{The List -} Government & Social Engineering

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I actually agree that, like the faces in the current city screen, the classes I mentioned SHOULD change through time. But I think it's mostly about names-like nobility/aristocracy vs the wealthy elite in later eras.
Anyway, the main point of my proposal is that your government choice determines the OVERALL influence of each faction in your society (so democracy gives your people more influence than feudal), as well as determining whose influence rises and whose falls (like nobility getting greater influence under monarchy and Feudalism).
You can adjust these influences yourself, however, either directly through the slide bar, or indirectly via the buildings your construct and the like. Each government, though, will have a max and minimum influence which each faction is capable of having-no matter HOW much you try to change it!
Hope this clarifies things.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

New Government Agencies Model

Instead of using Wonders to model concepts such as a CIA in your Civ, I propose a new and better way to model this by introducing a new Government Agencies Model into Civ IV. I'm not suggesting taking "Wonders of the World" completely out of the game; I'm only suggesting that some Wonders could be better represented in the game if modeled as government agencies.

Government Departments
First of all, all government agencies should organized by department. Civ IV should include such departments as:

1. Department of Defense
2. Department of Justice
3. Department of Commerce
4. Department of Homeland Security

The above are just examples.

Government Agencies
Under each department lie your goverment agencies, the workhorses of all your government activity within your civilization. They include such agencies as:

1. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)
2. FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
3. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
4. Army
5. Navy
6. Air Force
7. Marines
8. Coast Guard

Note that the above are again just examples.

Government Agency Technologies
There are literally dozens and dozens of government agencies in the game, but when you first begin a new game only a few will be available to the player, but only a few are needed in the beginning of the game. In order have more agencies the player needs to first discover certain technologies, such as the Espionage technology in order to have a CIA (for example).

Government Agency Funding
You can change the funding for each agency as you see fit, however each agency requires a minimum amount of funding in order to function, but if you use the minimum funding for an agency you will only get minimum results from that agency. In order for an agency to have a larger impact on your Civ you need to increase the funding to a more desirable level.

Spending
Having too much funding for your agencies or too many agencies in operation, however, can be very expensive and you may spend your civilization into debt if you are not careful. You must balance funding and turn on on what government agencies you need after first determining the needs of your Civ at the time.

Micromanagement
However, since managing government agencies can be a tedious process and is a form of micromanagement, it is strongly recommended that (unless you want to spend hours and hours micromanaging your Civ on your own) you use the AI to help manage this for you. You can, however, only have partial AI management for this feature by checking off which agencies you'd rather manage on your own.

That's my two cents on that.

[Az]

Just a question here:

do you want me to include some entire models in the opening post, and not just summaries, and remarks? I can do that.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

[Arrian]

I liked Stefu's idea on page1 - relatively simple, but deeper than CivIII.

-Arrian

[ThePlagueRat]

I liked that one too... basically a govt.system and a econ.system. Plain and easy, but kinda realistic nevertheless. And for the detailed engineering choices, there could be optionbuttons such as SMAC, or sliders such as they used in EU2. An example:

state: religious <------o-> secularized,
pluralism: centralised <-o-----> decentralized,
ownership: private <---o---> state,
civil/voting rights: the elite <-----o-> all citizens,
etc.

- The government type and economic type could also put some max and min on these sliders, as well as a default value for easy management.

e.g. a theocracy option would limit secularized value considerably, and socialist economy option would limit private ownership somewhat. Combined with communism it would totally disable private owership and set slider to the right pos. Or if you like it you can create a social-democracy instead, and just get a centralization limit for democratic option. Just tailor it after your own taste!

[K.J.H.]

Originally posted by Azazel
Personally, I think that science rates are completely unrealistic. Did you know that we actually use only some 2 percent of our output on science?

Education is science too.

[Maniac]

I see many people in this thread like the idea of SMAC-like Social Engineering combined with EU2-like sliders.
Just for the record I thought I'd post my own variance (a slight adaptation of something I'm using in a SMAC mod) of such a SMAC/EU2-like system, with several sliders on different politics/economics/society issues. Those sliders would have a number of possible position, with the central position being neutral, and they'd become more extreme once you move them to the left or right.

Liberal/Open/Innovative <-> Conservative/Closed/Narrowminded Society Values

Liberal/Open/Innovative:
Faster research.
Military units used for police duty are less effective or ineffective.
Espionage missions by other civs against you have a higher chance of success, and they cost less.
Population of another culture/religion/whatever-concept-will-be-used than your state culture/religion are happier than standard.
Population of another culture/religion are converted to your state culture/religion slower or not at all.
<->
Conservative/Closed/Narrowminded:
Slower research.
Military units used for police duty are more effective.
Espionage missions by other civs against you have a lower chance of success, and they cost more.
Population of another culture/religion/whatever-concept-will-be-used than your state culture/religion are less happy than standard.
Population of another culture/religion are converted faster to your state culture/religion.


Decentralized/(Con)federal <-> Centralized/Unitary State Structure

Decentralized/(Con)federal:
Equal and less corruption/inefficiency/whatever-concept-is-used everywhere.
Less control over tax/science/luxuries allocations.
Espionage missions by other civs against you have a higher chance of success, and they cost less.
Population of another culture/religion/whatever-concept-will-be-used than your state culture/religion are happier than standard.
Population of another culture/religion are converted to your state culture/religion slower or not at all.
<->
Centralized/Unitary:
Less corruption/inefficiency near your civilization's core and/or in cities with a large majority of state religion/culture population.
More corruption/inefficiency the further away from your civilization's core and/or in cities with a large majority of another religion/culture population.
More control over tax/science/luxuries allocations.
Espionage missions by other civs against you have a lower chance of success, and they cost more.
Population of another culture/religion/whatever-concept-will-be-used than your state culture/religion are less happy than standard.
Population of another culture/religion are converted faster to your state culture/religion.


Free Market/Private Ownership <-> Collectivist Economy

Free Market/Private Ownership:
Economy bonus.
Industry/Production penalty.
Less or no units are supported for free.
Less control over tax/science/luxuries allocations.
<->
Collectivist:
Economy penalty.
Industry/Production bonus.
More units are supported for free.
More control over tax/science/luxuries allocations.


Free Trade <-> Protectionist Foreign Trade Policy

Free Trade:
Science bonus.
Trade/Economy bonus.
Less tolls and tarriffs from trade routes passing through your territory (if the concept of trade routes actually running over the map is included).
Unhappier people.
Industry/Production penalty.
<->
Protectionist:
Science penalty.
Trade/Economy penalty.
More tolls and tariffs from trade routes passing through your territory (if the concept of trade routes actually running over the map is included).
Happier people.
Industry/Production bonus.


Nomad/Expansionist/Colonist <-> Sedentary/Urban Lifestyle

Nomad/Expansionist/Colonist:
Morale/Experience/Whatever-concept-is-used bonus.
More units are supported for free.
Combat bonus against barbarians, pirates etcetera.
Military units and settlers cost less to produce.
Economy and/or production penalty.
<->
Sedentary/Urban:
Morale/Experience/Whatever-concept-is-used penalty.
Less or no units are supported for free.
Combat penalty against barbarians, pirates etcetera.
Military units and settlers cost more to produce.
Economy and/or production bonus.

[GePap]

DP

[GePap]

The problem with governments as they are structured in Civ is that the political and economic system are combined.

A social engineering system allows these to be separated, more diverse ways to play, would be more historically accurate (there were certainly more than just 6 ways to govern in the history of the world), and could be used to differentiate between civs more drastically than just with UU's and traits.

[K.J.H.]

Originally posted by Maniac
I see many people in this thread like the idea of SMAC-like Social Engineering combined with EU2-like sliders.

I'm not a fan of sliders, because, like another user said before in this topic, players will use very average settings. You will get very boring governments then. That's maybe very realistic ( ) but it won't play very exciting.

SMAC-like buttons are more interesting because the decisions you'll have to make are more difficult than with sliders.

[Fosse]

I agree with K.J.H.'s point, but I would like to point out that what we're looking for isn't necessarily 100 options between one extreme and another.

We want MORE options. This might mean more Social Engineering categories, or more choices per category. Preferably both. But each choice MUST come with specific and real pros and cons, to prevent the "best" way from being anything more than the opinions of players.

I don't care if there are sliders for social values. They should exist for tax rates (and be smooth-sliding, not 10,20,30, etc), but because the difference between 34% Civil rights and 35% Civil Rights is too abstract to even make sense, they don't need to extend to everything.

[The diplomat]

I'd like to see government specific units and government specific city improvements/wonders. I think that would make government a lot more interesting.

Now, I don't want to see tv evangelists units, but I think there are interesting historical units that could be used for each government.

One way to implement government specific city improvements would be to have the player build the city improvement in order to switch governments. Instead of going through anarchy and then switching to a new government, a player would build the government specific city improvement in the capital, when the city improvement is done, it would replace your previous government specific city improvement and the government would change to the new one. Obviously, the build cost of the government city improvement would be done so that switching times were reasonable.

For example, you start with a palace and despotism. You build a senate in your capital, when the senate is done, your palace would change to a senate and you would be a republic instead of despotism.

Each government specific city improvement would reduce corruption.

Anarchy would occur if you lose your government city improvement. This could happen in several ways:
- your capital is captured before you have time to move it to another city.
- severe unrest in your capital could destroy your special city improvement (random destruction of a city improvement).
- an enemy performs a spy mission to sabotage a city improvement (a very difficult mission to succeed).

This would implement anarchy in a much more interesting way. It would create interesting strategies. A player could throw another empire into anarchy by quickly capturing their capital or by destroying the special city improvement through a spy mission (a very difficult spy mission to acheive).

-------------------

Regarding SE, a way to implement governments and SE at the same time would be to have governments give the player "points" that they could spend to buy a SE choice.

------------------

In conclusion,

My model would work the following way:
a player would switch governments by building the appropriate government building which would reduce corruption. The player could also build government specific units which would provide certain benefits. Players would gain empire bonuses by using their government points to buy SE choices that they want.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

First up, I like your ideas The Diplomat, but I definitely hope that what you are referring to is a Government Specific Small Wonder-rather than an improvement.
I always liked, in civ2, how you could only move your capital if you were able to pay an exhorbitant amount of money-and that is how I feel it should be in cIV! However, as 'The Diplomat' suggested, if you lose you gov-specific Wonder, then your new capital should obviously act at a penalty until it can rebuild it somewhere else.
For example: lets say that civil war is in the game, and losing your capital gives a huge boost to the chance of said Civil War. Your capital (and its gov specific Wonder) is on the verge of capture by the enemy-thus threatening to plunge your civ into total chaos. Your domestic advisor pops up to warn you of this possibility, and asks if you wish to move your 'seat of government' to '________' (next largest city), for a cost of Xgp. This cost would represent the effort needed to smuggle all of your MP's and civil servants-not to mention all of their documents-to a safer place. If the seat of government is moved, then when the enemy captures your 'Capital', then it will still spark a period of difficulty-in the form of increased waste, corruption and possible revolt-and can still produce a chance of CW, but not as great as if you had lost your government AS WELL! Once you have rebuilt your gov specific Small Wonder, then all of these difficulties are overcome.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
First up, I like your ideas The Diplomat, but I definitely hope that what you are referring to is a Government Specific Small Wonder-rather than an improvement.
I always liked, in civ2, how you could only move your capital if you were able to pay an exhorbitant amount of money-and that is how I feel it should be in cIV! However, as 'The Diplomat' suggested, if you lose you gov-specific Wonder, then your new capital should obviously act at a penalty until it can rebuild it somewhere else.
For example: lets say that civil war is in the game, and losing your capital gives a huge boost to the chance of said Civil War. Your capital (and its gov specific Wonder) is on the verge of capture by the enemy-thus threatening to plunge your civ into total chaos. Your domestic advisor pops up to warn you of this possibility, and asks if you wish to move your 'seat of government' to '________' (next largest city), for a cost of Xgp. This cost would represent the effort needed to smuggle all of your MP's and civil servants-not to mention all of their documents-to a safer place. If the seat of government is moved, then when the enemy captures your 'Capital', then it will still spark a period of difficulty-in the form of increased waste, corruption and possible revolt-and can still produce a chance of CW, but not as great as if you had lost your government AS WELL! Once you have rebuilt your gov specific Small Wonder, then all of these difficulties are overcome.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

It would indeed be a government small wonder.

You seem to understand my idea pretty well.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

My second point was that I also feel that governments AND social engineering can be combined.
The role of governments-aside from specific units and Wonders-is that they should determine the minimum and maximum amount of influence that your people have over your decision making AND it should set the minimum and maximum settings you can have for the various SE settings.
For instance, you have two modern governments-the Modern Democracy and the Modern Republic (as opposed to their Classical counterparts). On the surface, these governments might seem quite similar, but a Modern Republic might allow lower minimums for % sufferage and % liberty, whilst allowing a greater maximum for % nationalism than Modern Democracy. Yet you might still have two civs, one with M. Republic and the other with M. Democracy, both with the identical levels of sufferage, liberty and nationalism.
I am definitely keen on seeing some kind of social engineering being in cIV, though, as I think its a great way to truly 'Individualise' your civs government. Also, look at the real world-both Indonesia and the US are 'Modern Republics', yet both nations governments are so very different-on so many levels!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Oh and, just for the record, I think the best areas for social engineering could be:

Liberty: effects how free your people are-to speak and assemble in public (and private, for that matter). The lower you set this, the more 'content' people you will have in your civ-but the greater the chance of a revolt and/or civil war when the people DO become unhappy. Also reduces the chance of spy missions against your civ.

Secularity: effects the degree to which religion dictates politics and social policy. The lower you set this, the less effective religious improvements become, but the less likely you are to succumb to a religious schism. Also reduces the chances of a dark age occuring.

Private Enterprise: effects the degree to which the private sector is involved in your economy. The lower you set this, the less cash you get from company tax, but the greater control you have over what your city can build and what resources you can exploit.

Sufferage: effects who can vote for the government of the day, and the degree of influence the middle and lower classes have over your policies. The lower you set this, the more direct control you have over your civs domestic and foreign policies-but the more unhappy your make your people-especially labourers and civil servants.

Legalism: The degree to which the rule of law dominates your civ-and how harsh your penal code is. The lower you set this, the less your law and order budget will set you back, but also the more crime and corruption you will have to deal with!

Tolerance: The degree to which those of different cultures and religions are accepted within your society. The lower you set this, the lower your international standing becomes. Also, it increases your rate of cultural/religious 'assimilation'-but makes foreign nationals in your civ unhappy. It also reduces your rate of immigration

Nationalism: Not sure if this one is superfluous or not, but it effects the degree of 'national pride' your people have. The lower you set this, the more war weariness will hit your civ (patriotism is a strong motivator for people during war time), but also the more likely your people are to accept you making deals with civs from other culture groups. Reducing nationalism also increases the rate of immigration.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on SE. Sorry if I'm repeating whats already been said, but I would be interested in knowing what people think!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[ThePlagueRat]

Originally posted by The diplomat
I'd like to see government specific units and government specific city improvements/wonders. I think that would make government a lot more interesting.

Now, I don't want to see tv evangelists units, but I think there are interesting historical units that could be used for each government.

Nice!
NKVD-inf and SS-panzer division available to Communist and Fascist, respectivly... also National Guard militia for Republic and Royal Knights for Monarchy. This would be in addition to specifically engineering each govt. platform like we discussed.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by K.J.H.
I'm not a fan of sliders, because, like another user said before in this topic, players will use very average settings.

Why do you think that? In general, the best way to play civ-like games is not to keep everything as average as possible, but rather to concentrate on a specific strategy and excel in that. As a consequence, this will lead to different SE settings being most useful depending on whether you're gonna pursue a research, industrial, military or espionage approach etcetera... At least that's the way things work in SMAC.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by ThePlagueRat
Nice!
NKVD-inf and SS-panzer division available to Communist and Fascist, respectivly... also National Guard militia for Republic and Royal Knights for Monarchy. This would be in addition to specifically engineering each govt. platform like we discussed.

Or maybe the Communist special unit could be a KGB unit with a "nerve staple" ability.

[ThePlagueRat]

Nice.
Speaking of SMAC, the fascist special unit could have the 'police unit' ability.

[Boris Godunov]

Dynasties, similar to EU's kings. Your state has dynastic periods (or particular sovereign/party rule) that effects certain attributes, such as:

Military
Science
Economy
Diplomacy
Production
Happiness

A particular dynasty/ruler will start off with variable base ratings in these areas. So a dynasty that has a strong military value will do better in battles, while one with a weak economic value will have slightly less income coming in. Thing is, you can improve these values over time various ways. Forcing favorable peace treaties after wars will improve the military and diplomacy ratings slightly, while building lots of economic and happiness improvements will increase those values, etc.

Dynasties would average a 20 turn rule, variable. Switching governments would mean an automatic dynasty change. In Republic and Democracies, the dynasties can be changed peacefully via elections every 10 turns. However, the player wouldn't know the values of potential new dynasties. The ascendancy of a dynasty with really good values might trigger a Golden Age. The player would be able to rename dynasties to his/her liking upon their ascession. When the year increment gets down to 1-2 yrs, the dynasties will be the names of particular rulers. There will be a database of historical names for each country, and it will work just like choosing city names.

In scenarios, the editor will allow the setting of the duration of each dynasty explicitley.

EU and Europa 1400 are the inspirations for this.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Libertarian government: corruption low, no conscription possible, higher commerce, higher pollution, higher bonus' from environmentally friendly city improvments, lower tax collection, more happiness.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

also, need a way for big empires to collapse due to internal pressures. none of this get big early and win. collapse should be kinda random, and maybe not all at once.
collapse can be brought on by too many cities (outer ones revolt), too much war (outer ones revolt.) govt types can influence the factor at which they will revolt.

[Quezacotl06]

SMAC SE i agree is a lot better than Civ3, which clung to much to historical archetypes and steriotypes.

You could have a democratic communism in SMAC, or a cybernetic fundamentalism. The specific attribute bonus/penalties lets you cancel out weaknesses in your society. You can't do that in Civ 3.

[lajzar]

Originally posted by Quezacotl06
You could have a democratic communism in SMAC, or a cybernetic fundamentalism. The specific attribute bonus/penalties lets you cancel out weaknesses in your society. You can't do that in Civ 3.

I actually consider that to be a weakness in SMAC. If you can munchkin your government such that there are no weaknesses, it removes part of the challenge. Having to make difficult decisions on what government to be, *that* should be an important part of the game. SMAC reduced governments to a munchkin min-maxing exercise.

My current big list of governemnts is:

[default]

Anarchy
Despotism

[ancient]

Monarchy
City State (Athenian Democracy)
Plutocracy (Merchant oligarchy)

[classical]

Tributary Empire (Rome, China)
Republic (Rome, early modern "rotten borough" systems)

[middle ages]

Blood Cult (mesoamerica)
Feudalism
Theocracy (monotheistic)
Caliphate (pro-science medieval middle east mostly)
Mercantile Empire (most of imperial Europe)

[modern]

Democracy (the modern ideal)
Communism (soviet union)
Fascism (ww2 germany)
Fundamentalism

[futuristic]

Technocracy (government by computer)
Corporate Republic (what the USA is dangerously close to becoming)
Ecotopia
Virtual Democracy

Note that my technocracy idea is quite different from the CTP idea. Mine is based more on the old role playing game called Paranoia.

That libertarian government mentioned upthread. It seems like a nice idea, but unless you make it a futuristic government, I can't quite see it happening. It is an idealised democracy, just as Marx's idealised communism was something quite different from the historical model.

[Quezacotl06]

Guess that doesn't realy adress the topic...lol ok ill reiterate.

It would be better to have 5degrees
(Evil o--o--o--o--o Good), which would give bonus' and penalties according to if u choose extremes or moderates (the central node would give no bonus/penalties)

Government:
Centralized/Totalitarian o--o--o--o--o Libertarian/Democratic

Centralized (extreme): +2 Tolerance (this means tolerance for controlling riots and conscription), +4 Military Affordability, -4 Bureocratic Efficiency

Libertarian (extreme): +2 Population Growth, +4 Bureocratic Efficiency, -4 Military Affordability

And as Economic degrees, it could be split between 2: Equality o--o--o--o--o Merit, and Conservation o--o--o--o--o Productivity

Equality/ Planned (extreme): +4 Productivity, -4 Bureaucratic Efficiency, +2 Population Growth,

Merit/ Corporatism (extreme): +4 Commerce, +2 Productivity, -4 Tolerance

Conservation (extreme): +4 Environment, -4 Productivity, +2 Bureocratic Efficiency

Productivity (extreme): +4 Productivity, -4 Environment, +2 Commerce

*numbers could be extreme options only, choosing a moderate could halve bonuses/penalties

Others could represent cultural values, like their religosity/academics, survivalism/arts, and patriotism/diversity

Religous/Academic degrees could balence research speed and effectiveness of religous constructions (for making happiness), while Survivalism/Arts could balence military morale/support with commerce/happiness.

It just gives you more control over the kind of the culture you want, rather than recalling what you see in movies and history about what each civ is like.

[lajzar]

It just gives you more control over the kind of the culture you want, rather than recalling what you see in movies and history about what each civ is like.

And that is exactly why I consider it a weakness. Leaders have tried throughout history to create the ideal government, Plato, Marx, the founding fathers etc. But every time, teh law of unintended consequences has resulted in some hidden flaw in the grand ideal. That is why Marx's communism and historical comunism are so different, and why with have teh present USA instead of what the founding fathers envisioned.

If you can plan everything with social engineering choices, you don't allow for the complex subtleties that result from unintended consequences.

I realise that each axis affects 2 attributes in opposite directions, but unintended consequences means that having 2 axes in a certain why results in something completely unforeseen.

Any kind of SE model complex enough to fully allow for such things will be too complex to explain to the average human, let alone an ai.

However, as you might deduce from my big list of governments, the present list is way too small, and forces you into exactly those stereotypes (and not many of those at that) you see in movies. The game editor should allow for a huge amount of customisation in the government effects.

SE by itself doesn't allow for, say, blood cults getting extra culture for sacrifices, or the enxtra spy ability for communism. In addition, most of the SE options listed have limited, if any, meaning for many governments.

Perhaps certain governments could have additional sub-options released by later techs. So you might be a monarchy, but once the appropriate SE techs are released, you could be a Absolute monarch (default), Divine monarch (ie descendant of the sun god etc), Constitutional monarch, etc. Under democracy, you could have welfare, libertarian, and so on.

Perhaps that would be a way to combine the two themes?

[Panag]

hi ,

, its seems that c3c is not taken in to account that much when it comes to governments , ....

have a nice day

[lajzar]

Oh, the modding functionality in civ3 is there, but it is marred by a horrible modding interface, and civ3 has other flaws which make me play civ2 at least as much.