SOCIAL ENGINEERING/GOVERNMENT (ver2.1): Hosted by Bell

[Jon Miller]

Hi Monioc,

some names may not be perfect (I know I spelled beaucracy wrong) and monarchy is of course the wrong word but you still do not have a representative government (republic) run by the scientists or a meritocracy of the scientists (or religious or any of the rest), merritocracy is just the ablest in that way, can you not imagine a meritocracy of the military?

sure with virtual democracy, democracy, and republic you have three of the settings covered but where are the rest, I would (I guess) be happy if each combination was allowed as a government setting

also, I pictured the values as sliders, you can have more than one value going at once

what it disallows is for you to say "well my current policies will cause my tech to fall behind so I will choose knowledge values", which is bad for gameplay and is not realistic (choosing is not realistic anyway

yes, communism is a form of socialism and socialism is planned, but jusy because your a socialist (or your economics is socialist) does not make you or your economics a communist (I am not a communist, I am however a socialist) there is a very important difference, if I could find my resources I could email them to you (might take a while for me to get to it)

yes the AI needs to improve a whole lot, otherwise it will not be fun to play against, this is the biggest thing for civ3

it is distasteful for those that do not agree with the pluses or minuses attached to them (I am a strict monotheist(and a pacifist because of that), I am sure others are strict atheists, animists, pantheists, ect.(probably even the nonstrict)), it might be OK, I just say BEWARE

also you make it so that certain governments are only useful for certain techs (IE theocracy)

Also ou have not addressed my other ideas for values even if they do not come about in the system I described

onething that might make the AI's better is to have governments that are ruled by groups of them and have each have a selection of preprogrammed strategies to use for both city and military management, also make it so that people can program more (this will really please the programming freaks), the computer will always get their managers from a better pool then the player (they will have a better chance) or maybe this will depend on level

everybody would use the same pathfinding and the like algorithim (which would need to be better), I think that set strategies (that can be expanded of course) for different situations is more lieky than an AI that can figure out every situation

one more thing, I think the way you went about giving your settings their pluses is messed up

look at smac, they made the econ jump in the negative numbers small and from 0 to 1 small but the jump from 1 to 2 is really good so they have it set that you have to be Morgon, freemarket, or eudamia in order to get the big benefits

in other words, your modifiers are linear and they shouldn't be, otherwise you would get the funny and nonsencial results you can

for example: you can have less then -4 corruption by "city state structure protectionist Totalitarrianism) with a negative 5, and by the way, city state totalitarrianism was used quite frequently in history to success

with so many settings it is even more important to make sure the results of different groupings come out

that is what I say, take a group of social choices, determine how they will effect

when you have done so with everybody (and made it ballanced) then go to making the modifiers (+2 res -2 corr etc.)

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Hi all

Snowfire, you have not addressed my issue of trying new and exciting governments

history did and we got communism, constitutional monarchy, and a new type of republic (what people here call democracy)

feudalism is not an economy, it is a goverment structure; manorialism is the economy in feudal europe (and we need to devorce the two and be able to have different types of feudalisms with other economic choices), learned this not long ago in economics

I think confederate should get a much larger centralization penalty (since it is veryy uncentralized)

(I am proreligious freedom, I am also a monotheist, still don't see how the religion suggestions work out)

I still say that we should work out the affects of every grouping (with how they should be) and figure the exact modifiers from that (so unintended results don't come up)

also I would like to point out that any selection of se choices in M@ni@c's system (even the not so great ones) would give high bonuses, because there are so many more choices and each gives bonuses it should be realitively easy to get se structures that enhance your civ to a great degree

Snowfire, it would be realitively easy to set up a virtual democracy within 2 years, the only reason this will not occur is that society fights a change out of the path it is on

also true democracy should be choosable by small enough civs without the need for virtual

maybe they could call it true democracy instead (this is using M@ni@c's plan) and make it so that until secure internet tech comes around its corruption is so high that all is lost outside of the capitol

my method of control takes far more in and maybe should be called something different, it is how the (who) control the government, are setup (who of the (who) are in control?), and how the government controls the populace

the structure of government setting is for confederate, federal, city state, commonwealth, ect. (I haven't totally decided on this yet), I know this is also how the government controls the populace but this is a part of that that is not included in the previous setting

I think perhaps feudalism is a better word than monarchy, whats good about my plan is that it is not based on times, these are govrenments and if not for the accident of technology, the good governments now would not be so good (the funny thing is is that the technnology came from the hard work of other governments)

I will say it again, I want a republic where scientists are the only ones to get the vote and everything else that could be done (with no specialsituations like time travel, or techs that aren't possible, or aliens)

what does everybody say to my AI idea, should I post it elsewhere?

Jon Miller

[Maniac]

Jon Miller :

A government ruled by scientists is 'any government choice/Knowledge or Atheism'.
There is no need for a new government choice to represent scientists ruling. Cause the scientists still have to rule by Totalitarianism, Republic or Democracy...

Same thing with meritocracy. The most able still have to rule by a government choice I already included. The most able can be chosen by the people(Democracy); they can come in power by natural selection and become the elite of the society(Republic) or they can take power by force(Totalitarianism, Monarchy, Despotism).

My politics in Civ2 were knowledge based. My politics never made my tech to fall behind.
Knowledge SE is only an enforcement what I would do anyway : try to prosper in technology.
I never play a green game, I play anti-pollution games. So I am no green guy, I am a scientist in Civ2 terms.

Choosing is realistic. It is the aristocracy who chooses the Value, not the people. Only in a democracy the people decide the Value a bit. So I want to choose Value.

Socialism is a Value, not an Economy. You can be a Free Market and socialistic at the same time.
That's also the reason why I made Environment a Value. I'm willing to make a Socialist SE Value if you provide me with effects.

With Strict Monotheism I meant christianity during the Crusades and Islam now. So in my SE model strict monotheist religions are fundamentalist. I renamed it by the way.
Perhaps you could provide me with a pacifist SE Value...

"also you make it so that certain governments are only useful for certain techs (IE theocracy)"
Please explain. Do you mean that Theocracy has not reached it full potential until you've discovered Crusaders? Crusaders become available at the same time of Theocracy.

Read my '10) Economy' post again and you shall know why I changed the negative and +1 positive Economy.

I gave City State such a big Corruption and Happiness to avoid it being used by large civs.
The name speaks for itself. I made it only profitable for small civ-city states.

"with so many settings it is even more important to make sure the results of different groupings come out"
They come out!
In SMAC they didn't come out. A +5 Planet, +5 Probe, +6 Science, +5 Pol, -4 Probe was perfectly possible (and useless).
I made that much less frequently by providing more positive and negative rates.
Factors like Sup, Centr, Corr, Urb, Cult, Res, Env, Hap, Dipl, Tax can go into pos or neg at infinitum.
Only Pol, Nat, Mor, Eco need a finite pos and neg.
You definitely have to read my 14 Factor posts.

Snowfire :

Diplomacy

"The Diplomacy stat: This will be totally useless in multiplayer. Make it also affect the cost of building Diplomatic improvements like the UN, and also make embassies give less information if you have a low diplomacy rating. Spy moves are slightly easier as well if you have high diplomacy. It should not affect relations/warlikeness of enemy powers."

Good idea.
I agree it should affect the cost of building Diplomatic improvements like the UN, and also make embassies give less information if you have a low diplomacy rating.
I disagree it should affect your spy freedom and not affect the relations with the enemy powers.
New idea.
Perhaps it should affect your votes in your multistate-coallition(read police post on SE thread v2.0).

Nationalism

"Nationalism: An interesting idea. However, the game should keep track of conquered cities and whether they assimilate or not. If you have high nationalism in your government, your conquered cities will chafe at their foreign rulers acting like gods in their cities."

This is affected by your Culture rate.

Corruption

Who wants a high Support rate as in SMAC ?

Atmosphere

"On Atmosphere: The descriptions that went with the values should be the default, though the number can be there as well. In other words, I want to see a name for "+2 Economy.""

Is values = factors?

@ao

I find it disturbing that Jon Miller uses "o". Perhaps he does that cause I seem to have insulted him.
I have nothing against the use of "a".
Everyone seems to use that. If I could I would change my username.

Government

Fascism is included under Religion - Fundamentalism.

With your Republic SE effects, it would be an early form of Democracy.
I have explained several times how I see Republic. If you want to know, read some of the earlier posts.

If it depends on me, Virtual Democracy isn't necessary. It was an idea of Harel.

Economy

Feudalism is already weak. If you make it even more weaker, no one will choose it.
GAME BALANCE.

Utopia was again Harel's idea. No need to exist if it depends on me.

Value

I had expected critique on that -2 Urb.
I did it because Wealth assures the flow of power from the weak to the strong as Morgan would say it.
This makes the poor even poorer. Thus, more starving people thus slower population growth.
If you had read my '5) Urbanization' post, you would know I don't want pop limit to completely stop pop growth. Cities would even grow further if they haven't a necessary building like Aquaduct.
But as a drawback all people beyond the pop limit should be Revolutionaries(read my '1) Police' post on the SE thread v2.0). Thus Wealth creates quicker unhappy people. This is the best historical simulation of Wealth. Not that -2 Mor of SMAC.

I don't know much about Prussia and the Confederacy(do you mean the South in the Civil War?). My historical interests is primarily ancient times to the Roman age(? to 1 AD) and also the Renaissance, so I can't say if that -2 Urb reflects Prussia and the Confederacy.
I can tell you this. Army - Professional has -1 Urb reflecting many adult men not having children( unless their wives-hookers of the Roman legionnaires moving along with the army, but I wouldn't generalize that).
And Power has -2 Centr reflecting that many food and resources go to the army.

Everyone seems to be against Space Exploitation. Perhaps if you read my recent posts on the Space Exploitation thread, you coulc be a bit less negative about it. Good if you want to go for winning by colonizing and terraforming Mars.

Structure

I gave City State such a big Corruption and Happiness to avoid it being used by large civs.
The name speaks for itself. I made it only profitable for small civ-city states.
I also told it to Harel. Don't begin to overexaggerate with your bonuses and penalties.
Limit it yourself to the most obvious 2 or 3. In this case I think 3 is too much.

In a Federal system nationalistic groups will try to gain autonomy, causing unhappiness.

Oh thanks for saying Confederate is uncomplete. Type error. In a civ Confederate system there are several regional capitals, means less corruption of cities far away of your real capital.

Army

Military Industry was Harel's idea.

Religion

Loose Monotheism and Atheism have already a research bonus.
I don't know how you guys (also Technopile) got the idea that Atheism has something to do with Confucianism/Buddhism!
Theos or deus means god. 'A' you could in this case translate as 'no'.
Atheism is no religion! It's the opposite. A civ that swears off religions.
They get a research bonus because they goal is logic research and they don't let superstition interfere.

New Questions

On what Technology thread did you post your ideas? On the most recent or one of the older?

I want Civ3 to go to 2200. I don't care about the Sweep of Time Trilogy. You shouldn't be forced to end on 2060.
I hope you're not the guy suggesting that at the end of the game there pop up terrorist groups like the Spartans or a nuclear war must take place.
someone suggested that in the List v1.0.
I am strongly against that. I don't want to see everything I built being destroyed by terrorists. You shouldn't be forced to win by going to AC.
Look at the Space Exploitation thread.

I want predetermined effects.
I already said a few times that the solution for the problem "What if the Phoenicians with a predetermined bonus begin in the middle of the desert?" simple is. Don't let them start in the middle of the continent.
Let the Phoenicians always start near the Ocean.
The Egyptians near a river.
Incas near large mountain range.
...

You could turn around the way the game chooses the starting locations.
Instead of just giving random civs random starting locations, do it otherwise.
First the game determines a few starting locations and THEN the game searches for every staring location the civ that corresponds most it.

Just for the record I want also minor civs.
Perhaps minor civs would always be forced to have Structure-City State not allowing much expansion.

[Maniac]

Bell :
Are you waiting for decisions from us or from Yin26 and Shining1?
If you are waiting for decisions from us, you may wait forever. Perhaps you could make a temporal summary/update of all the suggestions and possiblities as Harel did.

Everyone :

If there are presented good ideas by other people I edit my posts about it. eg I edited Support, Diplomacy, Culture. So you have always a good view what the factors do.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

M@ni@c writes:
Are you waiting for decisions from us or from Yin26 and Shining1?

I'm waiting for the Yin/Shining hybrid to decide what we want for summaries, and where we want them to go.

[SnowFire]

Hello all... I've actually been following this thread, and have had lots of suggestions to make but never quite had time to write 'em up. Here are the ones I remember at the moment.

The Diplomacy stat: This will be totally useless in multiplayer. Make it also affect the cost of building Diplomatic improvements like the UN, and also make embassies give less information if you have a low diplomacy rating. Spy moves are slightly easier as well if you have high diplomacy. It should not affect relations/warlikeness of enemy powers.

Nationalism: An interesting idea. However, the game should keep track of conquered cities and whether they assimilate or not. If you have high nationalism in your government, your conquered cities will chafe at their foreign rulers acting like gods in their cities. On the other hand, foreign spies can cause nationalist feelings to get inflamed again in conquered nations in the age of nationalism, and cause all sorts of problems that way as well.

Corruption: I like SMAC's name for it, efficiency, better. I mean, who wants a high corruption rating?

On Atmosphere: The descriptions that went with the values should be the default, though the number can be there as well. In other words, I want to see a name for "+2 Economy."

Bell & M@ni@c: I don't see a problem with hacking ideas up into component parts. Which is what I would suggest for this summary, by the way, no reason you can't digest each part individually. Of course, that's just my humble opinion.

Jon Miller: If you aren't going to use that @'s, spell Maniac's name "Maniac." And putting your posts into MS Word and looking at the spell check is never a bad idea, I do it with mine all the time.

Government :
->Totalitarianism : +4 Sup, +2 Pol, -2 Hap, -1 Corr
I'm not sure... I guess this is an accurate depicition of China, but what about fascism? The facists were happy nationalists. If such a government was included, I would give it +2 Sup, +2 Pol, +2 Nat, -1 Res, -3 Dip (except with other fascists), -2 Urb (Not exactly true, but to represent the purging of undesirables).

"But Germany was a strong research power!" By no fault of Hitler's. It already had a strong scientific background, Hitler just was lucky enough to pick the right country. And he didn't quite fund it enough, so the research penalty is justified.

Republic : +2 Centr, +2 Corr, -2 Mor
I'd kill the centralization bonus, and give it a +1 Culture and +1 Economy bonus instead (to make it more Democracy Lite).

->Virtual Democracy : ?
I'd kill the VD. I'd like the game to end by 2100, unless a nuclear disaster occurs before the Unity is launched, in which case it should be the equivalent of rewinding the clock a bit.

Economy :
Feudalism : +4 Sup, +2 Tax, -2 Centr
Make this even weaker. Sure, armies are easy to support and you really rob the peasants, but not only do the nobles steal 20% of your production, you should definitely get -2 Urb for people not being allowed into cities since they're serfs and stuck on manors, and perhaps even a -1 Research for free thought being supressed.

-->Utopia : ?
I suggest you get rid of this as well. If you must stick it in, massive morale and police penalties.

Value :
Wealth : +1 Eco, +1 Centr, -2 Urb
I must dissent... wealth brings people to the cities, and even creates the cities. Instead, I suggest -1 Env -1 Nat in place of the Urb penalty- some polluting as well as your citizens being easier to buy off.

Power : +4 Sup, +2 Mor, -2 Centr
Considering the feudal nature of Prussia and the Confederacy (two classic Power oriented societies), I'd go for more -2 Urb stolen from Wealth rather than a centralizaion penalty. Or perhaps a -2 Urb -1 Centr.

Space Exploitation* : +2 Urb, +1 Centr, -2 Tax
I'd kill this.

Structure :
Tribal : +2 Sup, -2 Centr
City State* : +2 Centr, +2 Tax, -3 Corr, -3 Hap
Why wouldn't City States be happy? Just +2 Centr, +2 Tax, and -3 Corr would be fine. Perhaps +2 Nat as well.

Federal : +2 Corr, +2 Nat, -2 Hap
Why would people be unhappy in a federal system (aside from some minorities)? Unfortunately I can't think of any good penalties to give. So how about +2 Corr, +1 Nat, -1 Hap?

Confederate : +2 Hap, +2 Corr,
This seems to be incomplete. First of all, there should be a Corruption penalty, I think -1 would work. Secondly, there should be a centralization penalty. So +2 Hap, +1 Dip, -1 Corr, -1 Cent would be very accurate I think.

Army :
First of all I oppose the idea of a "Military Industry" Stat. So most of my ideas have a version with it, and without it. So I can't comment on these.

Religion :
Multitheism : +2 Dipl, +1 Hap, -2 Nat
How about "Religious freedom" instead, as a name? That would also give a research bonus...
On Atheism, do you mean something along the lines of Confucianism/Buddhism that's more a philosophy, or East German style persecution? I can't think of any benefits of the latter, but if you mean the former, I can see a research and urbanization bonus at the expense of a centralization bonus (too much time spent philosophizing, giving to the poor, etc.)

And again, if you mean persecution, you're talking about a research penalty, since all the freethinkers are going to leave.

Research :
Looks good to me!

My suggestion is that during the three turns of switching, both the negative effects of the previous and the next SE choice are in effect. This should make regular switching inadvisable.

For the record, I agree.

New Questions

What should cause a city to revolt and form a new civ?

Depends. If you conquer cities early in the game, like before 500 BC, this should not be much of an issue. They'll be unhappy for awhile, but eventually if you move out the imperial garrisons and trust them, they'll assimilate.

However, the greater the difference in SE (especially in religion- hence the reason the Hebrews survived for many years while lacking a civ), the longer the assimilation takes. You can grant concessions to them to make them happy, but even further slow the assimilation ("Sure, Athens, you can have your democracy, just don't trouble us Perisans now that we've conquered you in this alternate history...). Also, units who form out of cities that are distinctly yours are loyal, but cause invisible unhappiness in the city when they institute martial law. On the other hand, "native" units you decide to build will instantly join the rebels should the city try to revolt, but they usually don't like to perform martial law on their own citizens. However, if you keep them happy and let them defend themselves with their own home-grown army, they will assimilate.

In the age of nationalism, this all gets 10 times tougher. If you're Austria-Hungary, countries on your borders that have similar nationalities inside yours (doesn't even have to be conquered; could be from emigration) like Serbia will agitate for those cities to revolt and be less productive. Spies can stay in cities and incite nationalism (not a one turn operation! They stay there and slowly do this!). Quashing revolts is easier said than done: The catch is, enemy freedom fighters are invisible in the right type of terrain. So suppressing Indians in the Andes or Americans in the Forest is almost impossible, but getting rid of Hugenots is slightly easier.

And oh yes, cities ridiculously far away who aren't kept in line by your own troops may start developing their own democracies, much like the Americas. They will be more productive, but if you try and raise taxes or something, they might revolt...

What should be the effects of Virtual Democracy and Utopia(no money society)?

Kill 'em both. I have my proposal for an end-game scenario in the Technology thread myself. Besides, I doubt that Firaxis would want to steal from C:CTP (VD).

Which technologies are needed to discover which SE choices.
Good question. Depends on what technologies are included. I think this is best left to Firaxis.

I am in favor of giving Civs predetermined SE effects as in SMAC.

I'm against it. I can see the location-dependent specialty where you get a speciality based on the area around your capital, but nothing pre-set. I'm also in favor of the minor civs idea. But this is sorta off-topic, no?
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by SnowFire (edited August 02, 1999).]</font>

[Maniac]

Snowfire :

"wealth brings people to the cities, and even creates the cities."
This is represented by Mercantilism.

You're right about Structure - Confederate and the Centralization penalty. I'll give it
+2 Corr, +2 Hap, -1 Nat, -1 Centr.

I will also change Value - Environment to
+2 Env, +2 Corr, -1 Urb, -1 Centr.
Earlier it had a huge -2 Centr penalty. Therefore I would never choose Environment. With this change I might consider it.

Jon Miller :

You're right Manorialism is the right name.

I know 7 categories is very much.
Research has been added later. It can be eliminated without further consequences for my model.

Army primarily determines your Support, Military Industry and Morale rate. It can be eliminated and I know solutions for the imbalance it would cause in my model.

That makes 5 categories, one more then in SMAC.
But keep this in mind. There are in SMAC three categories giving 2 bonuses and 1 penalty.
1 category giving 3 bonuses and 1 penalty.
There are several Secret Projects eliminating the penalties for certain SE choices.
In most late-games I am Democracy/Green/Power/Eudaimonic.
I always have the Cloning Vats.
Means 9 bonuses and 3 penalties.

Now let's say in my model I am
Virtual? Democracy/Free Market/Knowledge/Confederate/Atheism.
Means 11 bonuses and 7 penalties.
Even if I would insert Professional/Nature(which I want, I don't want to delete that categories) I would still get 15 bonuses and 10 penalties, reduced 3/2.
This seems more balanced than SMAC where it was reduced 3/1.

You just made me realize that my model is MUCH better than that primitive SMAC model.

New Questions :

1) What SE choices would you never consider using?
This poll is necessary to know what has to be enhanced.
I hope some more people than Jon Miller and Snowfire will answer on it.

2) Do you want your government choice to restrict you from choosing some other SE choices?
For example it should be forbidden to choose Theocracy and Knowledge at the same time.
This is to avoid unintended results as Jon Miller said. It also solves the problem that in the modern age there are too many SE choices per category.

3) Some want Virtual Democracy, some not.
A suggestion.
Normal Democracy has +2 Corr, +2 Cult, -1 Mor, -1 Sup.
In that case I think everyone will choose Republic above Democracy. There should be found a solution for that. Democracy could be the only government allowing all SE choices, but I doubt that is enough benefit to choose Dem above Rep.
Virtual Democracy should come available with the technology Internet and it would get
+2 Corr, +2 Cult, +1 Eco, -2 Mor, -2 Sup.

[SnowFire]

Who wants a high Support rate as in SMAC ?

I miss the connection... I just think a high efficiecny rate sounds better than a high corruption rate. And yes, I want a high support rate (though I usually don't make the SE choice for it though).

Is values = factors?

Not sure, what I mean is my Nationalism is "Weak," "Standard," "Patriotic," and "Fanatical," instead of simply -2, 0, 2, and 4. The numbers remain at a quick glance, but the descriptions SMAC used should be more prevalent.

Government

Fascism is included under Religion - Fundamentalism.

Good point, you get almost the exact same effect... Bell, make sure you put a note in that this doesn't neccesarily apply to religion per se, but also to fanatical support of a leader or cause...

With your Republic SE effects, it would be an early form of Democracy.
I have explained several times how I see Republic. If you want to know, read some of the earlier posts.

Trust me, I have.

Feudalism is already weak. If you make it even more weaker, no one will choose it.
GAME BALANCE.

I'll give you that. Still, to balance it more, how about a +1 Pol as well as a -1 Urb added to it?

I had expected critique on that -2 Urb.
I did it because Wealth assures the flow of power from the weak to the strong as Morgan would say it.
This makes the poor even poorer. Thus, more starving people thus slower population growth.
If you had read my '5) Urbanization' post, you would know I don't want pop limit to completely stop pop growth. Cities would even grow further if they haven't a necessary building like Aquaduct.
But as a drawback all people beyond the pop limit should be Revolutionaries(read my '1) Police' post on the SE thread v2.0). Thus Wealth creates quicker unhappy people. This is the best historical simulation of Wealth. Not that -2 Mor of SMAC.

So basically, you're doing this to create more revolutionaries, indirectly. Instead, I suggest a simple happiness penalty: -2 Hap, perhaps? Because even if the people still came, the Urb penalty would slow them down...

I don't know much about Prussia and the Confederacy(do you mean the South in the Civil War?). My historical interests is primarily ancient times to the Roman age(? to 1 AD) and also the Renaissance, so I can't say if that -2 Urb reflects Prussia and the Confederacy.
I can tell you this. Army - Professional has -1 Urb reflecting many adult men not having children( unless their wives-hookers of the Roman legionnaires moving along with the army, but I wouldn't generalize that).
And Power has -2 Centr reflecting that many food and resources go to the army.

Perhaps... yes, I do refer to the South in the Civil War. Both nations were warrior states that started in mostly backward farming areas with fewer people (than the surrounding areas and countries) in the cities. -2 Centr works, but -1 Centr and -2 Urb would work better I think.

Structure

I gave City State such a big Corruption and Happiness to avoid it being used by large civs.
The name speaks for itself. I made it only profitable for small civ-city states.
I also told it to Harel. Don't begin to overexaggerate with your bonuses and penalties.
Limit it yourself to the most obvious 2 or 3. In this case I think 3 is too much.

I'm just saying that -3 Corr is plenty to deter people from using a city state government with more than 3 cities. The happiness penalty is unneeded and uneccesary.

In a Federal system nationalistic groups will try to gain autonomy, causing unhappiness.

But what if there are no national groups? This should be a function of other civ's cities and people in your territories who are unassimilated and causing problems. I mean, the Union had a federal system after the Civil War, and for the most part people were happy... and it was composed entirely of immigrants. Unfortunately, it's hard to think of any good penalties for this other than happiness, which is why I suggested reducing the happiness penalty to -1 and the Nationalism bonus to +1.

Oh thanks for saying Confederate is uncomplete. Type error. In a civ Confederate system there are several regional capitals, means less corruption of cities far away of your real capital.

No need to get offended, I had to mention that. So what is your system for it? Mine is +2 Hap, +1 Dip, -1 Corr, -1 Cent, just to restate. I realize what you're saying about regional capitals, but it just doesn't work that way. If the City State is so inefficient, why should the Confederacy be so much better? In the Civil War, each state in the Confederacy had different supply lines, because Alabama people didn't want Alabama hospital goods and Alabama food going to Georgia's boys. So there was a big organization mess at the front as all the supplies were sorted by state. The CSA's economy was a shambles from the start (which wasn't helped at all by the Northern blockade). And with so much emphasis on "State's Rights," the CSA's Congress was a totally ineffective shouting match that couldn't get anything done at all. Jefferson Davis said that if the Confederacy died, it would have on its tombstone "Died of a theory." That theory is state's rights.

A Confederacy should not have a corruption bonus.

By the way, the Commonwealth Structure should allow you better relations with former colonies and minor nations (a la English Commonwealth).

Loose Monotheism and Atheism have already a research bonus.
I don't know how you guys (also Technopile) got the idea that Atheism has something to do with Confucianism/Buddhism!
Theos or deus means god. 'A' you could in this case translate as 'no'.
Atheism is no religion! It's the opposite. A civ that swears off religions.
They get a research bonus because they goal is logic research and they don't let superstition interfere.

Sigh... I know what atheism means. We aren't idiots here. However, you should know that in strict Confucianism and Buddhism, there is no mention of a God! (later forms of Buddhism added a ton of spiritual beings, but not the first kinds). So we have even reason to suspect it might be that way.

And yes, we know why Atheism might give a research bonus, but now I'm thinking Atheism and Multitheism should simply be scrapped and "Religious Freedom" be put in place of it. Because you must remember, this is Earth, not Alpha Centauri: Forcing an entire people to forget their beliefs is not something easily done! (On AC, you could simply take people of like minds with you in your faction). Just ask the communists who ran the USSR and the Societ Bloc. And if this is state enforced atheism, you're talking about a terrible violation of freedom of thought that will drive away all the good theistic scientists. Science is best done by people who simply don't take into account religion when they do their work: Atheists, Theists, whatever, just don't let it interfere. And that is exactly what would happen in a Religious Freedom Society. It will do research far more effectively than any oppresive atheist nation researching.

Proposed Stats: +2 Res, +2 Dip, -2 Nat

On what Technology thread did you post your ideas? On the most recent or one of the older?

Most recent. It's in the summary.

I want Civ3 to go to 2200. I don't care about the Sweep of Time Trilogy. You shouldn't be forced to end on 2060.
I hope you're not the guy suggesting that at the end of the game there pop up terrorist groups like the Spartans or a nuclear war must take place.
someone suggested that in the List v1.0.
I am strongly against that. I don't want to see everything I built being destroyed by terrorists. You shouldn't be forced to win by going to AC.
Look at the Space Exploitation thread.

Everyone seems to be against Space Exploitation. Perhaps if you read my recent posts on the Space Exploitation thread, you coulc be a bit less negative about it. Good if you want to go for winning by colonizing and terraforming Mars.

Oh, I'm "that guy." I agree it shouldn't be overly random or it'd feel forced; but I'm going to say right now that the chance of SM extending the game past 2100 is unlikely at best. And to be honest, I'd prefer it wasn't extended past 2100, since then either the game gets ridiculously long (in which case most people will have already won by this sequence in the game) or the rest of history has to be condensed even more.

I mean, I'm sorry, but there needs to be some continuity with SMAC here, despite what you'd like... and no, I haven't read the Space Exploitation thread in ages, I quickly left after I saw what people were proposing there.

[Maniac]

Snowfire :

Factor names :

" who wants a high corruption rating?"
My response :
Who wants a high Support rate as in SMAC ?
The connection is I think a lower Support rate sounds better than a high one.
I'd rather have an army requiring low support than one requiring high support.

I don't care that much about the names. But I am afraid certain people would confuse efficiency with bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is not the same as Corruption.
For example Democracy has low corruption(=high corruption rate) but low efficiency/high bureaucracy(then people could think Democracy needs a corruption/bureaucracy/efficiency penalty).

Factor rate names :

I have nothing against giving names to factor rates, but I would let Firaxis do that.

Feudalism/Manorialism :

First I when giving bonuses and penalties I limited me to the two most important bonuses and most important penalty. I don't think Urbanization is the most important penalty.
Besides -2 Centralization already gives a slower population growth.

Wealth :

No, I had two reasons to give it -2 Urb.

First to make people in big cities unhappier.

Secondly to make pop growth slower because there die more people.

-2 Hap would only make people unhappier in all cities. It doesn't give a growth penalty.

Power :

Ah, I see you want to give Power a -2 Urb penalty because Prussia and the Confederacy didn't have a large population.
I want to ask you a question.
Was that smaller population really a consequence of their lust for Power or had it other causes?
I'm no expert in the Civil War and Prussia, but I don't think that their Power Value was the reason they had a small population.

City State :

Yes I do think the Hap penalty is necessary.
Otherwise with a Democracy/Free Market/Environment SE setting it is possible to get +4 Corr and that makes it perfectly possible to rule a large civ.

Same thing if you would only have a Hap penalty and no Corr penalty.
Than you could choose Value - Knowledge, resulting in +0 Hap.
Makes it again possible to rule a large civ.

So unless you give it 2 penalties there are loopholes that make City State a too good SE choice.

Note that City State is perfect for small civs.
The Corr penalty doesn't affect the civ because all cities are close to the capital, so no big corruption.
The Hap penalty doesn't affect it cause the civ hasn't got much cities.

Federal :

"I mean, the Union had a federal system after the Civil War, and for the most part people were happy... and it was composed entirely of immigrants."

The Union is a bad example. All that immigrants migrated voluntarily to America. No wonder they were all happy.

I mean a federal system with native population, no voluntarily immigrants, where several groups want autonomy.

Confederate :

"No need to get offended, I had to mention that."
I am not offended. Why did you think so? I was glad you told me I had forgotten the penalties.

My original Confederate system was quite similar as yours.
+2 Hap, +1 Dipl, -1 Corr, -1 Cult
I gave the Corruption penalty for the same reason you did, but then I came on the idea that regional administration is much more efficient than one federal administration.

My Confederate plan is +2 Hap, +2 Corr, -1 Nat, -1 Centr.

[b]Commonwealth :[:b]

"By the way, the Commonwealth Structure should allow you better relations with former colonies and minor nations (a la English Commonwealth)."

My Commonwealth already has a +2 Diplomacy bonus.

Atheism :

I am willing to recall Multitheism Religious Freedom, but I don't want Atheism scrapped.

"Forcing an entire people to forget their beliefs is not something easily done!"

In West Europe regular church visites are even less common than in the USA. The Church has VERY little influence on daily life.
So I think in modern western countries there won't be a lot of people protesting if the state would cease paying priests their salary.
Practically you could say Europe already is Atheist.

About enforced atheism in USSR.
I know it didn't actually stimulate research, but you must know that that was the goal of the original ideology communism/atheism.

Sweep of Time trilogy :

"but I'm going to say right now that the chance of SM extending the game past 2100 is unlikely at best."

I know that, but I also know they will loose a lot of customers when they ignore the future.

"And to be honest, I'd prefer it wasn't extended past 2100, since then either the game gets ridiculously long (in which case most people will have already won by this sequence in the game) or the rest of history has to be condensed even more."

If Firaxis make spaceship a little later on the tech tree (it is very unrealistic that you can build a spaceship after the Apollo program), people won't have already won.
In my eyes it is much more realistic that humanity first builds colonies on Mars before trying to go to AC.

"and no, I haven't read the Space Exploitation thread in ages, I quickly left after I saw what people were proposing there."

If you mean that guy suggesting maps for the whole solar system, I disagree also with that idea.
I want only two maps : Earth and Mars.

[Jon Miller]

Hello All

M@ni@c, I was not trying to insult you back by using os instead of @s, I just thought that was the closest without the additional ket strokes of the @, also you did insult me about that whole assuming I was playing warlord when I said I was playing the second hardest difficulty level, even neophytes know more than that

nobody has made any comment in relation to my AI personalities idea, I think that this would be interest, realistic, and fun besides urging firaxis to new heights for the AI

I also agree with Snowfire that civ should not go into future tech, both ctp and smac lost that realistic/historical feel that was part of what made civ such a great game, let other games in the sweep of time go into the future (which is fun in its own way) but leave civs timeframe alone

Why do you assume that atheism is proscientist, freedom of religion is (I am agreement with Snowfire in this)

sure in the US more scientists are atheist than the general public (about 45% of all scientists) and this figure has remained the same for a hundred years according to polls, showing that scientists are more inclined to be atheists than the general public (even a hundred years ago when there was no theory that even allowed for the nonexistance of God) but that is still only 45%, not a majority

(If your interested agnostics made upt about 10%, a hundred years ago there were 6% more agnostics and less atheists, also back then biology had the largest number of atheists, now physics does)

As has been mentioned the USSR actually had some scientific problems from supporting atheism only and hurting other religions (and it is now one of the biggest growth areas in the world for religions of all types)

Europe as a whole is not very religious but that is more from apathy then atheism (even though atheism is stronger in Europe than elsewhere)

why do you use the words strict monotheist to reflect the harsh policies of nations like Iran implying that we monotheists that do differently are somehow worst monotheists

Monotheists in the middle ages were even more apathetic religiously than many who aren't in Europe are now, the church was in many ways more interested in temporal power than religion and it showed

ok, off that

M@ni@c (sorry if I insulted you by messing up your name) there is a difference between a people that value knowledge (have lots of schooling, highly literate, etc) and scientists (I'm not neccesarily saying that scientists are better, I just personally think that any government overstructure can work well given the right situation, be it communist, city state, or any other and who ever is in control, I have at least read several sf horror tales of regimes of scientists gone bad and being arround some I can beleive it and see that it would be much different, as different as a monarchy and true democracy, then one where the military or masses were in control)

A Beaucracy is like the IRS, imagine a whole nation ran like the IRS, with those senior getting promoted until they are the top and everything is handled by beaucracy

A Meritocracy would be similar except the positions would be determine by the most able of the particlular click

Much Science Fiction has been written about the terrors of these two governments and I think it could work differently and would like to try them out, also I have read fiction and history that tells how a democracy run by miliatry would be and it is far different then are own

I can imagine the other mixture of (who) and (control) that I have not read about, do you have imagination enough?

just because they didn't occur in history doesn't mean they couldn't

(I don't want weird things like aleins or other stuff that has not been posible yet, in other words somebody could start up one of those governments I described now or in the past but it has not been in the realm of human possibility for Aliens to come, that is not a choice humans made)

M@ni@c, by playing antipollution you might inspire your people to take on the green value though

NO, aristocracy does not always choose the value and those that rule do not always choose what the aristocracy does

why were vietnam and ww2 different? because the values of the citizens were different, the US government structure did not change

in history sometimes people are behind the war and sometimes they are not, no matter whether those that rule and the aristocracy want it or not

this is just in example of power value, the same is true for all the rest

I am still suprised that you continue to ignore my inperialism value despite what a big part it played in history

maybe there would be propaganda points that would allow you to change your values to a limited degree, they could come from other se choices or be built by city industry

socialism is an economy and a value, read More's Utopia, Plato's Reublic and all the other great works on socialism and communism

some short deffinitions (not very good, I have still not been able to find my old papers)

sociamism: the producers have the means of producing and distributing goods

communism: absence of classes, common ownership of the means of production and subsistence

similar but not the same and if the communism is marxist they are even more different with a dictatorship of the Proletate (spelling error) and violent overthrow

these are poor deffinitions and somewhat false but they were what I found on the fly

Once my computer comes back from the shop I will have my papers and can email them to everybody with better deffinitions, those were found from a dictionary

planned economics was in practice in ancient society long before modern communist and socialist thought

what I mean with theocracy is that once crusaders become out dated it loses one of its big bonuses and I think any government has the possibility of working, I don't want bonuses that only occur for a certain time

I questioned the city state limitations but than I thought that that would be useful later on but for small civs so I let it be

I wasn't saying smac was perfect I was just pointing out the good way the economies were limited so that to get the big bonus you either had to have the big negatives of free market or the big negatives of Morgan or be so future tech (eudamia) that it would not matter as much

yours needs to be the same way and you have not mentioned the example I came up with

I think virtual democracy could be done in a short time, probably before we can control fusion

smac was set up so that you got a littke more total then you lost and you lost and gained in different areas

your system allow for a bigger change is se effects then smac (not including the future choices since nothing like that should be included in civ)

Jon Miller

[Maniac]

Jon Miller :

AI

"nobody has made any comment in relation to my AI personalities idea, I think that this would be interest, realistic, and fun besides urging firaxis to new heights for the AI"

"what does everybody say to my AI idea, should I post it elsewhere?"

I don't know a thing about programming or AI (yet).
In the List there was a short summary of an AI thread. I suggest you post it there. Don't know if it still exists. Look 50 days back and then you should find it. I too had to look 20 days back to find this thread. And look now, we have almost the biggest v2.1 thread! Only have to beat Civilizations...
Perhaps you could do the same to AI?

Atheism

Oh damn, everybody seems to be against Atheism. Is this because you and Snowfire don't want anything futuristic?

"Why do you assume that atheism is proscientist"

Perhaps you don't know that cause you are strict monotheist/religious freedom(thought you told that once), but almost every atheist 'beliefs' in science. So as you would say it, the people choose to neglect religion and embrace science as their value, so the government does it too.

I am a convinced atheist and a fervent 'believer' in science. And I am convinced that many atheists are in favor of science.

Perhaps this Atheism discussion is just a reflection of our religious conviction.
Perhaps I want to make Atheism good and you bad.

BTW, in the List - Religion there were many people demanding an atheist religion choice and there were too many people suggesting +science and -happiness. So I did that.

Perhaps we could ask in the Religion thread how they would describe Atheism in SE factors?

Are there only 45% of the scientists Atheist in the USA???? And in the general public even less?
Wow, you live in a religious country!!!!!

"As has been mentioned the USSR actually had some scientific problems from supporting atheism only and hurting other religions (and it is now one of the biggest growth areas in the world for religions of all types)"

Yea, I know that.

"Europe as a whole is not very religious but that is more from apathy then atheism (even though atheism is stronger in Europe than elsewhere)"

What do you mean, apathy? Please explain. I would like to know your vision.

"why do you use the words strict monotheist to reflect the harsh policies of nations like Iran implying that we monotheists that do differently are somehow worst monotheists"

I renamed Strict Monotheism a while back to Fundamentalism/Fascism.

Meritocracy and Beaucracy

First a question. What does IRS mean?

Sure, meritocracy and beaucracy could be interesting. You haven't even made a definite list of the (method). I only know 'direct' and 'representative'. And do beaucracy and meritocarcy belong to 'who' or 'method'?

Another problem, perhaps the main problem.
I can't really think any SE factors inherent to meritocracy and beaucracy. I haven't read your literature. I don't think you should blaim my imagination.
I am sure that if you would read Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson you would stand more positive against my Mars terraform victory condition.

New form of government : Military Junta
who : military
method : direct

For the record, I don't want aliens either.

You seem to have opposite opinions on certain things.
First you say :
"I also agree with Snowfire that civ should not go into future tech, both ctp and smac lost that realistic/historical feel that was part of what made civ such a great game, let other games in the sweep of time go into the future (which is fun in its own way) but leave civs timeframe alone"
Then I think you like Civ to be a historical game.
But then you say :
"just because they didn't occur in history doesn't mean they couldn't"
So then civ would include not-historical elements...

Values

"NO, aristocracy does not always choose the value and those that rule do not always choose what the aristocracy does"

You're right.
Aristocracy does not *always* choose the value, but they do it sometimes.
I hope you don't think the Roman(value : power) peasants went voluntarily to war. No, they were forced by the senators = aristocracy.

You're right.
Those that rule do not always choose what the aristocracy does.
I just gave aristocracy as an example.
If it is Monarchy, then the king will decide.

If it is Democracy, the people will decide...
So I think Democracy should be the only government that disallows you to choose your own value. Under all other governments the player would decide.

"why were vietnam and ww2 different?
WW2 began as a defensive war.
Vietnam was pure offensive and interference.
Nothing to do with values.

"I am still suprised that you continue to ignore my inperialism value despite what a big part it played in history"

You're right imperialism is important, but I think it is another name for Value - Power. I am willing to change the name.

"socialism is an economy and a value, read More's Utopia, Plato's Reublic and all the other great works on socialism and communism"

Again you're right. I already told you you may give me SE effects for Value - Socialism.

Planned

"planned economics was in practice in ancient society long before modern communist and socialist thought"

Heck you're right again.
The medieval version of communism/planned is Protectionism. There no problem. But I don't have an ancient version. Will have to ponder about that one.

Fundamentalism

"what I mean with theocracy is that once crusaders become out dated it loses one of its big bonuses and I think any government has the possibility of working, I don't want bonuses that only occur for a certain time"

No problem. Just let Firaxis make up a modern version. Or perhaps we could move the free Crusader support to Strict Monotheism er... sorry Fundamentalism.
So the ancient benefit of Fundamentalism is Crusader and the modern one Fanatics.

Economy

"I wasn't saying smac was perfect I was just pointing out the good way the economies were limited so that to get the big bonus you either had to have the big negatives of free market or the big negatives of Morgan or be so future tech (eudamia) that it would not matter as much"

Now you have again opposite opinions.
In an earlier post you said you found Democracy too powerful and the other gov(ernment)s too weak. Then I answered I solved that problem by making +2 Eco easier to get and making not-democracy govs more viable.

And now you are protesting that +2 Eco is too easy. Jeeze, you have to know what you want.

BTW, Mercantilism is available in renaissance, so in the early game you have to be Banking with it's negative side-effects.

"and you have not mentioned the example I came up with"
Do you mean this example?
"for example: you can have less then -4 corruption by "city state structure protectionist Totalitarrianism) with a negative 5, and by the way, city state totalitarrianism was used quite frequently in history to success"
I have answered on it :
"Factors like Sup, Centr, *Corr*, Urb, Cult, Res, Env, Hap, Dipl, Tax can go into pos or neg at infinitum.
Only Pol, Nat, Mor, Eco need a finite pos and neg."

"your system allow for a bigger change is se effects then smac (not including the future choices since nothing like that should be included in civ)"

Do you mean it allows higher and lower positive and negative rates?
They all come out. For example the maximum for Probe is +3 and -2. My Nationalism is +6 and -3(I think).
See no problem there.

Conclusion :
1)Please make a list of methods.
2)Make suggestions for Value - Socialism and Economy - Planned(in ancient times).
BTW, perhaps you could count an ancient planned economy under simple Currency. So I am not so sure about that.

[SnowFire]

--To Be Added to Later--

Maniac, take a trip over to my Technology thread and look at the futuristic technologies I suggest. I want futuristic technologies, but near futuristic. Which as far as I'm concerned includes things like AIs, nanorobots, fusion drives... I do not want aliens or futuristic SE choices though.

Bell: How will you do the summary? I mean, I have no problem with, say, "agreeing to disagree" on some points but it would be nice if you wrote something like

Wealth: +1 Econ, +1 Cent, -2 Urb. Some dissent and think that -2 Hap would be more appropriate over -2 Urb.

If you don't have dissents, then I'm basically forced to hammer my points in and whine a lot, and I don't want to do that.

[Jon Miller]

sorry if I confused everybody

M@ni@c, I believe the AI thread was killed for list 2, maybe I should post in radical (also I am not a programmer, felt out of my mileu)

I don't think atheism is the future

I think, as USSR showed, that having atheism as the state religion has the same problems as all state religions, as SnowFire stated

Instead of exact religions (or even types), how about the se choices just reflect how the state reacts to religions

like religious freedom, state religion, tolerance, I am sure there are others

science and religion are not incompatable

science has made mistakes in the past (the whole reason of that flat earth thing was because the Catholic Church believed Aristotle, a scientist, in everything)

by apathy I mean that many are not actual beleivers in atheism, they just no longer consider religion important

I didn't catch the name change

IRS is well known US beaucracy (Internal Revenue Service)

I think beaucracy and meritocracy are diffinite method (maybe meritocracy is a who with beaucracy)

sorry, read part of Mars (would have read more but had to leave library) was good, not favorite, plan to read more

Military Junta good

What I mean that you seem to think I have opposite ideas of is that I want to be able to do things socially that were thought of but never tried (in other words possible)

we have no idea that aliens even exist or that the intersteller distances are viable for more than colonisation

The Roman aristocracy were the Who and they did have that value caused by being war like from early on, the masses of course did not have that value (perhaps every who would have its value and strength, you can only revolution to put a who in power if it has the strength)

The US was basically with the Allies from the get go (lend lease and all that)

there could be free market protectionalism, the US did it a few times (we call it isolationalist periods)

olds style planned: communism, the way Plato planned it

socialism/planned/communism has been arround for a long time in a variety of guises

if there is the different forms of free market there should also be the different forms of socialism ending in Utopia (In More's time he figured that everybody could live comfortably, and the whole of society gain wealth, working only six hours a day, that was back when they were mostly serfs)

you have Corr -4 being complete corruption (maybe you revised it and I could not find it?)

example of problem +1 economy far better than + 1 to any other stat

Power is to fight wars, Imperialism is to expand (they are different)

Imperialism would have increased pollution (don't care about the environment, just want to exploit), decreased diplomacy, increase support (make supporting easier), increase nationalism, more corruption (neg), increase morale, thats all

your right, socialism is a value too (and an economy), but so is capitalism (and another important one is individualism)

methods are diffinitely: direct, representative, beaucracy, maybe meritocracy and dictatorship (some other name?)

Jon Miller

[SnowFire]

One more issue: Perhaps Protectionism should get an asterisk to indicate that income from foreign trade goes down when you use that as an economy. Or better yet, perhaps this should become part of the Dip stat as well (and make Protectionism -2 Dip)? Low Diplomacy reduces foreign trade? Another good change to Diplomacy would be that a high diplomacy increases the "happiness cost" for another nation to declare war on you (unless they have spent a lot of money on propaganda).

" who wants a high corruption rating?"
My response :
Who wants a high Support rate as in SMAC ?
The connection is I think a lower Support rate sounds better than a high one.
I'd rather have an army requiring low support than one requiring high support.

Okay, so then -Corr's should be good and +Corr's bad. But you have +Corr's as good. I can understand that, but either reverse your signs or change the name to efficiency to keep it consistent (And Efficiency is better, since we're used to wanting positives in categories not negatives).

I don't care that much about the names. But I am afraid certain people would confuse efficiency with bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is not the same as Corruption.
For example Democracy has low corruption(=high corruption rate) but low efficiency/high bureaucracy(then people could think Democracy needs a corruption/bureaucracy/efficiency penalty).

I'm confused. Could you explain what you mean by this? And Bureaucracy isn't a stat…

Wealth :

No, I had two reasons to give it -2 Urb.

First to make people in big cities unhappier.

Secondly to make pop growth slower because there die more people.

-2 Hap would only make people unhappier in all cities. It doesn't give a growth penalty.

Remember, the issue isn't people dying, but people coming in from the countryside to the big city. And let's face, though many died, they did that in droves during the Industrial Revolution. And if the cities grow slower, then that gives me more time to insure they're happy when they become big cities. A good city manager can easily circumvent the problem.

Power :

Ah, I see you want to give Power a -2 Urb penalty because Prussia and the Confederacy didn't have a large population.
I want to ask you a question.
Was that smaller population really a consequence of their lust for Power or had it other causes?
I'm no expert in the Civil War and Prussia, but I don't think that their Power Value was the reason they had a small population.

No, I'm reversing the cause and effect, but you get the same result (In SimEarth, Earthquakes caused the direction of magma flow to shift for instance, when in reality shifts in magma flow caused earthquakes). And it wasn't really small populations: It was feudal, countryside, not in the city populations. This reflects a low Urb. And because of that, many Junkers and sons of plantation owners went off to military school, already experienced in hunting at home.

I mean a federal system with native population, no voluntarily immigrants, where several groups want autonomy.

Again, that should be taken care of by extra unhappiness in conquered cities and nationalism/culture, not by your government structure. Perhaps there can be an asterisk for "exacerbates conquered cities discontent," but this unhappiness should already be in the game. A happiness penalty goes to all cities, minorities or not, causing the haves to be as unhappy as the have-nots. Or more specifically, the Confederate structure increases happiness since people self-rule more, but Federal shouldn't decrease it.

Confederate :

"No need to get offended, I had to mention that."
I am not offended. Why did you think so? I was glad you told me I had forgotten the penalties.

My mistake, the way you typed it, it sounded sarcastic.

My original Confederate system was quite similar as yours.
+2 Hap, +1 Dipl, -1 Corr, -1 Cult
I gave the Corruption penalty for the same reason you did, but then I came on the idea that regional administration is much more efficient than one federal administration.

Hmm… I still maintain that a Confederacy should be bad for Corruption. 50 state bureaucracies, each different, is much less fun than one unified bureaucracy with one set of rules. See previous comments on supply lines in Civil War.

Plus, your old system seems perfectly balanced.

My Confederate plan is +2 Hap, +2 Corr, -1 Nat, -1 Centr.

The Centralization penalty is nothing compared to a Happiness and Corruption bonus, two of the most important stats I would want to maximize. So it's a bit unbalancing to the game as well.

they will loose a lot of customers when they ignore the future.

Who says they have to do that? We've got 60 years stretching ahead of us to discover and explore. <a href="http://singularity.posthuman.com/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html">This site</a> says that history will end somewhere from 2025-2035 when superintelligent AI's improve themselves in a massive positive feedback loop, and all of us will upload our brains into computers. There's a LOT of cool stuff we can discover.

Atheism :

I am willing to recall Multitheism Religious Freedom, but I don't want Atheism scrapped.

"Forcing an entire people to forget their beliefs is not something easily done!"

In West Europe regular church visites are even less common than in the USA. The Church has VERY little influence on daily life.
So I think in modern western countries there won't be a lot of people protesting if the state would cease paying priests their salary.
Practically you could say Europe already is Atheist.

About enforced atheism in USSR.
I know it didn't actually stimulate research, but you must know that that was the goal of the original ideology communism/atheism.

Atheism

Oh damn, everybody seems to be against Atheism. Is this because you and Snowfire
don't want anything futuristic?

As said before, I want futuristic stuff. But I don't agree with this as a choice: Look, be happy, in most countries that have allowed religious freedom, atheism has steadily gained ground. More on the stuff above in a second. I will say that Europe is a religious freedom society: The fact that most people are atheists doesn't count. East Germany was an atheist society, from my point of view, because the governments strongly enforced such a policy, despite the fact much of the population continued to practice in secret.

"Why do you assume that atheism is proscientist"

Perhaps you don't know that cause you are strict monotheist/religious freedom(thought you told that once), but almost every atheist 'beliefs' in science. So as you would say it, the people choose to neglect religion and embrace science as their value, so the government does it too.

I am a convinced atheist and a fervent 'believer' in science. And I am convinced that many atheists are in favor of science.

Well, atheism is proscience. And I'm sure most atheists are believers in science. Good for you, but I believe in science too, and I'm a believer. Should the USA turn violently atheist, I'm outta here. The country would lose a substantial quantity of good researchers.

You must be consistent. You said the Union wasn't a very good example of a Federal government. Yes, if you started a society of immigrants who were all atheists, like the University in SMAC, I can give you a research bonus since a far higher percentage of atheists believe in science. But the University isn't a very good example of an atheist government, since everyone joined voluntarily. Try and do that with an ordinary group of humans, and you might get a research bonus 200 years later, but I'm not even sure about that: There were still religious minorities making trouble routinely in the USSR.

Perhaps this Atheism discussion is just a reflection of our religious conviction.
Perhaps I want to make Atheism good and you bad.

Don't get paranoid. I want to make a balanced, realistic game: and Right now atheism is simply too good. And quite ahistorical. Just combine it with religious freedom…

Are there only 45% of the scientists Atheist in the USA???? And in the general public even less? Wow, you live in a religious country!!!!!

Sort of, most of the population are apathists: "There's probably a God, but I really don't care, and I sure as heck aren't going to church."

"As has been mentioned the USSR actually had some scientific problems from supporting atheism only and hurting other religions (and it is now one of the biggest growth areas in the world for religions of all types)"

Yea, I know that.

"Europe as a whole is not very religious but that is more from apathy then atheism
(even though atheism is stronger in Europe than elsewhere)"

What do you mean, apathy? Please explain. I would like to know your vision

They don't care whether there's a God or not: It simply doesn't matter to them. Alas, it's the easy way out for stupid people who don't want to take a stand on philosophy. And if you know that forcing atheism on long-time religious people backfires… just take a look at all the loony cults that have popped up in Russia recently. It's like the world capital for psychics now as well, always a bad sign.

1) What SE choices would you never consider using?
Government's pretty well balanced. I'd only use Feudalism if I was in a hot and heavy early war where I had deployed a lot of units, wasn't interested in growing my cities at the moment, and the decrease in support would make up for the loss in centralization, but since I want to add MORE penalties, I suppose it's balanced as is between history and game. I'd only consider using Mercantilism with Commonwealth or Democracy (how very English), since it's got a fairly big negative and +1 Econ is not half as useful as +2 Econ. I'd be most hesitant to move up the bridge from banking (to FM & Trans-Nat), the main usefulness, the +2 Econ, isn't added to much and the penalties get huge farther up. Power and Environment are good, but the overpowering bonus of knowledge or wealth (with another +1 Eco choice) I doubt I would choose them much, and you seem intent on making sure that every nation has to choose Space Exploitation as their value in the endgame phase to survive. Perhaps knowledge's happiness bonus could be reduced to +1 (or make it an efficiency bonus, like SMAC)? I'd never choose Federal and always be a Confederacy under the current system (another reason why I protest it not just as unhistorical, but bad play balance) unless I need +1 Eco in which case I'll take Commonwealth. I'd probably stick to City Militia a lot in terms of armies, though Professional seems to be the best choice. In religion I would always choose Atheism as soon as possible, in the meantime I'd be loose monotheism or religious freedom (or strict polytheism, if nothing's available). Heck, they're all good choices except my continuing dispute with the last two: It's unbalancing and unfair. Research is balanced, though I personally would rarely use Practical (but I'm sure others would, so it's definitely balanced).

2) Do you want your government choice to restrict you from choosing some other SE choices?
No.

3) Some want Virtual Democracy, some not.
You know my opinion: No. Considering that on Chiron, they're still using good 'ol Democracy...
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by SnowFire (edited August 04, 1999).]</font>

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Snowfire writes:
Bell: How will you do the summary? I mean, I have no problem with, say, "agreeing to disagree" on some points but it would be nice if you wrote something like

Wealth: +1 Econ, +1 Cent, -2 Urb. Some dissent and think that -2 Hap would be more appropriate over -2 Urb.

If you don't have dissents, then I'm basically forced to hammer my points in and whine a lot, and I don't want to do that.


I'd been thinking about it, and this is the direction I was leaning (although it's a departure from the older summaries.) When we were just doing conceptual-level suggestions, throwing everything into the pot was fine, but I think the more detailed suggestions require more structuring and editorializing than the old list did.