Should Civ rulers share their power or remain omnipotent?

[J-S]

--------------------------------D E M O C R A C Y--------------------------------

The Constitution
When the "Codification" 'tech' became available, the player would have to redact a Constitution. Kind of like the "Ordinances" book in SimCity, there would be several possible Articles to choose from. In these you would determine the form of goverment, etc.
If the form of goverment chosen is a Democracy, the articles would determine number of turns between elections, if reelections are valid, if you have to ask Congress before declaring war, how it can be reformed later, how many citizens you can "Draft" per turn, etc. Anyway, you can think of the rest. Some of these articles could cause unhappiness but be necessary (obligatory military service) so it should be planned carefully or backed up by a higher "psi" funding, more hospitals... stuff that normally affect happiness.

Elections
In a Democracy, every x turns there are elections. The constancy of these depend on what your Constitution says. Depending on how you managed your administration, your chances of success. There would be a "propaganda" option, but lowering taxes n stuff like that ought to do the trick . Further down is a list of things that should affect this.
We all know what happens of you win so there's no point in discussing that...
1) Loosing Elections
If you loose to the other party, then you could be like "degraded" to gobernor of 1 random city (ie you only control that city and the units within it's borders)... or in charge of a specific army, whatever. Again, when the next elections show up, depending on how you managed that city your chances of success.
2) Things that could turn the table around
- Happiness levels.
- Corruption levels.
- Crime levels (yes, something that should be incorporated).
- Major events (having the Pope visit, getting a guy on the moon, winning a war, etc).

Comments & suggestions welcome .

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

perhaps it could go like this:

we stay omnipotent. But for many things (like how bad will war weariness be, how bad is corruption) we can get polls, per town, per continent and per entire civ. Then, these factors could be made to vary more (especially corruption) but we could also respect the will of the people and help them change to the better. or just ignore them and get more trouble.....

 

[rev063]

Originally posted by J-S

Look at it this way... nothing you do in the game is un-real: I mean, the most fantasious aspect of the game is it's random map generator!

Well this is so patently and demonstrably false I don't know where to begin! Ship that take centuries to cross an ocean? Wars that last millenia? Tanks defeated by spearmen?

I'm not complaining about any of these, mind you: all of these are unrealistic, but they are correct for the game. The Firaxis designers were correct in their decision to eschew realism in favour of improved gameplay.

- rev

 

[cegman]

now all you complain about this unrealistic thing a spearman jumps onto the tank opens the hatch and stabs the people or because it takes so long you can kill the children of the tank drivers so that after that turn they are dead

 

[J-S]

Originally posted by rev063
Ship that take centuries to cross an ocean? Wars that last millenia? Tanks defeated by spearmen?

Lol! You know that never happened to me? How the hell does a spearman kill a Tank!? I mean, I hear everyone talking about it... that's gotta be a bug or something!
Oh, regarding to ship's movement, I double them in the editor .

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by J-S

Lol! You know that never happened to me? How the hell does a spearman kill a Tank!? I mean, I hear everyone talking about it... that's gotta be a bug or something!
Oh, regarding to ship's movement, I double them in the editor .

if you want a savegame, there`s a thread somewhere....
tank killed by spearman thread

 

[BigBirdZ28]

There should be a form of people's congress where they put forward their suggestion & the ruler can go with it or against it or negotiate for more or less.

If he goes against it, he would lose poppularity (WLTKD) & he can make up for it somehow (not just luxuries ?), maybe a new building in a city or something,

In the end, the most major part of Civ that can be developed is DIPLOMACY. It is the single front with almost limitless scope for development.

 

[J-S]

Originally posted by BigBirdZ28
There should be a form of people's congress where they put forward their suggestion & the ruler can go with it or against it or negotiate for more or less.
If he goes against it, he would lose popularity

Very good idea... the player remains omnipotent but can loose "popularity": a balance . Btw Bigbird, do you mean in a Democracy or in any form of goverment to have a Congress?

 

[rev063]

Originally posted by J-S

Lol! You know that never happened to me? How the hell does a spearman kill a Tank!? I mean, I hear everyone talking about it... that's gotta be a bug or something!

Not at all. It's correct that a spearman can kill a tank (IMO, of course). The game's rules imply that a unit's defensive and offensive scores determine the probability of a win, and in some situations the spearment unit has a small but non-negligible probability of a win vs a tank. That's fine by me -- anything else would be inconsistent, and in my view unfair in the context of the game.

Oh, regarding to ship's movement, I double them in the editor .

That's your prerogative, of course, but I'd suggest that makes the game too easy by making it a trivial matter for galleys to cross oceans. I prefer the slower (but historically implausible) movement rates to make the exploration phase (my favourite part of the game) a little more exciting.

And to get back to the original thread: the most obvious unrealistic aspect of the game is the fact that the same ruler miraculously lives for 6000 years to govern your empire! So if you're talking about non-deposable rulers being unrealistic, perhaps you should consider their apparent immortality first.

- rev

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by rev063


That's your prerogative, of course, but I'd suggest that makes the game too easy by making it a trivial matter for galleys to cross oceans. I prefer the slower (but historically implausible) movement rates to make the exploration phase (my favourite part of the game) a little more exciting.

- rev

Keep galley movements the same, but increase for modern naval units.

 

[J-S]

Inmortality

Originally posted by rev063
the most obvious unrealistic aspect of the game is the fact that the same ruler miraculously lives for 6000 years to govern your empire! So if you're talking about non-deposable rulers being unrealistic, perhaps you should consider their apparent immortality first.

Again, I agree. If you read a post from a few days back you'll see that I have already kinda mentioned it...

Originally posted by J-S
I'm thinking of the French Revolution. (...) You mess around too much and -slak- off with your head... 2 turns later though, your son (you) cause the city you're in to revolt and become an independent nation! Then maybe invade the Republic ruled by your assasins! Or on the other hand, you could "reencarnate" later as a first-place man of trust for the Republic's new leaders and are designed the goverment of Marseilles? Then you decide to invade the capitol with the troops you made in that city! If that dosen't sound interesting, then just go ahead and vote no, no hard feelings .

The thing is I didin't give that matter much importance because I think that solving that immortality issue is as simple as having a pop up message every x turns saying "King ... has died. His son ... (here you would choose a name) now carries the crown." or "President ... has died. The vice-president ... (again, you choose his name) will run office until the next elections.".

There goes the inmortality problem . Now what do you think about that "Democracy" post I did on April 7th?

 

[chaucer]

I have to say no on this one. Even though I have always found the 6000 year old leader a bit strange. I would never buy a game that kicked my out of usage because I did something IT thought was wrong. Civ is not a re-creation of the struggles and revolutions of Earth. It is a stratagy game that pits you against the computer or (when MP comes) other players. I like the fact that I can raise taxes as high as I like or whip people to complete a building. I am happy that the senate went the way of the dinosaur. Every time the senate said no to a war I went into a revolution. This would be (insert civ leader's responce to being kicked out of office)

F them and f the people. The crappy little peons don't do much good anyway. Constantly unhappy and hopelessly corrupt - they cannot even build their own improvments. The central government has to build everything. As far as I am concerned if they do not like my rule they can get the hell out! If they do leave though I'm going to hunt them down and kill each and everyone of them. NO ONE LEAVES MY COUNTRY. I AM YOUR IMORTAL KING AND YOU WILL DO MY BIDDING! YOU CANNOT OVERTHROW ME. WHEN I ALLOW YOU MORE FREEDOM I WILL STILL BE HERE. My title may change and you may keep more of what you make, but I am still here. No one and I mean no one breathes unless I say that you can. I AM GOD! ! !

 

[royfurr]

Originally posted by J-S

Very good idea... the player remains omnipotent but can loose "popularity": a balance . Btw Bigbird, do you mean in a Democracy or in any form of goverment to have a Congress?

Now this, J-S, could be a little more palatable. Like "Killer" said, "...we stay omnipotent, but ...". We stay in charge but have a concept, "Popularity" or perhaps call it "Acceptability" (to the people). Make it part of the game score. Do unpopular things and you don't gain (or could actuallly lose) points, Do popular things and gain points. Except don't define popular JUST as WLTK day type of stuff, (then players "bribe" the people with goddies to be more Popular), but things which truly enhance your civ, especially in things that reward that civ's attributes- things which help commerce are weighed more for commercial civs then say militant or religious ones. Maybe detract points from your score for "imoral" things (razing cities in the modern era, ok in the ancient, etc). The trick would be defining this Acceptable and Un-Aceptable stuff. One persons "good" is another persons "bad" (eg some people would call razing cities and employing the survivers as slaves as unpopular or unacceptable, while to your typical warmonger player, thats Acceptable, even moral, because it enhances their civs power in the world. Gotta link it to the civ attributes maybe?

Hmm, maybe this is a nasty nest of worms ... talk about debating whats PC or not ...

oh well, it was a thought, the idea was to let the player DO things which would have gotten them "kicked out" as ruler, but rather then preventing the play from continuing, let the player play, and then degrade their score. They still get to have fun, but the score hurts. Personally, I don't much care about score, although the titles one got assigned (Roy the tightwad was my favorite ...) were sorta amusing ... one could have a lot of fun with that in the case of a very unpopular ruler, who had succeded in conquering the world ...

Civ on ....

 

[J-S]

Royfur... glad to we're starting to get somewhere. However, I kinda want the effects of this "popularity" thing to be a little more extense. For example...

Originally posted by J-S
If you loose an election, then you could be like "degraded" to gobernor of 1 random city (ie you only control that city and the units within it's borders)... or in charge of a specific army
Things that could turn the table around at election-time are:
- Happiness, corruption and crime levels.
- Major events (having the Pope visit, getting a guy on the moon, winning a war, etc).

This is from a post I did on april 7th on "Democracy", it's hard to miss . Read it and post your op on it? hehe I think it's so long no one ever read it... I gotta stop doing that!

 

[sealman]

Originally posted by chaucer
I have to say no on this one. Even though I have always found the 6000 year old leader a bit strange. I would never buy a game that kicked my out of usage because I did something IT thought was wrong. Civ is not a re-creation of the struggles and revolutions of Earth. It is a stratagy game that pits you against the computer or (when MP comes) other players. I like the fact that I can raise taxes as high as I like or whip people to complete a building. I am happy that the senate went the way of the dinosaur. Every time the senate said no to a war I went into a revolution. This would be (insert civ leader's responce to being kicked out of office)

F them and f the people. The crappy little peons don't do much good anyway. Constantly unhappy and hopelessly corrupt - they cannot even build their own improvments. The central government has to build everything. As far as I am concerned if they do not like my rule they can get the hell out! If they do leave though I'm going to hunt them down and kill each and everyone of them. NO ONE LEAVES MY COUNTRY. I AM YOUR IMORTAL KING AND YOU WILL DO MY BIDDING! YOU CANNOT OVERTHROW ME. WHEN I ALLOW YOU MORE FREEDOM I WILL STILL BE HERE. My title may change and you may keep more of what you make, but I am still here. No one and I mean no one breathes unless I say that you can. I AM GOD! ! !

ALL HAIL CHAUCER!!!

 

[royfurr]

Don't be fooled, J-S, in the end, I still think this is not a good idea. Gotta agree with the posters who say no way. At the best, in the spirit of flexibility and so on, I might agree that some people would like something like this "popularity" idea, but only as part of the scoring, and DEFINITELY with the ability to turn it off completly.

I see the voting is about 2/3 against.

Still, your to be commended for your originallity on this. But I do think it would detract from most peoples fun in the game.

See ya around the forum.

 

[Barker]

This idea sounds like it would be best implemented as a completely new game concept. I would envision it as a government simulator.

The beauty of the Civ series is that it is a mixture of an Axis and Allies style war game, and a city sim. Lovers of both types of games can appreciate the genius of Sid. He took the best elements of both genres, and created a very addictive, fun game which consumes way too much of my spare time (and some of my work time also). What is the result of this genius?

MONEY!

The game creators make money because they have been able to influence Sim players and war strategists to buy their product.

Why is this important?

If the changes that you envision were implemented, they would alienate the players who don't enjoy micro-managing their empire, but are willing to because of the fun aspects of war-mongering etc. This complexity would, however, be very enjoyable to the Sim players (like myself)

So, in my opinion, it is a GREAT idea. However, it would have to stand on its own as a unique product, and not be included in Civ.

But that is just my opinion.

 

[J-S]

Originally posted by royfurr
(...) DEFINITELY with the ability to turn it off completly. (...)
I see the voting is about 2/3 against.

I was actually the first one to say it should be an option, so we agree there. I am totally aware that it's not something that has enough civ-fan support to just toss it in there.
Still, 35% is not a low percentage. Think that of every 3 civ-lovers (coz only a civ-lover would take the time to vote) 1 votes for! And of the other two that vote against, I'm sure at least one would end up accepting a mid-point, like this "popularity" thing (as an option ofcourse).

I sure the results would be very different if I hadn't made such an extremist poll vote (ie yes or no, without a maybe).

 

[J-S]

Originally posted by Barker
This complexity would, however, be very enjoyable to the Sim players (like myself).
So, in my opinion, it is a GREAT idea. However, it would have to stand on its own as a unique product, and not be included in Civ.

I too am a Sim fan . What you say is reasonable Barker, that's why the one thing we all agree on in here is that it should be an option (or a "Goverment Simulator" as you call it, wich dosen't sound so bad).
Just for the hell of it, how would you, a Sim fan, make this "Goverment Simulator" work?

 

[Barker]

Government in action would be pretty hard to simulate, but it would be interesting to attempt.

I would envision a game where you have no actual control of the game world, but can only influence it with your actions. The different civilizations would have different traits, as in Civ, and these would be further modified by the political party currently in control.

Eg:
- Capitalist - More personal freedoms, commercial, high income disparity

A senate will be in place to represent their constituents, and each region will have percentages allocated to different factions or special interest groups that they represent.

Any actions, laws, etc. that you wish to take must be passed by the senate before they take effect. Each act, as in real life would please certain groups, and displease other groups. These groups would not remain constant, but would change as the game progresses, and according to actions that you perform.

The object of the game would be to create a utopia of the political ideals that you represent. (Gain a high approval rating?)
Of course, you lose the game if you fall below a certain approval rating and lose an election. Or, if the people allow it, you can vote yourself president for life and become a dictator.

I am now rambling on with ideas pouring out. Thanks alot J - S


I hope someone may find this interesting.