All governments in Civ4 are communist

[Will9]

Originally posted by Dis
no mingapulco in civ4 sections.

Here it's Solver Hall.

[joncnunn]

Originally posted by Virdrago
For which you need Mysticism.

Actually Monotheism.

Mysticism just invents the beliefs in supernatural sprits and the like. It doesn't even found a religion. However, it's a prereq for almost all religions.

Polytheism invents the belief in a pathegon of gods. (And founds Hinduism)

Monotheism is what invents the belief in a single all powerful God. (And founds Judism).

[Aro]

Brillant, Sava. Pure genius.


Btw, this explains a lot of things...

[Virdrago]

Originally posted by joncnunn


Actually Monotheism.

Monotheism is what invents the belief in a single all powerful God. (And founds Judism).

You have a point.

So, in essence, we must all try to have Monotheism researched sooner rather than later, so our people shall know who is their "benevolent" god, who also happens to be the leader of a tyrannical dictatorship (but they don't know this and never shall), no matter what the facade of civics they live in / we put them through?

[DrSpike]

Long live the Playerian Democratic Republic.

[MasterDave]

Most TBS games feature "central planning" where the player (government) decides what to build while the peons do not make any of the big decisions.

There is one notable exception that I have played. That is Victoria, Revolutions, which is a recently released expansion pack for Victoria (technically Victoria and the EU2 games are real time, but you can pause whenever you want and enter orders, so there is no time pressure), a game by the Europa Universalis team that takes place from 1834-1936 (before the expansion the game ended in 1922). In Revolutions, you can have many forms of government and civics, and under several of these you get a Lasseiz Faire style of the citizenry building your railroads and factories rather than the player.

Under this system, capitalists decide what factories to build and when to build and improve railroads in each province. It is up to the player to create an economy via trade, conquest, infrastructure, balancing taxes, etc where Capitalists have enough money (cash reserves) to invest in these things and still buy the 10 or so subsistence items (food, furniture, clothes, etc) and 10 luxuries (jewelry, luxury clothes, opium, etc). Needless to say, this game has one of the most complex (and realistically fun) economic models of any TBS I have played.

The player (government) under these lasseiz-faire systems still builds (and pays for maintaining) the armed forces and fortifications, as well as diplomatic and civic costs. The player can choose to go interventionist and build all of the factories and railroads themselves, but they are very expensive, and interventionist governments tend to make the capitalist and journeymen classes angry and unproductive (hurting science and tax revenues).

If you really want to play a game that simulates capitalism vs. central planning and does it in a somewhat realistic way, try Victoria. It is not easy, and has a huge learning curve, but its fun! (I espcially like fighting the Mexcian-American war as the USA circa 1845 when Mexico has a huge army).

[DrSpike]

It wasn't always this way - in earlier games the senate used to overrule you if you ran democracy and tried to make a pre-emptive strike on someone.

[Kuciwalker]

And in some earlier games you just had to make sure you did it on an even turn

[red_jon]

I always saw the 'rulers' of civ4 as deities.

Interestingly, the SNES version of the game (Civ1) spelled it out pretty plainly - you are some kind of minor God and you must lead your tribe to victory.

Think Black and White.

[Kuciwalker]

Except not a bad game.

[Kepler63]

I've always thought of the ruling power of Civ being determined by the government type. So, under despotism you're the despot, under communism you are the entire Politburo, under democracy you are a coalition of real estate developers and defense contractors, etc.

[Henrik]

Swedish historian and academy member Peter Englund wrote an article about the civilization and europa Universalis series a while back where he dubbed this type of game to be "Cyber Stalinism" (he also notes that by far this is the most entertaining form of stalinism he's ever come across).

[OliverFA]

Re: All governments in Civ4 are communist

Originally posted by Sava
Think about it... the GOVERNMENT builds the marketplaces. The GOVERNMENT builds Hollywood (so it can provide teh masses with it's propaganda). The GOVERNMENT builds all the power plants, universities, banks... my God... is there anything the GOVERNMENT doesn't build in Civ4?

Hmmm... NO!

Not only that, but all governments are totalitarian regimes. Sure, there might be some benevolent rulers here and there, but these are all Stalinist governments.

The civics are merely labels that hide the reality of this situation. There is no pacifism. There is no free market system. It's all just different forms of tyranny!

Not exactly... IMHO Civ has a very high level of abstraction. All the part you are talking about it's not covered by gameplay mechanics, just abstracted at a very high level.

Think about that: Who is the player? The player is not the leader. Is more like a guiding spirit or collective intelligence. The abstraction level applies to many other parts of the game. What is a city? A "city" is more a province or so, another abstraction. And why the full civ only research one tech at a time? Because that's another abstraction. And do we really believe that the armies really move one tile in 20 years? That's again abstraction.

The different civics represent the different governments at a high abstraction level and that's why they have different gameplay effects.

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by MasterDave
There is one notable exception that I have played. That is Victoria, Revolutions, which is a recently released expansion pack for Victoria (technically Victoria and the EU2 games are real time, but you can pause whenever you want and enter orders, so there is no time pressure), a game by the Europa Universalis team that takes place from 1834-1936 (before the expansion the game ended in 1922). In Revolutions, you can have many forms of government and civics, and under several of these you get a Lasseiz Faire style of the citizenry building your railroads and factories rather than the player.

That sounds really interesting. So does it mean that citizens in Victoria have their own life and will (despite controlled by a computer algorithm) and act independently from what the player does? I like it!

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Long live the Playerian Democratic Republic.

I like that....PDR

got a flag for that country/ what ever you wnat to call it



Playerian Communist Party
Playerian Liberal Party

on and on and on