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Originally posted by Theseus
I'd like to suggest that we really strive for ... The human player is forced to change governments at least twice.
Hmm ... this would mean that Republic AND Monarchy must be made unattractive compared to other governments in the late game. Which again would mean that something needs to be done about Democracy - IMO, about its no. of free units.
"As far as general advice on mod-making: Go slow as far as adding new things to the game until you have the basic game all smoothed out ... Make sure the things you change are really imbalances and not just something that doesn't fit with your particular style of play." - WesW
1) is easy. Kill republic and almost everyone will go Despotism -> Monarchy -> Democracy.
The trouble is forcing there to be a real choice between a builder and a warmonger style goverment at both stages. The apparent 1/2/2 Republic support consensus doesn't seem to adress the early weakness of Republic mentoned in the first post.
At the moment it's generally worth a non-religous civ switching to Republic straight away only because it's going eventually to be the best goverent.
How about 1/1/1 with 10 free units for Republic. That might help warmongers on a tiny map but shouldn't cause too much trouble otherwise.
What about keeping the current free support system, but increasing the unit cost to 3.
Now this really does make it expensive to use Republic to as war government but a great builder government. Although I am not sure it solves the earlier problem of being able to switch to Republic.
Well, I must say I actually LIKE this "early weakness" of Republic. Given its huge benefits in middle age, it's fair to penalize it at ancient times. One has to make choice from to stay a bit longer in Despotism, to waste another Anarchy in Despotism-Mornarchy-Republic way, or to stick with Mornachy.
Originally posted by Nor Me
1) is easy. Kill republic and almost everyone will go Despotism -> Monarchy -> Democracy.
Yuck.
If there's one "winner" path, we might as well remove the other governments so as not to make the AI "waste" time researching what it thinks are "important" techs.
I'm not saying it's not like that now.
If you're non-Rel, you pick either Republic or Monarchy and spend 3 full ages in one government.
If you're Rel, then you get to pick and choose depending on situation.
I don't think Theseus wanted to have a "winner" path - though I could be wrong. I think - think - he wants the later governments to be attractive and advantageous over the ancient ones. Republic and Monarchy should - somehow - lose their edge in the late Middle Ages or Industrial Age, prompting the player to make another War or Build decision between the later governments.
At least, that's my opinion and my interpretation of Theseus's 2-change proposal.
I could be dead wrong.
"Just once, do me a favor, don't play Gray, don't even play Dark... I want to see Center-of-a-Black-Hole Side!!! " - Theseus nee rpodos
ducki's on target... it just seems to me that 1) given the three early gov't choices, a player should be *desperate* to get out of despotism, and then, later, 2) the benefits of switching again to a more modern form of government should be so compelling as to be a *must*, but 3) with both gov't choices variegated according to the course of a given game (e.g., builder versus warmonger).
The greatest delight for man is to inflict defeat on his enemies, to drive them before him, to see those dear to them with their faces bathed in tears, to bestride their horses, to crush in his arms their daughters and wives.
I wonder that if you were to make the move from despot to X and then to Y compelling, that you will just force every one to use a religious civ.
Balancing the ideal of that with making it viable to not be religious is not going to be easy.
I don't think that would happen, vmxa1, for the same reason that there are folks who choose not to play industrious civs or folks that play expansionist on smaller maps.
As it is now, there are some people who play Religious specifically so they can bounce between Democracy/Republic and Monarchy/Communism. There are also some people who play Non-religious civs and make 2 govt switches.
And I was actually half serious about taking out the other governments being an option. If playing the game really does come down to whether you want to be a builder or a black-hole-dark-warmonger and that decision determines whether you pick one of the two governments that become available nearly at the beginning of the game, then what purpose do the other governments serve, aside from giving an advantage to the player over non-religious AIs and a mega-advantage to the religious-civ Player?
I really do think that we should either remove the disadvantage from the AI by removing the later governments or handicap the player by making the later governments inherently better than the Ancient governments, so the player can either elect to be obsolete and slower than the AI or he can bite the bullet, endure some anarchy just like the AI, and hope to be competitive.
That's just my opinion. Others might not think the AI is handicapped by switching at least twice.
"Just once, do me a favor, don't play Gray, don't even play Dark... I want to see Center-of-a-Black-Hole Side!!! " - Theseus nee rpodos
I really do think that we should either remove the disadvantage from the AI by removing the later governments or handicap the player by making the later governments inherently better than the Ancient governments, so the player can either elect to be obsolete and slower than the AI or he can bite the bullet, endure some anarchy just like the AI, and hope to be competitive.
Of those two options, improving the later governments is the way to go. Purely from a "fun" point of view, giving the player something to work towards is much more satisfying than getting your government for the rest of the game during the first years of your game. If it is made worthwhile, people will endure anarchy, and will not just play religious civs to avoid it.
Hmmm... could we possibly even address late game tedium? Also give the KAIs a real shot at winning?
/me mutters: "Nah, can't be done."
The greatest delight for man is to inflict defeat on his enemies, to drive them before him, to see those dear to them with their faces bathed in tears, to bestride their horses, to crush in his arms their daughters and wives.
Originally posted by ducki
I don't think that would happen, vmxa1, for the same reason that there are folks who choose not to play industrious civs or folks that play expansionist on smaller maps.
As it is now, there are some people who play Religious specifically so they can bounce between Democracy/Republic and Monarchy/Communism. There are also some people who play Non-religious civs and make 2 govt switches.
You may be right, I have no way of knowing, but I cannot see making two switches as a non-religiious civ. That is too many turns of anarchy. So if you make it so I am compelled to switch twice, I must take a religious civ.
Ind or not is another issue. I can address that with more workers. I have no means to address anarchy.
I see your point, but that's also my point(and I think Theseus) - if we make the later governments good enough to switch to, it should help the AI(since the AI switches already, as well as spending time researching tech for them) as well as presenting the player with more interesting strategic choices.
I'm talking good enough that it's worth it to endure two sets of anarchy for a non-religious civ for all of the lategame governments.
Otherwise, really, honestly, no tongue-in-cheekiness, it would be better(help the AI) if they were removed.
Radical, I know, which is why improving them is a better option for AU.
I just thought of a different way to say it...
Democracy and Communism should be balannced against each other, but they should be akin to a government upgrade, just like Knights are to Horsemen. Keep the governments balanced within their Age, but later Age governments should be head and shoulders above their predecessors, same as units. Otherwise they're pointless fluff.
"Just once, do me a favor, don't play Gray, don't even play Dark... I want to see Center-of-a-Black-Hole Side!!! " - Theseus nee rpodos
Something else that would help the AI (in terms of government and research) would be to incorporate Communism and Fascism into other required techs instead of making them their own optional techs. That way the AI won't waste time researching both while I make the Hoover beeline.
For instance: Make Fascism available with Nationalism, and Communism available with Industrialisation. Police Stations would also need to be moved, perhaps to Espionage.
As is, the AI wastes the initial Industrial Era research on Nationalism, then Communism and Fascism.
"Stuie has the right idea" - Japher
"I trust Stuie and all involved." - SlowwHand
"Stuie is right...." - Guynemer
I was going to suggest merging the Communism and Fascism techs as part of a general thread on optional techs but I might as well mention it now.
The AI doesn't base it's research of these on the goverment it would prefer so could potentially switch twice if it gets the wrong tech first. If the human wanted to switch they would only research one.
A simple, unrealistic and unbalanced change that would achieve what most of us are looking for would be to switch the war-weariness of Republic and Democracy. If Republic had enough free units then a builder could stay in it for the rest of the game at a cost. Everyone else would switch to Democracy except if there was a very long war. The AI would chose the war-time goverment of Monarchy early on when it is competitive and would be less likely to switch to Fascism or Communism from Democracy later.
Of course, we shouldn't do that and I doubt any less radical change is going to give us what we want although we might be able to improve things slightly.
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