An idea for a wonder or other special power

[Arrian]

In CivII, IIRC, the Statue of Liberty allowed no-anarchy government changes.

This became irrelevent once Oedo made his discovery of the appropriately-named Oedo years: if you timed it correctly, you could change governments with only 1 turn lost to anarchy, or was it zero turns lost? I forget. Anyway, it was shockingly simple: once every four turns was an Oedo year.

But I digress. In CivIII, anarchy can't be avoided by something that simple, although of course Religious civs get a huge break on that as part of their trait advantage. Non-religious civs endure 4-9 turns of anarchy.

I think it would be cool if CivIV either brought back a wonder like the Statue of Liberty, or if Great Leaders are to be in the game, it could be a function of them (like a third option for the use of an SGL).

-Arrian

[GePap]

I think you need anarchy to make swithching governments costly (revolutions are)-now, we could always make the system more EU like, a situation not in which all your cities stop working, but one in which you have to fight off the supporters of the old regime (much like in Colonization as well) and suffer much higher (thought not absolute) corruption, waste, and unhappyness.

Though supposedly the designers want to make the game "more fun" and have moved to remove unpleasantnesses like riots.....

[skycommando]

i was thinking that a overhauled espionage system could lead to several new wonders. the concept introduced in mooiii, of training individual spies to perform espionage and recruit other agents, would work well in civ. spies wouldn't be units on the board, but they wouldn't be non-existent, like in civiii. you could finally have a long overdue wonder dedicated to machiavelli.

[ZargonX]

Maybe this is a little out there, but perhaps anarchy could be based upon what kind of government switch you are undertaking. For instance, going from Despotism to Monarchy is a change, but nearly as great a change as from Democracy to Facism. It would take setting a scale and locating each of the governments on it, then calculating the "difference" factor. It may sound complicated, but at least it would give you something to base your switch/anarcy times on.

[skycommando]

i think that is completely reasonable. from despotism to monarchy, or monarchy to fascism, you could hypothetically retain your government's identity: advisors, tactics, style of rule. same with with republic to democracy. these are changes that members of your government would most likely agree to take. but switching between conflicting ideologies should represent a more dramatic upheaval: a great deal should change in your empire (including, were they to be added, advisors trained and created under the previous system of government).

[patcon]

Originally posted by ZargonX
Maybe this is a little out there, but perhaps anarchy could be based upon what kind of government switch you are undertaking. For instance, going from Despotism to Monarchy is a change, but nearly as great a change as from Democracy to Facism. It would take setting a scale and locating each of the governments on it, then calculating the "difference" factor. It may sound complicated, but at least it would give you something to base your switch/anarcy times on.

My first reaction was "Yeah, that makes sense. People would rebel more when switching from a less repressive to a more repressive form of government, and less when vice versa." Then one word came to mind - "Iraq". OK, that also has the problem of being a government change imposed by an outsider.
But I still like the concept of "adjustment time" for new governments, rather than anarchy.
When a player wants to change governments, the new government is specified and the civ enters an "adjustment period" while the people adapt to the change. During this time productivity, etc. would drop, but then rebound toward the ultimate level for the targeted government.
The two key factors in determining the length of the adjustment would be the eras of the two governments and the relative levels of freedom/repression in each. Switching governments from the same era would require less time than switching between eras - going from despotism to monarchy would be less jolting to a society than despotism to democracy. Switching from a "repressive" government to a "responsive" government should require less time than the reverse, but repressive to repressive should happen quickly.

[ZargonX]

Switching governments from the same era would require less time than switching between eras - going from despotism to monarchy would be less jolting to a society than despotism to democracy. Switching from a "repressive" government to a "responsive" government should require less time than the reverse, but repressive to repressive should happen quickly.

Exactly. If your people are used to being trod upon, they won't mind so much being trod upon in a different form. However, going from a Democracy to a Facist state would probably cause some rioting in the many streets of your many cities. As for the Iraq example, well, like you said: that was an outside power imposing a government change, so the situation is a little different

[skycommando]

people accustomed to being 'repressed' will (and historically have) had trouble adjusting to 'responsive' governments. there may not be chaos in the streets, but 'anarchy' definitely occured when the 'communist' soviet government disintigrated into the 'democratic' russion government. industry shut down, the economy collapsed: there was definitely a 'penalty' for switching from one government to the next.

even wilder: what if you are in a fascist government, and you are governing particularly poorly, what if a revolution started without you asking the game for one? 'your people are revolting,' the screen would say, there would be the period of anarchy, then you would choose a new government. or one would be chosen for you.

regardless, the idea of 'anarchy' is stupid. it should be called 'provisional' or 'revolutionary' government. or, better yet, that should be the result of a technology: you discover something, and you no longer go into total anarchy between govs, you go into something slightly better.

[Toby Rowe]

Hi patcon,

You're idea;

"i think that is completely reasonable. from despotism to monarchy, or monarchy to fascism, you could hypothetically retain your government's identity: advisors, tactics, style of rule. same with with republic to democracy. these are changes that members of your government would most likely agree to take. but switching between conflicting ideologies should represent a more dramatic upheaval: a great deal should change in your empire (including, were they to be added, advisors trained and created under the previous system of government"

....Is excellent!

One or two turns of anarchy betwix similar governance types ( eg; Democratic/Republic) or Despotic/Monarchal/Communist against say 8-9 turns from Communism to Democracy would certainly make you think twice before you changed governance just because you want a war.

Russia has taken 10 years to realise the Oil barons ripped off the nation during her transition into democracy, having brought half her companies on the cheap in the chaos.

I hope your idea gets into Civ 4, not least as I'm sure it must be easy to programme.

One thing, your nation must be protected from the crazy "cultural influence" during the period, or else no one will switch government in later stages of the game.

I wish this aspect gone- keep the "filling in of tiles" by other means to prevent daft AI countries settling inside your borders). I'd suggest a simple border that connects your outward most cities- woebetide any nation that settled within it.

This would also allow the company to concentrate on AI where it matters (city placements would be a good start!)

I've rambled,

Toby!

[Toby Rowe]

For bumused Yanks or fellow Brit's talking about Oil Barons, I was refering to the Russian ones, one of whom now resides in my town-London and owns Chelsea Football Club I think he owns Yukon Oil- the second largest oil company, whilst the other boss is under trial in Russia.

Whether or not his challenge of government control of the media is the real reason is another matter entirely......

Maybe 20 turns to change from Communism to Democracy then.

Toby

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Arrian
I think it would be cool if CivIV either brought back a wonder like the Statue of Liberty, or if Great Leaders are to be in the game, it could be a function of them (like a third option for the use of an SGL).

If we are to talk about the 1/3 of "improved" stuff (referring to Soren's recipe for a successfull franchise title: 1/3 old, 1/3 improved, 1/3 new), I believe Arrian's idea of GLs (I would not limit that to just SGLs - think Caesar, e.g.) being able to help change govs with smaller losses is an excellent one.

It actually not only sounds good from the gameplay perspective, but makes sense historically, too... great leaders often played a significant role in "changing" the society - being famous and respected, they had the power to initiate or encourage the change and suppress some of its downside effects.

[Tattila the Hun]

From Democracy to Fascism, there shouldn't be anarchy. Example: The Third Reich. The NSDAP won one fair election, and IIRC didn't get majority.

Though, Spain went a bit differently... But that was civil war, not anarchy.

[patcon]

Originally posted by skycommando
even wilder: what if you are in a fascist government, and you are governing particularly poorly, what if a revolution started without you asking the game for one? 'your people are revolting,' the screen would say, there would be the period of anarchy, then you would choose a new government. or one would be chosen for you.

IIRC, there is, or maybe was, the possibility of a governmental collapse if you allowed your cities to remain in disorder long enough. Any ruler who allows his cities to remain in disorder for that much time deserves whatever he gets. In Civ2 I seem to remember having my democracy disintegrate when I wanted to go to war and was opposed by the senate, or some such thing.

[ScipioX]

It might be interesting to have political parties in the game to represent different factions among the populace. They would agitate for particular governments or social engineering settings. I'm not sure what should determine when they act. Unrest, obviously, but they should be more than just a bunch of revolters. Trying to set the faction settings for all pops in all civs might be a bit much to program, too.

[Max Sinister]

Originally posted by Toby Rowe
Maybe 20 turns to change from Communism to Democracy then.

France did faster during the French Revolution. (The period of real democracy was quite short, though.) Maybe the USA are the better example.

[Dauphin]

Customisable government types would remove the anarchy problem. That is use the EU2 sliders and stability model - change a government attribute and it temporarily increases corruption or unhappiness. The bigger the change the longer the time to readjust.

You just need to decide what government attributes you want, know what their trade offs would be, and when they become available to variations.

For sake of argument you could have a Free Speech scale. At the start of the game it would be set to minimal and can't be adjusted. When you develop Writing a second notch becomes available, when you develop Printing Press it can be adjusted to yet another higher, when you reach Mass Media/Production it can be set to the highest setting. The pro of Free Speech is less corruption or increased trade, the con is increased War Weariness.

[Pizza]

As a new wonder, how about the "Space Elevator" ? It would have to be built near the equator, and it significantly reduces the time it takes to build your spacecraft.

[Toby Rowe]

Dauphin,

That is a really good idea.

Your idea gave me a idea of a second slider; for trade: protectionism at one end, Free Trade at the other.

The more you choose to trade only within your own borders, the less you earn, conversely, free trade at the other end earns you more, but also earns your nearest rival more......

Based upon the sliding scale model you give, if applied to others area's, you could eliminate the government types entirely.

Your stance towards other nations could be easily modelled using a slider (as an afterthought!)

Toby