AU mod: Balancing the Governments

[ducki]

I think I'd like to suggest us only making one change to any given government in any single release of the mod. If Communal Corruption is as good as posts are making it sound, lower unit support may be overkill, especially when you get 5 free units per Town.

I feel kinda funny writing a plea to take it slow and reading your sig while doing it. Teehee!

[nbarclay]

One possibility would be to defer communal Feudalism until our second C3C AU game and then have a game focused specifically on testing that change. If the change works out, that would give us all experience with what the revised Feudalism is like for consideration in future AU games. If it doesn't, the experience might still help us in considering what else we might want to do with Feudalism.

[ducki]

I'd rather see communal feudalism over a change in unit support. The "backwards" support rules for Feudalism make sense to me and if communal corruption makes the government competitive, then we wouldn't need to change support costs.

At least, I'd rather see the corruption change first. That's just my opinion, though.

[alexman]

Since the reduced unit maintenance cost has been under consideration for a while, we will vote on that change first.

We will then have another vote (after the first AU game) to see whether to change the corruption type to communal.

If the reduced unit maintenance cost passes this time, we might vote to restore it back to the stock value of 3gpt. It may be that communal corruption is powerful enough to make the reduced unit cost an unnecessary change.

[donZappo]

Sounds like a good plan to me, Alexman. I'd also be all for the second AU game focusing specifically on the "Power of Communalism" or something like that. With a change to feudalism and the new and improved communism it sure sounds like a fascinating game to me!

-donZappo

[alexman]

Here's a crazy idea for those who want to tempt builders into Republic-to-Democracy switch.

Give communal corruption to Democracy!

Keep the trade bonus, of course. Then Democracy would be better than Communism in science, and better than the Republic for empires greater than about OCN cities.

It would also satisfy those who complain that corruption should not depend on distance in a modern Democracy.

[sabrewolf]

i'm anyway in favour of getting rid of concentric distance corruption and prefer the newer corruption model (as soren wants it implemented).

however, without sliders i think this idea may be too crazy. we've got 4 levels of concentric corruption (minimal, nuisance, problematic, rampant), but just 1 equally distributed corruption model (communal). with sliders for the corruption percentage and a switch for the model (communal, centric, maybe something new???) this would be an option.

and for point of realism: classical democracies are centralistic. if we were to introduce an additional goverment ("federalistic democracy"), coming at the same time as regular democracy, your suggestion sounds great

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
and for point of realism: classical democracies are centralistic. if we were to introduce an additional goverment ("federalistic democracy"), coming at the same time as regular democracy, your suggestion sounds great

Thinking about the distinction between "Republic" and "Democracy," the best way of conceptualizing it may be to consider who has the vote. In Republic, you have a situation where large numbers of slaves, people of conquered territories, and perhaps just even average citizens have no real say in the government in spite of its nominally republican nature. In Democracy, the right to vote is much more universal, especially in regard to social and economic class.

On a conceptual level, I think communal corruption in Democracy would make perfect sense. Even to the extent that democracies centralize power in a single capital, power is still distributed in the sense that the representatives who vote come more or less equally from all parts of the nation. The fact that Los Angeles is several times farther from Washington D.C. than New York City is does not mean that the vote of a person in Los Angeles has any less weight in setting policy in the federal government. Communal corruption would reflect the fact that in a Democracy, the central government is just as answerable to people who live far from the capital as it is to those who live nearby.

But however much sense I think the idea of changing Democracy to have communal corruption might make on a conceptual level (and would make for inclusion in Civ 4), I think it's a bad idea for the AU Mod. For one thing, where Feudalism is a new government that most people seem to ignore under the standard rules to a point where it almost might as well not exist, Democracy is a long-standing part of the game that a lot of us are used to. Thus, violation of the goal of preserving the feel of the stock game is a vastly greater problem if Democracy is so completely transformed. I'm also concerned about the issue of trying to balance Democracy against other governments if we did such a thing.

[alexman]

Time to vote.

My vote: YES (Reduce unit maintenance cost to 1 gold per unit per turn for Feudalism)

Better than stock, but I definitely prefer a communal Feudalism instead of this change.

[lockstep]

YES.

(And I still think that communal corruption AND 1 gold per unit may be quite balanced. This is a government without trade bonus, but with war weariness.)

[Dominae]

A hesitant Yes for me too.

[Theseus]

Yes. One thing at a time.

[Stuie]

YES.

[Nor Me]

Yes.

If we don't give communal corruption to Democracy, then we certainly shouldn't give it to Feudalism. Communism is potentially the best goverment for a builder with a large empire. The disadvantages of Feudalism compared to Communism wouldn't really affect the builder much. It might be easier to end the game in Feudalism than to research the 2 or 3 optional techs needed for Communism and the SPHQ.

[Nisku]

I hope I can post here, I don't know the rules!

Since I've been playing with Conquests I've almost always used feudalism, I've been playing Monarch-Demigod level, I've played about 6 games all using feudalism as my only early government. Feudalism is a great government if used right, I just think a lot of players haven't given it a go yet.

Decreasing the unit cost for feudalism in my opinion is something that would make a very, very limited impact. In my games my unit support with feudalism is so high that I almost never hit the cap. Having communual corruption or no war weariness might make feudalism more attractive to other players, as it is now I do just fine.

I have some saves of my games in both feudalism and communism, if anyone is intrested.