Ordinances: a simple idea to improve government in Civ3 (aka plz read firaxis)

[jglidewell]

I like the idea.

This where religion could come into play besides only making people happy. It could shape the type of ordinances you could apply.

I think that the Spartans where just as happy with thier code of cunduct as the Athenians as with thiers.

Religion is the underlying assumptions for actions/laws/ordinances.

Just some random thoughts:

All men are created equal - +immigration, +production, +lawlessness

The King has descended from the gods and is divine - +police, +control

There is an after life - requirement for pyramids, requirement for ceremonial burial.

[raingoon]

A-Ha! jglidewell wins the prize for being the first to bring this back to SMAC's +/- SE system -- just kidding, it was bound to happen. But I do want to stress that, for many of us, SMAC-style plus and minus quantifications of abstract social concepts such as "police" and "control" are a sure way to squash this as a Civ3 idea.

If we keep this in terms of Civ 2 percentages of happiness and production and the trade stream, though that's probably a new system by now, then I can keep going along with it.

Meanwhile, Chris Shaffer -- you said it's ludicrous to consider Bill of Rights and Secret Police in opposition to each other, since the US has both. Not sure what you mean by that, but I sense you're being literal, maybe referring to the U.S. Secret Service? For me when Korn says Secret Police I assume he means Gestapo squads, KGB Stalinistas -- imagine whatever is required for you to see an organization in opposition to a Bill of Rights, and that must be what Korn means.

It's fruitless to argue what the effects of any policy would be -- such a thing would have to be determined by Firaxis where they can see how it balances in the game, if indeed they are able and willing to consider this system at all. But I suggest everybody feel free to imagine whatever they want.

[Ralf]

As I said earlier; I basically like the idea of ordinances, but I also must say that I dont like how it grows more or less out of proportion in some of above posts.
Keep in mind that you dont interact with other civs, with above options. All you really do is fine-tweaking your choosen government platform. These ordinances by the way, should all be about "gentle nudges" in this or that direction. If the player wants anyting more drastic - he must change government-type.

There are too many ordinances! What I have in mind is between 5 to (max) 10-12 ordinances totally for each government-type, depending on how advanced it is. Better a few carefully balanced and really worthwhile ones, then trying to cram in as many of them as possible (it just gets rather inflationary in the end).

Also, many of the suggested ordinances dont seems to be "weighted" in any way. By that I mean that choosing any single ordinance-choice, should be associated with a economical cost (as in SC3K, by the way). Even if you find a specific ordinance attractive, you may still avoid choosing that ordinance, because of the cost/benefit-ratio in that game-situation is too hard to swallow for the player.
Without "weighted" ordinances, the whole idea gets pointless. Also: Too many of them destroys everything.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited February 07, 2001).]

[ChrisShaffer]

quote: Meanwhile, Chris Shaffer -- you said it's ludicrous to consider Bill of Rights and Secret Police in opposition to each other, since the US has both. Not sure what you mean by that, but I sense you're being literal, maybe referring to the U.S. Secret Service? For me when Korn says Secret Police I assume he means Gestapo squads, KGB Stalinistas -- imagine whatever is required for you to see an organization in opposition to a Bill of Rights, and that must be what Korn means.

I don't see much difference between the Gestapo squads or KGB Stalinistas and current police tactics in the United States. I certainly wasn't referring only to the FBI. The US military/police/spy industry is quite frightening and certainly qualifies as a secret police.

I wasn't saying that the secret police aren't opposed to the Bill of Rights, I was saying that the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Korn469, I think you missed my point. I did not say that people would be opposed to change simply because it is change. I said that designing them in a consistent fashion would be quite difficult, as it was relatively easy to find serious objections to the handful you suggested as examples. Similar objections would doubtless be raised against any ordinances designed by Firaxis.

I actually like the idea....I just think it would be very difficult to implement.

[colossus]

Korn

While in reality you can have many, many ordinances, in civ3 you will destroy the game. The effects of unlimited ordinances are similar to unlimited wonders in a more uncontrollable fashion. You can solve the problems of happiness, production, money, science, etc. simultaneously by issuing the appropriate ordinances. Then there is no point for change of government. In civ2, we still have to choose fundy for conquest or demo for A.C., but if demo can be as strong militarily as fundy, why change the government? The game will degenrate to rushing all the advances to get the benefits of ordinances.

[Grumbold]

The way I envisage ordinances they are not things that can, even in combination, solve all the problems of any government type except at massive cost. For example, state funded healthcare will have a good impact on happiness, assist population growth by saving and lengthening lives, benefit medical science but slowly grow in cost until it becomes a huge financial burden to maintain. Somewhat opposite to this, pollution controls will cost significantly from the outset but not have many benefits until it has been in place for years.

A democracy with pollution controls, free health, full education, anti-nuclear, no conscription/national service, extensive police funding but no death penalty will be an enviable place to live but runs the risk of being dangerously uncompetitive and needing high levels of taxation. If the policies are chosen well you should always have to think carefully before activating any of them because there could be long term implications. If all they do is add +1 to something and -1 to something else, as you say it will be all to easy to calculate optimum combinations of policies to fit your circumstances.

Another good one would be War Bonds. It should greatly reduce the cost of maintaining all buildings and troops but when switched off would leave the government double the savings to repay. War is an enormously expensive undertaking that none of the Civ games have ever reflected properly. the UK was effectively bankrupt for almost a decade after WWII.

[Biddles]

Civ2 and CTP style governments are just SE, except you don't get to see the pluses and minuses (well in CTP you did see "good" , "bad", "terrible" etc but it wasn't the same). Does anyone disagree with this. I think that SE choices should have points other than just +/- (democracy - civil war etc.), but whichever system is chosen, the choice is inherently +/- based, whether you see what your picking or not.

[Trachmir]

I all for anything that improves your choices for goverments... And for min/maxing, yes everyone will do this... but what each person considers to be more important will differ (unless the choices are unbalaned)... I am not a war-monger, I'll take hits in that area to improve health/happiness.

Each person has a diffrent style of play, and I hope that CIV3 will be able to accomodate everyone... and you have to do that with choices.

[colossus]

Grumbold

Oh, I strongly agree your points.
To prevent excesses of ordinances the negative effects have to be at least as great as the positive effects. Ordinances may solve an imminent problem but also have grave legacies. This cures my worries about too many ordinances.

For example, conscription can allow for cheaper units(reduced shield costs) but greater maintenance costs, penalties for tax and luxury rates, which impair the growth of civ in long term. So, unless national existence is at stake, you don't want to invoke conscription.

[Zeevico]

i really liked the first few ideas by Korn but the rest seem just a bit too complicated. maybe 1 or 2 more of them would be nice but no more than that or else complexity and not depth takes over.

[jdlessl]

ChrisShaffer

There is such an unbelievable world of difference between the KGB, Gestapo, etc and today's US law enforcement agencies. For instance, a friend of yours writes an essay for the school newspaper detailing some of the downsides of some minor government policy. With an out-of-control secret police, it would not be unheard of for your friend to simply disappear. Any attempts to find out what happened would be _strongly discouraged_. Should you ever be allowed to leave the country (as, say, a tourist), you would have to do it in a group which would almost certainly have an agent there to keep an eye on you.

Now we gripe often about the heavy hand of the law, and they do sometimes get out of control, but it is like the touch of a feather compared to what went on and in many places does still.


All this means is that I am absolutely in love with this idea of ordinances/policies/charters. Civ with a dash of SimCity. You could actually give your civ distinctiveness. Though it would probably be very hard to balance them all just right.

--
Jared Lessl

[Henrik]

quote: Originally posted by jdlessl on 02-10-2001 03:51 PM ChrisShaffer There is such an unbelievable world of difference between the KGB, Gestapo, etc and today's US law enforcement agencies. For instance, a friend of yours writes an essay for the school newspaper detailing some of the downsides of some minor government policy. With an out-of-control secret police, it would not be unheard of for your friend to simply disappear. Any attempts to find out what happened would be _strongly discouraged_. Should you ever be allowed to leave the country (as, say, a tourist), you would have to do it in a group which would almost certainly have an agent there to keep an eye on you. Now we gripe often about the heavy hand of the law, and they do sometimes get out of control, but it is like the touch of a feather compared to what went on and in many places does still.

Ever heard of the echelon project?
The NSA is monitoring all internet traffic. That's pretty much like a secret police to me.

[Zeevico]

there's a difference between echelon and the KGB. in Stalinist Russia, an agent would walk up to you, pretend he's a normal guy and then get you to talk about the government. if you complained then you might be in very big trouble. people opposing the gov. would be taken to Siberia, or prison, or killed. anyhting against the gov. is totally banned. Does echelon have such an influence on internet traffic (would it use it in a democratic society such as america?). Sorry its off topic.

[korn469]

ok after reading the previous post a couple major points become readily apparent...basically you don't want policy inflation and you want for some to make sure that all policies have a downside well here is what i suggest:
[*]have a pool of ordinances that are available to each government[*]have a small pool of global ordinances that any government can choose[*]make it so that only so many ordinances from either pool can be on at once[*]each ordinance has both positives and negatives; these should be stated in the ordinance description[*]more advanced governments have a larger (more interesting) pool of ordinances...since they have a larger pool you can have more ordinances in effect at once[*]when a civ changes an ordinance they have to pay gold (like in SMAC)[*]no change in principle to the civ2 process of changing governments[*]when you change governments your ordinances from the government pool get reset

i think those rules would make ordinances work just fine...

here is an example:

despotism has 12 ordinances available to it in the government pool(with the right tech of course)
you can choose up to 1/3 of the ordinances at any one time...so despotism can have 4 ordinances in effect at one time

monarchy has 15 ordinances available to it in it's government pool, 5 of which can be in effect at any one time

democracy has 18 ordinances available in its government pool, 6 of which can be in effect at any one time

although each government has a specific pool of ordinances, not every ordinance in that pool would be unique...for example both a republic and a democracy would have bill of rights in their pool while both despotism and communism would have secret police in their pool

how does that sound? does anyone object to the general idea of ordinances working within those constraints? if so please explain why

korn469

[MagnusL]

I think the list of ordinances was a little capitalistic biased. Why would you
want "Universal Health Care" in a communistic contry, where all resources, products and
services are shared equal among the people?; Everybody already have "free" healthcare..

Also, "Constitution" would loose its meaning under a communist model; There is no
government, there is no ruling class; how can you declare the governments legitamacy if
there is no government?