What's with the annoying world civic limits?

[winddbourne]

It seems as though the end game departs from our traditional alternate history, choose your own path, Civilization game. When you build the united nations you are given the options to vote in global civics, unfortunately the only ones you can vote in are the ones our current history would accept; free religion, free speech, amancipation, etc . . .

How would the rest of you like to see alternate histories where someone votes in universal slavery? World monarchy? Global theocracy? Maybe world wide mercantilism?

Who is to say that the civilization that sweeps to global power is one that has the exact same values we have in modern America today? Seeing anyone impose a civic on ME is annoying, but if it's going to happen from time to time I'd at least like it to be a surprise which civics sweep to power.

What does everyone else think? Does this annoy the rest of you?

 

[UnitQ]

Yes it does annoy me. I wish you got to pick wich civic u want to vote for.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

Agreed. He who is in charge should be able to choose the civic. Would make it much more interesting to get elected, too.

 

[Esteban]

Yeah that is a must must must

 

[elderotter]

and how about voting for world religion also? as opposed to free religion

 

[Ray Patterson]

Not entirely I think, there should be some international aspect to the civic chosen. Worldwide mercantilism is just an oxymoron. And on religion only free religion would make sense, as long as states have different religions anyway.

 

[Psyringe]

I agree, more flexibility regarding global civivs would be nice. It's good to have the functionality already, but currently it's a little under-developed.

 

[TheFourGuardian]

Speaking of, I created a mod to fix that very thing.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=143682

 

[oper]

maybe because those are the UN's goals? the UN is about freedom from slavery, religious percecution, ect. and it strives for equality among all people. If the other civics are your ideal civic, you wouldn't have built the UN in the first place, now would you?

 

[ranathari]

Who said you had to build the UN in order to get to propose a vote? If someone else builds it, you can still be up for election if your Civ is sufficiently large enough and if you're popular enough then you can still win the election. I've played games as a religious hegemonist and gotten voted president of the UN by those Civs who converted early enough to avoid war with me - there's no way I'm going to vote for Free Religion and for Emancipation - it's going to be slavery and theocracy all the way.

 

[Psyringe]

maybe because those are the UN's goals? the UN is about freedom from slavery, religious percecution, ect. and it strives for equality among all people. If the other civics are your ideal civic, you wouldn't have built the UN in the first place, now would you?

In our world, yes. But part of the fun of Civ games lies in writing alternate histories. In such an alternate history, it is entirely conceivable that a religious super power founds the UN (or something similar) in order to save other nations from certain doom because of their false beliefs. It's also absolutely possible to view such a global political structure solely as an instrument for power politics.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Why would a country with slavery want to enforce it on everyone else?

 

[Psyringe]

Why would a country with slavery want to enforce it on everyone else?

Slavery may be tied closely to their beliefs and ideology, and perhaps they cannot stand others having diffferent beliefs.

They may think that slavery is simply the best way to run a country and think that they do other countries something good if they convince them of the "right" ways.

They may fear the unhappiness that the existence of slavery-free countries creates among the local slaves.

 

[Ray Patterson]

not entirely sure if that is possible. There is something universal about emancipation and free religion I believe, stubbornly ideological as it may seem (hey it even suprises me as I'm writing it down). Institutions like a caste system and theocracy are very culture and locality bound by their very nature. In the economical sphere as I've said, mercantilism is obviously local. How can you let everyone agree to try and keep their economies self-sufficient, minimizing exports, which would hurt everyone, but themselves a little less than others? Free market vs. state property could be an interesting one, it might be possible to get the entire world behind a state property system in theory, would be sort of international socialism I guess... the stalinist way then of course. Bureaucracy could be feasible, maybe vassalage, but definitely not nationhood, that's the antithesis of the UN. Government is the only branch where all civics could be universal I think.

Would be nice in a Holy Roman Empire scenario to have someone elected emperor and then decree hereditary rule, vassalage and serfdom. Except that's not what happened: vassalage and serfdom were advantagious to the princes, not the emperor. If he would have had the choice, it would have been emancipation all the way, and possibly free speech (that is actually a tricky one as eg Charles V seemed a morbid opponent of free speech & free religion.) Large powers benefit from liberal institutions, as it makes it more difficult for smaller ones to keep their state together.

 

[kolpo]

Why would a country with slavery want to enforce it on everyone else?

Because it shall prevend other civilizations from choicing emancipation, so this civilization would be immune against emancipation unhappiness.

Imagine if south would have won the US civil war. Would it then not try to prevent emancipation in other countries because this could increase the pro-emancipation sentiment in the US.

 

[El_Machinae]

Ah, things that the 'real world' wouldn't accept! That would be cool. A common complaint is how 'preachy' the end game sometimes is (personally, I don't mind a little preachiness, considering that 80% of the players are going to be voting consumers when they're older).

I do like the ability to create things that might not happen in the real world (cou-Space Elevator-gh, etc.) because of political will

 

[MNGhost]

Imagine if south would have won the US civil war. Would it then not try to prevent emancipation in other countries because this could increase the pro-emancipation sentiment in the US.

I doubt it, actually. Most other countries had already given up slavery by that point, so it would have been a little late to try and prevent emancipation elsewhere. Besides, the whole reason the Southern states seceded was because they didn't like Washington (which was most strongly influenced by the North because they had more population, more representation) meddling in what they saw as their own affairs. If the secession had been successful, I doubt they would have turned around and tried to meddle in other countries' affairs. They just wanted to be left alone.

As for the UN, I have to agree that there should be more options for declaring global civics. Maybe not all make sense (though, I think all of them could be feasible), but there should definitely be more to select. Who says in my alternate history I create that the UN is an entirely benevolent organization? Maybe I'm a secretary-general with an iron fist.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Why would a country with slavery want to enforce it on everyone else?

Well in the Game there is a VERY good reason, If I have slavery, and my neighbor has Emancipation, then my people are unhappy... If all my neighbors were slave holders as well... No problems

Also a UN Global religion (asuming no Global 'Free Religion' civic) makes perfect sense:all peoples united under one religion Very UNish (as the joke goes, The Israelis and Palestinians can finally make peace because its the Christian thing to do). Especially in the game sense, if the UN forces the same religion on Everyone, that is a Major move towards World Peace..because All wars will be against B+S in the faith.

The idea of the Global Civic is the UN ideal regardless of what the Civic is. (Mind you not current UN but the game UN which is based around the idea of a single Civ ruling the World as the others submit to it.)

Now I agree Global Mercantilism seems contradictory, but think of it as "Global Self Sufficiency" each community will be able to support itself (like the idea of Self determination) and that would help everyone, after all (game) they get a free specialist, and (rl) they don't have to worry about fluctuating currency levels, tanking local economies.

I mean, a Truly Peace Based UN would have something like
1-One World Religion (get the diplomacy bonuses/war penalties with everyone)
2-World Pacifism (more costly units)
3-World Free Market (Foreign Trade routes don't want to be disrupted, and you need those traded health reources)
4-World Caste System (Emancipation/Serfdom would mean that you don't mind those improvements getting razed as much, Specialists still take a while to rebuild if they starve though)
5-World Bureaucracy (smaller civs get as much of a bonus a bigger civs leveling the playing field)
6-World Hereditary Rule (encourage large Defensive armies, meaning war is going to be very hard.)

 

[kolpo]

I doubt it, actually. Most other countries had already given up slavery by that point, so it would have been a little late to try and prevent emancipation elsewhere. Besides, the whole reason the Southern states seceded was because they didn't like Washington (which was most strongly influenced by the North because they had more population, more representation) meddling in what they saw as their own affairs. If the secession had been successful, I doubt they would have turned around and tried to meddle in other countries' affairs. They just wanted to be left alone.

You actually give here a very good reason why they would care about other nations their emancipation after the war. You are right that many nations already had emancipation but that was one of the big reasons why more and more American people wanted emancipation, ideas don't stop at the border of countries, they instead spread to other countries. Especially Britain it's emancipation had a huge influence on American public opinion. Just like the american revolution caused indirectly the French revolution, caused Britain it's emancipation indirectly American emancipation.

The relation between Britisch and American emancipation can clearly be seen in this timeline: http://www.antislavery.org/breakingthesilence/main/PickandMix/Emancipation Timeline.doc

 

[MNGhost]

You actually give here a very good reason why they would care about other nations their emancipation after the war. You are right that many nations already had emancipation but that was one of the big reasons why more and more American people wanted emancipation, ideas don't stop at the border of countries, they instead spread to other countries. Especially Britain it's emancipation had a huge influence on American public opinion. Just like the american revolution caused indirectly the French revolution, caused Britain it's emancipation indirectly American emancipation.

The relation between Britisch and American emancipation can clearly be seen in this timeline: http://www.antislavery.org/breakingthesilence/main/PickandMix/Emancipation Timeline.doc

Well, sure. But my point is it was far too late to try and get other countries to give up on abolition. The US plantations were one of the last bastions of slavery left in the world. And I doubt they would have tried to turn any other countries back to slavery. Abolition would have come to the South eventually too, I am sure, but it was definitely expedited by the results of the Civil War.