What Are Your Thoughts on the Government System?

[Siptah]

I'm actually quite happy for now. It seems the best of the government systems so far. The bonuses are significant, and the mechanic interacts nicely with others (happiness, social policies).

Now, I can see that in the future the government might influence how happiness is earned or how easy it is to switch policies in a way to make it more impactful in our decision making. But for now, it's fine.

 

[Evolena]

Seems about right considering the large number of ways you can get bonuses. I'm a little surprised governments don't effect the diplomatic options, unless i'm missing something.

There is a bonus, like +15, for sharing the same government (in Antiquity age).

 

[Lord Yanaek]

The system might be fine, but after Civ6 where governments could give you anything from more of some yields to free housing to free resources as well as determine the overall military/civilian balance of your economy, they seem extremely lackluster offering nothing except for an occasional bonus for a few turns. I'm curious how many celebrations we can get over an age, sure the bonuses are significant, but if you have 3 celebrations over a ~150 turns age the global effect is only 1/5 of the listed effect so 20% more growth would become 4% over the age (you might get more out of it if you time your production correctly thought).
I guess i'll have to see how it plays out, but right now i'm not really convinced. It's not a big deal for me thought, governments have always been somewhat awkward in Civ and that never stopped me from playing the game.

 

[Krikkit1]

I like the basic premise that the effects of your government are tied to happiness but would like to see them expand on this idea. For example, I think each government should have a different way to increase / decrease happiness, and I think the effects of unhappiness should differ depending on your government as well.

Then we have policy cards, of course. I don't mind them in theory, they offer a lot of flexibility to govern as you wish, but I really think they could do with a couple of tweaks; some proper theming would be nice for a start, and I think each government should have a 1 or 2 unique policy cards.

One thing I would like to see is a Cost for Removing/Swapping a policy card that depends on Government type
(a specific Government might need an amount of Gold, Influence, Happiness, Culture, or Science to remove/swap a card)

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

One thing I would like to see is a Cost for Removing/Swapping a policy card that depends on Government type
(a specific Government might need an amount of Gold, Influence, Happiness, Culture, or Science to remove/swap a card)

Yes, something to reduce the micro and force you to think a little bit more long term, rather than being able to swap in and out for no cost whenever you get a new policy option.

 

[thecrazyscot]

There's lots of ways governments could be updated to be more meaningful in ways that slot perfectly nicely on with current systems.

- Corruption via gold maluses or maintenance costs that are different based on government type
- Different government types make certain Diplomatic actions/influence costs cheaper/more expensive.
- War Support is greater or lesser by default based on government.
- Governments have their own policy slots (like crisis slots) that must be filled with cards unique to that government...many of which are negative or are tradeoff cards.
- Etc.

Governments should be a tough and meaningful choice...not just a periodic stat boost. Civ2 honestly did it better even if Communism was hilariously OP.

 

[Australopithecine]

There's lots of ways governments could be updated to be more meaningful in ways that slot perfectly nicely on with current systems.

- Corruption via gold maluses or maintenance costs that are different based on government type
- Different government types make certain Diplomatic actions/influence costs cheaper/more expensive.
- War Support is greater or lesser by default based on government.
- Governments have their own policy slots (like crisis slots) that must be filled with cards unique to that government...many of which are negative or are tradeoff cards.
- Etc.

Governments should be a tough and meaningful choice...not just a periodic stat boost. Civ2 honestly did it better even if Communism was hilariously OP.

Exactly how I feel as well.
It should be a meaningful choice.

I do like the idea that farming happiness can be rewarding as well, rather than just being a capping mechanism, so perhaps splitting it into a persistent set of buffs / maluses, and then have the celebration provide a reward on top would be a good balance.

With the ability to change government, are specified checkpoints.

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

Exactly how I feel as well.
It should be a meaningful choice.

I do like the idea that farming happiness can be rewarding as well, rather than just being a capping mechanism, so perhaps splitting it into a persistent set of buffs / maluses, and then have the celebration provide a reward on top would be a good balance.

With the ability to change government, are specified checkpoints.

Celebrations is a mechanism that was put to balance "tall vs. wide" behaviour. You can exceed the settlement caps, but at the cost of hapiness (-5 happiness per settlement over the limit in all settlements). So you can either get a lot of settlements, but a low level of celebrations, or stick to the limit and get more bonus on the way.

But I do agree that governments are a bit bland as it is. But they can't change them too much because there is a civ that is tied to governments (Mexico), so too big an overall would mean correcting the civ...

 

[Acid.Crash]

For me, Civ-6 Government System had more impact on the game, because it defined the set of civic slots (red-green-yellow-purple) available to use. And it did matter in the long run.
Based on the current Civ-7 videos available, it feels its system is oversimplified.
A type of flat buff for resource is the only difference.
Also seems like everyone is picking +food...

Hope it will be improved in the future...

 

[Leucarum]

It seems perfunctory, but I'd rather a basic system that can be added to than a half baked attempt to make something complex.

 

[King Flevance]

It is funny I was debating between the 2 most popular choices. I ultimately decided that it was a suitableble placeholder. The whole system is very empty and basic right now, so the structure "could" be good. I hope policies can't be swapped out as frequently as in 6 with no cost. That made 6s policies feel like tedious busy work.

I dont have anything standing out as fundamentally wrong with it right now. It does feel a bit scattered. Government, policies, plus ideologies but they feel disconnected even though they aren't. There is certainly room to grow this model and it needs it.

 

[Krikkit1]

What I would like to see is
1. costs for swapping out cards (depending on government)
2. some policy cards have different effects depending on government
3. very limited opportunity to change government during the age (say an occasional narrative event, an endeavor with a civ of that government) should be 0-2 times …ie two max, sometimes none

 

[sTAPler27]

One thing I would like to see is a Cost for Removing/Swapping a policy card that depends on Government type
(a specific Government might need an amount of Gold, Influence, Happiness, Culture, or Science to remove/swap a card)

Maybe this system could also mainly use influence. Classical Republic could have an increased influence cost to moving policies, Despotism could have an increased cost to moving traditions while Oligarchy has the prices for Traditions and Policies as equal but they cost Gold instead of Influence