{The List -} Government & Social Engineering

[Fosse]

Beinga ble to cancle out weanesses doesn't invalidate strategy, because it comes with a penalty of no strenghts. Being a jack of all trades - which SMAC doesn't really even let you do, but in theory could - means mastering none. It's a perfectly valid choice.

The SE scheme from SMAC is far superior to what Civ has had in the past.. and a true history game could do so much with it that it will be a true shame if Civ 4 sticks to the old, flawed routine.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Now, in the model I envisage, you would have both 'Government Types' AND 'Social Engineering' traits.
The thing is that each different type of Government would have baselines for wealth, corruption, unit costs etc. In addition, though, they determine the minimum, maximum and default settings for your various 'Social Engineering' traits. In addition, though, your settings for one SE trait will affect the minimum/maximum settings of another trait-positively OR negatively.
For instance, a nation with a high secularity setting could also have a high nationalism setting, and vice versa. Low Libertarianism would reduce the maximum setting you could have for Sufferage.
This way, it would be pretty well impossible to have a maximum in ALL of your settings!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Az]

Teh list is updated.

I am sorry if I don't really put all your ideas into detail, guys. Some of the are modifications of other ideas, and not significantly different.

On a more personal notice, I am really sorry that I haven't updated this in a month, or so,

[Az]

bump

[GePap]

Originally posted by Fosse
Beinga ble to cancle out weanesses doesn't invalidate strategy, because it comes with a penalty of no strenghts. Being a jack of all trades - which SMAC doesn't really even let you do, but in theory could - means mastering none. It's a perfectly valid choice.

The SE scheme from SMAC is far superior to what Civ has had in the past.. and a true history game could do so much with it that it will be a true shame if Civ 4 sticks to the old, flawed routine.

I agree completely. No one choice in SMAC was ominpresent and "the obvious" solution to your game-contrast this to Civ3, in which everyone becomes a democracy as soon as possible becuase it is obviously the best government type and the war weariness issues can be dealt with (just look at the AI in high level games). If any system leads to cookie cutter governance, it is one in which one model is obviously superior to another-like how democracy is obviously superior to monarchy.

The social engineering table form SMAC was actually the ONE aspect of that game Civ3 should have maintained, if nothing else.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

i think that guerrillas and terrorism is a must in civ4.

guerrillas would pop up in two situations. 1) in areas of large unhappinness, and 2) in areas of high corruption/far away from the empire's center.

for each unhappy citizen in a city, a band of guerrilas (say 2 or 3) has an x chance of popping up in the hills nearby on any given turn. (govt type is already modelled as such because of bonus to happinness)The chance of this happening should be rather low, so that smaller population cities have very low chances of creating guerrilas, and that a guerrilla 'problem' probably wont appear until at least the late middle ages. Guerrillas would be a special unit who treat all terrain as roads and can pinpoint bombard (thus simulating an attack on a city that could destroy say the governors house or something.) The chance of success would rest on the number of unhappy citizens in the city and the number of troops in the city and the amount of corruption and the type of improvments. (modelling help, bribes, and chances of getting caught.)

in instance two (corruption) guerrillas would function in the same way, except that instead of being a function of unhappy citizens, it would be a function of corruption. There would be a floor minimum (to prevent small cities with small production, but high production to corruption waste from having constant revolts) so that only large cities would have any chance of producing these people.

city improvments (such as police station) can both reduce the chances of creating guerrillas (more happinnnes) and can reduce their chances of carrying out the pinpoint attack.

guerillas should be invisible, can capture settlers/workers/explorers/artillery and should be one of the weaker units for the eras.

a terrorist would be modelled by a Fanatic unit (civ 2 style) and would act the same way as a guerrilla except his chances of success are higher, and his A/D is weaker.

terrorists would require the extra element of religion (not sure how this will be modelled in civ 4.)

these terrorists and guerrillas can also be under the control of the player. say your city gets taken, and religion plays no part in it (either same religion as civ capturing your city, or some other thing like that.) your citizens will create guerrillas and the player will be able to control them. if religion is invovled, the city will create fanatics, and the player will be able to control them.

[Jon Shafer]

The subject of civics is definitely an interesting one. There are many ways it could be implimented. But keeping in mind that Soren wants to keep things relatively simple, this is how I think things will (or should ) be implimented:

Things will probably be SMAC-like, with different categories that you can set policy in. New techs would open up new policies and new ways to change them.

Perhaps they could replace the current trait system - your civ could be a certain level of "industriouness" or "religiousness" or "militarism." Certain levels would give certain bonuses and certain penalties. For example, turning up Industriousness would make your Workers cost more upkeep. Turning up your Militarism would give your units more HP by default, but they also cost more. Turning up commercial makes you more money, but your units lose experience, etc.

This way you could customize certain things within your empire that have practical purposes.

However, there must be proper balance to these things. In EU2 you have a number of sliders and most (experienced) players will always turn their sliders to the either the absolute MAX or the absolute MINIMUM in every category. Because of the nature of the sliders, there is basically an ideal setup. That means a lot of work has to be done making sure everything ends up balanced.

[Silpy]

What I would like to see is International Communism.

Well - this is True Communism. The Communism which Marx was talking about. The Communism before it was hijacked by Stalin and Co and peverted to National Communism which relies on nationalism.

It would work as - All ethnic minorites will never have split loyalty because they will be loyal to the workers state. All cities which have a factory & a libeary (reprenting the workers and the intelligestisa who lead them) and suffer from disorder for more than say, two turns joins the civ.
No capital - instead there will be the International HQ and local branches which will be like mini-palaces avalible in every city. Spies will be more effective as they are able to play on belief in the cause. UU - Red Guards - consriptable, they don't need support, and they will get better as tech goes along. And, they are pretty good too. Happiness adjustment - perhaps 2 more per city to show the happiness of being in a pure, workers state. Propaganda would be much more effective.

Bad Points

All other civ's will really hate you. This is only fair.
Taxmen & Stock Exchanges would be banned.
Less money generated because of the supression of the capatalists.
Science would take a bit of a knock, but not hediously
And, lastly only one civ at a time is allowed to be this goverment.

The idea is that this could be a original way to win Civ IV. Ie - Attempt at world revolution! It could give a door for a failing civ to win.

[Max Sinister]

What if a computer civ goes "true communist" first, but I wanted too? Can I join them (and by this way get the control over a much bigger empire ;-)?

[lajzar]

This looks remarkably like the "constitutional democracy" that someone else proposed earlier in one key aspect: it is an idealised fantasy version of a real world government. Also known as a political w*nkfest. As such, I respectfully recommend that this idea not be placed in the game.

[Silpy]

This woulds not be the idealistic version of it, but of the thing in action. The only example I can think of is of Russia Nov '17 - Dec '20. There would be lots of penuties in it (Ie Lower production, commerce & science, AI extreme hatred, etc) to balence the positives. I am not attempting to create a 'super goverment'. That would screw up the game.

No, only one civ at a time could be 'International Communist' (not True Communist, that would be the next stage of development, which I don't want to see on Civ) There can be only one (true) International! Other cities would join you (Perhaps I am thinking that the International has simliar affect of that wonder in either CTP or CTP II, the Egitarian Act), but no civ could join you en masse, for all other civs would hate you like poison.

[Drachasor]

I don't think that communism idea makes a lot of sense, especially from Marx's point of view. He thought everyone would end up revolting and end like that, but I don't see how that would immediately mean there could only be one such government.

Of course, Marx had some hideous flaws in his theory, one of which is that he didn't think Democracies would pass laws to help protect and look after the working class.

Anyhow, as someone touched on, perhaps the best way to handle things is to use ye old political spectrum. Have a Security vs. Liberty slider, and a Free Economy vs. Controlled Economy slider. The former would control how easy it is to get military units and war unhappiness, the later would control happiness (from inequity) vs. trade benefits.

Hmm, perhaps that is too abstract though.

-Drachasor

[punkbass2000]

...or a lot like SMAC (not an objection!)

[Silpy]

Marx did not predict that revoultions would break out everywhere at once. He understood that the best time for revoultion would be different for each nation. There would be a possiblity that many nations would reach this point at the same time (ie 1917-1919) But some would get to a revoultionary point in isolation (ie UK, 1926, Cuba 1960) The idea of 'International Communism' is that one nation would go 'red' first, and revoultionaries in other civ's cities would attempt to stir up a revoultion in their cities, and if they win, it joins the 'red' civ. That is the idea. (Note, when I mean 'red', I mean actully revoultionary, not like the counter-revoultionary USSR or China.)

Also, this idea would work well in conjunction with Fundimentalism and Terrorism.

With sliders, I like the idea, if it could work well. If you could get a situation where a Democracy allows no liberty or a liberal Fascism, it means that each player could have tailor-made goverments! (Did you get the idea form EU II?) And perhaps, you could end up drifting into a different form of goverment (ie a Democracy turning into a Fascism or a Despotism turing into a Monarchy)

Oh, and the reason the Democracies passed those nice laws to create a Welfare State was to avert revoultion! All they did was to paste over the most obvious defects of Capitalism. The cracks are still there!

[Drachasor]

Things like unions, worker rights, and other laws, rights, and legal groups that give power to the worker over the employer are items Marx never thought would happen in a Capitalism. Well, they did, and that is one of the reason the revolution is never going to happen. There are others as well (I could post a comprehensive list of the various flaws Marx made in his analysis). He was a good economist, but everyone makes mistakes.

Anyhow, eventually the remaining cracks and errors will be pasted over in some fashion, as Marx's theory really predicts humans will become far more generous and fair than they are. No one but a fool advocates pure capitalism these days anyhow.*

Anyhow, I got my idea from this sort of thing. This is fairly common in political science and the like.

Anyhow, *how* you choose government and how religion is handled is related to this, but different enough to be seperate options (clearly, however, how things in the government fall on the graph relate to what sorts of religions are liked, tolerated, advocated, etc.).

Lastly, I don't care much for linking fundamentalism with terrorism, as terrorism really relates to any extremist group. Linking it with only the religious extremists is in bad taste, I feel. Lastly, espionage certainly has a grey area between military targets and civilian, and I think through this system is where terrorism would be handled.

-Drachasor

PS. Never played EU I/II, are they any good?

*Just so you know, I have strong socialist leanings, but I am also very pragmatic. Certainly Europe indicates how Socialism can be poorly implemented.

[Silpy]

Mmm...

Yes, the workers do have more power over their bosses now than a century ago. But, speaking as a Briton, we have seen Thacherite Capitalism marching ahead for 25 years, sweeping much of the benifits which had taken a century to create by trade unions, the Liberal and Labour Parites. All forms of socialism are now quite disregarded by mainstream politics. What an Labour MP could advocate in 1985 and be shouted down as a Capitalist would be now shouted down as a Communist. Even our remaining islands of the Welfare State are being assulted by capitalism, shouting (along with the Goverment) to let them in. It took a bit of battering by Sept 11 - Terrorism- Iraq , but like Marx said, Capitalism likes war, and they had simply forgotten it (blame the Cold War!)

Well, from what you have written, I would guess you are a Fabian Socialist (A Socialist who beleves in a gradual development to Full Socialism, solely by democratic means) I feel that this form will never be truly sucessful, because capitalism will stop it as soon as they can without looking like total reactionries. One of Marx's main faults was to define the 'working classes' as soley as the manual class, without including the white-collar workers, who in most respects are worse off than the semi-skilled manual workers. This form can acheive persific victories (ie better conditions, better pay etc) but could never intraduce a full plan.

With religion/terrorism, I wasn't linking them both totally. I was implying that a govt form of Fasicm/Communism/Fundimentalism/Anarchism/Nationalism should be allowed to have the terrorism option. Any ideology which can spur fanaticalism can (and usally does) use terrorism. I am sorry to all if what I said seemed to imply that terrorism is only lined to religion.

With civilian/military targets, there is a very gray area. What about bridges, powerplants, TV stations, hospitals, govermental bulidings? All are (or can be dual-use buildings.

EU II is a oldish one-trick game, but the one trick it does, it is quite good at. It has sliders of different traits you can play about with liberty, religious tolerence, etc. Quite interesting the situations you can get in!

PS Have looked at that link. Very clever sod(the author). Have wasted hour at work reading it.

[lajzar]

Originally posted by Silpy
...
No, only one civ at a time could be 'International Communist' (not True Communist, that would be the next stage of development, which I don't want to see on Civ) There can be only one (true) International! Other cities would join you (Perhaps I am thinking that the International has simliar affect of that wonder in either CTP or CTP II, the Egitarian Act), but no civ could join you en masse, for all other civs would hate you like poison.

Why not make "The Internationale" a great wonder which only benefits communist nations? That would have the same effect.

So far, all the communism specific improvements feature the dark side of communism. How about a wonder that highlights what communism was meant to be?

This could also work for other nuanced governments too. Make the "Magna Carta" a monarchy-only wonder, the "Bill of Rights" a democracy-only wonder, etc, and you could have an increased number of government flavours.

[Drachasor]

Well, my point is that communism as it was meant to be can't happen. It isn't within human nature/culture, nor would it be easy to implement even if it was.

As for my political beliefs, I will call myself a "practical socialist." I like many of the ideals of equality of socialism, but any implementation must be done with a very close look at how it fits in with human psychology, culture, and current governmental activities. It must also be efficiently implemented. The socialisms of Europe tended to not care for these factors (particularly efficiency), and hence things such a telephone services were incrediably innefficient. That's why they haven't worked so well.

Oh, and I don't care much for the classical welfare state. While certain people must be fully supported by the state, others need to merely be lifted up and helped back on their feet. (Again, this is an efficiency issue).

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Oh, and as for terrorism, that is more to do with very unhappy citizens than anything else. There have been American terrorists on American soil. Islamic terrorists are able to exists because their countries are poorly off compared to the West.

Perhaps people that fall behind should be able to make terrorists.

-Drachasor

[lajzar]

Originally posted by Drachasor
Oh, and as for terrorism, that is more to do with very unhappy citizens than anything else.

Unhappiness is certainly a cause, but far from the only one. At the risk of getting political, I'd suggest you read up on the activities of the "School of the Americas" - the USA's own terrorist training camp.

Before you get upset with me for saying the USA sponsors terrorism, remember that irregular verb...

I am a freedom fighter.
You are a guerilla warrior.
He is an evil terrorist.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by lajzar


Unhappiness is certainly a cause, but far from the only one. At the risk of getting political, I'd suggest you read up on the activities of the "School of the Americas" - the USA's own terrorist training camp.

Before you get upset with me for saying the USA sponsors terrorism, remember that irregular verb...

I am a freedom fighter.
You are a guerilla warrior.
He is an evil terrorist.

True, but you don't see many Americans becoming terrorists*. (though that doesn't prevent facilitation). Though, the old spy system from Civ II was as close as needed to a terrorist system, I think. One of the main differences between terrorism and a legitimate military operation is the target. The former *targets* civilians, the latter does not.

Hmm, I suppose wether or not you can *make* terrorists should probably depend on social engineering choices. If you have some kind of extremist government, then you can train extremist citizens to go do extremist things, without hearing much trouble from your population.

Hmm, perhaps though terrorism should simply fall into the standard catagory of spy-activities. The difference between them and standard spy activities is that if you are caught, then it gives every nation a right to declare war on you.

-Drachasor

*There are some, but they certainly aren't happy.

[lajzar]

Kind of like how everyone declared war on the USA when it mined a purely civilian harbour in a central American country back in the latter half of last century?

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by lajzar
Kind of like how everyone declared war on the USA when it mined a purely civilian harbour in a central American country back in the latter half of last century?

I said "could" not "would." Without the diplomatic penalty, that is. Though, you do bring up a point about how civilian targets weren't always avoided...it really has only happened since after WWII.

-Drachasor

[lajzar]

My point was that whether a given action is labelled terrorism or not depends entirely on whos newspaper is reporting it. It dont think the game engine should distinguish between them, as the effect is the same. As long as it reflects the fact that there are two principal ways they are produced (state sponsored "terrorism" schools and chronic unhappiness), the results shouldn't differ.

No one would care much how the agents were produced

it really has only happened since after WWII.

Sadly, this is not true. The USA's track record for funding these activities goes back almost as long as US history itself.

I'm gonna try not to make any more posts on this topic, as it shouldn't be about nation-bashing.

[Drachasor]

I was referring to the fact that targetting civilian areas has only been avoided much since after WWII. Perhaps it is the live TV news that has caused this, but now it is avoided quite stridently by the army.

What's been considered acceptable to do in war has changed drastically over the last few thousand years.

-Drachasor

[Mr. Orange]

I posted this in the civ section, but it applies to government as well, bascially the way you build you civ identity also influences how the government shapes, but while your "culture" is fixed and based on your first selections, actions in game or how you work the tech tree... the policy section is mutable (to give you a boost depending on circumstances, etc.), with you having more options in certain areas if your culture is predisposed to it. Hard choices like "democracy" seem silly as all countries do similar governmental ideas differently.

http://home.ripway.com/2004-1/61738/CivIVIdea.xls

[Kuciwalker]

And yet is there any difference, on a civ scale, between US democracy and British or Italian or what-have-you democracy? (No)

[Fosse]

Not on a Civ III scale. But many people want one on a Civ IV scale.

If not a representation of the differences of the US or British republics, then at the very least some differences akin to SMAC.

A representative government with a tightly controlled market versus one that is completely free, vs a police state with a planned economy vs a police state that ignores the market and thus has a free one.

So you can have all countries doing similar governments differently.

[Kuciwalker]

Not on a Civ III scale. But many people want one on a Civ IV scale.

What possible differences could there be, that are representable on the scale of any strategy game?

[Fosse]

The body of this entire thread is full of examples. People want to have democracies with different economies, they want to have policies to set, and governmental decisions to make beyond the generic government pick and tax rate settings.

Mr. Orange's spreadsheet a few posts up gives some great examples of what we might call these things. Dozens of posts give examples of how the gameplay mechanics could factor in.

Some possible differences: A version of a Republic with a senate, and one without. Not having a senate gives you more direct control of military operations, diplomacy, and taxes. The trade off is that the people are more likely to revolt or riot or depose to another civ because they are more unhappy with the ruler above.
If you choose to have a senate, they might get to influence diplomacy (if they don't want to make a civ mad then they might not allow you to make certain demands. If they hate a civ they might not want you to pay too much for a resource), set a range for tax policy, or have any other controls in place.


That's just ONE idea from the top of my head. People who design games for a living can probably come up with a few more, not to mention the other ones posted previously on this site.


Whether or not it is sensible to go down that road might be another matter entirly, but there are all kinds of example of "possible differences."