SOCIAL ENGINEERING/GOVERMENT (ver1.0): Hosted by Bell

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Wherein we shall discuss various methods of keeping the people firmly under our heels.
I'm going to start off just by migrating the posts from the other thread over here.

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The general concensus seems to be to move Civ to the SMAC model of social engineering. Within that broad statement:

1) Seperating the design of your culture from the design of your government, both of which would have a distinct SMAC-style Social Engineering window.
1a-Government design includes type of government and economic model.
1b-Cultural design includes many moral and social options, each with a minor effect, but which adds up to a big influence when taken as a whole.

2) Government Types:
2a-Political systems: Despotism, Monarchy, Fascism, Communism, Republic, Democracy, Tribal, Dictatorship.
2b-Economic systems: Barter, Currency, Feudalism, Banking, Mercantilism, Corporation, Labor Unions.
2c-Political structures: Federal, Confederacy, City-State
2d-Policing structure? Included in other political categories, or a set of options in and of itself?
2e-Radical changes in government incur happiness and economic penalties.

3) Religion:
3a-Religious types: Animism, Polytheism, Monotheism, Theology, Fundamentalism, Secularism, Mysticism, maltheism, agnosticism, ascetism, dualism, monasticism, pantheonic. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
3b-Questions about religion: What impact does it have on game play? How can micromanagement be minimized?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The other problem involved in this, is what do we want for social engineering effects? I mean, saying you're a monarchy is great, but what does it do for your empire?

What categories should there be for social engineering bonuses/penalties? And what should each setting do?

[Zorloc]

One thing I would like to see is these settings affecting gameplay. For example in a state controlled economy, I would have to excert significant control over your economy to keep it working (i.e. micromanagement is necessary). But if I were to switch to Laisse-Faire Capitalism, I should not be able to control the economy (i.e. micromanagement becomes prohibited).

This could be done by making the planned economy less efficient, but with good planning and some luck, the planned economy can be a focused, well oiled machine that reaches your goals.

On the other hand, the unrestrained capitalism would be extremely productive, but unfocused, thus you would get what you want, but also a lot of what you don't want as well.

As for Government structures I would like to see a significant growth in possibilities, especially earlier in the game. I find it odd that in Civ we have more choices later in the game than at the start of the game. But if you look at history, there was a plethora of varied government schemes is the distant past, but now most are just a flavored version of democracy, monarchy, fascist, or communist.

Give us more choices earlier!!!!!

[JT]

It should be a lot like SMAC with Govn't, values, economy, etc. There should be negatives and positives for each.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It should be a lot like SMAC with Govn't, values, economy, etc. There should be negatives and positives for each.

OK, but what would be positively and negatively effected? In SMAC, it was things like happiness, research, planet (obviously no good) morale, etc. How could those be translated to CivIII, and what else could be added to them?

[anachron]

[Sorry, moved this post to the "Other" thread]

A

[This message has been edited by anachron (edited May 19, 1999).]

[Zorloc]

A starting point for the Social Engineering/Government would be to start the game with a national/ethnic character. This has been implemented in MOM, MOO(2), SMAC, and Age of Empires. Each civ should have a few starting advantages/disadvantages (the ratio of adv to disad would affect score) which could be preset or custom.

This idea is dangerous because it does lend itself to stereotypes that could be considered rascist. But I would welcome the addition for even early on there was a significant cultural difference between the highly structured Civ of Egypt and the chaos of Greece.

[Trachmyr]

In Civ2, the major effect to your people was HAPPINESS. This should be expanded to HAPPINESS, HEALTH, PROSPERITY and EDUCATION.

Social choices can affect the above "population levels" plus the following:

1)Growth

2)Economy

3)Dispersal of Prosperity (Capatilism tends to create a polarized community, while socialism creates a more homoginous (sp?) community)

4)Enviroment

5)Pride (A high pride will allow people to suffer through hard times and posibly morale bounuses to units (esp. on own territory), lower pride give opposite effect, and makes a city more likely to join another civ in a revolt)

6)Control(similar to POLICE in SMAC, but also combines some of the effects of PROBE (information leakeage))

7)Faith/Fanatcisism

8)EGO (like pride, but with bigger +'s and penalties to foreign relations)

9)Materilism (How much stuff/money your people want)

10)Conservatism/Liberalness (sp?) (How opposed your people are to change, and how easy for other civ's to influence you people)

11)Curiosity (directly affects reaserch)

12)Gregariousness (how disposed your people are to living in big populations)

13)Vengence (likeliness to forgive past transgressions, or short-comming of your goverment... but morale +'s vs. despised enemies)

This list is by no means exahustive, let's brainstorm

[Trachmyr]

Here's an idea/format for how religion can work:

Name of Religion: [User Defined] Trachmyrism
Basic Structure: Monotheistic
Special Structure: Dualistic (Good/Evil)
Afterlife: Heaven/Hell
Ferver: Moderate
Priesthood: Guidance [gives advice only]
Tenet(1): Ascetic
Tenet(2): Harsh Justice
Tenet(3): Proselytic


The effects:

-Name: no effect, just to discern between religions
-Basic Structure: Monotheism increases adhearance to doctrine (No other god to pettition)
-Special Structure: Dualism of Good/Evil, displays a Fight vs. Evil, meaning LOWERED CRIME
-Afterlife: Heaven/Hell increases adhearance to doctrine (who wants to spend eternity in hell?)
-Ferver: Base Level of Adhearance to doctrine. As Adhearance increases, religious facilities become more effective, modifiers due to componets of the religion (i.e. LOWERED CRIME) increase in effectiveness. However, more time is devoted to the religion and thus economy, production and reaserch suffers.
-Priesthood: Guidance gives no extra bonuses to religious structures, but also no extra threat in religious revolts (if your priest are seen as divine, they have a much greater influence for good and bad)
-Tenet(1): Ascetism reduces the support needed to maintain happiness amongst your people... but your markets suffer as a result
-Tenet(2): Harh Justice: further LOWERS CRIME
-Tenet(3): Proselytism allows your CIV to convert other nations to your religion or to your CIV... Nations with the same religion get along much better.

This is just an example on how customized religion can work...

[Ecce Homo]

Trachmyr, I like that you want more detail in religions.

I would like something like a religious Tech Tree. A civ can discover these religious "techs" randomly. Commandments could reduce crime, Mission could make conversions possible, Polygamy would increase population growth and so on.

When you discover a religious "tech" you could reject it with the risk of causing a religious revolt.

[Trachmyr]

Well I want to focus not only on religion but also culture, for Civ to live up to it's name, we must be able to DEFINE our own cultures...

I suggest that when cultural and/or religious tech is discovered, it is only a concept... it does NOT become part of your societies make-up automatically.

Instead, the cultural choices must be implemented through "CULTURE" similar to Research. You generate CULTURE by:
1)Automatic, x points per turn
2)Relations, x points per civ you have + relations with
3)PHILOSOPHERS, a city profession like entertainers, ect.
4)WONDERS, most wonders generate A LOT of culture... after all, a wonder really is just a monument to it's people... few have real advantages

Culture is pooled (like PUBLIC WORKS), but loses say, 10% of it's total per turn. Culture must be allocated to SOCIAL CHANGES, once enough culture is spent, the social change takes effect. This way, you can not only add Cultural componets, but remove them as well.

This won't take much micromanegement, whenever you gain a tech that give a cultural choice you want, you open up the screen and allocate points (by a % of total & earned).

Many cultural choices will be available at game start, and I agree that CIVs should start with selections already made refecting that culture.

If you've got alot of choices selected, build a WONDER to get them accomplished faster. (Maybe that's why most wonders are ancient?)


GOVERMENT choices would be the exception, you're free to mess with then however you want... but you're citizen may revolt, ect.
(However, gradual change should NOT cause ANARCHY)

[mhistbuff]

Going back to the original post, it might be more appropriate to replace communism under the political systems with totalitarianism and place communism in the economic section, as communism is an economic system. As well, a mixed-economy (a mix of capitalism and socialism similar to that in Britain) might be a good compromise economy. Feudalism should be replaced with Manoralism, the Feudal system was political, the Manoral system was economic.

Perhaps for the religion thing, how about choosing levels of toleration as opposed to the actual religion, eg state religion, tolerant, semi-tolerant(like Britain under Elizebeth, extra taxes for people of other religions), atheist state, etc.

[Trachmyr]

Yes, communism is a ONE PARTY STATE with socialist economics.

I like expaned religion/culture mainly because there is really no diffrence between civilizations in CIV, let's finally be able to define the actual Civilization. Besides, this way you can create Unique cultures, religions and goverments, not just a regurgitation of the more popular models in western history.

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited May 19, 1999).]

[the Octopus]

I agree with mhistbuff that the thing that should matter from a gameplay perspective is the role of religion and religious tolerance in society, not the actual religions themselves. Trying to fit the religions of the world into a "religion tree" or give them plusses and minuses to real gameplay questions is a guarantee that Firaxis will offend somebody and mischaracterize somebody else, without much benefit to gameplay. Trachmyr's description of his religion seems more like window dressing to me -- the Throne Room as opposed to the Social Engineering screen.

I also agree that we should suggest that Firaxis refrain from using the word "Communism" without being aware of the ambiguity that applies to the word (i.e. do you mean a Stalinist political system or a Marxist economic system?).


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[Trachmyr]

Window Dressing?

Religion plays a very important role in culture, and should be given some depth in CIV3. Could you imagine the changes in the U.S. culture, if our religion was based on Animistic beliefs? What if there was no afterlife, would people be as conservative and as reckless? No game could ever fully simulate the complexity of culture and religion, but we can cover some of the main topics.

In responce to being not politically correct, or offending some group... that is why I suggest a customizable, more abstact system then using actual real-world religions, although you can certainly try to duplicate them.

[Fugi the Great]

Instead of trying to step on someones toes, why not just base the games religions on what we have now, just change the name to protect the innocent and guilty. That way there is no one screaming sacrilege at you and threating to kill you. This whole game is fictitious anyway.

So the Republic of MicroProse decides to start worshiping the great god Sid Meier because he has done marvelous works, and handed down his almighty word in a book called "Prima's Secrets of the Game", and called all of his followers, that call themselves Civers, to be ready for the final judgment of PC Gamer. Those that continue to follow him to the end will receive everlasting enjoyment of playing CIVIII forever after spending only a few months in BUG heaven. He that doth not continue in the Civil way will spend eternity playing CTP on a 486SX25.

The nation really does have to have a religion or even "it's religion", even if they end up "loosing my religion" and start loosing their morals or start accepting a different one. A nations religious beliefs help determine which technology to go after, which nations are going to be our friends, which nation we will hate for all time, which WoW we build, what types of weapons we use and when we use them, how fast does the population grow, and what type of government is right for them. If a nation went truly atheist, the nation would self-destruct.

[Shining1]

An extension of the SMAC system, but with redundancies, is the way to go.

Religion isn't enough of a government issue for it to be made a social setting. While you can have a religious government (fundamentalism), the actual effects of a religion on day to day life for any society don't really add up to anything (e.g the roman empire wouldn't have lasted any longer had they become muslim instead of christian).

So, the system should probably have 4 main types of each category, and each type has an ancient and a modern setting.

For instance, Republics no longer exist, instead they have become democracies.

GOVERNMENT
The system of government used by this civilisation. Choice of government is most important, as it will limit your options in the other areas: society, economics, and values.

Government types:
Totalitarian (cannot use Open society)
Communist
Democratic (canot use police state society)
Fundamentalist (cannot use corporate society)

SOCIETY

Determines the freedoms and ways of living of your society.

Society types:
Police State
???
Open
Corporate

Economics:

Similar to SMAC


Values:

Similar to SMAC

[Shining1]

Global values for social settings:

Order - how organised your society is.
Affects number of police units allowed and effectiveness of some facilities

Happiness - how happy people are to be a part of your civilisation.

Health - determines population growth rate and some resource gathering penalties/bonuses. Negative for most of early game.

Corruption - affects number of resources gathered and control over population. Positive for most early game options.

Industry - affects resource consumption. Zero for most early game options.

Economy - affects trade and commerce income. Zero for most early game options.

Knowledge - society's ability to gather knowledge (can be heavily affected)

Environment - affects environmental damage, and can confer movement bonuses. Positive for all early game options.

Unlike SMAC, however, certain technologies should immediately affect these settings. For instance, Philosophy and Physics could both give +1 to knowledge (for the first civ to obtain them), while environment will be adversely affected by both plastics and the automobile.

Other settings can be greatly affected by city improvements. Hospitals will improve health and happiness, while Court Houses improve order and reduce corruption.

[Freddz]

Government forms should be more expensive and take more time to change the more towns you have. In SMAC, changing government type cost, for example, 40 energy whether you had 1 town or twenty. Ridiculous. This idea makes a huge empire a bit harder to handle too, and can make it a bit easier to catch up when behind or make it a bit tougher if ahead.

It's important all government choices effect a lot of things: how your people consider neighbours, how your people are affected by neighbours polluting your territory. Contradicting religions could lead to crusades and very suspicious feelings if you become great friends with a completely different religion type. Government choices should go further in depth.

Yes, incorporate feelings more in government choices. Societies could have have different grades on how religious they are, if they are real high grades and the nation is successful they may influence neighbours. Maybe minorities in neighbour towns could get these religions. Maybe they will get cleric units for free now and then(which I like in CTP).

Having a very religious society could lead to problems: to become friends with certain civilizations would be tougher(as stated) as your high priests object and could possibly worry your people a lot leading to unhappiness, but crusades would be easier(units attacking a country in which they crusade against have a bonus depending on how fanatic they are!). I think a really succssful religious nation could get a second headquarter with a "pope"(high religious leader) and would be able to collect small taxes from devoted towns. And lastly, changing governments is easy, changing religions like a switchboard is not: Religions should be gained from other civilization and tougher to change up and down.

A slavery Government should definately be included: Look at the greatness of the Roman empire. Possible effects: good effectivity, good income, okay research; but risky: small chances of slave revolts(they can become pretty serious if they happen), opponents capturing cities will be able to enlist vengeful slave recruits to their army immediately.

Incorporate feeling feeling feeling in the governments, let us not just concentrate on what choices there are going to be

[Ecce Homo]

I think there should be a risk that a large civ splits during a Revolution.

[Mark_Everson]

*My first post on this thread*

Yeah, give us Real revolutions, not these "go to sleep for a few turns" things. As Ecce Homo says there should be some chance you actually have to fight (now there's a concept ) in a revolution. Maybe the revolutions as they exist are ok for Warlord level, but by Deity you should be playing with live ammo. It would also slow down the leading civ (almost always the player) if the bigger you are the more chance there is of having a big blowup during a revolution. This would require some good play-balance to not overdo things, but that's one of the things they're getting paid for...

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Mark Everson
Project lead for The Clash of Civilizations
(That means I do the things nobody else wants to do )
This Radically different civ game needs your suggestions and/or criticism of our design.
Check our our Forum right here at Apolyton...

[Frank Moore]

This was posted in the player interface thread, I think it should be here also.

From Cybershy:
• It must be possible to make laws. A law gets reflection on the society as well. When in 1800 the law starts to work that forbid kids below 16 years to work, but says that HAEV TO study, then production will go down for a couple of years, but soon the people will be smarter, and higher educated, which will improve your society and science rate.

Other laws are possible as well. All boys between 18 and 21 have to go into the army. Drugs are not allowed, Gay-mariage, 3-day workweek, raise vacation days, forbid swimming, give drugs free, forbid divorcion etc. etc. etc. (whatever can come up in your sick mind, mister dictator hehe)

[Frank Moore]

It would be nice to be able to adjust tax/science/lux on a city level. for example, I'm having trouble keeping one city from going into disorder, I just jack up the luxury setting and I'm back in business.

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Frank Moore - Civ3 Player Interface Thread Master

[Fugi the Great]

If we stay with the city concept, then I second the motion of individual tax rates for each city. Maybe even a sort of tax incentive to relocate to a frontier area (speeds growth), or get the work done faster.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

(Fighting off one micromanagement problem before it starts...)

Sounds good, but the interface must include the ability to set values for multiple cities at the same time!

[Zorloc]

KMJ,

I understand your concerns about the "national-character." I agree that a nation should not be railroaded into a specific arch-type. The initial benefits/limitations should all be very minor +1 or -1 on a couple of the "social categories". Something like that. By the end of the game these initial starting points should be insignificant.

There should NOT be units limited to certain nations (like Samurai for the Japanese).

As you progress in the game social-tech's discovered should change your starting "national character." For example, take "the Alphabet." This tech has always bothered me because much of the world's great Civs never used and alphabet, many used Heiroglyps or Word Characters. This could be used to modify your civ:

Alphabet - wide spread literacy, greater social chaos.
Word Characters - limited literacy, greater social control.

This one tech could then nullify or magnify an initial-national character.

In addition to preset or custom national character, geographical could be added as well. Civs on islands will be bigoted, but with greater social coheason. Civs in Steeps would be militaristic and chaotic. Civs in river grassland would be peaceful and productive, etc.

Additionally as in SMAC there should be a large checklist of rules one can nullify, this could certainly be one.

[Depp]

It should not be only japan that could make samurais, but maybe some techs should only be for the first one to discover them? and they should give certain advantages but not to big. And take a long time to research and demand certain cultural/politacal/religious system....

And by the way, the citizens should be colorcoded after what civ they are from so that the serbs and croatians can hate each other and break out from other civs. having all these nationalites in one empire is really hard and that would allow civs to be reborn and continue the game

[Singularity]

I think that there should be specific government types each with its own group of setting within social engineering. This will give you more flexibility within a government.

[23 Skidoo]

Re: Civ character.

I'd really like to see this, but have to admit that I wouldn't want to play it this way every time. So how about an option to play this way, or a setup control panel that provides for Civ/Gov attribute settings including unit specializations & tech advances/benes?

Actually, I think all this is really more in the realm of Mods than anything else. If Firaxis builds everything into CivIII that we want, what will we do for Mods???

[Trachmyr]

Definately LAWS must be included, just give us a big list to pick and choose from. We decide what we want to enforce, and all the little +'s and -'s add up. Don't forget INTERNATIONAL LAW, especially with the U.N.

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited May 20, 1999).]