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

[Fugi the Great]

Instead of trying to step on someones toes, why not just base the games religions on what we have now, just change the name to protect the innocent and guilty. That way there is no one screaming sacrilege at you and threating to kill you. This whole game is fictitious anyway.

So the Republic of MicroProse decides to start worshiping the great god Sid Meier because he has done marvelous works, and handed down his almighty word in a book called "Prima's Secrets of the Game", and called all of his followers, that call themselves Civers, to be ready for the final judgment of PC Gamer. Those that continue to follow him to the end will receive everlasting enjoyment of playing CIVIII forever after spending only a few months in BUG heaven. He that doth not continue in the Civil way will spend eternity playing CTP on a 486SX25.

The nation really does have to have a religion or even "it's religion", even if they end up "loosing my religion" and start loosing their morals or start accepting a different one. A nations religious beliefs help determine which technology to go after, which nations are going to be our friends, which nation we will hate for all time, which WoW we build, what types of weapons we use and when we use them, how fast does the population grow, and what type of government is right for them. If a nation went truly atheist, the nation would self-destruct.

[Shining1]

An extension of the SMAC system, but with redundancies, is the way to go.

Religion isn't enough of a government issue for it to be made a social setting. While you can have a religious government (fundamentalism), the actual effects of a religion on day to day life for any society don't really add up to anything (e.g the roman empire wouldn't have lasted any longer had they become muslim instead of christian).

So, the system should probably have 4 main types of each category, and each type has an ancient and a modern setting.

For instance, Republics no longer exist, instead they have become democracies.

GOVERNMENT
The system of government used by this civilisation. Choice of government is most important, as it will limit your options in the other areas: society, economics, and values.

Government types:
Totalitarian (cannot use Open society)
Communist
Democratic (canot use police state society)
Fundamentalist (cannot use corporate society)

SOCIETY

Determines the freedoms and ways of living of your society.

Society types:
Police State
???
Open
Corporate

Economics:

Similar to SMAC


Values:

Similar to SMAC

[Shining1]

Global values for social settings:

Order - how organised your society is.
Affects number of police units allowed and effectiveness of some facilities

Happiness - how happy people are to be a part of your civilisation.

Health - determines population growth rate and some resource gathering penalties/bonuses. Negative for most of early game.

Corruption - affects number of resources gathered and control over population. Positive for most early game options.

Industry - affects resource consumption. Zero for most early game options.

Economy - affects trade and commerce income. Zero for most early game options.

Knowledge - society's ability to gather knowledge (can be heavily affected)

Environment - affects environmental damage, and can confer movement bonuses. Positive for all early game options.

Unlike SMAC, however, certain technologies should immediately affect these settings. For instance, Philosophy and Physics could both give +1 to knowledge (for the first civ to obtain them), while environment will be adversely affected by both plastics and the automobile.

Other settings can be greatly affected by city improvements. Hospitals will improve health and happiness, while Court Houses improve order and reduce corruption.

[Freddz]

Government forms should be more expensive and take more time to change the more towns you have. In SMAC, changing government type cost, for example, 40 energy whether you had 1 town or twenty. Ridiculous. This idea makes a huge empire a bit harder to handle too, and can make it a bit easier to catch up when behind or make it a bit tougher if ahead.

It's important all government choices effect a lot of things: how your people consider neighbours, how your people are affected by neighbours polluting your territory. Contradicting religions could lead to crusades and very suspicious feelings if you become great friends with a completely different religion type. Government choices should go further in depth.

Yes, incorporate feelings more in government choices. Societies could have have different grades on how religious they are, if they are real high grades and the nation is successful they may influence neighbours. Maybe minorities in neighbour towns could get these religions. Maybe they will get cleric units for free now and then(which I like in CTP).

Having a very religious society could lead to problems: to become friends with certain civilizations would be tougher(as stated) as your high priests object and could possibly worry your people a lot leading to unhappiness, but crusades would be easier(units attacking a country in which they crusade against have a bonus depending on how fanatic they are!). I think a really succssful religious nation could get a second headquarter with a "pope"(high religious leader) and would be able to collect small taxes from devoted towns. And lastly, changing governments is easy, changing religions like a switchboard is not: Religions should be gained from other civilization and tougher to change up and down.

A slavery Government should definately be included: Look at the greatness of the Roman empire. Possible effects: good effectivity, good income, okay research; but risky: small chances of slave revolts(they can become pretty serious if they happen), opponents capturing cities will be able to enlist vengeful slave recruits to their army immediately.

Incorporate feeling feeling feeling in the governments, let us not just concentrate on what choices there are going to be

[Ecce Homo]

I think there should be a risk that a large civ splits during a Revolution.

[Mark_Everson]

*My first post on this thread*

Yeah, give us Real revolutions, not these "go to sleep for a few turns" things. As Ecce Homo says there should be some chance you actually have to fight (now there's a concept ) in a revolution. Maybe the revolutions as they exist are ok for Warlord level, but by Deity you should be playing with live ammo. It would also slow down the leading civ (almost always the player) if the bigger you are the more chance there is of having a big blowup during a revolution. This would require some good play-balance to not overdo things, but that's one of the things they're getting paid for...

------------------
Mark Everson
Project lead for The Clash of Civilizations
(That means I do the things nobody else wants to do )
This Radically different civ game needs your suggestions and/or criticism of our design.
Check our our Forum right here at Apolyton...

[Frank Moore]

This was posted in the player interface thread, I think it should be here also.

From Cybershy:
• It must be possible to make laws. A law gets reflection on the society as well. When in 1800 the law starts to work that forbid kids below 16 years to work, but says that HAEV TO study, then production will go down for a couple of years, but soon the people will be smarter, and higher educated, which will improve your society and science rate.

Other laws are possible as well. All boys between 18 and 21 have to go into the army. Drugs are not allowed, Gay-mariage, 3-day workweek, raise vacation days, forbid swimming, give drugs free, forbid divorcion etc. etc. etc. (whatever can come up in your sick mind, mister dictator hehe)

[Frank Moore]

It would be nice to be able to adjust tax/science/lux on a city level. for example, I'm having trouble keeping one city from going into disorder, I just jack up the luxury setting and I'm back in business.

------------------
Frank Moore - Civ3 Player Interface Thread Master

[Fugi the Great]

If we stay with the city concept, then I second the motion of individual tax rates for each city. Maybe even a sort of tax incentive to relocate to a frontier area (speeds growth), or get the work done faster.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

(Fighting off one micromanagement problem before it starts...)

Sounds good, but the interface must include the ability to set values for multiple cities at the same time!

[Zorloc]

KMJ,

I understand your concerns about the "national-character." I agree that a nation should not be railroaded into a specific arch-type. The initial benefits/limitations should all be very minor +1 or -1 on a couple of the "social categories". Something like that. By the end of the game these initial starting points should be insignificant.

There should NOT be units limited to certain nations (like Samurai for the Japanese).

As you progress in the game social-tech's discovered should change your starting "national character." For example, take "the Alphabet." This tech has always bothered me because much of the world's great Civs never used and alphabet, many used Heiroglyps or Word Characters. This could be used to modify your civ:

Alphabet - wide spread literacy, greater social chaos.
Word Characters - limited literacy, greater social control.

This one tech could then nullify or magnify an initial-national character.

In addition to preset or custom national character, geographical could be added as well. Civs on islands will be bigoted, but with greater social coheason. Civs in Steeps would be militaristic and chaotic. Civs in river grassland would be peaceful and productive, etc.

Additionally as in SMAC there should be a large checklist of rules one can nullify, this could certainly be one.

[Depp]

It should not be only japan that could make samurais, but maybe some techs should only be for the first one to discover them? and they should give certain advantages but not to big. And take a long time to research and demand certain cultural/politacal/religious system....

And by the way, the citizens should be colorcoded after what civ they are from so that the serbs and croatians can hate each other and break out from other civs. having all these nationalites in one empire is really hard and that would allow civs to be reborn and continue the game

[Singularity]

I think that there should be specific government types each with its own group of setting within social engineering. This will give you more flexibility within a government.

[23 Skidoo]

Re: Civ character.

I'd really like to see this, but have to admit that I wouldn't want to play it this way every time. So how about an option to play this way, or a setup control panel that provides for Civ/Gov attribute settings including unit specializations & tech advances/benes?

Actually, I think all this is really more in the realm of Mods than anything else. If Firaxis builds everything into CivIII that we want, what will we do for Mods???

[Trachmyr]

Definately LAWS must be included, just give us a big list to pick and choose from. We decide what we want to enforce, and all the little +'s and -'s add up. Don't forget INTERNATIONAL LAW, especially with the U.N.

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited May 20, 1999).]