Unlike the previous game, where you could be a Free Speech, Slavery, Universal Suffrage, Mercantilism supporting Theocrat, they seem to now have a system where you have to be more consistent in your policies.
I am guessing if you choose a Commerce-focused empire, you absolute must have Commerce-related policies only, like central banking and mercantilism.
You can no longer be a Free Speech supporting Slaver, because you have to have a consistent set of views on everything.
You must choose one family of policies, and then choose the civics that belong to that family. They subdivided civics into a branching civics tree, you see.
Personally, I see this as another sign that realism is partially killing some of the oddities and fun of gaming. What do you say?
This game has been slowly eating away my life since it came out and I am LOVING it.
That said, I did have ECONOMIST RAEG when I saw that the commerce branch was protectionist policies that actually HELP your economy (defying all sense and reasoning). Same with the Order branch where communism gives +5 production. Word of advice: don’t read the Civilopedia entries on this stuff, you’ll only get more annoyed.
That kinda ticks me off, I’m a Civ IV fanatic but I’ve been hesistant to get Civ V just because IV has always been enough for me. I’m surprised there’s not more economic faux pas in that game considering the prevailing opinions of most of the entertainment industry, but I guess we can just assume these slipups were naivette.
In Civilization, very small day-to-day means of living are not represented. The only production shown in cities is state-sponsored production. Communism increases production for the state’s purposes (obviously), and protectionism benefits the state’s commercial interests in state-run enterprises. Sort of like that.
Communism increases production for the state’s purposes (obviously), and protectionism benefits the state’s commercial interests in state-run enterprises. Sort of like that.
That’s similar to the mechanics of Hearts of Iron 2 (and probably both the sequel and prequel, though I haven’t played those), where having a free market leaves you with little or no industrial production available to the state.
“Personally, I see this as another sign that realism is partially killing some of the oddities and fun of gaming. What do you say?”
I agree. It was kind of fun to pick ridiculous sets of civics. When I got bored with the game I edited some game files to make the free market vastly superior to the other economic systems
It has to be remembered you play the role of a total dictator. While the various controls may not be good for society as a whole, they can be very good for you.
I really enjoyed Civ IV, but I enjoyed Civ IV: Colonization even more. I can’t wait for them to come out with Civ V: Colonization, with hexagonal tiles and all.
Anyway, I wish that adopting Commerce and Liberty helped you more gold and influence and it does now. After all, we can still “rule” our civilizations as private enterprises and not necessarily as states.
Interesting. I’ve been in a real civic strategy bummer since I’ve been more receptive to anarchic thinking. What is the fun of building a global hegemony in a fictional world when you are trying to dissolve nations in real life?
I’d love to see a game like this based on Austrian economics. You’re still a king, and your victory conditions involve all sorts of ego-inflating things such as world domination or building a spaceship or other stuff you find in Civ. But the effects of any policies have a depressing effect on your economy, and if you try to micromanage buildings or technology too much you will eventually lag behind because you can’t tax what doesn’t exist.
If you just let everything be, you will have a large, advanced, prosperous, happy civilization, but you won’t have fulfilled any of your victory conditions.
After you win there’s a report saying the human sacrifices of your victory; how many of your own citizens died or were impoverished due to this or that policy. To work it would of course have to be presented with an air of nihilistic humor, but the educational value would still be there.
Exactly. People like Hitler lived in a world subject to laws similar to what we find in Austrian School economics, but he was still a dictator. People here often act like making a game like this subject to Austrian School economics would mean that you wouldn’t get to be a dictator. But why not? If you want to conquer the world, or commit genocide, Austrian economics certainly wouldn’t advise you to “let the market system work”!
Really? I always assumed I was just some sort of overarching “Zeitgeist” or “Invisible Hand” that directed society because A. There were no tax rates (I received ALL of the money made in the civilization) and B. I directed things like science, culture, etc. It seems that you have the right of it, though. It would also explains why it takes decades in the early game to create a team of workers: government inefficiency!
Yeah, that was in the Rhyes and Fall mod of Civ IV–I actually have a screenshot of that random event hitting me while playing as the Americans. Really ticked me off. I also hated how Great Depressions would occur in that mod if production exceeded gold. 'Cause, you know, gold has an objective standard of value and prices NEVER adjust based on supply. OBVIOUSLY. The worst part is that it would usually hit me when I was industrializing, building factories, and my production would sky-rocket. I got Great Depressions because I was INDUSTRIALIZING. IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!
I tried to get that modded out by asking how to do so on the Civfanatics forums. I got yelled at and called various unkind names.
(To actually answer your question, there are no more random events in Civ V)
It’s been a long time since I’ve modded Civ IV but basically everything is controlled by XML files. With the exception of modeling/texturing work for any new things you add, to make a mod is as simple as editing these text files. To edit the Free Market civic for example, edit assets/XML/GameInfo/Civ4CivicInfos.xml. It’s under the heading CIVIC_FREE_MARKET.
I havent played it yet, but I’m not too excited about the new system, maybe if they allowed you to switch ‘trees’ on the fly(maybe suffering through a period of anarchy), but the way I understand the game doesnt allow that option. One thing I loved about Civ IV was the ‘civics’ system, allowing a great deal of flexibility in how you run your country. I’m not sure if this is an attempt to be more realistic, or to simplify the system(since from what I understand they’ve simplified a number of other mechanics from the previous games), but I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Although I’m interested to see the new hex maps, and the fact that cities can now defend themselves(so you no longer have to keep soldiers at every one at all times).
I’ll probably get it I’m just not sure how I feel about the system.
