How about this: IMF as a WW? Prereq is Aviation and Corporation - international trade and business flights and all.
Basically runs like the AP, but with
all Corporations rather than
one Religion, with a
Hegemony diplomatic victory that would work in a similar fashion to
Religious Leader. No single Corporation is the 'favoured' one, all cities with Corporations give votes (stacking for multiple corps? Tempting, but way open to cheese), and Full Membership is granted for running Free Market. A key Resolution could be
Open Markets, which orders a civ to adopt Free Market. If a civ is running a deficit, they could be offered a
Development Loan; they get a lump sum of money, but they have to adopt Free Market and their Inflation factor is bumped up a bit (I'd suggest the Civ in question should be allowed to veto without consequence). Perhaps a
Fiat Currency resolution, which slashes everyone's Inflation figure, but then increases the rate at which it grows? I'd suggest Defiance of IMF resolutions should result in being Embargoed by Full Members, but no unhappiness.
So as to avoid Western centrism, an interesting counterpoint would be a Comintern WW, I guess tied to Labor Unions tech? Problem is, a Comintern pretty much depends on there being a State Property type Civic to define who gets to be a Full Member. Everyone else gets to be Member, after all every country has workers!
Consider the Resolutions that could be open to the Chairman. Working towards a
Global Revolution diplo victory? Or just want to screw a Civ that's founded lots of Corporations and is coining it in from international branches? Incite a revolution to make a country adopt SP. (I'd suggest that Defiance should only cause unhappiness in cities with Factories and the Trade Unions tech, signifying an established workers' movement.) Want to be a bit more Stalin, and maintain a grip of iron over the Comintern as you pursue ulterior motives? Discourage revolution when "
The time is not right, comrades" to force a Full Member to abandon SP. Failing that, "
Denounce the Social Fascists" to revoke someone's Full Membership and have them embargoed by other Full Members. Want to take things into
Doctor Strangelove territory? Demand an embargo on the
Capitalist Pigs!. (As a counterpoint, the IMF could
Embargo people for running SP.) Mandate a
Defensive Pact with all Full Members. Or if that's too late,
Mobilise International Brigades against the counter-revolutionaries for a dogpile when a Full Member is already at war, and
Stop the fighting amongst our comrades when two Full Members are kicking off. (Given that the Comintern dissolved itself, there's an argument for dissolution to be an available Resolution... either that, or rationalise that modern anticapitalist spheres of influence, such as the one Chavez fosters, could be represented by this Wonder.)
But that's getting ahead of the issue of there being no SP Civic. Centralism + Social Welfare
kind of stands in for SP... but not very well. And the AI would be utterly rubbish at this kind of 'mixed civics' criteria for diplo. Ideas were thrown around a while back about contrasting public sector enterprises with private sector firms, which really isn't the same as the Protectionism/Mercantilism represented by Centralism... I'm going to stick my neck out here and suggest that Environmentalism should be scrapped and replaced with State Property.
Assuming HR is using the existing Global Warming routine, then Environmentalism is a complete misnomer. Reducing the impact of
enables players to build more
-producing buildings and thus accelerate GW. That's not a criticism of HR, just a recognition of the weird way Civ 4 works GW. With the GW system being as it is, by far the best way IMO to represent the growing contemporary concern for the environment would be through late-tech buildings that either
replace -producing buildings, or else
reduce the
production of other buildings
and factor this into the GW mechanic (not just net city health).
Also, Ecology is an early Industrial tech. I struggle to think of many major governments
today that put the environment on a higher priority than attracting international business (or, for that matter, proving that their state-owned enterprises can produce loads more widgets than the private sector of capitalist economies)... let alone any that were doing so around the time of the adoption of steam power, electric lighting or refrigeration.
Don't get me wrong, extra income from preserves is cool, and does a nice job of representing a government blessed with fascinating local flora and fauna seeking tourist revenue and donations. But couldn't this be a blanket effect from Mass Media and Telecommunications (representing people who saw the plight of the French Elephants or unspoilt beauty of the Toku Forests on Discovery or Facebook)? Likewise, other techs or Civics could affect Windmills; Composites, perhaps.
This would open up a Civic slot for a government policy which had an importance in the 20th century that is difficult to overstate (it framed the diplomatic clash between three massive spheres of influence, countless wars and proxy wars, and the brink of nuclear war), whilst still providing an incentive to be more enlightened with endangered flora and fauna - that grows with the development of media sources educating people in that issue, rather than a load of Civs going Green and setting up wind farms before they've even heard of factories. True, it's interesting when the UN tries to force everyone to adopt Environmentalism, but IMO the Kyoto protocols squabble is nowhere near as interesting a part of modern history as the Cold War.
This has digressed a little, but it seemed more logical to keep the train of thought going than to go to the Civics there and continue there. But I've copied the last few paragraphs there, so that the SP proposition can be discussed in its own right.
, as Jarlaxe Baenre proposes, based on corporations. "What if" the economic view on the world has lead to something obviously victorious, maybe soon collapsing? It's no conspiracy theory that a contemporary ruling class has kind of achieved this new type of "corporate religious" victory, is it?
