My take on stuff

[Toffer90]

A bump, for those two who downloaded v0.6

Updating to v0.6.1 should not unbalance any games you have started very much, if at all.

v0.6.2
Lightened the economic strain even further in early game; starting to get to the golden point I think.

 

[Toffer90]

v0.6.3

Gave the AI an even greater economical advantage; now they even have an economical advantage at settler difficulty.

Reason for this: The AI was still going broke at deity. what the frack, the AI has bigger problems than I suspected.
If the AI one day learn how to manage money I will revert some of these difficulty changes.


Edit:
v0.6.3 also halves tha amount of barb cities that spawn. 9% every 50 turns on Deity; 1 % chance every 50 turn on Settler dif.
Those percentages have a larger impact than you would think.

 

[Toffer90]

Got 3 tribes from goody huts before I invented skinning in one of my test games; this made me consider the possibility to open up for the founding of a second city already with anarchism.

v0.6.5
The changes I made here makes it possible but it won't be easy economically.

 

[Toffer90]

I've been tinkering with the idea to restructure the civic tree the last 2-3 days. The old civic system is too unfocused and confusing.
So today I've made a first draft of what I believe are more orderly/focused civics.

I've dropped Education, Language, Currency, Labor, Agriculture, Borders and garbage completely for now; but might reconsider keeping 1-2 of them.

I've mostly ignored the futuristic civics for now as they are the most difficult ones to assess.

The attitude bonus that made language civics necessary, can be placed in the new society category as all nations will tend towards the latest choice here.

Before I take this anywhere I would like to hear your opinion on the matter, I know there are strong opinions on this topic out there and I would like to hear them all.

 

[Arakhor]

That looks conceptually very interesting. As a quick aide memoire, how do the existing civics fit into this system?

 

[Rwn]

I've been tinkering with the idea to restructure the civic tree the last 2-3 days. The old civic system is too unfocused and confusing.
So today I've made a first draft of what I believe are more orderly/focused civics.

I've dropped Education, Language, Currency, Labor, Agriculture, Borders and garbage completely for now; but might reconsider keeping 1-2 of them.

I've mostly ignored the futuristic civics for now as they are the most difficult ones to assess.

The attitude bonus that made language civics necessary, can be placed in the new society category as all nations will tend towards the latest choice here.

Before I take this anywhere I would like to hear your opinion on the matter, I know there are strong opinions on this topic out there and I would like to hear them all.

Personally I find it a bit difficult to understand conceptually "Rule", "Power", "Influence" and "Structure", moreso as they some part seem a bit redundant (not particularly talking about your proposition here).

In "Rule", it should really be the type of government, irrelevant of how it is chosen or works in practice. Corporations or aristocracy can rule in a democracy, a theocracy can be a democracy, at least on the paper (see Iran), etc.
So we could have for example:
* Anarchy (no government)
* Authoritarian (a single person can mostly decide anything)
* Council (leader's decisions are validated by a small number of people)
* Constitutional (leader(s) must respect a code of laws - could be religious or constitutional or other)
* Artificial intelligence (a computer is entrusted to take the decisions)

"Power" in the sense, "where does the rule's power come from" should have a divine right somewhere, "separation of powers" doesn't really fit here and "Parliamentary system" would mean "from the people"...
Here are some propositions:
* Strength (legitimacy comes from being strong) - think of a tribe chief, or a dictator with a police to enforce its whims
* Lineage (legitimacy comes from inheritance) - think of a king, or an aristocratic rulership
* Divine right (legitimacy comes from god(s)) - think of a pope, or an organized theocracy
* Wealth (legitimacy comes from having money) - think of a wealth-suffrage democracy
* Knowledge (legitimacy comes from knowing things) - think of an artificial intelligence, or a technocractic government
* People/Democracy (legitimacy comes from the people's numbers) - think of a common democracy, or a communist government


"Influence" seems like it means "how the country is defined": a single state, a federation of states, a state dominating others... But then I don't really understand how "Obedience" or "Chiefdom" really fit in there (aren't they somewhat equivalent to an unitary state?).
It could be:
* Unitary state (civ is a single state)
* Hegemony (civ includes several states with one military or culturally imposing domination on the others)
* Vassalage (civ includes several states organized into a pyramidal organization)
* Confederation (civ includes several more or less independent states that share some of their responsibilities)
* Federation (civ includes several states that have a single central government)
* Federation (civ includes several states that have a single central government)

"Structure" items seems to be mixing several things (how is "nationalism" a way to structure the society? Can't a patriarcal society have serfs? Why isn't there any slavery here?). Also it looks like there are many "early" structures (up to "Serfdom") then only two rather modern (nationalism and globalism); I'm not sure where I'd put most modern societies... I'd completely rework that one so that it really means how the society is structured, with for example:
* Equalitarian (nobody's specialized)
* Gender-differentiated (men do a type of work, women another one)
* Random (the function of each worker is assigned mostly randomly)
* Caste system (specialization is defined by lineage)
* Meritocracy (specialization is defined through an assessment of capabilities at working age)
* Eugenism (specialization is defined through an assessment and even an anticipation of capabilities at birth)
* Planned (a bureaucracy or a computer is in charge of finding each person's place in the society)

 

[Yudishtira]

Apart from your "Structure" category, I like your list Rwn. But what have you done with the ones that aren't there?

I suggest Matriarchy/Patriarchy/Neither should be a civic category by itself. By definition there are no other options on that 'continuum'.

I think nationalism needs to be slotted in somewhere. I also believe a 'related' civic of 'militarism' deserves a place.

Are these all the categories you are proposing to have? If so I'm pretty sure it's too few.

With your "Structure" category, for a start caste systems can also have a division of labour by gender (I suggest remove gender here and let the separate matriarchy/patriarchy category handle it). Secondly, egalitarian doesn't mean the absence of a division of labour - it means that no-one has more power than anyone else, whether due to their occupation or for any other reason. I suggest equalitarian and random can be combined as the default, which I would call "Haphazard", meaning that the civ's society has basically not addressed the issue. Also I suggest a system based on eugenics must surely overlap with caste, meritocracy or planned, as far as I can see anyway.

My only other comment at present is that I suggest your "Constitutional" civic under the "Rule" category is precisely "Separation of Powers". As you state, a constitution is not required for the "executive"/head-of-state/head-of-government to have their power curtailed by a body of laws. Which could also be expressed as an "independent judiciary".

 

[Yudishtira]

I've dropped Education, Language, Currency, Labor, Agriculture, Borders and garbage completely for now; but might reconsider keeping 1-2 of them.

I don't think any of those can be done without, although a merge of education with welfare (and maybe even lump language in there too), and labour with agriculture, might be a good idea.

From a realism perspective many categories seem rather trivial. But imo they have added so much to gameplay that they are now indispensable...

 

[Arakhor]

Really? What gameplay did just choosing the next best Language civic create? I saw very little change from the Borders or Rubbish civics either, though they were still better than the Language civic.

 

[Yudishtira]

Really? What gameplay did just choosing the next best Language civic create? I saw very little change from the Borders or Rubbish civics either, though they were still better than the Language civic.

You could be right about Language. What do others think?

Then again, you go on to say you see no strategic difference between open and closed borders, or between waste import and export. After that I have to view the rest of your post with more scepticism...

 

[Arakhor]

I said 'very little'. That said, I might be understating the effect of the the Rubbish civic, but the Borders civic was also very underwhelming.

 

[Noriad2]

Features can be included for 2 reasons:

1) add strategic depth (meaningful choices with interesting consequences)
2) add immersion / story / roleplay

Preferably any feature has both. But if it only has reason (2) and it doesnt cause much micromanagement then that is not automatically a reason to take it out.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I said 'very little'. That said, I might be understating the effect of the the Rubbish civic, but the Borders civic was also very underwhelming.

Hydro put Both those Civic categories in the game to support his building chains. As to necessity, well that is still being debated even now.

JosEPh

 

[Arakhor]

Hydro made lots of decisions. To paraphrase Noriad, that should not be the automatic reason to keep them in.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Hydro made lots of decisions. To paraphrase Noriad, that should not be the automatic reason to keep them in.

Yes, yes he did. And back then it Was The automatic reason.

JosEPh

 

[Toffer90]

In "Rule", it should really be the type of government, irrelevant of how it is chosen or works in practice. Corporations or aristocracy can rule in a democracy, a theocracy can be a democracy, at least on the paper (see Iran), etc.

My reasoning here:
-RULE decides what group of people in society are included in government.
-It was to be as general as possible so it could represent a lot of governments based on what other choices you have.
A monarchy would for example be an aristocracy with the power civic sovereignty; where the nobility are the only ones who have the ability to affect who the king is.
With Oligarchy the nobility would have additional governmental power over the king or there might not even be a king; only nobility in charge.
A proper theocracy would not be a democracy as the priesthood would be the only ones who can affect leadership.
Iran is an unique example which has both theocracy and democracy in an oligarchic power structure. If the new civics were to encompass them as well there would have to split the rule civics as you proposed.

"Power" in the sense, "where does the rule's power come from" should have a divine right somewhere, "separation of powers" doesn't really fit here and "Parliamentary system" would mean "from the people"...
Here are some propositions:
* Strength (legitimacy comes from being strong) - think of a tribe chief, or a dictator with a police to enforce its whims
* Lineage (legitimacy comes from inheritance) - think of a king, or an aristocratic rulership
* Divine right (legitimacy comes from god(s)) - think of a pope, or an organized theocracy
* Wealth (legitimacy comes from having money) - think of a wealth-suffrage democracy
* Knowledge (legitimacy comes from knowing things) - think of an artificial intelligence, or a technocractic government
* People/Democracy (legitimacy comes from the people's numbers) - think of a common democracy, or a communist government

Here I wanted POWER to mean "at what degree is power distributed".
Strongman - Power is taken and not set in stone.
Oligarchy - Power is split between a few entities that could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, religious or military control.
Soveregnity - One entity has power that is undisturbed by interference from outside sources or bodies.
Seperation of power - A strict divide in who has power of what.
Parliamentary system - The executive branch does not derive its democratic legitimacy from the legislature.

"Influence" seems like it means "how the country is defined": a single state, a federation of states, a state dominating others... But then I don't really understand how "Obedience" or "Chiefdom" really fit in there (aren't they somewhat equivalent to an unitary state?).
It could be:
* Unitary state (civ is a single state)
* Hegemony (civ includes several states with one military or culturally imposing domination on the others)
* Vassalage (civ includes several states organized into a pyramidal organization)
* Confederation (civ includes several more or less independent states that share some of their responsibilities)
* Federation (civ includes several states that have a single central government)

Obedience and Chiefdom would represent the more primitive ways of holding a people together. A chiefdom is not really a united state as it has no proper rules or borders; and has no other way to keep the people together other than a symbolic figure, the chief, that has some influence over the different power groups within a tribe.
I did consider to have obedience just fill the role of chiefdom but ended up with the choice of more granularity here.

Confederation is a good suggestion. ^^

"Structure" items seems to be mixing several things (how is "nationalism" a way to structure the society? Can't a patriarcal society have serfs? Why isn't there any slavery here?). Also it looks like there are many "early" structures (up to "Serfdom") then only two rather modern (nationalism and globalism); I'm not sure where I'd put most modern societies... I'd completely rework that one so that it really means how the society is structured, with for example:
* Equalitarian (nobody's specialized)
* Gender-differentiated (men do a type of work, women another one)
* Random (the function of each worker is assigned mostly randomly)
* Caste system (specialization is defined by lineage)
* Meritocracy (specialization is defined through an assessment of capabilities at working age)
* Eugenism (specialization is defined through an assessment and even an anticipation of capabilities at birth)
* Planned (a bureaucracy or a computer is in charge of finding each person's place in the society)

I made this category only to include "Caste System" as it would not fit in any other category. This was the one category I struggled the most with and was really hoping to get some input on.
Meritocracy should of course be in this category, not in RULE. Thank you.
Gender-differentiated should not be a civic as it is only mutually exclusive with gender-equality, and we don't need a new category with only two options.

thesis-antithesis
synthesis:
-Band society (will be the first option here).
-Tribal (the tribal social structure is well defined and should be included here)
-Matriarchy
-Patriarchy
-Caste System
-Meritocracy
-Egalitarianism
-Eugenism

 

[Toffer90]

I don't think any of those can be done without, although a merge of education with welfare (and maybe even lump language in there too), and labour with agriculture, might be a good idea.

From a realism perspective many categories seem rather trivial. But imo they have added so much to gameplay that they are now indispensable...

I'm not excluding the possibility of more categories, and I do see your concern.

-WASTE - Can be completely controlled by buildings
-LANGUAGE - Is beyond the scope of civics and it's reason for existing can be fully applied to the new SOCIETY category
-BORDERS - This one is quite justified as a civic option as it enables mercantilism and other nice synergies.
-AGRICULTURE - is encompassed by ECONOMY, SOCIETY and buildings.
-EDUCATION - Perhaps justified as a category... Need more discussion. I think RULE and RELIGION categories can mostly account for the EDUCATION specific buildings.
-CURRENCY - Same as EDUCATION

Latest civic draft:

 

[Rwn]

Apart from your "Structure" category, I like your list Rwn. But what have you done with the ones that aren't there?

Err, nothing, I was merely suggesting names and concepts to Toffer90 (which is reworking every existing civics anyway)

I suggest Matriarchy/Patriarchy/Neither should be a civic category by itself. By definition there are no other options on that 'continuum'.

Is it really so important that it's worth a civic category? I mean, knowing that the civ is gender-differentiated or not should be enough (is there really a difference if women or men are dominating?) and it seems convenient for an early approach to a civilization's structure - I'm no specialist, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the earliest way to organize people in a society.

I think nationalism needs to be slotted in somewhere. I also believe a 'related' civic of 'militarism' deserves a place.

Sounds good, yes.

Are these all the categories you are proposing to have? If so I'm pretty sure it's too few.

Well, those were the ones I thought of, but more sure could be added (as long as they fit logically).

With your "Structure" category, for a start caste systems can also have a division of labour by gender (I suggest remove gender here and let the separate matriarchy/patriarchy category handle it). Secondly, egalitarian doesn't mean the absence of a division of labour - it means that no-one has more power than anyone else, whether due to their occupation or for any other reason. I suggest equalitarian and random can be combined as the default, which I would call "Haphazard", meaning that the civ's society has basically not addressed the issue. Also I suggest a system based on eugenics must surely overlap with caste, meritocracy or planned, as far as I can see anyway.

I indeed see caste system as a more "advanced" way than gender to specialize people: gender can play a role, but also parents, geographical origin, skin color, whatever. Eugenism would be likewise a more advanced civic based on the same idea to select at birth people and train them to fill a specific role, but unlocked by a modern tech such as genetics. It'd allow to do what caste did in a much more efficient (though sure rather unethical) way - ranging from elimination of "unfit" embryos to direct gene modification.

It's however quite different from Meritocracy which is based on selecting people based on their demonstrated skills or qualities later in life (which might be completely unrelated to genetics) - see what ancient China did to recruit its public servants for one of the earliest example. Planned is also intended to be different in that I wanted it to be some kind of a modern Meritocracy (note: modern does not mean better than). While Meritocracy only selects the people who are thought to be best for a number of specific roles (elite, public servants, researchers, whatever), Planned would mean assigning everyone to a specific function, thought not necessarily at birth or in a permanent way (i.e. not Brave New World style, which is better represented by Eugenism).

Regarding "egalitarian", you're right, it should be something in the spirit of "not adressed" as the basic civic. Though a true "random assignment" civic could be interesting if we're missing things to put in here (probably something rather modern).

My only other comment at present is that I suggest your "Constitutional" civic under the "Rule" category is precisely "Separation of Powers". As you state, a constitution is not required for the "executive"/head-of-state/head-of-government to have their power curtailed by a body of laws. Which could also be expressed as an "independent judiciary".

Constitutional civic could probably be split into more civics, yes (especially as this category isn't too plentiful in civics), though I'm not too knowledgeable on the topic.

What I could think of would be having religion as one of the first ways to limit the head of government's power, then maybe an established code of law (that the government's head can't modify too easily, though it might not probably be a true separation of power at this point), then a constitution (a more binding form of code of law, like the Magna Carta), then a true separation of powers. Maybe even later something around the protection or minorities or opposing parties, I don't know.

Ideally we'd need someone with a good knowledge of history to know what were the different steps in the evolution of governement states and try to adapt that into the C2C frame.

 

[Rwn]

My reasoning here:
-Rule decides what group of people in society are included in government.
-It was to be as general as possible so it could represent a lot of governments based on what other choices you have.
(...)
Here I wanted power to mean "at what degree is power distributed".

OK, if I understand you correctly, what I intended for Rule doesn't seem too far from what you intended for Power and vice-versa

Edit: I also don't agree that "gender-differentiated" in Structure is opposed to gender equality: sure, "gender-differenciated" means gender inequality (again, I'm not sure why it'd need to be split into Patriarchy or Matriarchy btw), but other civics in that category can very well be gender-inequal also, either by construction or as an indirect effect. "Gender-differentiated" only means that gender is the primary criteria for determining how society is structured.

 

[Toffer90]

I'm not so sure about nationalism and militarism, seems more philosophical than concrete political systems. Should we have an IDEALISM category? What would then be your peoples starting ideology at prehistoric and how should it progress. I'm sure pacifism would fit in there somewhere.
Don't think I like the concept though.

EDIT:
Third draft of new civic scheme:

This one include the real world example Iran that was brought up earlier in this thread as a possible civic choice.
Democracy, Sovereignty/Oligarchy/"Seperation of Powers" (not sure what Iran is) and Theocracy.

-Removed "Fundamentalism" as "Theocracy" is basically the same.
-introduced "Kleptocracy" as a RULE form that represents a rouge government such as North Korea.