DESIGN: Governments wish/request thread

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
There have to be more, viable victory conditions, that both the AI and human have a shot at, more roadblocks to war, and more incentives to peace.

says our former Leader of the War Party!

But i agree - it's sooooo 90's ,being able to crank out a war machine to conquer the world We could do better.

I guess this is where the New Dilpomacy model would come into play.

[MrBaggins]

*chuckles* Hey... I'm for whatever works. I was in the DG for the win. *smiles*


I, however, think that CtP2 would be a far better game if you had a viable choice other than war that actually gave you an advantage.

I'm actually a peaceful builder, when I'm not fiercely blitzing the opposition to get to the empire cap

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
I've always thought it odd that you had to research Governments just like regular technologies. Even worse is when you can't research some technologies until you've researched some Government prerequisite.

I'd like to see the connection between the Govenment types that you can choose at any point in the game and your current position in the technology tree be made more indirect. Basically there should be a Government types tree in addition to the technology tree. You start the game in Tyranny and when you get the chance to move out of it, you choose one of, say three, Government threads: left, center, right. If you decide that you're going to play the game, for example, as a right winger you would go into some primitive version of Monarchy. From this point on your government type should evolve. I don't know what would be the best way to trigger the evolution: probably technologies to keep it simple. But the idea is that as you become more advanced, your government gets slightly better: maybe a larger cities cap, better production co-efficients and so on. This is basically what happens in the game now but would be more seamless. The biggest difference is that there would be no period of anarchy unless you change from one thread into another, e.g. changing from a Democratic center type government to a Communist left type government.

Peter, I like it. I guess I was trying to get that with my micromanagement/AI governor idea where your government develops by the way you govern. (If you micromange more you are more despotic, rely on governors more democratic, the old macro maybe communist?

I like your separate tech tree idea. I was about to propose something like small wonders, where you develop certain "legislation" like magna carta that would create a parliament (thereby opening pluses and minuses of democracy and a different tech path) or decrees as a dictator like force labor (or a fasist government would have disadvantages about building outside the first 10% of cities representing the racism and ethnic cleansinmg and robbing of other territories).

Before Mr Baggins and Tamerlin jump in, I realize this would be yet another concern as you try to run your country. And I think it would be best as a singleplayer and not multi (too much thinking).

But it would add a flavor that goes beyond "I'm changing to fascism for this war because I need to fight" instead have a democracy push a patriot act with its pluses (see stealth units) minuses (create unhappiness). It would make managing governments a headache for some, but I'd like to be challenged domestically more.


This also could lead to a "Political" victory where you achieve some enlightened government or something.

ANARCHY. I think changing governments should be a bigger deal and your choice of government be a serious decision. When you change govt you should still have the anarchy but maybe some old regime partisans pop up too.

To sum it would be a tech tree that splits off into dif govt types, you can "build" legislation that affects the govt with pluses and minuses that you can also revoke later, and switching to a government tech path causes anarchy with rebels.

OK TEAR IT APART!

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by E
ANARCHY. I think changing governments should be a bigger deal and your choice of government be a serious decision. When you change govt you should still have the anarchy but maybe some old regime partisans pop up too.

As far as I am concerned I have always found the concept of a period of anarchy when you change your government really stupid as soon as you consider a turn is between 20 years and 1 year. An era of real anarchy lasting more than a few months should only leave ruins behind it.

I would rather make the government change immediate. You could then compare the government you left with the new one and immediately apply the negative effects (reduced growth or production for example) and apply progressively only the better effects (increased science or anti-pollution). An era of transition sounds better to me than an unrealistic era of chaos.

I like Peter's idea though the governments available could also depend on several techs rather than only one.

[Gilgamensch]

Anarchy:

I never really understood, why it happens...........

Unless it was a revolution from the 'bottom', it was always a smooth move.

Worst for this WWII, a lot of governments changed to a non-democratic one and there wasn't any anarchy..........

Even afterwards (after the war) there was no anarchy.........(ok, sometimes because of military presence, but not always)

Maybe the designers where more thinking about like the French revolution and similar. But 'most' governmental changes, just think of the latest one in Russia, was without real Anarchy........

I really would like to see this Anarchy period to disappear, maybe just to be replaced with a 50% decrease for production/gold/science ?

[Maquiladora]

I think there needs to be a clear seperation of possible ideas for a MOD and for an Apolyton PATCH. We need to tweak and do little under the hood things without upsetting people with too many radical changes for a patch, whereas almost anything is possible with enough time for a mod.

Back to Governments there is a tricky situation of providing many Governments AND making them all useful in various situations. I would always go Monarchy > Fascism > Communism, because these are the Governments which, a) have most production, b) have good martial law, c) can support large armies.

High production and low science govs can be used to build MASSES of Public Works to build commerce improvements to even up the low science, they can obviously support lots of troops, thus making an all round Government, from one that apprently had a science weakness to begin with.

On the other hand, a Government with low production and high science cannot easily be evened out, because it doesnt have enough production to start with to supply Public Works quick enough to BUILD the production tile imps. (mines etc)

Edit: This could be the only advantage of the worker/settler system over PW system. PW is taken from production as a %, thus making production even more important, whereas workers/settlers are built with little production, in a queue, which in turn makes any dis/advantage between a low and high production Government, insignificant in the area of improving tiles (a most critical area of the game).

ramble end.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Edit: This could be the only advantage of the worker/settler system over PW system. PW is taken from production as a %, thus making production even more important, whereas workers/settlers are built with little production, in a queue, which in turn makes any dis/advantage between a low and high production Government, insignificant in the area of improving tiles (a most critical area of the game).

Not entirely correct. Different governments can have different worker rates, too. For instance, workers in a Democracy have a 150% speed (worker rate 3) compared with standard workers (worker rate 2), in an Anarchy (time between governments) the workers have only half speed (worker rate 1). This can be changed in the editor. Also, the discovery of Replaceable Parts doubles the speed of all workers. "Slaves" (captured workers) have only half the speed of natives. So worker does not always equal worker.

[Maquiladora]

Your correct Sir Ralph, i forgot all about civ3

So to balance the Governments in production, we could, give an even BIGGER science/growth bonus to low production Governments? Give free PW per turn to science/growth Governments? Let some science/growth Governments produce extra PW from commerce %? I dont know, just skimming ideas from the top of my brain now.

How is Republic and Monarchy balanced in Civ2? Im sure its closer than Monarchy and Theocracy in CTP1/2, maybe we need to look at that example.

[MrBaggins]

Variable rate modifiers for TI construction time could be a government modifier. Shouldn't present too many issues.

I think there was a little discussion of an idea I started a while back, about upgradable workers:

Basically certain new improved techs would give you farmers who farmed better, etc. Maybe, however, "better" should be based on the government. So, the government has modifiers for each of the worker types, although you still need to research the basic tech to get the worker in the first place.

The current system is a bit flat because an entertainer is always an entertainer is always... just... an entertainer (well, there is the TV upgrade, but thats the same for everyone)