What kind of Government System would you like to see in Civ 7

[ColtSeavers]

Hi all,

referring to the discussion in the "Two things that I hope Civ 7 will fix" thread, I would like to get your opinion on this.

Regards,
Colt Seavers

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Civ4 style was good, but I hope they come up with a better, more sophisticated system

 

[UWHabs]

Voted "Other", mostly because honestly I have liked various aspects of each system over the years. Which version is best really IMO depends on how it fits to the rest of the game.

The Civ 4 Civics were great in giving you certain global control over how you wanted to design your empire.
5 was definitely good in that it gave you a permanent choice to build from, although the system lacked in balance, as well as lacked having that sort of "unique government" until the Ideologies unlocked later in the game.
6 gave both the micro-bonuses and control, while also making sure that whatever government you were in gave those specific setup. As discussed elsewhere, its biggest problem is that it truly is too flexible - you lose the permanence of the other modes, and other than what legacy card was available, you lack any sort of permanent impact of any change. It didn't matter what government system you were running, you could run Serfdom in any of them, for example. Only a couple policies actually are restricted by type.

So I'd say something that has more long-term implications than 6 does would be useful, but at the same time, probably not as rigid as those earlier versions.

 

[nakzox]

I just hope it isn't Civ VI's style. I didn't really like how often you could change policies and governments, and how there was little penalty for doing so.

While I like Civ V's style, there was little reason to not do Tradition-Filler Policies-Rationalism, and that got old really quick. And for me at least, it was always the Freedom ideology, unless I was going for domination victory. The choices were permanent, which I like, but there was little reason to ever switch from the "meta" strategy.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

While I like Civ V's style, there was little reason to not do Tradition-Filler Policies-Rationalism, and that got old really quick. And for me at least, it was always the Freedom ideology, unless I was going for domination victory. The choices were permanent, which I like, but there was little reason to ever switch from the "meta" strategy.

My strategy is always Liberty->Honour->[Filler]->Order/Autocracy, but then I almost always go for a Domination Victory

 

[pokiehl]

I like Civ 5’s the best. Permanency means higher stakes and more impactful bonuses.

In Civ 6, policies were just too fluid and easy to change. It felt so low stakes. I also think it’s immersion breaking to just upheave all your policies whenever you want.

 

[Brackenspore]

I would like to see a real existing system of governments, of which there are only two types: Monarchy, Republic. You choose your government, and then throughout the game you develop your government. Development could occur through the choice of one of the parameters, divided into groups. Over time, the number of parameters will increase. If you want to subsequently change the parameter selection to another (for example: from Plutocracy to Meritocracy), you need to perform a Reform.

For example:

For the monarchy:

Legitimacy: Divine right (known as theocratic monarchy), or Laws (known as a constitutional monarchy) , or Charisma.
Succession of Power: Succession to the Throne or Elections
Territory: Unitarism or Federalism
And other parameters.

For the republic:

Form: Stratocracy, or Plutocracy, or Theocracy (known as theocratic republic), or Meritocracy, or Democracy
Core of power: Leader (known as presidential system) or Parliament (known as parliamentary system)
Elections: Universal Suffrage or Census Suffrage
Territory: Unitarism or Federalism
And other parameters.

Also, governments will definitely influence each other as Ideologies in Civilization 5. And if your country is more successful than another, the people of the other country will want your type of government.

 

[OzzyKP]

I'd like government choice to have effects beyond just bonuses. Traditionally, more democratic governments have given bonuses on trade or diplomacy, and non-democratic governments have given bonuses to military. In either case though, no matter how 'democratic' you are, you are still the immortal god-emperor of your nation controlling every aspect of it. I'd like the different governments to actually play differently. Like if you choose a democratic government you deal with some loss of control. If your government has a federalism component, perhaps your cities can no longer be directly managed, the AI governor does it. Or every X turns there is an election and the new 'government' changes policies and priorities around. Different parties will have different agendas, and you can try to influence the election, but ultimately you have to deal with the results (or if you are tired of letting the plebs boss you around, then dissolve the republic and go back to a dictatorship to take full control).

I'd also be interested in seeing some popular sentiment when it comes to government. Like after you invent the printing press you receive a happiness penalty under non-democratic forms of government, etc. Though if you suffer a few military defeats or have problems with the economy, then the people will start clamoring for dictatorship.

 

[Ordnael]

I think CIV VI's policy cards work really well, and I don't find their micromanagement too taxing, if I am at war I slot cheaper promotions and unit upkeep, if I am at peace I can choose to make building wonders easier or to enhance science production or, etc. Since the AI has access to the mechanic, I think the policy cards system is very fair and encourages the player to experiment. However the form of government in real life, both autocratic and democratic ideologies "kinda of slot whatever policy" they feel is needed to achieve a certain goal....is this making any sense?

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

I like the policies and ideology from 5, yet some of the cards in 6 are good/useful. So having SOME cards available, BUT based on what government/ideology you choose.

I know you get to pick certain things from ideology, but some kind of bonus cards could be intersting.

(failing that, I prefer civ 5s version for governing)

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Repeating from the Two Things thread, I'd like greater restriction on changing policies than Civ 6 had, but not the same degree of permanence as Civ 5. Newer policies should generally be more powerful, so you have an incentive to swap out old ones, but with limits on how many changes you can make unless you elect a revolution and suffer a period of anarachy (the length of which could be tied to the number of policy changes you make).

I'd like policies to be more flavourful and evocative of the style of society you have and therefore have bigger picture impacts, not the targeted bonuses of Civ 6. To help with this, I'd like to see the policies have multiple, logically-linked impacts, to reflect that the policy has multi-faceted impacts on your society. As examples, I suggested Seafaring could give a discount on the maintenance of naval units and improve the yields from ocean-going trade, Mercantile could improve the yields from markets and reduce the cost of hiring mercenaries, and Monasticism could increase resistance to foreign religious pressure and improve happiness/stability.

I second OzzyKP's suggestion that popular sentiment should play a role, but I suspect Civ 7 will follow Civ 6's philosophy of not limiting player choice, so I doubt we'll see any feedback from the realm infiltrating the immortal god-leader's echo chamber.

 

[criZp]

6 gave both the micro-bonuses and control, while also making sure that whatever government you were in gave those specific setup. As discussed elsewhere, its biggest problem is that it truly is too flexible

To me the big problem in civ6 was all the policies that had the possibility of cashing in instantly with some minimal setup. For example the gold from neighborhood appeal: build a bunch of neighborhoods, leave all unfinished with 1 turn, slot that policy, cash in everything in just one turn, research some old unnecessary civic to instantly switch out the policy that no longer provides any value.

Being able to swap policies "whenever" is ok if they all strictly are effects over time that cannot be gamed for instant cash-in. And having those instant cash-in policies is ok if they are permanent choices, or at least you have to stick to them for a long time.

 

[criZp]

While I like Civ V's style, there was little reason to not do Tradition-Filler Policies-Rationalism, and that got old really quick.

In civ5, apart from the branch openers, all policies have one or more pre-requirements, and additionally you have finisher bonuses for completing a branch. These two factors contribute to reducing choice by forcing you to go for just a few branches, rather than picking bonuses more freely. However, the main problem was that they failed to balance the branches against each other.

 

[Leucarum]

I think this was an (maybe the only) area where Humankind actually excelled. Developing your society there really felt like a roleplaying exercise. If Civ7 learns from that then It'll get a thumbs up from me.

I also would give a shout out to SMAC's government systen. While it was a bit "you get X% better at Y if you pick this" the effects of combining different aspects of government was fun and allowed a lot of gradiation in how extreme your society would become...

 

[criZp]

When I was designing my civ6 mod linked in my description (it no longer works) I had this thought for permanent policies: instead of having many policies, I made a smaller amount of them, and the player can only unlock a few of them. Most permanent policies have multiple effects and all of them are quite strong effects (measured against the vanilla policy cards). This means that choosing becomes harder, so it is a more interesting decision.

Second, the temporary policies: for the first, every policy had a money cost. Second: the player picked as many policies as he wants, he can go for none at all if he wants. The idea was that what the government can do should depend on your economic strength. Alternatively, policies could have some kind of other negative cost, and the player has to consider if the positive effect outweights the negative effect.

It would be possible to have a system where the player can technically enable every single temporary policy he has unlocked, but since each policy has a negative effect he may be worse off, compared to if he had enabled just a few temporary policies. In some situations it might even be optimal to disable all temporary policies.

 

[Naeshar]

I don´t quite remember Civ4 and Civ5 governments as something that would stand out. Civ6 has a mechanic-oriented take on governments, as all that matters is their bonuses and policy slots.
Victoria 3 has a detailed system of government, allowing multiple takes on the same type of government, but that is a society simulation. Hard to imagine Civ would try to accomodate this.
Instead I voted Other as I liked the flavor of Civ2 where you would go autocratic with monarchy and fascism of fundamentalism or trade oriented republican into democracy, effectively giving up some politics options like declaring war freely.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Not Policy Cards . Not that I disliked them, but I'd like something fresh and different. And no mana either because Civ is not a paradox game (it's so much better than that...x).

So either a return to Civ 5's social policy trees or maybe a system similar to Alpha Centauri's social engineering?

 

[Krajzen]

Civ4 was good at making goverments discrete systems to choose from which are simple yet have massive importance, defining the empire - but it was too simple

Civ5 was good at tracking player's empire changing across ages and accumulating cultural legacies, it was rewarding commitment and good choices - but it was too static, inflexible, blended gov system into one with culture and policies

Civ6 was good at being flexible, offering a lot of options and choices and separating gov from culture and policieis - but it was too fickle, there was too little commitment and too few difficult decisions

So I hope Civ7 achieves the synthesis of everything best of those three games, avoiding bad stuff

 

[Josephias]

Flexibility of policy system of Civ6 could do with some challenge, like policies having a certain backing of your own population depending on your civ’s satus and history. You’ll maybe need then to balance desired, unpopular policies and popular ones to avoid your way to handle the civ becoming unpopular (=general unhappines).

Trow into the mix some conditional backing modifiers (i.e: rationalism backing may be +30% up if you manage to keep during three turns the known world scientific lead, or +5% each time you build a university), plus slow diminishing on backing for slotted policies and ir might end up being a pretty dynamic and interesting system. (Different governmens might also have an impact, i.e. In the minimum backing treshold allowed)

 

[uppi]

Civ4 was good at making goverments discrete systems to choose from which are simple yet have massive importance, defining the empire - but it was too simple

Civ5 was good at tracking player's empire changing across ages and accumulating cultural legacies, it was rewarding commitment and good choices - but it was too static, inflexible, blended gov system into one with culture and policies

Civ6 was good at being flexible, offering a lot of options and choices and separating gov from culture and policieis - but it was too fickle, there was too little commitment and too few difficult decisions

So I hope Civ7 achieves the synthesis of everything best of those three games, avoiding bad stuff

How about policy cards (maybe less in number than Civ VI had) which slowly level up while you have them running? You would be flexible, but you would get the most benefit if you committed to a few central policies suited to your empire.