Reworking Governments

[dh_epic]

In Latin America it's sometimes called "Neo-Liberalism", and in America it's often referred to as "Neo-Conservatism". The idea is to abolish the public sector and privatize everything.

Total privatization, to me, would generate more revenue, but with higher amounts of dissent and unhappiness. For example, consider the privatization of bolivia's water supply. They didn't like that very much.

In most "regular" free market societies, there are a few things that are guaranteed to you. Like water, education, roads... Even health care is guaranteed in almost every free market society except for America.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think that for Free market vs. planned, like all civic 'systems' it should be about benefits and penalties. The benefits are that more of your city and terrain improvement costs (ongoing) are paid for by the private sector-thus freeing up your treasury for other things, and a second benefit might be increased income from trade and commodities/consumer goods-as well as increased income from any corporate tax you might have. The downside is that an increasingly powerful private sector 'Lobby' might make increasing demands on you-such as lowering certain taxes, lowering national wages, and increasing national working times (which can anger your population), the private sector can also become an increasingly powerful 'transnational' player, who does NOT neccessarily obey your commands-i.e. you no longer pay maintainance on a number of production improvements, but the shields they generate are now no longer yours to use as you want. Instead you must obtain them via trade with either another nation or your own private sector ! Another downside is that demand for consumer goods from your people increases, which must often be provided at the expense of your unit and improvement construction.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well I definitely don't think that the private and public sector should be separated, both should have equal levels of player control, where the shift of 'who is in control' is in the form of bonuses and penalties (ie more commerce, less production) Essentially the player should be equally in control of Democratic, Despotic, Capitalist, and Communist societies...in all of those systems, the only difference in control is which People are in control and the player is none of the People, but all of them.

I could see a 'pure capitalist' society tend to have lower funds available for military production/maintenance, and greater need for luxury goods to keep the people happy (greater demand for luxury goods meetable based on a commerce bonus)

Wheras a pure centrally planned society would rely on the fact that they have total control over someone's life to 'keep them happy' and would have poor commerce but good military production/maintenance.

The idea is that these would not be options that opened up throughout the game but that near the beginning of the game, you would choose Free Market or Planned Economy and as techs appeared throughout the game they would change the effects of those choices.

So a Planned Economy might move from an Ancient Imperial Bureaucracy to a Soviet Republic without ever changing its government options, only acquiring new social techs.

The techs might have a transition cost, but they would permanently change that government option. Just as discovering Nationalism permanently changes what 'Basic Defensive Unit' is.

So just as there are fluctuations between offense and defense strength, there might be fluctuations between the various Governmental choices, each which would try to identify with particular strategic situations and goals.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I am not talking about the player 'losing control', but what has bothered me throughout the civ franchise (CtP included) is that it ultimately doesn't MATTER what kind of government or economic system you have, as you are ultimately a dictator with a completely planned economy.
One way of it least making it FEEL like government choices matter is to have the concept of 'Factions' and 'Influence'-and this is where my post on the Private Sector comes into it. As a faction (like the Private Sector) becomes more influential, then the more likely you are to start your turn with demands from those factions-demands which you can either disregard, refuse or accede to. Influence also determines how much risk there is in NOT acceding to that faction's demands.
What makes religion and private sector different, though, is that both have the power to effectively become 'shadow civs' which cross international boundries-because of this, a powerful religious grouping or private sector might truly become like the other civs-'civs' who you now have to deal with via the diplomacy screen. At the end of the day, though, all decisions still ultimately rest with the player, its just that under more democratic/open societies, you also have to take into account the opinions of other 'elements' within your society.
Hope that made sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That I would agree with, although I'd have all governments have to deal with "factions" (Absolute Monarchy's would have to deal with the king, Communists with the party apparatus, etc.)

If you resist a powerful faction too much, you would then be forced to change government (because your civilization, ie the player, is moving in a different direction than the government, ie factions)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I actually do agree with you, Krikkitone, I just used Democracy as the most OBVIOUS example of having to deal with the demands of competing factional groups. Within more authoritarian states, there would naturally be fewer influential factions-but those that are influential would probably be VERY influential, such as the Religious and Wealthy elite in Feudal or Monarchist states, the Buraeucrats of a Stalinist-style state, or the military in a Junta or Fascist state.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aramda Master]

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?

Democracy collaspes too easily during a war.

 

[Jaybe]

Disclaimer: In case you don't figure it out from the following, I prefer the "realism" perspective for the game. As a player, you are not "God" -- you are the head-of-state, and therefore you are just trying your best (like GW Bush or any other leader). Perhaps the following could be a part of an "advanced rules" set.

While I am attracted to Aussie's "sliders" suggestion, I think that all such changes should be coupled with UNKNOWN side-effects. You make a change to the system, but you do not KNOW how your changes will affect your society. You can then ATTEMPT to make corrections -- and HOPE they work without more disadvantageous side-affects.

 

[dh_epic]

That's an important thing to fix. I think the fact that democracy suffers war weariness when on defence is not only unrealistic, but imbalancing. You start to suffer more and more heavy losses as your productivity slows due to dissent and disorder, and the war gets worse, and so you keep fighting and only find dissent growing... until you finally switch governments, but you wait 7 turns while your enemy plows through more of your cities before you can get things up and running again. If they found a way to respect a democracy's right to defend itself, then the game would be more fair.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, DH_Epic, I don't know if you remember-but I put forward a very comprehensive model for war weariness that took specific situations into account. I do confess, though, that it depended very heavily on a % based happiness system-which I doubt they will adopt for civ4 (though I live in hope !)
Basically, the way it worked was that your war weariness grew or declined based on whether you win or lose individual battles, this base rate is then modified by certain factors, such as:

1) How many enemy units have you killed-and what level were they (so killing a lot of elite soldiers will actually reduce your war weariness).

2) How many, and what level, of your soldiers were killed (so lots of conscripts getting killed would increase your base war weariness).

3) Your Civ traits (certain types of civs-such as commercial and agricultural-increase war weariness at a faster rate than, say, expansionist or militaristic civs, and decrease it slower).

4) Defensive vs. offensive wars (defensive war weariness increases at a slower rate, and decrease at a faster rate than offensive war. Defensive War includes wars fought due to MPP's).

5) Distance war is fought from your territory will effect the growth of WW.

6) Losing one of your cities DECREASES war weariness, whilst losing an enemy city boosts it. Capturing a city always REDUCES WW.

7) Government type you are fighting against (vs. your own) will alter the increase/decrease rate of WW.

8) Depending on your Theism/nationalism levels, war weariness 'rates' can be altered according to the culture group and/or religion of the enemy.

9) 'Collateral Damage' (i.e. civilian deaths) increases war weariness, wheras the death of YOUR civilians reduces it. How much by depends on your civs current 'morality level'.

I'm afraid that I can't remember all the details, but that gives you a rough idea of how WW could be made a much more effective tool against warmongering whilst not hamstringing players fighting to stay alive!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Kosez]

I like some of your ideas, but I think Civ should not be to complicated. Simple solutions are the best solutions.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I have always said that there is a HUGE difference between Complex and Complicated-complex is good, but complicated is bad. As I see it, my war weariness model simulates a great deal of the COMPLEXITY of public opinion, without a bulky interface and complicated player actions within said interface.
Essentially, this war weariness would be fairly....'intuitive', in that you have a fair idea of what will make war weariness increase and decrease-and you adjust your policies accordingly. The secret, IMO, is that the player should NOT know specifically how much each element is contributing to WW, because then it is MUCH harder for the player to Micromanage his way out of it ! All of the various points and equations would be strictly for the computer, in order to generate a new happiness level based on current war weariness levels.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dguichar]

Hi again, guys.

Well, after some effort, I have managed to print the screen of relevence to this thread. If you look at the bottom right hand corner of the 'Hearts of Iron 2' Diplomacy screen, and you will see how player can actually adjust the political make-up of a preWWII nation. The only limits are according to your democratic/political axis at the time (though you can alter that too). The only other limit in this game is that you can only make a single adjustment per game year-though in a game like civ that would NOT be the case.
In civ, though, I think that there should be a carrot for Civic/government stability, and mild punishment for overly micromanaging such settings on a turn by turn basis.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

i missed another slider: theist----+----secular

 

[dh_epic]

Aussie is right. It's okay if a model is complex if (A) the player only sees the inputs and outputs, they don't have to play with the inner workings themselves and (B) the inner workings just make sense.

War Weariness would actually become EASIER to understand if it took into account some of the things that Aussie was talking about. Think of all the players who are baffled by their populous revolting against their own self defence!

 

[searcheagle]

However, dh, while the player does not have to know the model, they should know the coorelation between what events make things better or worse, more likely or less likely.

 

[dh_epic]

Of course. But what in Aussie Lurker's situation would confuse the player, let alone upset the player should it happen?

The individual factors tie into high level understandable tradeoffs like winning versus losing, aggression versus self defense...

Compare that to the so-called "simple" model that exists now. There ARE no correlations. So the player can never understand what is contributing to war weariness. And when they finally make the un-intuitive conclusion that the game is modelled such that war automatically causes unhappiness, they find themselves saying "well that doesn't make any sense!"

Take a look at culture flipping. Most people are okay with not knowing every last inner working of how a culture flip is calculated. What people AREN'T okay with is when the culture flip seems to behave in a way that doesn't make sense, without any warning. Where suddenly they can lose 8 units stacked in a city. And for the few people who do want to understand the inner workings, it becomes a discussion in many FAQs

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Actually I think WW should increase when you are losing your own cities...as long as that WW is remembered to be unhappiness with the Government. So if you begin losing a War you need to change to a lesser WW government very rapidly, or make peace (Germany/Russia in WWI although that was WW in a Monarchy)

Another (and perhaps better) possibility.
Losing your cities provides a Small increase in WW, enemy cities larger
For every turn your cities are occupied OR you occupy enemy cities, WW grows. Recapturing your cities provides a major decrease in WW, Capturing Enemy cities provides a Small decrease in WW.

I think this is because WW shouldn't just cause you to avoid wasteful wars of conquest, it should also cause you to try and seek peace in a losing defensive war. (previous WWI example)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

But in my 'model' you STILL gain War Weariness-even in a defensive war-if you are losing that war. Its just that if you lose one of your precious cities, your people become a little bit more 'galvanised', realising how the war could effect them personally, and then they are not so unhappy for a while-they will still become upset again IF you continue to lose though!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Kosez]

It reminds me on WW in Europa Universalis II. It is quite a powerful thing as it can make your nation fall apart due to extreme war weariness.
I don`t think war weariness is to complicated, but if memory serves me right, there were loads of ideas about governments and other aspects that seemed too complicated to me. I hope CivIV in the end won`t be too complicated, but not being complex is even worst.
I think we should expect war weariness will appear in CivIV in its more complex form. War weariness has been around for a long time, but they never managed to really make something out of it.
WW is important, but government/civics system will probably have even greater effect on the game. My opinion is, everything should evolve. In the beginning there should be two types of gov models, and these two types should evolve in more complex and better systems with more civics options and greater and more versatile war weariness.