Reworking Governments

[rhialto]

Government needs revising in civ. Every major debater here agrees on that.

Existing government models:

• civ1/2/3 and ctp1/2 - Players chooses a government archetype with a period of anarchy if he changes
• SMAC/SMAX - social engineering. You specify your government by choosing on four different menus to customise it.
• MoM and MoO1 - No government model
• MoO2 - government is a fixed attribute which cannot be changed. A late game tech enhances each government in specific ways.
• GalCiv - You have a political party and must keep factions happy or lose certain bonuses at election time. The various government types are on a linear path of happiness vs economy.

Of these, the only ones that are being seriously debated are the civ asnd the SMAC models.

Some of the specific effects from the civ governments:

- varying levels of corruption/waste
- tile commerce bonus for advanced govs (republic, democracy)
- general tile production penalty for early govs (despotism)
- varying levels of war weariness
- senate limiting your actions (civ2 democracy, republic)
- enhanced spies (communism in civ2/3)
- varying levels of free unit support
- government-specific units (civ 2 fundamentalism had fanatics)
- government-specific small wonders
- ctp 1/2 also had certain buildings act differently under certain govs.

I think that's the exhaustive list of what's been offered in civ so far.

Now, for a list of what traits we would like to be manipulated by a new government model. At this point, the following list could be used either for a civ or a smac model. A great many of these could also be used as variables in a freeform model for civ traits.

- varying levels of pollution, which will probably be reflected in population growth/health with what we know of the changes.
- varying levels of corruption/waste. Not sure how this will go now they are dropping this game feature.
- drop the tile commerce/production bonuses and penalties. Instead, each government gets a multiplier to each of food/industry/commerce. This would be similar to having a free invisible bank (in addition to whatever you build) in the case of the commerce bonus.
- varying levels of war weariness, with a sensible model for how it is calculated. Some governments are affected more than others, aggressive wars and defensive wars should be handled separately
- dropping the senate in civ3 was good - keep it dropped.
- drop the tax/lux/sci rate caps. Instead, these have a multiplier to their output. So the Frobidism government is great for keeping your people happy, with a x2 modifer on luxuries. You can theoretically keep your guys so happy they can't stand it or stand up. But if you spend nothing on luxuries you still get nothing. On teh other had, it gets a x0.01 multiplier for science, so no matter how much you spend on science, you are unlikely to get very far.
- enhanced spies for certain govs
- varying levels of free unit support
- government-specific units
- government-specific city improvements (giving communism stock exchanges feels weird)
- government-specific small wonders
- Certain governments can have bonuses to research in specific areas. This requires that each tech be assigned to a specific class, and then the government gets a bonus to all techs in that class.

[more later]

 

[dh_epic]

A lot of people want reworking for different reasons. There's a lot of different aspects of government to improve.

Some want more realism. ("Democracy isn't realistic.")
Some want more balance. ("There's only two good governments".)
Some want more flexibility and choice. ("I want to balance multiple choices, rather than picking one thing from a list.")

It seems here you're probably addressing the balance issue? Or the realism issue?

 

[rhialto]

My main beef with governments is the two-dimensional flavour of it all. Even with all the tools in the game editor, you can't break out of it. The fact is, civ3 governments can all be characterised as good/bad for war/peace. There is no other 'personality' to the governments.

Realism - That's nice to have, but people who get into this area either start arguing about whether USA/USSR are/were real democracies/communists, or else start debating the differences between a government elected by the people and a government elected by people who elect people.

For game purposes, neither of those debates are relevant. We simply say "for this game, democracy is XYZ and communism is LSD". And make another government to define the idealised forms of those if desired.

The people who want differences between various methods of voting are missing another point in my opinion. Without a highly detailed model expressing the hopes and fears of citizens, there is no meaningful game difference you can ascribe to those voting methods, as the simialrities between such govs are far greater than the differences.

Balance - If there are only two good governments, I put forward the idea that this is because there are only two ways in which governments can be optimised in civ. The list of variables outlined in my first post would allow for governmenst to be flavoured in many different ways, so the decision no longer is a simple "will I be at war or peace the next 20 or so turns?" Instead, players, will be thinking "Do I need to maximise industry, science, commerce, corruption, pollution, war, trade, or what?"



In my first post, I was simply listing the variables that governments should be able to affect.

Anyway, what I want is a governments list model, similar to civ, but with a vastly expanded list of governments. Currently my list is:

(Ancient and classical)
Anarchy - default transition government
Chiefdom - default
Oligarchy - gov by merchant council (Carthage, Phoenica)
Dynasty - ancient monarchy (Egypt, Babylon)
Tributary Empire - Rome, China
Democracy - Athenian style
Republic - Rome (not too sure about this one, it's essentially an overgrown oligarchy with a few bells and whistles when examined closely)

(medieval)
Feudalism - medieval England, Germany
Monarchy - centralised - 16th Century France, Russia
Mercantile Empire - most of Europe in colonial times
Constitutional Monarchy - England, Denmark (not sure about this one either. While the monarchy element certainly exists, today's gov of this name isn't functionally distinct from a vanilla modern republic)

(modern)
Communism - USSR, China (yeah, I know, they are different)
Fascism - Italy, Germany
Junta - military coup - Pakistan, early modern S. America
Social Democracy - Sweden
Modern Republic - most western style govs fit here
Corporate Republic - dare I say it - USA today

(futuristic)
Ecotopia
Technocracy - government by computer - the Computer is your Friend
Virtual Democracy
Peoples' Republic - idealised communism

Within these government types, there are some extra features...

- Most of these should have a feature here, instead of revolting to a new government, you can transition instead. This requires that teh new government be chosen in advance and requires a hefty fee (varying by your nation's size), as well as a few turns delay before it takes effect. But there is no anarchy involved.

- Many of these governments will alo have a variety of policy choices within them that can be changed to give further flavour to your government. This is a tip of the hat to the smac/slider crowd. These sliders will vary from gov to gov, as a decision that is relevant to gov X may be irrelevant to gov Y and vice versa.

Edit: added Constitutional Monarchy to list.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Rhialto great list, but you forgot one in the Late Middle and Modern Age, and that is the Constitutional Monarchy-made popular by England and Denmark. I know its not a COMMON government type, but it should be their for people to choose. Come to think of it, you might also want Socialist Democracy in between Communism and Social Democracy.
With that list in place, it is then neccessary to determine what MAKES each of these goverment types unique-be it their economic system, their attitude to other nations, their military readiness-or could it be something else which makes them so different, such as the players freedom of action under each type of government.
Anyway, just some thoughts.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Kosez]

- Most of these should have a feature here, instead of revolting to a new government, you can transition instead. This requires that teh new government be chosen in advance and requires a hefty fee (varying by your nation's size), as well as a few turns delay before it takes effect. But there is no anarchy involved.

Excellent list. I have some suggestions about transition between govs. I believe govs should evolve from their foundations. Feudalism from Oligarchy, modern Democracy from ancient Democracy, Parliamental (Constitutional) Monarchy from Absolutistic Monarchy, and so on. So if you wanted to have more modern gov of the same kind, you would suffer only slight penalties because of transition. But if you wanted to switch to another type of gov you would suffer more severely.
What do you think?

Other thing is: If I understood you correctly, different govs would be good for different things, isn`t that so? Republic, for instance, would be good for commerce, Monarchy for production of units, Democracy for science, etc...

 

[rhialto]

About Transitions...

Valid transitions are as follows:

Chiefdom -> none
Oligarchy -> none
Dynasty -> monarchy, feudalism, trib. empire
Trib. Empire -> merc. empire, monarchy
Democracy -> virtual republic (yeah, this transition is ever gonna happen)
Republic -> modern republic

Feudalism -> const. monarchy
Monarchy -> const. monarchy
Merc. Empire -> none
Const. Monarchy -> none

Communism -> peoples' republic, social democracy
Fascism -> corporate republic
Junta -> none
Social Democracy -> modern republic, communism, ecotopia
Modern Republic -> corporate republic, social democracy
Corporate Republic -> fascism, modern republic

Ecotopia -> social democracy
Technocracy -> none
Virtual Democracy -> none
Peoples' Republic -> none

This list of valiud transitions is intentionally limited. Since each gov will have its own set of sliders, it will usually be possible to adjust those to go some of the way towards a radically different government. But making it possible to transition to too many different things lessens the value of those sliders. Oligarchy to Feudalism, for example, makes no sense when you consider who is in power (merchant princes vs warlords).

@Aussie Lurker
Constitutional Monarchy I'm not happy with. In it's modern form, it is functionally no different from a vanilla modern republic. I suppose we could make it identical, but have it as a valid transition from monarchy and feudalism govs, while the old republic govs can transition to modern republic instead. In its medieval/renaissance form it isn't that different from monarchy/feudalism. I think it can be represented with government-specific wonders and improvements.

Socialist Democracy and Social Democracy in the same list as separate governments is right out. Regardless of any actual differences, the names are just too similar.

@kosez
Yes you're right. I am thinking that each government should be optimised in different ways, and not just on a war-peace axis. Complete details aren't yet sorted out, but I do feel communism should be a high industry higher pollution gov. Ecotopia will have virtually zero pollution. My main concern is giving each type a distinctive character while at the same time not making the characterisation so outlandish as to be a caricature.

 

[Vael]

During Medieval times France and Russia were almost as fragmentized as Germany was, while England was actually the sole centralized state among them.

 

[rhialto]

Not in 1600 AD they weren't.

And England may have been centralized in the sense it had a king, but that was a king who had to listen to a long list of powerful nobles. Unlike France and Russia, the English monarch didn't have the power to summarily remove a troublesome lesser noble.

I could also point out that I was referring not so much to specific governments (I gave named examples so people could relate more easily), but to common well-known archetypes. I think we can all recognise the absolute monarch and the distributed feudal power system quite readily, so my main point with those two still stands.

 

[Vael]

1600 AD is a couple hundred years after the Medieval time period.

 

[rhialto]

Your point is duly made, but it doesn't change the original point in any meaningful way.

 

[Vael]

It just seems odd to me to make distinctions between the different governments in such a way.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well I think a couple things are needed to get governments working

1. Most Importantly: More important options (right now only Military Economy v. Peace Economy..with another dimension of Large Economy v. Small Economy..makes new gov choices potentially useful)..this is more of an overall gameplay design issue (making some other issue important besides Raw Economy.)

2. Second: This is the Realism/Flexibility portion... if there are going to be more government options, then there Should be more transitions, but not all transitions should be equal (for sake of game balance And realism) to allow government choice to still be significant.

The best way I can see of doing #2 is with a SMAC like system (changing Government involves changing anywhere from 1 to four 'government options' at once...the more you change, the worse the penalty)


3. Is more of a wish list...Different Governments for different Cities. So 1750's England has a Limited Republic and 1750's New York has a Monarchy (both under the British Civ)

 

[Commander Bello]

May I throw in one of my ideas about transition:

Personally, I absolutely dislike anarchy. Nevertheless, it is most obvious that the time of transition between two different types of government will require major re-adjustments within the state, including and impacting all social classes.

Based on this, I would like to see the time of anarchy work in such way (all numbers just for display purposes):
Let's say, the time of anarchy will stretch over 6 turns. This would mean that in
turn 1 - 0 productivity (major uproar, everyone tries to secure his own life in his personal belongings)
turn 2 - 16% productivity (in a few, small places things start to settle again)
turn 3 - 33% productivity (the few places from above become small areas)
turn 4 - 50% productivity (the small areas become large areas, still unresting areas around)
turn 5 - 66% productivity (only small areas of unrest, most of the empire is working again)
turn 6 - 75% productivity (the empire has finalized its transition, yet some bandits are causing problems)
turn 7 - 100%. The new government is secure, everything works fine.

The length in time of the transition period would be determined, from which kind of government you would switch to which other. Monarchy - Absolute Monarchy would require less time than Fascism - Social Democracy.
This in turn would mean that you have to determine your new kind of government AT THE START of the revolution, not at the end (as you currenty do)

Overall:
I think this model would allow for more frequent change of governments, but there still would be severe penalties especially if you switch between completely different kinds. This would allow - as far as I see it - for a more "evolutionary" system of governmental systems.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm not sure if tripling the list of governments is the answer. An extremely long list is just a bad interface that overwhelms the user -- it's hard to cognitively organize two dozen plus options.

It would be much better to have triple the political concepts (like SMAC), organized into three seperate variables. I'm optimistic they're going this route.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well if you triple the options, you end up with more governments
Current C3C=8 Govs (including Anarchy)

If you had 3 Menus each with 3 options, that would be 27 'Govs' (effectively)

So the menu option would also be the way to increase the Effective number of "Governments" without overwhelming the player.

As for a penalty...one thing I have thought of is giving your people a govenrment they desire... their desire for that government would be based on their history with that government... So if your people have been living happily under a Democracy for the past 2,000 years, then if you want to change to a Fascist Government they will be very unhappy...But if you can Make them happy under the Fascist Government eventually they will come to be happy with Fascism...

So it becomes easier to transition if you already have penalties (popular unrest) for your government type...and one of the penalties for constantly changing governments is that your people never get a happiness bonus for their "favorite type" (even assuming that you keep them reasonably happy in each government)

So a true "transition time" could be 100 turns as you work to keep your people happy with their new government (or make them unhappy with their old government)

 

[Commander Bello]

100 turns?????
Assumed, that the no. of turns will not differ significantly from the current 540, this will make it almost impossible to satisfyingly change governments more than just once.

 

[Dachs]

That's actually sort of a good point, and a good reason. It's annoying to have to switch governments for every war and back again. Plus, look at some modern countries that "recently" had revolutions.

Russia, for example, still isn't working well. China didn't do too well, either, until fifty years after Mao shoved Chiang off the mainland. America wasn't really an effective nation until the Spanish-American War, because of heavy corruption in many layers of government and, of course, the Civil War. Iraq certainly dominated the world stage for a long time, but their government hasn't operated effectively since the revolution there in the fifties.

Although I have to say that 100 turns is a bit much, unless you increase the number of turns/game.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well I'm talking about making the population Totally content with a particular government type rather than getting the more standard bonuses of the government type. (Which should happen in less than a dozen turns in even the most severe transition)

 

[rhialto]

Interface Issue
I know that is an extremely long list(tm) of governments. The standard production list menu given to players when choosing what to build next in each city isn't exactly short either. If anything, it is longer. Yet players happily face that long list every turn 2 or 3 times with no real issues.

One interface change I'd like to see is an option to hide (and later restore to view if desired) 'obsolete' buildings / units / governments from the menus. GalCiv has this option for the units menu. This way you don't have to see items that you know you'd never choose.


@Krikkitone re: transitions
I know SMAC had rising costs depending on how many variables you changed at the same time. But when playing that, I quickly realised that if I just changed one at a time over 4 turns, I get my entirely new government with no meaningful penalty at all. And since players rarely needed to change more than one variable at a time anyway (unless he somehow discovered 2 government-related techs in one turn), even that time delay 'penalty' was meaningless.

I don't like the anarchy period either, but not because it is anarchy as such. It is because anarchy is a TOTAL shutdown of your economy, and in effect there is absolutely nothing for the player to do for those 4-8 turns, which reduces the fun factor. I'd rather see anarchy as being reduced economy, but not zero. That way the player still gets to do something.

 

[yoshi]

If Civ4 is as flexible as they say it is, you will be able to mod in most of what has been said above. (Namely government effects, requirements and limitations.)

That said, govts have always been in the background in Civ but it's likely that Civ4 governments will be more th '3D' just like the rest of the game is meant to be.

The basic format will probably not be significantly changed though, as it is not problematic for most players.

Personally, the only beef I have with governments is that the player can chose to change them whenever he/she likes. But this is a standard feature in the franchise so I doubt that will change. (Can probably figure out a way to mod in uncontrolled revolutions using clever scripting--this wasn't an option in the previous releases.)