Minor Nations

This could be kind of an expansion on the Barbarian idea: Minor Nations. They would make the game a lot more realistic and fun to play. Here's how they could work:

Depending on the barbarian setting, you'd have a certain number starting out. Throughout the game, there could be a random chance like 1% every turn for a new one to pop up.

Until the expansion phase is over, they would produce only settlers, and get a free def. unit in each city. The settlers should take about 30 or 40 turns each though, so they will expand very slowly. These settlers cannot settle in places where their territories would be disconnected.

Each city would start out with radius 0, and have a max radius of 1, except the capital which would start out at 1 and have max 2 radius.

The minor nations don't make any gold or tech, but instead automatically gain each tech already known by every civilization 10 or 20 turns after it has been learned by the last one.

Corruption should be very high for these nations, regardless of what government they are in, to prevent them from getting too big.

A penalty to production might also be needed, but I think that those limitations would be enough to make it balancing.

This way, there aren't just the 8 or 16 major civs in the world, but it would be filled with countries, just like the real one. With enough of these small nations, it would make the expansion phase that much more challenging, as after the first few cities, you would be forced to start to fight for your land. There would of course still also be the other 8 or 16 major civs which would function just like normal ones; these minor nations would just be extra.

This is already addressed in the Civil Wars thread. I think it is a fine idea and I am totally for it
I think they should not be toned down too much. They could become actual civs (they would probably never become as powerful because they start later) in everything else but in that they do not affect victory conditions. They could favor less expansionism too, though. But it wouldn't be out of question to have a "barbarian" nation become so big that it threatened the actual civs - like the barbarians that brought Rome down.

I think this idea has had way too little attention. It could be tweaked into a working concept with lonly little addition to complexity, a huge improvement on the game and could also become the mainbrake of civgrowth instead of corruption, if little nations could break away from your peripheria.

Very good idea! It could make the game more historical (not only 8, 12, 16 nation, more!)

But what would stop he bigger civs from just destroying this little guys earlier in the game.

Nothing would stop them, sealman, that is part of the point. You would be allowed to allie with these nations to stop the bad guys. They would be allowed to gang together, etc. The civil war thread has provisions for actually creating these extra "mini-civs" so that they retain some of their culture and have a nasty habit of breaking off from conquorors (i.e. civil war). Thus, if you want to keep them, you will be in a near constant state of war.

I am all for this! I suggested something similar and support this idea Bilko. Good work.

Hi, glad to see someone else bringing this one up !
Not sure if anyone here ever played 'Birth of the Federation', but they had minor races in that game-and that worked GREAT !
First of all, in the game set up, you could decide the 'rough' number of minor races in the game-from none to a few to many to lots! The same should apply for minor civs in cIV.
Anyway, in BOTF, each minor race had some kind of 'special ability', either a special building that they were able to build, or some kind of tech or trade bonus or the like! Again, having something similar to this would make minor civs worth keeping around-instead of just destroying them! For instance, some civs minor civs might give you bonus culture, others might increase your military science research, whilst others might improve the value of all your trade deals and, lastly, some might give you access to a wonder, unit or improvement which only THEY can give you (I'm just pulling examples out of the air!)
A final point, from BOTF, was that most minor races could not expand beyond the planet you found them on-though some of them had ships of their own (depending on how technologically advanced they were in the TV show!) For instance, the Vulcans and the Sheliak had their own ships, wheras the Mintakans did not!
In civ, I think that minor civs should replace both barbarians and goody huts-based on their aggression levels-and though they should be able to grow, and even advance in technology, they should do so at a MUCH slower rate than the major civs-perhaps with the actual rate being determined by the equivalent of the 'barbarian settings' in the set-up screen. Of course, if they join up with with a major civ, through some kind of protectorate agreement, then they will be treated as part of the major empire for research and pop growth purposes. To avoid offending anyones sensibilities, the civs which become minor should be random, based on which civs have/have not been chosen as major civs. For example, in one game, you might have England as your major civ then, in another game, they might turn up as just a minor civ!
Anyway, those are just my thoughts.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

You mean I can never do any research again or produce settlers & just beat up some smaller "Minor Nations" for techs & cities?!?

Umm, sounds good in theory but makes warmongering even more powerful(not that I'd complain). This was one of the things addressed in C3C, I don't think they'll take a giant step backwards for Civ4.

Originally posted by Gengis Khan
You mean I can never do any research again or produce settlers & just beat up some smaller "Minor Nations" for techs & cities?!?

Umm, sounds good in theory but makes warmongering even more powerful(not that I'd complain). This was one of the things addressed in C3C, I don't think they'll take a giant step backwards for Civ4.

Click to expand...

Not for techs -- EVERY major civ must have a tech before the minor civs get it. You are a major civ, ergo you must have the tech before the minor civ.

Besides, their growth will be significantly stunted; the number of cities that can be acquired from the minor civs would be minimal.

Have any of you played Conquests scenarios?

Mesoamerica: Three "rising" tribes: Aztecs, Maya, Inca; and three "declining" tribes, Moche, Toltecs, Olmecs... who are basically there to be beaten up... "ritual worker sacrifice" adds an interesting twist. Supposedly the Spanish can eventually arrive, but I haven't played this one to that point yet...

Fall of Rome: Rome, Byzantium, Persia, Mongols, and a sackful of Barbarian tribes. Parallel but different tech trees for Barbarian v. "civilized" tribes. This one's fun if you're a barbarian civ and build the "Scourge of God" wonder... and it's an elimination game too... Spoiler... when the 5th city of a big civ falls... give the game a minute to crunch through it's routine as a large portion of the map slips beneath the fog...

Middle Ages: 4 Christian Kingdoms (England, France, Burgundians, Germans) 4 Viking Nations, and 4 Arab nations. 3 parallel but different tech trees... this one has a fun regicide component...

The concept of 'minor tribes' has been implemented in Conquests. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it implemented in epic versions of Civ4...

Well, any Firaxis people reading this thread, count me in for wanting the minors. These could be similar to those in Avalon Hill's 3rd Reich.

Hmmm, though it's true that civ3 has 'minor civs', after a fashion-I hope that they will be implemented differently in cIV! For instance, your civ3 barbarians (who have 'NO NAME') will now become minor civs with a very high aggression rating. They will be easy to spot because they will tend to grow faster than other minor civs, and will have more cities and offensive units! In fact, they will probably conquer any neighbouring minor civs who are less aggressive than they are ! Of course, if you should ever 'tame them'-a feat that should require a VAST amount of bribery, or threats of retribution, then they might be able to give you access to certain useful, and highly mobile, military units-at least early on in the game!
All of your civ3 goody huts would now become peaceful minor civs. They would have more defensive units, fewer cities (in fact, rarely more than 1 or 2!) and would focus more of their energy on research. What they can give to the major civ that tames them would really depend on the minor civ itself-but each 'Group' of minor civs should grant a certain 'type' of benefit-to encourage you to make peace with them, rather than simply destroying them out of hand! In fact, now that I think about it, maybe their 'special ability' should be, in some way, tied to their civ characteristics!
In such a system, though, the expansionist major civs are going to lose one of their prime abilities-namely those relating to 'goody huts'. It might be possible to compensate these civs, though, by either giving their units an extra Movement point and/or by making them have a better rep with minor civs (thus increasing their chance of bringing said minor civs into a Protectorate arrangement!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I don't think those "little" nations should get many techs: they should get the basics at the beginning, like IW, BW, etc.. You think it's realistic to get to musketmen/infantry if no one wipes them of the Earth? Tribes like Papua and others NEVER progressed much and they're living today as they were been living since they were founded.

As for the Incas, Mayas, etc... they really weren't that advanced as Greece, Egypt, Persia, to name a few: they were good for the land they were ruling, but no in no way they could have survived that long(as long as they lasted, anyway) if they were in Europe or Asia. Civilizations that made sacrifices were exactly that: tribes.
Don't get me wrong, though: they were great pre-civilized nations.

I certainly like the minor civ idea. A world populated by a few large powers and dozens of smaller ones is a lot closer to reality.

New minor nations should regularly splinter away from the major powers. They could be made up of one city only (to begin with), or start out with 2 or more neighbouring cities ceceding at once. It would depend on the level of unhappiness in each city - especially if those cities were on a different landmass from the capital, like Britain's old 13 Colonies...

The main drawback could be, with ongoing research, diplomacy, finance etc in ALL those nations, the amount of sheer processing required each turn would exponentiate. It might make the game inconveniently and frustrastingly slow, on all but the fastest modern PCs.

I don't agree with Bilko's suggetion that minor nations should be limited to size 1 or 2 cities, but some restriction on their development and complexity would be approriate. Unless, against the odds, one of them manages to acquire a certain threshold number of cities & units (say, 5 cities of 4 population points at least?), when it would be automatically promoted to the status of a major civ. If there were fewer than the maximum number of major civs present at that time.

In the diplomacy window, all known nations - major and minor - would have to be listed individually. But, to prevent one going through several dozen ambassadors separately with the same proposal or offer, it should be possible to set up a "conference call." Like in the real UN assembly. The user could select as many nations as he liked and address them all simultaneously, then take replies from each. They might even argue the matter between each other. Such a session of multinational diplomacy might have an interface like an online chatroom.

I like the whole minor civs idea, but I don't think that they should be so different from regular civs. They should have disadvantages similar to the disadvantages given to the regular AI in chieftan games, slower research and production, all of that stuff. They should also have no civ traits, UUs, or possibility of golden age.

Pariah: Just to clarify, I said city radius, not size

I have always wanted to see some tinhg like minor nations in civ! I have sometimes simulated that in my mods and scenarios (both in civ 2 and 3), but the results were far from ideal.
I believe that the goody huts and the tradicional barbarians should be mantained, as "minor minor nations" - small tribes would be represented by the goody huts, and more complex chiefdons by the barbarians. The minor nations should represent small states, or large chiefdons, with the potential to become "true" civs.
It would be something similar to the barbarian concept of Colonization (witch had, if I remember correct, at least three levels of tribal development), but taken a step further in the levels of disparity between each kind of "barbarian civ" - and with the potencial of minor nations becoming true civs.
It should be quite hard for the minor nations to do anything - they should have production and research penalties, a restrict group of allowed units, they should be able to found new cities only inside their own terrotories, etc. If even with that the minor nation reach a certain degree of development, it should achieve "civ status".
Diplomacy with these minor nations - and between them - should also be quite different from normal diplomacy, basicaly restrict to trade, peace treaty, and military alliance. I believe there could be a way to cultural convert an entire minor nation.

Love the idea. My backwards computer could never process it unfortunately.

What about this? EVERY city has a chance of becoming an INDEPENDENT city-state if the ruling civ doesn't maintain their control well enough. These cities would break away from the empire and have a neutral (grey) culture border, but any independent city-states would also be independent from each other. In the beginning, leaders must keep their grip on cities with military force and happiness, and maybe a visit by the actual king helps keep a city in line. As technologies come around, they actually make keeping an empire together easier. So an ancient leader has to work his butt off to keep a large empire together, and there would be lots of revolts and such. Any technology that speeded up communication or control over cities would extend the effective 'control range' of a leader or empire.
I also like the idea of barbarians spawning their own towns.

Also, what if your cities sometimes spawned 'rogue' or 'independent' settlers on their own, outside of the build cue? Things like a large population, high taxes, famine, or just nearby open land could initiate it. You have no control over them, and they go settle and form an independent city. They would have very close culture ties, and if you attacked ths settler or new city it would cause unhappiness in your civ. But you could try to culture flip them, which might work, depending on the people's general attitude towards you. Maybe if it's already good they just decide to join your civ immediately.
I would also like to see the option of communication with individual cities: in a situation like this, you could meet with the city leader(s) and either offer them a deal to join; OR set up a trading relationship; OR offer them protection for a fee (remain independent and protected for a price) In which case you could not control production but coul move units in and out; OR threaten them if they don't do one of the above.
The reasons I like these concepts: A. Throughout most of ancient and middle history, much of the world was popiulated by cities that were NOT part of some tightly unified nation or empire, unlike in Civ. B. It would make the game FAR more interesting.

In addition, I would like to see barbarians able to take (and develop to some extent) cities, somewhat similar to Civ2.

The current system allow a barbarian SoD to take 1/nth of my treasury for each unit that it sacrifices in the one city it has conquered. That makes about as much sense as citizens being happy while being starved to death, just because I made them all tax collectors.