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

[loinburger]

Hey folks, haven't finished reading the old threads yet so you've been spared from my posting on this thread too much (for now) but in the meantime...

Some thoughts on Democracies, Republics, etc.:
I've posted this on the Support thread before, but was told to come here instead. My thoughts: the unhappiness caused by being a democracy/republic at war (or, for that matter, ANY nation at war) should be alleviated under certain conditions. Civ I and Civ II assumed that every citizen in every democracy would rather see their way of life crumble around them than to see Johnny go off to war. This just isn't the case. In some wars, there is little to no unhappiness caused (WW II) due to the extreme nationalism and patriotism felt by most of the democracy's citizens. Support problems are lessenned (the women went to work) and happiness actually increased to some extent (people finally had jobs and the economy was doing great). In other wars (Vietnam) the unhappiness became so intense that the country came close to revolution, not to mention the fact that support was lousy (the economy suffered and the Great Society was lost).

The idea: democracies, republics, and ALL forms of government should have variable unhappiness/support factors in times of war (albeit based on the SE factors). Happiness and support will be determined by Nationalism, Happiness, Support, Morale, whatever... PLUS:
-whether or not the enemy nation attacked first
-the circumstances of that attack (did they break any treaties?)
-atrocities caused by that nation (to you and your allies, unless you've got a nation of bleeding hearts, in which case any victimized nation will count)
-relative strength of that nation (insignificant = low support+low happiness, powerhouse = high support+high happiness. This is depending on if your civ is fighting for its life (WW II) or just for the sake of fighting (Vietnam)).
-social settings of that nation in relation to your own social settings (Hitler's social settings were different from Britain's and the U.S.'s, meant more morale, but once Russia joined the Allies there were some morale problems).

Why do this? Two things: realism (if somebody reduced half of your democratic country down to smoking radioactive rubble, would you really CARE that Johnny might not come home again?) and enjoyment. No longer will your senate keep making idiot treaties with your enemies. In fact, if your enemies have angered your people enough, your senate will INSIST that you eradicate them! This could be interesting in that maybe you WANT to make peace but the senate won't let you (what if the Allied senate wouldn't have banded together with the Soviets?), but more importantly it means that fundamentalists et. al can't push democracies around as much as they used to.

Negatives as I see them: what's the point of being a Fundamentalist if you can't go attacking Democracies left and right? Where's the play balance? This variable support/happiness would not only affect Democracies, but ALL governments! For example, if your Fundamentalist government decides to wage war on an evil Capitalist civ, maybe every single citizen will turn 'happy' until the war is over, at which point they will either revert to normal + some extra happies (if you won the war) OR they will all turn UNHAPPY (if you made peace). There's no reason why this system should affect play balance, rather it would only make the game a little more interesting.

[Harel]

More thoughts about Maniac SE model. First off, a simple comment: where is in-effiency, the beucratic lose of money? Did I miss is somewhere, or it's just isn't here?

Also, I think that, in some cases there are two many SE options.
While SMAC SE models were too scarse ( 3 goverment types? ), too many are also a problem. Therefor, maybe some types can be replaced by later ones as technology grows.

While republic is a different form then democracy, they should be united. Republic will grow to democracy, which will grow to federation ( or "virtual democracy" ). That's probaly the only sane idea CtP had.
In the old greek republic, every citizen was an equal part of the senate. While citizenship was a rare thing: given to only to rich males, every citizen was a "parliment member". In modern democracy, the power is delegated by elections to chosen candidtats.
A virtual democracy would return the old republic prinicple, where again technology allows every citizen to gain some control on the goverment.

So, certain SE options become obselte and are replaced by a new option along the way.
I show this with ->. This will show how cultural and technological evoultion changed society, but keeping the principle the same.

In the end, we need to limit the SE models of every option to around 4 different SE options. Therefor, those are my suggestions ( using maniac SE model ):

Government:

Direct control goverment
Anarchy: -4 corr, -3 Nat, -4 Hap
->Despotism: +2 Pol, -2 Corr
-->Police state: +2 Pol, +2 Corr, -2 Hap

Absloute power goverments
Dictatorship: +2 Sup, +2 Pol, -2 Hap
->Totalitarianism: +4 Sup, +2 Pol, -2 Hap, -1 Corr
-->Fasism: +5 Sup, +3 Pol, +1 Mor, -3 Hap, -2 Corr
--->Brain-washed society: +4 Pol, +4 Nat, +2 Hap, +2 Mor, -2 Res, -2 Eco, -2 Center

Dynasty goverments
Monarchy : no positives or negatives
->Empiriship: +2 Pol, -1 Hap

Religoun based goverment
Fundementalism: +1 Mor, +1 Hap, -1 res, -1 Eco
->Theocracy : +2 Hap, +2 Tax, -2 Res

Free will goverment
Republic : +2 Centr, +2 Corr, -2 Mor
->Democracy : +2 Corr, +2 Cult, +1 Eco, -2 Sup, -2 Mor
-->Federation: +2 Corr, +2 Center, +2 Cult, +1 Eco, -2 Mor, -2 Sup, -2 Nat

Ecotopia(?) : +2 Env, +2 Hap, -2 Urb

Economy:

Simple economics
Barter : -2 Tax
->Currency : no pos or neg
-->Banking : +2 Eco, -3 Pol, -2 Sup
--->Mercantilism : +1 Eco, +2 Urb, -2 Mor

Goverement controlled market
Feudalism : +4 Sup, +2 Tax, -2 Centr
->Protectionism(?): +2 Centr, +1 Tax, -1 Dipl, -1 Corr
-->Planned economics: +2 Center, +1 Tax, -1 Eco

Shared economics
Socialism: +2 Center, +2 Hap, -2 Eco
->Communism : +3 Centr, +2 Nat, -2 Eco, -1 Corr
-->Utopia ( no money society ): +3 Hap, +3 Centr, +3 Corr, -2 eco, -2 Tax, -2 Mor

free market
Free Market : +2 Eco, +2 Corr, -5 Pol, -3 Env
->Transnational : +3 Eco, +2 Corr, +2 Centr, -8 Pol, -3 Env, -2 Mor

Values:

Survival : no pos or neg
Power : +4 Sup, +2 Mor, -2 Centr
Knowledge : +2 Res, +2 Hap, -2 Tax
Wealth : +1 Eco, +1 Centr, -2 Urb
Environment : +2 Env, +2 Corr, -2 Centr
Space Exploitation(?): +2 Urb, +1 Centr, -2 Tax

Structure:

Tribal : +2 Sup, -2 Centr
City State : +2 Centr, +2 Tax, -3 Corr, -3 Hap
Federal : +2 Corr, +2 Nat, -2 Hap
Confederate : +2 Hap, +1 Dipl, -1 Cult, -1 Corr
Commonwealth : +2 Dipl, +1 Eco, -2 Pol

Army:

( remember my suggestion: the Miltary-military industry bonus. It reduce military unit costs. Aka mil. )

Forced armies
The people army: +2 Sup, +2 Mil, -2 Hap, -2 Mor
->Brain-washed army: +3 Sup, +3 Mil, +1 Mor, -3 Hap, -1 Res
-->Cyborg army: +4 Morale, -1 Sup, -1 Mil

Duty army
Drafts: No bonus and no minus.
->Reserve : +3 Sup, -2 Mor
-->Citizen duty army: +1 Mor, +2 Hap, -2 Sup

small-scale army
Mercenry: +3 Mor, -2 Sup, -2 Mil
->Volunteer: +2 Hap, +2 Culture, - sup, -2 Mil
-->Professional : +2 Mor, -2 Sup, -1 Urb

Religion:

Animism : -2 Res
->Polytheism : +2 Urb, +2 Sup, -2 Cult
Monotheism : +2 Cult, +1 Res, -2 Dipl
Multitheism : +2 Dipl, +1 Hap, -3 Nat
Atheism : +2 Res, +2 Corr, -2 Hap

NEW SUGGESTION

I would like to suggest a new SE concept. This is based on the option that Firaxis would make technology much more important. Currently, the tech tree is limited. But ( read the tech tree ) people suggest bigger tech tree, cataogiral research, upgrading specific items and units, etc etc.
Therefor, I belive we should add a section called:

Research. It decided the way in which your culture treats research and science. It would contain:

Wize-man: -1 Res.
->word of god ( studing the world by learning the holy books ): +2 Pol, -1 Res

Nuture: +1 Res, +1 Ecology, -1 Urb. Biology and farming science are 75% cost.

Humanterian: +1 Res, +1 Cul, -1 mil. Social science are 75% cost.

Pratical: +1 Sup, +1 Mor, -1 Res. Military application are 75% cost.

Explorer: +2 Res, -1 Mar. Physics and chemistry are at 75% cost.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited July 27, 1999).]</font>

[Maniac]

Jeeze, I have lots of things to respond to. I'll do it post by post. First harel's first one :

My first intention was to give theocracy a moale bonus, but then I realized I was thinking only about the christian and islam theocracies.
Do the munks of Lhasa get a morale bonus? No. They don't because they're pacifist. So you can't give all the theocracies a morale bonus because the christians and muslims were/are warlike people. Instead I gave Strict Monotheism the +2 Nat and +2 Mor bonus. That's who I would describe christianity around the crusades and islam now.

You can give democracy and some other SE choices more bonuses than I did. But I had to limit me to 2 or 3 bonuses and 1 or 2 penalties.
Besides, I already have 2 science improving choices.

About that bureaucracy penalty for democracy.
Don't confuse bureaucracy/efficiency with corruption. One note about your other post. You wundered why there wasn't a SE factor that decreased trade loss due to inefficiency. That factor is Corruption. If you would add 16) Bureaucracy, you would have 2 factors with the same use.

The Civ2 Democracy is in Civ3 Democracy/Free Market.
Republic is Republic/Banking, so a democracy has less corruption than a republic just like in Civ2.
I wouldn't begin to interfere with Corruption. In CivX the rule was always the freeer the society, the less corruption. perhaps because under a democracy there isn't a need to smuggle things like in a totalitarianism.

Why does atheism decrease happiness? In the USA and Europe less people go to church. instead more people go to sects. So I think common people can't live without some faith/religion, so more unhappiness.

Why doesn't atheism decrease morale?
Does atheism make more people weak or decadent(-Mor)? No, I don't think so. or did you want a penalty for atheism because Strict Religions get a morale bonus? strict religions get a bonus because they are convinced they have the right faith and they want tobring it to other people. You could say the same thing for atheism armies. They want to free the people from superstition. No, I don't think at all that Atheism gets a Mor penalty.
Besides : 1) There are already enough negative morale SE choices.
2)If you would give Atheism -2 Mor, than you could give republic -2 Hap(class difference) to keep it in balance, but than the senate(-Mor) wouldn't be represented in arepublic. You could give it to Banking, but then that choice should become too bad, so you would have to give -2 Sup to something else.
You see, it isn't that simple to adapt my model and still keep it in balance.

your army SE and your new factor Military Industry(=Mil) seem OK, but I would make the army category the only one where it appears. Why? USA(democracy) has a better Military Industry than China(Totalitarianism). Probably China has a better one than Belgium(democracy). So other SE choices don't interfere with your military capacity and Army choice.

Your army choices are good.
Your people and civilian duty draft can replace my draft choice. But then there wouldn't be any 'no pos or neg'. There needs to be one in every category( except Structure). Perhaps City Militia - no pos or neg?

Feel free to adapt the Army category to your specs. I am no army specialist. But conider this : my original idea for the army category was to let every choice to have a maximum % of hit points like in CTP.
Cyborg and Professional : 100%
Draft : 80%(?)
Reserve : less than draft
So would you want to give every choice a max. unit HP % ?

Small civ stuff.
Perhaps I misunderstood you. If you have one city, do you want to delete every penalty or only the one of your value choice ( means immunity for Centr, Tax or Urb). With the last I agree.

Sorry if I made type mistakes, I typed very fast.

[Maniac]

Next, Jon Miller...

You say it's too "pro aristocracy, democracy and free market".
1) Give example what factors you find bad, not just the names.
2) Give solutions.

My "system is too hierarchial". Examples, solutions...

You said the SMAC system is more balanced. Well, it's harder to have 39 balanced than to have merely 16 balanced factors.

I'll continue after dinner...
I'm back!

What do you mean : "Putting democracy and aristocracy together shows limited understanding of how things work..." I am just the one who separated them into Republic and Democracy. Harel wants to fuse them.

"Your past value choices make future choices occur." I ****ing don't want that. That wouldn't ruin my tactic I described earlier on this thread. That dumb AI would get the message I am expansionist, but after I found a number of cities, I don't build any city until late in the game there is a second smaller expansionist wave. I want to choose my value myself.

You give some new value choices. What can I do with names? Everyone can make up some names. The names for my model and my factors I had after 10 minutes. Give me effects.

You included religion as a value. I have a whole religion category. Haven't you got choice enough?

You gave some examples of who are in power. I covered them all in my model.

military : Totalitarianism
king : Monarchy
aristocracy : Republic
religious : Theocracy
scientists : Knowledge
masses : Democracy
[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited July 27, 1999).]
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited July 27, 1999).]</font>

[Maniac]

Ok, have read a bit Spartan Chronicles(does it really begin in 2225 or did I miss a part? Cause they're speaking about some incident with Lal.) Now respond to Technopile.

There should be a council proposal in a multistate-coallition(read police social factor on other SE thread), named 'Peacekeeping Operation'. It should decrease unhappiness against a totalitarianist or despot ruled civ(or any not-free government).

You're dreaming if the eg English economy and happiness bettered due to the war.

I agree if the same civ betrayed you several times, the senate wouldn't accept a peace offer.
AI civs would also have a reputation. That would let them think twice before starting a war (I really hated it when Gandhi nuked just the city not protected with an SDI and after that asked for peace). It would also slow the speed and decrease the likelyness of world conquest( I only conquer to get rid of that annoying AI. If they would leave me alone, I would too. I don't know if this is also the case for you guys.).

[Jon Miller]

Hi all

first a response to M@ni@c:

if you had read my choices you would know that both my religious who and value settings were not se on religion, rather it was religion in government, if religion was another se choice (which it shouldn't be, do states choose religion any more than they choose values? Well they can try but they haved ended up failing every time in past history) it would be on the level of who and value

it is to pro-democratic in that democracy has by far the best values, your settings don't really allow for having any different settings than one (that is the reason it is too hiearchial), the one that is the highest on your se choices

republic is those who are in control voting representatives who vote actual policies while democracy are those who are in control voting the actual policies

the who could be any of the sets I previously named in my previous post

it looks as if I will have to explain the value choices better

no nation has ever made its people value something (except by propaganda which may be an effect of some of the se choices)

instead a nations actions decide what the nation values, therefore after a N# turns of doing heavy terrain development and ettler production and other expansionistic activities you get the value choice manifest destiny, which goes away after a N# turns of nonexpansionistic activities (or having those activities fall below a certain level)

this shows that what people value reflects what your policy is and makes a much more realistic and subtler game

instead of choosing your people to value wealth(in smac) and then having your policy be a knowledge one, it will istead be that if you are focusing on knowledge, soon your people will too

the value choices might not even be a yes/no thing but instead could be a slider with 0 being no value at all and increased numbers corresponding with increased value of manifest destiny

maybe even the slider will be able to go into negative numbers reflecting a dislike of that value

the more those who are in control value for example manifest destiny the more your factors reflect that

manifest destiny would increase military support among the populous (the who) because they would want to expand and get more territory

actually maybe manifest destiny is to americanized perhaps a better word is imperialistic

imperialistic values would also make terrain improvement easier and settler production easier

imperialistic values would also however increase the number of unhappy people in cities above N# large and increase corruption

(N# is just a genaric unsuspecified number)

other nations would not be as happy towards those with imperialistic values, particulary those with human rights values

imperialistic values also increase pollution

more specifics later on values

also there are scientists that don't value knowledge but instead value wealth and there are similar examples of that sort of hipocracy, it is better I think to have values and who sepperate with just in certain instances for example having a military who gives you a upping in power values, of course while the miliatry is the who it can change until wealth is the value if more effort is spent on increasing you GDP or taxes

also if you have low values in the type of who you are, like low power values for a military who you should have more corruption

getting on to method of (control)

there is republic which as everyone knows is where the who votes in representatives

there is democracy where the who is directly in control

there is meritocracy where the most able of the who controls and control is based on merit

there is beaucracy (maybe some other word) where the most senior of the who controls by beaucracy

there is monarchy (maybe a better word would be parliamtery) where one is in control and the who form a group of upperclass citizens (like nobles in midddle ages)

I am sure there is more

examples

totalittarian would be who one person, monarchy as form

dictatorship would be military as who, monarchy as form

monarchy would be nobles as who, monarchy as form

communism would be beauracratic form, masses as who with socialist economic method

economic methods would be socialist, mixed, feudal, subsistence, barter, currency, mercentalist, free market, maybe others

going to have to stop now, gott to go to work and think up more ideas for the next number of hours (what I've been doing for some time

one more idea: certain se settings do not allow you to have full control of your government, instead there are different AI personalities with civil and military characteristics that you could direct to control armies and cities and groups of armies and cities

you would not hire them instead they would come out of the populous, if they had any effects like moo2 generals and administrators they would be minor

instead there main point is that they would have different AI's, like one would be a good general, another a good admiral, another a good administrator of unhappy cities

you would not know what their talents were for

by good I mean they would direct them good, like the good administrator would know what to build in order to make a good city (of course it would be more specialized than that, one administrator would have a good rural AI and a bad urban one)

generals you would just order to attack a nation or a city(ies) or defend and they will do so with their AI and the troops you give them

these would be expandable so that others could add there own and the computer AI's would come from a special et of superior (good at a lot of things) AI

each AI would have a few strategies for dealing with things

this would be more realistic for certain settings because the president does not direct what improvements are made or what actual stategic troop movements, no he directs his underlings

it would also make the game move fast later on (it would be more later structures like free market and democracy and etc. that would not allow you to decide what was being produced, rather the AI would

more on this later

Jon Miller

[loinburger]

Maniac: In WW II the English weren't unhappy because there was a war, they were unhappy because they were getting killed and bombed. The Americans, on the other hand, were happy (except for the ones who got killed and their relatives etc.) because the war brought them out of the great depression. What's more, the Americans were happy because they won the war. The English, on the other hand, didn't lose the war, but I wouldn't exactly call them winners either. They ended up worse than before. Much like with my suggestion for Fundamentalist/Theocracy governments, whether you're winning the war should make a difference. (By the way, read Korn's idea about Soldier Specialists in the Supply thread. It would make provisions for the happiness war causes due to a rising economy, which would help to alleviate some of the stresses of a Democracy at war).
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by technophile (edited July 27, 1999).]</font>

[loinburger]

I agree that Atheism should not cause unhappiness, but instead it might make sense to give it a Dipl. penalty with all nations not practicing Atheism (they think you're a bunch of heathens). Or, maybe an Urb. penalty (people no longer congregate around the places of worship. This Urb. penalty could be eliminated in any city with a University or something like that, i.e. the people flock to the knowledge so that they may better understand life. But, this carries the threat of angering everybody who thinks that Atheism is for heathens and that it should receive a penalty in everything.)

Also, perhaps Animism should get a +1 to Env. (can't go killing the golden calfs, now can they?)

SE choices should become outdated. Otherwise the screen would get too cumbersome.

As for Values: I'd have to say that I'm still in favor of having a Values SE choice. This is because I'd originally thought, sure, this would be in keeping with the entire Inertia concept that people have been playing with (Research Inertia and whatnot), so your country's values would be determined by your whole Civ Inertia. But then I got to thinking--what about propoganda? You just know that if there is Values inertia, then there's going to be Propoganda that you can buy in order to change the Values of your people. But buying Propoganda would be the same as paying for the SE changes you'd be making, so it all adds up to be the same thing.

HOWEVER: viewing the ideas of a Research SE, I got to thinking that the Values and Research SE's could be combined into a Research Methods SE (or something similarly named) which would determine how your Civ went about its research and what its values were in regard to its research. Examples:

Environmentally Sound: +3 Env., -1 Res., +1 Hap., -3 Tax

Unethical: +6 Res., -3 Hap., -1 Env.

Theist (in accordance to God's will): -3 Res., +3 Hap (if not Atheist), +2 Tax (Church or whatever helps fund research)

There's more you can do with this, I'm certain.

[Harel]

Maniac:

First off, I do many type-o myself, so don't fret about it
Secondly, it's seems un-clear from your post if you support my "evolving-SE" offer. Do you think thats the goverment options your offered are better, or we should have fluxting numbers to limit to finite number of options?

I belive you are right about theocracy: therefor I suggested to split it to two levels, were fundemntalism gives a morale bonus.

I still don't agree that Atheism can should give a minus to happiness. A society that chooses to be athiest is ready to live with anysort of demi-gods and other nonsense. They live, and happy about it, with no belief system other then logic.
No religoun type should give a minus to happiness. The religoun selected is what the public believe: it's un-logical they will be unhappy because they don't posses a religoun type which they are against.
However, atheist society should not get a morale minus, it's just that the other religoun should give a morale bonus.

About percent of hits. Let's that agree that everything, every little item on CtP should never, ever appear on civ III. And no, i belive everyone should have the same X HP. The morale bonus is enough a difference.

I agree that the Mil option should only be included at the army section. However, it's an important thing.

I do belive we should have a "research" section. Different countries have different approchs to science.

About the bonus to small civ. I repeat. Every value gives +2/+2/-2.

For one city: +4/+4/-0 = all minus revert to zero ( after sub-totaling. If you have support -5 and +3, you will get +0 ). Yes, it's a big bonus. But you only have one city!
For two cities: +3/+3/-0 = no minus from value subject only.
For three cities: +2/+2/-1 = reduced minus to value only.

Four cities and more acts as normal.

[Maniac]

Back to Harel :

First this. I have a question about UBB. You are using it more frequently lately, so I'll ask you.
To quote things, they say 'just cut and paste'. But when I cutted something on a post and then try to paste it, it doesn't go. The paste option is grey. Probably some silly mistake but please explain me.

I expected there would be voices saying there are too much choices. Your idea of making choices replace by another one is good. However, it is worked out very bad. You were using my model, you could say as an excuse, but even then you made very illogical SE evolutions. You let a choice be replaced by another one with totally different SE factors, even in your own army category. Plus you gave outrageous and impossible numbers eg +4 Police. Until someone comes up with an idea to add more positive police possibilities, +4 is useless. In general, you gave too much positive police bonuses.
I used police as an example, but there are other things. When you're distributing bonuses and penalties left and right, you have to keep in eye that, when you add up all the bonuses or penalties of a certain factor you can possibly get in every SE category, you don't get impossible numbers. You may test that on my model. It will stay between certain boundaries.
Some (Support) may cross the limit, but that's because I am in favor of 'your government choice restricts you to choose certain SE choices in other categories'. So you can't have Feudalism ( kind of Confederate system with vassals and feudal lords ) and Totalitarianism (Federal, Centralized ) at the same time, cause they are contradictious. BTW, I just realized that the 'government restriction' thing makes sure that you don't get too many choices in every category.
However, I don't think that that is enough reason to convince you.

Government

Anarchy (never available in SE. You wouldn't want to choose it anyway.)
Despotism
-> Totalitarianism
The rest the same.

That means no fusion of Republic and Democracy. I am strongly against that. However I would like a Virtual Democracy choice. Your's has too many bonuses and penalties. For a moment in the creation of my model I thought to give every choice a bonus or penalty on every factor, but that makes it a mess. You should limit yourself to 3 bonuses and 2 penalties(with Transnational the only exception). If you give too much effects to one choice, you are returning to the fully determined governments of Civ2. That's just what SE solved. With SE you can choose and decide more precisely what government you want.
Done with the SE lesson.

About Dictatorship : What use has it when you have the almost similar and better Totalitarianism? Perhaps you were thinking to recreate the Civ2 Despotism. That is represented with Despotism/Tribal/Barter/Animism ( increased support, police and corruption but decreased food production(-2Centr) and less freedom to determine Tax and Science rate(-2Tax, -2 Res)).

About Empireship : That makes obsolete Monarchy. I strongly insist that in every category there should be and stay a 'no pos or neg' choice. I know people that used that in SMAC even when they had more choices.

About the Ecotopia ? : Is it because you are against CTP? I hate it also, but I think it is unavoidable that Civ3 will have that bad-working stacked combat. Besides if you find a good idea, even if it's from the enemy, why not use it?
The reason I created Ecotopia is to have 2 Environment increasing choices, just like in SMAC. Every factor should have at least 2 times a bonus and a penalty. (Hey, just noticed I have to less police increasing things. Please include *one* in your Army category.)

I can give more examples but I won't. This post is already long enough.

Economy

Barter
-> Currency
Protectionism
-> Communism
Banking
-> Free Market
-> Transnational
Rest the same.

I am douting if Banking should disappear cause then you would be forced to have -5 Pol instead of -3 Pol.

Religion

Animism
-> Loose Polytheism

All other categories the same.

Your Research idea is excellent!!!!!!

Only I would change wise men to no pos or neg. Animism already decreases science. With another penalty you should only be able to set science to 40%.

BTW, what does Nuture mean? I didn't find it in a dictionary. Has is something to do with nudism?

Response on your other post will come another time.

[Maniac]

Harel :

Religion is definitely not what the public believes. It's what rulers want the people to believe to keep them quiet and dumb. Why else would there be schisma's, protestantism...

Some more thoughts about your evolving SE.

I meant Police State, not Dictatorship. I would eliminate Police State. Despotism is meant as the starting government. It isn't supposed to be used in the later parts of the game, so it certainly doesn't need a replacement.

Fascism is not a government type.
By this Strict Monotheism is officially renamed to Fundamentalism. This includes also Fascism.

So I would also delete Fundamentalism. Again that morale bonus of the fundamentalist religions is covered under Fundamentalism/Strict Monotheism/Fascism.

Your Brainwashed Society is too different from the original Totalitarianism. And a Totalist rule does not mean the people back the ruler, so Fascism is a bad evolution from Totalitarianism.

Your Planned Economics are useless. Communism is the extreme of Protectionism, so that's the replacement.
That ? indicates that you don't get what I mean with Protectionism. I don't mean the Japanese protectionism, but the French Colbert Protectionism under Lious XIV.

About Army.
Step 1 to 2 is OK, but 2 to 3 not. Too much difference. There isn't even a Support bonus anymore.

About Military Industry.
You're right it is important. But your plan to let it in/decrease the cost for units has loopholes. In SMAC there is something called the Industry Cheat. For example you are approaching the end of a Secret Project construction. Then you switch for one turn to Planned/Wealth to have +2Industry. Boom, you don't need to complete the remaining 60 Minerals of the 300 Mineral SP. The same could be done with your Mil. AI starts the war. You switch production in several cities to military units. When they are almost complete you switch for one turn to the People Army and you saved a lot of minerals. Than you switch back to Draft or Mercenary. That's why I suggested the everythingx10 system. In that system Centralization(=a bit like SMAC Industry) does not affect the cost of things but your labor itself.
However that can't be used for Mil. Cause then you would have two factors increasing labor for unit production.

Read the post I did to Communist_99. There I explained how I defined Republic. Democracy is a modern system and is different than Republic.
BTW, I wouldn't count the Romans as a democracy, they are typical Republic.
BTW, I wouldn't count Athens as a Republic. They are early democratic.

You're right. I didn't like Ecotopia either. I just added it cause I needed a second Environment bonus. That function can be taken over by Research - Nature.
To make that SE choice worthwhile in the early pre-industrialized civworld -when there isn't pollution to take care off- the Environment factor should need a new use besides pollution preventer. Perhaps diseases and plagues should occur in Civ3 and Environment affects it. There is a thread started in Civ3 - General/Suggestions about it, but I don't like the ideas posted there.

Instead of Ecotopia there could be Virtual Democracy and/or Utopia as Future societies.

What was that note about Sparta??? Guess you don't know a bit about SMAC. The Spartan Federation is one of the seven factions in SMAC. Check out AC-Fiction. BTW, heart something about Diodorus to solve the MinoAn problem.
BTW, in English most names of civs end on -ans or -ians. You don't write IsraeliUn. Right?

Small Civ Stuff

The problem with your small civ solution is that it gives bonuses to a fix number of cities. But on a huge map a small civ should be allowed to have more cities than on a tiny map.
BTW not all values give +2/+2/-2.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited July 28, 1999).]</font>

[Maniac]

Jon Miller :

Democracy problem.(?)
-> Democracy is only available in late game. In Civ2 it's available too early. So that limits the 'problem' to the modern age. But in and beyond the modern age there could be other SE choices.
Now we have Virtual Democracy(government) and Utopia(economy). You may also make a suggestion to offer an alternative to Democracy.
-> Civ2 is even more pro-democratic.
-> So how would you define Democracy?
-> Probably all warmongers think Democracy is too good and all peace lovers/builders think that Totalitarianism or Communism is too good.

Note about SMAC SE 'balance':
That SE was everything except in balance. Police State, Fundamentalism, Planned and Power(unless you've got Cloning Vats) are underused. So that's 1/3 of their pre- future society system.

[Maniac]

Technopile :

If you eliminate the Hap penalty, there are too little Hap penalties ( always keep the big picture=the wholesystem in mind).
About that Dipl penalty : then every civ with another religion than yours should give a Dipl penalty. Even if you are both Loose Monotheism. Cause the same Religion choice does not mean you have the same religion.
About that Urb penalty : No worship of places makes sure Atheism does not get a Urb bonus, but it doesn't mean it gets a penalty.

Actually, IMO, Atheism has no penalties, but for the sake of gameplay, you have to give one; and it is true that more people go to sects(other post explained), so a Hap penalty seems the most logic.
BTW, I thought that in The List v1.0 - Religion, stood that Atheism should get a Hap penalty.

[loinburger]

Yeah, I suppose it's all how you go about looking at Atheism. I've always pictured Atheism (as a religion) as something similar if not identical to pure Buddhism, which, as I understand it, is "forget God, He only gets in the way, deal with the here and now, make people happy, then you will be happy." Oversimplified, I know, so don't yell at me, anybody . But Atheism in the sense of "Man doesn't need God, he has Science" would do just fine as the Atheism choice in the SE model you have proposed. As such, I concede the point on happiness, and Atheism should get a happiness penalty.


BTW, anybody look at my idea of meshing the Values with Research SE's into a Research Methodology SE?

[Harel]

I do belive we should limit the end number of SE options. I would have liked to do the same from strcutre, but I either don't understand or don't apporve of the suggested structre SE ( I do support the principle, btw ) so i could describe the suggested evoultion.

The values I used were wrong, I agree. To augmanted. However, I do belive the "focal" of center should change. Earlier religous goverments, for example were bloody until the interst of religous countries, as year based, made it relay more or happiness.
Therefor, fundemntalism evolve to theocracy.
Same thing for the army method.

The groups of options should be grouped into similar concepts. Smaller armies from a hired army, to a volunteer army, to a highly proffesional army along history. That's how peaceful nations, who kept a small army acts as history and technology evolved. True, the three options are VERY different then one another. But, different times different actions.

I don't understand your comment about dictatorship. Ofcourse people will use Totalirisim. It replace it. Didn't you see?
Dictatorship
->Totalirist
-->Fasism
--->Brain-washed

Totalirist is the evoultion of dictorship. If you choose dictatorship, when you discover totalirism if you automaticly upgraded to the newer level.
I think you got it mixed up: maybe you thought that the -> means all the options avilable to you. For example, a religous country could select either fundmentlism or theocracy. Wrong! What I ment is that theocracy replace the older fundmentlism, and that option is no longer avialable.

Republic is an aristocracy?! Huh? I think it was Jon miller who said it first. Jon, America is a republic! And no, not because it has a republic majority. A republic system relays more on delegated force: the elected senate members have more power then on democracy. A republic is under the belief the people are here for the republic, while a democracy belive she exist FOR the public.

Either way, it's not an arsitocracy. If you relay on early greek ( were indeed the republic was for the aristocrat alone ), then I remind you the the early roman democracy also only gave the selected few citizenship. Is democracy arsitocract too?

I still don't think that Ecotopia should exist on Civ III. It was a very silly idea.

About empireship: ok, your right. You should have the "static" option. So only give is a small bonus, and no minus. Maybe +1 Sup, or +1 Nat.

Onwards.

Maniac, you got it right. The roots of Sparta are back to the 2,500 BC. Exactly, they were an off-shot of the Minoun.

About nuture. ARRRAGGGHHH!
Kill me! Told you I also do spelling errors! )).
It's nature, ofcourse. A reasech which strive to understand the nature around us and all life-forms. Thats why the Eco bonus.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited July 28, 1999).]</font>