Version 2.8 discussion

[civ_king]

I don't have this problem in my version of Fall Further, either (because I removed Forts. Which reminds me to do the same for RoM...)

Orbis has a better solution

 

[munky]

There's an easy way to fix forts. Make them the way they are in vanilla BTS, with no commerce modifier. That way the AI doesn't value them and only places them on resources outside the city cross. Problem solved.

and for this we dont need a RevDCM change? this is a RoM 2.8 issue to be changed -- finalized by consensus here and now! the ayes have it, and the vote is final!

forts should not have a effect or anything beyond vanilla until i can throw dead bunnies at the RevDCM folks to reprogram the whole fort concept. then forts shall finally get their just and deserved place. <insert here that link to the modmod about forts for which i have forgotten>

also regarding political definitions and the subsequent debate -- we should all compromise and say that these are RoM definitions and leave them at that. in theory, political and such, much of governmental definitions are just semantics. i could call fascism "national socialism" and it really may historically have had nothing to do with that. i could call America a "democracy" and realize it is a "socialist republic". or is it... and on and on. go the route of compromise and accept RoM civic choices as particular to the game. this is also something we kind of do already with religion. i was amazed at calls of controversy when Civ first came out because Meier used Religions in a computer game. are we that shallow and weak? <but i will be damned in hasidic hell if i dont get monotheism first and i always found Judaism, oy vey its true; despite Hellenism being the best religion in the whole game imho, i digress>

dont make me bring out the bunny pictures again... so soon, so young... FORTS are simplified please for 2.8 Zaparra! there are bunnies heading to Finland otherwise...

 

[CivEikka]

I think you could add -x% war weariness to fascist and +x% war weariness to communism. And maybe add some happiness bonuses to communism, but happiness bonus would be granted to cities below x population. (say, 10) (so the smaller cities would receive the bonus) Dunno, never played in fascism or communism so I don't really know but my friend said (plays multiplayer) that it would balance those two civics.

 

[vincentz]

How about reintroducing slavewhipping for fascism and communism. Both had labour camps with little or no respect for human lives.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Sadly enough I've seen the AI do this in regular civ and Fall Further (where forts do nothing also, not even canals or hook up resources.)

Actually forts with roads do hook up resources in regular BtS but then the AI is sensible enough to only build them where the resources are not worked by a city.

 

[mike_cf]

How about reintroducing slavewhipping for fascism and communism. Both had labour camps with little or no respect for human lives.

+1 , it would be more realistic (and practical for those who play those civics )

 

[Deon]

Communism DOES not have labor camps "with little respect for human lives". What you are talking about is USSR, and there was no real communism, it was closer to fascism under a nationalistic wrapping. As far as I know, there was no real communism ever, it's too close to utopia.

 

[vincentz]

Communism DOES not have labor camps "with little respect for human lives". What you are talking about is USSR, and there was no real communism, it was closer to fascism under a nationalistic wrapping. As far as I know, there was no real communism ever, it's too close to utopia.

Dont even wanna go into that discussion. There was no communism? Seriously.

Maybe not per textbook default, or utopic definition, but I'm pretty sure there has been communism. Then you can also argue that there has never been a democracy, or fascism. Which leaves us with monarchs and tyrans (despotism). Not much fun playing civ anymore then

 

[DRJ]

Hey Vincentz, Deon is absolutely right, although school wants us to believe it, there hasn't been a real communist system yet but instead state capitalism underlayed with pseudo-communist propaganda (we are the people) and a dictatorship overtone (the great leader Lenin/Stalin).
Real communism has not yet really been put up to work 1:1 in a huge society of millions like it allready has been for maybe a few hundred people (see kibbuzes for example) and this lack is because of some reasons:
As basic democracy is a very important part of communism/socialism (power to the people not the opressing system) - this can't be guranteed that easily for a huge amout of people as they can a) easily be manipulated/instrumentalized for the will of a few (very rich/powerful ones)
b) the grab for huge power will corrupt those who tend to grab it massively
c) everyone would have to contribute their best and most people who have something (even more than they need) tend to keep it and only invest it if it feels save and they get large profits that serves their greed - human moral advancement and justice doesn't feed the greed that fast (at least not the greed of those who rule, as they would have nothing to win else than to lose the burden of the power - what of course would be what that really needed to).
d) as said in a), people can easily be instrumentalized, especially the average (middle class) people will very likely tend to pick on those who have less then them - instead of realizing that together with the 'lower class' they can achieve more for themselves and them in the long term (in turning points of history this alliance was made like in the french revolution). But usually they are tricked into liking better to be the master of a smaller one plus to serve a larger one than to be equal - thats the psychological heritage of years of pressure by capitalistic hierachies, a sado-masochistic mindset (and for example proven in several scientific experiments). You get exploited? Exploit yourself someone weaker (or shut the f**k up). Capitalism, yay!
This leads to e) TRUST. Only if you trust your brother you will be motivated to join the collective efforts
effectively to gain a surplus for society. This trust can't be achieved in a society like USSR which in fact was a big-brother-state and trusting it would have meant to assimilate completely and lose integrity.
Trusted socialism lets people keep individuality and THUS produces, in combination with progressive work processes and equal chances societal profits.

By the way quoting your last sentences, Vincentz, "Then you can also argue that there has never been a democracy, or fascism. Which leaves us with monarchs and tyrans (despotism)"

What we currently live through is a huge greedy buzz(ing) and as we seek for cover we experience a small group of plutocratic and oligarchic flies covering our skin and feeding of our more and more rotting and starving body - and selling that as a protective democratic shell, scaring and - not suprisingly - also covering ourselves of much more bad events that could happen that they call communism.

 

[datlowen]

I can quote chapter and verse of the Manifesto, too, but that doesn't mean that it could ever be translated into an actual system of governance for anything larger than a couple hundred people. Its fundamental flaw is its gross overestimation of human nature. Why change a civic to represent what it could be in a magical world? It, like all the others, should (and does) represent how the system actually worked.

 

[Dharmaserf]

I can quote chapter and verse of the Manifesto, too, but that doesn't mean that it could ever be translated into an actual system of governance for anything larger than a couple hundred people. Its fundamental flaw is its gross overestimation of human nature. Why change a civic to represent what it could be in a magical world? It, like all the others, should (and does) represent how the system actually worked.

Well... overestimation of human nature... perhaps. Fundamental to Marx's theories was the alienation of people from their labour. This is where he is riffing off of Hegel. Socialism/Communism was very influential for people and helped mobilize them because they could precisely feel this alienation acutely in their lives. The bourgeoisie of the past, unlike today (to think in Marxist terms), were unable to to make the proletariat believe that they were well enough off. This is before collective labour becomes a major force in the 20th century. Live was really rough for people, and in the disparity between rich and poor a large majority of the poor felt the brunt of this in ways that we might not really comprehend today. But, then, various labour and suffrage movements made gains for the working classes in capitalist societies. The Great Depression and WWII drastically changed people's mindsets. Since that time, for the most part, the alienating effects of socio-economic disparity have been tenuated. As such, I would argue that Marx touched upon something in terms of when enough people are pushed far enough, they will attempt to change things through revolution, if necessary. It seems to me that Marx was attempting to articulate how we can concieve of a post-revolution that doesn't just fall into the same patterns. Anyway, that is the theory.

In practice, Communism is many things. The soviet bloc, The People's Republic--these are what we normally imagine as communism. They definitely had their faults. The Cultural Revolution was no picnic. On the other hand, in India, two states have continuously elected Communist governments since Independence: Bengal and Kerela. For what it is worth, these states do not fit the same pattern as the larger Communist blocs. For example, Kerela has the highest rate of literacy of any state in India: 99%. Regardless, the other places where Marxist inspired politics hold sway are in those places where people feel the effects of the rich/poor disparity (esp. in regard to foreign capital) AND there is a large anti-imperial sentiment. Marxism (and nationalism) is the primary go to ideology for anti-imperialist thought.

In terms of civ, we have to make three distinctions, I think: between 1) modeling what forms of government etc. have happened in our past, 2) in ROM thinking about future and transhuman possibilities, and 3) the what ifs of the past (i.e. what about a Communism that hasn't fallen into the perils of totalitarianism or whatnot). Generally, the focus is on 1). Do we want to be in the business of 3)? Are we not always implicitly invoking 3) anyway? Can we imagine a post-MArxism that matches 2)? Do we want to?

I think we especially need to be careful to distinguish between 1) and 3) so that we can be clear about what we are talking about, however much they may impact each other. For historical accuracy we need 1) articulated well. What 3) invokes is equally part of the spirit of the game: Every game your civilization becomes the dominant civ (culturally, diplomatically, scientifically etc.)--and this includes civs that are gone and done with. The game is kind of a big "what-if". I think the key to this is balancing 1) and 3) with more of an emphasis on 1). At least in my reading of Vanilla and in a different way ROM (until we get to the transhuman era).

 

[Iceciro]

One of the things I feel core Civ4 actually did very right was breaking governments down into constituient parts - there was no communism civic, but there was State Property, and if you had say, Police State/State Property/ you were pretty close to realistic Communism, though there was no "stifle free speech" option for the Legal category - where core Civ4 fails is that everything, for the most part, is purely positive - slavery does nothing bad in exchange for letting you whip, for example.

In any case, I think the idea of having a Communism civic is in itself not a stellar idea. Rather, it should be broken down into smaller parts, much like say, we do not have a "British Parlament" system of government - but you could simulate one with Democracy/Parliament/Liberal/Free Market/Secular/Socialized/Volunteer Army.

Commuism as a Government civic may be a little far reaching - I don't know what I'd break it down into, or where I'd move it to. As it stands you couldn't emulate the USSR or China, because it's in the same civic category as Despotism, and an ideal (perfect) Communism would also require you to be in Democracy - same category.

 

[vincentz]

As I said, I didnt want to get into the communist religious talk again, and then I made a huge mistake by commenting anyway

But removing communism from the game because it never was put to use IRL as intended is IMO wrong. It should symbolise the existing and previous goverments that uses/used it the best way possible.

Is now :
PR China
Cuba
Laos
North Korea
Vietnam

Has Been:
Afghanistan
Albania
Angola
Benin
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Congo
Czechoslovakia
East Germany
Ethiopia
Mongolia
Mozambique
Poland
Romania
Somalia
South Yemen
Soviet Union
Yugoslavia

What is common between all of them except a few is they practically went bankrupt during their one party communist reign. So Zapparas interpitation strikes me as being correct.

 

[aender]

to do anything else with the civics would require an entire reset of them and quite frankly i'd rather keep it the same so that we can get the newer versions out

 

[zappara]

I have no intentions to overhaul the civic system anymore... it has been done already at least three times for RoM and that's enough for me.

Now, has anyone anything to say about those Transhuman era changes? After all v2.8 concentrates to Transhuman era and all the new major additions was made to that era.

 

[generalstaff]

I have no intentions to overhaul the civic system anymore... it has been done already at least three times for RoM and that's enough for me.

Thanks for that Zap. A civics overhaul would force me to start my Modular Civics Buildings module from line one. Personally, I think you did a great job of diversity for all of them, in both gameplay and history.

 

[Gudinsdiv]

As I said, I didnt want to get into the communist religious talk again, and then I made a huge mistake by commenting anyway

But removing communism from the game because it never was put to use IRL as intended is IMO wrong. It should symbolise the existing and previous goverments that uses/used it the best way possible.

Is now :
PR China
Cuba
Laos
North Korea
Vietnam

Has Been:
Afghanistan
Albania
Angola
Benin
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Congo
Czechoslovakia
East Germany
Ethiopia
Mongolia
Mozambique
Poland
Romania
Somalia
South Yemen
Soviet Union
Yugoslavia

What is common between all of them except a few is they practically went bankrupt during their one party communist reign. So Zapparas interpitation strikes me as being correct.

Communism is not being looked at here for the basically economic, and not political, creature that Marx invisioned.
If you take Mercantalism, Public Works, Proletariat(I may be confusing some of these Civics) and a few others, you can essentially have Communism. There is civic choice in RoM representative for a good few of the communist ideas(ideas and not "planks"). Foremost, any civic limiting corporate influence and foreign trade is on target, and those are in the game. Another is the welfare choices, whether by Church, Private, or Public. You could theoretically introduce some militaristic facet of "communism" ala USSR, but it is worth recognizing the unique historical circumstance of a militaristic fascist state facing off against a militaristic communist state. This is not always the case, and one should note that as much as the western nations have painted such governments as being overly militaristic, the mass of firepower has resided in the west since at least fifteenth century. That is, militarism is not, nor has been, unique to any specific form of government. It arises from the need, or desire, to express oneself from a position that is equally defensive and offensive.
Anyone playing Civilization knows this already.

 

[Gudinsdiv]

It would interesting to require a physical trade of resources.
That is, in order to trade wheat for fish, you need to load a caravan with your resource and physically move it to the civ you seek trade with.
It would involve a couple of menus.
One, when you build a caravan the menu asks what you want to load it with(like in Civ2), only in this case the list is of all those tresources you have asurplus of(just like in the diplomacy menu).
You can research which civs have what and which resources they want and then send off your caravan(escorted, I'd think) to that civ, and once you reach any one of their cities and decide which of their available resources you want, the trade route is established.
Unlike Civ2, there shouldn't be any complicating "needs/wants" for each city. It's basically a civ to civ deal.
This would bring a good bit of realism to the trade and economic arena, but with a hitch. The trade route, if obstructed, is lost.
That may be a task, that is, to have to figure out how that could work, but could it be much different from the mechanics already in the game? In any case, it seems kind of silly that at a stroke there are goods being so effortlessly swapped.

There could, however, be techs that would "protect trade routes" or in other ways aid the physical trading. I should ponder it further.

 

[cheesemijit]

Is it just me or does snail speed seem really slow? and i know snail is meant to be slow but techs are taking like 120 turns and i am the most advanced civ in 1000BC and i havent even got pottery. I do have Fishing, Agriculture, Animal Hunsbandry, Ritualism, WHeel, Trade. Some Civs rushed writing and i traded with them but am still really behind.

I am using the Affores Allinone Modmod
The Giant Earth Map that Zap Made for Rom
Snail
Revolutions on, Tech Diffusion on, Default RevDCM setings.

 

[munky]

It would interesting to require a physical trade of resources.
That is, in order to trade wheat for fish, you need to load a caravan with your resource and physically move it to the civ you seek trade with.
It would involve a couple of menus.
One, when you build a caravan the menu asks what you want to load it with(like in Civ2), only in this case the list is of all those tresources you have asurplus of(just like in the diplomacy menu).
You can research which civs have what and which resources they want and then send off your caravan(escorted, I'd think) to that civ, and once you reach any one of their cities and decide which of their available resources you want, the trade route is established.
Unlike Civ2, there shouldn't be any complicating "needs/wants" for each city. It's basically a civ to civ deal.
This would bring a good bit of realism to the trade and economic arena, but with a hitch. The trade route, if obstructed, is lost.
That may be a task, that is, to have to figure out how that could work, but could it be much different from the mechanics already in the game? In any case, it seems kind of silly that at a stroke there are goods being so effortlessly swapped.

There could, however, be techs that would "protect trade routes" or in other ways aid the physical trading. I should ponder it further.

i was thinking how Colonization could be "used" in this manner to bring commodity pricing into play...

and Zappara, mostly i play multiplayer and we can never get a game to get that far without so many CTD/OOS issues... so my solo games just dont have enough human real time invested in them. i will this weekend launch a game that starts in the later eras to get more experience in this transhuman world -- i cant wait to see your vision of the future!