Ok guys, I don't really understand the progression in the social policy system

[Ikael]

I have been reading several previews and articles about the social policy system in Civ V, and I really don't get how it works besides:

- It gives accumulative bonuses
- There are several branches that needs to envolve (religion, economics, etc)
- You cannot shuddenly remade the society of your civ (changing policies via revolution is a no - no)
- It envolves due to cultural and technological advancement
- You archieve cultural victory by gainning like a 60% of said social policies and thus becoming an utopian society

What I really don't get is how do you advance trhought it. I mean:

Is it linear? Say, imagine that there are 3 different fields: Economy, Religion and Politics

You can only advance in a "straight line", for example, your civ could have attached level 5 in economics while only one level in religion. That way you will be forced to choose by leaving out options. It would be kind of lame.

Another possibility would be advancing in a kind of "tech tree" way like. Say:

Economy => capitalism or mercantilism => then evolving from mercantilism towards statal property or from capitalism towards neo capitalism, with no "turning back": you cannnot become a society based on statal propierty unless you unlocked the mercantilism option.

The third possiblity would work like the awesome Master of Orion 2 tech tree: you advance in one field, and you choose which "application" of said social advance do you want from it, discarding anothers. For example:

Religion branch: Mysticism => Choose to go poytheist or monotheist => Theology choose between organized religion or freely interpretative religion, etc.

So, how it is going to be? I am still confused about it

 

[Ahriman]

We don't know the details, so we can't really answer.

However:

- You cannot shuddenly remade the society of your civ (changing policies via revolution is a no - no)

We don't know this.

It envolves due to cultural and technological advancement

From what we know, it seems like you "purchase" particular policies with cultural currency (or get to pick a new a new advance whenever you pass some new cultural threshold), and that policy trees or individual policies have tech requirements. But tech alone won't get you anything.

You archieve cultural victory by gainning like a 60% of said social policies and thus becoming an utopian society

You achieve cultural victory by gaining all 5 policies in any 6 trees AND then building an expensive wonder (and starting to build it alerts your enemies, who may try to stop you).

Is it linear?

Not quite; it appears from some of the screenshots for example that the 5 policies within a tree my be 2 columns of 2 and then a final one which requires both of at least one column.
So I might need A and B or C and D to get E, and B requires A while D requires C.
Or similar type structures.
So, there appear to be some requirements, but not just A allows B allows C allows D allows E.

for example, your civ could have attached level 5 in economics while only one level in religion

This is possible.

Economy => capitalism or mercantilism => then evolving from mercantilism towards statal property or from capitalism towards neo capitalism, with no "turning back": you cannnot become a society based on statal propierty unless you unlocked the mercantilism option.

It appears that while some trees are mutually exclusive (can't advance both Freedom and Autocracy, Piety and Rationalism), there isn't any mutual exclusivity within trees.

This either means that policies within trees are not logically contradictory, or that there will be some weird affects (being both free market and mercantilist at once).

 

[Ikael]

Thanks a lot for your thought reply, Ahriman. So if I get this straight, there are several branches that acts as a kind of a "mini tech tree", and once you have advanced in one of them, other becomes unaivable, but that once inside of said tech tree you can eventually unlock every of its options? Sounds a big tad limited. Still, agh, I want so bad to know more about the non military aspects of the game. The majority of what we have heard until now has been focused on the combat system :/

 

[Ahriman]

So if I get this straight, there are several branches that acts as a kind of a "mini tech tree", and once you have advanced in one of them, other becomes unaivable, but that once inside of said tech tree you can eventually unlock every of its options?

As far as we know, yes.

However; not every tree will block another tree. So it might be, in theory, possible to get all the policies from 8 of the trees if you somehow had enough culture - but practically this will probably not be possible in any give game.

I wonder if the costs for a new policy increase based on the number of policies you have already researched.

 

[Schuesseled]

I believe from the rumors of features confirmed, It will be possible to have all of the Social civic's at the same time, but to do so you would need to be much more culturally directed. And before you even get to have all the social civic's at the same time, you would be able to build the Utopia wonder and win the game. Which you would do, before you mangaed to get all the civic's.

Atleast this is my assumption, I guess time will tell as to what the Social aspect of the game will lead too.

 

[Ramesses]

I pictured the social policies as being researched, exactly as technologies are researched. Whereas in CivIV you would have Monarchy, Nationalism, Democracy, etc. alongside technological discoveries like the Wheel, Construction, and Steam Power, in Civ V, they'll be kept in mutually exclusive trees, so you would research technologies and social policies simultaneously. Also, technologies would require to research, while social policies would require .

 

[stealth_nsk]

it appears from some of the screenshots for example that the 5 policies within a tree my be 2 columns of 2 and then a final one which requires both of at least one column.

I don't remember any screenshots with policies. Any links?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Some thoughts regarding mutually exclusive branches.

1. I don't think there will be no way to switch from tyranny to democracy - that would be very weird.

The only way to do it without revolution mechanic as I see will be some ultimate policies reachable from all branches. I.e. you could reach democracy from either republic, monarchy or despotism and revert back once you're here.

The same way "Freedom of religion" could be final policy from either monotheism or atheism.

2. As we know Civ5 tryes to cover not only modern civilizations, but near future as well. I suppose social policy system may reflect this as well. We could expect policies like "Direct democracy" as final for the branches.

3. This approach seems to make "Utopia" more logical.

 

[King Jason]

from a screenshot another thread, I won't comment on the choosing of policy trees or anything, but it would appear advancement within each policy functions almost exactly like mini-tech trees, for the time being, as opposed to being just a linear "Tradition 1 -> Tradition 2 -> Tradition 3" Sort of deal.

For example (from looking at the screenshot), the first social policy in the tree, Tradition, upon unlocking the tree I'd say you could choose any of those top 3 policies within it. As they're all on the top row. Having the two on the left unlocks the on on the bottom left, and the middle one by itself unlocks the on the right.

So let's say you only wanted 3 policies in the tree... I'd say it's safe to assume you could either just take the top 3... Or the left, middle, and bottom left ~ or the left, middle, and bottom right, or lastly, the middle, right, and bottom right. That's 4 different possible combinations within 1 tree. So it seems fairly customizable. Even if you're just going to max out a tree, if you were taking all 5 policies in this tree, you'd have about 20 different orders you could go in to get all 5 policies.

Basically, I don't know how many folks here might get the comparison... but Policies, quite honestly, seem to essentially function as Talent trees akin to World of Warcraft. Cause not every tree is setup the same either. if you take a look at the Piety tree, it's very different than the setup of Tradition ~ giving you two choices at the start, The top left that unlocks two more choices, and the top right, which unlocks a 3rd choice, but only after having one of the two (middle right) that the top left unlocks.

Sorry if the continuous use of top/left/right/etc makes this post confusing. Picture in the quote below.

Someone posted a video on Youtube with some gameplay footage that apparently is shot with a hand held camera. However, it does contain about half a minute of talk about the social policies. Unfortunately the quality of the footage is lousy in that it's hard to actually read it, but it does show some of the structure of the policies. There is about a minute and a half starting at approx 8:10 into the movie all the way to the end.

In fact, looking at it further, I'd say this system is easily far more varied than the civic system. Simply since there are so many different ways you could progress through a single tree in order to max it out. For example, one of the trees is setup like this:

with the intentions of maxing out this tree, you could choose to advance through it in several different ways:

1-2-3-4-5
1-2-4-3-5
1-2-4-5-3
1-3-2-4-5
2-1-3-4-5
2-1-4-3-5
2-1-4-5-3
2-4-1-3-5
2-4-1-5-3
2-4-5-1-3

That right there is 10 different ways you could progress through a tree in a various different games of Civ. Granted, for this single tree they all yield the same outcome once you achieve all 5, but multiply the above possibilities by 10 more trees, and the fact that we'll never be able to maximize all 10, and that we likely won't be purchasing policies in rapid succession... it would appear that the decision making process of what policies to purchase and when is fairly in depth. Since, allowing me to use fake numbers on the example I just made.. let's just say for argument sake you got a new policy every 20 turns. With just my example, you're deciding whether you're getting policy 1 on turn 20, or as far into the game as turn 80. Big difference in affecting gameplay.

 

[stealth_nsk]

from a screenshot another thread, I won't comment on the choosing of policy trees or anything, but it would appear advancement within each policy functions almost exactly like mini-tech trees, for the time being, as opposed to being just a linear "Tradition 1 -> Tradition 2 -> Tradition 3" Sort of deal.

Thanks! Didn't dive into this thread so deeply. Now I have no idea how the mutually exclusive policies work (if there are any)