Speculation - Government, Policies, or Civics

[Heinage]

We may find out the answer shortly, but in the meantime, lets speculate about how they will implement governance in Civ VI.

• Civ III had governments unlocked through tech, each with various perks and disadvantages.
• Civ IV had civics which let you dynamically customise throughout the game various aspects of governance best suited to your tactics/game-play style.
• Civ V had social policies which you progressively unlocked through spending culture, gradually defining the style of your civ.

So, how will they do it in Civ VI? personally, I found the social policy system a bit unrealistic and not engaging enough. I also didn't like how once you unlocked a policy, it would keep defining your civ for the rest of the game. It was more a system of progressive bonuses rather than something which actually felt like governance.

In Civ VI, it'd be nice to see if they could try implementing something that really makes you feel like you're governing the different aspects of your civ according to various styles, in which you have to make trade-offs again.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying "bring back civics". I hope they'll try something slightly new again. Perhaps they can achieve this by building on the ideologies of BNW in which you built your own policy tree structure. I just hope you can change it dynamically when needed.

Last random thought from me. It would be interesting to see whether different sorts of governance open up completely new mechanics that you otherwise wouldn't get.
e.g. You start of with absolute power, obviously, which lets you control everything but you're on your own. However, should you decide to move to a system of representation (councils, parliament etc.), you lose the ability to control absolutely everything (perhaps there are elections which then shape economic/social policy directions), but get other bonuses in return.
I'm thinking of a system that takes the best parts, IMO, of each of the previous civs and is something entirely new, and potentially more realistic too.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I think policies and ideology are the most likely ones, although they may be very different in Civilization 6 as the developers did not like that there are policies you always pick and policies that you never pick.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Probably the early selections will be based on something that can change game to game so you don't always pick the same ones, but the late selections will probably be strategic to victory type.

 

[Heinage]

That just sounds like policies again though.

I think that whatever early choices you make, sure it may have some lasting effect, but it shouldn't be completely fixed for the rest of your game. You should be able to undo governance selections - albeit slowly - and swap over into something else.


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[Ikael]

I think that goverments and social policies could be successfully implemented in the same game. If anything, their interaction will prove to be interesting, to say the least.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I'd kinda of want a combination of all three

Governments (unlocked by Tech) would maintain army, happiness and stability of your empire. Certain Empires would be better at different things.

Civis (also unlocked by Tech) would give you unique abilities that you switch in and out of. Mercantalism could make it so you can use Internal Trade Routes as a source of gold rather than going to different nations, and economy would depend if you have enough diversity for them. If you get Embargo, switch to Mecnatlism. Forced Labor, same as Slavery in Civ 4, use population to hurry production. Free Religion, plus one happiness or science for every X follower of each religion in your cities.

And finally Social Policies, which give flat out bonuses and are unlocked by Culture.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I hope they bring back some form of government system. For me, it adds immersion to see that my civ has a certain government type. I also expect that civ5's social policy and ideology system will be back. Although, I assume they will make major tweaks to them, especially considering that the devs have lamented the fact that players had certain go-to SPs. In fact, the sense I get it so far is that civ6 is all about changing the civ5 formula to make the game less predictable.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I suspect that whatever they are called, the initial ones will deal with Trade and diplomacy during the period of constant war in the early game. Like one set will deal with being peaceful and establishing trade with city-states while another makes for better defense and a third for early attacking.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

One thing that I did like about BE's virtue system is that the purpose of each tree was very clear. You knew that one tree was for improving your military, one tree was for improving your economy etc... I think civ6's social policy system needs to have the same type of clarity.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I wonder if policies will follow something like active research and develop with the terrain you got.

 

[oddtail]

I don't know if that's how they will implement it, but I think a culture-based system of social policies would work really well compared combined with a BE-style policy web. That'd allow for incremental improvement of the society/culture of the civilization, which would be flexible, directional and make sense thematically. Basically the Civ5 system, but not constrained into separate trees. In such a system, you could mix and match policies and tailor them to your civilization, without also having the "anything goes" quality that'd encourage a Single Perfect Strategy.

Some areas of the policy web (outer rings?) could be unlocked by certain techs, similarly to new government types in older Civ games. That'd reflect the evolution of society and sensibilities (so that earlier policies, like dunno, "council of elders", would be available from the start, while things like, say, "universal suffrage" would be more powerful, but late-game-only, additions.).

I never really understood why Civ 5 went with several small "trees" rather than a large, expansive policy tree similar to a tech tree (but with more optional branches).

EDIT: corrected wrong word used in the post.

 

[Seek]

I wonder if policies will follow something like active research and develop with the terrain you got.

That would be pretty cool. Not just terrain, but also what actions you take in the game (using civ 5 examples: start warmongering and get free Honor policy, get 3 cities planted by turn 40 and get a Liberty policy, etc.).

I'd kinda of want a combination of all three

I'd love that, policies for the actual culture of your civ, gov't types for the overarching structure of power, and civics (tied to eras?) which would enhance aspects of your empire but could be switched with fewer consequences.

@oddtail That could certainly be interesting!

 

[Haig]

Good ideas here, this actually is one of the biggest secrets yet to revealed.

 

[UWHabs]

Given the rest of the game seems to be geared towards "situational" thinking (ie. district bonuses, active research), I would expect that whatever is used for social policies may end up that way, perhaps more similar to the pantheons.

If I were doing it, I would basically put your initial social policies into maybe a few trees based off of terrain - so you'd have maybe a seafaring tree, an agriculture tree, and a hunting/trapping tree as your base ones. Then as you move in ages, the next level would be more science vs culture vs production, for example. Would be more along the lines of the BE virtues system, but it would fit with their theme of being more geared to the environment around you.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Maybe policies are no longer in separate trees but in a single tree and they are mainly unlocked by a tier system.

 

[DefiantMars]

All of these are highly interesting ideas.

I get the impression that whatever system Ed Beach and his team decide to implement will either be characterized by less obvious choices as their goal. I would not be surprised if whatever they do is either more specialized niche picks, a system that is flexible allowing for changes or some combination there-of.

I wonder if they would take themes from Civ V but set it up more set up like Civ IV.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

All of these are highly interesting ideas.

I get the impression that whatever system Ed Beach and his team decide to implement will either be characterized by less obvious choices as their goal. I would not be surprised if whatever they do is either more specialized niche picks, a system that is flexible allowing for changes or some combination there-of.

I wonder if they would take themes from Civ V but set it up more set up like Civ IV.

I think Civ 5's one fault (can't believe it's time to compare Civ 5 to other things like that) was lack of opportunity costs that didn't include time, because you could always have both choices eventually.

 

[LDiCesare]

This is something I would like to know too.
I want the possibility to have a Revolution, as in French, Russian orChinese revolution, when you suddenly change a monarchic system to something else. The "tree" system in Civ V failed that. I'm actually considering this the most important thing in the game now considering what we know already.
I liked civics a lot, really, but they were percieved as having an optimal item in every branch, so it's unlikely they'll come back as the designer doesn't want repetitive winning strategies. Still, in Civ II, you had at least 2 choices of government that were perfectly viable, depending on the gameplay you wanted (theocracy/democracy).

 

[civvver]

You summed it up well with progressive policies vs dynamic civics. When you go with a progressive system that can't be changed then you'll always get people picking the best policy and not much game variety. Cus there's no switching depending on the situation.

In civ4 you would switch into specific civics for specific things at that time. Most simplistic would be choosing state property vs free market and corporations. That would be the closest decision to policies in civ5 like choosing tradition vs liberty, it defines your empire. But others would be swapped back and forth all the time like dipping into theocracy and nationalism to draft units and train with experience, the swapping into caste system for some gp boosts, then out later for emancipation and cottage boosting. Civ4 civics are not deeper than civ5 policies but they're more flexible and strategic where civ5 feels like just a bunch of +1 mechanics.

So I hope they implement both in some way. Something that can be swapped piecemeal or totally as strategy requires, as well as accumulating bonuses.

 

[DefiantMars]

So I hope they implement both in some way. Something that can be swapped piecemeal or totally as strategy requires, as well as accumulating bonuses.

I very much agree. I like the breadth of themes that the CivV Social Policies tres to cover. I like the idea that the branches "ramp up" and become more potent within themselves. However I do agree that it isn't the most thought provoking system nor is it the most engaging.

lilgamefreek made the Social Engineering mod for Beyond Earth that replaced the virtues with 12 trees in 4 categories. Each of the trees acted like social policies with the exception of the fact that they accumulated negative trade offs as you invested in the same tree. You could switch trees if you had a virtue to spend which would deactivate the tree and start the new one, but the choices you unlocked would still be there if you elected to reactivated the tree.

This might be closer to what you're suggesting.