Barbarians, neutral nations, criminals

Gwil said:

As a footnote to that and after reading a discussion based around the subject of slave workers, they could also perhaps be a referencing factor? Or even more so, they hold relevance to the revolutionary idea for the industrial ages.

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While its true that barbarian activity is really a ancient era/middle ages issue, and terrorism primarily a modern phenomenon, I don't see why revolutions should be limited to the industrial era. There have been rebellions, revolutions, independance movements, etc. since the earliest days of history, and they continue to occur today.

Other than that, I agree...

If they are going to use a similar corruption method why not just have civ’s corruption used to finance barbarians. They would use the civ that spawned them level of tech, and would attack that civ .

I do not think that the "random event" system would work too well if police stations etc. would decrease the likelihood of a terrorist attack. The USA has police stations in every city and town in the entire country. This did nothing to prevent the attacks on September 11, 2001.

To only allow State Sponsored terrorism would eliminate much of the activity going on today (Quadafi has been running scared and the Syrians are trying like hell to deny any involvement in terrorism--it's the Bin Laden's who are running the show). So how do we come up with the possibility of terrorist attacks and for what reasons. To just have a random attack will not allow the civ player to know what is going on. To have only state sponsored terrorism would eliminate a major source of terrorist activity.

The only solution that I can come up with is for minor countries to exist. When a minor is taken over by a major civ, the nationality of that region (however many cities) would retain the original flavor. These other-nationals would be a possible source of terrorist activity. Any nation that was friendly with the civ that was subject to the terrorists might also be subject to terrorists from the region.

For example: Civ A conquors an area which consists of an entire minor (let's say two cities worth). These cities retain the minor civ's culture (no less than one person for the rest of the game or for a very long time, regardless of population manipulation). Civ B, at some point, becomes an active allie with Civ A in fighting Civ C.

Civ A would always have some (low) chance that the expatriots in the two cities will commit terrorist acts. When Civ B becomes allied to Civ A, Civ B is also subject to the possibility of terrorist acts from those cities (albeit much, much smaller). Civ C, if they happen to know about the possibility of unrest from these expatriots, could try to fund the expatriots into committing more acts (similar to the attempts by the Germans to fund the IRA in WWI, etc).

When there is an outside source of funding, the expatriots would have a better chance of committing some sort of heinous act (maybe a loss of population, destruction of building, etc). The effects should usually be pretty small, since terrorists generally do not disrupt the entire fabric of civilization. However, if terrorist acts keep on happening, the population being terrorized should have unhappiness occur.

Fighting the terrorists should occur in several ways:

1. Give in to their demands (i.e. free the cities from which the terrorists have originated or end relations with the civ that holds thoses cities).

2. Create an agency to deal with them (probably part of the espionage system, but sort of expensive since you don't know who you are necessarily fighting).

3. Give extra money to police (similar to number 2 but done as a x # of turns system). In other words, when a terrorist strike occurs, the advisor may ask, "Do you want to fund extra police activity for the next 10 turns?"

4. Figure out who is funding the slimeballs and eliminate that civ.

Any comments or suggestions?

Barbarians:
I've said it before--The Civ II version of barbarians was much better, especially in that they upgraded with your level of tech. "The peasants are revolting" could be an added [and historically] correct dimension to war weariness and luxury shortage. I really hate the modern armor vs. warrior when it should be vs. guerilla.

As for the rest ... I'll leave that to others

Maybe Terrorist Aggression can be simulated in a similar way to how Barbarian Uprising in Civ II was handled.
The problem with equating how terrorism works in the real world, and in the Civ world is that the real world has over 100 nations - almost 200, and the Civ world can't even have 40. Couple that with the fact that the real world has sub nations (like the Shiites and the Bin Laden factions), the closest thing we can get to simulating terrorism is Barbarian Spy actions and uprisings, which would allow random violence and possible city sabotage, or population reduction.
Also remember that terrorist acts seem to occur more frequently in areas of unrest, and areas with little governmental control. Which would be why I think Spies or Espionage is a more accurate portrayal of Terrorism, with their reduced chances of success and greater cost of operation in better run cities.

I've seen many good suggestions that differ from mine, but I haven't seen many suggestions on how to implement these ideas without greatly slowing down the game speed.
We've already seen what happens to the game speed when we get up to 30 nations. Add all the mini nations, sub nations, variant barbarians, etc. and the game will slow down to such a crawl that some turns could take over a week.
I played the Mediterranean Mod (TAM), and the end of the turn sequence (where all the rival nations get their turns) took over a half an hour. That's with only 30 nations.

I'd like to see Barbarians conquer cities instead of just looting them. (This is how it was done in the first version.) The city could become a barbarian settlement with a number of def/off units equal to the former population of the city.

Or the city could be a full-fledged city, churning out units (only) as a barbarian Despotism, until recaptured or razed.

How about if the barbarians could capture cities. Additionally, they could even establish some cities (i.e. have one AI barbarian player similar to the WWII scenario in Civ2). The barbarian cities would not cooperate with each other and would not research techs (basically they would have only the default techs, i.e. those owned by every nation). I realize that you could hinder the barbarians by keeping one civ around and making sure that it did not progress well, but if you are planning to do that, then why play the game at all?

Ok, now, for terrorist activity, the "Red Nation" (i.e. barbarians early on, whatever you wish after that), if it has cities, could pool the resources to cause havoc in the "Civilized" (i.e. player and AI) civs. You could, therefore have unrest (all units would be "Red Nation"), revolts, sabotage, etc. Unrest could be either within your borders (if a city goes into unrest) or at the outskirts (the same way that barbarians come about currently). This way, there should be no situations of MA going against barbarian warriors.

The "Red Nation" (I use this because in Civ2 the barbarians and other nasties were red) units would always be uncontrolled by any VP-earning Civ. The red units would have there own AI priorities (probably beat up on the nearest weak units or go damage infrastructure). If the red units had a city, they would also do their best to defend that city (more or less). Cities that are red-controlled would be unable to be absorbed by culture (since the "Red" guys will have no culture).

This would sort of combine the ideas floating around in these threads (i.e. you could still have civil wars, its just that the new "civ" will be red cities) and what seemed to work for most of us in Civ2.

On this note, however, I would not like to see random ships showing up in the ocean full of lots of "red" combat units. That always seemed like a cop-out to me. If the "red" units are going to be produced, at least have a real reason for their popping up! (i.e. civil unrest, opposing civ funds them, whatever).

What happens if the "Red Nation" is destroyed?

Ok your ideas on Barbs and Pirates are awesome. The rest in my opinion suck. What we actually need is barbarians not to be unified force but rather seperate bands. If an area is un colonized they appear and make a few small cities. This could simulate native population. Once in while a band (or tribe of Barbarians will become a civ)

Pirates should just be ships that raid other ships and always steal money. And again they should be separte.

the mormegil said:

What happens if the "Red Nation" is destroyed?

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The answer is, it is never destroyed because it is not a victory-point-earning civ. The "Red Nation" is simply the collection of any break-off cities, barbarians, etc. They would not fight each other, but otherwise everything goes. Even if all "Red" cities and units were destroyed, others could pop up in unsettled areas. Even if all areas are settled, red cities could be created due to civil wars/civil unrest/whatever in civs that do earn VP. So, very similar to Civ2, the "Red" cities and units are simply those not belonging to one of the established player civs (whether those are controlled by human players or the AI).

I like the 'neutral' nation idea. 4 city limit sounds good. That way you will not have to battle them for space etc in the rush to build as many cities as possible at the start of the game, and they will help represent that their are over countries as well as the 'powers'. In fact i think it is a very good idea! Of course you/other civs can try and invade them etc, will make the game more fun

As for barbarians, well how about every so often a barbarian camp produces a settler unit? This could create small barbarian civs! Some limit would be needed to prevent them expanding tooooo much, maybe only being able to have one settler at a time or something. Or having a really large build cost for settler units. Also mebbe every so often they could capture a city rather than just ramsacking it.

Also, these would be seprate barbarian civs, so you don't end up with a huge one scattered all over the place.

Barbarians already establish unit spawning camps, when they are far enough from a civ's cultural borders and another barbarian camp, in Civ III.

Denarr said:

Barbarians already establish unit spawning camps, when they are far enough from a civ's cultural borders and another barbarian camp, in Civ III.

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Ahh, but what i mean is that they establish cities, (which represent the smaller nations of this world). That way they become a mini civ! Who you can trade with/invade etc.

ComradeDavo said:

Ahh, but what i mean is that they establish cities, (which represent the smaller nations of this world). That way they become a mini civ! Who you can trade with/invade etc.

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I don't understand this fascination with "smaller nations." Why not just play against more opponents: some of them are bound to be smaller than others. If you play a game with 16 civs, not all of them are going to be "powers."

The AI is dumb enough - why make some of your opponents artificially weaker by having "smaller nations" that have different rules than regular civs?

judgement said:

I don't understand this fascination with "smaller nations." Why not just play against more opponents: some of them are bound to be smaller than others. If you play a game with 16 civs, not all of them are going to be "powers."

The AI is dumb enough - why make some of your opponents artificially weaker by having "smaller nations" that have different rules than regular civs?

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I can vouch for that, I'm playing a game right now with a nation that has only three cities, and they haven't sent out new Settlers since the Bronze age.
Allowing Barbarians the Civ II ability to capture cities would be the next step down from the 'Trapped Nation' syndrome. Someone you can beat on without ticking off the other nations.

Intelligence agency decreasing the likelihood of terrorists? That used to work...

judgement said:

I don't understand this fascination with "smaller nations." Why not just play against more opponents: some of them are bound to be smaller than others. If you play a game with 16 civs, not all of them are going to be "powers."

The AI is dumb enough - why make some of your opponents artificially weaker by having "smaller nations" that have different rules than regular civs?

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I like the idea of 'smaller nations' arising from barbarians because they would bring some more variety into the game.
-Firstly, a bit of randomness because you don't know when they might arise, plus they add another factor into the game.
-Secondly, they help represent the many many 'smaller' nations/tribes of people which have arisen/been destroyed over time.
-Thirdly, as barbarians they wouldn't be trying to 'win' as such, so rather than just being a rival they could become trading partners or allies or neutral.

Think countries like Switzerland or Belgium in Europe!

BassDude726 said:

Intelligence agency decreasing the likelihood of terrorists? That used to work....

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Actually, it still does.
Imagine what the situation would be like if we didn't have an agency devoted to gathering intelligence.

ComradeDavo said:

I like the idea of 'smaller nations' arising from barbarians because they would bring some more variety into the game.
-Firstly, a bit of randomness because you don't know when they might arise, plus they add another factor into the game.

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This I can understand, but still, if a new civ arises later in the game, why not make it a full-fledged civ instead of creating a new class of artificially limited civs.

-Secondly, they help represent the many many 'smaller' nations/tribes of people which have arisen/been destroyed over time.

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What's wrong with the many civs that get destroyed? Again, I understand that it might be cool if new civs could arise, but I don't understand why they should be forced to be different from the original civs?

-Thirdly, as barbarians they wouldn't be trying to 'win' as such, so rather than just being a rival they could become trading partners or allies or neutral.
Think countries like Switzerland or Belgium in Europe!

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I never have too much trouble becoming trading partners or allies with full-fledged AI civs, and most of the time when I'm at war with one or a couple civs (possibly with an ally or two on my side as well) there are a number of other civs in the world that remain neutral and don't take part in the war. So I don't see what barbarian-civs would add.

Besides which, no civ should be forced to always be neutral! Neutrality is a choice made to not get involved in a particular war, not a fundamental characteristic of any nation (even Switzerland). Why should any nation be artificially prevented from behaving in certain ways - from trying to "win"?

I would like to see some civs arise late to become fully fledged civs, I just think it would be cool to add a little more variety to the game by having barbarian civs as well! Not much else I can say other than what I have already posted.

Of course, you could always have the option to switch off barbarian civs, thus keeping both of us happy

(Note: I think you misunterstood what I meant about neutrality. I didn't mean any civ would 'have' to be neutral or anything).