Seems like Emancipation is just there to mess everyone else up...

[Illusion13]

I mean seriously, doubles rate of Cottage maturation doesnt seem like much of a bonus at all... By the time you get to Emancipation, all your cottages that get used should already be matured... So it seems like its just there to make everyone else on the planet mad... (Not necessarily hate you because I dont think it citizen unhappiness messes with diplomacy modifiers >.>)

Just like democracy in the real world eh? >.>

 

[Morgrad]

Well... unless you run an SE until Democracy and then slap down a ton of cottages with Emancipation, like I usually do.

But, even if you do it my way, it does turn out that once your cottages are mature the civic has very, very little use.

 

[pi-r8]

Yeah, it's kind of annoying when you're running a workshop based economy, so you really want to run caste system for the +1 hammers, but you HAVE to run emancipation because the unhappiness penalty is so huge.

 

[JuliusAugustus]

I would think Emancipation would just cause unhappiness for other civs without Emancipation

 

[Gooblah]

Emancipation (in my view) should be something like this:
+5 happiness in your cities until another Civ adopts the civic
-5 happiness in other Civ's cities until they adopt the civic
+10% research in all cities (remove from Free Religion)

The research bonus should be included, as the removal of Slavery or Serfdom or Caste System would force the upper classes/masters/lords to develop technology to replace the workers.

 

[juni_be_good]

I often go to war in the middle ages or during Renaissance, and once you knocked an AI out, you most of the time have to replace many useless farms by cottages.
And Emancipation is more than welcome then

 

[someguy486]

Emancipation (in my view) should be something like this:
+5 happiness in your cities until another Civ adopts the civic
-5 happiness in other Civ's cities until they adopt the civic
+10% research in all cities (remove from Free Religion)

The research bonus should be included, as the removal of Slavery or Serfdom or Caste System would force the upper classes/masters/lords to develop technology to replace the workers.

Good idea.

 

[Dnomal]

I DESPISE emancipation. It totally ruins my SE ways, i always try and avoid the shift towards it. Usually by waring with civs would adopt it, and pumping money into culture (which if you're running a SE isn't that much of a loss).

I agree with Gooblah, that model for emancipation would make much more sense, and be much more fun...

 

[paulthebug]

I often go to war in the middle ages or during Renaissance, and once you knocked an AI out, you most of the time have to replace many useless farms by cottages.
And Emancipation is more than welcome then

i actually do the opposite. when i war during middle age or renaissance period, i often replace AI's useless cottage/hamlet with farms to support fast population growth (not village or town though) so that i can slave rush to get the infra up. slave rushing former enemy city also has the benefit of bringing foreign culture down. emancipation for me is useless. i gotta say that i really admire obsolete's gut to stand up to the pain of defying emancipation in some of his walkthrough. that is really gutsy.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I hate emancipation so much in the game, it forces me out of a good civic! In my current game, I'm running a total SE and the last two remaining Civs are running it and it's starting to take it's toll, I have the culture slider at 50% to deal with it! The logical thing would be to switch over to a CE, but I'm so close to just demolishing them for a Conquest/Domination victory, I'm nto going to bother.

 

[Wodan]

Emancipation is poor game design, IMO. Giving a negative to other civic choices reduces player options and player creativity.

Much better would simply be to give Emancipation a small happy boost for you, only.

Wodan

 

[jkp1187]

I disagree. I think its feature forces hard choices on the player in the late game, which is exactly what it is intended to do. The player cannot simply run Caste System or Slavery all the way into 2050AD without paying a price in terms of happiness (or, as noted above, encouraging or forcing other civs to not follow suit). It also has the secondary benefit of adding a dose of realism: once the cascade to Emancipation begins, the player needs to make a decision as to whether he will follow suit, or tough it out one way or another. In my judgment, it is the tough decisions (as opposed to a one-sided romp) that make strategy games fun.

The only way I would tweak Emancipation would be to make the Partisans event go off every time a city owned by a civ running Emancipation is razed. (I have made this change in my own Events mod.)

 

[Wodan]

I disagree. I think its feature forces hard choices on the player in the late game, which is exactly what it is intended to do. The player cannot simply run Caste System or Slavery all the way into 2050AD without paying a price in terms of happiness (or, as noted above, encouraging or forcing other civs to not follow suit).

Right. Like I said, it discourages player options and creativity. Basically it means that if you want to run an interesting and enjoyable Caste System strategy, you have to pay a price as well as jump through hoops that you don't have to do if you simply run Emancipation. In other words, that strategy has a disadvantage, a pretty hefty one. The game de facto forces all players to either play at a disadvantage or to adopt an Emancipation strategy. This means that to a great extent, all games become clones of each other.

It also has the secondary benefit of adding a dose of realism: once the cascade to Emancipation begins, the player needs to make a decision as to whether he will follow suit, or tough it out one way or another.

CIV is about building MY empire, about what could have happened, not about what did happen. At some point, added realism means it's more of a historical re-enactment and less of what makes for a good game.

In my judgment, it is the tough decisions (as opposed to a one-sided romp) that make strategy games fun.

I agree. So tell us, in what way do you think that giving a negative to all strategies but one is a better way to implement a "tough decision" than letting each strategy stand on its own?

Wodan

 

[Wodan]

SE late game (which is what we're talking about, with Emancipation available to multiple AIs) is currently underpowered compared to CE; that's the general concensus of the people on here at CFC, that I have seen. So, that argument doesn't hold water.

Pyramids boosts YOUR civ... it is not analogous to Emancipation in the slightest. Emancipation penalizes OTHER civs. This is exactly what I find to be poor game design.

Wodan

 

[Wodan]

If you read my post you'd see that

I must have been unclear or you misunderstood... it seems like you're getting defensive. My apologies for that.

i said "Not that I agree that CE is better than SE", I was merely trying to make you understand what the counter argument could be.

Sure, I got it. And, I gave what a response could be if someone gave that argument.

Is there really a difference between a positive bonus for me and a negative bonus for evyeryone else?

Yes. Both absolutely and relatively.

We're talking about happiness. A civ needs X happiness, which will vary throughout the game, and will be subjective depending on other happy sources, etc. So, giving one civ a bonus is VERY different from giving the second civ a negative.

I've had a -12 happiness hit from Emancipation. I wish I took a screen shot. This is a game breaker. It says you CANNOT do a non-Emancipation strategy.

Besides, Civ is meant to be about the interaction between different civs, the more ways one civ can influence others the better. Otherwise you might as well play on your own versus a horde of barbs.

On the face of it, I agree with this argument. However, there's "good" interaction and "bad" interaction. I do not think that we can safely say that ALL types of interaction are good for the game.

Wodan

 

[Martin79]

I've had a -12 happiness hit from Emancipation. I wish I took a screen shot. This is a game breaker. It says you CANNOT do a non-Emancipation strategy.

Makes sens to me that Emancipation has a "negative wave effect" on civilizations who run a non-Emancipation civic. Knowing that there is a better way of living outside, people seeks for change and sometimes makes revolution for it...

 

[Defiant47]

The game must be somehow based off of realism, otherwise it makes no sense. Yes, gameplay is more important than realism (to a point), but realism must form the foundations of the game, especially for a "Civilization" game. Emancipation makes complete sense if you think about it then. If everyone in the work is free (so to say) and you're oppressing your people, then simply for the fact that everyone else is not oppressing their people, your people will be unhappy.

 

[Wodan]

Makes sens to me that Emancipation has a "negative wave effect" on civilizations who run a non-Emancipation civic. Knowing that there is a better way of living outside, people seeks for change and sometimes makes revolution for it...

Gameplay vs story alert.

In a game like Civ, there are always two issues and two ways to view things. Gameplay vs story (realism).

In gameplay, the concern is having the best gameplay, most fun & enjoyable experience. To have good variety and replayability, which keeps the customer coming back and playing the game a lot. It also encourages the customer to look for and want the expansions and future versions of the product. You also want a big variety of strategies, to give a lot of different ways of playing the game. This, too, keeps the customer vested and playing again and again.

In story, you want to be "faithful" in recreating the story into the game environment. You don't necessarily want to recreate the story 100% accurately, because that wouldn't be a game... it would be a historical recreation with no variability (and thus no game). Furthermore, it is possible to "rationalize" the story... to come up with an explanation for a game mechanic that isn't exactly like it really happened, but it "makes sense". Note that a particular item may have multiple rationalizations, which could even be mutually exclusive.

And so. I'm talking entirely gameplay. You're talking entirely the story.

Also, I should point out that it is quite easy to refute a rationalization with a different rationalization. For one thing, I daresay there are 10 million muslims alive today who would disagree that they look across the border and desire to be emancipated. Not all societies are suited to all lifestyles, and there's no reason a society has to "ape" another one by adopting a lifestyle that doesn't suit it.

Lastly, even if we agree the rationalization you present is appropriate, it should logically be applied to all other aspects of the game. For example, Universal Suffrage should also give a negative penalty to civs which do not adopt it.

Wodan

 

[Wodan]

The game must be somehow based off of realism, otherwise it makes no sense. Yes, gameplay is more important than realism (to a point), but realism must form the foundations of the game, especially for a "Civilization" game. Emancipation makes complete sense if you think about it then. If everyone in the work is free (so to say) and you're oppressing your people, then simply for the fact that everyone else is not oppressing their people, your people will be unhappy.

To continue with the theme of my last post, it's also important to note that a rationalization can have multiple gameplay implementations (which may or may not be mutually exclusive).

So, if we feel that we definitely want the concept of "emancipation makes other civs want to join the party" then there are many different ways that could be implemented.

All I'm saying is that the implementation that was chosen was a poor decision.

Wodan