{The List -} Government & Social Engineering

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

My second point was that I also feel that governments AND social engineering can be combined.
The role of governments-aside from specific units and Wonders-is that they should determine the minimum and maximum amount of influence that your people have over your decision making AND it should set the minimum and maximum settings you can have for the various SE settings.
For instance, you have two modern governments-the Modern Democracy and the Modern Republic (as opposed to their Classical counterparts). On the surface, these governments might seem quite similar, but a Modern Republic might allow lower minimums for % sufferage and % liberty, whilst allowing a greater maximum for % nationalism than Modern Democracy. Yet you might still have two civs, one with M. Republic and the other with M. Democracy, both with the identical levels of sufferage, liberty and nationalism.
I am definitely keen on seeing some kind of social engineering being in cIV, though, as I think its a great way to truly 'Individualise' your civs government. Also, look at the real world-both Indonesia and the US are 'Modern Republics', yet both nations governments are so very different-on so many levels!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Oh and, just for the record, I think the best areas for social engineering could be:

Liberty: effects how free your people are-to speak and assemble in public (and private, for that matter). The lower you set this, the more 'content' people you will have in your civ-but the greater the chance of a revolt and/or civil war when the people DO become unhappy. Also reduces the chance of spy missions against your civ.

Secularity: effects the degree to which religion dictates politics and social policy. The lower you set this, the less effective religious improvements become, but the less likely you are to succumb to a religious schism. Also reduces the chances of a dark age occuring.

Private Enterprise: effects the degree to which the private sector is involved in your economy. The lower you set this, the less cash you get from company tax, but the greater control you have over what your city can build and what resources you can exploit.

Sufferage: effects who can vote for the government of the day, and the degree of influence the middle and lower classes have over your policies. The lower you set this, the more direct control you have over your civs domestic and foreign policies-but the more unhappy your make your people-especially labourers and civil servants.

Legalism: The degree to which the rule of law dominates your civ-and how harsh your penal code is. The lower you set this, the less your law and order budget will set you back, but also the more crime and corruption you will have to deal with!

Tolerance: The degree to which those of different cultures and religions are accepted within your society. The lower you set this, the lower your international standing becomes. Also, it increases your rate of cultural/religious 'assimilation'-but makes foreign nationals in your civ unhappy. It also reduces your rate of immigration

Nationalism: Not sure if this one is superfluous or not, but it effects the degree of 'national pride' your people have. The lower you set this, the more war weariness will hit your civ (patriotism is a strong motivator for people during war time), but also the more likely your people are to accept you making deals with civs from other culture groups. Reducing nationalism also increases the rate of immigration.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on SE. Sorry if I'm repeating whats already been said, but I would be interested in knowing what people think!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[ThePlagueRat]

Originally posted by The diplomat
I'd like to see government specific units and government specific city improvements/wonders. I think that would make government a lot more interesting.

Now, I don't want to see tv evangelists units, but I think there are interesting historical units that could be used for each government.

Nice!
NKVD-inf and SS-panzer division available to Communist and Fascist, respectivly... also National Guard militia for Republic and Royal Knights for Monarchy. This would be in addition to specifically engineering each govt. platform like we discussed.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by K.J.H.
I'm not a fan of sliders, because, like another user said before in this topic, players will use very average settings.

Why do you think that? In general, the best way to play civ-like games is not to keep everything as average as possible, but rather to concentrate on a specific strategy and excel in that. As a consequence, this will lead to different SE settings being most useful depending on whether you're gonna pursue a research, industrial, military or espionage approach etcetera... At least that's the way things work in SMAC.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by ThePlagueRat
Nice!
NKVD-inf and SS-panzer division available to Communist and Fascist, respectivly... also National Guard militia for Republic and Royal Knights for Monarchy. This would be in addition to specifically engineering each govt. platform like we discussed.

Or maybe the Communist special unit could be a KGB unit with a "nerve staple" ability.

[ThePlagueRat]

Nice.
Speaking of SMAC, the fascist special unit could have the 'police unit' ability.

[Boris Godunov]

Dynasties, similar to EU's kings. Your state has dynastic periods (or particular sovereign/party rule) that effects certain attributes, such as:

Military
Science
Economy
Diplomacy
Production
Happiness

A particular dynasty/ruler will start off with variable base ratings in these areas. So a dynasty that has a strong military value will do better in battles, while one with a weak economic value will have slightly less income coming in. Thing is, you can improve these values over time various ways. Forcing favorable peace treaties after wars will improve the military and diplomacy ratings slightly, while building lots of economic and happiness improvements will increase those values, etc.

Dynasties would average a 20 turn rule, variable. Switching governments would mean an automatic dynasty change. In Republic and Democracies, the dynasties can be changed peacefully via elections every 10 turns. However, the player wouldn't know the values of potential new dynasties. The ascendancy of a dynasty with really good values might trigger a Golden Age. The player would be able to rename dynasties to his/her liking upon their ascession. When the year increment gets down to 1-2 yrs, the dynasties will be the names of particular rulers. There will be a database of historical names for each country, and it will work just like choosing city names.

In scenarios, the editor will allow the setting of the duration of each dynasty explicitley.

EU and Europa 1400 are the inspirations for this.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Libertarian government: corruption low, no conscription possible, higher commerce, higher pollution, higher bonus' from environmentally friendly city improvments, lower tax collection, more happiness.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

also, need a way for big empires to collapse due to internal pressures. none of this get big early and win. collapse should be kinda random, and maybe not all at once.
collapse can be brought on by too many cities (outer ones revolt), too much war (outer ones revolt.) govt types can influence the factor at which they will revolt.

[Quezacotl06]

SMAC SE i agree is a lot better than Civ3, which clung to much to historical archetypes and steriotypes.

You could have a democratic communism in SMAC, or a cybernetic fundamentalism. The specific attribute bonus/penalties lets you cancel out weaknesses in your society. You can't do that in Civ 3.

[lajzar]

Originally posted by Quezacotl06
You could have a democratic communism in SMAC, or a cybernetic fundamentalism. The specific attribute bonus/penalties lets you cancel out weaknesses in your society. You can't do that in Civ 3.

I actually consider that to be a weakness in SMAC. If you can munchkin your government such that there are no weaknesses, it removes part of the challenge. Having to make difficult decisions on what government to be, *that* should be an important part of the game. SMAC reduced governments to a munchkin min-maxing exercise.

My current big list of governemnts is:

[default]

Anarchy
Despotism

[ancient]

Monarchy
City State (Athenian Democracy)
Plutocracy (Merchant oligarchy)

[classical]

Tributary Empire (Rome, China)
Republic (Rome, early modern "rotten borough" systems)

[middle ages]

Blood Cult (mesoamerica)
Feudalism
Theocracy (monotheistic)
Caliphate (pro-science medieval middle east mostly)
Mercantile Empire (most of imperial Europe)

[modern]

Democracy (the modern ideal)
Communism (soviet union)
Fascism (ww2 germany)
Fundamentalism

[futuristic]

Technocracy (government by computer)
Corporate Republic (what the USA is dangerously close to becoming)
Ecotopia
Virtual Democracy

Note that my technocracy idea is quite different from the CTP idea. Mine is based more on the old role playing game called Paranoia.

That libertarian government mentioned upthread. It seems like a nice idea, but unless you make it a futuristic government, I can't quite see it happening. It is an idealised democracy, just as Marx's idealised communism was something quite different from the historical model.

[Quezacotl06]

Guess that doesn't realy adress the topic...lol ok ill reiterate.

It would be better to have 5degrees
(Evil o--o--o--o--o Good), which would give bonus' and penalties according to if u choose extremes or moderates (the central node would give no bonus/penalties)

Government:
Centralized/Totalitarian o--o--o--o--o Libertarian/Democratic

Centralized (extreme): +2 Tolerance (this means tolerance for controlling riots and conscription), +4 Military Affordability, -4 Bureocratic Efficiency

Libertarian (extreme): +2 Population Growth, +4 Bureocratic Efficiency, -4 Military Affordability

And as Economic degrees, it could be split between 2: Equality o--o--o--o--o Merit, and Conservation o--o--o--o--o Productivity

Equality/ Planned (extreme): +4 Productivity, -4 Bureaucratic Efficiency, +2 Population Growth,

Merit/ Corporatism (extreme): +4 Commerce, +2 Productivity, -4 Tolerance

Conservation (extreme): +4 Environment, -4 Productivity, +2 Bureocratic Efficiency

Productivity (extreme): +4 Productivity, -4 Environment, +2 Commerce

*numbers could be extreme options only, choosing a moderate could halve bonuses/penalties

Others could represent cultural values, like their religosity/academics, survivalism/arts, and patriotism/diversity

Religous/Academic degrees could balence research speed and effectiveness of religous constructions (for making happiness), while Survivalism/Arts could balence military morale/support with commerce/happiness.

It just gives you more control over the kind of the culture you want, rather than recalling what you see in movies and history about what each civ is like.

[lajzar]

It just gives you more control over the kind of the culture you want, rather than recalling what you see in movies and history about what each civ is like.

And that is exactly why I consider it a weakness. Leaders have tried throughout history to create the ideal government, Plato, Marx, the founding fathers etc. But every time, teh law of unintended consequences has resulted in some hidden flaw in the grand ideal. That is why Marx's communism and historical comunism are so different, and why with have teh present USA instead of what the founding fathers envisioned.

If you can plan everything with social engineering choices, you don't allow for the complex subtleties that result from unintended consequences.

I realise that each axis affects 2 attributes in opposite directions, but unintended consequences means that having 2 axes in a certain why results in something completely unforeseen.

Any kind of SE model complex enough to fully allow for such things will be too complex to explain to the average human, let alone an ai.

However, as you might deduce from my big list of governments, the present list is way too small, and forces you into exactly those stereotypes (and not many of those at that) you see in movies. The game editor should allow for a huge amount of customisation in the government effects.

SE by itself doesn't allow for, say, blood cults getting extra culture for sacrifices, or the enxtra spy ability for communism. In addition, most of the SE options listed have limited, if any, meaning for many governments.

Perhaps certain governments could have additional sub-options released by later techs. So you might be a monarchy, but once the appropriate SE techs are released, you could be a Absolute monarch (default), Divine monarch (ie descendant of the sun god etc), Constitutional monarch, etc. Under democracy, you could have welfare, libertarian, and so on.

Perhaps that would be a way to combine the two themes?

[Panag]

hi ,

, its seems that c3c is not taken in to account that much when it comes to governments , ....

have a nice day

[lajzar]

Oh, the modding functionality in civ3 is there, but it is marred by a horrible modding interface, and civ3 has other flaws which make me play civ2 at least as much.