RFC Europe: Civics Discussion Thread

[micbic]

I think this post from Disenfranchised makes for an excellent starting point for civics discussion. And since it would be strange to ruin the Civs Discussion thread...

Well merchant republic is a pretty good civic, especially if you ignore the stability cost function like the AI does.

Personally I'm not a fan of the current merchant republic civic, as it still gives bonuses for lots of cities – the positive effect should be linked to the capital only.

I agree that we should take a look at all the civs and try and differentiate them both in effects and aims, maybe choosing what they represent and pciking 1 clear bonus and 1-2 clear disadvantages:

Government
Despotism: Same as original RFC. Default setting.
Electorate: Espionage bonus (10%). Specialists give 1 extra science and culture. -1 stability for each city beyond capital. Low upkeep.
I did assume this was showing the elected and advised kingships of early northern Europe and the middle east, plus the circles of the HRE, and maybe the golden liberty of Poland. Its kinda hard to say what effects would represent that but I think these ones really don't except for the decreasing stability. I do think this is more a military early game civic than anything else, so perhaps the barracks happiness bonus, and +2 experience (since the intriguing and having to be a warleader to get the throne helps experience).
Divine Monarchy: +1 happiness per military unit in cities. Specialists give +2 extra culture. High upkeep.
Constitutional Monarchy: Can buy production with gold. Very stable for large civs. Medium Upkeep.
Representation: +3 science per specialist. +3 happy in 6 largest cities. Medium Upkeep. Same as original RFC
These other three are pretty much fine

Legal
Tribal law: Same as original RFC (just renamed). Default setting.
Feudal law: 5 free units. New units receive +2 Experience. 10% culture penalty. Low upkeep. Incompatible with merchant republic.
This is the ruler distributing power to his vassals, allowing more force to be called when necessary, but loosening control over outlying regions. Secondly feudal levees often found themselves outmatched by professional armies so I'm unsure about the experience. Perhaps we should enable drafting with Feudal law to show the calling up (also makes it good for surviving early game barbarians and threats) whilst increasing the culture penalty.
Bureaucracy: +50% hammers, +50% gold in capitol. High Upkeep. Same as original RFC.
Bureaucracy is pretty okay, but I think it should have a clear disadvantage too – perhaps unhappiness in all non-capital cities to show the centralisation of power? Additionally the first applications of bureaucracy was towards the army, can we have Bureaucracy give extra experience to siege units?
Religious law: 25% reduced cost for buildings with state religion. 25% penalty to research. +1 happiness in cities with state religion; -1 happiness for other religions present. High upkeep. Incompatible with electorate.
Rather overlaps with several of the religion civs. I think it should thus loose the reduced building cost flag, and instead give +1 gold and -5% upkeep to all of the state religion buildings. Thus assisting in the running of large religious empires whilst offering synergy with Organised Religion and Theocracy
Common Law: 10% bonus to research; +2 trade from town. -1 happiness for each military unit. +100% great person birth-rate. Low upkeep. Incompatible with feudalism, theocracy.
This fine, though the research bonus could easily be removed to simplify things

Labor
Tribalism: Same as original RFC. Default setting.
Serfdom: Workers complete tasks 50% faster. -50% Cottages, hamlets, and villages growth. +1 food from Farm. Low upkeep.
Its always struck me as a bit odd that serfdom, a mechanism for tying people to the land, boosts the size of your cities in the early game. I think we should drop the cottage growth reduction (which goes to guilds) in exchange for plus 2 unhappiness to keep cities small, and changing the CIV slave revolt event to a 'serf revolt' event
Free peasantry: +100% growth for cottages, hamlets, and villages. Medium upkeep. Incompatible with feudalism and theocracy.
This is good
Apprenticeship: Unlimited artists, scientists, merchants. Workshop gives +1 hammer. High upkeep.
fine as well
Free labor: +5% production and commerce. +1 hammer from town.
This kinda clashes thematicly with free-peasantry at the moment, since they're both giving bonus to towns. I think this should represent the influx of rural labour to the cities of the 16th century onwards, and thus have a bunch of city based bonuses. There are a number of ways you could represent this, but I think that modelling it as like 'power' in regular CIV is the best – giving a bunch of advantages to late game buildings (+10% commerce to textile mill, wharfs and warehouses, +10% production to forges, tanneries, builders yards and shipyards) whilst its disadvantage would be +1/2 unhealth in all cities.

Thus for cottage economies you stick with free peasantry, but shift to free labour if you have well developed cities.


Economy
Decentralization: Same as original RFC. Default setting.
Manorialism: +10% military unit production. -1 Trade route. +1 commerce from farm. Low upkeep.
Yeah this one is fine
Guilds: +10% gold bonus. 1 free specialist in each city. High upkeep.
Traditionally guilds were very anti-competitive minded and routine smashed up workshops in outlying towns – we could make this a very clear 'use this with specialist economy!' civic by adding the -50% Cottages, hamlets, and villages growth to it. Also replace the gold bonus with a 'reduced corporation cost' flag which we're currently missing out on using.
Mercantilism: +20% gold bonus. No foreign trade routes. Inflation +100%. +1 trade route per city. Medium upkeep.
This is the keeping of bullion within the country to improve local industries and resource production, so you should choose it if you have a highly productive hinterland. Perhaps +2 gold to workshops and mines as the advantage, and no foreign trade routes and +50% inflation as the disadvantage.
Merchant Republic: +50% unit build costs; each unit requires 1 extra gold in maintenance cost/turn. +25% research and gold production bonus. +100% penalty to war weariness (twice as powerful). -2 stability for each city beyond capital. Medium upkeep.
Merchant republic is meant to be for a small city state with far flung colonies, and shouldn't have bonuses beyond the capital. Thus I think it should be changed to: Advantages: +400% commerce from trade routes in the capital, no distance upkeep. Disadvantages: quadruple number of cities upkeep, each unit requires 1 extra gold upkeep, +100% war weariness.

Religion
Paganism: Same as original RFC. Default setting.
Organized Religion: + 1 happiness per city (with state religion); cities with state religion construct buildings 25% faster; High upkeep.
This is fine, though the bonus overlaps with religious law we should change that civic rather than this one
Theocracy: Gold production increased 25%, research decreased 25%. Stability bonus for small empires (+12 (1 city), +9 (2 cities), +6 (3 cities); stability penalty for large ones (-2 for each city above 3?) No spread of non-state religion. Medium upkeep.
Whilst I get what people were going for here, the small medieval religious states were often hives of intellectual activity, and the research cost is already covered by religious law. So why don't we make this civic work more tightly with our mods new mechanics – having theocracy adds +75% to your faith points score making theocracy have a religion dependent bonus! Loose/reduce the gold and research parts but keep the size based stability thing
State Religion: +2 experience points, +1 happiness in cities with state religion; Med. upkeep.
I'm not sure why this gives experience boosts, especially when compared to organised and theocracy at encouraging the men. How about we get it so acts of piety boost stability when you're running State religion, I.e. a weak version of the Orthodox faith bonus say +1 stability per 7-10 faith points. Keep the extra happy bonus as well.
Free Religion: +1 happiness per non-state religion, +10% research. Low upkeep. Same as RFC original.
This free religion makes very little sense in a pre-1800 context where nearly every state had some associated religion and state secularism was unheard of in Europe. Thus I think this one should be renamed to Tolerance, and instead give +5% commerce and +5% culture per religion in the city, let you keep a state religion, but have no happiness bonus itself.

Expansion
Subjugation: Same as in RFC – default setting.
Vassalage: +8 stability for each vassal. Distance maintenance costs increased 25%; stability penalty for expansion decreased 25%. Medium upkeep.
Occupation: +2 additional stability pts. per conquered city. Same as in RFC.
Imperialism: +2 stability points for cities founded outside the Core area. Same as Resettlement in RFC.
This is kinda weak considering the crowdedness of the map and how it comes quite late, perhaps a 50% bonus to culture production as well?
Colonialism: Allows construction of colonial projects; +1 trade route in each city. High upkeep.

 

[merijn_v1]

Subjugation: Same as in RFC – default setting.
Vassalage: +8 stability for each vassal. Distance maintenance costs increased 25%; stability penalty for expansion decreased 25%. Medium upkeep.
Occupation: +2 additional stability pts. per conquered city. Same as in RFC.
Imperialism: +2 stability points for cities founded outside the Core area. Same as Resettlement in RFC.
This is kinda weak considering the crowdedness of the map and how it comes quite late, perhaps a 50% bonus to culture production as well?
Colonialism: Allows construction of colonial projects; +1 trade route in each city. High upkeep.

IMO they only should give stability. And Colonialism should give +1 or +2 stability for each colony.

 

[Disenfrancised]

IMO they only should give stability. And Colonialism should give +1 or +2 stability for each colony.

Well quite often imperial overstretch lead to instability. Plus I quite like colonising as it is now - you have to explicitly give up other methods of gaining stability in order to persue colonial goals. We also have explict stability costs with other non-expansion civics, so their stability uniquness is lost.

That said I think we could change the expansion civics by adding a bit more diversity: merge the Vassalage and Imperialism civics under a single 'Imperialism' civic that gives +6 for a vassal and +1 for a city outside your culture area. Thus freeing up a 'expansion slot' for something like RFCs Commonwealth for if your expansion options are limited or you don't feel like warfare. So we'd then have civics for warmongers, statesmen, colonial traders, and builders. Perhaps an Prestige civic, where you get +5-10 stability for each of your cities that are in the top five cities screen.

 

[FakeShady]

Imperialism should be the one that gives stability for colonies AND cities founded outside core area. Colonialism should be changed to commonwealth and just give +1 trade route per city. Because both imperialism and colonialism seem to clash in idea, one of them needs to have its name changed.

At the moment, religious law is way too weak with -25% research. Almost nobody will wanna use it. Theocracy's -25% research also makes it way too weak, and its stability penalty also kicks in way too fast.

Totally like your Tolerance idea though

 

[FakeShady]

Well quite often imperial overstretch lead to instability. Plus I quite like colonising as it is now - you have to explicitly give up other methods of gaining stability in order to persue colonial goals. We also have explict stability costs with other non-expansion civics, so their stability uniquness is lost.

That said I think we could change the expansion civics by adding a bit more diversity: merge the Vassalage and Imperialism civics under a single 'Imperialism' civic that gives +6 for a vassal and +1 for a city outside your culture area. Thus freeing up a 'expansion slot' for something like RFCs Commonwealth for if your expansion options are limited or you don't feel like warfare. So we'd then have civics for warmongers, statesmen, colonial traders, and builders. Perhaps an Prestige civic, where you get +5-10 stability for each of your cities that are in the top five cities screen.

I like the Prestige idea it will give a civ incentive to have super lot of culture

 

[blizzrd]

I have some thoughts about the current set of civics. Basically I find that while the range of options is interesting, some early civics are simply too good to ever want to switch out of. Here goes.

Government:

Electorate is the best early civic and eventually I switch to Republic. I've never seen a need to use either Monarchy. If Divine Monarchy with its happiness bonus was available early on (pre Weavers, etc) when your cities' growth is often limited by the happiness cap, it would certainly be worth switching to. But by the time Divine Monarchy is available, happiness is no longer a limiting factor (actually I find that instead health is the limiting growth factor, at least until Arabic Medicine) can be learnt. Constitutional Monarchy is nice, but pales in comparison to Republic for overall benefit. Republic is the standout by such a long way in the current list of Government civic options.

Legal:

These civics I consider to be the best balanced and best sequenced (as the prerequisite techs are learnt) of all the categories. I never use Religious Law, because the -25% research to all cities is a ridiculously harsh penalty. I can understand the logic behind the research penalty for this Religious Law, but unless the penalty to research is reduced I will never use it. -10% research in all cities would seem more a appropriate drawback, such that I would actually run Religious Law if this were the case. Common Law is just so amazingly good though at the end of the progression of legal civics.

Labour:

These civics I have the biggest issue with. The production bonus to farms from Serfdom is so much better than any of the other benefits on offer that I have never used any other Labour civic. I might be tempted to use Free Labour in the mid-late game, but obviously my cottages (if I ever built any) haven't yet and are unlikely to ever grow to Towns, so I am yet to actually want to try the switch. Free Labour bonus of +5% seems too small currently also to be tempting enough. Perhaps +10% would be more appropriate. Unlike regular in RFC where some UHVs cannot be completed without the power of unlimited specialists, I haven't yet come across a UHV condition in RFCE which is dependent on producing key specialists, or even a single key specialist.

Economy:

Generally a nice selection to choose from. Manorialism is a brilliant test for the inexperienced player, which I like and congratulate the designer of. Taking away food production from all of your farms is bad (TM) and should not ever be used unless your cities can all get food surpluses from seafood resources, which on the current RFCE map is a highly unlikely situation. Food surplus and the resulting extra citizens (or specialists) that come from it is what drives your economy, not an extra two commerce from that grassland tile. But I have only learnt this after many years of playing civ, and surely there are plenty who are yet to learn this lesson. So again, I like the trap that Manorialism sets. The other economic civics are all nice for their different effects and (almost) reasonably balanced, except that Merchant Republic's +25% bonus to both production and commerce in all cities is in my opinion currently too great. Very nice, and a lock in civic once it is available - but a bit unbalanced if you ask me. I'd be happier if it were a +25% commerce bonus and perhaps +10% bonus to production instead.

Religion:
I switch to Organised Religion ASAP and might eventually switch to Free Religion if it weren't for the large number of buildings/wonders that this would nerf. Religion is currently too important in RFCE to make Free Religion worth it with the current bonuses (which are just copied over anyway from the base RFC civic Free Religion anyway). The science penalty from Theocracy is much too harsh for me to ever consider it, and with the inclusion of Inquisitors in RFCE there is much less of need to prevent non-state religion spread than there is in RFC. As per my comment in relation to Constituional Monarchy, the same can be said of the happiness bonus from State Religion. I really think that it would much more appropriate to switch State Religion (in its present form) to become available at the time (early) that Organised Religion is presently available and vice versa. This would give some early happiness options to the religious RFCE player when they are most needed, and give production bonuses in the mid-late game when a much wider range of buildings are available to be built in cities.

Expansion:
These civics give you varying ways of enabling extra stability, except Colonialism. Why not make the bonus from Colonialism similar to the others in this category? I would suggest + X Stability for each Colonial Project or something similar along this line of thought. If I needed the extra stability (which I find that I do not, because of all the buildings which give extra stability) I would never change from Vassalage, once adopted. But presently I always switch to Colonialism as soon as I can for the extra trade routes. However, I still think that the decision should just be about which expansion civic gives you the best stability option rather than an economic option at the late-game stage.

 

[BurnEmDown]

Well quite often imperial overstretch lead to instability

I think you misunderstood the logic of this civic. This civic shouldn't be used to improve your stability, as in, "hmm I need some stability, I'll change to imperialism and get some cities outside my borders in order to improve my stability, but as a way to keep your stability in check, as in, "hmm I want to expand quickly, I'll change to imperialism to counter some of the instability I'll get from expanding".
This civic should be switched to before expanding when you already decided you should expand without the bonus from the civic, for example playing as the Ottomans, you would expand towards Europe even without the civic's bonus, but if you can switch to it it will surely make your life easier.

 

[FakeShady]

Hmm i think blizzrd's long comment is very good, pretty much the view of the current set of civics from a player's point of view.

When thinking of how civics should be implemented i think the main question to ask yourself is "How in which situation am I gonna use this?" and "How is this gonna shape a civ?" Given the current civics, there are some civics (Religious law, Theocracy, the Monarchies) which i personally will NEVER use in any given situation and i think when a civic disgusts one so much something obviously has to be done about it.

And when a civic is so good you will use it on almost every situation (Merchant Republic, Representation) then obviously either something is wrong with it, or something is wrong with its alternatives.

 

[sedna17]

I would say that in general it can be okay to have one "best" civic in a category as long as that civic comes pretty late, especially if it would be historically appropriate for many civs to switch to it as time goes by. I don't think Representation or Merchant Republic fit this description though.

There's a lot here to debate. A logical starting place is with the first column: The Forms of Government. Much of the discussion about "Electorate" turns on what that civic really means. If it is strictly for elected "kings", then HRE and Poland and the only two great examples in our region/period, though Wikipedia lists a few more examples of elective monarchy. If you think about it more broadly (and perhaps the name could be changed) as a monarch sharing power with nobles/aristocracy then it is okay for this to be a dominant civic choice. Of course, it should still not be exclusively the best choice...

 

[blizzrd]

I was thinking more along the lines of gameplay appropriateness for the civics, as opposed to historical appropriateness of the civic options.

 

[sedna17]

I was thinking more along the lines of gameplay appropriateness for the civics, as opposed to historical appropriateness of the civic options.

I know, and rightfully so -- gameplay comes first. However, when coming up with what each civic actually does it's important to try and choose something vaguely appropriate.

 

[Panopticon]

If you want to limit Merchant Republic, why not include city yields that penalise land and reward coast?

 

[Jusos2108]

About Merchant Republic; as I played with England I noticed that the unit building penalty didn't work for me. Allthough it is counted correctly my production is still without it, as you can see from the sreenshot. Anybody else having this 'problem'?

 

[embryodead]

If you want to limit Merchant Republic, why not include city yields that penalise land and reward coast?

Somewhat related, +1 Trade Route for All Cities could be replaced with +1 Trade Route for All Coastal Cities. FfH2 has this civic option (actually this is already in SDK, it just requires XML reading).

 

[Deon]

About Merchant Republic; as I played with England I noticed that the unit building penalty didn't work for me. Allthough it is counted correctly my production is still without it, as you can see from the sreenshot. Anybody else having this 'problem'?

It looks like it's working as intended. What's wrong here? Total production is 14 instead of full 21 here. 21 is for buildings, not military units.

 

[FakeShady]

Merchant Republic should not be used by big civs, no matter what situation. Don't you guys agree? We must thus have something in Merchant Republic that really discourages big civs to use it

 

[micbic]

Yes, like what? A -5 stability per city if you have over 5 of them?

 

[Disenfrancised]

I think you misunderstood the logic of this civic. This civic shouldn't be used to improve your stability, as in, "hmm I need some stability, I'll change to imperialism and get some cities outside my borders in order to improve my stability, but as a way to keep your stability in check, as in, "hmm I want to expand quickly, I'll change to imperialism to counter some of the instability I'll get from expanding".
This civic should be switched to before expanding when you already decided you should expand without the bonus from the civic, for example playing as the Ottomans, you would expand towards Europe even without the civic's bonus, but if you can switch to it it will surely make your life easier.

I was talking about colonialism. Whose lack of a stability bonus in the expansion column is good - you have to forego other options to get the bonus.

Yes, like what? A -5 stability per city if you have over 5 of them?

Stability costs will not discourage the AI, so if the civic is great except stability the AI will keep on picking it.

@sedna1: I argee on us choosing what electorate is supposed to represent, the thing is I can't see how any of the possible options link to the bonuses it gives.

 

[FakeShady]

Stability costs will not discourage the AI, so if the civic is great except stability the AI will keep on picking it.

Agree. Like, to the max. So either code it to make AIs love stability, or the only alternative is to NERF MERCHANT REPUBLIC MUAHAHHAHA

Did i mention the monarchies need to be buffed?

 

[Jusos2108]

It looks like it's working as intended. What's wrong here? Total production is 14 instead of full 21 here. 21 is for buildings, not military units.

If you check the number next to the calculations, you see it is 21 instead of the calculated 14 and I am building a unit. The calculations become visible when you move on top of it. Therefore, how come the production number is 21 and the calculations show that it should be 14!!