Should policies be restricted by government type?

Just seems a little weird to have a democracy with a five year plan (a hallmark of Communist countries in the past isn't it?)

I don't mean all policies should be restricted in this manner, but perhaps some could have pre-requisites - only letting you implement them where it makes sense.

Pre-requisites could also be other things like... Build x number of districts to enable this policy... Or... Be in a defensive war to enable this policy...etc.

What do you think? Too much micro-management or interesting thematically and gameplay-wise?

 

I love the government system in VI, far better than any previous iteration, but there is definitely scope for adding complexity in the way you describe. The different government types aren't different enough, in my opinion.

 

A president elected for 5 (or 4 in less civilised countries) years and having an agenda he must fulfill before the end of his term could be seen as a quinquennal (or quadrennal) political plan. And nothing really forbid a "democracy" (if we could call them like that) to use a quinquennal plan if the Parliament decide democratically to expend the economy of the country with it (maybe with a slighter better management that under the Councils Republics).

For me, bit will not do a lot of micro-management (well, not more than Eurêka or Inspirations), but that's the problem: we already have Eurêkas and Inspirations. Adding this layer would be, IMO, unecessary complicated.

Plus, in a RP point of view, I like the way it is. Because it could help you building some sort of story for your empire.

You are a Merchant Republic with the serfdom civic? Completely unrealistic and immersion-breaking, could say some narrow-minded more-educated-than-me players. But I think we can safely assume that Civ VI is no more a history-simulator. So, what could forbid a Merchant Republic to have some kind of serfdom where the lords are here not by the virtue of their swords but the might of their fortune?
A Theocracy with Rationalism? Come on, you know that, in Medieval Europe, it was the Papacy, the Irish monasteries and the benedictins that were the scientists and philosophers.
Communism with Free Market? Don't look further, PRC can fit the description quite well.

And on, and on, and on... For me, the capacity of building the government of your choice (basing of purely mechanical bonuses) is a layer of fun that's way better than the realism you propose. But it's just an opinion.

 

I don't know about inherently linked certain government types, but some policies could certainly be exclusive to each other

 

No. The system is bound to be flexible. There is no reason why democracy and planning can't go hand in hand. If the game should be realistic, the 5y plan should promise much production but fail to deliver any. And the New Deal would scale with population to infinite cost over time.
Really, if you would like to be realistic, democratic leaders don't stay in power for 6000years, not even their lifetime. Let's make Democracy government have a vote and see if it is you to win the election. If not, you will lose the game.

 

5 year plan to me means a planned economy. Meaning the government is controlling the economy. I see no reason you can't have democratically elected leaders who then plan the economy. Of course that's what communism is supposed to represent in game. The weird part is democracy is a political government type, not an economic type. The U.S. is starting to head towards a democratically elected government who controls the economy much to my chagrin. I don't expect the U.S. to be capitalist in 50 years (Trump is a fluke and will be the last Republican President), but I don't expect the electoral process to go away.

The weird thing to me is running both the free market card and 5 year plan at the same time.

 

It's kinda fitting that you have a civ4 government avatar, since afaik being able to mix government types was one selling point of 4.

 

It's also that I'm a huge fan of bureaucracy in eneral rule (it's so fascinating and horrifying at the same time), but yeah I spent hours to just imagine what kind of country could have the different policies I choose.

For me, it's the same thing: the modlularity of different policies is what could make the game really fun, because it forced you to use your imagination to think how your country could have gone this way!
For example, free-market and 5-year-plan would mean than the économy is planned but the state does not have any control on it. How can it be possible? Well, trusts and cartels and consortiums just gathers together, without the intervention of state, and CEO decide in private that in 5 year they have to have produced this quantity of resources/wealth/candy to stay competitive. Odd, some of unrealistic because never observed in our world, but it still work!

I know that some people want realism; but I'm the kind of person that's in LOVE with the controversial GDR, and in a game where Arabia fund with Lao Tseu the Judaism based on Zen Meditation in 400 AD while at war with the neighboring Aztecs because they stole the Sistin Chapel roof in 230 BC with the help of their beloved ally Gilgabro contructing the Eiffel Tower, well, I want to be able to have the sillyness to have a government allowing religious Inquisition in my communist regime.

 

Feels realistic enough to me ,I think it even has a name , it's called the american dream.

Sorry could not resist.

 

France had a Plan Commission between 1946 & 2006, created by De Gaulle who wasn't all that much of a Communist... (Commissariat Général du Plan)

But yeah I do wish the late game ideologies were a bit more fleshed out, like in CivV, where it was kind of a big deal.

 

It's one of those things that sounds good on paper, but doesn't really yield much benefit in actual gameplay. I've also thought governments should have their pros and cons but it ends up adding complexity while not making the game better.

I think the same policies would just be run under a different name. Propaganda too stronk.

 

Hitler did a 4-year plan so i guess that won't be an exclusive policy. Collectivization, otoh, would.
I'd love to have some of those restrictions, but probably not in Civ6.

 

The only restriction I would prefer is that when in a dark age, you should have to implement at least one dark age policy. And dark age policies can be slotted into any position (not just wildcard slots).

 

I like how policies are currently implemented.

That said, I think Second Tier Governments should give two different Legacy Cards, and Third Tier Governments should give three different Legacy Cards. That would be a nice balance between a few "you have to be (or at least, "have been") government x to use card y" policy cards and the more general "everyone can slot everything" approach.

If we ever get a third expansion, then it might tweak policy cards a little, particularly if the expansion is focused on "ideology" generally (which seems likely).

No thanks.

But what I would very much like are some "golden age" policy cards. I'd also like to choose between 5 dedications, and have one of those dedications determined by your current Government rather than you Era. e.g. if you're in Monarchy when you go into a Golden Age then one of the Dedications is "Divine Right", which gives you a 50% discount for Heavy Cav and Anti-Cav, and a free Anti-Cav unit every time you complete either Medieval or Renaissance Walls. Or something like that.

 

I definitely think that some policies should be restricted by government type but not too much. After all, at its core, civ is a game about alternate history. So it should be possible in-game for governments to pick policies that are a little outside what happened in real life. If the policy is completely opposite to a government, only then should it be restricted IMO. For example, I would restrict democracies from using the "police state" card since a police state is completely antithetical to a democracy. If you do become a police state, then by definition, you are no longer a democracy. But I would not restrict democracies from adopting the "5 year plan" card because while it is associated with communism in real life, there is nothing to say that a democracy that was very socialist could not adopt some form of economic planning. I don't think the two are completely incompatible.

 

Weeell, even your democracy/police state exclusion is not necessary. At least for me.
Taking an extreme exemple, a tyranny-by-majority is still a democracy since it's the majority that decide, even if it's only a 52% majority. And if this majority decide to implement a secrete police that have all means and freedom to monitor and control the diverse minorities present, with coercition and violence against them, it will still be a democracy, but also a police state.
Or even a country where all the people became paranoid and elect policemen and spies to prevent against terrorism and such, with a 5-year mandate, even if the policemen were brutals and violents with no counter-power except the one to face a new election at the term of the mandate, it would be still a democracy (technically, and everyone knows that technically correct is the best king of correct) but one of the worst police state because it would have been the people (or at least the majority) that would have decided to implement it.

Do not mix "democracy" and "regime that respect human rights". It's two totally different things.

 

I just finished a cultural victory with Kongo (over 3000 tourism per turn!) The weird part was being in a Democracy and running a Police State card.
Yes, I agree that some government restrictions would be more realistic.

 

Sometimes I do think that they should be, but also agree with most of the above that it doesn't really have a huge effect on gameplay.

Although to me, I do find there are way more cards out there than I use, so if each policy was excluded from one government in each tier, that would be reasonable. Would at least have a drawback - I want to run a merchant republic, but if that doesn't let me run serfdom, then that's a very interesting point of discussion.

 

Yes I would like more exclusive governments bonuses. Because in Civ6 everyone can use at the end the same strong policies and the choice of ideology is meaningless compared to strategy consequences in Civ5.

Government exclusive policy cards could be a solution. Another one could be to forbid some of the most used policies to only one contradictory government and still allow them in the two others.

Another wish that I posted a few days ago in the suggestions sub-forum would be to add new dead-end civics with strong policies after each government civics, but with inspiration condition to adopt required government for some time.

 

Well would you look at that!
They just went ahead and did what I was hoping they would do. Yay