New Social Policy Effects Questions

[Marshall Thomas]

The benefits of some social policies have just recently been revealed:

Order: +25% production when working on buildings.
Communism: +5 production per city.
Fascism: strategic resources quantity increased by 100%.

I'm somewhat confused as to what these benefits are intended to abstractly represent historically.

If "order" is all about controling your population, how does +25% production when working on buildings reflect this?

How does increasing strategic resources quantity by 100% reflect a change to fascism?

I know that gameplay is more important than realism, but bonuses which abstractly reflect some connection to historical realism are essential for many player's immersion; and have always been part of the Civ series.

The fascist countries in WW2 constantly struggled with their amount of strategic resources compared to their opponents. I don't remember exactly what fascism did in previous Civ versions, but I think it reflected the effects of facsist rule more directly.

What are your opinions on this? Thanks in advance

 

[Zhahz]

What are your opinions on this? Thanks in advance

Not a big deal. The SP system has a lot of bonuses and branches. They need to come up with all those different bonuses and name them. A lack of direct historical connection is bound to happen and not a big deal.

 

[Blackfang]

The fascist countries in WW2 constantly struggled with their amount of strategic resources compared to their opponents.

Exactly. And they still managed put up one hell of a fight. The bonus seems quite fitting to me.

 

[JujuLautre]

Besides, since some military units needs some quantity of strategic resources, fascism would allow to build more of them, which is somewhat historical.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I just had the debate about communism in another thread. It represents Stalin's advancing 100 years in 10 (aka, his two 5 Year Plans). The idea is a state controlled economy can mobilize to build exactly what the state wants built faster than a free market, where individuals choose what they want to build. I have no idea why Fascism would represent what it does and I'm not even sure what Order represents, though.

 

[Schalke 04]

If "order" is all about controling your population, how does +25% production when working on buildings reflect this?

I think it's quite reasonable. The whole nation has to fulfill it's leaders orders. The leader of the state wants to have this building ready asap. Look at it as a CIV-V version of whipping...

 

[VainApocalypse]

Actually, these seem quite fitting historically. Let me explain why with some broad examples.

Order: +25% production when working on buildings.

Think of the various building projects that were undertaken by the US government in response to the Great Depression. Bridges, roads, libraries, schools, parks, all built because the government decided to organize these societal efforts. That was a government organized workforce, and it increased building production nationwide.

Communism: +5 production per city.

The same applies to communism. The Order policy branch is all about taking control of society's workforce and directing it, in ordered unison, toward a planned goal. This, likewise, is what communism is all about, so the superior production reflects what can be done with a government led workforce.

Fascism: strategic resources quantity increased by 100%.

This has less to do with the quantity of resources and more to do with the quantity of units. A fascist government naturally employs a large military to exercise the extra sovereignty that it presumes to have, and the added number of strategic resources reflects the ability to levy a large military.

 

[SalmonSoil]

Fascism: strategic resources quantity increased by 100%.

As with many things, realism is more geared towards realism of the result over realism of the event. Although the fascists had no magic techniques for gaining more resources, more strategic resources in game means a larger army, which is an accurate result of fascism. (Would have liked something about police states, but I'm sure that's there under autocracy.)

 

[vaugula]

For me the Order branch represents control economies as others have suggested above. Note that Stalin's USSR isn't the only economy to experience this kind of Government directed growth, the so-called "Tiger" economies also operated in this fashion.

For me the Autocracy branch represents tipping the balance of your economy towards the war economy away from the civil economy. The WW2 fascist regimes all had smaller economies than the western allied countries but were able to use a much greater proportion of their economies for war and so were able to punch above their weight economically. The fascism social policy does seem to help support that concept as it models the diverting of civilian uses of strategic resources (which are normally not available for military production) purely towards the military.

 

[Schalke 04]

Although the fascists had no magic techniques for gaining more resources, more strategic resources in game means a larger army, which is an accurate result of fascism.

OK, leaving the point apart, that gameplay is more important than realism (phrase-alert) I just want to focus on the realism-part:

Most of the resources on this earth last longer than 2050 (wich is the end date of CIV). A fascist government just mines theses resources faster than other governments as it needs them (for war) and doesn't care about ecological balancing.

 

[Tomice]

Did the 1945 US government went so far to melt church bells and turn them into guns? If not, there's your explanation... Ruthless dispossesion!

 

[Tennyson]

Order reminds me of ancient controlled economies as much as modern ones. I note that the bonus is almost the same as the Organized Religion bonus in CivIV. How do you build something like the Pyramids or the Hanging Gardens without a strong organization and central planning?

Fascism and strategic resources just sounds like little or no spillage into the open market. Reminds me of 'nationalized' industries, like Gazprom. Whether that's historically accurate I couldn't say.

 

[SeismoGraf]

Order: +25% production when working on buildings

National interest; Governmental infrastructure projects; full employment; forced labor; expropriation.

Communism: +5 production per city

Focus on maximum industrial output, instead of just market demand. Cold war & arms race. Would also fit Planned Economy.

Fascism: strategic resources quantity increased by 100%

Draconic rationalization of resources in civilian areas; ruthless exploitation of conquered foreign resources; trading with neutral states; synthetic liquid fuels from coal in Germany during WW2 - Coal liquefaction.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Did the 1945 US government went so far to melt church bells and turn them into guns? If not, there's your explanation... Ruthless dispossesion!

Yeah, that was what I was gonna say - all strategic resources have civilian applications as well. Fascist governments just say "NO" to these uses and put everything into their military.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Oh, come on.
I understand that late-game policies should be better simply because you can enjoy their benefits for a much shorter time, but communism really shouldn't be republic*5.
The +5 production probably translates into +10 if you take all the perecentage based production boni into account.
I also just don't like the thought of one policy having basically the same effect as a another.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Communism's "+5 to production" will benefit (percentage-wise) cities with the lowest production out-put most; as opposed to Order's +% production bonus, which will give more production points to your biggest production cities. Communism's bonus would seem to benefit small, poor-production cities more.

What aspect of "historical" or "real" communism do you think that this straight, non-percentage bonus abstractly reflects?