Political/Economic/Religious Models

[jsw363]

I am new to the forums, don't know if this has been discussed before, and don't know if it would be of any use for the design of Civ3. However there has always been something lacking for me in the govt types of the Civ games I have played (Civ1, 2, CTP).

I was envisioning a new state model with three characteristics: political, economic and religious. As I see it the three are distinct and two have been lumped together (economic and political) while the third has been completely ignored (religious). I believe that these three factors are the basic building blocks for a nation and need to be adequately addressed in future games.

Here's what my proposed system would look like:

Each government is made up of three basic characteristics. For each characteristic there are multiple choices (political, economic and religious models, which would be gained through advances) These are INDEPENDENT from the governments themselves. While the typical sequence of governments would remain consistant with earlier versions, this system would allow for more subtlety of government.

Political Model - Autocratic, Oligarchic (sp?), Democratic, Totalitarian

Economic Model - Feudal, Mercantilist, Capitalist, Socialist

Religious Model - Animist, Polytheist, Monotheist, Athiest

First I feel that I need to defend my choice to include a religious model. I have read on other threads that people believe that this could be a sticky issue. And it IS, which is why I propose that each state has it's own religious attributes (though not neccesarily a religion) We can see in many Islamic states, which are all nominally of the same faith, conflict between Sunnis and Shiites over what religion means. Another example would be the more liberal Islam practised in Egypt and Jordan compared to teh more conservative Islam of Afghanistan. That's why it's not feasible to have broad overarching religions. Even states of the same nominal fiaths practice in different manners. I do think that religious beliefs that are state by state are more practical Obviously there will be disagreement about each state having solely one religion, but this could be solved if we consider the new concept of nationality.

My understanding is that each citizen will recieve a nationality (French for example) at his inception. I believe that this could be explanded to include religion (for example a French monotheist) This way as cultures are blending by conquest and diplomacy religious variety will also be incorporated) As the religious model changes, citizens would be generated of different beliefs. An example of this may be in the United States which has been under a monotheist model for a long time (despite the separation of church and state, the US WAS founded by protestants and still has a large protestant population) Recently however the US has shifted to a more atheist approach and this would be refected in new citizens generated since the 1970's.

Not all monarchies share the same charcteristics. The constitutional monarchy of Britain today is quite different from the Absolutist monarchys of the Russian Czars. These different models would allow us to create governments that are more realistic AND would improve Gameplay. While it would be easy to make small shifts in governmental style, a radical change in style or government model (i.e. from a Democratic, Capitalist, Monotheist Republic to a Totalitarian, Socialist, Atheist Monarchy) would take much longer.

Tell me what you think or ask me questions if you don't understand.

[Grumbold]

Ideas like this have been discussed in the past and reach mixed conclusions, generally with the realists clashing with those who prefer to keep the game classically simple. If culture sinks into the genre like it always belonged there, then perhaps in the future it may be able to diversify into different categories. In the meantime it seems Firaxis have rejected the SMAC social engineering model which could help represent this diversity.

Europa Universalis is a very different game but it has managed to incorporate both nationality and religion in the cultural mix. It suspends disbelief slightly because it allows the state (you) to pick which religious sects you want to promote, be indifferent to or hate. You can't support all the faiths, and the more you support some the more you must dislike others but there is no restrictions on being able to combine being pro-protestant, shiite, catholic, orthodox, sunni and pagan. A nation controlling diverse provinces is going to be permanently at risk of religious revolt because it is simply not possible to keep revolt risk at 0% toward four or more faiths simultaneously.