is designed for peaceful players with long term goals.
Culture and Happiness is high due to free Culture with Happiness structures like Arenas. However, they now have an added penalty of negative Production.
Since the inspiration is the Greek republics of old, I thought an appropriate ability would be 'Eureka'.
Eureka was designed to let these players boost their Science via their Culture to push forward, fast.
Classical Republics are focused on Culture, Science, Happiness and have a weakness in Military.
Oligarchy - this government is quite tough to use, because it assumes the player is going to be letting Corruption run rife in their Cities, and simply neutering the penalty from it.
In other words, build all the Banks, make tons of money, keep it all for yourself and your fellow Oligarchs, but make the public Unhappy in the process.
You live on a teetering edge however, as only -5 Happiness is enough to start Rebellions in your Empire.
It's like a glass cannon government, which should make it interesting for risky gameplay.
Oligarchy is focused on Military and Economy.
Autocracy - essentially this government is for new players and Wonder enthusiasts.
Supporting a healthy wonder bonus, and a bonus towards Palace improvements, Autocratic governments can get a lot of cultural infrastructure down quite easily, given the right circumstances.
In a quick explanation, I will explain 'Palace Improvements' - they are basically like the Government Buildings from Civ6, but designed like Improvements to your Palace.
So you can essentially build a wing of your Palace to accept Consuls, or to honour the Ancestors, etc. etc.
Autocrats love themselves and their image, so Wonders and Palaces is right down their street.
Their big weakness is the autocrat themselves, who essentially become easier to assassinate under assassination circumstances (like enemy military in city, enemy spy attempts, or own Citizens under unhappiness or corruption).
After the autocrat dies, he also leaves his empire in disarray.
Since leader assassination is designed to be pretty rare, the downside for this government is small, but it also has a relatively small bonus and weak ability, which makes it ideal to catch-all players.
Merchant Republic - another simplistic government, they're designed to make a lot of money, but they consume a decent amount of upkeep and lose more money to Corruption.
Just be aware, the complexity here is not with the government itself, but with the mechanics of the game.
Corruption is a value that goes up with distant cities, with which have ulterior loyalty amongst the population.
This means essentially, Merchant Republic which runs a lot of Corruption, struggles to play wide, whereas Oligarchy, which reduces Corruption effect, plays wide much easier, which fits their militaristic gameplay.
Your cities get slightly less Happy if you don't run a Trade Route through them. Subject to rebalancing of course, but this can essentially require you to spread your money around if you want to avoid rebellions.
Theocracy - This one unique nerf, which increases Upkeep per Foreign religion, this refers to the effort required to placate citizens who have to abide by your laws even though they don't believe in them.
If you have 6 cities, and each has the home religion, and 2 foreign religions, then you lose 12 gold outright just on this aspect.
Luckily, you can use Inquisition, which now refunds you Faith for each of these Foreign citizens.
Theocracies are also heavily dependant on places of worship, and citizens get upset when they are missing them, and they work harder when they have them.
Monarchy - this one, inspired by Divine Right to Rule, is supposed to concentrate even more power into your Leader, who gains tons of new traits immediately and faster over time.
In a twist, the weakness for Monarchies is keeping their subjects happy. As soon as they are sad, they start consuming more money to be bribed.
Corruption rate also builds up faster, so you need to keep on top of crime if you want keep your rule.
Kings and Queens are also well known for the power of their decree or mandate. If they wanted something done, it was done. So I turned it into an ability. And so we shall have a Church in London. And so it was done.
Very fun, I imagine players would really enjoy pretending to be a real King and magically creating structures and units from thin air when they are required.
Democracy - democracy is heavily focused on happiness. I know, sounds surprising to me too. What's nice is that at high happiness, you even gain Tourism. This stacks well with high Tourism from decent Health, high Tourism from the traditional sources like Wonders and Museums.
However, democracy is also a very versatile government at its core. So I had to represent that somehow in the gameplay.
As you can read, the unique ability opens up a whole new bartering system in your UI.
You would be able to essentially 'cash-in' Happiness, Gold or Faith for Production, Culture or Science respectively.
This represents how political parties essentially pivot (or sacrifice) one thing in society for the benefit of another.
You can use this to heavily customise what you need in the case that you need them. For example, going if you're going for Culture victory, then make more money and simply 'Buy' more culture.
Really need to build something? Sacrifice some of that Happiness for faster workers and get your things out quicker.
The weakness for democracy is something which should make a lot of sense, which is Enemy spy effectiveness. Democracies are unfortunately open ground for foreign interference, election interference, and another shenanigans.
If left unchecked, Spies can steal tons of valuable information and assets from democratic states for this reason.
Communism - I'll keep this quick. High production, tons of factories, lots of science, this is tailored for that Space victory. Communism is especially good for empires which are situated on Tundra, Desert, or other extreme climates.
Because of the design, it makes it much easier to support Cities with low food, with this automatic redistribution mechanic included.
Their weakness is internal wealth. No corporations, no profit, so essentially wealth has to be extracted from outside of the country.
This then opens them up to heavy counterplay by simply enacting an Embargo on a Communist state. This forces them to play internally, which might in turn leave them quite poor.
Fascism - This one was quite fun to theorycraft. So essentially, the Happiness mechanic doesn't really make sense for Fascist states.
Terror is essentially identical to Happiness in function.
Highly terrified citizens are considered... 'Terrified' and this is the equivalent of 'Ecstatic'.
You have less Terror by default than you would have Happiness, but that is supplemented by sheer numbers of units and defences.
You really have to be careful though, because as you lose units, your Citizens lose Terror. If your Terror drops too low, then you can very quickly face Rebellions.
Additionally, losing your Fascist Leader can be a death sentence for your Fascist state. This makes enemy spies quite potent, by running anti-terror campaigns, assassination attempts and so on.
Fascist states should aim to move their Leader around, hide them in bunkers, run their own terror campaigns, so on and so forth.
Keep building units, because they are cheaper and faster to build. Doesn't need to be said, but this is definitively a Military victory government.
Well I hope that gets across my thoughts.
With one modern Civ game at least, I want my choice for government to feel like it actually affects my gameplay style.
In reality, so far, it felt like playing very similar games with different reskins. A monarchy was almost the same as a democracy except for a couple bonuses, the number and type of cards, and that's about it.
Will we see something like this in the future? Should we?
This concept is supposed to be more unique than anything we've seen thus far in Civilization. At least since Civ5, I haven't tried Civ4's government, which I heard was quite intricate.
Keep in mind when you read this, that I weaved in some of my other systems.
For example, the Corruption mechanic from this page: Corruption (and Health, Education)
And the Leader system from this page: Leader Switching
Some governments, like the ones heavily focused on a singular leader (Autocracy, Monarchy, Fascism), interact with the Leader system a lot. Generally speaking their weak point is the Leader. If you eliminate them, it tends to cause a lot of unhappiness, or corruption, which tends to spiral out.
So you need to play careful, move your Leader around, keep your Citizens placated, and so on.
Leaders gain 'traits' like in Civ7, except there is only one smaller tree. You can gain traits naturally as your Leader continues to lead.
But if he dies, or you choose to succeed him at the start of the era, you can choose a more appropriate leader for the time frame, which more appropriate bonuses.
The trade-off comes between switching leaders to keep with the times, or sticking with one guy and maxing out his bonuses.
Each government comes with 1-2 bonuses, 1-2 costs, an upkeep cost per city, a unique ability or mechanic, and you can slot in the Policies just like Civ6/7.
Table of General Information.
| Type | Upkeep per City | Benefits | Costs |
| Chiefdom | 0 | None | None |
| Classical Republic | 3 | +1 Culture per 3 Citizens in a City. Happiness structures produce +1 Culture. | Each Happiness structure reduces Production by 1. The sum of this penalty cannot exceed 10% of the total production of the city. |
| Oligarchy | 2 | Corruption penalty and maximum penalty is halved. Economic structures produce +1 Gold. | Rebellion happiness threshold increases from -20 to -5. Economic structures reduce Happiness by 1. |
| Autocracy | 1 | +25% Wonder production. +50% Palace improvement production. | Leader succession or assassination increases Corruption by 25 for 30 turns in each city. Leader assassination attempts have +25% effectiveness. |
| Merchant Republic | 4 | +25% Gold per Trade Route. +2 Great Merchant points per turn. | +10 Corruption per city. Cities without a Trade Route lose 1 Happiness. |
| Theocracy | 3 | Temples and Shrines grant +15% Food and Production each. When using Inquisition, converted Citizens give you 25 Faith. | -3 Happiness per city without Shrine. +1 Gold Upkeep per Foreign Religion in City. |
| Monarchy | 2 | Current Leader gains +2 traits. +25% Leader trait gain rate. | Unhappy Cities add 10 Corruption. Corruption penalty increases at +25% rate. |
| Democracy | 5 | +5 Happiness per City. Ecstatic Citizens produce +1 Tourism. | +50% effectiveness of Enemy Spies. |
| Communism | 4 | +25% Production per City. Ecstatic Citizens produce 0.5 Science. | -25% Gold produced internally. |
| Fascism | 3 | +10% Production of Military units. Military units cost -20% Upkeep. Terrified Citizens produce +1 Gold. | Leader assassination reduces Terror in each City by 10. |
Table of Unique Abilities
| Type | Ability Description | Cooldown |
| Chiefdom | Feast - Choose a city, this city gains +15% Growth and 5 Happiness for 10 turns. | 15 turns. |
| Classical Republic | Eureka - If activated, this turn, you convert 50% of your Culture into Science. | 8 turns. |
| Oligarchy | Labour Law - Choose a city, a Population is spent, and the city's Production goes up by 25% for 8 turns. | 20 turns. |
| Autocracy | Obedience - Choose a city, a Population is spent, and the city's Corruption is eliminated for 12 turns. | 15 turns. |
| Merchant Republic | Bribery - Choose a City-State Ally with high relationship. 750 Gold is spent, then that city-state joins your Empire. This city also gains +50% Corruption for 20 turns. | 40 turns. |
| Theocracy | Heavenly Decree - In the purchase menu, you may Buy any non-wonder structure for Faith. | Automatic |
| Monarchy | Monarch's Mandate - Choose a Structure or Unit to be built Immediately and for Free in a target city. This cannot be used on Wonders. | 40 turns. |
| Democracy | Electoral Pandering - Unlocks a menu where you may trade Happiness for Production boosts, or Gold for Culture boosts, or Faith for Science boosts. | Automatic |
| Communism | Distribution - 75% of Surplus Food is automatically donated to the Cities with the lowest Food. Donor Cities retain 50% of the Growth of the Donated Food. | Automatic |
| Fascism | Rule by Terror - Happiness is replaced with Terror at a 50% rate. Terror increases by 1 for each Military unit and by 2 for each Defensive structure. | Automatic |
Inspiration, inspiration. Man did I spend quite a while trying to balance this system in mind, trying to base it in history / reality, but still making all the governments balanced, fun and interesting.
My main goal was to give each government something unique too which represents what they are known for, impacts their gameplay, and lets you totally pivot your empire once you play.
My secondary goal was to allow players to theoretically play older government styles without suffering a heavy penalty like they do in Civ6.
Here's a brief rundown on what I was thinking for each government:
Chiefdom - a very basic government with no benefits or costs. Feast ability exists to introduce players to unique abilities, and allow them to customise their early game by focusing their Feasts on struggling Cities.
Classical Republic - this government is designed for peaceful players with long term goals.
Culture and Happiness is high due to free Culture with Happiness structures like Arenas. However, they now have an added penalty of negative Production.
Since the inspiration is the Greek republics of old, I thought an appropriate ability would be 'Eureka'.
Eureka was designed to let these players boost their Science via their Culture to push forward, fast.
Classical Republics are focused on Culture, Science, Happiness and have a weakness in Military.
Oligarchy - this government is quite tough to use, because it assumes the player is going to be letting Corruption run rife in their Cities, and simply neutering the penalty from it.
In other words, build all the Banks, make tons of money, keep it all for yourself and your fellow Oligarchs, but make the public Unhappy in the process.
You live on a teetering edge however, as only -5 Happiness is enough to start Rebellions in your Empire.
It's like a glass cannon government, which should make it interesting for risky gameplay.
Oligarchy is focused on Military and Economy.
Autocracy - essentially this government is for new players and Wonder enthusiasts.
Supporting a healthy wonder bonus, and a bonus towards Palace improvements, Autocratic governments can get a lot of cultural infrastructure down quite easily, given the right circumstances.
In a quick explanation, I will explain 'Palace Improvements' - they are basically like the Government Buildings from Civ6, but designed like Improvements to your Palace.
So you can essentially build a wing of your Palace to accept Consuls, or to honour the Ancestors, etc. etc.
Autocrats love themselves and their image, so Wonders and Palaces is right down their street.
Their big weakness is the autocrat themselves, who essentially become easier to assassinate under assassination circumstances (like enemy military in city, enemy spy attempts, or own Citizens under unhappiness or corruption).
After the autocrat dies, he also leaves his empire in disarray.
Since leader assassination is designed to be pretty rare, the downside for this government is small, but it also has a relatively small bonus and weak ability, which makes it ideal to catch-all players.
Merchant Republic - another simplistic government, they're designed to make a lot of money, but they consume a decent amount of upkeep and lose more money to Corruption.
Just be aware, the complexity here is not with the government itself, but with the mechanics of the game.
Corruption is a value that goes up with distant cities, with which have ulterior loyalty amongst the population.
This means essentially, Merchant Republic which runs a lot of Corruption, struggles to play wide, whereas Oligarchy, which reduces Corruption effect, plays wide much easier, which fits their militaristic gameplay.
Your cities get slightly less Happy if you don't run a Trade Route through them. Subject to rebalancing of course, but this can essentially require you to spread your money around if you want to avoid rebellions.
Theocracy - This one unique nerf, which increases Upkeep per Foreign religion, this refers to the effort required to placate citizens who have to abide by your laws even though they don't believe in them.
If you have 6 cities, and each has the home religion, and 2 foreign religions, then you lose 12 gold outright just on this aspect.
Luckily, you can use Inquisition, which now refunds you Faith for each of these Foreign citizens.
Theocracies are also heavily dependant on places of worship, and citizens get upset when they are missing them, and they work harder when they have them.
Monarchy - this one, inspired by Divine Right to Rule, is supposed to concentrate even more power into your Leader, who gains tons of new traits immediately and faster over time.
In a twist, the weakness for Monarchies is keeping their subjects happy. As soon as they are sad, they start consuming more money to be bribed.
Corruption rate also builds up faster, so you need to keep on top of crime if you want keep your rule.
Kings and Queens are also well known for the power of their decree or mandate. If they wanted something done, it was done. So I turned it into an ability. And so we shall have a Church in London. And so it was done.
Very fun, I imagine players would really enjoy pretending to be a real King and magically creating structures and units from thin air when they are required.
Democracy - democracy is heavily focused on happiness. I know, sounds surprising to me too. What's nice is that at high happiness, you even gain Tourism. This stacks well with high Tourism from decent Health, high Tourism from the traditional sources like Wonders and Museums.
However, democracy is also a very versatile government at its core. So I had to represent that somehow in the gameplay.
As you can read, the unique ability opens up a whole new bartering system in your UI.
You would be able to essentially 'cash-in' Happiness, Gold or Faith for Production, Culture or Science respectively.
This represents how political parties essentially pivot (or sacrifice) one thing in society for the benefit of another.
You can use this to heavily customise what you need in the case that you need them. For example, going if you're going for Culture victory, then make more money and simply 'Buy' more culture.
Really need to build something? Sacrifice some of that Happiness for faster workers and get your things out quicker.
The weakness for democracy is something which should make a lot of sense, which is Enemy spy effectiveness. Democracies are unfortunately open ground for foreign interference, election interference, and another shenanigans.
If left unchecked, Spies can steal tons of valuable information and assets from democratic states for this reason.
Communism - I'll keep this quick. High production, tons of factories, lots of science, this is tailored for that Space victory. Communism is especially good for empires which are situated on Tundra, Desert, or other extreme climates.
Because of the design, it makes it much easier to support Cities with low food, with this automatic redistribution mechanic included.
Their weakness is internal wealth. No corporations, no profit, so essentially wealth has to be extracted from outside of the country.
This then opens them up to heavy counterplay by simply enacting an Embargo on a Communist state. This forces them to play internally, which might in turn leave them quite poor.
Fascism - This one was quite fun to theorycraft. So essentially, the Happiness mechanic doesn't really make sense for Fascist states.
Terror is essentially identical to Happiness in function.
Highly terrified citizens are considered... 'Terrified' and this is the equivalent of 'Ecstatic'.
You have less Terror by default than you would have Happiness, but that is supplemented by sheer numbers of units and defences.
You really have to be careful though, because as you lose units, your Citizens lose Terror. If your Terror drops too low, then you can very quickly face Rebellions.
Additionally, losing your Fascist Leader can be a death sentence for your Fascist state. This makes enemy spies quite potent, by running anti-terror campaigns, assassination attempts and so on.
Fascist states should aim to move their Leader around, hide them in bunkers, run their own terror campaigns, so on and so forth.
Keep building units, because they are cheaper and faster to build. Doesn't need to be said, but this is definitively a Military victory government.
Well I hope that gets across my thoughts.
With one modern Civ game at least, I want my choice for government to feel like it actually affects my gameplay style.
In reality, so far, it felt like playing very similar games with different reskins. A monarchy was almost the same as a democracy except for a couple bonuses, the number and type of cards, and that's about it.
Will we see something like this in the future? Should we?
