Policies

[Dunkah]

Why would you want to prevent the former? As for the latter, I have won countless Science victories, and have never employed it or (more importantly) felt the need to.

I was playing against America. (I generally play King level and am not incredibly good at that). Washington had all but one of the parts built for the spaceship and had them sitting out in the open tiles near his Capitol. With plenty of Airborne units protecting them.

I knew that he had completed Apollo... and was in the midst of completing my last few policies for a culture win. I went to scout out what was going on over his borders. The actual Victory Progress window showed him as not having completed any parts up to this point so I felt I was safe.

When I saw he had all of the parts but one right there in the open just waiting to send them all in to his Capitol on the same turn I was stunned. (Why else would he have built them and not sent them straight away to the Capitol unless to hide his Victory Progress?)

I immediately declared war and started pummelling them... but if I hadn't seen them he would have completed all of the parts in the same turn and launched without me knowing or having a chance to stop him other than taking out his Capitol City before he landed. (I'm not even sure if that would have stopped him at that point).

Edit: The Point...
The point is that by having something that can be destroyed... like a unit or tile improvement or both. Civs have an opportunity to prevent a victory of the Science or Culture types without wiping out, or puppetting cities and taking diplomatic hits other than DOW. By preventing another Civ from winning you may even get a Diplo bonus that would counter act the hit for DOW-ing.

 

[Txurce]

I was playing against America. (I generally play King level and am not incredibly good at that). Washington had all but one of the parts built for the spaceship and had them sitting out in the open tiles near his Capitol. With plenty of Airborne units protecting them.

I knew that he had completed Apollo... and was in the midst of completing my last few policies for a culture win. I went to scout out what was going on over his borders. The actual Victory Progress window showed him as not having completed any parts up to this point so I felt I was safe.

When I saw he had all of the parts but one right there in the open just waiting to send them all in to his Capitol on the same turn I was stunned. (Why else would he have built them and not sent them straight away to the Capitol unless to hide his Victory Progress?)

I immediately declared war and started pummelling them... but if I hadn't seen them he would have completed all of the parts in the same turn and launched without me knowing or having a chance to stop him other than taking out his Capitol City before he landed. (I'm not even sure if that would have stopped him at that point).

That's really interesting. I've never seen the AI build a SS in one turn (or even more than two SS parts in one turn). But I think I've only lost once or twice to a SS victory, so I can't know whether other AI were amassing SS parts and I never knew it.

That said, I would rather not make it any harder for the AI to win a SS victory by giving the human player more advance warning.

 

[Dunkah]

It wasn't that the AI built those parts in a turn but that it was building them and not adding them to the spaceship to hide it's Victory Progress. The player doesn't get a notification that part has been built until it is added to the spaceship. Also the Victory Tracker doesn't show the part as built until it is added to the Spaceship.

Although Washington and New York were about 75 population at the time, so I guess it may have been possible it did built them in one turn.

 

[NPcomplete]

I like the great finisher of Order (+2 "everything"). Since the official Civ5 patch was released, I never found a reason to choose Order (I took Freedom for peace and Autocracy for war). Even in relatively wide empires, I had enough specialists to gain more profit from Freedom (recall the specialist happiness and the 8-free-units in Freedom, which typically saves more money than the -15% buildings maintainance cost of Order). Morover, Order comes late in the game, and at this point you would probably have already started Freedom.

I also like that Order and Freedom do not disable each other in the mod, as they do in the last official patch. Very nice, now a kind of "Socialdemocracy" is possible again. However, now I miss a kind of “right wing democracy”. Well, somehow it consists in “taking Freedom but not taking Order”, but this choice has no single benefit against a “Socialdemocracy” (Freedom+Order). This problem also appeared in the original Civ5 rules, of course.

Anyway, I don’t like the way Civ5 avoids switching goverment styles in practice. In Civ4, switching civics was a way to feel how the goverment is adapted to each historical situation. In Civ5, none would fully develop a policy tree and then switch to another tree that disables the former one (e.g. from Piety to Rationalism, from Autocracy to Freedom) after such a huge investment in social policies. It would be wasting too much culture and policy effort!

In Civ4, I loved adapting my civics to new situations from time to time. In old Call to Power, even with much simpler gov rules, I could be at war in Fascism, then switch to Communism to quickly develop new buildings (+40% production) until I had too many buildings so I could hardly afford them, and next move to Democracy to enjoy my new buildings. There were interesting gov tastes (production gov, gold gov, growth gov, war gov, etc).

Perhaps, the only way to enable "choice switching" in Civ5 without a huge waste penalty would be creating "empty tree" policy branches (e.g. "dictatorship" and "democracy" empty trees exclude each other, "left wing" and "right wing" exclude each other too, etc) and leaving cumulative Civ5 style policies to a couple of "general" long trees.

 

[Ahriman]

However, now I miss a kind of “right wing democracy”.

Freedom + commerce?

 

[Sneaks]

I like the great finisher of Order (+2 "everything"). Since the official Civ5 patch was released, I never found a reason to choose Order (I took Freedom for peace and Autocracy for war). Even in relatively wide empires, I had enough specialists to gain more profit from Freedom (recall the specialist happiness and the 8-free-units in Freedom, which typically saves more money than the -15% buildings maintainance cost of Order). Morover, Order comes late in the game, and at this point you would probably have already started Freedom.

I also like that Order and Freedom do not disable each other in the mod, as they do in the last official patch. Very nice, now a kind of "Socialdemocracy" is possible again. However, now I miss a kind of “right wing democracy”. Well, somehow it consists in “taking Freedom but not taking Order”, but this choice has no single benefit against a “Socialdemocracy” (Freedom+Order). This problem also appeared in the original Civ5 rules, of course.

Anyway, I don’t like the way Civ5 avoids switching goverment styles in practice. In Civ4, switching civics was a way to feel how the goverment is adapted to each historical situation. In Civ5, none would fully develop a policy tree and then switch to another tree that disables the former one (e.g. from Piety to Rationalism, from Autocracy to Freedom) after such a huge investment in social policies. It would be wasting too much culture and policy effort!

In Civ4, I loved adapting my civics to new situations from time to time. In old Call to Power, even with much simpler gov rules, I could be at war in Fascism, then switch to Communism to quickly develop new buildings (+40% production) until I had too many buildings so I could hardly afford them, and next move to Democracy to enjoy my new buildings. There were interesting gov tastes (production gov, gold gov, growth gov, war gov, etc).

Perhaps, the only way to enable "choice switching" in Civ5 without a huge waste penalty would be creating "empty tree" policy branches (e.g. "dictatorship" and "democracy" empty trees exclude each other, "left wing" and "right wing" exclude each other too, etc) and leaving cumulative Civ5 style policies to a couple of "general" long trees.

Long trees is the appproach NiGHTS has taken to pretty enjoyable effect. However, this tends to really muddle what to do about Cultural Victories.

 

[Thalassicus]

Welcome to civfanatics, NPcomplete!

 

[NPcomplete]

Welcome to civfanatics, NPcomplete!

Thanks, Thalassicus! (of course, also thanks for your great mod!)

Freedom + commerce?

Ummmm... Not exactly. Think about modern China. Most of Chinese companies are state-owned, but China is extremely active in the World's commerce, as well as very protective with its commerce interests. So, I think that "Commerce" fits into the communist China as well... Concerning the game rules, Order and Commerce do not exclude each other, so you could have Freedom + Order + Commerce... A kind of "left-right democracy"? ;-)

I miss some policy branch being the opposite than Order. Perhaps the Commerce trait could be simulated by buildings rather than ideology, so this branch could be used for a kind of Free Market economics. However, it would not solve the problem that abandoning a fully developed policy branch at some point is just a huge waste of policy investment. With such a change, the "changing politics" taste would be missing anyway.

Long trees is the appproach NiGHTS has taken to pretty enjoyable effect. However, this tends to really muddle what to do about Cultural Victories.

Yes, the idea in Civ5 Nights is good indeed. At the end of each tree, you have several mutually exclusive policies (e.g. progresiveness vs conservationism vs ..., etc). However, after you finish the tree with one of these endings, there is no way to switch later to the other ending. It is blocked forever. The problem is that Civ5 only allows to abandon some social policy with the "Adopt" button, and this button affects the whole branch (e.g. "Commerce") rather than each individual policy. So, I guess that the only way to enable cheap flipping between some policies is making "switchable" policies consist in empty tree branches, so the "Adopt" button is there for each one... Anyway, I have never modded Civ5, so I don't know if it could be done in another way. :-(

Perhaps I should not ask Civ5 to be what it was not intended to be, but I miss the historial taste of goverment changes. (Civ5 Nights addresses this issue, but govs have a limited effect, are temporal, and imply some mandatory culture races.)

 

[Sneaks]

NP, give one game a go of Community Call to Power project. Their policy system is MASSIVE and exists around the concepts of governments. Then report back here about what you did and did not like. It would help me at the very least better understand what the general mood is.

 

[Ahriman]

It would help me at the very least better understand what the general mood is.

My preference is that (for the main mod) the general structure of policies now works well.
Yes, it is a bit weird that they went with a system where once adopting a policy you have that benefit forever, but I see why they did it for gameplay purposes.

Having policies be purchased with culture was a great design decision to make culture valuable, but it then means that getting a new policy needs to always be beneficial, and so the idea of switching into and out of them really stops working well.

I think players enjoy benefits more than penalties, so I think having a system based around opportunity costs is sensible (the downside to X is that it means you didn't get Y).

It could be fun to try something with a lot of mutually exclusive choices, but that would be very hard to balance, and to make sure that the AI could make reasonably intelligent decisions.

 

[Thalassicus]

abandoning a fully developed policy branch at some point is just a huge waste of policy investment.

We could refund policies when changing branches. If we go Piety in the early game, we could drop it in favor of Rationalism later. I think this is technically feasible if people want to explore it. This tree-swapping is actually how I thought the branches originally worked... until I learned otherwise.

 

[Sneaks]

We could refund policies when changing branches. If we go Piety in the early game, we could drop it in favor of Rationalism later. I think this is technically feasible if people want to explore it. This tree-swapping is actually how I thought the branches originally worked... until I learned otherwise.

This doesn't really work too well. Gangler at one point made a Magna Carta wonder that refunded all policies so you could repick them The problem is that the AI does not seem to handle this well at all . I cannot remember the full breadth of the problem. I am sure the thread is somewhere around.

 

[Txurce]

Anyway, I don’t like the way Civ5 avoids switching goverment styles in practice..

Yes, it is a bit weird that they went with a system where once adopting a policy you have that benefit forever, but I see why they did it for gameplay purposes.

Given the applicability of policies in different eras, I've never looked at them as necessarily being a government type, but rather as manifestations of cultural attitudes that - interpreted broadly - could reflect an enduring national character like, for example, that of China. The combinations are rarely problematic from this perspective. An overlap from militarism to capitalism to theocracy, for example, doesn't create a conflict in my mind. Even a seemingly obvious conflict (Piety and Rationalism) can be found in classic Arabian civilization and the contemporary American one. Given VEM's exhaustive balancing efforts, I don't even see a reason to make any two policy trees exclusive. And because the total number of policies is clearly limited, the result is a series of relatively varied "characters."

All that said, I agree there's something a bit weird with these "traits" lasting forever, but it strikes me as less prone to being gamed as the government switching in earlier iterations of Civ.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Sneaks
It would be done through the social policies interface, so it'd be human-only.

 

[Ahriman]

@Sneaks
It would be done through the social policies interface, so it'd be human-only.

Human-only mechanics just strikes me as a very bad idea.

 

[Thalassicus]

It depends on the balance between fun gained by new gameplay, and a less complex AI. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes not, and I evaluate it on a case by case basis.

 

[NPcomplete]

Ahriman and Txurce: Yes, the spirit of Civ5 social policies is the addition rather than the exclusive selection. They do not represent goverments but some "knowledge" that stays in your society cultural background forever. It's not "you will be a Monarchy forever" but "once your people understand what Monarchy is, its benefits will stay even if later you form a Republic." It follows the RPG style where you upgrade your character skills forever, and you just decide between sword or bow (not enough hands for both). No penalties, just bonuses. In this sense, all social policy mutual exclusions could be removed, as Txurce said.

Still, I don't feel how my society evolves in Civ5 because social policies are a pretty abstract concept. I prefer tradeoffs, even with penalties. A society is not a RPG character. Think about the last 200 years in e.g. an East Germany city: Monarchy => Republic => Fascism => Communism => Democracy. I can't see that in Civ5! "Knowing" Republic and "knowing" Fascism, without Anarchies or losing any bonuses, is not the same.

A different issue is whether this change fits in this general mod, which is intended to be loyal to the original Civ5 spirit (its goal is balancing, so underused choices are interesting again), or it would fit better into an alternative mod version, or in a different mod. Thalassicus: If I got it right, you think that the culture points spent in developing e.g. the whole Piety tree could be retrieved to be immediately re-invested to (partially or fully) develop Rationalism when the user decides to switch? For me, this sounds interesting!

Another possibility would taking out a few mutually exclusive policies into separate empty branches and leaving the bulk of remaining policies as they are now, i.e. cumulative. However, I do understand that this change would be radical for the mod's spirit.

Sneaks: You are right, I'll have a look at what is being proposed by the Community Call To Power project, and check what ideas could be imported here.

 

[Atlas627]

Given the applicability of policies in different eras, I've never looked at them as necessarily being a government type, but rather as manifestations of cultural attitudes that - interpreted broadly - could reflect an enduring national character like, for example, that of China. The combinations are rarely problematic from this perspective. An overlap from militarism to capitalism to theocracy, for example, doesn't create a conflict in my mind. Even a seemingly obvious conflict (Piety and Rationalism) can be found in classic Arabian civilization and the contemporary American one. Given VEM's exhaustive balancing efforts, I don't even see a reason to make any two policy trees exclusive. And because the total number of policies is clearly limited, the result is a series of relatively varied "characters."

All that said, I agree there's something a bit weird with these "traits" lasting forever, but it strikes me as less prone to being gamed as the government switching in earlier iterations of Civ.

I agree with this. Adopting policies is not really like your government type.

If you have ever played Europa Universalis 3, nations have a government type that affects things similar to CIV governments. They also have National Ideas, which are like policies. They get to choose these at certain tech levels, and they represent cultural values that remain with the country as you progress and change government types.

The CiV policies are more like the National Ideas. I do not think that the branches should be mutually exclusive at all, but I also don't want to give refunds upon switches. Neither is appealing.

Perhaps there could be a modmod that adds government types. This would be in addition to policies, and be unlocked with tech. Government types would be switchable from production/purchase of a national wonder, instead of taking a policy (does not increase policy cost), upon beginning a golden age, or by setting happiness to -20 for X turns. How does this sound?

 

[Sneaks]

General idea question:

Would you find it too prohibitive if Cultural Victories required a certain number of great artists to spawn as one of the requirements?

 

[Ahriman]

General idea question:

Would you find it too prohibitive if Cultural Victories required a certain number of great artists to spawn as one of the requirements?

Yes. Artists are a means of getting culture. The victory requires culture. It shouldn't be tied to particular specialist types or to game history.