What should the Civ VII political system be like?

[Graalknight]

0. Prelude​

Before I talk about the topic of this article and offer my potential suggestions, some clarifications and added context may help. Keep in mind I had an older account in this forum, so I am familiar with general opinions around here, or the opinions that were present a few years ago anyway. I say that so you know I am not a complete newbie lol. I hope I put this topic of discussion in the right forum thread, because I couldn't find one dedicated to the Civ series as a whole or suggestions for the future.

I got into the Civ franchise around 2013, through Civ 5 specifically. I bought it right at the time when its two main expansions had already released and the only things that were still not out yet were a few map packs, so I have not experienced the game as it was in vanilla or before BNW, though I've read about how it was. I soon came to learn what a mixed reputation the 5th installment has among fans of the series, though that still doesn't prevent me from considering it the best Civ game, specifically in terms of atmosphere and aesthetic direction, without dismissing its flaws. This is not the only game of the series I own and have become familiar with, I have played both Civ 4 and Civ 6 to satisfactory degrees, though I don't know them as intimately, and can't play as well, as in 5. I've also read about and seen videos of Civs 2 and 3, though I know much less about them.

The main topic of discussion for this thread is: What should the Civ 7 government/policy system be like? Now, we cannot know of systems that have not already been revealed, so this analysis will also contain and be based on a detailed retrospective of the government/policy systems of every game released thus far, with the only limit being my knowledge of them.

1. Government in the Civ series - The Retrospective​

1.1. Civilization I, II, III:​

In games 1 - 3, the political systems remain generally similar. The general gist is that of all civilizations starting with a "despotic" government, which hampers their growth, leading players to seek a way of reforming out of it as quickly and painlessly as possible, usually into a form of monarchy/feudalism or into a republic/democracy. To these sets of governments are included others in the late-game, like religious fundamentalism, communism and fascism. Switching governments causes a few turns of anarchy, in which the player is severely limited in their actions. This anarchy comes with its own government form, which is interpreted as pure undesirable chaos, much to the chagrin of real-life devoted anarchists I imagine.


Each government has different levels of corruption, different amounts of units it can support and even different levels of taxation/research spending, which affect the gold/science yields of one's civilization. Similarly, there are certain embryonic elements of internal politics, like the appearance of a senate in democratic/republican governments in Civ 2, which could force the player to make peace prematurely or could bring down the entire political system if the player went to war without its authorization or had prolonged periods of disorder in their cities. Other governments had their own unique elements, like how communism was the only government in Civ 3 which could have corruption in the capital, which was actually a boon because of its "communal" corruption, where it was equally spread among the communist civilization's cities, making it more manageable. For context, other governments had differing rates of corruption outside the capital, with peripheral cities being more susceptible to it. Fundamentalism, in Civ 2, traded 50% of its science output for making unhappiness fully irrelevant, this was a particularly good trade-off once someone reached the end of the tech tree.

Criticism:
Here, I will provide a personal list of criticisms I have toward the systems in these games. Firstly, Monarchy/Feudalism being explicitly interpreted as a mid-game government, to be discarded with time, is a significant slap in the face to all the functional and highly advanced monarchies of today, regardless of whatever one may think of the principle of monarchy, as a system of inherited elite, itself. Though it could be said that monarchies like Saudi Arabia would be interpreted in-game as either "fundamentalism" or as the edge case where a civilization has such a great start/land/resources they can continue having an otherwise "inferior" government instead of switching, I would like to direct your attention to the issue of constitutional monarchies.

While the modern countries we call by that name would be interpreted in the philosophy of these games as democracies, since the Civ games are concerned only with who holds de-facto power in governments, as opposed to de jure trappings, I would argue that this simply erases constitutional monarchies from existence. This was the government form that was considered most sensible and desirable by the vast majority of the globe throughout the 18th-19th and even early 20th centuries, I don't think it should be written off as easily. Similarly, had it been modelled in these games, it may have allowed players a sort of "mid-way" government that could have had the benefits of both a monarchy and a democracy, but to a lesser degree than either's specialty and maybe with its own unique flaw. Similarly, I think there is place for Anarchism to be developed in Civ games as something more than "brief period of chaos and disorder", again, regardless of what one may think of its merits or realistic chances of "success", but more on these later. It must also be said that some of these governments ended up being broken-good or "gimmicky", like how Civ 2's "fundamentalism" broke all balance through the sheer fact that technological progress essentially ends at some point, making science irrelevant afterward,thus turning it into a government with no flaws. Let's also speak of the fact that democracies in these games, though in different forms from game to game, are essentially immune to corruption. I understand the need for a benefit to balance out all the senatorial red-tape, but that bit always gave me a chuckle.

The other fundamental criticism to this system is how limited it is and how much it lacks interactivity. One simply switches governments according to their needs or goals and that's the end. There is nothing more to consider or to deal with in regards to them, the rates at which they deal with corruption, research/gold, unit supports etc are set in stone, even if they can be mitigated or enhanced by wonders/buildings. Essentially, the governments are rock solid and come as "packs' with no ability to customize or personalize them.

1.2. Civilization IV:​

The political system of Civilization 4 comes in the form of "Civics". There are 5 categories of these, in order: Government, Legal, Labor, Economy and Religion, each subdivided into 5 possible options. This is certainly a much more modular approach than the previous entries, one that could be called a step in the right direction, though still having certain balancing issues, creating clearly "superior" and "inferior" options, as opposed to having merely different choices based on the goals, contingent situations, and needs of the player at any given moment. That being said, it certainly allowed for a more modular and customizable approach to the political system of one's civilization, if one had a good imagination, they could try to imagine the combination of a state property economy with a representation government being like the post-Stalin politburo, or a police state with the same economic civic being a Stalinist dictatorship, the system is broad enough to allow all kinds of real-life government situations.

Criticism:
Though its modularity may be its strength, in a certain sense, it did not and could not go far enough in that direction. The 5 options of each category do not necessarily suffice and, in some cases, do not even make sense grouped together. The Legal category is the main culprit in this, combining Nationalism, Free Speech, Feudalism, Bureaucracy and Barbarism into one category. Now, one can imagine a sort of broad "societal" interpretration of these things that can group them together in some way, but, on the face of it, it is simply incomprehensible. Barbarism may imply arbitrary government and Vassalage may mean Feudal customary law and legally binding oaths of fealty, Nationalism may also fit in a certain sense as "Westphalian Sovereignty", but what of Bureaucracy or Free Speech? Does Feudalism or Nationalism disallow these? certainly not, historically they co-existed in some way for quite a long time. Similarly, what can be said of a civilization that has the Free Speech legal civic and the Police State government civic at the same time? I suppose such a thing may be possible under specific circumstances, but it still sounds utterly absurd. I see these limits as a result of the time in which this game was being developed and the limits that placed on the capabilities of such a system, as such I consider this a great idea, which has these flaws due to its age, rather than any inherent handicaps of the underlying philosophy behind it.

1.3. Civilization V:​

In Civilization 5, the same core, Civ 4, idea of a “policy system”, as opposed to direct and unchanging government categories was used, but taken in a much different direction. Here, the policies work more like an RPG skill tree, with direct bonuses, for whichever area the tree is helpful towards. The BNW expansion added an extra layer to this system, by introducing larger, more powerful, and more numerous late-game policy trees in the form of “ideologies”. The combination of these two parallel systems creates a form of complexity that was severely missing from the older games, potentially due to a combination of technical limitations and design philosophies.

Criticism:
The glaring problem with the Civ 5 system is that there is even less sense to the policy trees than in Civ 4. Tradition or Liberty may more concretely resemble forms of ancient monarchy and classical republic respectively, but trees like “honor”, “piety”, “exploration”, “commerce” and “rationalism”, represent nothing more than generalized attitudes, philosophical systems, or a sort of “civilizational emphasis”. It may have never been the intention of the Civ 5 developers to have them be anything else, but I’d say it cheapens the experience of the whole system, since it muddles governments, various philosophies, aspects of certain civilizations at certain points in time and specific socioeconomic systems into one undifferentiated mess. Ideologies are the “saving grace” of this system, being something concrete, and representing sets of actual practices and policies cultivated and applied by the three major ideological orders of the mid-20th century.

Mods:
At this point, we will have to discuss a mod. This is the first time I am doing this because this is the only game in which I am intimately familiar with mods which specifically enhance the political system. If one feels it’s unfair for me not to mention similar mods in older games, I will say, in my defense, that I tried to seek them out for Civ 4, only to find a small number of them, which mostly increased the number of Civics available in each category, hardly worthy of inclusion here. As for the rest of the games, I’m afraid I completely lack knowledge of their modding scenes.

Anyway, the mod in question is JFD’s old “Rise to Power” mod, which was re-branded and re-released in a more lightweight manner as “Rise to Power – Sovereignty”, in 2020. This mod adds a completely separate “political reforms” system, including the same categories that were present in Civ 4 but with many other categories added in and each category having a large variety of reforms within, each one having 3 options to choose from, with concrete trade-offs for each choice. Though this mod is not the only Civ 5 mod that adds a political system, it is the one that I always went with whenever I came back to the game and the one I never deactivated or removed from my mod list. This mod presents an interesting way of showcasing political systems in a Civ game, from which the developers of Civ 7 may definitely take inspiration for their political system design.

1.4. Civilization VI:​

In Civ 6, we have an interesting synthesis of the two main approaches that dominated the previous games. Governments are existing entities, each one having different numbers of “slots” open in specific categories, which are filled by “cards”. These cards represent a form of ephemeral “policy system”, working together with the main “government system”, which provides the framework for the overall system. I consider this experiment of combining the two directions into one as a resounding success, though without its own set of flaws.

Criticism:
Though the system may have sought to provide certain incentives to keeping old governments around, or making them matter after the fact, like legacy bonuses, it still operates under the same assumption of certain governments being more “advanced” than others and clearly better, only now, it has gotten even worse than before.

Whereas in the first three entries of the franchise a republic could be a strong contender right up to the late game, here it is a classical government and you have no choice but to make it a Merchant republic and then a democracy, if you wish to follow the same thematic or role-playing path. The problem with this is that it erases the differences between these governments and forces them into a relationship of “one naturally leading to the other”, which quite simply did not exist. I do not wish to mislead people here, a player is free to pick whichever government of the next era they wish, they are not forced down some developmental path, but the same problem applies even for players who go from classical republic to monarchy and then onto communism. There is no good reason why a monarchy or theocracy cannot exist in the modern world, contemporary governments prove such an assumption blatantly wrong, even if many would call the remaining such governments “archaic”.

Having mentioned Communism, a secondary problem with this system is that it conflates ideology with government form, which is a significant step back from Civ 5. There have been more democratic and more authoritarian forms of Communism, even brief “Communist Monarchies”. similarly, there have been “democratic” (as in non-monarchical) forms of Fascism, like Nazi Germany, and “Fascist” monarchies, like Mussolini’s Italy. The “democracy” that is always present in this game most certainly means “modern liberal democracy”, at least in most contexts, but it could also be served better if it was allowed to be synthesized with a government structure, thus leading to “crowned republic/constitutional monarchy”, “presidential system” and “parliamentary democracy” as distinct forms, instead of existing as this ill-defined catch-all term.

Finally, the idea of “slots” and “cards”, in my view, is incredibly “game-y” and reduces my immersion. I may be alone in this, but I think there could have been a better way to represent this concepts and the terminology could have used a bit of subtlety.

Mods:
We also have mods for governments in this game, done by the same person as the Civ 5 ones, though I will not expand on this much further other than to say that they iron out a few of the flaws I listed above, adding in some more government types and policy cards, much like the Civ 4 mods I previously mentioned in passing. They don’t introduce some unique, intricate, system, so I feel that they are less relevant to the conversation.

2. Suggestions for the system of the future​

Finally we arrive at the original question I had set for this thread. So, what should be the political system of Civ 7? Should it follow the “policy” direction? The government direction? Or should it continue the attempt at synthesis?

I think the path should continue to be one of experimentation with a synthesis of the two approaches. It should follow the steps of Civ 5 and 6 in having a separation of the overall framework into two constituent parts.

I would argue that what should be done is an expanded, more detailed, and more comprehensive version of the Civ 4 civics, taking inspiration from both the policy cards of Civ 6 and JFD’s phenomenal work for Civ 5. This will only be the first pillar of the framework though, the second one should be an expanded and reworked version of ideologies. My reasoning for this is that including governments, policies and ideologies as three separate but connected systems under the same framework may be too confusing to the players, too demanding to the developers, and frankly unnecessarily complicated and differentiated. So what can be done, instead, is to have some basic government structure category, which sets which government you are under and then the rest of the categories allowing you to customize the form of it in a modular way. You can shift all categories, but shifts would cost you happiness, cause anarchy or bring another penalty in for a smaller or larger amount of turns, depending on how radical the change is. In the late game, you gain access to ideologies, which boost your civilization in multiple ways and allow specialized policy directives that you can activate, either in parallel with or replacing your existing reforms (I would propably argue for a separate system that works in parallel, like Civ 5).

This system could also include a revised revolt/revolution system. In it, revolutionaries or revolters would spawn if your empire or some of its cities became too unhappy/have too much disorder etc. This sounds like any other Civ game thus far, I know, but consider this: the revolutionaries now have a set of specific demands. They will demand that you change specific policies of yours to different ones and you’ll be locked from changing them back for a significant amount of turns if they succeed in forcing them through. This could also allow for counter-revolutions, which instead of seeking the return of whatever you had before the revolution appeared (since that could be too easily abused), are actually seeking previous policies you had switched out of in various categories. So you could have an interesting interplay where, you are trying to reform your classical republic into a parliamentary democracy, but you have revolutionaries demanding a state economy-democracy combo, on the one hand, and a counter-revolution of people who wish you would go back to autocracy and serfdom. This could provide further depth to internal politics which is still solely missing from Civ games.

3. Epilogue​

This is my long wall of text, I apologize if this was too wordy, I simply wanted to be thorough. I would be glad to hear your thoughts or counter-suggestions below, this is still a work-in-progress after all! Thanks for reading and have a good day!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Key to a more immersive and representative system of Government, which you have hinted at and I would like to make Explicit, is to separate Government form and type from Economic System and Ideology.

That is, you not only have X number of Government Types ranging from simple Chieftain or Big Man to Liberal Democracy, you also have Y number of Economic/Social Systems ranging from Kleptocratic to Feudal to Socialist to Fascist ('Industrial Kleptocracy') to Capitalism ('Individual Kleptocracy') AND Z number of Ideologies, which would also include Religious Ideologies before the Industrial Era.

The game should not, therefore, have a single 'list' of Governments modified by some cards, but a list composed of X times Y times Z Combinations, some of which are inherently Unstable in either long or short run, but each slightly or wildly different in its efficiencies and effects and many or all requiring different conditions to make work.

And I would postulate that making your Civ work - in its Government Form and Ideology and Economic structure - is what the game is all about, so any change for the better in this system will have a profound effect on how the game is played.

 

[Graalknight]

The Key to a more immersive and representative system of Government, which you have hinted at and I would like to make Explicit, is to separate Government form and type from Economic System and Ideology.

That is, you not only have X number of Government Types ranging from simple Chieftain or Big Man to Liberal Democracy, you also have Y number of Economic/Social Systems ranging from Kleptocratic to Feudal to Socialist to Fascist ('Industrial Kleptocracy') to Capitalism ('Individual Kleptocracy') AND Z number of Ideologies, which would also include Religious Ideologies before the Industrial Era.

The game should not, therefore, have a single 'list' of Governments modified by some cards, but a list composed of X times Y times Z Combinations, some of which are inherently Unstable in either long or short run, but each slightly or wildly different in its efficiencies and effects and many or all requiring different conditions to make work.

And I would postulate that making your Civ work - in its Government Form and Ideology and Economic structure - is what the game is all about, so any change for the better in this system will have a profound effect on how the game is played.

I hope I was not misaunderstood on this. I never meant to imply that there would be one single category of things. It would be one category that sets the governing framework (monarchy, republic etc) and then there would be other categories next to it which would have to do with economy, legal system etc, hence my reference in the beginning of "taking inspiration from the Civ 4 system", since that one already had separate categories which could produce exactly the combinations you argue for here, though in too limited a fashion unfortunately.

I completely agree with your points, I'm just being clear on what I meant. It took me 5 hours to write the original post and, due to my tiredness, some explanations I gave may have not been the most concise.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The complexity the game emplaces on any system, whether it be military or social/culutral or political or economic also has to be carefully considered. I have seen academic writers who differentiate among a dozen different types of 'monarchy'. That way lies Madness in a game: a prime consideration in developing a more engaging game system is to know When To Stop.

For that reason, I suggest that having a 'base government system' like the monarchy, republic, chieftain and then modifiers to that for, say, the origin of legitimacy (God's Anointed, Defender of the Constitution, People's Choice, etc), Legal system (Traditional, Codified, Interpreted, etc), Economic System (which in itself could have a base and modifiers) and Ideology (if any!) would have to be kept within some kind of bounds. As in, perhaps, no more than 3 - 7 choices or variations within each category. Even that limitation given a system of Type of Government (base), Legitimacy, System of Laws, Economic System, and Ideology would give up to 35 different basic combinations which should be more than enough, especially when potentially combined with Unique attributes for some Civs, to keep the game interesting.

 

[Graalknight]

The complexity the game emplaces on any system, whether it be military or social/culutral or political or economic also has to be carefully considered. I have seen academic writers who differentiate among a dozen different types of 'monarchy'. That way lies Madness in a game: a prime consideration in developing a more engaging game system is to know When To Stop.

For that reason, I suggest that having a 'base government system' like the monarchy, republic, chieftain and then modifiers to that for, say, the origin of legitimacy (God's Anointed, Defender of the Constitution, People's Choice, etc), Legal system (Traditional, Codified, Interpreted, etc), Economic System (which in itself could have a base and modifiers) and Ideology (if any!) would have to be kept within some kind of bounds. As in, perhaps, no more than 3 - 7 choices or variations within each category. Even that limitation given a system of Type of Government (base), Legitimacy, System of Laws, Economic System, and Ideology would give up to 35 different basic combinations which should be more than enough, especially when potentially combined with Unique attributes for some Civs, to keep the game interesting.

Agreed!

 

[pokiehl]

Anything that involves the return of policy cards is a no from me. They were an interesting addition but ultimately their flexibility takes out any sense of impact or permanence in governing choices.

 

[AffineConstant]

The Key to a more immersive and representative system of Government, which you have hinted at and I would like to make Explicit, is to separate Government form and type from Economic System and Ideology.

That is, you not only have X number of Government Types ranging from simple Chieftain or Big Man to Liberal Democracy, you also have Y number of Economic/Social Systems ranging from Kleptocratic to Feudal to Socialist to Fascist ('Industrial Kleptocracy') to Capitalism ('Individual Kleptocracy') AND Z number of Ideologies, which would also include Religious Ideologies before the Industrial Era.

The game should not, therefore, have a single 'list' of Governments modified by some cards, but a list composed of X times Y times Z Combinations, some of which are inherently Unstable in either long or short run, but each slightly or wildly different in its efficiencies and effects and many or all requiring different conditions to make work.

And I would postulate that making your Civ work - in its Government Form and Ideology and Economic structure - is what the game is all about, so any change for the better in this system will have a profound effect on how the game is played.

Sure, but in practical terms what is this?

I enjoyed both VI's larger selection of choices and V's mini research trees. Combining both seems a way to go, you go through multiple research trees instead of just one big one. Economy, politics, culture, each has their own tree on one big screen. Then as you get each one you select which policies you have active, and changing policies has a cost each time you do it (the "free" policy change each time you research anything just effectively means it's free all the time and so the only tradeoff is which are active and inactive).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Sure, but in practical terms what is this?

I enjoyed both VI's larger selection of choices and V's mini research trees. Combining both seems a way to go, you go through multiple research trees instead of just one big one. Economy, politics, culture, each has their own tree on one big screen. Then as you get each one you select which policies you have active, and changing policies has a cost each time you do it (the "free" policy change each time you research anything just effectively means it's free all the time and so the only tradeoff is which are active and inactive).

I can't be too specific, because in my opinion Civ VI is done, dead, finished, Put A Fork In It and we have, really, no idea what kind of system they are planning for Civ VII.

BUT to put it in Civ VI terms that we know, I would have separate development points for each different element of the system: Politics (Basic Government Type), Legitimacy, Economic System, Social System, Ideology/Religion. The game already has separate systems for Religion and Culture/Social Policies, although they are, frankly, wretched. You cannot flip in and out of social norms the way Civ VI does: they change only with reluctance and some conversions require violent and radical change. This, of course, is also required for most changes of political system - the term is Civil War or Revolution, and with good reason.

Which might give us a framework:

Political System - changes only with a period of Anarchy and potential Civil War. That means you cannot be entirely certain what kind of new Political System you wind up with: No one in 1789 France thought they were fighting for 16 years of Napoleonic Empire or that the end result would be, after 73 years of detours, a Republic. So, despite the argument that we are playing the Embodiment of the Civilization, I postulate that we should not be entirely certain hat will come out the other end if a change of government starts: it is a real Random Process, which can be warped by the actions of Great People, foreign actors, Unnamed masses of your own population, and social/cultural/philosophical background already present in your Civ.

Legitimacy - is in many ways tied to the Politics, but is a Major Modifier of the political system. Just for an example, a Divine Right Monarchy in which the King is assumed to be God's Anointed provides tremendous legitimacy to the Monarchy, but was an utterly alien concept to European Civs like Rome, Greece, and almost all the Indo-European entities - it was imported from the semi-Theocracies of the Middle East, first to Imperial Rome, then by Christianity to the rest of the European Monarchies. So Legitimacy can be closely tied to both Politics and Religion/Ideology, and so the result is that a 'Monarchy' can be anything from a Theocracy to a Divine Right Monarchy to a Constitutional Monarchy depending on where you are deriving your Legitimacy. Versions of Legitimacy can come, then, from Religion, Ideology, or Social/Cultural aspects of the society/Civ

Economics - technically, is independent of politics, but of course, nothing is independent of politics, and some economic systems, most notoriously Socialism or Communism or Fascist Socialism, all require a massive coercive police apparatus to keep people following the economic rules and so warp the politics into coercive, totalitarian or dictatorial forms. Capitalism, on the other hand, has been historically unstable because, while it generates more wealth than any other system, it also concentrates that wealth into fewer and fewer hands until it foments either a reform of the economic/legal system or a revolution. Civ games have done a notoriously bad job of showing the real dynamics of economic systems, their actual historical drawbacks and advantages, especially in the way they 'warp' political and social/cultural systems. I sincerely hope that Civ VII does better at that, no matter what type of table, card, Random Act or other system they use to emulate.

Ideology/Religion I keep together, because the Medieval major Religions were Ideological systems and the modern Ideological systems showed many of the characteristics of Religions. The major difference between them is that Religion spreads by missionary contact and conversion, Ideology spreads by arguing a better path to, usually, economic and social 'justice' (however that is defined), but both wind up using coercion as necessary to maintain their hold on a society and people. And, because their function is as much Emotional as Intellectual, changing them is a messy and usually violent prospect.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

Boris is as based as always.

 

[BuchiTaton]

The general concept from its basis:
> DENIZEN, population unit that represent an abstract amount of inhabitants. Each of these units would have three identity parameters; Heritage (ethnocultural), Belief (religion) and Class (social caste). These denizens occupy Districts and Villages (improvements) from both Empires (playable main civs) and Nations (non-playable minor civs), they can be relocated and migrate.

- Heritages are also related to exclusive Traditions that provide bonuses and uniques when those denizens integrate into your empire (X% of your population limited to Y number of slots).​

Of course the diplomatic relations with other civs leaders, their and your populations would be greatly related to denizens Heritage and Belief, so for example persecute religions from other civs would generate animosity.​

- Classes represent a few basic groups:​

* Laborers; work in farms, plantations, mines, quarries, etc. Later can also work in factories.​

Help to gain Great Engeneers.​

* Artisans; work in workshops that produce manufactured luxury resources with cultural value like Textiles, Ceramics, Jewelry, etc. Later can also work in studios. Help to gain Great Artists.​

* Traders, work in trade and commerce buildings.​

Help to gaun Great Merchants.​

* Clergics; work in religion related buildings.​

Help to gain Great Prophets.​

* Scholars; work in science related buildings.​

Help to gain Great Scientists.​

* Warriors; work in army related buildings.​

Help to gain Great Generals.​

All these identity variables are essentials as populations sectors that can be benefited or harmed by your actions, decisions and of course your chosen ideologies.
Obviously basic necesities and amenities would help to keep happy everybody but also some specific buildings can appeal to certain groups.

>DECISION EVENTS that are linked to the whole ideologies mechanic. Similar to Beyond Earth missions and CIV6s inspiration, social and ideological changes (civics/goverment) could come from decision events like this:

When you defeat an enemy faction (either BC/CS/Civ) for the first time instead of get a militar oriented "Honor" branch you get a decision event like this:
"My leader our heroic warriors have emerged victorious, bringing glory to all our nation. Now only remains the question of how to retribute our troops"

a) "The blood of our heroes was shed for this land, the less we can do is to honor their legacy with titles and riches" > HONOR​

b) "This victory is without question a divine blessing. Call the warriors and all the people to reverence at the shrines." > DEVOTION​

c) "They have served well their leader. Organize some celebrations and then redistribute the troops wherever are needed." > AUTHORITY​

So from a kind of easy way to trigger events (a militar victory) you can select the decision that customize your society in the way you want. Still with some pros and cons, for example more privileges for Warrior class in a) and Clergics in b) and temporal global happinest boost from c). Turning civics/policies/ideologies to be more organic based on an action>event>decision system that provide different orientations with their own pros and cons.
These also add a lot to the narrative development of your civ, the ballance of diffent ways to victory and break the status quo in late game.

> IDEOLOGIES, as the replacement of civics/policies into a system of tiers being many of them mutually exclusive (especially in higher tiers)
Now, those options should provide real differences that would serve different gameplay styles and victories, at the same time that are related to your selected ideologies. For example:

- The mutually exclusive Centralism and Federalism high tier ideologies provide the status of Province or State cities respectively. For the former your Capital city get huge bonus at the cost of lower provicial development and loyalty (also allow to assign Governorns), while the later gives every Statal city a modest yield and loyalty bonus (the Governorns are random but some can provide huge bonuses). Both Provinces and States share all the rest of their characteristics being the traditional cities dirtectly integrated into your empire.​

- Similarly we can have Absolutism and Constitutionalism ideologies.​

For the first, foreign cities can be turned into Vassals to whom Tribute of an specific kind (troops, money food, production, culture or science) can be requested. The loyalty of Vassal cities can be raised by Consorts (exclusive Monarchy envoys with some random trait that can trigger events). The Consorts can be also used to improve happiness of your own Warrior class (nobility marriage) or Clergy class (religious vows).​

Meanwhile for the later foreign cities can be turned into Protectorates that provide huge trade route and corporation exclusiveness with extra bonus to resources from those cities. Also Constitutionalism increase the effectiveness of regular envoys making easier to turn a Nation (CS) into a Protectorate by pure diplomatic influence, turning this path into a Diplomatic and Economic victory wise.​

- Another duo are Colonialism and Internationalism ideologies. For the initial case you get oversea Colony cities with huge immigration, Taxes(yield) and cultural conversion bonus at the cost of lower loyalty. For the final case you get Member states (cities) of your Commonwealth, this is the more autonomous and friendly form of imperial control, turning these "minor civs" into part of your sphere of influence, this include secured support to your goals in the World Congress and a pact of mutual defense. Internationalism itself gives diplomatic bonus making this a great way to achive Diplomatic victory.​

The whole idea is to have less of a mindless accumulation of tons of progressively "superior" and contradictory policy cards. Instead the ideologies are less but they come from real events related to denizens and their effects are more significative and flavorful.

 

[dagriggstar]

I always felt like the best version of policy cards would be if you took the government legacy bonus system from the base game and applied it to the cards themselves. For instance, for every turn you have slotted agoge in, you gain +1% production towards ancient/classical infantry units. That would leave you with having to choose between fewer more powerful bonuses or lots of small bonuses.

Civ 5 is the only one trying to simulate building a culture with culture points. Something like feminism, it doesn't really belong as a government choice, it's more of a social/cultural choice. Same with code/case law. Should the rich be looked up to as role models or are they simply greedy ? It's more about what your society believes. It's kind of bottom up rather than top down like the other games.

Which brings up something for me - does it actually make sense for culture (as a yield) to unlock government stuff ? Do great works of music lead to government reform ? Should there be some kind of political power yield ? Should the ability to change government peacefully be locked behind keeping your people happy (And face a civil war if unhappy) ?

 

[pokiehl]

I always felt like the best version of policy cards would be if you took the government legacy bonus system from the base game and applied it to the cards themselves.

That is a pretty interesting idea. I don't like policy cards at all but this change would certainly improve them.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

- Classes represent a few basic groups:* Laborers; work in farms, plantations, mines, quarries, etc. Later can also work in factories.

I always felt like the best version of policy cards would be if you took the government legacy bonus system from the base game and applied it to the cards themselves. For instance, for every turn you have slotted agoge in, you gain +1% production towards ancient/classical infantry units. That would leave you with having to choose between fewer more powerful bonuses or lots of small bonuses.

The policy cards, government type, and districts/buildings you build should star to create the demographics of your civ. Those demographics will start to effect how you're civ operates in the future.

 

[Krajzen]

Civ4 system offered too few options, civ5 system was too rigid (no flexibility), civ6 system was too open (no consequences at all, can change all gov stuff on a whim).

So I'd like to see something between civ5 and civ6, where you have long term consequences of your investments but can also sometimes radically change your gov at a high price.

For example, you choose government forms and "level them up", gaining "experience" in them (your civilization masters certain political system), but as new gov forms are unlocked by tech tree you may decide to switch to them, however this costs time and resources and certain transitions are more painful than others (for example it is much easier to switch to democracy from constitutional rather than absolute monarchy)

 

[BestMan13]

Honestly, I want something that feels more natural and organic. Say, your civ could evolve into it's socio-political system over time, rather than having to choose from a laundry-list of pre-approved ideologies that become useless once you enter the next age. This could be accomplished via something similar to the civics system, but probably much more expansive and modular. Just imagine all of the crazy ideologies that you could potentially invent during a game.

 

[Quintillus]

I think Krazjen nailed it. Civ4 is probably the closest to the ideal form of the existing games. You have, what, 5 choices across each of 5 categories? So 25 total.

Civ VI has 17 military, 25 economic, 12 diplomatic, and 9+ wildcard policies by the end (if you haven't run out of great people), and more than that if you count the ones that have gone obsolete. So... 63+ total. And you can change them any time you finish a cultural tech, as wildly as you want to change them, and you can mix and match them however you want. You could be a theocracy and have no religious policies, or a communist state with free market and market economy policies. Which I suppose one could argue describes China today, but in-game it's too many choices and probably too few restrictions based on the top level category. The only real penalty to changing seems to be anarchy if you return to a previous form of government, or for some reason want to pay to unlock a change early.

At first I liked the idea of V's government trees, but I found them to be boring in practice, indeed, not flexible enough, and perhaps also not consequential enough. IV did a good job of making it so the playstyle was different between the different civics; a Vassalage Theocracy played significantly different than a Caste System Republic. In III and earlier, while there was less detail, the governments also were noticeably different. In V, it was all so incremental... I could never get excited about choosing Rationalism or Tradition or Liberty or Autocracy in practice. While VI has too much choice, at least they do let you lean into certain playstyles.

Thus overall, I'd make the IV civics model the basis, likely with a little more detail but less than VI. Still having top-level government forms is arguably a good idea, and certain policies can require having or not having certain top-level forms. Is your Communist state about communism in one country, or worldwide revolution? Is your monarchy absolute, or constitutional? Is your representative system an Athenian style direct democracy, a confederation of realms that each have a large degree of autonomy, or a parliamentary system?

I'd probably lean towards a gradually-decreasing happiness penalty, or perhaps productivity penalty, for switches. Change a civic? A minor, quickly disappearing penalty unless you've flip-flopped in that civic's category recently. Change a sub-form of government? A moderate adjustment. Change the whole form of government? A larger penalty. Enough to make you plan a bit longer term than in VI where you can completely change your policies every 5-10 turns.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Rethinking the ideologies as actual significative elements to personalize your government, here are some aspects with exclusive options that provide different mechanics to interact with:

> Administration Structure (status of the cities that are under your direct control and how are they governed)
- CENTRALISM
* Cities are titled as Provinces, being able to assign one of our magistrates as governorn to provide specific bonuses.
* Bonus to every capital city's yield
Since the number of magistrates is small this ideology works better for "tall" gameplay.
- FEDERALISM
* Cities are titled as States, each one have their own random generated governors with their own bonuses.
* Happiness bonus to every city.
The bonus for governors are random and change each era, with a chance of being 70% small bonuses, 20% huge bonuses and 10% negative attributes.
- VASSALISM
* Cities are titled as Vassals, all have a rank (1 to 3) that can be upgraded by spend money, direct cultural influence or send emissaries.
* The rank 1 provide no bonus, the rank 2 provide a small bonus and the rank 3 provide a huge bonus but also have a downside as a negative effect.
There are different bonuses to pick each rank. The rank can have thematic names like for example Barony, County and Duchy.

> Suzerainty Structure (status of the client cities that are under your control by diplomatic or militar actions)
- COLONIALISM
* Outer cities are titled as Colonies, were you can build buildings, train units and get yields like your regular cities, plus can tax and immigration bonus.
* The downsides are that they would revolt at Discontented happiness level instead of Infuriated level, and that colonies do not count for diplomatic actions.
- IMPERIALISM
* Outer cities are titled as Protectorates, works as autonomous entites who can be required Tribute of an specific kind (troops, money, food, production, etc).
* They also provide bonus to trade routes and luxury resources.
- INTERNATIONALISM
* Outer cities are titled as Members, this is the more autonomous and friendly form of control securing their support for your goals in the World Congress.
* Additionaly extra effectiveness of envoys make easier to influence them. Then gaining corporation exclusiveness and deffensive war support.

> Authority Legitimacy (the main element of the game to interact with to manage happiness, with local vs global approaches)
- MONARCHISM
* Cities (in the form of their Governors) are the elements that you influence the most through Consorts an special kind of envoy.
The Consorts can be send to form ties with Houses (royal houses/tribal clans) that start controling a City each one. Each time you send a Consort to an specific House an event with some request from that house would be make, fulfill it would provide bonus to any city controled by that House.
- REPUBLICANISM
* Denizens (in the form of their Identitarian parameters) are the elements that you manage thorugh Legislators representing your national identities.
The Legislators represent in a display each one of the different denizen Classes, Beliefs and Heritages on your whole civilization (own cities only, not outer cities). In this display you can access to the needs of each sector, satisfy them would provide extra bonus from those denizens.

> Authority Source (the way to gain extra benefits)
- ABSOLUTISM
* Players can do Decrees, that are big bonuses for an specific theme but that are limited to only one active, can not be changed in many* turns and have some kind of disadvantege.
- ELITISM
* Players can do Pacts, those are made with Elite classes, an status for some Classes (social castes). Different secondary ideologies determine which classes are elites. Elitism ideology provide happiness bonus to elites automaticaly, additionaly Pacts provide bonuses in exchange of privileges (like less taxes).
- CONSTITUTIONALISM
* Pleyers can do Elections, that are a list of Laws (bonuses) that can be Approved (unlocked) when certain happiness level for certain denizens groups are achieved. So here the key is to keep happy your population, the bonuses are permanent unless you change your ideology or people revolt.

Like we can see the ideologies here are a way to play and gain many more bonuses.

 

[pokiehl]

I get you're trying to make your posts clear, but I find all of the markup with bold and italics and underlining and capitalization to actually be more distracting than anything else. Makes it really hard to get through your long posts when every other word is emphasized.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Some changes. First using the name Civics instead of Ideologies to preserve more of CIV's traditonal nomenclature plus allow to use Ideology as a main category. Second, there are six main categories covering the most significative aspects of your government with tripartite and mutually exclusive options (similarly to CIV4 system), while there are also a secondary free category where you can put a set of "free" civics (similarly to CIV6 free policy cards) and the different free civics you can get are linked to your main civics (similarly to CIV5 policy trees). Each main civic is a whole different way to play some aspect of the game with exclusive mechanics, while free civics are mostly limited to bonuses.

The main civic categories are these:

Society	Pastoralism	Agrarianism	Maritimism
Polity	Clericalism	Monarchism	Republicanism
Authority	Absolutism	Elitism	Constitutionalism
Ideology	Fascism	Capitalism	Socialism
Loyalty	Centralism	Vassalism	Federalism
Dependancy	Colonialism	Imperialism	Multilateralism

- Society civics are obtained at Neolithic* Era from the food resource used by the settlement that turn into your first City, for example Maize provide Agrarianism, Camels Pastoralism and Fish Maritimism. Between others characteristics Agrarian societies have Food and Production bonus, Pastoral societies have militar focus like their pastorial villages that have warrior denizens instead of laborer denizens plus they can train Horse Archers, and the Maritime societies have trade focus plus allows to train Canoes an earlier naval line unit.
- Polity civics are available since Classical Era being related to the emergence of formal philosophical schools and organized religions. In gameplay terms they are related to how the player manages happiness and gain bonus from this. For Monarchies is a local (city by city) based focus through Consorts and royal Houses, for Republics is a civ wide focus by means of Legistators representing each kind of denizens, and about Theocracies is achieving religious objetives knows as Commandments.
- Authority civics are unlocked from Renaissance Era onwards as the sources of authority that sustain your government. Absolutism allows to do a Decree certain number of turns, with Elitism you can do Pacts with your denizen elite classes for bonus in exchange of certain privileges, and for Constitutionalism happy denizen group provide bonus from their Elections.
- Ideology civics are disponible with Modern* Era covering the main ideological currents that arose from the challenges of the industrialized societies. Here Capitalism needs you to facilitate the apogee of Corporations to gain bonuses (mainly in term of yields), meanwhile for Socialism the objetive is satisfy your denizens (mostly Labourers) needs to unlock the bonuses, and regarding Fascism the focus is to have only one national heritage and official belief to impress with your actions (mostly at the expense of others denizens and players).
- Loyalty civics are about the administration of the cities that are fundamental part of your homeland. With Centralism turn the cities into Provinces that can be assigned to one of your Ministers, for Vassalism the cities become Vassals that can be elevated in rank using different ways, and in the case of Federalism cities are States that generate their own governors with random bonuses.
- Dependancy civics represent the level of suzerainty allowed to the minor nations you control. For Colonialism your Colonies can be controled as regular cities, plus tax and immgration bonuses (but higher discontent), meanwhile Imperialism allows to demand tribute of a specific kind from your Protectorates, regarding Multilateralism this options provide the most autonomy to the Members of your Commonwealth that would support your World Congress goals and help you in any defensive war being a great diplomatic option.

The free civics (secondary civics) comes from the main civics being compatible/related to those in some narrative logical way through decision events. Between many others include things like:
Parlamentarism, Presidentialism, Enviromentalism, Pluralism, Humanism, Activism, Suffragism, Abolitionism, Progressivism, Liberalism, Egalitarianism, Legalism, Manorialism, Supremacism, Populism, Consumerism, Marcantilism, Slaverism, Protectionism, Corporatism, Lobbism, Nationalism, Patriotism, Globalism, Interventionism, Isolationism, Secularism, Laicism, Fundamentalism, Syncretism, Monasticism, Esotericism, Mysticism, Occultism, Monotheism, Dualism, Proselytism, Romanticism, Positivism, Syndicalism, Pacifism, Jingoism, Totalitarianism, etc.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Political Systems in this game should be evolutionary. Sure you can't use Chiefdom to run an Egyptian Empire, or any similiarly superpowers like Babylon, Sumeria, Assyria, Hittites. Whenever player controls second city. or grow his/her first city from a little village with less than ten household into a settlement with first hundreads or thousands with stonewalls protected the whole settlements (again the first stone city walls predates nominal 'Game Begins' 4000 BC (Which I'm now disagreed with after a couple of years discussing with Sensei @Boris Gudenuf ). Tribal governance became inadequate. Actually 'Monarchy' or 'Republic' should begin at some point before 1000 BC. with earliest monarchy being 'God King' monarchy. then when first religion came to be and then much of the society began to believe that God (s) dwell outside our world and are immortal, while their kings aren't 'Divine Monarchy' sooon needs the term 'Rights' between, also the concept of Republics were tested that which first republics were made with the principles of 'Governance shouldn't be the exclusive rights of JUST ONE FAMILY'. though i'm not sure if the first Republics are one and same with Oligarchy.
When society propgresses, 'Monarchy' too took two branch of evolutions.
- Absolute Monarchy. system which originated with the rise of gunpowder weaponry, ended when the system no longer supports popular demands of the Industrialized society.
- Constitutional Monarchy. so often it associated with Democracy (though not always, Italy under Fascism Era, and Early Showa Japan, as well as my homeland). this system took very long to evolve, and the end results vary from country to country. Basically a compromise between popular represtatives and monarchy. though degrees of Royal Sovereignity VS Parliamentary Authority varies from country to country, depending on social progress of each individual country.
Basically Political System should have Obsolescent feature in each passing eras.