SE MODELS v3.0 (hosted by no one)

[The diplomat]

I don't understand why War economy should be a SE choice. War economy is where a country shifts its industry from producing civilian goods to military goods (like weapons). A civ player already has essentially the war economy choice when they decrease the rate for research and increase ECON and PSYCH, and change the build queue for all the cities to military units.
If you want a war economy choice, have a button that automatically sets all your cities' production to military units, and sets ECON, PSYCH and RESEARCH to a certain default. That would greatly decrease micromanagement.

------------------
No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[Maniac]

Countries in war crank out new military units at a speed apparently impossible in peace time.

Plus in history, mostly, countries in war did more military innovations than in all the previous peaceful years before. This is represented by +3 Mil = +30% speed of research in the Military category if simultaneous research is used.

In war time if a lot is at stake, even if you are democracy (-2 Pol), the people aren't unhappy if there are troops abroad.
Represented by the +2 Pol of War economy.

And of course for the same reasons the senate won't interfere and ask for peace (+2 Sen).

And in war the civil production and economy drops, which is represented by -3 Cen. Perhaps I should change it to -2 Cen, -1 Eco.
This is my solution for what quite a few people asked: that somehow in an all-out resource draining war, the civil economy suffers.

This is my version of what Harel described in his model, A7 - War, without the significant problem/question:

What if I am officially at war with a mediocre civ on an island on the other side of the globe, but I hardly fight with the civ? Do I get those heavy penalties too? How does the game determine when I actually am in an all-out war and when not?

I solved this problem since the player will only choose war economy when it's really necessary, not when he's at war with some pathetic civ with Chariots as best weapon.

BTW, just going to the SE screen and change to War economy is much less micromanagement than changing the ECON, LABS and PSYCH rates and push a button which sets all production to military.

PS:

Another small refinement to my model.
If your Army choice is Recruitment, rush-buying an infantry unit should only cost the double of the actual labor/resources cost.
In civ2 terms, to complete a Riflemen unit would only require 80 gold. Cavalry and Artillery would still be expensive.

[The diplomat]

I meant that the button does both; changes TAX rate and production.

------------------
No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[Maniac]

My apologies, Diplomat. But that doesn't nullify the other reasons I said in favor of a War economy choice.

[The Joker]

I'm beggining to like Maniac's suggestion about a war economy. But I would by all means change the -3 cen to -2 pro -2 eco. (BTW I dn't at all get why you call this SE factor Centralization when it has to do with production and food output). This war economy would really hurt your economy as all the efforts of the country is put into the war. I have some questions, however: Would it only be a modern option, or would it be possible in ancient times too? Also, the border between this and other economy types - would you define the SU during WW2 as having War economy? Over 35% of the production went into the war, but it still had a capitalistic system. Maybe having it as an option within all the other economy choises - so you could have capitalistic war economy as well as socialistic war economy?

Also, what do you think about having some charactersitics of your people in the game? There could be Individualism, Militarism etc., ranging from 0-10. They would determine the output of your civ. So in a laissez faire economy a high individualism would give more happyness and trade, while low would give less happyness and trade. And in a communistic/socialistic economy a high individualism rating would give less happyness and possibly more corruption. This would be expanded, meaming that you would need a certain individualism rating to have democracy (maybe 4), and if you had 4-6 it would give a lot of corruption and waste (like in Russia). The militarism rating could determine the unhappyness caused by units away from your cities. If high there would be no unhappyness. There should be more of these characteristics of your people, maybe about 5 or 6.

You could affect them via your SE settings and actions (a quick war would raise your militarism rating, but if you have just had a very destructive war in your country it would fall).

So, what do you think?

[Ruinexplorer]

As someone new to this debate it seems to me that most of these models are too concerned with extreme detail and not enough concerned with a more harmonius and usable model. Civ III may well be a very realistic game, but a game it remains, and I seriously doubt Firaxis will use a model of complexity even approaching the ones described here. All of them seem to have various good and bad points, but apart from Harel's, they seem a tad economically obessed and burdened by using mainly ideas "really happened", rather than utilsiing ideas that "could have happened". I was recently reading the book "Virtual History", I forget the editor, which is a collection historical analyses of what could have but did not happen. One Historian made what what I felt was a very good point, and applicable here:

"History is what actually happened in the context of what might have happened."

As the Civ games have always been about "History that never was", it seems to me that paths never actually taken, or not yet taken should also be available. Most of the models allow for this to some degree but perhaps more alternate political, religious and economic structures should be explored, up to and including weird future societies, such as Terra Nova's wierd, vaguely fascist, meritocratic "Hegemony", and so on. Just a thought.

------------------
"You're standing on my neck."

[The Joker]

Wow. First post here for weeks. Guess that after The List has been completed posting here gets meaningless.

Well, i might as well defend the basics of this thread:

Ruinexplorer:

I totally disagree with you on meaning that these models are too complex. SE is the basics of society and should therefor have a much larger role in Civ3 compared with all previous civs. For Civ3 i would like more macromanagement and less micromanagement, meaning that you should control a civilization with a central government and not just some individual cities and units that happends to fight the same enemy.

Sure, i agree with you that a balanced and harmonic SE model is required, but as we have no game to test our models on we have no idea what's harmonic. And so we might as well try to simulate reality in our systems. But detailes are required if the game should have well functional SE.

And for the economic obsession i must say that economics is actually extremely important in society. Far more than, for instance structure or government. And Harels economics sucks! It really does! His evolement in economics is the opposite of reality, as his economics (the free category) becomes more and more free, where in reality it has become more and more government controled. Also, details is required for economy. In Harels economics all countries in the world would be free market/transnational! Therefor more detailes are required, such as my labour union, corporatism and public sector options. Here countries would be individual.

For your last note about alternative history i can only say that i totally agree! It would be extremely cool to have options that has never excisted! The entire SE concept allows this to some piont (democratic socialism, nondemocratic civs with high freedom of speech etc.), but there could be much more. I have only included Green economics and a suggestion of a corporate republic option. But there could be much much more. How about a government option where the civ is like a company where everybody can buy stocks, meaning influence? It could be cool with a whole thread concerning alternative SE options, where people can debate what they should be and what effects they would have.

[Ruinexplorer]

Actually, I have to agree with you economics to a great degree, but I still thing that most of these people must have done/be doing economics and/or politics at university which deeply warps ones perception of non-current societies. I've heard economy students say some really dumb things about ancient economies. As for control, well, I sort of agree with you (obviously I am influenced by my own politics - I don't see a total "free market" or economic libertarianism as necessarily "good" things for a civ, but then neither does Brain Reynolds, so I'm okay).

Aaaaanyway, I see what you mean, but bureaucracy and government attempts to control and benefit from trade and so on are deeply ancient, and it is such attempts that lead to the formation of written language, amongst other things. I would, from an archaeo-historic POV, suggest that governemnt control has not been constantly loosen or tightening over the years, but fluctuating, depending on the style of government. Some governments interfere (and I do NOT use the word perjoratively (sp?)) constantly, whether they are trying help their own citizens and be green or whatever or just get a "piece of the pie", whereas others don't care as long as they get their taxes. What I would agree on is that the degree of _potential_ control has continually risen, culminating (so far) is societies with near total economic control, such as other using communism. I'd like to see stuff like "labour-exchange" type Civs allowable, a kind of moneyless communism, which has already been tried out in places.

On complexity... I think you missed my point... complex models are all well and good but Firaxis will NOT use one as they are simply to complex for most people. You may well be able to affect all those variables but they will not be on the same big social engineering table.

As for alternate civ ideas, well, I'll start that thread on it's own topic right now... should be busy I hope.

[Stefu]

Hey, here's whole new thing for chew - party politics.

From the moment I saw Senate, I started to wonder - could the parties be included in some way? I thought, and finally, when reading V 2.0, it dawned. How about, in democracy, every time you make SE change, it first has to pass the parliament? And that won't be easy, as there are many parties competing in power.

Now, parties would symbolize political views - there would be Democratic Party, Socialist PArty, Conservative Party, Liberal Party and so on. Each of parties has an Agenda. Agenda mainly specifies what they want to do to SE factors. Their opinion to these factos is specified at range +3 to -3. For instance, Socialist Party's view to Economics would be -2 or even -3 - they are against Soc- Eng choices that increase the Economics factor. On the other hand, as they are all for rights of worker, Industry level could be +2 to +3 - they are very pro towards choices that raise Industry level.

But, in event of vote, how is it calculated which party will vote which? Simple. The chances the new Soc. Eng setting are each tken separate and each multiplied individually with the party's Agenda factor. For instance, if aforementioned Socialist party has -3 in Economics and new choice would cause increase of 1 in Economics, it gives Socialists -3 in that matter. Then all factors are added up and wheteher the sum is positive or negative, that decides whether our party votes Yes or No.

But what decides what party has how many seats? Well, still using Socialists as an example, if your industry is screwed up (You produce little to nothing) Socialist models get seen as relief from present crisis and Socialist party gets lot of votes. Note that if Industry level is -3, for instance, it doesn't automatically mean that Socialists get voten. Rather, if leader screws up in Industry, then Socialists get voten for. I suggest that as a balancing factor there is Presidential Party that votes Yes to every suggestion that president makes - after other parties have been tallied, reminder of seats goes to this party.

Also, random events could be in, in form of one party getting particulary charismatic leader, or one that makes major chance to their views. Also, if there is friendly state next to you and Socialists are going fine there, then Socialists in your country are bound to get votes too. If there's enemy country with Socialists on charge, on the other hand, your socialists are gonna get less votes (potential traitors, you see.)

[S. Kroeze]

Being more or less a historian I would like to make some comments about this whole idea of social engineering. We, living in the year 1999, actually cant imagine the very restricted influence most goverments had over most of their subjects during most of history, certainly before the French revolution. Even strong, able and "absolute" rulers like Louis XIV didn't make a great difference. He couldn't for example tax his own aristocracy without serious risk of an aristocratic rising, which always could topple his government. And since that same aristocracy owned most wealth in his kingdom it was nearly impossible to control the royal budget, let alone his kingdom.
Neither should we cherish illusions about the power of the Roman emperors. All emperors who didn't understand how to rule in cooperation with the Senate, sooner or later lost their lives. From the third century that influence shifted to the army, but the actual situation didn't change: work in accordance with the wishes of the army and the ruling elite or lose your job! (and your life as well)
So in my opinion- though I like the idea of social engineering for gamepurposes- the options should be much more restricted if you want to create a realistic historical atmosphere. I think the population of Civilization is much too easy to suppress, even on Deity level. They are just too predictable. If you control their happiness regularly they will never spontaneously revolt.
Those who read history should know that peasant revolts occurred every second year ,mostly as a result of crop failure and the subsequent famine. Tax collecting would be another reason to revolt.
Another constant, more dangerous threat to each government was the aristocratic "cabale". And we should never forget the danger of pretenders within the royal family, possibly encouraged by foreign powers. (for example the War of the Roses or the incountable palace revolutions at the court of the Romanows)
So instead of the gamers dictating the social conditions I would prefer a game dictating the limits of government. Even Hitler didn't succeed ,when in the last days of his rule he ordered the mass extinction of his own German subjects (!). Let people revolt because of crop failure or high taxes! Let the aristocracy thwart your plans and secede, carrying half the kingdom with them. So far I forgot to mention the clergy. Throughout history their influence has been immense; they could anathematize you or confirm your divine right to rule. Charles I lost his head as a result of such a conflict. (Of course I know that in truth things were much more complicated; also taxes played an important part as did the landed aristocracy, the so called gentry)
Finally a word about government in the beginning of history. The original form of government certainly wasn't despotism, but a sort of priest-kingship. This pattern repeats itself in every historical civilization, Sumerian, Egyptian, Indus, Chinese, Mayan, you name it. A god owns the land, which is administered by an all-powerfull caste of priests. Because of their superior ,divine knowledge they alone did know when to sow, when to harvest and how to organize irrigation, which involves the help of many. But those societies weren't militaristic, far from it. They were primarily religious; without religion society would fall apart. (that's why this social structure is often called temple communism: private ownership of land didn't exist) The king/pharaoh/inca was the highest priest of the community ,perhaps with divine ancestors but always cooperating with the other priests. In Egypt Ikhnaton introduced a new monotheistic religion around 1300 BC and quarreled with priests of the other gods: he came to a bad end.
The growing power of the military and a more despotic kingship is a later development, which is probably connected with the arrival of Aryan and Semitic barbarians and the introduction of the chariot in warfare. From that time dates our military aristocracy.
Those who think the Roman republic was in any way democratic are a bit naive. Rome was ruled by about fifty very wealthy aristocratic families, mostly of patrician stock and all having landed property. Other ways of making money were considered vulgar. Membership of the Senate, which actually ruled, was almost exclusively determined by birth.
A final remark: I think it absurd that knowledge can only grow. A lot of knowledge of the Greek and Romans disappeared during the Dark Ages following the migration. The Minoans could write; as a result of the Dorian invasion writing stopped, only to be reintroduced some centuries later. Around the year 1000 AD China under the Sung-dynasty was centuries ahead of all other civilations: in Western Europe society had just begun to recover from the Dark Ages, the florescence of Byzantium and of the Muslim world were past their peak.
But history would change its course: China was overrun by the Mongols and withdrew into itself; many originally Chinese discoveries like gunpowder weren't developed to its possibiities. Social engineering?
No, external events forced China to develop a less adventurous society and to defend itself morally against the barbarian intruders.

By the way, its not my purpose to criticize, only to stimulate the discussion. I like most ideas but prefer historical likelihood and ambiance.

[S. Kroeze]

Thanks for reacting!
Historians just don't know about a first tribal assembly. Most primitive society have some sort of village council; in the Gilgamesh epic (a great piece of Sumerian literature) there are traces of a council of elders: they advise the king. Because of lack of source material you can jump to almost every conclusion you like. The essential question should be: did the common people in a given society have any political power?
That's the point where opinions begin to diverge. Rome, where the Senate ruled for centuries, also had about four different tribal assemblies. At some point law was passed that decisions of one of those assemblies gained force of law. And yet that didn't really change the structure of government. The aristocracy still ruled, apart from a returning triumphing general. And Athens was certainly more democratic, but only for Athenian male citizens. Slaves (a great part of the population), women and also non-citizens didn't have any political right.
Generally speaking only non-civilized societies had assemblies where people were heard and could speak. I'm thinking of nomadic people, where every man took part in the hunt or raid. In those societies all men carry arms and they take daily practice. That's one very important reason that they are militaristic, heroic and in a conflict with a civilization usually the conquerors. But they didn't create a civilization, which always begins with agriculture ,cities and organized religion.
Before the development of firearms the barbarians normally won the day. (By the way: I would like to recommend two books: "The Rise of the West" by W.H. McNeill and "The rise and fall of the great powers" by Paul(?) Kennedy.)
I agree completely with the unbearable slowness of building military units; its just absurd. But such problems should be amended. I would suggest the introduction of an organized division of labour. Players could conscript part of their labour force, so some soldiers can be available at any moment. And why not distributing the other tasks as well? This would in my opinion really mean social engineering. People can till the land or fight a war, but not both at the same time. So if you want to send people away to win a war, the harvest will probably not be brought in. There would at least be food shortage, which could cause peasant unrest. I don't have given up on those brave peasants.
I only once played Call to Power because it seemed to me a failure: the game was very slow without any excitement. But I think to remember that in the Middle Ages turns would take two years each. And in Civilization II- even on Deity level- after 1750 AD time would pass with only two years each turn. (By the way: why not having a regular passage of time, each turn just one year? Thats for humans a normal way of counting. I cant understand why the creation of a band of simple warriors should take about 250 years)
Something I liked about Call to Power was the slaver: a large slave population would be the solution for a warlike society which still depends on manual labour for food and industry.
Another argument brought in by you against my pursuit of realism was that every turn there would be some disturbing factor. I like that. In my opinion the beginning of CivII, which on Deity level can be quite hard, is really exciting. Barbarians are sometimes a real threat; the other civilizations are quite agressive (often against their own interest) and research can be alarmingly slow. Normally after the Middle Ages it becomes clear who is dominant; after a short Republican period of trade and peacefull coexistence the enemies become increasingly warlike but without avail. As soon as I think that the game is over, I lose interest. (Often I change sides at this point or just quit; I cherish the remembrance of the start of my civilization when danger lurked in every corner; only by large-scale cheating can the computer keep up the semblance of competition during the end-game) So why not creating a new problem for the player: the peasants, the ruling elite and rivals for power within the state?
War with other nations could become less ferocious.

Part of the problem could be the over-importance of the military aspects in the game. You just control a city or your enemies do. In real life things are more complicated. The Assyrians conquered the Babylonians roughly every twenty years: they killed some leaders of the revolt, the Babylonians were forced to pay a large yearly tribute and undoubtedly suffered much. But the Assyrians didn't dare to burn down the city; I think with good reason, not because of tenderheartedness. So in the end Ninive and Assur, the Assyrian capitals were totally burned down by the Medes and would never recover; and this was all done in alliance with those effiminate Babylonians, who prospered for another five hundred years. So a military victory isn't the end of a story and political control can be very tight, but was during most of history very superficial. An empire doesn't necessarily grow stronger as it expands, it could possibly mean the opposite: enfeeblement. After the defeat of Napoleon did the British truly rule the waves: their commercial nerwork enclosed the whole globe, though it was an informal empire. During the nineteenth century the maps showed more and more pink and the empire grew at an enormous speed. But British power decreased. Even they couldn't take the whole cake; some parts were taken by other powers: the French, the Germans, the Americans, the Japanese, even the Dutch.

So I would suggest to introduce a sort of gradual increasing scale of political and/or religious/economic control. Each power has a centre where power, manpower and money, are "payed" to a government; but the control of outlying provinces actually costs money and "power points" (these could be represented by political agents/satraps). Compare the decline of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the empire of the Spanish Habsburg in Italy and the Netherlands, and also the decline of the Roman Empire. In the end the centre couldn't or wouldn't bear the ever increasing costs of keeping down subjects in the periphery, who skilfully and systematically evaded the burden of empire.

[Maniac]

I absolutely agree about that China example. However I can't really come up with a game effect that would result in the military dominance of the European states and a stagnation of China.

Damn, I thought the other historian Diodorus Sicilus had said that some ancient rulers could rule because they were supposed o be a god; and that others ruled because they had the support of the military caste. I thought those two 'systems' existed at the same time and therefore I made Warrior-Kingdom my default starting choice. Should I reintroduce something like
God-Kingdom: +1 Nationalism, +1 Production, -1 Research
?

Yeah, I would also like peasant revolts because of crop failure, but unfortunately turns in Civ are more than one year. Therefore impossible to represent.
This is very pity, since almost all people revolutions in history were caused by food deficit and hunger.

Also, if all those shifts of power would be represented, you would constantly be at war. Realistic, but unfortunately, it would make an unplayable game. Even more because raising/building armies takes much too long in Civ. When you, the king of a civilization, were threatened by an usurper and decides to raise some infantry troops and send them to your enemy, it would be a century later.
Therefore I think building units should be less based on shields/resources and more on money. So in a crisis, you could just rushbuy/conscript some troops.

PS: when/where did the first Tribal Assemblies take place? I don't necessarily mean the well organized ones as in Athens.

[The Joker]

Great to see other people taking part of this for too long silent debate.

You have some great ideas! I mostly like the idea about an empire not getting stronger simply by expanding. This was one of the major bugs in Civ2, that the largest was almost always the strongest, plus the fact that the game was always settled by 1000AD. And that is completely opposite reality. I agree that large empires should be burdened by frequent revolts etc. This should especcially be a problem in modern times. After all, the US and UK didn't just make Germany a new province after WW2. In Civ2 they would. How would this be changed in Civ3? first of all there should be these revolts, which would propably be more and more frequent as the war begins to become history. Then there should be the problem with allies that wouldn't accept the conquest of another civilization. Finally civs should be much more dependable to other civs, meaning that coal, oil etc. should be imported if not present in the civ. They should be really important to the production and economy of a civ.

I also like the concept of shorter turns in ancient times. Maybe up to 4 turns per year after 1900?? Of cause this would mean that cities would grow slower, settlers would be slower built and research would be slowed down too. This would really make it possible to have a large ancient empire with huge wars etc. etc. I am not a historian, but i wouln't think it would take very long to build a legion unit, if you have sufficient iron. The problem of having it would be the wages of the soldiers and the fact that soldiers should be made out of your population. I think that your population should be measured in people, not in heads. This would, of cause cause some problems for city management, but i'm sure Firaxis would be able to figure it out. The beauty of this would be that your units would now be drawn from your population. So you could build a legion in a few turns, but it would take perhabs 10,000 of your the population from the city where it was built. So you could have a huge army pretty quickly, but it would really hurt you production, trade and food prodution. In a total war this would also make it crusial that your troops return from the battlefield alive, or you're really screwed, even if you had won the war.

I didn't know about that god king government, but i guess it should be included.

BTW i know about the hegenomytheory (although I haven't read the book The "Rise and Fall..."). If it was included in Civ3 it would be the greatest thing ever! For people who don't know it it tryes to explain how great powers rise and fall. The author think that the rise of empires often is because of technological advantages. This makes a larger production possible (not in a very large scale in Civ2), making them better suited for war. But if they use a lot of their ressources for war they risk that what they gain from it isn't as much as what they loose in trade/production at home. (Kroeze: If you can explain it better or if I have mistaken something please say...write it)

Veni Vidi Vici!

[Ruinexplorer]

Just one simple point to add. Nationalism is a VERY recent force/belief, which according to most historians of note is around 2-300 hundred years old.

So, to have a "Nationalism" index in the SE choices is a pure anachronism. Nationalism could well be a research achievement however, and one well suited to giving the player access to Guerillas, for example. You didn't get such forces existing in the more ancient past as loyalty was to one Ruler and/or ones god(s), not to any Nation-state. The few "guerilla" style forces more than 300 hundred years old had other motivating factors than Nationalism, whereas the majority of Guerilla forces have that as their motivation today.

Don't include "Nationalism" in SE choices. Loyalty to Ruler/Gov. yes (which, under modern Nationalistic states is merely an extension of the Country), Nationalism, no.

A side issue, could S.Kroeze please use more paragraphs and correct breaks. I know these boxes can be fiddly to type in, but I for one, find it virtually impossible to read such text. I used to have the same problems, and if I had one piece of advice, it'd be "Let the box do its stuff", ie. Only do actual paragraphs yourself, this box will make the sentances line up. No diss, just um, whining, I guess. Sorry.

[Biddles]

Another SE - a version of 'Eco-economics' or 'democratic economics'. Future orientated. In KSR's Mars trilogy. This is where all companies are owned by the workers who work in them. The workers are garunteed at least 50% of the earnings that the company makes from their labour. Maximum company size is 1000 workers (and therefore 1000 stock holders). There are NO stockmarkets, as the companies are solely owned by their workers. Guilds, or collectives of similar companies are allowed as they are needed for large scale industries such as steel petroleum etc., but these guilds are very loose knit.

By the way, these models might look very complicated but they wont be as complicated if they are implicated. They have to be complicated so that the designers can understand every intricacy of them.

------------------
- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission