Bizzar civics effects

[iapetus556]

Does anyone else agree that the effects of some civics are just strange?

Like for example Caste System giving you unlimited specialists, when the Civlopeadia entry for it makes it plain that under an actual caste system, no matter how intelligent you are, you will always be stuck in the job you were born to.


Also, the extra food you get under State Property seems rather at odds with history, given that collectivization of farms has generally resulted in famine.


What other civics do you find odd?

And what (preferably moddable) changes do you think would be appropriate?

[Son of David]

I can see the case for caste system because it represents a deliberate, organized attempt to assign different classes to different roles, thus a way of stratifying your society.

I really love the way that 1.61 patch changed Mercantilism such that foreign civs' cities can no longer have trade routes with you (before, it simply stopped you having routes with them), which was a very nice added touch of realism.

One thing that perplexes me is that you cannot have free speech as well as bureaucracy, or free speech as well as nationalism. In fact bureaucracy is so essential for maintaining a civilization that it probably shouldn't be a civic option at all.

[padillah]

Yeah, I always looked at 'Caste System' as "I'm forcing you to be a scientist, like it or not." Which totally falls in line.

As for State Property and a couple others (Comunism), Civ is not moddeling what happened but what is supposed to happen. Communism, the entier society working for the betterment of society as a whole, is a great idea. It just tends to fall flat on it's face in real life.

Things like greed, temptation, and avorice pop in for a stay and it's hard to get them to leave. After all, if I run my farm for free, under the assumption that you will take care of my farm equipment and someone else will take care of my garbage and someone else will help in whatever way they can... All that "free" stuff whizzing around can make people kind of lightheaded.

So, the best way to reconcile this is to think of the maintenance costs as the corruption that all humans tend to interject into there systems.

Tom P.

[Solver]

First of all, gameplay trumps realism.

Other than that... the civics aren't always what happened. They can be what was supposed to happen. Communism was supposed to have great agriculture and tons of food.

[Bushface]

Communism in Romania was very wasteful: villages bulldozed to make room for huge fields, not always good for the allocated crop and the displaced villagers took hours to get to and from their places of work. And of the food produced, all the best stuff and much of the rest was exported in exchange for hard currency. What that was used for, nobody was allowed to know.

[Tattila the Hun]

Keychains.

[Qwertqwert]

Slavery with Universal Sufferage seems odd to me, do they want their slaves voting?

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Solver
First of all, gameplay trumps realism.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Qwertqwert
Slavery with Universal Sufferage seems odd to me, do they want their slaves voting?

They probably want everyone else suffering as much as the slaves .
It's "Suffrage".


I subscribe to the "You get to vote, but we still get to beat you" theory.
Or just because they can vote, doesn't mean they can vote for what they want; tyranny by the majority and all that.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Qwertqwert
Slavery with Universal Sufferage seems odd to me, do they want their slaves voting?

There are lots of countries out there that claim to be democracies, have elections etc, where the vote is not important. The current head of state will remain the same, and the election will reflect that no matter what.

Being able to vote does not mean that your vote will actually count for anything (or even be counted). It actually will count, often fatally, against you in some countries.

[Solver]

Universal Suffrage, per se, doesn't mean crap. You can imagine a society where there are slaves, and they can vote, why not? They're still slaves. Also, the Soviet Union had universal suffrage - everyone had a right to vote, which didn't matter, because there was only one party to vote for.

Same way, Universal Suffrage + Police State could be possible, though not in Civ4. Suppose you can vote, but you're shot if you don't vote for the right party.

[drsparnum]

Slavery + Universal Suffrage = USA to 1865.

Just pretend in your mind that a word like Universal isn't as broad as it sounds. Think of it as democracy for some, at least more than a monarchy, and excluding the slaves doesn't "count".

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by drsparnum
Slavery + Universal Suffrage = USA to 1865.

Just pretend in your mind that a word like Universal isn't as broad as it sounds. Think of it as democracy for some, at least more than a monarchy, and excluding the slaves doesn't "count".

The Civilopedia entry on Universal Suffrage says pretty much the same thing. It points out that, even today, there is no true universal suffrage - in the USA, people under the age of 18 and those convicted of certain crimes are not allowed to vote.

[iapetus556]

Originally posted by Solver
First of all, gameplay trumps realism.

Other than that... the civics aren't always what happened. They can be what was supposed to happen. Communism was supposed to have great agriculture and tons of food.

Still, I think they could still model some of them a bit more realistically.

A hammers bonus from State Property might be more realistic, as in real life, such policies are often used to prop up industries that wouldn't otherwise survive, and Stalin did achieve significant industrial advances, at the expense of mass starvation. (Although I suppose in CIV terms, that might be a case of extreme use of Slavery to complete buildings.


Another way to keep both reasonably realistic Civics effects and good gameplay, would be that, as a general rule, the more liberal civics improve growth, wealth and research, while the more authoratarian ones increase your control over what your civ can do.


Civ 2's "Senete forces peace" rule was too harsh to be fun, IMO, but other ways of restricting what a democracy can do could be feasible.

For example, arranging your workers so that a city starves, or obliterating one of your own cities (as was possible in SMAC) should not be possible under a liberal democracy.

Also, if social and foreign policy decisions could cause significant levels of unhappiness, and an old-style Martial Law rule was implemented (military units suppress unhappiness) for all authoratarian government and legal civics, then only authoratarian would allow you to make unpopular choices and remain productive.

If you wanted to be really in-depth, a certain proportion of your population could be assigned a certain ideology, and made happy or unhappy as appropriate.

E.g. Pacisfists: Happy if you are at peace and using "Pacifism", unhappy if you are at war.

Hawks: Happy if you are at war (and doing well), unhappy if you give tribute or accept punative peace terms.

etc

[axisworks]

(cough bizarre cough)