The adjustments provided to each government type are, in general, very mature and work well. However, it might be fun to further spice things up. What about adding optional user selectable stat adjustments (aka specializations) in addition to government types? The user would have the option to choose one (or none) at the beginning of the set. The adjustments could be relatively minor ones and could apply to play style vs. government type/strategy. They could allow players to play slightly more or less extreme strategies.

Examples:

Market fee discount specialization:
-50% market commissions (3% instead of 6% for most gov't types)
2 turns to place goods on the market, 4 turns to recall

Anti-nuke specialization:
+20% SDI protection (or +50% SDI tech effectiveness)
-country will not produce any missiles

Offensive specialization:
+10% offensive military strength
-10% defensive military strength

Defensive specialization:
+10% defensive military strength
-10% offensive military strength

etc.

dantzig ? not danzig ?

anyway....

i was thinking about some sort of govt specialization thing a while back, but it never really matured....

Or you could just have standard governments, and be able to tweak the benefits and negatives.

For instance, let's take Republic. The bonuses and stuff are:

+20% explore rate.
+20% Maximum per capita income.
-10% military strength.

What if you could manually adjust it 1 time within the first 24 hours of making the country.

For instance, you could manually adjust it to:

+30% explore rate
+5% max PCI
-10% mil strength

Or even:

+30% explore rate
+20% max PCI
-25% mil strength

...etc

That would add a lot of depth as well, and make strategies less general and more specific.

Maybe it would be like every country has set points and you use the points to select your countries benefits.

Yea Requiem, that's the idea I had... it's kindof stolen from the way Empire Earth (1) did their "bonus" system.... damn them for having such a similar name! lol

Yes, it's "dantzig". Dantzig is the last name of an important mathematician: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig

I like the points idea, too but thought it might be more complicated to balance than adding a few pre-determined customization options. If the balance issues can be addressed, it's certainly a better option to allow players to tweak their countries to best fit their play styles.

I was trying to stay away from stat adjustments already specified by government types and tech as the user already gets to choose those and they're pretty well balanced.

+20% attack gains
+32% building gains
+20% construction speed

-max pop
-max per capita Y
-10% military strength
-3 turns per attack

may i play this country pls?

the only reason i asked about 'dantzig' was because there's a 'danzig' that (used to?) post on these boards...