Civics Screen: What combination = X Government

[Martinus]

I wouldn't quite put the Soviet Russia in emancipation category. In fact, I think it was most like caste system of those mentioned (or maybe even slavery), with forced labour, whole closed cities devoted to one industry or another, with people not being free to come and go, etc. In many ways, it was one great labour camp.

[jkp1187]

Good point about the USSR, I had assumed that it would be police state/bureaucracy/emancipation/state property/paganism. Its labor practices might be more close to serfdom, though.

I chose paganism b/c I thought someone said that paganism was the "no religion" option for the game. If "Atheism" could be a religion (which it is not,) then "Organized religion" (or even "Theocracy") would be appropriate.

Some other historical thoughts:

UK circa Napoleonic Wars (1800-1815):

Representation/nationhood/emancipation/mercantilism/Organized Religion


USA at independence (1781):

Representation/nationhood/slavery/free market/free religion


Sweden today:

Universal suffrage/bureaucracy/emancipation/state property/pacifism


North Korea:
Despotism/barbarism/serfdom/state property/paganism


Cuba:
Police state/bureaucracy/serfdom/state property/paganism


South Africa ca. 1980:
Representation/nationhood/serfdom/free market/organized religion


Iran:
Representation/nationhood/emancipation/Free Market/theocracy


Russian Empire (19th century):
Hereditary Rule/Vassalage/Serfdom/Mercantilism/Organized Religion

[ml_4da3]

Originally posted by Martinus
I wouldn't quite put the Soviet Russia in emancipation category. In fact, I think it was most like caste system of those mentioned (or maybe even slavery), with forced labour, whole closed cities devoted to one industry or another, with people not being free to come and go, etc. In many ways, it was one great labour camp.

I agree, so I changed my take on it, did it pretty quick.

[korn469]

Originally posted by Martinus
I think law and the labour system are one of the most important determinants of any society - everyone who studied political sciences will tell you that, Korn. Your other proposals are variations on existing civics, and do not help a lot in providing more choices to the player in other areas not already covered by government or economy.

Martinus,

While the law and labor are two important components of properly representing a society, it seems like a mish mash of concepts were bundled together. My main problem is that while everything in the game is historically valid, it not as through or as sytematic as i like.

Like for example The US had vastly different governments under the article of confederations than it did after ratifying the constitution, but how would civ4 represent that?

I mean both would have representation as their government. Both would have either Nationhood or freespeech as their legal system. Depending on your view of the threshhold for what constitutes slavery under labor then you'd either say slavery because of the south or emancipation because of the north. Both would either be mercantilism or free market, and both would free religion. So they seem identical, but in reality they were very different. So I'd like to improve that aspect, but maybe it's just me.

The_Aussie_Lurker i'll check it out

[Martinus]

I agree with you that the Legal and Labour concepts seem to be the least consistent, especially Legal, which includes various, not mutually exclusive concepts.

However, I think it was done for game balancing purposes.

Legal seems to represent the internal structure of the state (whereas "government" seems to be more external). In many ways it concerns what I would describe as a relation between the state and the individual and the way a citizen identifies with the state:
- vassalage - personal dependence ("I am a vassal of X and sovereign of Y")
- bureaucracy - strict organisation ("I am a wheel in a grand machine")
- nationhood - ethnicity ("I am a son of my country").

I guess "free speech" used to describe modern system is possibly not a very good name, as it doesn't seem to go well with the rest. Perhaps "individualism" or "autonomy" (or even "multi-culturalism") would be the best to describe this. ("I am an individual and member of the society")

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Maybe 'Libertarianism' would be a better description for Freedom of Speech, because I tend to see this as being descriptive of a range of 'personal freedoms and liberties' enjoyed in such a state.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by ml_4da3

My take on a capitalist/american system:

* Police state
* Bureaucracy (lots of suits here and there, lots of bureaucracy due to economics (stock market, etc), no real free speech).
* Serfdom/Slavery - lots of people are forced to do **** jobs, or else they wont be able to survive (very barbaric imo)
* Free market
* Theocracy (I cannot believe all the religious crap in USA, even on the dollar bills it says "in god we trust" or something like that; GW bush is christian - and talks about it while in duty - and so on...).

This is ridiculous, although it does point to a couple flaws in the civics groupings.

Police state? The essence of a police state is its routine use of police powers to enforce repressive policies and to stifle dissent. The idea of a police state with anything resembling free speech seems rather nonsensical to me, since it's virtually impossible to maintain a genuine police state when people are free to criticize the government. Yet Civ 4 allows a nation to have a "police state" government yet be free in every othe way. That seems like a bit of a flaw in the civics system to me.

Is the U.S. a police state? No way. In a true police state, police could search any person, home, or car virtually at will looking for evidence of wrongdoing. In the U.S., there are strict limits to what the police are allowed to do without a warrant, and guilty people are sometimes set free because the police violate the rules that limit their power. Guilty people also sometimes stay free because of our requirement of proof beyond reasonable doubt before people can be convicted, a requirement backed by strict limits on the admissibility of hearsay evidence, meaning that the fact that "everyone knows" a person is a criminal is not enough to convict the person. Yes, the system has flaws, and yes, police (and others with police-like powers) sometimes abuse their powers. But the fact that we aren't perfect doesn't make us a police state.

Further, in a police state without freedom of speech, people like Cindy Sheehan and Louis Farrakhan would be expected to be in a prison or in a labor camp, if not dead. Certainly, they would not be able to go around condemning the federal government using language that government officials could say are lies with impunity.

Bureaucracy? Here's another one where the Civ 4 civics system seems a bit out of kilter. Why are "bureaucracy," "nationhood," and "free speech" mutually exclusive choices within the same category? I can only hope that the design makes more sense once I get the game and can read the Civilopedia entries.

Among modern first-world nations, my impression is that bureaucracy in the U.S. is below average both as a percentage of the economy and in its overall impact on society. We have a lot of it in absolute terms because a modern society is so complex that there are a lot more things to regulate than there were in earlier eras, and because a wealthy nation can afford to pay for a lot of bureaucratic bloat. Our bureaucrats occasionally abuse their powers, but virtually all of the powers they abuse exist for reasons that can be defended as reasonable as long as the rules are applied with a bit of intelligence and common sense.

I also consider the accusation that we have "no real free speech" completely absurd. People have almost complete freedom to criticize and condemn our government, and to say and print what they want to in other contexts. What do you want, for government to force people to pay for opportunities for their fellow citizens to say things that they disagree with? In my view, that would be tyranny, not freedom.

Serfdom/slavery? Yes, people can find themselves stuck having to do jobs they hate in order to earn a living. But unlike serfs or slaves, there is no law preventing them from choosing which of the relatively unpleasant jobs they dislike least out of what is available or from choosing which employer to work for. Further, the power employers have to punish workers is extremely limited, far more limited than in systems of serfdom or slavery.

With the freedom of emancipation comes the responsibility to find a job with which to provide for oneself and for one's family. There is nothing incompatible between emancipation and having people be stuck in jobs they don't like because they lack the talent and education needed to do other types of work.

Theocracy? That's another absurd charge. The reason our courts allow "In God we Trust" on our money is that having it there has no meaningful impact on people's lives. But in areas where there is a meaningful impact on people's lives, our courts tend to bend over backward a bit to protect religious minorities. For example, instead of just allowing people who don't want to participate in a public prayer in school to leave the room, our courts ban public prayers outright even when initiated by students, and have even gone so far as to ban "moment of silence" laws that let children decide whether or not they want to use the time to pray. Such policies are completely incompatible with theocracy. Similarly, the fact that we have laws against religious discrimination in most workplaces goes directly against what would be expected from a theocratic society.

America is certainly not a perfect country, and I'm not so arrogant as to believe that America's policies are always better than everyone else's in every respect. But I think by far the best characterization of modern-day America is:

Universal Suffrage
Free Speech
Emancipation
Free Market
Free Religion

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
Maybe 'Libertarianism' would be a better description for Freedom of Speech, because I tend to see this as being descriptive of a range of 'personal freedoms and liberties' enjoyed in such a state.

I don't know how other countries use the term, but in the U.S., "Libertarianism" would conjure up images of our Libertarian Party, a minor political party that takes concepts of individual freedom and autonomy to extremes that most of our people consider a bit ridiculous. Something like "Personal Liberty" would have a lot fewer political overtones.

Edit: To give an idea of how extreme some of the Libertarian Party's views are, they would like to end government funding for education and would like to privatize all roads and highways.

[Verenti]

Originally posted by nbarclay
America is certainly not a perfect country, and I'm not so arrogant as to believe that America's policies are always better than everyone else's in every respect. But I think by far the best characterization of modern-day America is:

Universal Suffrage
Free Speech
Emancipation
Free Market
Free Religion

Wow, They have all the ideal last civics except one!

Here's my take on the US in modern civics

Gov't : Universal Sufferage - Modern Republic = Vote for leader

Legal : Nationhood - Patriotism is a rampant thing, as are the aqusations of being "Anti-American". That sounds like Nationalism to me.

Labour: Emancipation - But who isn't now a days. Might swap it out for Caste System to repersent the divide between Rich and Poor thats quickly growing

Econ : Free Market - Cause they sure the hell aren't Enviromentalist. Might be Mercantilism considering the ammount of times they banned things like Canadian soft lumber to protect internal industry. Which is like every three months there is a new ban on a new product.

Religion: Organized Religion - Evangelical President who's fighting to turn back things like Science and originally worded his invasion of Afghanistan as a "Crusade". Also the man won an election because 50% of the population worried voting for Kerry might allow Gay people to get married.

That's my take on the Modern US.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Verenti
Econ : Free Market - Cause they sure the hell aren't Enviromentalist. Might be Mercantilism considering the ammount of times they banned things like Canadian soft lumber to protect internal industry. Which is like every three months there is a new ban on a new product.

Do you realize that if the United States stopped trading outside its own borders the rest of the world would starve? The US exports gigantic sums of food.

[Verenti]

Mercantilism isn't about not trading. It about Self Dependancy. In other words Mercantilism is against importing, Not Exporting. You don't put Tarrifs on your own good leaving the country.

[Lorizael]

It's hard to export things if you don't also import. Kind of a two way street.

[Lorizael]

Also, in the limited scope of Civ 4, Mercantalism ain't it. No foreign trade routes. But the US trades with everybody. Now, Free Market might not be it either, considering that we have regulations and restrictions on monopolies and things like that. Truth is, having only five options per category still doesn't offer enough variety to truly represent the real world. But it's much better than we've had in the past.

A system where you could put priorities on things would be nice. You would still have to research a civic to enable it, but then it wouldn't necessarily replace other civics. It would jsut be used in combination with other civics in the same category. This would allow for even greater fluidity, but would also be immensely more difficult to balance. So many not.

[snuggs]

Mid - Late Saxon England: Hereditary Rule / Vassalage / Caste System / Decentralisation / Organised Religion

Medieval England, France, Scotland and Scandinavia: Hereditary Rule / Vassalage / Serfdom / Decentralisation becoming Mercantilism / Organised Religion

Modern UK: Universal Suffrage / Free Speech (hah) verging on Bureaucracy / Emancipation / Free Market / Free Religion - technically still Organised Religion with Hereditary Rule...

Third Reich: Police State / Nationhood / Caste System / Mercantilism / Freedom of Religion - don't laugh: 'Secularism' would have been a far better name for this choice - nothing else fits.

Mussolini's Italy: Representation, otherwise as above

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Lorizael
Do you realize that if the United States stopped trading outside its own borders the rest of the world would starve? The US exports gigantic sums of food.

Do you realize if that happens that all those countries who would starve simply would reverse to their traditional agriculture instead of being forcefully dependent on a certain other countries' surplusses?