I think we can all agree that 'ethnic cleansing', gassing civilians, genocide, religious genocide, and all other such actions are true atrocities. However, ignoring them in civ is actually a dishonor to those who were victims of these atrocities. Forgetting history is not a progressive attitude, and these things happened for a reason and at a time. Progress elminated them, not ignorance. With that intro, here is what I mean for gameplay.

Scapegoating:
Governments throughout history have been guilty of using ethnic or religious scapegoats for whatever bad time, depression, war, or in general their rape of the country. You might have to do the same to appease your population if you use too much forced labour or have to increase taxes or such. Here are the mechanics. You first initiate a program that will make a certain ethnicity or relgiion, or combination, a scapegoat. This program will take 10 turns to reach effects.
Any scapegoat citizen will instantly have an unhappy face. All citizens in a city with the scapegoats will have a happy face. Each turn their is a percantage chance(No. of non-scapegoats/no of scapegoats) in a particular city that violence against the minority will be so great the pop point is lost. In that case the minority group in that city has double the unhappiness for 10 turns. Civs whose majority demographic is your scapegoat will have poor attitude to your government.
Once lynchings occur frequently enough in your civ, the scapegoat will start demanding rights, which doubles unhappiness until you being programs to end the descrimination. It will not be civ wide, but will grow from the epicenters.
Eventually you will want to end scapegoating, especially if the group appears in larger numbers or it is just too disruptive to your civ or you don't need it. If the scape-goating lasted for long, it takes a lot longer to end. The base time is 10 turns. Every 10 turns the descrimination occured adds one turn to the turn-around time. EAch mass-lynching adds 1 turn. During the transition the scapegoats are still as unhappy, but the non-scapegoats only get half the happy faces.

I have more ideas but cannot type right now. Discuss please.

i like this but not as much detial. Lose some of the extra detail

Although I'm not fond of this whole concept, there is historical justification for it. I think there should also be some anti-culture associated with it; either the city garners no culture points for a length of time, has negative culture points for a time, or refuses to produce cultural improvements for a time.

It is a good start but you left out the genocide. Genocide would be a double edged sword in CivIV. Good parts would be things like higher culture, decreased war weariness and less corruption. There would be bad parts too such as the nations who's people you are killing would get annoyed if they found out, it would cost a lot to do because you would have to use propaganda and such but it should be cheaper if the group you are killing was your scapegoat for a while and then obviously the possibly crippling dent to your population depending on how many of the genocidees you have. There should be an option to keep the genocide a secret at extra cost but if one of your cities gets taken over then there is a chance whoever took it will find out about the genocide and if that city has been commiting genocide then that chance would rise enourmously.

doesn't this already exist in the facism government?

No, actually it doesn't

The fascism forces you to lose two population per city representing this. They gave it teh whitewashed name of "forced relocation", but the population points are gone.

I know you lose 1, 2 or 3 pop points but you don't get to choose which type of population to lose and if you have a city of 20 with 5 of them being people you want to get rid of then too bad because you only got rid of 3 of them. All it is is pop loss and no other effects we are speaking of a new game concept not just population loss. Additionally, civs who's people you killed don't care at all and the bonuses from Facism are just from the government itself nothing really resulting from the killings. It is an uninterestingly shallow representation for an elaborate issue.

A few things:

1. Before the modern era, this should be perfectly legal. After the modern era, there should be serious penalties.

I know it's pretty teleological and eurocentric, but I can't think of any other way to reflect the gradual change in attitude about war. It used to be "the spoils of war are yours, and there's no such thing as an innocent casualty on your enemy's side". Now you can see just how much moral highground and respect a nation loses when there are innocent civilian deaths.

2. Genocide, forced relocation, scapegoating, and slavery will all mean very little unless ethnicities have different attitudes and roles in your civilization.

Just simple calculations, like how happy they are, how they feel about the war. This way you can find out "damn those enslaved Americans are being a nuisance, time to take out the garbage".

3. Assimilation will need more thought.

Some peoples are easily assimilated. Some less-so. But these dynamics can't have a one-size fits all approach. All automatically calculated by the system, genocide and other atrocities would slow down the assimilation process. Assimilation would be the ideal solution to a pesky ethnicity, whereas persecution would be the quick but hazaardous fix.

Moreover, a civilization like the Greeks was hard to assimilate into Roman life. Why? Because they had a strong cultural identity (language, architechture, philosophical thought). Simply, in Civilization, the more culture points a Civ has, the harder it should be to assimilate. The printing press is a huge turning point for this, since it allowed many oppressed peoples to express themselves and show unity -- so the printing press should generate a culture point in every one of your cities.

4. Genocide and other atrocities will have more meaning, and seem less bigotted and contraversial, if it targets factions as well.

Why stop at enslaving the Americans living in your Roman empire? Might as well send the intellectuals off the internment camps, and kill 50% of your commercial population. It's the only way to stabilize your fundamentalist religious empire, afterall.



Just food for thought, in manageable, bite-sized chunks. PS: I think the sanitized language should be "Government Pressure".

A few things:

1. Before the modern era, this should be perfectly legal. After the modern era, there should be serious penalties.

I know it's pretty teleological and eurocentric, but I can't think of any other way to reflect the gradual change in attitude about war. It used to be "the spoils of war are yours, and there's no such thing as an innocent casualty on your enemy's side". Now you can see just how much moral highground and respect a nation loses when there are innocent civilian deaths.

2. Genocide, forced relocation, scapegoating, and slavery will all mean very little unless ethnicities have different attitudes and roles in your civilization.

Just simple calculations, like how happy they are, how they feel about the war. This way you can find out "damn those enslaved Americans are being a nuisance, time to take out the garbage".

3. Assimilation will need more thought.

Some peoples are easily assimilated. Some less-so. But these dynamics can't have a one-size fits all approach. All automatically calculated by the system, genocide and other atrocities would slow down the assimilation process. Assimilation would be the ideal solution to a pesky ethnicity, whereas persecution would be the quick but hazaardous fix.

Moreover, a civilization like the Greeks was hard to assimilate into Roman life. Why? Because they had a strong cultural identity (language, architechture, philosophical thought). Simply, in Civilization, the more culture points a Civ has, the harder it should be to assimilate. The printing press is a huge turning point for this, since it allowed many oppressed peoples to express themselves and show unity -- so the printing press should generate a culture point in every one of your cities.

4. Genocide and other atrocities will have more meaning, and seem less bigotted and contraversial, if it targets factions as well.

Why stop at enslaving the Americans living in your Roman empire? Might as well send the intellectuals off the internment camps, and kill 50% of your commercial population. It's the only way to stabilize your fundamentalist religious empire, afterall.



Just food for thought, in manageable, bite-sized chunks. PS: I think the sanitized language should be "Government Pressure".

1) Very good point about the legality of persecution. A bit eurocentric, but then what is not about Civ. Maybe certain global conventions could be convened similair to the Geneva Convention. This could be used by more tolerant powers as a way to cripple other countries relations or work around peace-niks internally when attacking human rights abusers.

2) Ethnicities are naturally at odds with each other. Scapegoating is an easy way to make the majority of your people happy. However, it will also severely detract immigration of minorities in general, even if they are in the clear. Maybe you could also extend short-term actions against those who are unhappy for reason 'x' meaning, war, persecution of minorities, foreign nationals in occupied territory, etc.

3) True, assimilation should also be able to occur in reverse. The Romans practically inherited Greek culture as their own. Even though the Greeks were not independant, they were the dominant culture of the Mediterranean through the Romans. Reverse-assimilation would not flip cities, but rather change the direction of cultural developement.

4) This would be hard to do, unless you started to define who was what. Interesting idea though.

Moreover, a civilization like the Greeks was hard to assimilate into Roman life. Why? Because they had a strong cultural identity (language, architechture, philosophical thought). Simply, in Civilization, the more culture points a Civ has, the harder it should be to assimilate. The printing press is a huge turning point for this, since it allowed many oppressed peoples to express themselves and show unity -- so the printing press should generate a culture point in every one of your cities.
Printing press should generate culture or help resist assimilation only if your civ has a certain level of literacy. If no one can read, what good is it?

Printing press should generate culture or help resist assimilation only if your civ has a certain level of literacy. If no one can read, what good is it?

Two problems with this sentiment.

1) Demographs are not tracked very accurately or realistically in civ. You would have to have a major overhaul of the system for it not to be abused severely.

2) The Printing Press helped to raise literacy considerably, because books were then much cheaper to manufacture.

Moreover, you don't necessarily need a literate population to see books influence it. Transmitting your ideas around the world to only the elite intellectuals, it still does a lot to cement your nation's values and ideals among the illiterate population.

Nationalism isn't even possible without the philosophers, writers, artists, musicians expressing some kind of ideal.

Why do you think "Freedom" is such a beautiful, wonderful word in American music?

I think the factions idea is possible, based on an idea Aussie ran by in another thread (I think it was "addressing your people", but not sure). Not too complicated.

Can't be bothered to read thru the entire thread, so forgive me if this already have been suggest, but how about, to represent Vietnam-like situations, representative gov'ts took extra War Weariness for commiting atrocities (razing cities, bombing civilians, disbanding slave workers)? To compensate, WW from defensive war could be lessened.

I think that's a pretty good idea, Last Conformist. Makes a lot of sense, and makes for more strategic choices in government and war.

A few things:

1. Before the modern era, this should be perfectly legal. After the modern era, there should be serious penalties.

I know it's pretty teleological and eurocentric, but I can't think of any other way to reflect the gradual change in attitude about war. It used to be "the spoils of war are yours, and there's no such thing as an innocent casualty on your enemy's side". Now you can see just how much moral highground and respect a nation loses when there are innocent civilian deaths.

2. Genocide, forced relocation, scapegoating, and slavery will all mean very little unless ethnicities have different attitudes and roles in your civilization.

Just simple calculations, like how happy they are, how they feel about the war. This way you can find out "damn those enslaved Americans are being a nuisance, time to take out the garbage".

3. Assimilation will need more thought.

Some peoples are easily assimilated. Some less-so. But these dynamics can't have a one-size fits all approach. All automatically calculated by the system, genocide and other atrocities would slow down the assimilation process. Assimilation would be the ideal solution to a pesky ethnicity, whereas persecution would be the quick but hazaardous fix.

Moreover, a civilization like the Greeks was hard to assimilate into Roman life. Why? Because they had a strong cultural identity (language, architechture, philosophical thought). Simply, in Civilization, the more culture points a Civ has, the harder it should be to assimilate. The printing press is a huge turning point for this, since it allowed many oppressed peoples to express themselves and show unity -- so the printing press should generate a culture point in every one of your cities.

4. Genocide and other atrocities will have more meaning, and seem less bigotted and contraversial, if it targets factions as well.

Why stop at enslaving the Americans living in your Roman empire? Might as well send the intellectuals off the internment camps, and kill 50% of your commercial population. It's the only way to stabilize your fundamentalist religious empire, afterall.



Just food for thought, in manageable, bite-sized chunks. PS: I think the sanitized language should be "Government Pressure".



Some interesting ideas but I do think that genocide should not be a hazardous solution, maybe expensive in the way of gold and certainly population, but there should be an option to use propaganda effectivly in order to reduce unhappiness due to genocide among your non-persecuted population. If you use your propaganda like Hitler, Stalin and to an extent the Roman Emporor Nero did well enough it should even increase happiness among non-persecuted citizens. For this to work correctly though there should already have to be an existing hatered for your genocide victims. For example if you play as England and you have a consistant rivalry with the Zulu, your non-Zulu citizens would start to hate the Zulu living among them and the Zulu living in your empire would start to hate its other citizens making them an easy target for genocide. On the other hand you have had peaceful relations with the Greeks so it would be much harder and take more time and money to get your people to help you prosecute Greeks in your empire.

Genocide and Prosecution(treating a faction badly without killing them) would obvoiusly be on the opposite side of the scale of things like assimilation and toleration but the scale should be about even. So what I am saying is that Genocide and/or prosectution may not be a good option in real life (since real people have feelings and all that) but in the world of Civilization it should be a decent option. Don't make it too handicapping or else nobody will use it and we will end up with another situation where doing things one way is always better again, reference to Communism/Democracy duopoly and settler rush is always better than building a few cities and focusing developement on them. We always need both sides to be good options in order to preserve initial value as well as replay value of the game.

Hitler, Stalin, and the emperors of Rome all experienced massive amounts of resistance -- even from non-persecuted citizens. Especially in the modern age, where the foundation for universal sufferage and the UN (with human rights) are already spreading into mainstream consciousness, you'll see entire nations divided between those who support persecution and violence in the name of security, and those who believe there is a better way to acquire prosperity.

Not to mention that in the modern age, there are and WERE huge reprocussions for Hitler and Stalin.

I think a penalty is appropriate. But the penalties should not outweigh the benefits. Like I said, the penalties should be in the form of diminishing popularity, and in the case of the modern age there should be even greater penalties (in the form of UN intervention, or just lowering your score).

Hitler, Stalin, and the emperors of Rome all experienced massive amounts of resistance -- even from non-persecuted citizens. Especially in the modern age, where the foundation for universal sufferage and the UN (with human rights) are already spreading into mainstream consciousness, you'll see entire nations divided between those who support persecution and violence in the name of security, and those who believe there is a better way to acquire prosperity.

Not to mention that in the modern age, there are and WERE huge reprocussions for Hitler and Stalin.

I think a penalty is appropriate. But the penalties should not outweigh the benefits. Like I said, the penalties should be in the form of diminishing popularity, and in the case of the modern age there should be even greater penalties (in the form of UN intervention, or just lowering your score).


Hitler and Stalin were both loved in their countries except by the people they were prosecuting and a small minority of others. Maybe you misunderstood but I was saying that the penalties shouldn't outweigh the benefits. In the modern age I can see UN intervention unless most UN nations are similar to yours in the way of not caring about human rights and such but it really shouldn't lower your score just because of your playing style.

Here is my prospective on the cost/benfits of persecution, since genocide is just the ultimate act of persecution. It should be the option in teh Ancient Era, and much more costly in the Modern Era. As peoples are enlightened and socially progress, more and more will find problems with persecution in general. It will not be a bad thing in the mOdern Era if you have been persecuting for a while. Also, over time countries will become more likely to declare war or make coalitions to stop persecution.

I think the question at the heart of it is this: Do you believe that modern distaste for genocide is teleological, or do you think it could have turned out some other way?

I might agree with you that it could have turned out some other way... but the reality is that Civ has movements like Universal Sufferage, the UN, and Environmentalism built in. If Civ were complex and advanced enough to let the modern era turn out differently, that would be cool. But scientific evolution is teleological in Civ, and thus so is the mainstream attitude towards genocide, women, ethnicities, and the environment.

The idea of having a UN where everyone gets together and says "Way to go, man, great job on the genocide" is just impossible. The UN's very fundamental existence is based on the equality of nations. If there's a hierarchy of nations with one dude trying to conquer the world, the UN doesn't exist. The world order is "answer to me", not "United Nations".

As a second point, there is no reward for playing peacefully. None. Zero. Not in Civ 3. This makes ruthlessness inherently more profitable. This is not the case in reality, and because of that the Civ game gets pretty boring in the modern age (which in my opinion is one of the most exciting times in history).

Do you know what would if a real nation were as ruthless as the best Civ player? -- since we don't have a time limit at 2050, or a homogenous "do what you like" policy to leadership?

My personal opiion is that for simplicity we should assume that attitude become more progressive, as we define progressive.
I would agree that real nations are seldom as ruthless as a civ player, they are still very aggressive. In the modern age all warfare is economic, except for some limited skirmishes around the globe. THat is something that is represented horribly in civ, unless you count resource denial as a form of economic warfare.
As for peaceful development, the only time in history I can remember peaceful development is when Rome intimidate everyone, when people could not find each other, and after the development of Nuclear Weapons. History rewards the strong, not the devleoped, as the Moors and Incans learned in terrible ways.
I think the reason that civ players tend to war alot in the modern age is that nuclear weapons are not potent enough. A couple ways to fix that would be the ability to strike-back the instant they launch their nukes. THink MAD. I know this is discussed in a thread labeled 'Missle Silos'. Another would be make nukes cheaper. Large arsenals would definitely dissuade all but the crazy guys to fight on the marketplace.

I think it could have turned out some other way. Just imagine a world where the Axis won WW2.

But that's my point. If the Axis won WW2, there wouldn't have been a UN. It would have been Hitler saying "now we're going to do this, then that, then something else" and Mussolini saying "okay".

Even so, I think Civ is pretty telelogical about the evolution of technology. It pretty much assumes that by the time the modern age rolls around, there are movements for environmentalism and civil rights. Not to say that it could have turned out differently, but I figure this is one convenient assumption that can guide the game and make it simple to program.

I agree that the civ games need to award peaceful play but the world could have turned out differently and the UN probably wouldn't exist but they might have something similar to it just with another name. Since the civ games cant have 100 names for the same thing why not just call it UN no matter who controls it?

I think it could have turned out some other way. Just imagine a world where the Axis won WW2.

Hitler would not have survived that long, even if the axis did win. He escaped death narrowly dozens of times. Someone more moderate would have taken over and ended the worst of the Nazi atrocities(probably). A new world order of EAst vs. WEst being Germany vs. America.

If the axis won WW2 the whole world would be Germany and Japan, no US anymore.

Japan could not have conquered the US. The industrial capacity of the US was so much greater. Japan would have controlled the pacific, but for a continental invasion, it would not have gotten far, if at all. Hitler would have had no desire to try and help the Japanese invade the US once he owned Europe.

The attack at Pearl Harbour was a pre-emptive strike to prevent the US from threatening Japanese supremacy of the Pacific Ocean.

I like these discussions, whatever the stances. We're all talking about "what if". The reality is Civ seldom plays out in a way where you get to experience a "what if".

I'd personally be content if the gradual move towards civil rights and human rights was considered a constant. But it would be ten times cooler if it was a variable. In one possible world, genocide against a particular race is punished. In another possible world, it is rewarded.

The game doesn't do this yet. Not for anything, really. No variety.

I remember that in SMAC the starting stance was that chemical weapons and planet busters were atrocities. YOu could eventually put the issue to vote whether they should still be considered atrocities. A system where conferences occured between powers to decide the rules of war would be a good way to allow for variable worlds.

I'm all for that system, as much as I'm all for the teleolical fact that "the socio-economics powers eventually become adverse to genocide". Either system would be fine by me, so long as genocide can be a strategy. (Without reprocussions, until they raise the high bar in the modern age, whether by choice or by a necessary technology/wonder.) Either will do.

I think the reason that descimination has become less prevalent and acceptable over time has less to do with social evolution and more to do with economic evolution. Nations and businesses usually do what is in their best interest. Rome treated anyone who was not a Roman as a second-class citizen to establish their position as the ultimate authority. THe Egyptians enslaved the Israelites because they feared their rising population and opulence. As the modern world produced more and more free nations, trade became the best source of prosperity and security. In order for legitimate trade to occur, the government had to stop descriminating against those whose govornments they had to deal with. People learned it was more profitable to deal equally with those of different ethnicities and nationalitieis rather than be bigotted. Slavery ended because it was less costly to use machine labour. So, the worst of human behavior makes less business since and thus disappears.

Japan could have beaten the US in WWII if it developed the nuke first but my guess is that without Einstein Germany would have made the nuke first.


Back the the topic though I agree with Sir Schwick that it has nothing to do with social progress and everything to do with prosperity. Nice point Schwick. Genocide should be more benificial than hurtful if it accomplishes important goals such as wealth and stability.

For SURE it's economical. If you can invent the corporation by the industrial age, then there's no doubt that you'll get to that level of social progress where everyone is respected because cash is accepted everywhere. There's even theorists who say that's how homosexuality will become more accepted -- gay couples have as much money as much as anyone, not to mention they don't have kids to spend it on. But that's a whole other discussion.

I guess that's what I mean by the fact that human rights would be an evolutionary FACT in Civ, because of all the other things in the game that are considered an evolutionary fact. But if they wanted to make the game completely dynamic, I'd love that ten times more. Still, I'll settle for genocide being obsolete by the modern age.

But genocide is still an active ongoing thing. Human rights are not a fact for all people today. It's not like human nature has changed all that much in the past generation or two.

Of course, the major focus of this thread seems to be the concept of 'moral relativism'! The important question though, as far as this forum goes, is 'how can you incorporate these concepts into Civ4' ;)?
Well, I see it being do-able in 3 ways-none of which are mutually exclusive!
One is via the tech tree-especially if you are using a more expanded tech tree and a semi-blind research model! In this, there would be a host of 'cultural/socialogical' techs which can be acquired throughout history which, though they provide economic, diplomatic and sociological benefits, they also make it more difficult to commit atrocities without drawing the ire of your own people or other nations! Of course, how other nations respond to your atrocities will depend largely on THEIR current level of 'human rights'. The second approach is via 'social engineering' where you can have varying levels of 'nationalism', 'sufferage' 'Emancipation' and 'libertarianism'! Again, positive settings in these traits will create certain tanglible 'game benefits', but will also tie your hands when it comes to 'doing whatever the hell you want' :D ;)!!
The third method is via 'Small/Great Wonders', like a 'Geneva Convention', 'Emancipation declaration' etc. Again, building them gives benefits, but also makes it more difficult to do truly evil things!!
The flip-side of this, of course, is how to measure 'attrocities' in a way that makes for a good game whilst retaining some sense of realism! The only thing I can think of is an 'atrocity counter' Each 'type' of atrocity will have a certain scale (say from 1 to 5), and will increase your 'additive atrocity level'! Your own people, and other civs, will have a certain 'atrocity threshold' based on their current level of 'enlightenment', when you cross that threshold, your culture and reputation decrease internationally, and/or your happiness, stability and productivity decrease domestically! This will effect trade and diplomatic deals, culture flip chances and the chance of revolution and/or civil war! Of course, each turn you go without commiting an atrocity, your current atrocity level will drop-slowly (much like with pollution in civ3!)!
Anyway, just some ideas. Didn't have a chance to read the entire thread, so hope I didn't repeat anyone elses ideas ;) :)!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

Doesn't matter if people still commit genocide, the fact that there's international law is a modern day reality. The real question is if Civ should reflect this as a necessary fact, or a possible fact. (The same dilemma for many other concepts.) Atrocities are a special case because they aren't really a fact represented in Civ at all, and they should be in one form or another.

I like your suggestions, Aussie. To me, the world is all about intersubjectivism and the tyrrany of the majority. Not just population majority, but the power majority. If the worlds superpowers get together and say "eating meat is wrong", then by God, it's wrong. And wars will be waged, and revolutions will be started, and governments will be changed, and economics will be determined by who commits the atrocity of eating meat. ... of course, I'm not interested in Civ reflecting this in the least, even as a possible reality.

Well, this is why your international relations should be determined by several key factors:

1) Cultural might-this is pretty much reflected in civ3, but could be slightly improved.

2) Your military strength-pretty obvious, really, the more POWERFUL you are, the more likely weaker civs are to be nice to you and do as you say, just out of fear-at least to your face ;)!

3) Your Economic Strength-if you are much more economically powerful than another nation, those nations are more likely to fawn on you-if only to attract more trade and wealth (hell, just look at the relationship between the US and MY country-sheeesssssh :rolleyes: !)

4) Government/religious and cultural similarity factors-this reflects the fact that nations of a similar culture/religion/government type are more likely to get along with each other than those who are completely different!

5) Atrocity Score-This deducts equally away from factors 1 and 3 and, to a much lesser extent 4-though it will probably ADD to factor 2 ;)! Of course, if factor 2 is high but all the others are low, then you are more likely to attract MPP's and Alliances with YOU as the target! You are also more likely to attract unconventional attacks against you!
The additive and subractive effects of these factors are what will decide your relationships with other civs, if not your reputation :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I like Aussie's ideas... BUT:
You have to account for things like Rwanda, where the world shrugged. Or Sudan being chosen to chair the Human Rights Committee (or whatever it is) in the face of it's genocidal behavior. Or the failure of the World Court to convict officials of genocide because they only killed males. (The women are faced with either mix-breeding or asexual reproduction: whichever they choose.)

Just a couple of things, though. First of all, the atrocity scale doesn't necessarily mean any action will be taken on you, just that the governments of an 'enlightened' civilization might snub you and, eventually, even go to war with you-if only to keep their OWN people onside!
Also, one of the factors I failed to mention above is governmental/religious/Cultural Factors. This goes some way to explaining the Sudan situation, because many of those who elected it to chair the HRC were of the same 'Culture Group' (African), same religious Group (Islamic) and similar government type/atrocity levels! Its not a perfect system, I'll admit, but it will go some way to explaining why atrocities alone do not get your nation isolated!
Finally, the thing with Rwanda is that there was outrage at what had occured but, after the genocide, the government was changed to one which comprised a majority of the victims of that slaughter! To reflect this, then, perhaps changing government could be a way of more quickly reducing your current atrocity levels!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

it seems that dh_epic and aussie lurker are real creative fans!!!
yes, atrocities, penalties and awards for them!
also yes to assimilation and dissimilation!!! when then conquered nation conquers the conquerors!!! just think the mongols and china.
demographics should be rethinked in Civ4.

OFF topic: what if the Axis won? well, 1. it is impossible to think of it, because the Axis did not won :) 2. if they won even so, go to point 1. - no that's just a joke. if the Axis won, the cruel system of Germany would have been softened up in one or two decades and become a kind of semi-Fascistic autorither system. And in this case, the US most likely had turned on its own ultranationalistic system, too. Japan would have remained to be the same.
this is my "professional oppinion" (i am a historian researching the 20th century's Hungarian nazi movements - visit www.terrorhaza.hu)

But genocide is still an active ongoing thing. Human rights are not a fact for all people today. It's not like human nature has changed all that much in the past generation or two.

You do bring up a good point. I am not sure how accurate this is, but maybe your societies level of tolerance should be based on a combination of wealth and business evolution. When people have money they have more to spend on fun things and less to have others to complain about. Many times scapegoats were created because of economic recession, or in general bad conditions.

If I remember right, a lot of the ethnic clashes in Africa can be partially blamed on how the borders were drawn in the colonial period. If you look at a map of Africa it is mostly right angle and does not take into account ethnic and poltical border that existed before the Europeans came. A good colonialism model would be very interesting.

Just so everyone knows, the fact that Sudan is the third major genocide since the Holocaust makes me sick. Worse yet, nations are very slow to take any action at all.

Like I said, I'd be content if Civ even just introduced a simplified system. Sometimes revolutions fail, but it doesn't mean that your efforts to change governments should be blocked. A constant general rule, even with a few probabilities is good enough for me. If they wanted to go the extra mile and have it be heavily contingent on a lot of other factors, that would be great -- but there's a lot of other things I'd like to be contingent, too.