During the development of a game, many ideas will look good on paper only to be found to not work out in practice. Normally, these ideas get killed off before implementation and even fewer ever get seen by the public.
In the case of Galactic Civilizations IV, because we’re going out in ALPHA, you will get to see some ideas fully implemented that we have already decided didn’t work out. Today’s example for discussion: The Ideology compass.
Here’s how it works:
There are 4 axis’s:
- Collectivist
- Libertist
- Authoritarian
- Individualist
Through the course of the game, players will encounter situations that give them awareness points in a particular area. You can’t spend these points they simply unlock the ideology perk.
Later, players can earn culture points through completing missions (quests) in the game. THEN they can spend a point to unlock something where their options are based on what perks they have awareness of.
Unfortunately, this is proving to be quite limiting and begs for political compass memes. So even though it’s fully implemented, it’s going to get scrapped.
In its place are going to be Cultural Spectrums.
Cultural Spectrums
With cultural spectrums, players will have several different spectrums to choose from such as:
- Individualism <---> Collectivism
- Traditionalism <---> Innovation
- Xenophobia <----> Xenophilia
- Harmony <----> Honesty
- Shame <----> Guilt
It also opens the door for us to keep adding more.
When a player makes a choice, they will increase their stance on the spectrum. However, now, gaining +1 stance in individualism means losing a point in collectivism. As a result, when people unlock culture points, they will generally only have access to the ones that are near the “middle” unless they are playing pretty extreme.
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Galactic Civilizations IV Dev Journals