Social Policies

Due to the Shoshone's ability to grow there civilization and expand at a rapid pace, it only makes sense to focus on the culture of the civilization. That is why in my prior post, the building I was constructing was a Monument, a building that costs 1 Gold per turn, and boosts my civilizations culture output by 2 per turn. However, due to it being early game from the Ancient Era, it will take about 30 turns to construct this building. Though, if able to and if I have the needed population in my city, I could focus my citizens to work on generating production for this building.

With this boost, my civilization should be able to attain more Social Policies. Many of you are probably wondering what "Social Policies" are, well they are the paths that a civilization takes that determines their future. For instance, upon achieving 75 culture points, the player is able to select between three initial Social Policy trees. These trees serve as a guideline for one's civilization. They are; Liberty, Honor, and Tradition. Each one holds a significance in its own unique way. For example, Liberty is best for large civilizations that desire rapid growth, while in contrast Tradition is best for small civilizations. Then there is Honor, which is the policy that deals with improving ones military in a variety of ways.

This is the desired policy route my civilization will strive for now. 

This is the start of my policy route. Keep in mind this is 795 years, or simply 52 turns in that I'm able to achieve this.

In the case of the Shoshone, I chose to diversify my civilization. By that, I chose to implement both Tradition and Honor into my Social Policies. The reason I chose Tradition is so that I gain more benefits to my Capital and generate more defense, no maintenance for my soldiers, and in the future a free culture building for my first 4 cities. Now, in regards to Honor, I chose it so that I could generate a massive amount of culture and develop my military. You see, with Honor I'm able to generate culture for every slain Barbarian unit killed. (Barbarians are neither a city-state or another civilization, but their own entity and exist in all eras until each "encampment" is destroyed.) So, with that I believe that by developing my Capital and my military I would be better equipped in dealing with any unforeseen hostilities.

In the world, both of Civilization and historic it is better to be well equipped for a battle. There are a variety of civilizations in the game whose sole desire is to conquer the vast lands of other civilizations. So, it is better to be well equipped and fend them off, than be caught with one's pants down. That is my reasoning for choosing Honor, as for Tradition there is another significance there. Though the Shoshone do have the name, "The Great Expanse" they didn't rapidly create their cities, nor did they expand everywhere in the nation. Unlike the Aztec, Maya, Iroquois, Sioux or Cheyenne they were rather contempt to their lands. They seldom sought expansion, and instead they sought to better their lands and safeguard their lands.

Social Policies play a pivotal role in the development of a civilization, both in Civilization V and the real world. Social policies exist as a form of stepping stone for a civilization to jump through, as it progresses onto the next step. Once a civilization has fully unlocked a policy, it moves onto the next one. Some focus on one sole policy, others focus on multiple policies. Whatever a civilization may be, it all stems from their decisions regarding social policies. Will the civilization have the best military without investing in Honor? Possibly, but think about this: those that invest in Honor are better able to maintain and upgrade a military. 

Babylon and the other City-States focused on their own spheres of influence, and so they focused on the Tradition aspect of Social Policies. The same could not be said for the people of Persia, as they focused on Liberty, in that they sought a massive and widespread expansion of the Middle East. When observing the Romans, they too sought expansion of their borders and to due so they built up their military, where the Honor policy would have played a role. In a nutshell, whatever the goals of every civilization, it can be attained through investing in the Social Polices given. For my final example, take the triple play that the Muslims played in the 11th Century with the usage of Liberty, Honor, and Piety. These three combined created the Islamic world, in that their borders expanded due to their superior military and their faith.  

In relation to the concepts of World History, the two Social Policies known as Piety and Honor are closely related to the themes of Society and Its Categories, Spiritual Life and Moral Codes, and Politics and Power. They are all related in that they deal with the development of a civilization as a whole. The example I mentioned earlier involving the Islamic World is by far the one that fits this bill. It should be noted that societies advance from their categories through the constant development of their civilizations culture. In order for a society to alter its categories, it must continue its growth through the next series of stages.

In regards to what a society may choose to set for its civilizations course, that depends on the a variety of factors. More than likely, one would not see the build up of a societies military if they were far away from any nearby threats or possessed a natural barrier between themselves. This could be one of the reasons that the United States didn't develop its military into that of the professional European armies that dotted the globe in the 18th and 19th entities. The same could be said for the figurative "buffer zones" that the Christian kingdoms established in an effort to contain the spread of Islam. This of course is in regards to the development of a societies course. 

Its interesting to observe the initial three policies that a civilization may choose from the start. In a way, I suppose that the Liberty is to represent a Classical Republic, Tradition and Oligarchy and finally Honor is a representation of an Early Autocracy. These three are things that could be early representations of the types of societies that eventually developed. Though it is worth mentioning that Liberty is tied into with the Enlightenment, but its roots could be stretched all the way to ancient Greeks and their concepts. However, with the diversity of the Greek City-States, they also dabbled into the concepts of Tradition and Honor. These exist in the City-States such as Athens for Tradition and Sparta for Honor.