Policies

[Txurce]

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.

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.

I agree with GamerKG's solution to NPcomplete's wishes: a government modmod.

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

What I like about this idea, given the current state of VEM, is that it could require the generation of Great Artists, even after their optimal landmark creation period is past.

 

[NPcomplete]

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?

So, you would have some mutually exclusive national wonders which provide the expected goverment bonuses (and penalities) and are mutually exclusive (i.e., if you build the "Republic's parliament", you destroy the "King's palace", and the other way around). This change would be conservative with the current social policies spirit, so it sounds very interesting!

Regarding how to enable a "goverment" national wonder construction, synchronizing your golden age points with the desired "revolution day" would probably be hard. Moreover, revolutions use to happen in unhappy countries. On the other hand, the -20 unhappiness trigger you propose sounds pretty historical, but it's difficult to force unhappiness (you sell colosseums and break luxury treaties?).

Even if a goverment switch just consisted in building a new goverment national wonder, would the AI correctly play with it? Or it would continuously build the King's palace, next the Republic's parliament, next the King's palace again, and so on forever? Is there a way to make the AI play intelligently with this?

 

[NPcomplete]

I agree with GamerKG's solution to NPcomplete's wishes: a government modmod.

If adding goverments in this way sounds an excessive change for the general mod, a modmod would be Ok indeed

 

[mitsho]

It'd need to be a Modmod for sure, it's a big big change with repercussions all over the gameplay: What bonusses? Do Victory Conditions, Policy Costs, Tech Costs, Building Costs etc. need to be changed? Do the Social Policies need to be changed (double meanings?) or added?

But the bigger question is wether you can make the AI learn it. Does the AI know about Piety/Rationalism f.e.? If it does, it'd be possible, not? as it is a similar problem.

As for the Governments themselves, there needs to be a system that is kept for all the things. I'd advocate a one bonus, one malus system, as that is easy to keep, easier to balance and easier to get for new players. You can go for enhancing playstyles (best for tall, wide, specialist, conquest), yield types (best for culture, gold, science, production), processes (best for building, conquering, enhancing the built buildings, enhancing the landscape instead of cities, specialists), policy trees or Victory Conditions. Then you'd have different tiers (Monarchy -> Absolutism; Republic -> Democracy; Feudalism -> Communism [not because C follows F, but because they probably have a similar gameplay effects]).

But again, balance would be way off, not sure if it's worth...

 

[albie_123]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=439920

I've made a thread as to take out the discussion of the possible modmod from the main policies thread.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'd like to pose a question (realism aside, from a purely gameplay perspective, and if the trees were balanced accordingly)...

If no policy trees were exclusive with others it would increase flexibility to make decisions. Do you think this would be worth beta testing?

 

[Sneaks]

No. I don't necessarily think it would increase decisions either. The only major policy choice in the game right now is that of Piety or Rationalism. Removing that constraint simply makes grabbing Piety and Rationalism every game an utter no-brain move.

 

[Ahriman]

I like the existing blocks, for both gameplay and flavor.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Sneaks
I did mention "if the trees were balanced accordingly."

 

[Txurce]

Yes you did, Thal, so I'll skip over that point.

My out-of-context preference probably mirrors Ahriman's, in that I like the idea of blocks. However, with the blocks presently reduced to Piety-or-Rationalism, I lean more toward removing them there as well and having the added fexibility, rather than sticking with the status quo.

 

[Ahriman]

To be honest, I hadn't noticed that the other was gone. I'd like to see Piety/Rationalism and Freedom/Autocracy.

Autocracy might still need some more boosting though.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman
Those are the current blocks (p/r and f/a).

 

[Ahriman]

@Ahriman
Those are the current blocks (p/r and f/a).

Ah, that is what I thought. I was confused by "with the blocks presently reduced to Piety-or-Rationalism".

 

[Txurce]

Was there a third one that was removed? I had mistakenly thought we were down to one.

It's easier for me to prefer sticking with the block approach if the blocked combination were clearly OP.

 

[Sneaks]

There used to be a Freedom/Order block as well.

 

[Zaldron]

Was there a third one that was removed? I had mistakenly thought we were down to one.

It's easier for me to prefer sticking with the block approach if the blocked combination were clearly OP.

Order/freedom from vanilla was removed.

 

[Thalassicus]

Technically it was just never added to the mod - I think the June path introduced it in vanilla.

 

[Ahriman]

Policy effects of the mod now take place after vanilla effects.

What does this mean (from the patchlog)?

 

[Thalassicus]

I think the only effect is neutral citystates temporarily boost to friendly with Aesthetics, then drop to neutral 10 turns later if unattended. I don't believe the order swap affected other policies, but I might have overlooked something.

 

[timbuktu]

In order to make warmongering AI's more effective in conquests Honor Finisher could effect on Theaters too. There are not so many buildings of this type i.e. Colloseum, Theater and Stadium which appears very late. I know that in v108v.beta are changes in happiness from captured cities but just in case it turns out to be unsufficient...