{The List -} Government & Social Engineering

[Flinx]

2.Society ( similar to SMAC's Social Engineering model proposals)

I am in favor of a system similar to this.

In Civ3 each new government type is either clearly superior in every way (republic, democracy) to your current gov type or clearly inferior/pointless (monarchy, communism) due to the chaos penalty for switching. No matter what strategy you are using you always choose the same governments; delaying 4 turns for a wonder race is about the only thing you have to think about.

Is there a country that does not claim it's government is not a democracy? Even dictators have elections, they just limit who can vote (through disenfranchisement or intimidation) or the power of the elected assembly or who can run for office. Why not just have sliders/check boxes for power held by various branches of government, who can/cannot vote, level of state oppression/control (police/military), etc., etc., etc.

If you want to be a malevolent dictator or benevolent despot in modern times that is your choice.

[Kramerman]

what about government Utopia?

[Az]

I'm really sorry that I haven't updated the list in the last week. I had some severe computer problems, and very little time. I hope you folks understand, I'll correct my computer's prodigal ways soon, I hope.

thanks, and sorry.

[Odin]

I like SE because you don't have the "stereotypical" governments in other games. As one of the posters said before, why can't we be benevolent dictators or leaders of a communist democracy?

Here are my ideas for choices:

Government
Absolutism
Oligarchy
Democracy

Economy
Autarky
Mercantilism
Communism
Socialism
Welfare State
Regulated Capitalism
Capitalism

State Structure
Unitary
Federal
Confederation

Values of Society (pick 2)
Scientific
Materialistic/Consumerist
Religious
Nationalistic
Progressive
Traditional
Militaristic

[Pedrunn]

Divide Rligion from Economic system and make combos:

Government
   Democracy
   Oligarchy (Aristocracy)
   Monarchy (Dictatorship)
   Theocracy
   Technocracy
Economy
    Ancient Asian (Please rename it - Collective Servitude?)
    Slavery
    Feudalism
    Mercantilism
    Capitalism
    Socialism

Capitalist Democracy (USA today), Capitalist Monarchy (80's Latin America dictatorships), Comunist Monarchy (communist Russia), Feudalist Monarchy (Medieval Europe), Absolute Monarchy (Renaissance Europe) Slavery Monarchy (Roman Empire), Capitalist Theocracy (fundamentalist countries today), Absolute theocracy (Calvine's belgium?), Comunist Democracy (Marx utopia), etc...

PS: Odin , What is autarky? And how come you didnt add Feudalism, Ancient asia (All the people are servants of the govern - eg. Egypt) and slave-based classical age economy (eg. rome)

[Brent]

Let your government control your governors when you don't directly control production.

[lajzar]

Here's an idea. Governor independance. When you have a representative government, there is a % chance when something is finished that the governor will choose the next item, and the player cannot change that until it is finished. This governor won't choose limited production items such as wonders. Sample percentages might be:

Anarchy 0
Despotism 0
Monarchy 0
Republic 10
Fascism 5
Democracy 20

Theocracy 0
Fundamentalism 0
Blood Cult 0

Technocracy 5
Virtual Democracy 25
Corporate Republic 5
Feudalism 20
City State 5

Optionally, the player might be able to cancel production at a severe happoness penalty.

Another idea. Have a revolt threshold stat for governments. When that percentage of teh population is in cities with disorder, the government automatically collapses into anarchy. For a democracy, this might be 10%. For a despotism, 90%. Most governments should be around 50%. It struck me as silly how you could have every city in disorder for multiple turns, with no penalty beyond production.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

My idea for governments and Social Engineering is more along the lines of what I call 'Social Intereaction'. The notion is that your Civilization, city structure and government type-along with your laws-will effect the citizens within it. More importantly, though, is the notion of your citizens having a role in deciding the course of your empire. I actually suggested this way back when Civ3 was being created, so I can't really vouch for the accuracy-I'll do my best, though.

Firstly, you would have several 'Factions' within your society-each of which will have a varying amount of 'Influence' on the shape and direction of your Empire.
Some factions might include: Labourers, Military, Scientists, Nobility/Wealthy, ?Environmentalists? and Merchants/Beaurucrats. The base level of 'Influence' each faction has would be based on your Civ Traits. For instance, A commercial/Industrial Civ will have a very influential Labourer and Merchant faction! This base influence alters according to government type and the number of relevent improvements you build. Again, as an example, if the previous Civ built LOTS of military and Scientific improvements/Wonders, then the influence of its merchants/labourers might begin to decline, whilst its scientific/military factions will grow in strength!
Technology and diplomacy choices you make, as well as laws you pass (if applicable) might also effect the demographics of your society! I have to go, for now, but when I come back, I'll discuss my ideas on what effects 'Influence' would have on the game!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Trifna]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Divide Rligion from Economic system and make combos:

Code:

Government Democracy Oligarchy (Aristocracy) Monarchy (Dictatorship) Theocracy Technocracy Economy Ancient Asian (Please rename it - Collective Servitude?) Slavery Feudalism Mercantilism Capitalism Socialism

Capitalist Democracy (USA today), Capitalist Monarchy (80's Latin America dictatorships), Comunist Monarchy (communist Russia), Feudalist Monarchy (Medieval Europe), Absolute Monarchy (Renaissance Europe) Slavery Monarchy (Roman Empire), Capitalist Theocracy (fundamentalist countries today), Absolute theocracy (Calvine's belgium?), Comunist Democracy (Marx utopia), etc...

PS: Odin , What is autarky? And how come you didnt add Feudalism, Ancient asia (All the people are servants of the govern - eg. Egypt) and slave-based classical age economy (eg. rome)

Pedrunn, would that pretty much be what I proposed more extensively on page 2 of this thread?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

So, what is this Factional Influence I'm talking about?

First up, there would be 'City-level' factions and 'Empire-Wide' Factions. The influence number (and integer between 0.0 and 1.0) of a particular faction, both at city and national level, would have the following effects.

1) It determines the amount of money raised from taxes at a national and city level. i.e.-each faction would have a 'revenue number' to determine how much gpt they are worth (at, say, 10% tax). Obviously wealthy factions, like merchants and the Nobility, will have a higher RN than labourers and farmers (beurocrats, relgious and organized crime factions would be in the middle!) This 'RN' would be increased by that factions influence number.

2) Any city's set to governer will have a % chance, based on the most powerful factions' Influence number, of setting the production queue to something that THEY want.

3) There is also a % chance of the most powerful factions' thwarting your attempts to build certain improvements and/or research certain techs.

4) The most influential factions will also have a % chance of demand you change to certain types of goverments and/or raising/lowering taxes (both at a city or Civ-wide level).

5) When a city goes into revolt, the faction which has the most influence, in that city, will determine the nature of the revolt. For instance, a revolting city which has a very strong religious faction will risk the possibility of a 'Religious Schism', wheras one where the military is dominant will see all the military units in that city turn 'neutral' (i.e., they go rogue), and start attacking your loyal units and cities!

6) If you have a Civil War, the most influential Factions in the breakaway state will decide the nature of the new civ!

Anyway, those are a few ideas. The notion of 'Absolutity' will also effect influence, though, and I'll discuss that later!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Az]

List updated.

Some of my comments:

I really like the Ideas of Federalism, and classes in society. I think this should have two layers: class and culture+religion+nationality.

This will show us how multicultural societies will work.

[kolpo]

Both Sweden and the USA are democracies but there economies are regulated on very different ways and there economical ideologies are very different. In civ3 is that difference is not repressented.

But because this is civ3 and not some paradox game has it to remain simple, only a few economical idealogies and all must have very simple effects.

You don't have to include complete economic models in civ3 for that you can let them work on a very simple ways, I suggest to only include the 3 most basic economic ideologies and to give them very simple effects like:

capitalism: +30% luxeries, no maintenance for factories, universities and energy plants(all private)
human capitalism: every unhappy citizens becomes content at the cost of 1 gold with the exception of war unhappyness(social security). Double maintenace cost for universities.
communism: less trade,more production.

To avoid discussions about which economic ideology is the best should all be perfectly balanced, all should have there use and none of them should be the best this is a game after all and not a simulation.

[Inverse Icarus]

i'm suprised theres not more support for social engineering to completely replace the governments.

why should we limit ourselves to predefined governments, when we could set it up so different levels of technology allow different edicts / policies, which would invariably control the government?

if you wanted to eventually for a republic, there would be certain edicts / policies that would allow you to act as one, all along the way, getting better (perhaps more and more efficient?) as time went on and your technology got better.

with social engineering for governments, you wouldn't be bound to 6 or 7 governments, you could essentially greate your own.

why draw a line such as COMMUNISM | DEMOCRACY? what about Democratic Socialisms?

[Trifna]

Uber, there's alot of support for it... I just already wrote what I had

Here's what I had written, which can be simple and cover EVERYTHING a society is (I think).

Originally posted by Trifna
I think I can update and resume my way of looking at this:



Goal

The goal is to look at what forms a government and to see how we could bring all this government in a few aspects. The ones I see are "System of values", "Justification of power", "Control system [justice, police...]", "Statecraft", "Administrative structure", "Economic system".




Definitions

- System of values: what forms the core belief for someone's life
- Justification of power: what is the rulers' justification for their power
- Control system: how citizens are controlled (justice, police...)
- Statecraft: who is put to direct the state, which necessarily implies how the state is ruled and its philosophy
- Administrative structure: the way power is divided between the main part the subdivisions
- Economic system: how economy is ruled





Difference with Civ 3 system, and this system's way to look at the problem

The main difference here is that it is about showing what structures and forms the government, not about showing a few possible results to chose from. In other words, it is not about creating categories like "fascism" and "democracy" as in precedent titles, but to show what is forming societies and, of course, someone can bring fascism or representative democracy (or what pleases him) by puting what forms that. ANY society can be built through such a system, in its broad aspects. Everything that forms a government should be there in a simple way.




Example that I brang earlier (updated, and not perfect)

*System of values*
religion - science - nobility [goes from European nobles to Confucius] - individualistic freedom - nationalism

*Justification of power*
theocratic - nationalist - militarily enforced - representativity - self-governance - nobility - technocratic

*Control system*
theocratic - oligarchic - martial - tribal or local - free for all [each locality organized itself as they wish and can]

*Statecraft*
totalitarian [includes king only, pope or else, depending on "justification of power"] - oligarchic [includes king + nobles or whattever else] - moderate democracy [some have more power, like actual democracies] - total democracy

*Administrative structure*
centralized - federation - republic - [Switzerland-like] - decentralized [includes anarchist local self-government, tribal local governance...]

*Economic system*
communism - soft-line communism [not following completely] - wealth state - moderate capitalism - complete capitalism

Six factors making a complete and coherent society. Not just "Democratic" or "Monarchic". It seems pretty straight forward, but it wasn't discussed very much.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, to finish my thoughts on Governments and Social Engineering, I would like to add the following things.

First up, I like the idea of specific, delineated government types-but merely as a STARTING point! As I've been saying, however, I feel that the way a particular government actually looks will be based on the confluence of the desires of both the players and the people he rules!

Anyway, on that subject, the next influence on factional influence would be what I call the 'Absolutity Index' (AI)! Basically, the more 'Totalitarian' the government type, the lower the overall influence of the various factions within your society. Each government type, though, will have a different AI for each faction, amounting to a number of positive and negative modifiers to the influence of each faction! For instance a Theocracy would GREATLY increase the influence of the religious faction, whilst reducing that of both the administrati and wealthy elite. A feudal society, on the other hand, would greatly increase the influence of the Wealthy Elite (nobility), whilst reducing that of the labourers and farmers (a monarchy, unlike Feudal rule, would reduce almost every factions influence).
It would be possible, however, to go into the government (Social Engineering) screen, and manually adjust each factions influence manually, up or down to the limits allowd by that government type! For example, if you wanted your democracy to be opposed to 'Freedom of Religion', then you might reduce the influence of the Religious faction! Be warned, though, that reducing a factions influence will increase it's unhappiness-which could lead to them revolting in cities where they are strong (and even Civil War!!)
In addition to it's AI, each gov. type would be delineated along both the lines they are in Civ3 (Base Corruption, unit maintainence, Science/luxury rate and hurry method) but also in the area of Laws/Edicts you can introduce under that government, and also
Gov-Specific Units/Improvements and Wonders. These could have a number of different effects-from substantially increasing/decreasing Factional Influence, Happiness, tax revenues and corruption-just to name a few.
Just on a final note. I think it should be possible to set taxes the way they are in REAL LIFE (to some degree, anyway). For instance, under taxation you have a bar from 0-100%, and you can set the AVERAGE tax rate paid by your citizens. Then, in the Factions Screen, you can further adjust the tax rates for each factional group-up or down (though this WILL effect happiness)! In addition, you can also adjust the tax rate paid by each CITY (creating interesting situations where you might grossly 'overtax' new colonies, or recently captured cities, whilst letting most of your people off the hook!) As in Civ1-3, your Gov type will effect the maximum 'average' tax rates that you can set. There should also be a seperate 'Budget' screen, where you can allocate a proportion of your budget to various areas-such as Law and Order (Reduces Corruption, increases effectiveness of policemen); Public Works (increases build rates of tile and city improvements); Education/Science (Boosts research rates and improves effectiveness of Research Improvements/Wonders)-just to name a few!

Anyway, I hope you guys like my ideas !

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[lajzar]

That's a nice list, but can you point to some specific game effects that all those options would have? It's all very well saying I have a religious democracy with a socialist economy and martial law, but it's hard to envision what game effect that would have. That's my constructive criticism bit. Also, you need to determine a real penaluty for changing government. SMAC/AX had a token money payment which was no penalty at all.

In favour of Civ1/2/3 style archetypes: Some of those combinations just don't make sense together, such as representative theocracy. Some of them might reasonably be expected to give different bonuses in specific combinations. This also makes it hard to mod effectively.

From a modder's point of view, social engineering is to government as the unit workshop is to units. It forces you into whatever archetypes and terminology the game designer decided are relevant, and it leaves the overall options very open.

[Fosse]

The effects would be similar to SMAC, of course.

A list of attributes could be come up with to mirror SMAC's Efficiency, Support, Police, Planet, etc. The names of the list would be tweaked to reflect the subject of the game.

Each attribute has a scale of, say, -5 to 5. Each integer in between has a different effect on the empire. Each Goverment choice modifies one or more of those attributes.

It worked in SMAC, it would work in Civ 4. Effects would be military police limits, war weariness levels, research rate, Intelligence (how well can they spy vs. how well do you spy), Industry (build times), Commerce rates, environmental impact, corruption, and so on.

In response to the argument that "some combonations make no sense." Yeah, that's true. But it also doesn't make sense for EVERY single democracy to be EXACTLY the same. Or for Democracy to go hand in hand with capitalism, or Monarchy with military police (benevolent kings, anyone?).


And a system like that (using any combonation of the many values suggested in this thread) doesn't have to be detrimental to modders. Want a new government type? Okay, go into the editor and decide what it does to commerce, to industry, to war weariness, etc. Just like in Civ 3 now. The difference is that each value in this case has enough latitude within it to make for many meaningfully different choices. If you try to create more governments in Civ 3 you wind up with only the tiniest differences (It's Republic, but with worse corruption! Ohh! What about a communism with a trade bonus? Ahh!)
Besides, you wouldn't USE the combonations that don't make sense. But in SMAC, with only 9 real choices for most of the game, you had some real choices. You could be an efficient democracy that loved war, or that loved money. Both had very different ways of playing. You could be totalitarian, but run a free market that forces you to keep your troops at home. A fundamentalist might decide being rich is more important than being powerful. There were LOTS of meaningful choices, as oppposed to about six in the Civ series (less really, since often the game comes down to one "correct" government. Like Republic is to many of the top players today).

Regarding a penalty for switching values... yeah, the gold in SMAC only mattered in the early game, if at all. Perhaps making the switch cost a percentage of your total commerce per turn(gold and science averaged over five turns, to prevent exploits like removing all of your workers from their squares on the turn you switch). The gold payment isn't the most logical, of course, but it's a balance issue really.

You could also have different penalties for different categories. Changing goverments might result in something similart to Civ 3's anarchy. Changing economic systems might require a huge amount of gold (so you could get "stuck" in a bad economic system!), changing Civ values (religion, freedom, military strength, whatever) might cause five turns of increased unrest.

Real penalties that make sense.

[lajzar]

Hmm, you appear to be working on the assumption that I think the existing 5-6 government types as they are is sufficient. No way. They are barely adequate. My first choice is for a CTP approach to governments, but mkore so. Drop some of the wackier SF governments (unless we are doing a futuristic option), and broaden the amount of historical govs.

I don't have time to work on this fully right now (gotta get ready for work), but I'll have a go at working up both sets (CTP style and SMAC style) later, and let me know what you think, k?

As one basic eample of where your ideas could be improved, the capitalism/communism economic contrast didn't even make sense to anyone before 1800 or so. But before that, there were still many economic models to choose from. And there are quite a few models within capitalism.

You might want to look up the original set of suggestions sent to Firaxis for civ3.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

As I've said above, I think that a COMPROMISE between SMAC and Civ3 would work best! That is to say that you have a number of Government 'Templates' (oh and, BTW, I agreee that we, at LEAST, need more Government Types, especiallh in the early game )-for want of a better word-which delineate how your society operates under 'Ideal Conditions'. The areas of deliniation would be those described by Fosse, such as Spy Abilities, Corruption Levels, Worker Hurry methods, War Weariness and the like. That is NOT the end of the story, though.
The ability to define which groups in your society have the greatest influence on your policies, throughout history, would be fantastic. Also, the ability to really SET TAXES properly, and define who pays less and who pays more, would also be great. Also, no matter what system they adopt, the player should RARELY get the ability to change the government on a whim! It should be your people who tell YOU when they want change, and to what kind of Government. You can ignore them, of course, but with dire consequences (such as Anarchy, Revolt and CW)! If you change to something they don't like, they should be able to demand that you change BACK!!! Thats what I really want, is that sense that you are dealing with real people-not just passive observers. I admit that culture, war weariness and national identity have gone a long way towards creating that impression, but I still feel that MORE work needs to be done-in the ways I've described in my previous posts!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Kuciwalker]

About the various forms of democracy... you know what the difference between a democracy like France (left-leaning) and America (right-leaning)? The lux slider. The leftist democracy would have a higher lux percent ("luxuries" referring to health care and stuff).

[Fosse]

Originally posted by skywalker
you know what the difference between a democracy like France (left-leaning) and America (right-leaning)? The lux slider. The leftist democracy would have a higher lux percent ("luxuries" referring to health care and stuff).

Forgive me if that's a bit too "abstracted" for my tastes. Honestly, that sounds like a justification of a limited system rather than an attempt to represent different types of goverments.

Regarding Lajzar: I played CtP, but don't completely recall how its governments functioned, so I might be a bit off. What I do remember was: MORE differences between them (instead of the, what is it, four or five differences between Civ governements ?(some of which are simply flags and some very granular scales))

I wasn't assuming that you thought Civ 3's current spread of governments were enough, but you were right to point out that my post didn't show that. I will still maintain though, that the ability to choose small differences under one form of government makes more sense than switching to a new one. The more governments that are in the game, the smaller proportion of them that will actually be used. After all, most Civ 3 players have one or two favorites; if you like Republic you stay in it all the time, or if you're a Monarchy fan you stay in it... all the time. Adding Feudalism and Fascism didn't really add moer viable choices, it just increased the number of unused ones (And if you like those ones, you probably stopped using another).

With SE style you really can (and probably should) use several configurations per game. This is also more realistic than switching goverment "kits" outright.

I'll look forward to your proposal though.

Aussie: I like your ideas about expanding on an SE system, with various taxes and what have you. I woul also like to see "laws" you can choose to enact that would have very mild pros and cons (perhaps making the scale of attributes more like -20 - 20, so SE choices could have effects of four or five, and laws of one or two). These wouldn't need to be overly involved. For example: Selecting "Welfare Program" would cost you so much gold per turn (based on population size), make some poor happy, and some rich unhappy. Or choosing "Environmental Controls" would reduce pollution and income.

The one thing I don't like is the idea that you can't change governments when you want to, or that the people could change it for you. I think that having higher costs for changing, like I talked about above, would help out with frequent switches that were possible in SMAC. But I'd be frustrated if my people wanted to be one thing when I wanted to be another. That would remove some fun for me.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Fosse ! As you know I didn't say that you COULDN'T change when you want to-it's just that if you change to a government people DON'T want, or change out of a government your people are very content with, then you should face some VERY dire consequences-such as longer than normal periods of anarchy (up to 3x as long), revolt or , for the truly instransigent, outright civil war! This way, it shows the player that these are people's LIVES he's playing with, and there will be consequences to his actions! It might also help limit this whole Communism/Monarchy=war; Republic/Democracy=Peace-it just makes the game too predictable!!!
What should decide what government you have are things like:
A ranking of preferred/shunned governments for each Civ!! If you change from a less preferred to a more preferred gov type, then the people are less likely to try and thwart the change (it is also more likely that the people will TELL you to change to a more preferred gov type!)
The preferred/shunned Government type of the most influential factions in your Civ should ALSO be a factor. For instance, lets say that you are in a Theocratic Government, with a VERY influential Religious faction. If you try and change to a Modern Republic/Democracy, then they will try and fight you on it (Current day Iran, anyone? ), and might even take some cities with them to form a new, breakaway nation!

[Fosse]

True, but unless Civ 3 comes with an incredible social model, I don't see how this idea would be anything other than frustrating.

To be clear, I agree with what you want, but just see it as being so far beyond what Civ 4 will probably offer that it's hard for me to get excited about it. I like the idea, though.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Fosse
Forgive me if that's a bit too "abstracted" for my tastes. Honestly, that sounds like a justification of a limited system rather than an attempt to represent different types of goverments.

It's completely accurate. No even minor revolution would be required to go from a rightist democracy to a leftist one, and the decision to do so derives directly from the happiness of the people with the current system (if people are unhappy, you increase luxuries) and in that way is an almost perfect simulation of "democracy" in this instance. It isn't even really an abstraction - it's essentially the IRL difference. It even simulates the slower economy that results, by decreasing funds available for taxes and science.

[lajzar]

One idea that will be in my governments proposal is that there will be two mechanisms for changing government. Revolution is the same. In addition, there will be a "Transition" option. You pay a large sum of money, and 1-4 turns later, your government changes to a closely related type. The exact choice of government in a transition is made when you pay, there is no period of anarchy, and the available choices depend on teh previous government. For example, a monarchy can transition to a feudalist government, but could not transition to a communist government.

[Plotinus]

[SIZE=1] What is autarky? And how come you didnt add Feudalism, Ancient asia (All the people are servants of the govern - eg. Egypt) and slave-based classical age economy (eg. rome)

Autarky is when a country is completely economically self-sufficient (handy if you're planning on going to war with anyone). Germany's defeat in 1918 was partly due to all its imports getting stopped, and Hitler was terribly keen to make the country self-sufficient in the 1930s so that it wouldn't happen again.

I notice that *you* forgot constitutional monarchy, such as that "enjoyed" by us in the UK...

[QuixotesGhost]

"Factional Influence" sounds a LOT like the "Ethos" system origanally proposed for MOO3 but was scrapped sometime during the project.

The Ethos System is described in detail here:http://moo3.quicksilver.com/official/religion02.html

I personally think its an awesome idea, one of the best I've ever heard for a MOO, Civ, SMAC, type game

[Trifna]

Wasn't the ethos system pretty complicated for what it gave? I mean... all the rest of Civ 3 isn't half as deep (with the complexity that follows) as this. I think that a society can be explained completely (all its general aspects) more simply than that.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Part I


OK, I just thought it might be a good idea to explain some of the concepts within my ideas for Governments and SE.
First up, Societal Influence is an abstracted confluence of the proportional population of that faction and its 'Political Clout'. It can 'theoretically range from 0-100% (but almost NEVER will!) Influence affects several things, namely:
i) Revenue derived from taxation.
ii) AI Governor Choices for a city's Build Queue.
iii) What Improvements you build; techs you research; Government you have and Laws you pass!
Secondly the 'Factions' are the various groups which make up any given society. They are:

1) Labourers. The ordinary working people, whose 'influence' is based on the amount of production in each city, the # of SPECIFIC production enhancing improvements you have and the # of operational mines you have. It's also increased by the number of strategic resources you possess, and how many Civil Engineers and Workers you have.

2) Farmers. The people on the land, whose influence is based on the amount of food each city produces/turn. The # of Agricultural/Expansionist Improvements, and the # of worked, irrigated fields you have. It’s also boosted by bonus resources such as cattle, wheat, grapes and the like.

3) Wealthy Elite. The rich and, in some cases, the Nobility. Based on the number of luxuries you currently possess, the number of commerce points you have, and the number of Wealth Generating Improvements (marketplaces, Banks, Stock Exchanges). Also increased by how many entertainers you have, and if you have precious metals and/or gems as bonus resources.

4) Merchants/Administrati. Those who keep the books, gather up the money and keep the internal and external trade links going. Their influence is defined by the number of commercial improvements, the number of ‘tax specialists’, the number of cities connected to your internal trade network, and the number of active trade deals you have going.

5) Law enforcement. Your Police and Judiciary. There influence is simply based on the number of corruption reducing improvements you currently have, the number of police specialists, and the number of ‘laws’ that are currently active.

6) Organised Crime. Speaks for itself. Influence is increased by the amount of corruption in your empire. Also increased if you have a ‘Black Market’, and by the number of Contraband resources you possess, or are currently trading.

7) Industrialists. These don’t appear until after you discover ‘Steam Power’. Their influence is increased according to the number Production Improvements and strategic resources that you possess.

8) Religious: Again, speaks for itself. Their influence is obviously based on the number of religious improvements that you have in your empire. It also grows according to your cultural strength.

9) Environmentalists. This faction doesn’t appear until the discovery of Ecology. There influence is based on the number of recycling plants/Solar plants etc. you have. Also increased by the amount of pollution you have in your empire.

Of course, your Civ Traits (Industrious, Commercial, militaristic etc) will also effect the BASE Influence of the various factions. As I will explain later!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Az]

bump

I really like Odin's proposals to social engineering, btw.

T_A_L:

I don't fully understand your new proposal. Do you suggest that governments should branch out with time?

Also, your idea for classes is nice, but retains the same classes throughout the game, which is false.