Constitutional Monarchy

[WesW]

A number of people have commented in the past that they would like to see a Constitutional Monarchy governmental form added to the game. Well, now is a good time to discuss it!
If we can come up with specific settings for it, and good reasons for them, I will add this to the Medpack 4.0.

[DiscoveryOne]

Shoot, not only a Constitutional Monarchy, but also perhaps Socialism, Military Junta (or Banana Republic!), Confederate Rebublic, and Oligarchy.

I'd have to think about the stats.

[DiscoveryOne]

Well, it looks as though only you and I are interested in this one, Wes.

[Paul]

Well, I wouldn't mind some new governments. After all, the Med Mod adds loads of new advances, wonders, improvements, units and trade goods, so why not some new governments?

[TheLimey]

You are considering this as an 'equivalent' to fundamentalism, mid game, yes?

Ultimately you're looking for something like Democracy minus a bit of happiness/growth/gold/plus a little easier time at war (due to stronger national allegience)

The following are the stats I'd suggest (or a first revision thereof):

They follow the sequence of the (non calculated) ones in CD's government spreadsheet.

10
4
12.5

1.25
1.25

0.03 (? or 0.02)

1
0.5
4
2
6
6

1.2
0.7
1.5

-3
0.2
15

0.002
1000
5500
6.0

55
1.25

1

10
0.5

0 (although martial law maybe SHOULD be considered? possibly 2/0.5)
0

7

I'm not sure how balanced it will play; the gold is definitely down on demo... but the increased empire size and distance matters (although it is a 'later game gov'. I'm not sure if the empire distance shouldn't be scaled back, and a heavyweight martial law ability be added (as per India/British Empire, etc.)


[This message has been edited by TheLimey (edited July 10, 2000).]

[TheLimey]

Incidentally, who else thinks something should be done regarding ectopia?

I understand its 'excellent' pollution rating, but still...

If its unable to support a decent war effort, then its no choice at all, especially if its a 'play it to the end' gov as Technocracy and Corporate Republic definitely are.

The 90 city limit looked to be thrown in there as a bone for the poor pickings that are available with this gov.

I went from Tyranny to Theocracy to Republic to Democracy to Communism to Democracy to Corp. Republic to Technocracy to Ectopia.

Every subsequent government is supposed to give you just a little different choice. It is often a little worse, if you don't have the TI's or city numbers to support the government appropriately.

Going Republic to Demo was bad at first, Demo to Communism stung for a while, but I needed the production, and Democracy to Corp. Republic hurt cash and science wise at first until my financial improvements got done, and the move to Technocracy was very smooth (and productive). Going to Ectopia felt a little like falling off a cliff

[TheBirdMan]

I still think, that we should have much more governments. I know the mod-makes will have much work to do - but still.

Think we should have "lines" to follow through the ages, mening that the cleric follows a religious line, the aggresive and a slaver a milmany line. Scimany for an expansive line and so on. This can be defined through the Advancements_List in the respective aip-files. The higher in the list, the more attractive the government is.

Think we should go for 6 "lines", something like this:

MIL=Militant. All ”normal” unit-types should be able to ”make” people happy (high values in: MAX_MARTIAL_LAW_UNITS, MARTIAL_LAW_EFFECT and AT_HOME_RADIUS (say 3 or 4 instead of 2)).

REP=Republic. They make more gold than others (high values in: GOLD_COEF).

MON=Monarchy. They make more food than others. Not sure, but I think we can use the GOV_GROWTH_RANK.

EMP=Empire. Lots of cities far away from capital without loss of happiness (high values in: EMPIRE_DISTANCE_SCALE, MIN_EMPIRE_DISTANCE, MAX_EMPIRE_DISTANCE and maybe AT_HOME_RADIUS (say 3 instead of 2)).

REL=Religious. Use improvements (maybe add church/moske or something like that to the improvements) to make people happy. It’s possible to have different values for happiness under different governments.

DEM=Democracy. Lots of science. (high values in: KNOWLEDGE_COEF). Happy people (make new improvements like parks, local stations (city-railroad or something like this - also to reduce pollution?).
Other values for the Government types have to be tweaked in different ways to balance the game.

In case this meet "understanding" by the hard-working people, I think we need about 30-36 government types!

[TheLimey]

I like the idea a lot... although the end government types are great as concepts; corporate republic and technocracy both make excellent 'evil empires' and ectopia has a great chance to be their foil. How would you model future paths of your governments?

Virtual Democracy is a good last choice, how would you see the 'ultimate forms' of other government?

Where does communism fit in? Military perhaps?

The food ration rating is key to the growth potential of Monarchies, tho I'm not sure that this is the best idea; growth definitely isn't everything.

Having 'empire' governments with higher limits, and lowering the limits of other governments, to give it some advantage isn't a bad idea...

Ultimately science is the most important concept in the game, it permits you to do things and 'work around' problems using wonders and so on that no other game concept does. This may make Democracies too hard, and unless you set appropriately low max science rates, gold republics too.

We might in CtP2 be able to work out a way of penalizing a player from switching government type from one to another, for a dozen turns or so, so they don't become a simple convenience. People would most likely be resistant to change anyway, especially if it meant them loosing their religious style government (Or their monarch or financial moguls.)

[WesW]

I am glad to see a couple of people chiming in with ideas. I thought that some of the Brits here especially would have given an opinion, with some historical anecdotes to back up their recommendations.

Limey, edit your earlier post, and paste in the section of the govern text you are referring to, with the specific values you recommend. It won't take up any more space, and we can then see exactly what settings all those numbers go to.

Btw, Woodstock, there is an fli which is supposed to guide the AIs in their gov choices, and it works about like you describe. I have pasted in a section of it below, so that you can get an idea of how it works. The name of the file is set_govern fli, if you want to go through it yourself. I altered it back when I did the med mod 2.1, adding some settings to get the AIs to choose Communism and Fascism some.

// Cleric at war
if (not zero_at_war and
yes_cleric and
not a1to5_num_cities
and not yes_i_can_build_wormhole_probe
and not yes_focus_on_units )
{
// good for war
gov_ecotopia_1

// good for peace
gov_multicorp_2

// good for war or peace
gov_fundamentalism_3
gov_theocracy_4
}

As you can see, Clerics should pick Ecotopia first, then Multicorp, then Fund or last, Theocracy, depending on what advances they have discovered.
There are similar sections for the other personality types. I haven't looked at this file in a while, and I have no experience with gov's more advanced than Fascism and Communism, so it may be that this area can be improved upon by you guys.

[TheBirdMan]

Hej Limey and WES

What about this (some have seen this before)

General:
GOVERNMENT_ANARCHY; 4000BC
GOVERNMENT_TYRANNY; 4000BC

Militant:
GOVERNMENT_TRIBAL_CHIEF; ANCIENT; 3500BC
NO CHANGES; ERA OF GREAT MIGRATIONS; 2000BC
GOVERNMENT_FEUDALISM; MEDIEVAL; 600AD
NO CHANGES; RENAISSANCE
GOVERNMENT_POLICE_STATE; INDUSTRIAL; 1700AD
GOVERNMENT_COMMUNISM; MODERN; 1900AD
NO CHANGES; GENETIC
GOVERNMENT_MILITANT_DICTATORSHIP; DIAMOND; 2400AD

Republic:
GOVERNMENT_ANCIENT_CITY_STATE ; ANCIENT; 3000BC
GOVERNMENT_CITY_STATE; ERA OF GREAT MIGRATIONS; 2000BC
GOVERNMENT_BUREAUCRACY; MEDIEVAL; 400AD
GOVERNMENT_COUNSIL_OF_LORDS; RENAISSANCE; 1300AD
GOVERNMENT_REPUBLIC; INDUSTRIAL; 1700AD
GOVERNMENT_CONFEDERATE_REPUBLIC; MODERN; 1900AD
GOVERNMENT_THECNOCRACY; GENETIC; 2000AD
GOVERNMENT_VIRTUAL_REPUBLIC; DIAMOND; 2400AD

Monarchy:
GOVERNMENT_ANCIENT_KINGDOM; ANCIENT; 2500BC
NO CHANGES; ERA OF GREAT MIGRATIONS; 1000BC
GOVERNMENT_KINGDOM; MEDIEVAL; 600AD
GOVERNMENT_ENLIGHTED_MONARCHY; RENAISSANCE; 1500AD
GOVERNMENT_MONARCHY; INDUSTRIAL; 1700AD
GOVERNMENT_CONSTITUTIONAL_MONARCHY; MODERN; 1900AD
NO CHANGES; GENETIC
NO CHANGES; DIAMOND

Empire:
GOVERNMENT_ANCIENT_EMPIRE; ANCIENT; 2000BC
NO CHANGES; ERA OF GREAT MIGRATIONS
GOVERNMENT_MEDIEVAL_EMPIRE; MEDIEVAL; 800AD
GOVERNMENT_WORLD_EMPIRE; RENAISSANCE; 1600AD
NO CHANGES; INDUSTRIAL
GOVERNMENT_WORLD_CORPORATION; MODERN; 2000AD
NO CHANGES; GENETIC
GOVERNMENT_PLANETARY_EMPIRE; DIAMOND; 2500AD

Religious:
GOVERNMENT_SHAMANISM; ANCIENT; 3000BC
GOVERNMENT_THEOCRACY; ERA OF GREAT MIGRATIONS; 500BC
GOVERNMENT_MONOTHEISM; MEDIEVAL; 800AD
GOVERNMENT_OLIGARCHY; RENAISSANCE; 1300AD
NO CHANGES; INDUSTRIAL
GOVERNMENT_FUNDAMENTALISM; MODERN; 1900AD
GOVERNMENT_ECOTOPIA; GENETIC; 2100AD
NO CHANGES; DIAMOND; 2500AD

Democracy:
NONE; ANCIENT
NONE; ERA OF GREAT MIGRATIONS
NONE; MEDIEVAL
NONE; RENAISSANCE
GOVERNMENT_SEMI_DEMOCRACY; INDUSTRIAL; 1700AD
GOVERNMENT_DEMOCRACY; MODERN; 1900AD
GOVERNMENT_PLANETARY_DEMOCRACY; GENETIC; 2100AD
GOVERNMENT_VIRTUAL_DEMOCRACY; DIAMOND; 2400AD

As you know, you can "bind" different values of happiness to different improvement for different governmenttypes (see f.es. Cathedrals in the Improve.txt file, lines for

IMPROVEMENT_FLAG_HAPPY_INC_SWITCH 3
{ GOVERNMENT_COMMUNISM 1
GOVERNMENT_THEOCRACY 5 }.

Using this more gives a lot of patterns to use, making different governmenttype attractive to different personalities (both AI and human).

At a start we (well - not me) can implement happiness factors for the various types, f.ex: Trade govern: + one happiness for marketplace and banks.
"Weak in military" govern: + one happiness for CityWalls (one might be happy being walled in?)
One-party, militant and police states has to depend on keeping units in each city.
Religious on temples and catheadrals.
Demoratic on theater or sport.
And so on. Then - maybe - we should reduce the effect of certain happinesswonders a little?

By the way (as I have wrote before): If all these governments are inwoked in the game, I will certainly make use of the GOVERNMENT_TYPE switch in the unit.txt (see fx. the cleric) for most units.

This can be used to disband obsolute units automatically. Then I will NOT see legions fighting against tanks (unless I'm attacking an isolated civ, who has not being developed during the last 1200-1800 years). I will NOT care of the costs - if I like, well I can just lower the production costs for new units a little bit.

And Wes - yes I have seen this file before. But I was not sure how to "interprend" the fuction of it.

Edit-edit-edit.......

------------------
Woodstock was here!
[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited July 11, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited July 11, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited July 11, 2000).]

[TheLimey]

splendid... looks excellent... although lots of work lies ahead for us if we are to implement it.

BTW, Wes, here are the numbers in the format that you wanted...

Production Coefficients
Workday   10
Wages     4
Rations   12.5

PRODUCTION_COEF 1.25
POLLUTION_COEF  1.25
Rough Pollution Factor (calculated)

POLLUTION_UNHAPPY_COEF 0.03 (? or 0.02)
Pollution Unhappiness Rating (calc)

INFRASTRUCTURE_COEF    1
CAPITALIZATION_COEF    0.5
UNIT_RUSH_MODIFIER     4
BUILDING_RUSH_MODIFIER 2
WONDER_RUSH_MODIFIER   6
END_GAME_RUSH_MODIFIER 6

Research Coefficients
GOLD_COEF              1.2
MAX_SCIENCE_RATE       0.7
KNOWLEDGE_COEF         1.5
Theoretical Scientific Output (calc)
Mean Scientific Output        (calc)

Happiness Coefficients
CONQUEST_DISTRESS            -3
CONQUEST_DECAY               0.2
No of Turns for Assimilation 15

EMPIRE_DISTANCE_SCALE    0.002
MIN_EMPIRE_DISTANCE      1000
MAX_EMPIRE_DISTANCE      5500
Max Distance Unhappiness 6.0

TOO_MANY_CITIES_THRESH   55 (?)
TOO_MANY_CITIES_COEF     1.25

CRIME_COEF               1

War Coefficients
WAR_DISCONTENT_MAX_UNITS 10
WAR_DISCONTENT_PER_UNIT  0.5

MAX_MARTIAL_LAW_UNITS 0 (altho maybe? 2/0.5 pos?)
MARTIAL_LAW_EFFECT 0

TURNS_TO_NEW_READINESS 7

Original Govt Rankings (these are just for the gl)

GOV_POWER_RANK
GOV_POWER_RANK (+ Poltn)

GOV_PEACE_RANK
GOV_PEACE_RANK (+ Poltn)

NEW Govt Rankings
GOV_GROWTH_RANK
GOV_PRODUCTION_RANK
GOV_SCIENCE_RANK
GOV_GOLD_RANK
GOV_MILITARY_RANK
GOV_POLLUTION RANK

GOV_POWER_RANK
GOV_POWER_RANK (+ Poltn)

GOV_PEACE_RANK
GOV_PEACE_RANK (+ Poltn)

[TheLimey]

Hey bird man. 3 comments... on the list.

Firstly, Ectopia is awefully weak for a last government stage... It limits the religious player in a big way.

Secondly, Constitutional Monarchy appearing so early and being the last stage of monarchy will either mean its too powerful(early) or not powerful enough(later)

Thirdly, I'm pretty sure that the AI isn't going to be able to handle this now; you can set the principals for the first dozen governments, but when new ones past that come along, they are 'used' based on their merits.

What this will mean is that you can keep the government personalities true to form for the first couple of ages, then they will do their own thing. I don't see any reason not to work out the governments though... it might be a 'fun' debate anyway.

Hopefully the AI hardcoding bit will be sorted in CtP2.

Speaking of this, though... I do have my worries about CtP2 because of the AI, and the person who has taken it over.

The guy who is doing the AI (and took over half way through CtP1) did the AI for Star Trek:Armada. I did a search for some reviews, looking specifically for AI stuff... and the reviews weren't great. Of course, you only work with what you're given and the design, and programming lead could have been crap on ST:A. I really don't know what it means... in terms of CtP2... but it gave me a depressed feeling as I read it.

Of course, there is always MP

[WesW]

Looking over the gov't printouts from CD's 4.2 mod, Ectopia is very weak on production, but good on unit readiness and conquest distress. I picture civs building up their forces under another gov, then switching to Ectopia for the conquest phase. I don't know if the current settings are set up for this, or not.

I see Con. Mon. as a successor to Monarchy, and an intermediate step to Democracy. I see the Con. Mon. (CM) stage of British govt from the Glorious Revolution of King William to about WWI.
How about these settings, differences from The Limey's in quotes.

Production Coefficients
Workday   10
Wages     4
Rations   12.5 (10)

PRODUCTION_COEF 1.25
POLLUTION_COEF  1.25
Rough Pollution Factor (calculated)

POLLUTION_UNHAPPY_COEF 0.03 
Pollution Unhappiness Rating (calc)

INFRASTRUCTURE_COEF    1
CAPITALIZATION_COEF    0.5
UNIT_RUSH_MODIFIER     4 
BUILDING_RUSH_MODIFIER 2
WONDER_RUSH_MODIFIER   6
END_GAME_RUSH_MODIFIER 6

Research Coefficients
GOLD_COEF              1.2 (1.1)
MAX_SCIENCE_RATE       0.7
KNOWLEDGE_COEF         1.5
Theoretical Scientific Output (calc)
Mean Scientific Output        (calc)

Happiness Coefficients
CONQUEST_DISTRESS            -3 (-2)
CONQUEST_DECAY               0.2
No of Turns for Assimilation 15 (10)

EMPIRE_DISTANCE_SCALE    0.002 (.0025)
MIN_EMPIRE_DISTANCE      1000 (750)
MAX_EMPIRE_DISTANCE      5500 (3000)
Max Distance Unhappiness 6.0  (5.5)

TOO_MANY_CITIES_THRESH   55 (?) (30)
TOO_MANY_CITIES_COEF     1.25   (.5)

CRIME_COEF               1

War Coefficients
WAR_DISCONTENT_MAX_UNITS 10 (15)
WAR_DISCONTENT_PER_UNIT  0.5 

MAX_MARTIAL_LAW_UNITS 0 (altho maybe? 2/0.5 pos?) (2)
MARTIAL_LAW_EFFECT 0 (1)

TURNS_TO_NEW_READINESS 7

Original Govt Rankings (these are just for the gl)

GOV_POWER_RANK
GOV_POWER_RANK (+ Poltn)

GOV_PEACE_RANK
GOV_PEACE_RANK (+ Poltn)

NEW Govt Rankings
GOV_GROWTH_RANK
GOV_PRODUCTION_RANK
GOV_SCIENCE_RANK
GOV_GOLD_RANK
GOV_MILITARY_RANK
GOV_POLLUTION RANK

GOV_POWER_RANK
GOV_POWER_RANK (+ Poltn)

GOV_PEACE_RANK
GOV_PEACE_RANK (+ Poltn)

I think these settings make it an alternative to Republic, Democracy and Communism.

Btw, anyone think Fascism is a little too powerful under the current (Medpack) settings? I am thinking about lowering its cities threshold to 35.
Also, can you tell if the conquest distress works correctly? It has always seemed to me that the rate of unhappiness improvement is much faster than .2 per turn.

[TheLimey]

Yes, you definitely can build up an army in a an 'alternative gov' like, say... Technocracy and then change to Ectopia.

I did this... however my support percentages skyrocketed, as a great deal of my cities became almost useless production wise, going below 1000 production a turn, except for the most productive of cities.

The production improvements become hugely un-cost effective.

My 11% support became 25%, and I changed from being able to build 40 warwalkers a turn, and increasing support by around 1% by doing so, to being able to produce 12, and increasing support by the same 1%.

I'm not sure that Ectopia is so unfair, there are big advantages (*cough* park ranger *cough*)... but maybe the gold/science should be toned down and the production up just a tad.

Regarding Constitutional Monarchy, I saw it stretching a little further into the future... but on reflection, maybe you are right. If it finishes earlier, then your settings are more appropriate, except that I believe that the war settings should be as good as monarchy, because of the fierce national identity a monarch generates, vs. a flag/president. (not that I want to start an arguement about it)

I've never tried Fascism; the big advantage was the Fascist, which I never tactically needed, and I didn't want to take the science hit... although I'm amused that the computer has and is building Facists. Shame they don't win vs. Plasma Tanks & Warwalkers.

I don't believe that the conquest distress is working right. Maybe its hardcoded?

[TheBirdMan]

Well - CM is actually what we have in Denmark (year 2000) - though the bureaucrats in EU seems to have more influence than the semi-politicans in both EU and our local parlament. So in real life we have a form of technocracy.

Point is, that CM should be the last in the monarchy range - obsolute about year 2050-2100. It should be strong enough to last that long. Then "one" must decide: Going for democracy or ????? to suvive?

Also we do not have any form of democracy the first half of the game - it's not "invented" yet.

I think it will be possible to keep the AIs personalities (more or less) by setting the priorities for governments in the aips - and the file WES mentioned (set_govern.fli). That last file might be the most important of them all.