Brainstorming Societal Values

[Ispil]

After my earlier thread on brainstorming institutions was such a success (actually managed to work out a set of institutions that make sense!), figured I'd give a shot on making another thread for brainstorming societal values. We've already had the TT on them, so there's no time like the present to start thinking about whether the existing list makes sense and whether there aren't more that can be added (there are always more that can be added).

First, looking at the mechanics for societal values, there's a few things to keep in mind. One, they exist per country. Two, they exist at the country level, not the population level; pops have no "memory" of the societal values they used to live under following changing from one country to another. Three, Johan mentioned somewhere in the posts on that TT that there's a goal for an "equilibrium point" system much like stability so that things don't just drift towards the extremes but that it wasn't implemented yet. Four, societal values can have triggers for when they show up in the first place. Five, they're usually determined by things like government reforms and policies. My guess is that they're just modifiers that can be set by anything, but for the sake of the base game implementation it'll mostly be through those.

So, I think it's fair to assess the "societal value" system as more of a "country attribute" system. My original idea for societal values was that it was gonna be some sort of system to make "legitimacy" work; the ruler had to behave in accordance to the societal values of their country or else their legitimacy would crater. However, in hindsight that makes no sense; the specific examples I was working with were universally examples of "nobles wanting the ruler of a country to take actions that would benefit them"; greed might be a societal value, but a "societal value" it is not. That plus the lack of conquered pops "remembering" the societal values of their former overlords, makes it abundantly clear to me that such an interpretation didn't make sense.

Interpreting societal values as "country attributes", though? Works perfectly fine. However, key component here is that they have to be attributes of the country, not the people in it. If it's something that exists independent of their overlord, it shouldn't be a societal value (such as how monetized they are; as worked out in that thread there's a whole lot more going on than what would be aptly represented with a societal value there and I still haven't worked out a good system). It should also avoid overlapping with the effects of the actual laws in-place that achieve that societal value; if all the laws that centralize the state also just give you the effects of a centralized state, then the societal value is meaningless. Additionally, it shouldn't just be a proxy for estate power.


With all that in mind, let's run through the list of the ones mentioned in that TT and see which make sense and which do not.

• Centralization vs Decentralization isn't that unreasonable. Biggest issue here that I see is that whole "should not overlap with laws" that I mentioned above; I'm inclined to say that the "crown power" benefit here should go away since laws increasing centralization are likely also going to increase crown power on their own. Maybe those counterespionage effects would also be better handled as a law that sways things one way or another
• Traditionalist vs Innovative is also rather reasonable, as long as it's recognized that the attribute applies to the country, not its people. That is, it's the country that's erring towards preserving the status quo versus pushing forward rather than any sort of conservatism/progressivism of the people. The effects seem honestly completely fine with this one
• Spiritualist vs Humanist is... mostly just a proxy for clergy estate power? I'd rather just tie these things into the laws that empower/disempower the clergy
• Aristocracy vs Plutocracy is again just a proxy for nobility versus burgher estate power, which is especially odd given how often those two things coexisted in this era (though certainly at odds). Again, tie these effects into the laws that require you to pick between nobles and burghers
• Serfdom vs Free Subjects, at least with my land proposal, is quite confused given that serfs and commoners are distinct pop types. Even without that, though, given that commoner freedom-of-movement is a standalone thing (in the sense that it's an on-off modifier per-country as to whether commoners can migrate naturally), this is mostly covered by that law? Really though I'd rather just tie all of these things into the laws regarding labor requirements/obligations for serfs/commoners
• Belligerent vs Conciliatory works fine, though admittedly I don't actually know what the laws that impact this one would look like
• Quality vs Quantity... not entirely sure I like this one? Feel like it's the sorta thing covered by the laws that change it
• Offensive vs Defensive is another one where I don't know what laws would actually change this value, but in all honestly I feel like those laws would be the drivers of the effects and not this attribute
• Land vs Naval is something that's a consequence of building ports and roads and whatnot rather than an attribute; it's also the sort of thing that sticks around after the country goes away
• Capital Economy vs Traditional Economy is the sort of thing that I think is better represented with a broad mechanic because it's the sort of thing that isn't driven by the country itself (not directly, anyway; these things are more an accidental consequence of laws under specific circumstances rather than an actual policy)
• Individualism vs Communalism is perhaps a bit too population-centric rather than something that exists at the country level
• Mercantilism vs Free Trade has an idea here, but it's mostly wrong in practice. Most of my argument here stems from Freedom and Capitalism in Early Modern Europe, but there is a convincing argument here that a better name than "mercantilism" for this dichotomy is "cameralism" (for which the Wikipedia page does no help here; this stuff dates to the 16th century, not the 18th). Two, it's not about "protectionism" but a matter of production, where the goal is the generation of value rather than the distribution of value. That is not to say that they were about "controlling the market" or that they were against "free trade"— far from it— but that they would use the levers that they have to increase the thing that they actually cared about. The idea of "free trade" as a thing in itself, unfettered at all by the state, wasn't really a thing in this era. I'll elaborate on a better idea for this one below
• Outward vs Inward conceptually is sound, but the gameplay implications to me seem to simply depend on "are you colonizing?"
• Liberalism vs Absolutism works; I suggest reading The Myth of Absolutism as to important details. "Absolute monarchs" never existed and the entire thing was written up as explicitly a way to contrast English monarchs against the "continental" monarchs for which they were so often in opposition. Every monarch would alternate between consultation and rule by fiat depending on circumstance. Consider this "liberalism vs absolutism" a representation of the sway between the rights of subjects and the rights of the monarch; there wasn't actually much in the way of distinction between England and France in this regard

As for my own ideas as to what would make for interesting societal values:

• Patrimonialism vs Proceduralism. Here I'm going to differ a bit from the Weberian definition of this dichotomy and make things more robust. To define at the extremes, a patrimonial country is one that is very much ruled "as a household" insomuch that there's no difference between monarch and state. That is to say, positions are granted out of personal loyalty and all notions of power derive from that of the monarch. Proceduralism, meanwhile, has a hard distinction between monarch and state. This is usually tied up in some notion of "bureaucracy", since employment through wage is generally a way to ensure that someone is loyal to the state rather than the individual at the top. However, whenever I talk about bureaucracy people seem to get this idea in their heads that I'm referring to the modern bureaucratic state; I am not. As for how this is distinct from absolutism, that is a difference between the rights of the monarch versus the rights of subjects as opposed to the relationship between the monarch and the state itself. This is, of course, also something that applies to non-monarchies; it really does just have to do with personal rule versus "bureaucratic rule". The effects are straightforward enough: towards patrimonialism you get an increased stability hit upon succession (potentially quite large of one at the far end) with the benefit of reduced stability hit when changing laws. Towards proceduralism you get a longer time for a law to be "fully enacted" with the benefit of a higher stability equilibrium. Patrimonial states can "get more done" with a single ruler at the risk of devastating succession crises, while a procedural state is going to be more stable but take much longer to actually fully implement any laws.
• Cameralism vs Physiocracy is perhaps an odd replacement for "mercantilism vs free trade" since it has nothing to do with trade, but the ideas here are at least on sounder footing. Here, cameralism represents the side of manufacturing while physiocracy represents the side of agriculture as the thing the state emphasizes is the "source of value" for their country (no state was committing the Midas fallacy of thinking that the goods themselves held the value; people in the past weren't stupid any more than we are today). The implementation, I think, spells itself out rather clearly: modifiers to improve manufacturing versus modifiers to improve agriculture.
• Caesaropapism vs Independent Church would be a Christian-specific societal value (specifically Christian non-theocracies). While the more extreme examples refer to explicit subordination of the Church to the State (such as the Byzantines, or the British post-Anglican), even the broader ability to sway the Church to act on behalf of the state is captured in this. The reason why this isn't just a matter of clergy power and clergy estate satisfaction is because it's entirely possible for the clergy to hold quite a bit of power in these states where the Church is directly subordinated to the State (such as, again, the Byzantines). That doesn't make them not subordinated, just that their power isn't independent of the State itself. Unfortunately I can't think of specific modifiers that this captures, as opposed to broader mechanics like being able to have better control over the things the Church is doing in your country (sale of indulgences, inquisitions, etc.). I guess if there's some thing to capture "resistance to the Reformation", you'd give that to caesaropapism while independent churches are better at converting people or something (satisfaction would be captured in the laws themselves)

---

I'll stop myself here since if I don't this'll turn into another 5000-word essay and I feel those scare people off rather than invite discussion. So, what other ideas for societal values do all of you have?

 

[Gurtannon]

The problem is that they arent societal values they are more like two edged idea groups from eu4, because it doesnt have any benefit of being in the middle or slightly less leaning to one side, as bonuses scale at the extremities and buffs always worth more than 1-2 debuff at max, one will always try to max one size, and at the end it is just trying to fulfill a idea group except that you cant take both quality and quantity, therefore I feel like societal values name should change back to ideas because this isnt societal value as only values thet matter are 100, and -100, it is more like idea which you try to maximize

If it meant to be called societal value, it should give approximately same amount of buffs and debuffs, I dont mean equal worth though,

For example

centralization:

+decreased distance cost to capital
+increased crown power
+increased max levy of estates
+increased manpower
+decreased estate power
+decreased rebel strength
+increased administrive efficiency

-decreased local control increase of other control sources
-decreased estate satisfaction
-decreased max tax of estates
-increased war exhaustion
-increased rebellion growth
-reduced thresholds for pops to join rebel
-reduced estate loans


Decentralization:

vice versa

 

[Ispil]

Yeah, I agree that they definitely need more on the drawbacks side of thing to be properly balanced. Right now they're basically "pick your buffs"; there should be a reason to stick to being in the middle.

 

[Monty is staring at me]

My understanding is that societal values represent the cultural outlook of your nation; it's the beliefs of your people about how society should be organized.

The only one of these societal values that doesn't fit for me is Defensive vs Offensive; I made a thread about how it maybe should be replaced (as an institutional method of waging war that your society is organized around) as Siege vs Maneuver, which I also think makes more thematic sense.

Siege: bonuses to siege defense and siege offense, bonus to fort maintenance, bonus to infantry, to heavy artillery - possible negatives: more prestige/warscore loss on losing sieges? More attrition on low supply? More morale loss when marching, especially off roads?
Maneuver: bonus to cavalry, light infantry, light artillery, maybe less morale loss on marching - possible negatives: more prestige/warscore loss on losing battles? not sure what other negatives would fit

Humanism vs spiritualism and aristocracy vs plutocracy go beyond estate power imo, it involves how you interact with pops, trade, diplomacy.

I loooove belligerent vs conciliatory, having this nice internal politics mechanic that interacts with external diplomatic posture is really cool!

The reason Capital vs Traditional Economy works is capital economy is also built by society; a state cannot just change the attitudes of a population to money or industry overnight or through laws.


An idea I had to balance societal values a bit more is to have the debuffs be non-linear; the more you go into one direction, the bigger the debuffs get, while the buffs stay linear.

This could represent a kind of boom and bust system for societies, which did historically occur, and a society becoming "entrenched" in the values they have at the detriment of the state.

 

[Ispil]

My understanding is that societal values represent the cultural outlook of your nation; it's the beliefs of your people about how society should be organized.

The only one of these societal values that doesn't fit for me is Defensive vs Offensive; I made a thread about how it maybe should be replaced (as an institutional method of waging war that your society is organized around) as Siege vs Maneuver, which I also think makes more thematic sense.

Siege: bonuses to siege defense and siege offense, bonus to fort maintenance, bonus to infantry, to heavy artillery - possible negatives: more prestige/warscore loss on losing sieges? More attrition on low supply? More morale loss when marching, especially off roads?
Maneuver: bonus to cavalry, light infantry, light artillery, maybe less morale loss on marching - possible negatives: more prestige/warscore loss on losing battles? not sure what other negatives would fit

Humanism vs spiritualism and aristocracy vs plutocracy go beyond estate power imo, it involves how you interact with pops, trade, diplomacy.

I loooove belligerent vs conciliatory, having this nice internal politics mechanic that interacts with external diplomatic posture is really cool!

The reason Capital vs Traditional Economy works is capital economy is also built by society; a state cannot just change the attitudes of a population to money or industry overnight or through laws.


An idea I had to balance societal values a bit more is to have the debuffs be non-linear; the more you go into one direction, the bigger the debuffs get, while the buffs stay linear.

This could represent a kind of boom and bust system for societies, which did historically occur, and a society becoming "entrenched" in the values they have at the detriment of the state.

The biggest issue I have with this interpretation, is that societal values leave no "residual" effect post-conquest. Once you annex a state, whatever societal values they had are immediately lost at the society level. That's why I think they're more at the "way the country sees itself" level rather than the populace's perspective. As for capital versus traditional economy, the issue is that with how the game is implemented, you are changing them through laws. Laws are the way you influence these things, primarily. They just move at a slower place than law implementation (though from what I can tell not that much slower).

 

[Monty is staring at me]

The biggest issue I have with this interpretation, is that societal values leave no "residual" effect post-conquest. Once you annex a state, whatever societal values they had are immediately lost at the society level. That's why I think they're more at the "way the country sees itself" level rather than the populace's perspective. As for capital versus traditional economy, the issue is that with how the game is implemented, you are changing them through laws. Laws are the way you influence these things, primarily. They just move at a slower place than law implementation (though from what I can tell not that much slower).

I think the reason they aren't tied to pops is for performance reasons, really. I think it's more of an abstraction of whatever the dominant culture has for societal values.

But it would be doable if societal values were tied to cultures. Your societal values would be the societal values of your culture, and maybe cultures that are accepted by you will drift towards your societal values.

Maybe we could even have a system where societal values also depend on the societal values of cultures that surround you, especially if they are friendly to you, you have a lot of trade/language connections etc. Would make language more important!

Could also give SoPs more mechanics this way.

 

[Ispil]

I think the reason they aren't tied to pops is for performance reasons, really. I think it's more of an abstraction of whatever the dominant culture has for societal values.

But it would be doable if societal values were tied to cultures. Your societal values would be the societal values of your culture, and maybe cultures that are accepted by you will drift towards your societal values.

Maybe we could even have a system where societal values also depend on the societal values of cultures that surround you, especially if they are friendly to you, you have a lot of trade/language connections etc. Would make language more important!

Could also give SoPs more mechanics this way.

While I was originally thinking along these lines, I think the issue with that is the system becomes a bit too complex and consequentially opaque for the player to actually do anything with it. Instead of being something that you control, it's something that controls you and not in a tangible, fun-to-interact-with way.

That and I think that this sort of population-level thing is already captured with institutions (at least, with the ones worked out in that thread I mentioned above).

 

[SAmaster]

'Humanist' might not be the right word for the anithesis of spiritualist, humanism in the 1400's was about the idea of improving life on earth rather than pinning everything on the afterlife. Now while the Catholic church did promote the idea that human suffering will be rewarded with heaven in the afterlife- ergo all that suffering is as intended by God, it isn't a concept that necessarilly clashed with christian teachings, and in fact a lot of humanist thought was adopted by the clergy.

Humanism could be a trait, but I think one could be both very religious, and want to improve earthly life at the same time.

 

[Azgabeth]

Something I’ve been pondering is Westernization Vs Isolationism? A societal value that appears in the Age of Exploration.

I know Institutions exist to represent the Great Divergence.

But what about this? A “westernized” state would have more unrest, fater insitiutions spread, faster adoption of foreign religions but an increase in advance research speed and a relationship boost with european tags.

An Isolationist state would have less unrest, harder to export from market, but slower institutions spread.

 

[Monty is staring at me]

Something I’ve been pondering is Westernization Vs Isolationism? A societal value that appears in the Age of Exploration.

I know Institutions exist to represent the Great Divergence.

But what about this? A “westernized” state would have more unrest, fater insitiutions spread, faster adoption of foreign religions but an increase in advance research speed and a relationship boost with european tags.

An Isolationist state would have less unrest, harder to export from market, but slower institutions spread.

Shouldn't that be modeled through institution spread though?

 

[Azgabeth]

Shouldn't that be modeled through institution spread though?

Well maybe, but i think “Westernization” is a different concept than just simple institutions spread.

Westernization would be somethin like the printing press spreading to the Inca and they decide to write in Latin Alphabet.

While Isolation the printing press would still soread eventually, but in this timeline the Inca develop their own alphabet to use.

At least that’s how i see it, I’m just spitballing ideas here.

 

[Monty is staring at me]

Well maybe, but i think “Westernization” is a different concept than just simple institutions spread.

Westernization would be somethin like the printing press spreading to the Inca and they decide to write in Latin Alphabet.

While Isolation the printing press would still soread eventually, but in this timeline the Inca develop their own alphabet to use.

At least that’s how i see it, I’m just spitballing ideas here.

The Japanese didn't Westernize by adopting Latin. Russia under Peter the Great didn't westernize by adopting Latin.

We will have a cultural influence mechanic for that too, just by the by.

Also, there are game rules where it's not necessarily the West that will always pull ahead.

I think maybe that westernization is a bit of an outdated crutch. I do hope for meaningful divergence where the gulf between continents grows throughout the game, unlike EU4, but not sure if the devs want to railroad it this much and in a way that is no longer in line with current academic undertanding.

 

[SAmaster]

Something I’ve been pondering is Westernization Vs Isolationism? A societal value that appears in the Age of Exploration.

I know Institutions exist to represent the Great Divergence.

But what about this? A “westernized” state would have more unrest, fater insitiutions spread, faster adoption of foreign religions but an increase in advance research speed and a relationship boost with european tags.

An Isolationist state would have less unrest, harder to export from market, but slower institutions spread.

Westernization shouldn't be the word, since it'd be odd for western nations to be 'westernized'.

Perhaps 'open vs. isolationism'. Open nations have better trade, faster institution embracement, better diplomacy, but it doesn't mesh well with high 'traditionalism' as that generates unrest. More isolationism might mean better stability and more entrenched power systems for the elite power class, but means it's much harder to shift your society and of course leads to lower tech.

 

[Bawhoppen]

To me, it seems very important that societal values should move very slowly. One of my biggest concerns for PC is that societal values will drift way too quickly.

 

[bokorthedust]

One of my biggest concerns for PC is that societal values will drift way too quickly.

Will they, though? My impression so far, based on the various events and policies we've seen in the flavor posts, is that there will be a minor to moderate jump, usually into the opposite direction the country currently occupies, but it'll slowly go back towards the extreme end of the direction you are on.

Here you jump 10 from deep Mercantilism towards Free Trade, and the policy, once it's fully implemented, will slow your movement back towards Mercantilism to 0.05 from the 0.07 it was before, but even then, you'll be back at where you've started in around 16-17 years. We haven't seen enough of these, or of the system overall to be able to tell how hard it is to reverse course or go to the extreme of one end, but I highly doubt you could stack enough progress towards any end to make the change anything but a crawl.

Then again, your fears could be well founded as well, because it's hard to gauge the rate of change based on stuff shown off in a vacuum, without knowing the full range of buttons and levers you can push or pull on to interact with the system. More interesting to see would be if they ended up implementing those equilibriums Johan talked about or not, hopefully the next few weeks' TTs where they'll talk about the changes they've implemented in the past year will provide more information on that.

 

[Atromb]

I agree that the dichotomy between liberalism and absolutism seems a bit odd as for most of the time period absolutism would be an opposing force to oligarchic (rather than democratic) rule, usually from the nobility. Similarily the rights of the citizens seem already covered by the 'serf' vs 'free subjects' slider. I feel like the slider could be renamed to 'humanism vs maquiavelism' to better reflect competing state-crafting ideologies in the time period. (Current 'humanism' in the spirituality slider, should be renamed to secularism). Humanists would have an idealist approach and value human rights and the idea of progress while maquiavelians would consider that the end justifies the means, support absolute state power and engage in statecraft from the perspective of political realism.

Individualism vs collectivism could also be reframed into an actual ideological debate of the period 'liberalism vs republicanism', liberalism representing the individualist position and republicanism the collectivist one.

 

[HowlingKestrel]

While I think the “country attribute” system you’re suggesting makes a certain amount of sense, I think the societal values as currently presented would make more sense when thought of as the institutional (not in the game sense, in the real-life sense) culture of the various offices and roles that form the apparatus of government.

As such, I think it would make more sense to name them Orientations (or maybe state orientations) and make it clear that they describe the tendencies and priorities in the thinking of the people who make the state tick, whether early game feudal nobles or late game sheriffs/bureaucrats/etc.

By using this orientation focus, I think it would also be clearer that the sliders don’t represent a formal doctrine or hard cultural values, but more the ‘preferred’ solution that state functionaries are subconsciously focussed on.

My proposals for the sliders would then be:

Centralisation/Decentralisation
Traditionalism/Innovation
Piety or Paternalism/Pragmatism (replacing Spiritualism/Humanism and kind of along the lines of your Caesorpapism divide, but maybe more globally applicable. A paternalist state views ensuring the spiritual wellbeing of the population as a priority vs a pragmatic state that cares only for obedience/taxes)
Personal Rule/Institutional Rule (replacing aristocratic vs plutocratic and basically just your patrimonial/procedural slider with names that might be a little easier for many players to understand)
Subjects/Citizens (replacing Serfdom/Free Subjects, representing how commonly local power holders can overrule and command regular citizens normally)
Belligerence/Conciliation
Static Warfare/Manoeuvre Warfare (replacing offensive/defensive, with static giving bonuses to fort Defense and siege ability and manoeuvre giving bonuses to army movement and maybe morale)
Inland/Coastal (replacing naval/land and making it clearer this is more about civilian than military benefits as per the social values DD)
Monetised Economy/Traditional Economy (replacing capital economy, as I think it makes the gist of it clearer and we’re unlikely to get in game laws for taxation in kind etc)
Directed trade/Free trade (I agree this isn’t a great slider but I think something here would be handy. Maybe a Taxation/Tariffs slider? Tariffs are a type of tax but focus on taxing trade rather than income and this was something that states at the time handled differently in various areas)
Outward/Inward
Head of State Power/Constitutional Power (replacing absolutism/liberalism)

Again, these are far from perfect and I feel some of the names could use work but I think it’s a compromise solution between your framework and the need to make the game relatively intuitive and easy to understand form a naming/ui perspective.

As such, I think it would make more sense to name them Orientations and make it clear that they describe the tendencies and priorities in the thinking of the people who make the state tick, whether early game feudal nobles or late game sheriffs/bureaucrats/etc.

 

[Farfour]

Will they, though? My impression so far, based on the various events and policies we've seen in the flavor posts, is that there will be a minor to moderate jump, usually into the opposite direction the country currently occupies, but it'll slowly go back towards the extreme end of the direction you are on.

Here you jump 10 from deep Mercantilism towards Free Trade, and the policy, once it's fully implemented, will slow your movement back towards Mercantilism to 0.05 from the 0.07 it was before, but even then, you'll be back at where you've started in around 16-17 years. We haven't seen enough of these, or of the system overall to be able to tell how hard it is to reverse course or go to the extreme of one end, but I highly doubt you could stack enough progress towards any end to make the change anything but a crawl.

Then again, your fears could be well founded as well, because it's hard to gauge the rate of change based on stuff shown off in a vacuum, without knowing the full range of buttons and levers you can push or pull on to interact with the system. More interesting to see would be if they ended up implementing those equilibriums Johan talked about or not, hopefully the next few weeks' TTs where they'll talk about the changes they've implemented in the past year will provide more information on that.

Mercantilism va Free Trade surely can’t be societal values, right?

 

[pheonicia]

Mercantilism va Free Trade surely can’t be societal values, right?

It's literally in the screenshot? And the dev diary.

 

[Nikicaga]

Two, they exist at the country level, not the population level; pops have no "memory" of the societal values they used to live under following changing from one country to another.

Wait this is a brilliant idea to implement in some simple form. When you're taking land from a country, your societal values should shift towards their, commensurate to the population of the locations taken vs your current population X control the owner had over (assuming stronger control would mean greater buy-in into their values from their core lands) X some modifier depending on your respective cultural influences (a barbarian conquering parts of China would be more likely to import their values than France conquering England)

Not only would this be logical and flavorful, it would further nerf expansion and encourage more strategic thinking on *what* to conquer. Your wonderfully built min-maxed set of trade republic values could be ruined if you suddenly conquer a bunch of peasants.

Also agree with the comments here that there should be progressively more drawbacks as you reach the extreme ends of societal values, and some bonuses for staying in the middle, as I posted in the original thread:

Tinto Talks #38 - 20th of November 2024

Hello and Welcome to another Tinto Talks. The day of the week where we spill information about our top secret game with the codename Project Caesar. Today we will delve deeply into the world of Societal Values. Societal values describe the...

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