What ethnicities can do

I will talk of two things in this post: ethnicities (obviously) and "the dark side".

Ethnicities were a big part of citizen management in Civ3, where the "stop the war against our motherland" unhappiness could cause serious headaches. In Civ4 they merged the concept with culture, allowing you to win over citizens by means of cultural assimilation, thereby removing one of history's most horrific "solutions": ethnic cleansing. Ever starved that city down in Civ3 to refill it with your own citizens? Yep, that was plain genocide. In Civ5 ethnicities are missing alltogether, along with slavery, portraying history even more as something glorious and romantic. Which is the pull for most of us I presume, yet the dark side should not be brushed over.

So what could foreign ethnicities do?
+ Increase the output of their city (slightly), e.g. as part of a building bonus: amphitheater, market, university, Statue of Liberty. Only applies to cities with a sizable population of immigrants. In case of an acquired city this excludes both original inhabitants and your own ethnicity.
+ Increase the odds of earning their motherland a vote in UN elections.
- Complain if you are at war with their motherland, as in previous civ games. No easy solution like plopping down a courthouse.
- Complain (less) if you do nothing to aid their motherland (denounce or join the war) in a conflict.

How to get them?
+ Immigration. There is already a mod for this. I see it in terms of push factors (unhappiness, starvation) and pull factors (gold output, jobs: e.g. factories).
- War, of course. Either through conquest or as refugees.

How to get rid of them?
+ Assimilation: through culture. Slow and unsure process.
+ Expel: send them back to their homeland. Should have restrictions, e.g. it is a neighbour you have open borders with and it can comfortably feed them.
- Pogroms: hunt them down. Not good for diplomacy (scales with era). Welcome to the dark side.
- Genocide: you have done this plenty of times already. I believe the option is named "burn baby, burn!" in Civ5. Should obviously have a diplomatic penalty as well.

Finally, I see ethnicities as an important asset for any revolution/civil war mod! Someone has started on that already too.

Please discuss if you feel an urge

Excellent. I wanted to make an expansion for this and many other topics, called Civilization V: Geopolitics, which would add a whole new depth of immersion and realism to the game while at the same time making it complex and fun, rather than monotonous and ICS. Here is a link to the now-dead thread.

On the subject, I'll make Foreign Trade Routes to be a (minor) factor in cultural exchange when I'll start to work again on my Cultural Diffusion/Revolution Modcomps.

There should be a more efficient way to commit genocide in your own cities other than starving...

3335d said:

Excellent. I wanted to make an expansion for this and many other topics, called Civilization V: Geopolitics, which would add a whole new depth of immersion and realism to the game while at the same time making it complex and fun, rather than monotonous and ICS. Here is a link to the now-dead thread.

Click to expand...

Peeerfect!

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Stupid truth always resisting simplicity.
-John Green

Would religion be a part of this too?
Say that the Swedes are mostly Buddhist in a game, but a percentage are Zoroastrian. Suddenly the Swedish government decide to send an Inquistor to the Zoroastrian populace, giving them a push factor to flee the country.
Would that mean that the emmigrating Swedes bring their religion with them to a new country, thus lowering the Zoroastrian percentage of the old country?

I think ethnicities could play an interesting role in the game. With mostly happiness/production bonuses.

What if your Ethnic bonus could be picked at the beginning of the game when you found your capital? That seems in line with the new religion system and the slight customization.

I remember the war weariness factor from Civ 3 making a lot of sense. I do wish they brought back the 'garrisoned happiness' where if you pick Autocracy / Order / Honor trees you could get that effect. An lose it with the Freedom tree. Call it a Police Powers promotion

Also, som leader AIs, Bismarck comes to mind, could place greater weight on that all people of their own ancestry, in this case German, should live within Germany.
This ethnicity, of course would, not have the same definition as in the real world, where Austrians would be considered Germans, as might the Dutch, if you twist it a little, and the Anglos and the Scandinavians, if you twist it a bit more. For the sake of a functioning gameplay, every ethnicity should be completely seperate.

Ethnicity could also make a Canadian Civ more viable. You should visit Toronto sometime...
If there was ethnicity, I suppose they would play play a role in the Freedom and Autocracy policies, something like "cities with only native ethnicity produce military units 25% faster" for Autocracy, and maybe something like " citizens of foreign ethnicity produce 30% less unhappiness. +1 happiness from each foreign religion in a city." for Freedom or something.
________________________________
Stupid truth always resisting simplicity.
-John Green

First of all I'm not a proponent of a "unique ethnic bonus" system, that's more or less what UA's are for. Ethnic dynamics will play a side role anyway, so a bonus propagation mechanic seems overkill. Also, what would make it that much different from religion? A parallel system like happiness/health in Civ4 is not so interesting imho.

You guys have good points about religion and culture; in a way these are actually parallel. I'd say they should all be factors in common mechanics, e.g. emigration, rather than all have effects of their own in more than one area. I like most of the streamlining Civ5: cause and effect should not be too complicated (i.e. big formulas), with decisions having clear consequences and direct solutions available. Only in the respect of citizen management I feel they were overzealous.

Another real life example of the influence of religion are the low countries (Netherlands, Belgium & Luxemburg). The Netherlands are mostly Calvinist, whereas Belgians are Catholics. Before the Dutch independence there was no such geographic separation. Afterwards the Dutch and Belgians (Flemish) grew apart culturally as well. Though we are still more similar to each other than to any other ethnicity. So I advocate against overrepresentation. As Kimuyama says, each starting nation = one ethnicity. No new ones are created during the game.

In short: keep ethnicity, culture and religion separate and simple. If a "population point" moves, it picks its target based (also) on religion, but takes only its ethnicity along. Afterwards, culture can "assimilate" an ethnicity, e.g. "we feel American rather than Irish". I like the ideas for foreign ethnicity bonuses and maluses made; very clean and in line with Civ5 design.

Thanks for your time

City states should be considered ethnicities too. Thier bonus could just be based on city state type. (A cultural city state provides culture, a religous provides faith, etc.)