GalCiv IV Dev Journal #122: Choosing Your Starting Government?

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Choosing Your Starting Government in Federations & Empires

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I've been having a lot of fun with the map editor.

And it's let me make some interesting maps as well as find things to improve on it (looking at you default star names!)

And while playing the game with the new Federations & Empires expansion I have come to realize that I would really prefer NOT to be forced to play as the Colonial Charter at the start of the game. I want to be able to start (if I want) as a Federation or Empire or whatever.

So when setting up the game, I want to be able to select the starting government. The other government types would be still gated by their given cultural trait but this way, I am not forced to go down some cultural path just to get the government I wanted.

There is also the head canon part.

I want to know that I am playing against the Drengin EMPIRE from the start.

So this is something we're looking at adding to the first update to the Federations & Empires expansion pack. We really hope you're liking it. I feel like there's a lot of interesting places we can take it as time goes on as it's just such a terrific opportunity to make the game play distinctly based on your play style.

Plus, I really like when I play as an empire laying mines but that's a different story.

Anyway, what do you think about the option to start with one of the new governments?

Stardock Galactic Civilizations IV GalCiv IV Dev Journals
8,193 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Locking the Government behind certain Cultural paths feels underwhelming. (I started a new game as the Baratak Grove after purchasing the season pass only to discover that their Collective Culture path does not have special Government).

But I am not a big fan of choosing the Government right from the start. Unless I do some role playing, the Government depends on the galaxy map, opponents etc. I prefer the Civ 6 solution, where you unlock Governments in the mid early game through research. That way, one has a decent feel of the map and opponents and one can make a good decision. My suggestion is that the Government is either unlocked through Research and then "bought / activated" with Culture points (maybe with a discount depending the cultural affinity of the Government and your civilisation's affinity).

Reply #2 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

   Both.   Pick (unlock) the one you want to start the game with, then unlock the one you wish to change it to depending on how the game goes.

 

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Question from the modding side: are the new governments data driven the way policies are, or is a lot of this hardcoded? Being able to define a custom government with its own screen and its own resource would open up a lot. If the screens are fixed then were limited to reskinning the ones that shipped, which is a much smaller sandbox.

Also curious whether the party and senate side is extensible or whether those lists are closed.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

DST1348's point about picking before you have seen the map is the one I keep coming back to as well, though I land somewhere slightly different on it.

Committing at the start only bothers me when the commitment is invisible. If I choose a government in the first ten turns I am guessing at the galaxy, and a guess made with no information is not really a decision, it is a coin flip I have to live with for two hundred turns. That is the part that grates. Whether the fix is unlocking through research the way he suggests, or just showing me more about the map before I am asked to commit, I do not much mind.

The counter argument is that a start-of-game pick is a constraint you build around, and constraints are usually where the interesting play comes from. I play long games and colonise heavily, so by turn 150 I have usually made my peace with whatever I chose and shaped everything else around it. A mid-game switch would smooth that over, and smoothing is not always an improvement.

The locked-behind-culture part is the piece I would actually push on. Buying a season pass, starting as a civilisation you specifically wanted to play, and then finding its culture path has no government attached is a bad first hour, and it is bad in a way that has nothing to do with the design argument above.

Reply #5 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Mid game unlocking would be worse for multiplayer, not better. If everyone can see the map before committing, everyone converges on whichever government is strongest for that map and the asymmetry stops meaning anything.

Picking blind is at least a real decision you have to play around. The season pass complaint is separate and fair though.

Reply #6 from GalCiv4 Forums Top
Quoting orion, reply 4145690

Question from the modding side: are the new governments data driven the way policies are, or is a lot of this hardcoded? Being able to define a custom government with its own screen and its own resource would open up a lot. If the screens are fixed then were limited to reskinning the ones that shipped, which is a much smaller sandbox.

Also curious whether the party and senate side is extensible or whether those lists are closed.

End of orion's quote

You can't add a whole new government no. You can modify those already in place though since much of it is data driven.

Reply #7 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Thanks, that is a straighter answer than I expected to get.

Modify but not add covers most of what I actually wanted. What makes a government feel different is mostly the numbers and the unlock conditions rather than the frame around them, so if those are reachable I can work with it.

The half that did not get covered is the one I am more curious about now. I have been through the gameplay defs a bit since I posted and the party side looks like it sits on the same trait system everything else uses rather than being its own closed list. If thats right then parties are a cheaper place for a modder to spend time than the government screens, and I would rather know that before I start.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Went and looked rather than ask again. Parties are traits, the way I guessed, and they sit in PoliticalPartyTraitDefs.xml under Data\Gameplay rather than anywhere near the government defs.

The file is a UnitTraitList against the same trait schema everything else uses. Each party is an ordinary UnitTrait with its UnitTraitType set to Party, a ForPlanetaryCitizen flag and a stat block. Four shipped: Progressives, Militarists, Industrialists, Traditionalists. So extensible in the sense I cared about, and a cheaper place to spend time than the government screens.

The part worth knowing before anyone starts. One party per unit is not enforced by the type. It is enforced by each party listing the other three by name in its Preclusions. Add a fifth and you are not appending one entry, you are also editing the four that shipped so they exclude yours, or nothing stops a citizen carrying two.

Not a complaint, it is a reasonable way to do it with four. It does mean a party mod touches more than the thing it adds, and that is worth finding out before rather than after.