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

[Trachmyr]

I Agree with "Sub-Set" choice once a certain goverment is chose...
You Choose Democracy,
Sub-Set: Athenian, Represenative, "Pretend" (everything is rigged), ect.

Slavery must be included in CIV3, I commend CtP for their bravery to included this very NON-PC but Important part of history, even if they did a poor job of it. The Roman Empire would've been nothing without slaves.

I don't like including pre-set fictional religions... reminds me of the cheesy televangilist from CtP, And I won't pray to the evil Microsoft God.

And the Roman Empire would have been VERY diffrent if they were Muslim... one fact would be the absence of the crusades and very likely the absence of the Dark Ages.

Since the Holy Roman Empire spread their religion to those they conquered, and when those countries expanded and colonized... well needless to say, we (the U.S.) wouldn't be messing with Iraq, and Jersulem would have no freinds (It WOULD be Palastine by now)

[Shining1]

Some overlap from the city interface topic:

Regional centres: Each civilisation is now divided up into regions, each of which has its own capital. I've suggested that, while government type cannot change across a civilisation, both Social Values (social engineering, or whatever the currently agreed equvilient here is) and the tax rate can be changed according to regional requirements.

This raises the prospect of an entire region revolting against you in the game. Which could split your empire in half, either creating a new civ (as in CivII), going barbarian (no leadership) or joining another civ.

2) Specialist citizens
Drones are now less effective at work than happy citizens. This sounds like a reasonable definition of a slave or serf to me (someone working against their will).

Ctp's slavers were a really bad idea - no one walks into a rival city and steals population. With CivII's city based approach, this makes slavery more of an implict concept - you capture a city and the populace does go to work for you, after all.

And with the SMAC concept of a captured city, it sounds like this is already enough to make the issue 'real' enough in the game.

(at any rate, I vote against slavery as a weapon in CivIII, and religion as a distinct social setting as well).

[Shining1]

Some overlap from the city interface topic:

Regional centres: Each civilisation is now divided up into regions, each of which has its own capital. I've suggested that, while government type cannot change across a civilisation, both Social Values (social engineering, or whatever the currently agreed equvilient here is) and the tax rate can be changed according to regional requirements.

This raises the prospect of an entire region revolting against you in the game. Which could split your empire in half, either creating a new civ (as in CivII), going barbarian (no leadership) or joining another civ.

2) Specialist citizens
Drones are now less effective at work than happy citizens. This sounds like a reasonable definition of a slave or serf to me (someone working against their will).

Ctp's slavers were a really bad idea - no one walks into a rival city and steals population. With CivII's city based approach, this makes slavery more of an implict concept - you capture a city and the populace does go to work for you, after all.

And with the SMAC concept of a captured city, it sounds like this is already enough to make the issue 'real' enough in the game.

(at any rate, I vote against slavery as a weapon in CivIII, and religion as a distinct social setting as well).

[the Octopus]

A "Free Market" economy shouldn't just be "increased money", it should also have a boom/bust cycle like real uncontrolled economies. The greater state control over the economy, the less it should be susceptible to a business cycle (for good or ill).


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[Trachmyr]

On the Idea of diffrent tax setiings for each city, each city should be able to be varied slightly from the national norm... but this would probally hurt happiness more than if raised (assuming we'll use a REAL tax system) nationaly... "Hey, why do we have to pay 22%... Athens only pays 21%"

[kmj]

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.

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
no no no no no no no no!
Please no!

If this was implemented the way it was in smac, it would ruin CivIII! (at least for me)

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind nations having character, but giving civ's advantages and disadvantages is not the way to go, IMO.

This should be done by giving civs personality via the AI. One possibility is giving the OPTION of only allowing certain techs to specific civs. (ie, only japan gets samurai) By giving certain civ's advantages and disadvantages, your railroading players into a specific type of game. Yuck!

To keep CivIII interesting, you must allow for any tactic a player wants to use, not push them this way or that way. (And the same holds true for the AI.)

So I say that if you want this game to properly follow in the tradition of the Civilization series, you must allow it to be played the way CivI and CivII have been played (in this respect). I wouldn't be upset if I saw an option to allow this; options never hurt anybody.

[23 Skidoo]

Dynasties. Or an option for same.

The way this might work is by modifiers to gold, production, trade, military effectiveness; positive for good rulers, negative for poor rulers. I'd even like to see succession squabbles and dynastic crises, over-throws, et cetera.

This should be even more significant for democracies and republics - societies that are almost constantly frought with leadership variation. Constitutional crises etc. Theocracies could be wracked by heretical movements. Facist leaders are subject to assasination and intrigue.

Might even have the equivalent of the CIA knocking off a leader here or there - mostly causing a couple of turns of chaos. Then there're coups...

Also, Generals.

After Leadership & Tactics perhaps General units could spontaneously appear. Build a military institute and you could produce Officers, speeding the appearance of Generals.

[Depp]

CTP,s slavery is really adding something to the game.

Slaves could be captured when you win a battle and a slaver is present

or when a slaver takes a settler away

i agree that taking slaves from a city is really hard. I should demand that the city is undefended

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I think I like the idea of civil wars starting because of social settings, but how would you handle it? Would it actually split off into a separate civ, or would it be handled as an internal conflict? So, if you adjusted your social settings so they were more palatable to your entire civ, would that end the war, or is it too late? And if your regions have different settings and split into different civs, do you get to choose which one you go with?

[Trachmyr]

I think in a civil war the "Rebels" should be thusly named, if a truce is reached but w/o retaking the cities then they are renamed.

You keep the side with the captial in it.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

So the civil war requires a fight to the finish, or it splits off into another civ? What if you adjust your social settings to match the rebels?

[Trachmyr]

I say that if you can ally yourself with the rebels, they automatically rejoin your civ. Perhaps make this a time frame, you must ally within x turns... after that they have already become "independant" enough that they will permenatly succede.

[NotLikeTea]

Coming late to this thread, so forgive the non-linearity of this post

Communism - Should be an economic choice, not a government choice. Granted, all communist states we've seen have been totalitarian, but it is not a necessary truth. A democratic communist nation should be POSSIBLE, but a totalitarian one should be a lot easier to implement and keep going. This, combined with other choices, could allow all the different flavours of communism.. Maoism, Leninism, Stalinism, and others never implemented. Same goes for other governemnt types, too...

Continuing with choices, I saw in another thread that only totalitarian fascist nations should be able to commit genocide. Any government should be ABLE to commit genocide, but it should be a lot easier for some than others.

My point in this is not to limit the player in any strict way. Any combination should be theoretically possible, but some should just be too ackward to really be viable.

[Armageddon]

Perhaps this should go in the "Radical Ideas"
thread, but is it even half realistic to pick and choose (cafeteria style) governments and social values, and then have those choices take an immediate effect after you have made some payment? Governments and social engineering choices/values come about in an "organic/evolutionary" way. Even if there is a revolution that results in an immediate government changeover, chances are that the reasons for that revolution have been building up for decades. Over time organizations, institutions and intellectuals within society determine the course the government takes. This process is by no means without friction. Each institution/organization and members within, pull a society in the direction it sees as the most beneficial.
Government changeovers(not always as a result of a revolution) occur when the government is ineffective, weak and unresponsive to the institutions/organizations within the society. Those that are prospering under the old government will defend it. Outside pressures also bring about government changeovers. A conqueror will generally install a puppet government.(not necessarily the same government it has.) One government might support or prop up another country's government or it might
support factions or institutions that are striving to overthrow it.
In any case, I hope that I made the point that government/society values are not chosen as in SMAC or CivII but are the result of competing internal and external interests.
The following proposal is just a starting point for a debate. It should be
expanded on.
In CivIII we should be able to allocate money in various amounts to institutions that will support what government/values we want in our society. If we want fundamentalism we should be able to allocate money to an orthodox, right wing sect.(See the religion thread). If we want democracy we should be allocate money to education. Maybe even liberal arts education. If we want a high tech society we should be able to spend more money on math and physics. If we want despotic/militaristic/values we should be able
to allocate more money for the military. If we want capitalistic society, let us allocate our money towards free market institutions( market, bank, stock exchange etc.)
If we want communism, we can allocate more money to the labor unions, or starve the lower classes so that they rise up and take over.
For example, if we allocate 90% of our CivIII budget to some right wing Islamic or Christian sect, after few years the government will de facto become a fundamentalist government. The social engineering values (whatever they maybe) of this religion will become part of this society.
The allocation budget matrix we choose should determine what our government and what our values are.

[Trachmyr]

That is why I sugessted that "CULTURE" must be generated, like REASERCH, by Philosophers and the Construction of many WONDERS (There would also be an automatic gain based upon the # of civs you have friendly relation with)