An Interesting Idea

[Azeem]

I've just thought of this. For CivIV, how about we have governments that we customize throughout the game?

For example, we simply start out as a despot. But when we research more technologies, thus having access to newer ideas, we can alter our domestic policies. Repressing too much freedom would bring more corruption while being too lenient and lawless would also bring more corruption, thus forcing the player to need to try to balance things out. What we could have are set tax rates (like what they did in Master of Magic) which will significantly affect the mood of the people and set minimum wages like in CTP2. Basically, we begin as an absolute monarch - plain and simple, but eventually new complexities arise and we need to alter domestic policies.

Civilizations have been shaped not only by wealth and conquest, but also be their own domestic policies. I think this will add an entirely new dimension to the Civilization series.

[Wittlich]

Actually, this sounds alot like SimCity, except instead of running a city, you're running a country...

Sounds interesting, but I think that in order for the creator of the game (whom ever it might be) to implement this "management" option, a lot of the true "civilization" actions would have to be decreased or even deleted - due to code processing.

[CrONoS]

Obsolutely, The Civilization series need something like social engineering, this is absolutely vital for the evolution of the game in the future!

Civilization and nation are not just made by the will of one man, but shaped by complex social issue, by some direction given by the government/despot, by the religion/philosophy, culture etc...
I dont say, that we got to gave a game with a complex social engineering system... but we got to include this in the future, this will be more realistic...

If Nietzsche and C.G. Jung was able to say what kind of society we will live in the future and are able to find some "psycho-social law" we need to see this in Civilization...

Au revoir,

[Mad Mariner]

Hmmm why not just keep the game as a game and not try turning it into some socio mind melting statistical excercise?

[Azeem]

I prefer having the option of more domestic policies. When all you do is build and destroy, it tends to get repetitive.

I'd like it to feel like I'm controlling a nation, not a board game.

I think this may certainly appease those who crave for "realism".

Don't get me wrong - CivIII is a marevelous game. But I'd like to see it taken to a whole new level.

[CrONoS]

Bah, I dont say something complex but adding some social behaviour can be good and this games is called Civilization... keep it mind this: we want something that can simulate as far as possible life of a real civilisation.
Not too complex, but a good mix of fun and realism.

So nice day,

Au revoir,

[Mad Mariner]

I agree that limited expansion into this area will be a good thing but some of the ideas mentioned in this thread seem to be just overkill, for example, the one about assigning wages, why on earth would u wanna go down that road for?

And dont u think that the dif types of governments already do this job? such as assigning dif factors for army support, corruption levels ect

And a final thing ive noticed that each civ has a "favourite" form of government is there any other bonuses for achieving which ever one is relevent to ure civ?

Ps and also the whole game play will be dramaticlly changed, in my humble opinion, not for the better

[Azeem]

Setting "minimum wages" was an option in CTPII. If you set it too low, your population happiness drops. If you set it too high, the overall wealth of your country depletes.

There ought to be more to the "governments" in CivIII and flexibility within them as well. For example, you can enact ordinances/edicts. They don't need to be too complex. For example, a certain edict could bring about higher production but at the cost of lower happiness. Another could increase the happiness of citizens (perhaps something like "Social Security" or "Annual Festivals"), but would cost a lot to maintain. It will still be within the bounds of the system of the CIV series. Basically, it's almost like city improvements, but it affects the country as a whole and has very significant positives and negatives.

Rather than having "governments", we could start out like a complete despot and when new techs are researched, new "edicts" will be available. But the stipulation is that once you enact a certain edict, another edict (which contradicts it) would be unavailable unless the edict is repealed. And our choice of edicts depends on what sort of government we have. I think that would be most interesting.

[Wittlich]

Actually, I really like your latest suggestion Azeem! IMO, it would add "flavor" and a personal touch to the game.

[Azeem]

Glad you like the idea.

I think this shouldn't be too hard to implement, but I'm not a programmer so I'm only guessing. It still is within the bounds of the CIV series, but as you said, it could add more "flavor" to it.

[Mad Bomber]

This should not be hard. Just incorporate a slider:

one variable will be "liberties" another "security" a third option should be included also (could use a suggestion for this one) which operate very similar to the science/happiness/ slider. The way this would work is that increasing the security would decrease your corruption and make spying less successful, and increasing liberties would increase happiness and productivity. This slider will operate with your government type AND with the happiness/science/ revenue slider to create more possibilties and to fine tune your empire.

For example you could have a democracy with a high security and low liberty values (like the US post 9/11 or Israel) or a despotic or monarchy regime that allow a number of freedoms and only has a moderate security provisions (like Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia)

[Master Zen]

This is quite in line to SMAC's concept of government, which personally, I found to be much better than the Civ version (oh had Civ3 incorporated more things from SMAC...)

The ordinances idea is excellent, a-la Sim City. These two thing would make government settings much more interesting

[brianshapiro]

im pasting this from a previous discussion thread:

one of my ideas was to base technological research based on resource queues . so as an easy example (not really for the game), 30000 cotton gathered = cotton gin . this way the direction of the culture is based on the starting location more integrally, cultures with many spices might tend towards mysticism ; etc. and at one point this is effected by printing press, internet , etc. a marxist model where culture is based on production . also it gets rid of the 'choose next tech' nonsense . this is one of my ideas that would make the game more realistic.

my second idea is to have a small radius around a city which resembles a sim city map with residential industrial and commercial buildings, they cater to the environs and might be specific but which the player doesnt have to really worry about, as he doesnt in sim city. however, growth depends on other factors, so if growth is slow the player has to build industries manually, which then sparks private development ; but at one point the idea is that everything gets done privately automatically getting out of player control. but , anyway, the player chooses build industry on a wheat area and a farm is built, or it appears automatically, depending. these are harvested and held by the city, and of course traded along the network. sort of like the game deadlock , except working much better. this would also take care of the desire to have multisquare cities quite nicely. the borders of city-state areas (what they would be) should end at natural borders like rivers and mountains.

an example of the second idea is say nothing will develop if you dont have a certain set of improvements built, but then once theyre built the economy is already set in place where resources are available to the city-state in general and things happen themselves

the third idea is then to have a clock for each city with then a meter on each worker for finishing tasks (that looks like the meter in the sims, etc) and then a meter on armies that works like the clock cycles in turnless with the game running semi-real time except divided so efficiently that it acts almost like a turn based game. (so for instance, an absolute turn for each city)

units should naturally form into armies which join columns, and then move around the map in a non square-by-square basis.

i have many more ideas on how to turn the civ3 engine upside down, including on revolutions, govt control, etc

[WarpStorm]

Brian, make a game that implements these ideas.

Firaxis is bound by 'tradition'. They have to be. If theyrelease a game that totally turns Civ upside-down, they will have more complaints than cheers. It will seem like they are forgetting their roots. There was a huge uproar because they added culture and resources to Civ3. Being in the franchise business is tricky like that.

Having said that, anybody but them can make a Civ-like game and change the whole thing around till it no longer seems like Civ. Heck, as long as they didn't sell it as part of the Civ franchise Firaxis could do it.

Always remember what Brian Reynolds said, ideas for games and improvements to an existing game are cheap, everyone's got them. What's hard is implementation. Until you actually build it, your idea is worth not much more than the paper it's written on.

So, Brian, if you want to see big changes in the genre go forth and build it. If you build it, they will come.

[brianshapiro]

i previously posted a message asking if anybody wanted to work to create a new game with me, nobody seriously responded so far.

btw, the reason why i dont see it as a big deal to change the game more radically, is because the game is already done and any sequels will only have little changes. People who want to play the game can play the game already released. And firaxis can provide updates to it.

[Azeem]

Whoa Brian, that's asking A LOT.

I think Mad Bomber and my suggestions are more reasonable for the Firaxis team, as they still remain within the boundaries of the CIV series.

[mjmacy]

I agree with Azeem. We need more control over our gov. I think the Idea of ordinances/edicts Is great, and I think that they shouldn't be too hard to impliment, because they could be used just like improvements, albeit very costly ones.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
Brian, make a game that implements these ideas.

Firaxis is bound by 'tradition'. They have to be. If theyrelease a game that totally turns Civ upside-down, they will have more complaints than cheers. It will seem like they are forgetting their roots. There was a huge uproar because they added culture and resources to Civ3. Being in the franchise business is tricky like that.

Having said that, anybody but them can make a Civ-like game and change the whole thing around till it no longer seems like Civ. Heck, as long as they didn't sell it as part of the Civ franchise Firaxis could do it.

Always remember what Brian Reynolds said, ideas for games and improvements to an existing game are cheap, everyone's got them. What's hard is implementation. Until you actually build it, your idea is worth not much more than the paper it's written on.

So, Brian, if you want to see big changes in the genre go forth and build it. If you build it, they will come.

exactly. i thought of that many a time.

i have idea for civ, but they're so "un-civ" that they won't make it in

[Falconius]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
This should not be hard. Just incorporate a slider

This reminds me of the system used by Europa Universalis II. There are ten sliders to adjust, but you may only adjust one every ten years in game time. There are also random events that will adjust them, and sometimes those random events give you several choices.

Sliders that come to mind are: serfdom vs freedmen, centralization vs. decentralization, quantity vs. quality in your armed forces, Land doctrine vs. sea doctrine, aristocracy vs. plutocracy, etc.

What you end up with are varying degrees in types of government, rather than a handful of hard-coded types (a la Civ III).

[Falconius]

Originally posted by brianshapiro
i previously posted a message asking if anybody wanted to work to create a new game with me, nobody seriously responded so far.

I recently graduated from programming school. What are your ideas? (I'll show you mine if you show me yours!) Feel free to email me.

[Killazer]

I would just love it if they could streamline the game more and make gameplay in the later ages go nearly as fast as the gameplay in the ancient age. More automation features; like a real auto-bombard option or giving ships general missions to carry out like 'go to this area and bombard improvements', making waypoints faster/easier to use, etc. Thats what I want the most. The rest is pretty good and id like improvements and tweaks but not wholesale overhauls.

[10lire]

Originally posted by mjmacy
I agree with Azeem. We need more control over our gov. I think the Idea of ordinances/edicts Is great, and I think that they shouldn't be too hard to impliment, because they could be used just like improvements, albeit very costly ones.

Hi everyone,
I absolutely agree! We need more customization over govs. I remember SMAC/X: There was an excellent idea! For Civ4 I think about a "grid" of options: a monarchy can be "absolute" (despotic) or "constitutional" (democratic), a democracy can be more security focused or more personal freedoms focused, a despotism can be fascism-style, communism-style or fundamentalism-style... players can try to find also new strange government's types, like a fundamentalist democracy or a communist monarchy!!!!!!!!! i think this can be really funny!
sorry for my english...
bye

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I think the direction this thread is going in is wonderful, and I wanted to add a few thoughts. These thoughts are largely construed along the lines of the current Civ, so would not be difficult for Firaxis, or one of you pimp programmers, to add.

1. Democracy. Democracy is utterly unrealistic in this game. In a democracy, you cannot simply set the tax rate to whatever you see fit! You need to compete with various interests. Of course, this is true in other forms of government, but it is especially lacking in Democracy and Republic. There must be competition from within the government, and without it. War weariness is good, and I think well-represented in PTW. But what about economy-weariness?

2. Special Interests. Special interests are totally unrepresented in Civ except through corruption. Strangely, only under Communism is corruption ever a problem in the capital city, defying almost all the history of mankind! Special interests can dictate the course of a nation's history, and they do so by excersizing influence on the leader(s). Which leads me to believe that

3. a personal element should be added to the game. Sure, as the "leader" your overall goal is to bring your empire to greatness. But what if you got points for taking advantage of the perks of the job along the way? The natural temptation of power is not represented in Civ, and should be.

4. Religion. This is a big one. It's nice that nationality is reflected, finally, in Civ3. But that religion is utterly skimmed over is ludicrous. Religions could function like governments, effecting industriousness, happiness, militancy, etc. I don't have any set ideas: perhaps civs should not be able to alter their religion, it being part of their "traits". Or perhaps it should evolve, as it has in man's history. But the fact that's hardly touched upon at all, and that all religions are treated as just happiness advancements, is a shoddy treatment of perhaps the most important factor in the history of mankind.