SOCIAL ENGINEERING/GOVERMENT (ver1.0): Hosted by Bell

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Wherein we shall discuss various methods of keeping the people firmly under our heels.
I'm going to start off just by migrating the posts from the other thread over here.

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The general concensus seems to be to move Civ to the SMAC model of social engineering. Within that broad statement:

1) Seperating the design of your culture from the design of your government, both of which would have a distinct SMAC-style Social Engineering window.
1a-Government design includes type of government and economic model.
1b-Cultural design includes many moral and social options, each with a minor effect, but which adds up to a big influence when taken as a whole.

2) Government Types:
2a-Political systems: Despotism, Monarchy, Fascism, Communism, Republic, Democracy, Tribal, Dictatorship.
2b-Economic systems: Barter, Currency, Feudalism, Banking, Mercantilism, Corporation, Labor Unions.
2c-Political structures: Federal, Confederacy, City-State
2d-Policing structure? Included in other political categories, or a set of options in and of itself?
2e-Radical changes in government incur happiness and economic penalties.

3) Religion:
3a-Religious types: Animism, Polytheism, Monotheism, Theology, Fundamentalism, Secularism, Mysticism, maltheism, agnosticism, ascetism, dualism, monasticism, pantheonic. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
3b-Questions about religion: What impact does it have on game play? How can micromanagement be minimized?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The other problem involved in this, is what do we want for social engineering effects? I mean, saying you're a monarchy is great, but what does it do for your empire?

What categories should there be for social engineering bonuses/penalties? And what should each setting do?

[Zorloc]

One thing I would like to see is these settings affecting gameplay. For example in a state controlled economy, I would have to excert significant control over your economy to keep it working (i.e. micromanagement is necessary). But if I were to switch to Laisse-Faire Capitalism, I should not be able to control the economy (i.e. micromanagement becomes prohibited).

This could be done by making the planned economy less efficient, but with good planning and some luck, the planned economy can be a focused, well oiled machine that reaches your goals.

On the other hand, the unrestrained capitalism would be extremely productive, but unfocused, thus you would get what you want, but also a lot of what you don't want as well.

As for Government structures I would like to see a significant growth in possibilities, especially earlier in the game. I find it odd that in Civ we have more choices later in the game than at the start of the game. But if you look at history, there was a plethora of varied government schemes is the distant past, but now most are just a flavored version of democracy, monarchy, fascist, or communist.

Give us more choices earlier!!!!!

[JT]

It should be a lot like SMAC with Govn't, values, economy, etc. There should be negatives and positives for each.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It should be a lot like SMAC with Govn't, values, economy, etc. There should be negatives and positives for each.

OK, but what would be positively and negatively effected? In SMAC, it was things like happiness, research, planet (obviously no good) morale, etc. How could those be translated to CivIII, and what else could be added to them?

[anachron]

[Sorry, moved this post to the "Other" thread]

A

[This message has been edited by anachron (edited May 19, 1999).]

[Zorloc]

A starting point for the Social Engineering/Government would be to start the game with a national/ethnic character. This has been implemented in MOM, MOO(2), SMAC, and Age of Empires. Each civ should have a few starting advantages/disadvantages (the ratio of adv to disad would affect score) which could be preset or custom.

This idea is dangerous because it does lend itself to stereotypes that could be considered rascist. But I would welcome the addition for even early on there was a significant cultural difference between the highly structured Civ of Egypt and the chaos of Greece.

[Trachmyr]

In Civ2, the major effect to your people was HAPPINESS. This should be expanded to HAPPINESS, HEALTH, PROSPERITY and EDUCATION.

Social choices can affect the above "population levels" plus the following:

1)Growth

2)Economy

3)Dispersal of Prosperity (Capatilism tends to create a polarized community, while socialism creates a more homoginous (sp?) community)

4)Enviroment

5)Pride (A high pride will allow people to suffer through hard times and posibly morale bounuses to units (esp. on own territory), lower pride give opposite effect, and makes a city more likely to join another civ in a revolt)

6)Control(similar to POLICE in SMAC, but also combines some of the effects of PROBE (information leakeage))

7)Faith/Fanatcisism

8)EGO (like pride, but with bigger +'s and penalties to foreign relations)

9)Materilism (How much stuff/money your people want)

10)Conservatism/Liberalness (sp?) (How opposed your people are to change, and how easy for other civ's to influence you people)

11)Curiosity (directly affects reaserch)

12)Gregariousness (how disposed your people are to living in big populations)

13)Vengence (likeliness to forgive past transgressions, or short-comming of your goverment... but morale +'s vs. despised enemies)

This list is by no means exahustive, let's brainstorm

[Trachmyr]

Here's an idea/format for how religion can work:

Name of Religion: [User Defined] Trachmyrism
Basic Structure: Monotheistic
Special Structure: Dualistic (Good/Evil)
Afterlife: Heaven/Hell
Ferver: Moderate
Priesthood: Guidance [gives advice only]
Tenet(1): Ascetic
Tenet(2): Harsh Justice
Tenet(3): Proselytic


The effects:

-Name: no effect, just to discern between religions
-Basic Structure: Monotheism increases adhearance to doctrine (No other god to pettition)
-Special Structure: Dualism of Good/Evil, displays a Fight vs. Evil, meaning LOWERED CRIME
-Afterlife: Heaven/Hell increases adhearance to doctrine (who wants to spend eternity in hell?)
-Ferver: Base Level of Adhearance to doctrine. As Adhearance increases, religious facilities become more effective, modifiers due to componets of the religion (i.e. LOWERED CRIME) increase in effectiveness. However, more time is devoted to the religion and thus economy, production and reaserch suffers.
-Priesthood: Guidance gives no extra bonuses to religious structures, but also no extra threat in religious revolts (if your priest are seen as divine, they have a much greater influence for good and bad)
-Tenet(1): Ascetism reduces the support needed to maintain happiness amongst your people... but your markets suffer as a result
-Tenet(2): Harh Justice: further LOWERS CRIME
-Tenet(3): Proselytism allows your CIV to convert other nations to your religion or to your CIV... Nations with the same religion get along much better.

This is just an example on how customized religion can work...

[Ecce Homo]

Trachmyr, I like that you want more detail in religions.

I would like something like a religious Tech Tree. A civ can discover these religious "techs" randomly. Commandments could reduce crime, Mission could make conversions possible, Polygamy would increase population growth and so on.

When you discover a religious "tech" you could reject it with the risk of causing a religious revolt.

[Trachmyr]

Well I want to focus not only on religion but also culture, for Civ to live up to it's name, we must be able to DEFINE our own cultures...

I suggest that when cultural and/or religious tech is discovered, it is only a concept... it does NOT become part of your societies make-up automatically.

Instead, the cultural choices must be implemented through "CULTURE" similar to Research. You generate CULTURE by:
1)Automatic, x points per turn
2)Relations, x points per civ you have + relations with
3)PHILOSOPHERS, a city profession like entertainers, ect.
4)WONDERS, most wonders generate A LOT of culture... after all, a wonder really is just a monument to it's people... few have real advantages

Culture is pooled (like PUBLIC WORKS), but loses say, 10% of it's total per turn. Culture must be allocated to SOCIAL CHANGES, once enough culture is spent, the social change takes effect. This way, you can not only add Cultural componets, but remove them as well.

This won't take much micromanegement, whenever you gain a tech that give a cultural choice you want, you open up the screen and allocate points (by a % of total & earned).

Many cultural choices will be available at game start, and I agree that CIVs should start with selections already made refecting that culture.

If you've got alot of choices selected, build a WONDER to get them accomplished faster. (Maybe that's why most wonders are ancient?)


GOVERMENT choices would be the exception, you're free to mess with then however you want... but you're citizen may revolt, ect.
(However, gradual change should NOT cause ANARCHY)

[mhistbuff]

Going back to the original post, it might be more appropriate to replace communism under the political systems with totalitarianism and place communism in the economic section, as communism is an economic system. As well, a mixed-economy (a mix of capitalism and socialism similar to that in Britain) might be a good compromise economy. Feudalism should be replaced with Manoralism, the Feudal system was political, the Manoral system was economic.

Perhaps for the religion thing, how about choosing levels of toleration as opposed to the actual religion, eg state religion, tolerant, semi-tolerant(like Britain under Elizebeth, extra taxes for people of other religions), atheist state, etc.

[Trachmyr]

Yes, communism is a ONE PARTY STATE with socialist economics.

I like expaned religion/culture mainly because there is really no diffrence between civilizations in CIV, let's finally be able to define the actual Civilization. Besides, this way you can create Unique cultures, religions and goverments, not just a regurgitation of the more popular models in western history.

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited May 19, 1999).]

[the Octopus]

I agree with mhistbuff that the thing that should matter from a gameplay perspective is the role of religion and religious tolerance in society, not the actual religions themselves. Trying to fit the religions of the world into a "religion tree" or give them plusses and minuses to real gameplay questions is a guarantee that Firaxis will offend somebody and mischaracterize somebody else, without much benefit to gameplay. Trachmyr's description of his religion seems more like window dressing to me -- the Throne Room as opposed to the Social Engineering screen.

I also agree that we should suggest that Firaxis refrain from using the word "Communism" without being aware of the ambiguity that applies to the word (i.e. do you mean a Stalinist political system or a Marxist economic system?).


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[Trachmyr]

Window Dressing?

Religion plays a very important role in culture, and should be given some depth in CIV3. Could you imagine the changes in the U.S. culture, if our religion was based on Animistic beliefs? What if there was no afterlife, would people be as conservative and as reckless? No game could ever fully simulate the complexity of culture and religion, but we can cover some of the main topics.

In responce to being not politically correct, or offending some group... that is why I suggest a customizable, more abstact system then using actual real-world religions, although you can certainly try to duplicate them.