New Social Policies

[markusbeutel]

Hi everyone - I released a mod awhile back that introduced NEUTRAL/FRIENDLY/HOSTILE to the beginning of every conversation with the AI that you initiate so you can see where you stand with them.

I've expanded on this by over-hauling the entire Social Policy system.

There are now 5 main Government Branches: Monarchy/Feudalism/Theocracy/Democracy/Communism.

Each Government Type offers permanent positives and negatives.
ex. Slavery is a policy under the Monarchy Branch. It increases Worker Production but also hits you with a slight Unhappiness penalty.

While a Government Branch is in place it DOUBLES the Happiness/Culture of all Wonders built in a specific era. (Monarchy=Ancient, etc)

A 6th Branch is the Taxation Branch. It determines how much Maintenance you're paying on Buildings and Units. Expanding it all the way will provide 100% free maintenance but at a cost to your Citizen's Happiness.

The last 4 Branches are Infrastructure Branches for Production/Wealth/Science/Food.
These Branches each have Leaders that improve specific Buildings and Improvements. Progressing along an Infrastructure Branch nullifies previous upgrades in that branch making only the final purchase in each Infrastructure Branch permanent.

As such, the only 5 Branches that can be fully completed are the 5 Government Branches. Hopefully this will eliminate the set-paths that many people have adopted, as every Government Policy will come into play when pursuing a Culture Victory.

The MOD is now up on through the in-game hub under "New Social Policies"

 

[Ighten]

Will have a look when I start my next epic

 

[markusbeutel]

Will have a look when I start my next epic

Also forgot to add that all Branches are unlocked from the beginning of the game so you have free reign in mixing and matching governments and infrastructure/taxes.

 

[Tylerryan79]

Sounds very interesting! Is the culture needed the same as normal, or did you change that too?

 

[grdolph]

Have been playing it for a couple of hours and it is fantastic

Well done!

 

[Senap]

Ohh, the description looks really good. I'm going to have a look right now

 

[grdolph]

By the way, these new buildings what maintenance cost do they have?
Or don't they ?

 

[markusbeutel]

By the way, these new buildings what maintenance cost do they have?
Or don't they ?

They don't. They only require the luxury resources required to build them.

 

[Tanthil]

Will try it today,
one question
Did you also changed titles for leaders? e.g under monarchy Queen Elizabeth or King Bismarck?

 

[charon2112]

I'm trying it now. It seems really cool so far...! Thanks for your work.

 

[Qin Shi Huang]

will try it when i can whats the mods name? also thanks for the friendly/neutral/hostile thing used that for a while and its helpful

 

[markusbeutel]

Will try it today,
one question
Did you also changed titles for leaders? e.g under monarchy Queen Elizabeth or King Bismarck?

Currently I've disabled all titles as I wasn't sure what would be appropriate to call a leader if he currently was employing one of the 4 infrastructure branches as this isn't one of the 5 Government types.

I'll address this in future updates.

 

[markusbeutel]

will try it when i can whats the mods name? also thanks for the friendly/neutral/hostile thing used that for a while and its helpful

Name is "New Social Policies."

Glad you liked the friendly/neutral/hostile addition.

If you dig deep into the Leaders XML files you can see that every piece of conversation is labeled with one of those 3 emotions as well as others. The AI's feelings towards you auto-increment after every turn based on your actions so I couldn't update their feelings during a conversation, just at the start of new conversations on the next turn.

 

[markusbeutel]

Screenshot of new Policy screen if anyone's curious.

 

[nokmirt]

Way too much unhappiness for some of your policies. I turned it off and went back to the original policies.

 

[Yzman]

Very interesting. I will probably try this out when I have gotten more achievements.

 

[markusbeutel]

Way too much unhappiness for some of your policies. I turned it off and went back to the original policies.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I tried to keep an even balance of Happiness upgrades vs Unhappiness penalties.

If you were looking at the Taxation bracket alone, it might seem like Unhappiness overkill, but each upgrade in Taxation replaces the previous level.

So if you have adopted the first Unit Tax which is 5 Unhappiness and then upgrade to the second Unit Tax which is 10 Unhappiness, the second one cancels out the first so you only have 10 Unhappiness and not 15.

-15 Unhappiness isn't all that unreasonable if it negates 100% of your Building Maintenance costs.

I'll scale back Unhappiness if this becomes an issue for more people as well.
Thanks for the input.

 

[DalekDavros]

As such, the only 5 Branches that can be fully completed are the 5 Government Branches. Hopefully this will eliminate the set-paths that many people have adopted, as every Government Policy will come into play when pursuing a Culture Victory.

Besides being a bit absurd (Monarchy/Feudalism/Theocracy/Democracy/Communism = utopia?), won't that just make set-paths for the Cultural Victory even worse?

 

[markusbeutel]

Besides being a bit absurd (Monarchy/Feudalism/Theocracy/Democracy/Communism = utopia?), won't that just make set-paths for the Cultural Victory even worse?

Not necessarily because all of the Branches are unlocked from the beginning of the game. You're not limited by which era you're in so you can mix and match a lot more.

I agree on the Utopia aspect being a bit absurd. But it seems just as absurd having policies like Honor and Tradition, etc - Utopia.

I'll rename Utopia as something else in future updates.
Also, I may switch Utopia with the UN and have something else trigger a cultural victory.

 

[Ryuraidon]

Been playing with this mod for a bit and I have to say I really like it. I'm having a problem though. Two problems actually. I'm not sure what caused these issues but your mod is the only one I had active at the time so I can only assume it was indeed your mod.

First of all, I randomly (again, I have no idea what caused it) got a 600% food modifier on my Capital city. So my people were raking in about 1300 food per turn lol. My first thought was that the Policy that grants 25% bonus food went haywire but there was the 600% and the 25% in the city screen, so it's two different effects.

Edit: Looking at a past autosave the food modifier was 550% with a population of 15, and on my most recent save it was 600% at 30. I doubt the population is whats changing it, but I figured it may be worth mentioning that the bonus seems to build over time not just jump.

Second, I'm not getting nearly the right amount of +Happiness from my luxury resources. I have 10 Luxuries (50 Happiness) plus the social policy that grants an additional 2 per Luxury, for what should be a grand total of +70 just from resources. However, I'm only getting 21 from resources.

Edit: Ok this problem I now understand what's going on. The question is whether or not its intentional. It seems that the special buildings that use the luxury resources actually consume them, but it's not reflected in the Happiness mouseover dropdown menu. For my above example I've built 7 of the special buildings, leaving 3 resources that grant 7 happiness each. So the menu's "21" reading is accurate, even though it still lists the 7 other resources that I've used up. I thought the bonuses on these buildings were rather generous but now I see the catch. (Again, assuming it's intentional)

Great mod aside from the strange Food Modifier bug. I tried making a simple mod for this game earlier and failed horribly so my hat's off to you for making such an extensive mod.