RFC Europe: Civics Discussion Thread

[sedna17]

@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.

I agree that the bonuses aren't great. At the time I was thinking that specialists=aristocrats and then we made this have slightly better specialists. This formula sort of works for priest specialists (if you think of them as high-ranking church official) and (some) scientists/scholars. But -- a weak connection I agree.

You propose a war-like civic (XP or barracks happy). If we think of this a sort of feudal monarchy then that makes sense. For a pure HRE-style interpretation I would think that war would be easier under a single ruler (despotism).

We want something that gets at the effect of a distributed power base. Gameplay-wise I think we want a civic that is not too much better than despotism. Other options: we could certainly lower military unit support costs (aristocrats are responsible for providing their own army). We could give a happy bonus to castles or manor houses (seats of aristocratic power). A negative feature (if we want one) could be negative bonuses to the capitol (like a weak reverse-Bureaucracy), to stand for the decentralization of power.

 

[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'?

Does anybody bother to comment this?

 

[sedna17]

Does anybody bother to comment this?

Sorry, haven't had a chance to check it out and see what's going on. We've run into several of the civics XML options not working well as negatives so I wouldn't be shocked if this is just broken. It's likely that Merchant Republic will be seeing some significant changes though -- the unit building penalty could be right out.

I think I can see the necessary changes to Government and Religion (I'll post some ideas later). Both disenfranchised and blizzrd point to the labor civics as needing a lot of help, and I agree.

My thought was this:

Serfdom should be widespread and common. It (along with manorialism) should provide a valid "farm-economy" early on. Specialists should be short early in the game, so this really is a different type of economy. Later labor civics should encourage either a switch to a cottage-economy or a specialist-economy. These should be better civics later on (unless you need to keep a lot of farms like Russia?), and the challenge would be to manage the shift.

 

[sedna17]

I made some progress on civics. Many of the ideas suggested here involve SDK work (some hard, some easy). For now, I don't see a huge need for that complication -- my main focus has been to balance and simplify the civics. It's too complicated to choose civics when each one has many different benefits and drawbacks, so I try to limit it to a few things.

I had two ideas while doing this that I want to run past people.

1) Making the Paganism civic not allow a state religion + remove the from Pagan Shrine unless you're in paganism. I've moved State Religion up to Theology so you can switch to this and adopt a religion right away (for most civs). This is one of those changes that makes sense (paganism means you're not Christian/Muslim) but at the expense of being potentially confusing (new players may go convert to a religion and the screen just says that you cannot convert). You would have to look at the Civics screen to figure it out. So maybe I'll drop the "no state religion" part and just keep it with + with pagan shrine. Think of it as the leader of a society has converted, but most of the population is still pagan.

2) Starting civics for civs. I dislike in RFC that you always start with the very base/default civics even for civs that arise late. Especially for our players with completely unfamiliar to the new civics, it's bewildering to choose from a bunch of civics right at the start of the game. You know that the base civics probably aren't appropriate, but darned if you know how to pick sensible ones. It's easy (in the XML) to change starting civics to something more appropriate. This way Arabia+Cordoba can start in Theocracy+Religious Law (for example) while late-rise western civs can start in feudalism, and so forth.

 

[sedna17]

First off, I haven't done anything to the stability civics yet.

Other than that, here's what I'm playing around with.

The first row is most appropriate for post-Roman barbarian tribes, which would adopt some of the varying fixtures of feudalism up through 1000 AD. State religion is available right away and would probably be a quick first choice (if we do keep paganism = no state religion)

The second row is your typical configuration for a northern/western system before about 1300. This is a consistent set of civics for a farm economy (Serfdom + Manorialism), while the others allow quite a good production of units despite small cities.

A Islamic set of civics would be theocracy + religious law + free market (could be renamed to market economy) + Apprenticeship (or free peasantry) + divine monarchy. Some (theocracy, market economy, religious law) are now available at the start for the Arabs/Codobans.

After that, transitions into a cottage or specialist economy are both viable.

Specialists: Divine Monarchy or Republic (better) + Common Law or Religious Law + Apprenticeship + Mercantalism + doesn’t care.


Cottage Economy: Limited Monarchy + Bur. + Free Peasantry + Market + doesn’t care.

 

[3Miro]

The last row is a bit OP, however, it will be fine so long as civs get there last (republic should be one of the last techs anyways).

I am still a bit wary of the -1 food penalty for farms for the Manorism. Perhaps I could code it so that it caps the food form farms to 2 (unless there is a resource involved). That way Plain + Farms gets +2 gold (with +1 hammer for the synergy with Serfdom for a powerful early 2/2/2 or even 2/2/3) and the somewhat weaker 2/1/2 or 2/1/3 for plains.

 

[embryodead]

I am still a bit wary of the -1 food penalty for farms for the Manorism. Perhaps I could code it so that it caps the food form farms to 2 (unless there is a resource involved). That way Plain + Farms gets +2 gold (with +1 hammer for the synergy with Serfdom for a powerful early 2/2/2 or even 2/2/3) and the somewhat weaker 2/1/2 or 2/1/3 for plains.

That penalty made me never choose Manorialism, it always made more sense to stay w/ Decentralization until Guilds (which are OP) while keeping full benefits of Serfdom. Currently, it'd only make sense if you had no farms and wanted the +military bonus, which is kind of against the civic's logic.

-1 Trade Routes - made a lot of sense as combined with +Gold from Farm it shifts the economy from trade to farming (+1 is better - makes the civic good only early on when trading is poor - or later if you're all agricultural e.g. Poland, Kiev). -50% Cottage etc. Growth would make it even more rural (could be moved from serfdom which has an extra penalty now?).

-X Health is a possible small penalty to growth that is not as hardcore as -1 Food from farms.

Guilds and Merchant Republic are still too good. Guilds could use some penalty at least, like -X Happiness in 6 largest cities (guilds = evil cartels, mafias really).

Also, I don't understand the idea behind Common Law. It's the "precedent-based" legal system developed in England, not used anywhere else in Europe AFAIK, where Roman law was used instead (unless you count Fiqh) - why is it a pacifist civic?

 

[FakeShady]

Religious law + Theocracy should be a combo for any religious civ. Given the current set of civics though, this combo absolutely sucks. -50% research rate, who will wanna choose it? LOL

 

[blizzrd]

That penalty made me never choose Manorialism, it always made more sense to stay w/ Decentralization until Guilds (which are OP) while keeping full benefits of Serfdom. Currently, it'd only make sense if you had no farms and wanted the +military bonus, which is kind of against the civic's logic.

Ditto. A horrible penalty, too harsh by a long way.

 

[blizzrd]

First off, I haven't done anything to the stability civics yet.

Other than that, here's what I'm playing around with.

The first row is most appropriate for post-Roman barbarian tribes, which would adopt some of the varying fixtures of feudalism up through 1000 AD. State religion is available right away and would probably be a quick first choice (if we do keep paganism = no state religion)

The second row is your typical configuration for a northern/western system before about 1300. This is a consistent set of civics for a farm economy (Serfdom + Manorialism), while the others allow quite a good production of units despite small cities.

A Islamic set of civics would be theocracy + religious law + free market (could be renamed to market economy) + Apprenticeship (or free peasantry) + divine monarchy. Some (theocracy, market economy, religious law) are now available at the start for the Arabs/Codobans.

After that, transitions into a cottage or specialist economy are both viable.

Specialists: Divine Monarchy or Republic (better) + Common Law or Religious Law + Apprenticeship + Mercantalism + doesn’t care.


Cottage Economy: Limited Monarchy + Bur. + Free Peasantry + Market + doesn’t care.

I really like where you're going with this. I still wouldn't adopt Manorialism because of the -1 food penalty, but you've done amazing things with some of the other changes. Particualry nerfing the penalties to overall science for religious civics was a good idea. I'm going to need to playtest to see how they go though. Will there be a release with the new civics at some stage soon?

 

[Disenfrancised]

I like most of sednas ideas, with a few points:

Important:
-With merchent republic the extra trade routes and trade route money should only be in the capital, the rest of the nation is a hinterland after all.
-I'm still pretty keen on theocracy giving a bonus to your faith score, making it different for each religion. Especially since state religion now has a military effect.
-Merchentilism should loose the +1 trade routes, and instead get extra stability per Gold, Silver and Gems resource.
-I'd loose the food cost from Manoralism and instead shift the -ve growth for cottages across from serfdom (as manors were the direct result of the post-roman deurbanisation of europe). Boost the serfdom GP penality to -75% as well. Now serfdom+manorilism is powerful early game combo but will eventually be overtaken by cottage and specialist economies.

Less important/stylistic/personally preference
-Free religion should give commerce and culture to all cities not science, for this era.
-Free labour shoudl have more powerful bonuses (25% maybe) but also give +3 unhealthiness.
-I'm still pro-free labour giving bonuses to late game buildings.

 

[FakeShady]

I am suggesting that both religious law and theocracy be only -10% to research, and that when both are selected gives a huge bonus to stability. Come on, if both are selected, that's -20% to research, which is a lot already. Enough to discourage the AI from using it.

 

[Panopticon]

Is there any historical reason for religious states to suffer a research penalty in the time period of RFC Europe?

 

[FakeShady]

Is there any historical reason for religious states to suffer a research penalty in the time period of RFC Europe?

Not really. Not much, not in the time of RFC Europe. Even if there is, its definitely not 25% LOL. Its way too much, the AI will never touch it, and i don't see how human players are gonna use it either.

 

[Cethegus]

I always felt the same way about Pacifism. But my kind of governments don't deserve those extra great people, anyway.

Removing the science penalty altogether from the religious civics is alright in my eyes. I didn't understand where the +25 was supposed to come from. Donations? Don't they all go to build all those fancy cathedrals?

 

[3Miro]

The +25 gold comes from the fact that the church was wealthy (I guess). It is also used to counter the research penalty.

Catholic nations (that were more theocratic) lost a lot of knowledge in the beginning of the middle ages. Byzantines on the other hand had a more secular state and thus they kept the classical culture alive. Byzantines were not too far behind the Muslims in the beginning of the time period.

Part of the reason why the Islamic nations fell behind in science was that due to the Crusades, they turned into more of a theocracy than what they had initially.

Science penalty is appropriate, however, 25% might be too high.

 

[sedna17]

I think that science penalties are essentially the kiss of death for a civic, regardless of whether they are historically appropriate. This is why I have dropped them entirely in the above plan.

As for food/manorialism. The goal here is to represent the fact that early on in non-mediterranean Europe, most of the improvements should be farms. Despite this fact, cities shouldn't be too large. There are a few ways to deal with this:

1) Remove food from farms. This represents the fact that manorial farms were self-sufficient entities, not ones that produced a bunch of extra surplus food to fuel city growth.
2) Limit city growth with un-health. Not a bad solution, and we've gone part of the way there, but un-health would need to be kicked up a notch (and healthy resources made more scarce) to be truly appropriate.

I do like method (2). The only problem is that it's so emotionally unsatisfying to have that sickly green ooze over all your cities (and there's essentially no easy way to keep your cities small, since there are limited specialists early on and no slavery to whip).

If we did that, Manorialism would go to -1 trade route and +1 gold from farms. The reason both penalties (GPP and cottage growth) are on serfdom is because that civic is so useful -- many people said they stayed in serfdom the whole time. Well, now if you want to stay in that you suffer running either a CE or a SE.

 

[3Miro]

That is why I think my idea of -1 food for food > 2 makes sense (like Monarchy in Civ III). You will only be able to support one population unit per farm and with the +2 from the central tile you will go to support a mine or two (remember that we do not have whip so we need a lot of regular production).

Unhealthiness is best done via lack of health buildings early on.

 

[BurnEmDown]

3Miro, I'm not sure what you mean here.
You mean that Farms will give 2 food on plains, and 2 on grassland as well? And on resources they will give 1 food less than usual? If so that sounds like a very nice idea, tho it would benefit civs like Byzantium, Arabia, Turkey and the Iberian civs more than the rest since they have more plains and less grassland, so the minus food is negated.

 

[3Miro]

3Miro, I'm not sure what you mean here.
You mean that Farms will give 2 food on plains, and 2 on grassland as well? And on resources they will give 1 food less than usual? If so that sounds like a very nice idea, tho it would benefit civs like Byzantium, Arabia, Turkey and the Iberian civs more than the rest since they have more plains and less grassland, so the minus food is negated.

Yes, you got the idea. This will stop France and Burgundy from growing very fast in the beginning and will indeed give an early edge to Arabia, Cordoba and Byzantium (until the civic becomes obsolete). Turkey will benefit from this only if they use an obsolete civic (since they come into the game somewhat late).