End of an Empire: Stopping the ever expanding juggernaut

Well, Legionary, I really like your idea about being able to control those massive empires that always arise in-game. Being a history buff myself, you're quite right that no empire has ever lasted through to the modern day, and has never been anything like the empires that form in Civ. The only thing that could use "tweaking" is that when the capital is captured, that's not necessarily the end of the government. Even if the entire government is captured, there will always be someone to take their place. That's how it works in Civ III. When the capital is captured, the actual Palace moves to a new city because a new ruling council will/has sprung up there. But, it's still a good idea to have the chance of a civil war, and a brief period of anarchy.
 
The great thing about Civ2, though, was that you could move your capital-after capture-in that game too, but it cost you a pretty penny to do so, and if you didn't have the cash to spare then you underwent all the penalties associated with losing your capital.
I might also point out that in C3:C, there was a penalty associated with losing your Capital-and that was an increased chance of culture flipping along your borders. I kind of saw this as a form of 'de-facto' civil war, a la Civ2-but a very poor replacement. I can see an argument for a lost capital causing a reduction in Culture (as it probably will in civ4, given that a Palace will most likely act as a 'Culture Multiplier) which, in turn, could increases the chance of any lingering secessionist sentiments within your nation taking hold.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
From the new article, it sounds like there will be increasing maintenance costs for bigger empires, making new cities less worthwhile.
 
Aussie_Lurker said:
Two other factors I failed to mention, though, is that unhappy foreign citizens create a higher base chance of secession-and resistors are higher still. An interesting thing is that when you apply the 'NationHood' Civic, the chance of standard chance of secession actually drops, wheras the multiplier for foreign citizens actually goes up.
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Why not simply say that foreign citizens are more likely to be unhappy? It's basically just taking the same term and moving it up a little bit in the calculations.

Aussie_Lurker said:
On the flip-side, the presence-and strength-of garrisons reduce the chance of secession (though, in my preferred model, too many units in a city actually increase unhappiness!)
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Sure. It's just that the unhappiness increases more slowly than the chance of rebellion decreases, so the net effect is placid, sullen citizens.
 
Well, Apatheist, the reason was because I wanted it at that point in the equation to factor in the twin impacts of Nationhood on your empire. i.e. your own people get a greater sense of their shared cultural identity-and so are less likely to ever want to break away (except unless you really piss them off) wheras foreign cultures over whom you rule get a greater sense of their own cultural/national identity. However, so long as you treat them right, they can remain happy and prepared to sacrifice independance in order to retain the protection of your benevolent rule.
Either way, though, Nationhood does deserve some place in the Civil War equation, but I am not overly fussed as to where its impact is felt.
As for garrisons, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. They may not berak away, but at the same time they are probably not producing much for you, but their city is costing you money to maintain (not to mention the cost of the garrison itself)-thus probably leading a pragmatic player to surrender his rule over that city voluntarily.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
If I may say so myself the maths in that civil war model is brilliant ;)

There are a few things that havent been fully factored in. But the main point is that civil war can only occur if you are having problems managing your empire (but if you are having problems - look out).

I completely agree with the comments earlier in this thread about quantity vs quality as well (as some of you may already know).

just my 0.02
 
Well, of course its brilliant Meleager, as I recall a mathematics genius helped me come up with it ;)! Hmmm, what was his name again? It started with an M and ended in an R as I recall :D !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Why do you sign your posts like they were letters? It is not as if noble attitude is placed in parts, so that one can expect to find one part of it in the signature, and calculate its effect on the overall post; rather one by that time would have reached a conclusion which would merely be backed even more by what he would find lurking in the end of the post.
 
I wonder if it's worth having happy people produce more. You'd have four levels: striking, producing nothing; unhappy, producing less than normal; content, producing normal; and happy, producing more than normal. This applies to food, shields/hammers, commerce, etc. Not quite civil war; it's more in the vein of quality that has been discussed previously. It is relevant to the garrisoning keeping revolts from happening, though. They won't revolt, but they're not exactly productive either.

To clarify, garrisons shouldn't make citizens less unhappy like in Civ3 and earlier; they should keep the citizens from revolting and that's all. The unhappiness level does not drop and may increase.
 
I wonder if it's worth having happy people produce more. You'd have four levels: striking, producing nothing; unhappy, producing less than normal; content, producing normal; and happy, producing more than normal. This applies to food, shields/hammers, commerce, etc. Not quite civil war; it's more in the vein of quality that has been discussed previously. It is relevant to the garrisoning keeping revolts from happening, though. They won't revolt, but they're not exactly productive either.
Click to expand...

Well, the question is who in the world does want to work? Every one wants to retire the moment they are born, because simply nobody wants to do work. It's only out of necessity that most people actually have jobs.
 
FieldMarshall said:
Well, the question is who in the world does want to work? Every one wants to retire the moment they are born, because simply nobody wants to do work. It's only out of necessity that most people actually have jobs.
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There's a difference between work and a job. I don't think there are that many people who would just sit on the couch and watch "American Idol" while eating Cheetos if they didn't have to have jobs. They'd find something more fulfilling to do. I write software for a living. Having to earn money doesn't make me write software; having to earn money determines what software I write and for whom. I doubt there are any waitresses who would do that for a living, but a lot of people enjoy their work, if not their jobs. Lots of people give up high-paying, unpleasant jobs for lower-paying but more pleasant ones.

That's moot, though. I might not work without financial incentive, but that doesn't mean the quality of my work is fixed. I do better work when I enjoy my job. I do worse work when I don't. It's not enough to be paid. I am definitely not the exception.
 
Good idea in the sense that entropy is an ever-present force. Diminishing returns for doing things the same old way might be a good way to incorporate into the game.

Probably a bad idea in that entropy is decidedly "un-fun".

Nyvin said:
How about making government gradually decay? Eventually you'd have to create a new one by going into anarchy...and for the larger civs on the board this would be a 'LOT' harder then the smaller ones. You could just let it decay more and more, or start a revolution. The smaller civs who do revolutions more often would thus get an advantage over the larger ones who are forced to let it decay for a longer period of time.

This idea would still be relalistic too.
Click to expand...
 
But more so than moderate empires, a large empire built on conquest, and not popular opinion (happiness), will be more vulnerable to internal unrest than any other civ.
The only way for such a civ to survive is thru strong centralization (unless it is the proverbial democracy 'liberating' the world from despotism), hence the realism of maintaing a capital, and why they shouldn't be free in such a case.

Suggestion #1 is not a persecution, just a test the player's management, and a realism. Otherwise it's not Civilization, but Empire (another game).

apatheist said:
I disagree (of course). This is too much like the sort of random event that frustrates people. I realize you're not saying it should be random, but it would appear random, and that's enough.

Legionary, I hadn't realized the point about infinite resources enabling large empires. It's a good one.

I am against ideas that bias the game directly against large empires or empires that have been stable for a long time. It just seems like a mean hack to have code like:

if (cityCount > 50)
revolt();

or:

if (now - lastGovChange > 50)
revolt();

Any disadvantage that large empires or old governments have should be a natural consequence of the same rules that apply in every situation. Diminishing returns, as Aussie Lurker mentioned, would be one way of doing that.

Regarding the quality of citizens, I think that should basically be education. It's hard to educate your citizens. Educated citizens are more productive.

I wonder how city specialization will work. I think it would be best if it was an acquired trait, rather than a directed one; i.e., nurtured like a garden rather than commanded by fiat. That would make it more precious when attained and also harder to switch from one specialization to another. Think Damascus steel or Venetian glass. Furthermore, if the city is conquered, it should retain its specialization.



When Constantinople fell, there was barely any empire left. The Ottomans already were on both sides of the Bosporus and had Greece.



Nor should it make you automatically weak. After all, size didn't destroy the British Empire, at least not in any obvious, direct way. Really, that didn't happen with the Roman Empire either. It should be more than just size; cultural strength, military strength, degree of interconnectedness (due to roads, harbors, etc., according to effective distance), how long you've held the various cities, religion, ethnicity, and other factors should all be incorporated. It should be possible to balance them all well enough to sustain a large empire. Possible, but not easy (assuming you're playing on an appropriate difficulty level).
Click to expand...
 
GoodGame said:
But more so than moderate empires, a large empire built on conquest, and not popular opinion (happiness), will be more vulnerable to internal unrest than any other civ.
The only way for such a civ to survive is thru strong centralization (unless it is the proverbial democracy 'liberating' the world from despotism), hence the realism of maintaing a capital, and why they shouldn't be free in such a case.
Click to expand...

Certainly. I don't think that city count shouldn't matter. Quite the opposite, in fact. The stability calculation should have all the same terms for all civs, no matter what the size. It would so happen that the city count's effect is negligible for small civs, but it's not a question of one formula for civs above a certain size and another for civs below a certain size. In the former case, the model works cleanly even in situations the designers didn't anticipate, while the latter case may have degenerate behavior if you exceed the designers' imagination.

I disagree that strong centralization is the only way. Strong centralization may be counter-productive, in that citizens of distant cities may feel the government does not represent them. Arguably, a decentralized government like a federation might be more effective. I'm not going to make a blanket statement, though, as there are other significant variables that should count, such as ethnicity; religion; whether the cities were founded by you, acquired peacefully, or conquered; etc.

Population should also be a factor. I don't know how, exactly; I don't know if fewer, larger cities should be more or less stable than more, smaller cities. Maybe its influence also depends on the other factors.

Another factor that would be tricky to model is growth. Perhaps an aggressively expansionistic civ is stable as long as it's growing, but if conquests cease, internal tensions start to rise. I don't know how to incorporate that, though.
 
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