Some changes I believe are needed for the Tech Tree

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I realise that the shape of the tech tree is one of those things which will almost certainly be subject to change prior to release, but 1 or 2 things did catch my eye which I feel need alteration at some point.

The most glaring problem I have seen is how democracy has Printing Press as its pre-requisite. I just see this as taking a hugely 'Anglo-Saxon' view of History. After all, the Greeks had a working Democracy over 200 years BEFORE the Printing Press.
If you ask me, the sole Prerequisite of Democracy should actually be Philosophy, given that Philosophers are, historically, often the people who spark new Democracy movements. Beyond this PR, paths to democracy should involve Monarchy, Printing Press and Constitution.
The other thing which seems terribly absent is Republic. Now, I know some of you might say 'oh, but thats just another name for democracy', but I feel they are sufficiently different enough to warrant a seperate tech (to me, Republic is the same as the 'Representation' civic, wheras Democracy is closer to 'Universal Sufferage') The issue is, where to place republic, and what should the various paths to it be? I think monarchy would be a great Prerequisite, as their seems a close historical link between nations who were Monarchies and those that later became Republics (think Rome with the move from the Etruscan kings to the Roman Republic, or France with its move from Louis to the French Republic, or even America with its break from the British Monarchy to form a Republic). Other paths to Republic, though, could be Code of Laws, Education, Democracy or the Printing Press.
By having these techs appear in this fashion, then a player could simulate Ancient Rome or Greece by effectively beelining their way to Republic and/or democracy-and establishing 'enlightened' governments in the midst of 'barbaric' despotisms and Kingdoms.
Of course, just because they are democracies or Republics, doesn't make them 'nice', after all, they could still practice slavery, be theocratic or have a mercantilist economy (or if you have seen my suggestions for broader civics, they may even have an Imperial Organisation, or a Feudalist/Plutocratic Philosophy).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Aussie_Lurker said:
The most glaring problem I have seen is how democracy has Printing Press as its pre-requisite. I just see this as taking a hugely 'Anglo-Saxon' view of History. After all, the Greeks had a working Democracy over 200 years BEFORE the Printing Press.

Greek Democracy was confined to but a few cities. In Civ, "Democracy" represents huge federal republics and constitutional monarchies such as the United States and Great Britain (as the most famous examples).

Personally, I think that Democracy should require Philosophy, as you suggested, yet the Printing Press leads to it.
 
constitutional monarchies such as the United States and Great Britain

Great Britain is more a Republic than a Democracy. And I think Constitutional Monarchies should be better represented.
 
There are several different kinds of democracy, though. It's not enough to have a democracy; it's also imperative to distinguish between nations that extend the franchise to merely male, landowners of proper ethnic descent and class (and religion?), and those that extend the franchise to all adult citizens, with shades in between. If those various attributes were attached to each citizen, you could model some interesting effects.

I think Republic in Civilization might be more of a federated nation of city-states, where each city-state was represented in a national assembly/council that voted to determine the direction for the nation as a whole. "Republic" is kind of a slippery concept.
 
Aussie_Lurker said:
The most glaring problem I have seen is how democracy has Printing Press as its pre-requisite. I just see this as taking a hugely 'Anglo-Saxon' view of History. After all, the Greeks had a working Democracy over 200 years BEFORE the Printing Press.


It is the same in civ3.
 
I'm curious what folk here think the difference between 'representation' and 'universal suffrage' is. In my mind, the only distinction to be drawn there is that non-land-owners (including women) get the vote. Representation means that office-holders in some way represent the people, meaning they have been elected by them in some form. Universal suffrage just means that more people get to take part in the aforementioned election process.

Part of my reason for asking is that in reality, being a republic implies no measure of representation whatsoever. It just means a state with no monarch. I suppose an example of a non-representative republic is the Vatican, since the Pope is selected by the cardinals (many of whom are foreigners anyway) and not by the people. Not sure whether I could come up with any others though.

So anyway, I'm a little confused as to what a republic is supposed to amount to in Civ. Is it one of those rare states that has a leader(s) who is not a monarch but not elected by the people either? Or what?

As a semi-aside, I wonder how tribal peoples such as native american and aboriginal cultures selected their leaders. If it wasn't hereditary, I think this rules out both philosophy and the printing press as prerequisites. Then again, maybe Civ considers these cultures to be 'dictatorships'.
 
Well, for me the key thing is that a Monarchy and a Republic are actually fairly closely aligned-as they both invest power in a single individual, whether a President or a King/Queen. The only difference is that, in a Republic, the people elect their ruler, wheras in a monarchy it is a matter of succession.
The interesting thing, though, is that a Republic is also very closely aligned to a 'Democracy', because you also have the election of either a uni-cameral or bi-cameral legislature to act as representatives for the people. Where Republics and Democracies differ, IMO, is in the power of the legsilature relative to anyone 'above' the legislature. For instance, in a democracy, the majority office holders usually appoint someone as prime-minister, who only has a limited authority to push his/her personal agenda beyond selecting his cabinet, wheras the President in most republics tends to have much greater power and authority than this (or at least this is how I understand it). Where confusion might occur is when you have a 'Republic' where the President has only about as much power as a Prime-minister, which kind of 'blurs the line'.
Ultimately though, true democracy is where the people get to vote on almost every major issue that effects their lives-which is why it tends to exist in this pure form only in small areas-such as the Greek City-States and, in modern times-in Switzerland. It also does kind of come down to a label as well, though, and labels CAN be quite important.
Hope this helps to explain where I am coming from on this issue.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Aussie:

Surely this would mean that the USA was more of a Republic than a Democracy? The President is a pretty powerful office. Meanwhile (ironically) the UK would be a Democracy rather than a Republic. This appears counterintuitive, to me at least.

I was thinking about this over lunch, and I'm not sure why being in a Democracy is so much different, in game terms to being in a Monarchy or even a Dictatorship. After all the main differences between these concern the justice and legitimacy of the Government, and possibly its efficiency. I'm not convinced that the traditional war-weariness and corruption function the way Civ portrays it.

Questions like whether slavery is in force or whether you allow freedom of speech are far more important in game-terms, IMO.

Maybe there is a role for Government choice - there are two effects I can think of that would make sense to me. (1) diplomacy; they would improve your standing with similarly governed Civs. (2) pressure; a Democratic civ without free speech is an anomaly and will tend to force anarchy until such time as free speech is instituted or Democracy abandoned.

Anyway, that's just my ramblings for the day.
 
(NB, the above ramblings assume that such things as slavery, free speech, free market etc are divorced from the Government's status as they are in the forthcoming version of Civ)
 
megabrainz said:
Surely this would mean that the USA was more of a Republic than a Democracy? The President is a pretty powerful office. Meanwhile (ironically) the UK would be a Democracy rather than a Republic. This appears counterintuitive, to me at least.

The United States is a republic. The people don't elect the President, the states do. The people only elect electors, the individuals who cast the votes for President. In modern times, the votes of those electors are a mere formality, but the system is still a republican style system, and it does influence the outcome. In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote, but due to the electoral system, George W. Bush garnered more electoral votes.

Actually, you could make the argument that no government in the world is a true democracy. A true democracy would have no representatives; every eligible citizen would vote on every bill.

These definitions are too fuzzy and too variable. In some ways, the game is better off that those government types don't translate much to actual citizen behavior, merely advantages and disadvantages to various in-game things (happiness, commerce, etc.), as they can avoid having to resolve those ambiguities.
 
Apatheist:
Ok, fair enough - but according to Aussie's definition above, you don't need to directly elect a president for a nation to be a Democracy. That was what I was getting at. As you say, by your definition there may be no actual democracies in the world, which also seems counterintuitive.

Pondering it some more, I have concluded that some of the confusion here is due to the ambiguous role of the leader. S/he occupies a managerial role suggesting s/he is not a God or spirit. Indeed, the leaders are named after historical figures, which reinforces this notion. Yet unlike real leaders, these guys can't be overthrown - well, not wholesale (I'm not aware of any capital city culture flipping). The true point of democracy is that the people can get rid of a leader they don't like, or at least influence his behaviour; while a dictatorship is defined as the situation where the leader can do what he likes. These definitions make little sense in the world of Civ.

Perhaps Apatheist's view that bonuses and penalties are the way to represent these differences is right. Yet I can't see any real justification for the view that Democracies are better economically, or that Communists don't get war weariness. It might be the case that a few prominent examples of these Governments have fit this model (even that could be disputed), but there's no reason to think that this is the general case.

Hence, I think I'd consider doing away with the Government civic altogether.
 
well given that they are 'representation' and 'universal suffrage' I'd saythe primary distinction is the 'one citizen=one vote' ideal. Representation would include states such as those that only allowed the land owners to vote (very popular for non-monarchies pre-1800). Almost no states today would be 'representation' as they mostly moved bit by bit to universal suffrage between 1800 and 2000. There might be some examples but definitely no major states, I'd say all of those are either Universal Suffrage or Police States.

Apatheist's definitions of Democracy and Republic are better stated as Parliamentary Democracy (no division of power..the Executive is elected by the Legislature) and Republican Democracy (division of power, the Executive is elected seperately from and not By the Legislature).

This isn't reflected in the civics choices (for government at least)
 
megabrainz said:
Apatheist:
Ok, fair enough - but according to Aussie's definition above, you don't need to directly elect a president for a nation to be a Democracy.
I don't think his definition is canonical :-/. I think it's worth pointing out a difference between being a democracy and being democratic. The former should be reserved for direct rule by the people (no intervening legislators), while the latter refers to any government where the people (possibly narrowly defined) have a (potentially limited) say in how the government functions through direct democracy (as before) or through electing a legislature, president, etc.

megabrainz said:
That was what I was getting at. As you say, by your definition there may be no actual democracies in the world, which also seems counterintuitive.
Not really. There were never any actual communist states, but we have no problem using the term loosely for the Soviet bloc, China, North Korea, etc.

megabrainz said:
Perhaps Apatheist's view that bonuses and penalties are the way to represent these differences is right. Yet I can't see any real justification for the view that Democracies are better economically, or that Communists don't get war weariness.
Actually, I don't think that at all. Bonuses and penalties are too simplistic. I would prefer instead that each citizen be modelled as having various attributes that guide their preferences; for instance, a wealthy citizen would favor a more autocratic government with greater regulation of the economy, as they are better able to exert their control in such a situation. However, I think that may exceed the average computer's available juice, and it requires a model that is both comprehensive and intuitive, which may be tricky. My statement above was only meant to say that since we don't have a deeper model like that, we don't have to worry about exactly what these terms mean because they don't actually change any of the interactions in the game; all they do is change the balance of bonuses and penalties. It's a silver lining to a grey cloud.

megabrainz said:
Hence, I think I'd consider doing away with the Government civic altogether.
And replace it with...? You can't do away with it and not replace it with something else. Governmental structures are far too important for a game like this. I do understand what you mean by the clash of metaphors, though; it's jarring to be an omnipotent, omniscient ruler of a so-called democratic state (see "Democratic People's Republic of Korea") while having citizens who have their own wants and needs and identities. It's a tough problem to sort out, and it's worth thinking about. Maybe resolving that conundrum is a reason to have a Civilization 5. These may seem like abstruse and academic things to determine, but these underlying principles underlie the rest of the game. Players may not have any interest directly in sorting out these philosophical issues, but a poor set of abstract principles will lead to a sub-optimal game. It's not just irrelevant wanking.
 
Well, at the risk of 'plugging' another thread ;), in my broader civic model-I retain the Government civic, but also incorporate an 'Ideology/Philosophy' and a 'Rights' category as well. So, in this system, if you have a Plutocratic Republic with Property Rights alone, then you probably have those 18th-19th century Republics where wealthy landowners dictated the outcomes of elections.
By the same token, a Socialist Democracy with Universal Rights represents more of the 20th-21st century Democracies (and, yes, some so-called Republics too) that have a broader level of Representation-where all people over a certain age are able to vote-and where the vote is proportional to the level of party representation.
So, I guess my point here is that-at least with the new Civic system, at least we can truly represent the difference between a 'Democracy' and a 'Republic'-at least after a litle tweaking.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Which renders arguments over what constitutes a Republic moot. Republic doesn't make sense as a more specific, finely-grained civic like you describe, as it (ambiguously) describes a fusion of several different things. We already have relatively unambiguous terms for those more specific concepts such as the ones that you use. I can have one set of civics that I call Republic while you have a slightly different set that you refer to by the same name. The game itself doesn't know the word, so the confusion that results from the term being poorly-defined evaporates.
 
copied and pasted from Refrence.com's encyclopedia:

In a broad definition a republic is a state or country that is led by people who do not base their political power on any principle beyond the control of the people living in that state or country.

The term democracy indicates a form of government where all the state's decisions are exercised directly or indirectly by a majority of its citizenry through a fair elective process. When these factors are met a government can be classified as such. This can apply to a multitude of government systems as these concepts transcend and often occur concomitantly with other types.

And this is from wikipedia (wikipedia's entry for republic is identical to that above):

Democracy is a form of government in which policy is decided by the preference of the majority in a decision-making process, usually elections or referenda, open to all or most citizens.

As you can see a democracy is a republic. The distinction is that a republic can encompass any type of government where the people have the power, wheras a democracy implies an organized and predetermined process of representation. By these defnitions the US is a democracy, and therefore a republic. Of course, these definitions historically have and will change as human innovation pushes the envelope and blurrs the lines of our definitions.
I know alot of this has been said by people but i just thought id throw some quotes up and look like im getting my moneys worth for my college education.

Anyway im glad civ4 will have civics instead of governments. Should make for some more fun and depth in the game.
 
If you note, though, I only said 'some' republics (and even they are ones who only call themselves a Republic-even though they more closely resemble democracies). A true Republic is, as has already been mentioned, one where the electorate either directly or indirectly elects its executive, wheras a democracy is, ultimately, a government where the legislature appoints the executive-assuming it has an executive at all. To me that, along with its historical importance, is sufficient jusitification to warrant a seperate tech in the tech tree and a place in the civics options-which is, after all, what this thread was about in the first place ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
ahhh, you've opened up a bit of a can of worms ;) . I checked the definitions democracy and republic in the dicitionary and although they are similar there is a slight difference. In civ up until now they were two different forms of government, but this is not true of the real world. Democracy is more of an ideology rather than a form of government, where republic is a type of government. A republic in the broad sense is a state were the head of state isn't a monarch. To be a republic doesn't mean that the government has to be democratic, it can be communist (china) or a dictatorship (iraq with saddam). Democracy on the hand in a broad sense means two things must occur, 1. the government is elected by the people and 2. there is more than one party to choose from. Finally, just to add more confusion ;) there is another spectrum of republics, and that is wheather they are a very centralised form of government (eg. france, china, japan) or de-centralised form, where the states/territories/provinces ect. have a degree of self goverment (eg. usa, australia, germany). I hope that helps clear the water a bit
 
Robi D said:
Finally, just to add more confusion ;) there is another spectrum of republics, and that is wheather they are a very centralised form of government (eg. france, china, japan) or de-centralised form, where the states/territories/provinces ect. have a degree of self goverment (eg. usa, australia, germany).

That is not an axis of difference of republics, but rather of governments in general. Tribal nations (Iroquois), Feudalist monarchies, the later Ottoman Empire, communes (in theory), the more federal perspective on the USA (also the CSA), etc. are all nations with relatively low levels of centralization. It's a separate thing from whether a nation is a republic.
 
In general you should not say 'this nation is a republic and this one a democracy'. Government is often a fusion of many ideals in contradicting and confusing manners. Also, American Democracy is much different from Turkish Democracy. Cuban Socialism is much different from Stalinism or Maoism. In the United States, there are many competing interests in terms of theory. At the federal level a lot more is done through representatives. Theorhetically at lower levels of government, especially local, referendums and issue votes allow for the ideals of direct democracy. As is, the Civ definitions are really inadequate. However trying to make a system that came near to simulating governments and their evolution would be a nightmare. I would favor the idea of civics, where you change many settings such as economic regulation, degree of federalism, where power lies in the social structure, etc.
 
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