New civics screen

[Solver]

The downsides of Free Market and the other civics is that you don't get to use the other civics. If Bureaucracy gives me an uber capital, I'm sure I would sometmes want that over Free Speech.

[kolpo]

Originally posted by Solver
The downsides of Free Market and the other civics is that you don't get to use the other civics. If Bureaucracy gives me an uber capital, I'm sure I would sometmes want that over Free Speech.

That is only true if the other civics are at least as powerfull as free market, because they may have a higher upkeep need they do be actually MORE powerfull.

The thing that should be avoided at ALL COST, is having a set of peacetime civics and wartime civics most players use in peace/war, while the rest of the civics are only used in very specific situations.

[joncnunn]

My own thoughts are that just looking at a civic and saying "no downside", isn't the whole story. You need to know all the other civics in that category so you know what your missing out. (Oppertunity cost.)

Also, In SMAC some of the SPs eliminated direct negatives to certain soical choices. The most inbalancing being Cloning Vacts. [permenatly set growth to Pop Boom + eliminate all direct negatives to the Power Social Choice and the "Big Brother" future socitiy.] But also the Telephatic Matrix effectly negated the Police rating.

On the difficulty level and costs, I think low upkeep for a given choice is low upkeep across for all dificulty levels. But high upkeep on Cheftian is probably a lower percentage upkeep than an a low upkeep at Sid. (And high upkeep on Sid may be difficult to afford indeed.)

[Maniac]

That would be idiotic as the advantages of the civics choices remain the same. It would mean only low upkeep civics are worth running on higher levels.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I confess that my 'Civic Biases' are based on my SMAC experiences. It was really good how balanced they were-so one which gave you free units may have been less efficient (read higher Maint. Cities for Civ4), wheras one which improved health might cost you production and growth. i.e. for the benefits you got, you needed to accept some kind of downside, and this is how I think Civ4 Civics should be.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.