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Rather than having to switch out of one policy to adopt another, you build upon the policies already unlocked. Jon Shafer: ' With the policies system, we wanted to keep the feel of mixing and matching to construct one's government that was part of Civ IV, but we also wanted to instill a sense of forward momentum. This cost appears to be the same regardless of how deep in the tree the policy is. * The cost of the next policy increases each time you purchase a policy. "For city-states, yes, there are policies that can really dictate the relationships and yields you might get from city-states." * According to Dennis Shirk, Social Policies don't affect your relations with other civilizations, but they do affect relations with city-states. * Purchasing all the options in five of the ten trees will unlock a Utopia Project wonder which can then be built to achieve a Cultural Victory (assuming your rivals don't destroy you first). You can't have both Freedom and Autocracy, or both Rationalism and Piety. * Some trees are incompatible with others. * You start the game with access to the Tradition, Liberty, and Honor trees, and other trees unlock at certain eras. These bonuses are cumulative, and the civilization does not "switch" between policies, but rather chooses which trees to invest in. Rather than having different forms of government or civics that the civilization can choose and switch between, Civ V uses a system called "Social Policy" which consists of 10 separate trees in which the civilization can spend Culture and unlock bonuses. The Government/Civics system has been dramatically overhauled. * Wonder Movies: Have been replaced with single-image paintings (which are quite nice). * City Health and Pollution: Replaced by an expanded Happiness system. * Vassal States: City-States operate in some ways like Vassals, but there does not appear to be a way of defeating a rival civilization except to completely destroy it. Corporations were based on the Religion engine. With a greater emphasis on the diplomacy engine and the new City-States to help drive diplomacy, they felt that religions were a hindrance. The developers felt that religions constituted an early "rush" and affected diplomacy in a binary way other civs were either the same religion as you and liked you, or were a different religion and disliked you. I get a lot of questions about these things.
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This is not meant to be a negative thing, just information. The following is a list of features from Civ IV: Beyond the Sword that we have not (as far as we know) been implemented in Civ V.
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