Thought on Civics

[Damburger]

I'm an experienced programmer looking to get into the Civ 4 modding scene, and I'm thinking my first target may be civics, to be then included in a larger mod.

The existing civics, and the mods I've seen, have a common flaw in that they describe outcomes of civics rather than civics themselves. Qualities such as 'free speech' and 'environmentalism' aren't acheived by leaders simply deciding to implement them. These things arise from the correct use of civics, they are not civics in themselves.

Heres some vague suggestions for civics restructuring. I would appreciate comments (especially regarding implementation, I haven't delved deeply into the code yet).

Cohesion is the justification for your civs existence at all

* Despotism - might makes right. You pay your taxes and obey the law because you might get killed if you don't. No other reason is given
* Religion - the people are united by their shared faith. Good at keeping order in cities with your state religion, but the presence of other religions can cause disorder.
* Ethnic identiy - A shared genetic and cultural heritage keeps your people together. Similar to religion, in that foreign citizens in your cities can cause trouble
* Militarism - Uniforms and parades define your peoples sense of identity. Good at creating order, but the people may push you into war with old enemies.
* Ideology - A higher purpose unites us. Keeps the lid on rebellion very effectively, but makes it harder to change civics.

Leadership is the system by which you keep control

* Big Man - you have no bureaucracy to define your position, people simply listen to you when you have something to say. Only suitable for small societies.
* Chieftan - The same as above, but you've got a bunch of guys with sticks to back it up. Allows a larger civ, but requires some money be put aside for the stick guys.
* Divine Leader - You are either a hotline to god, or a god personified. Kings fall into this category. Your state religion reduces disorder, as do wonders.
* President - By the people, for the people. Low disorder, so long as you keep the luxuries flowing.
* Cult of Personality - Sophisiticated modern propaganda makes you into a living legend. Keeps a lid on dissent, but also on your income and science.

Discourse is how the society treats information:

* Oral tradition - pre-literate, or forcefully denied literacy, the population exchanges all information orally.
* Scribes - There is a small class of literate scribes, and possibly priests, in your society. Reduces corruption slightly as the scribes can keep track of your bureaucracy better.
* Printing - mass production of literature, coupled with reasonably high literacy, allows discussion of ideas. Increased disorder from all those subversive ideas, slight science bonus.
* Censorship - information exchanged is controlled to serve the purposes of the other civics. Bonus happiness and less war-weariness, but significant penalties to science and more disorder when you change civics.
* Intellectual property - a structure of copyrights, trademarks and patents allows economic exploitation of information. Minor science penalty, but generates wealth.
* Information sharing - Hackers paradise. Information can be exchanged and used freely, but this makes it very hard to profit from it. Penalty to your income, but a substantial science bonus. Hard to supress dissent.

Organisation reflects the structure of the economy:

* Decentralised - As in the game. simple barter system without any real organisation.
* Slavery - Human labour is owned. Allows pop rushing.
* Laissez Faire - Unrestricted capitalism, as found in the 19th century. Great opportunities for wealth contrasted by those dark satanic mills. Good for wealth generation and industry, bad for health and happiness of the general population. Penalties to wonder production, as its hard to organise large centalised projects.
* Central Planning - A centralised organisation directs all economic activity through a series of 5 year plans. Great for industry and good for wonders, luxuries have less effect and agriculture can suffer.
* Syndicalism - Economic activity is controlled by unions or workers councils. Good for happiness, but bad for production because of workers demanding high wages.
* Corporate Personhood - Corporations are legal people, allowing them to ultimately dominate the economy.

Output reflects what the economy is used for:

* Nessecity - Early civilisations lack the productive capacity to make much beyond what they need to survive
* Tribute - Production beyond basic nessecity is given over to glorify the leader of the society. Bonuses to Wonder construction, but the people are a little more restless
* Military/Industrial - Production is orientated towards the mililtary. Easier to make units, luxuries less effective as is non-military industry.
* Consumerism - Give the people what they want. Production is determined entirely by demand. Good for happiness and luxuries are doubled. Bad for health cause of all the booze, cigs and fast food. Also poor for industry.
* Welfare state - Healthcare, education and housing are the priorities. Good for health and science, not as much wealth generated.
* Kleptocracy - "Rule by thieves" the sole purpose of the economy is to line your pockets. The people hate it, and you probably can't keep it up for very long, but you'll come out of it with bulging coffers.


I feel I might need more, but I'm wary of overdoing it. Please feel free to suggest stuff.

 

[pinjerro]

actually, quite good idea, but what about civil rights? the leaders of countrys always had impact of what people could do. You could have:
Democracy: people choose the changes. It gives happiness, money and science, but halts the religious benefits and to balance also the culture
Bill of Rights: gives wealth and culture (it gets famous like the declaration of independence) but some unhappiness because of laws.
Total Freedom: gives big science, wealth and culture bonuses, but HUUUUUUUGE unhappiness because of total anarchy, because people do waht they want and productivity came to a halt, because people wont work, so you can't keep it long like kleptocracy.
and some few more, but i can't clear my mind right now

hope it helped

CHEERS

 

[Damburger]

Interesting idea. The civics i've put down are lacking what you've suggested, but I'm wary that I'll end up with 10 civics and it'll be complicated.

However, I will think about adding your idea.

 

[whitelaughter]

Cohesion Why would you possibly settle for only one of these? An ethnic group will normally also have an ethnic religion (consider how the Lutheran and Orthodox churches are organised on national lines), any sane country encourages hero worship of its veterans, and if citizens refuse to play along the police will arrest them.
Ideological links are basically religions in secular trapping, so for game purposes should be handled as religions.

Leadership All of the options you've given are the same - a single individual rules without any checks or balances. Why not just have 4 techs give bonuses to Despotism?
Other options used real world include bureaucracies, coalitions, constitutional monarchies, plutocracies etc.

Discourse Interesting! oral traditions rely heavily on music as way of remembering and enjoying information. Censorship predates the printing press, and probably writing! Printing presses weren't made earlier because of the cost of paper - mass production was impractical until paper was cheap. Copyright actually resulted in a scientific explosion, as people no longer needed to keep techniques secret - instead, you could sell their use.

Organisation The battle between protectionism and free trade has been the major squabble of the last hundred years, it'll be a pity to see that go. Union/worker owned businesses rarely have problems with wages, as the workers are shareholders. Corporations as entities is covered by the need to create them using GP.

Output Surely this is just whatever the player is buying at that point in time?

Interesting though!

 

[Rorybob]

I would also suggest that the "pleasing" civics;
Cult of Personality;
Ideology;
Consumerism;
Provide a negative effect on order on Nations who don't have these in place but know about this "structure" in your own nation?

 

[Damburger]

Cohesion Why would you possibly settle for only one of these? An ethnic group will normally also have an ethnic religion (consider how the Lutheran and Orthodox churches are organised on national lines), any sane country encourages hero worship of its veterans, and if citizens refuse to play along the police will arrest them.
Ideological links are basically religions in secular trapping, so for game purposes should be handled as religions.

Subgroups within a society will have their own reasons for cohesion, but the entire society as a whole will have one (main) reason for cohesion.

Leadership All of the options you've given are the same - a single individual rules without any checks or balances. Why not just have 4 techs give bonuses to Despotism?
Other options used real world include bureaucracies, coalitions, constitutional monarchies, plutocracies etc.

They are not the same at all. The 'president' option implies a democratically elected leader. Largely, this is to manage happiness amongst your people and set you allied with/against foreign powers.

Discourse Interesting! oral traditions rely heavily on music as way of remembering and enjoying information. Censorship predates the printing press, and probably writing! Printing presses weren't made earlier because of the cost of paper - mass production was impractical until paper was cheap. Copyright actually resulted in a scientific explosion, as people no longer needed to keep techniques secret - instead, you could sell their use.

Copyright came after the majority of the enlightenment, so is certainly not needed for scientific advance. I didn't think the civics should decided in game mechanics what is a pretty hot debate right now, so the idea is the top two discourse civics are balanced; strong copyright allows you to make money from knowledge but free information encourages academics and intellectuals thus stimulating science.

Organisation The battle between protectionism and free trade has been the major squabble of the last hundred years, it'll be a pity to see that go. Union/worker owned businesses rarely have problems with wages, as the workers are shareholders. Corporations as entities is covered by the need to create them using GP.

Worker owned businesses don't have problems from the workers point of view (they take all the profits essentially) but from the perspective of the leader (i.e. the player) this doesn't leave much left to go to the central government to spend on wars and phallic monuments and suchlike.

Whether or not you found corporations is a separate issue from their legal status in your society. Corporations predated corporate person-hood by about 100 years (if memory serves). Making corporations legal people makes them much more powerful in your society, and as we see in our own society they dominate economic activity.

Output Surely this is just whatever the player is buying at that point in time?

There is the assumption there is some 'hidden' output that is dealt with by the player - essentially the gold in your coffers is only that revenue which reaches the national government.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I must say Damburger, these are truly excellent and-dare I say-revolutionary ideas. If you could get them up and going, I'd definitely be interesting in giving them a go.

Aussie.

EDIT: Only one suggestion-instead of President for leader, just the descriptive title Elected should do the trick. This then covers a broader range of leader types (after all, the Queen of Naboo in Star Wars is popularly elected ).

 

[gazius]

I was wondering if this might be of use, it's a concept I was working on for another project which might hold some relevancy here. They could certainly be contracted or expanded as needed, my limit was 40 'National Idea's' 5x8 grid, but they seem like they might mirror progression well.

The first set of ideas was how cohesive the state was: Libertarian state[for lack of a better term], dynastic rule, weak/strong bureaucracy - the separation refering to how deep bureaucracy is ingrained into the culture. A place that has just shifted to a bureaucracy, or else with a lot of corruption will have a weak one where you can get more done, cheaper, but have related social problems, as where if you have a strong bureaucracy, this goes hand in hand with a stronge sense of civic duty. The final one along this line I had was authoritarianism - whether despot or dictator, you have one man rule over all.

The second set was a description of who are the elite in your society; whether it's the landed aristocracy, powerful families - kinda like Kennedy's or Roosevelts in US history, a Meritocracy - obvious, but should be hard to maintain, private interest - corporations or the wealthy have undue influence in the state, and then a flat out plutocracy.

Citizenship and how the majority in your country were treated; Serfdom - I'm thinking Russian serfs behind this, peasantry - where few rights are guaranteed, but they are their own individual and not in some form of servitude to another, limited citizenship - early US comes to mind - all of these allow you to also have slavery implemented, and then finally full citizenship, everyone is equal before the law, or what law there is. While no one group is discriminated against, this does not inherently mean that there are a lot of freedoms.

Views of religion: Cultism - whether it's just some bizarre fascination or a cult of personality, it belongs here. Pantheism - This is intended to be religions that aren't dedicated to a single god. Somewhat tolerant of other religions, if not exactly harmonious. From my understanding of China, this would fit well when you had either one system of beliefs tending dominate over another during certain dynasties. Monotheism - This can either be one of the monotheistic religions, or just adoption of a policy of no tolerance for other religions. Theocracy - religion forms the basis of your state. And then the Tolerant Society - accepts all religions, but leaves you somewhat more vulnerable to espionage.

The next set of ideas was describing the states world view; with Isolationism as the first choice, this would be good for a time when you face a lot of internal problems and seal yourself off from outside influences. Preservation - defense bonus, but it is harder to support a larger empire. Colonialism being the next one - you'd be either capturing fresh territory, or, attacking states that had not achieved the era you had. Interventionist - would be a policy focused on maintaining peace in the world. And then you have full out expansionism for absorbing those new states.

The next set of policies are what kind of military you would run. In ancient times you might just have a reserve force or citizen militia to defend your territory. Enough to hold off the barbarians, maybe another small state, but not viable unless your either neutral or isolated. Following that would be Mass Conscription, lots of manpower to throw at the enemy, but typically a weaker force. Then you have a Standing Army. A serious commitment to national defense and it takes a toll on your society, requiring commitments you could otherwise use to focus on national development. Guns or butter. The two after that was meant to represent a further specialization, whether you use specialized troops to boost your army, or whether you build Wooden Walls to defend yourself, as usually a state focuses on or the other, not both.
Not sure how to implement those last two specifically, maybe a sub doctrine or something?

The last of the material that seems relevant/somewhat easily incorporated was a basic outline of economic policy, whether you were all out protectionism, exports only, ever. Mercantilist where as long as the trade balance remains positive your state is ok with it. Regulated trade which puts some restrictions in return for safer social policies, free trade such as no minimum wages or the like, and then there was another option of whether you granted priviledges to guilds, which is, from my understanding of history, one of the spurs that drove people to cottage work and eventually manufacturies that could compete and outdo the specialized craftsmen of the guilds.

The last stuff was just whether the people are focused on individualism, all about me and never about giving back to the community, civic duty which was a healthy balance between self interest and serving the community/country, and then collectivism where it is all about the whole which returns to the individual. Supposedly. Combined with protectionism or mercantilism and potentially interventionist/expansionism you have the communist revolution.

It is also had a set of slider policies which, in conjunction with events, was to be used to determine what policies you had, rather than the free will given to you by Civ currently.

Hope these are useful/inspiring to someone, though as mentioned they were designed with another game in mind and may take some work to translate into Civ. I'd love to see politics as something more than small time interactions between talking heads taking place which besides the tech trade, AFAICT, have no real meaning to the game. But then I guess that comes with the territory of having a max of, what, 18 civs in the game?