More Governments? Or more flexibility?

[geoffbland]

OK this is my idea about governments. Maybe one for Civ4. I think a similar suggestion has been put up here before - so thanks to whomever gave me the idea.

Your government is set up as a pyramid of 6 "slots", one top "controlling power" slot, 2 middle "executive" slots and 3 lower "Lobby" slots.

You then have several governmetal bodies, for example;

Military
Religious
Populance
Civil
Commercial
Industrial
Monarchy
Senate
Media

These bodies become available with certain advances - for example, Senate with Republic, Populance with Democracy, Industry with Industrialisation. Military is available right from the start.

Now depending on what slot you put them in you get certain benefits and losses, for example;

Military - controlling power slot - Miltary units cost 50%, Martial Law upto 5 per city, science down by 50%
Military - executive slot - Martial Law upto 3 per city, science down by 10%
Military - lobby slot - default
Military - no slot - conscription disabled

Populance - controlling power slot - 3 extra happy people per city, science up 50%, war unhappiness up 50%
Populance - executive slot - 1 extra happy people per city, science up 25%, war unhappiness up 25%
Populance - lobby slot - default
Populance - no slot - Unhappy people per city after size 3

Monarchy - controlling power slot - Reduces corruption 50%, war unhappiness down 50% (patriotism)
Monarchy - executive slot - Reduces corruption 25%, war unhappiness down 25% (patriotism)
Monarchy - lobby slot - +1 happy person with media - patriot
Monarchy - no slot - +1 happy person with civil - republican

Haven't had time to work out the rest (or even the above ones) properly but the rest sort of work like Civil - helps workers & city improvments, commercial - more gold & certain city improvements, industrial - improved production, pollution & certain city improvements, media - happyness & war weariness, religious - happyness, tithes, less science, fanatics!, senate - corruption, happyness.

This gives you a "tunable" government that isn't to hard to program (the AI might be tough) but is more "realistic". And I think this is more fun as you have more scope for playing with the game.

Revolution happens for 1 turn if slot 2 bodies are moved, and for 3 turns if slot 1 bodies are moved.

So some examples;

Start of game, depositic rule;

Controlling Power - military

And that's all you've got so far - so other slots aren't filled.

Mid game, this gives you a sort of Roman style republic

Controlling Power - Monachy
Executive - Military, Senate
Lobby - Religious

Obviously this could be arranged completely differently at this stage of the game, here's an Inca style government;

Controlling Power - Religious
Executive - Military, Monachy
Lobby - Senate

Later game (OK please don't take issue with the descriptions it's just an idea!);

American Style Democracy

Controlling Power - Populace
Executive - Commercial, Senate
Lobby - Military, Media, Religious
No Slot - Monachy, Civil, Industrial

USSR Style Republic

Controlling Power - Senate
Executive - Military, Industiral
Lobby - Populace, Civil, Media
No Slot - Monachy, Religious, Commercial

Obviously it would need a lot of game play to turn it.

That's my 2p's worth...

[Azrikam]

Sounds like a fleshed out version of Social Engineering in SMAC. Frankly, I think that works much better than the restrictive nature of a single government type.

Reworking and expanding the SE scheme would have been a much better idea for Civ III than modifying the govs from Civ II. (IMHO) Then, the options could be given sensible historical names to make it more realistic. As long as the options were well-balanced, people wouldn't need to create their own govs in the editor, because they could do it right there in the game itself.

Also, Civ's can tweak their governing habits without a revolution.

[geoffbland]

I'd forgotten about the social engineering in SMAC. It is a similar idea but as you say fleshed out. I think my idea also gives a bit more "flavour" to the game - I found SMAC to be a bit souless.

It would be interesting to play as advances are found and governments slowly alter. Also the end game would be interesting with lots of flavours of different govs.
I just think the Civ idea of having 4 govenments is a bit dull. Compare a few real "Democratic" govenments for example, US, UK, old DDR, USSR, DR China, DR Congo just to get a favour of how much variety you could get.

[Azrikam]

It also had a decent effect on diplomacy in SMAC, as some factions were pre-disposed to certain SE selections, and if you didn't follow their ideas, then they didn't like it.

Course, there was nothing stopping Firaxis from having the AI prefer to do business with like governments, and have a slightly lower opinion of the others. (pretty realistic, if you ask me)

Heck, maybe that's already in there. It can't be more than a couple of lines of code.