A Suggestion or Two

Dead Flag

Warlord
Joined
Oct 22, 2007
Messages
130
I'm a big fan of the Revolution mod. At the moment, however, I personally feel there are some things that could be improved. For example, several times now I've defected to lead a revolution and take over a revolting city. The only problem is the city doesn't stop revolting, and soon enough it'll go back into open rebellion and spawn another rebel civ. And when they take over the city, the revolt still doesn't stop, and eventually another rebel civ spawns. What I'd like to see is a sort of 'honeymoon period' after a recent revolution, during which there is no unhappiness or discontent. That would give the rebel civ a chance to get on its feet before attempting to fix the problems.

My second suggestion is more radical. I'd like to see the discovery of new systems stirring up revolutions across the globe. What I mean by that is, depending upon game length, for 50 turns or so after a civic-granting technology is discovered, revolutions become much more likely, and during that time almost all the revolutionaries adopt the new civic.

I'd also like to see a new civ introduced, the USSR, which will spawn some time after Communism is discovered as a major and powerful rebellion in the civ with the highest amount of unrest. Whoever researches Communism first gets the opportunity to take control of the new civ. The USSR gets the Red Army instead of Infantry, which are a couple of points or so stronger. It starts off with diplomatic penalties with any civilization running free market, hereditary rule or theocracy, and it can choose to control any revolution that occurs from then on, at the cost of a significant diplomatic penalty with the host civ. Its leaders should have strong preferences for relevant civics.
 
I will just join in here and make one or two remarks on the game itself.

first off, of course, very nice effort. it plays nicely, has a lot more dynamics and feels closer to the real world now that civs have to deal with internal problems too.

now to my first and biggest issue: I think you make it too hard to get out of revolution again. basically, it means that once you are close there or even have an actual rebellion on your hands, its almost over, because it takes a lot of energy to qualm it and even it you are successful, you will probably have the same thing over and over again. maybe the negatives shouldnt add up so much, such as "refused to grant our request", "rebellious spirit", then in consquence sometimes "unhappiness". those affect both revolution rating AND unhappiness which of course limits your ability to actually do anything about it. I could go on a bit more, but at least my impression in some games was that once you had one rebellion you would have a lot more for the rest of the game.

well, the second thing is somewhat linked to this one: I feel like rebellions are a bit too often. its just my personal taste that it should be a rarer event that shouldnt happen all the time. maybe give some negative effect in between, I think the temporary "disorder" (you know, like the one you get upon conquering a city) is fine, but please, disruption for a few turns is enough, it shouldnt also contribute to rev rating. so, I would be for upping the rev. limits a bit across the line.

if thats possible, I would recommend adding the rev, effects into civics description in the civics menu. you know, like "representation - + 3 :science: per specialist, + 3 :) for largest cities, medium positive revolution rating". makes things a bit easier to decide, especially for newcomers.

lastly, and this is just a maybe, include some alternative to the early civics that give revolution malus, like despotism. give them an option to do something else, for a price. its much cooler to play when you have a choice to make and when you have in fact a few ways of influencing a situaiton to your benefit.
 
@jdog: The above post has given me an idea I'd like to implement. I'd like to make it so that if a city spawns military units in a revolution, it's revscore drops by 1000. This would help immensely with the accumulation effect of multiple revolutions (If you go into debug mode it's not too uncomon to see cities with 2500+ rev scores, that's just a hole too deep to crawl out of, that city is going to be revolting for the rest of the game--The only way to deal with it is to allow the rebels to take the city, and then capture it back--pretty antiintuitive). Is this doable in Python? If so what file? I've only done some simple python coding (changed the citydistance modifier calculations) so I'm not really sure how to go about making this change, any advice would be apreciated.
 
@jdog: The above post has given me an idea I'd like to implement. I'd like to make it so that if a city spawns military units in a revolution, it's revscore drops by 1000. This would help immensely with the accumulation effect of multiple revolutions (If you go into debug mode it's not too uncomon to see cities with 2500+ rev scores, that's just a hole too deep to crawl out of, that city is going to be revolting for the rest of the game--The only way to deal with it is to allow the rebels to take the city, and then capture it back--pretty antiintuitive). Is this doable in Python? If so what file? I've only done some simple python coding (changed the citydistance modifier calculations) so I'm not really sure how to go about making this change, any advice would be apreciated.

sounds like a good solution. how much is 1.000 points circa?

sry, I would help with the stuff, but I am a total noob in modding, I'm just good for throwing out ideas.
 
I think the first post brings up an interesting point. Older civics should be great civics for a ruler, who doesn't want to loosen his grip of power. The people should be the ones clamoring for the new civics, not the government itself. The new civics would be less favorable to the ruler but more favorable to the people, but the player should (under most circumstances) NOT want to give up the old ways, it should only be the threat of revolution or a revolt itself that makes the player/AI change.
 
I agree that civic shifts should be a large factor in revolutions. This also creates an opportunity to have civic choices effect diplomacy and create new blocs bases on civic choice. For example Free Market vs State Property, Monarchy/Despotism Vs Representation, and Theocracy vs Free Religion.
 
I'd really like to try to implement the 1000 point reduction from an armed insurection, but I don't even know where to start. What file would I put this function in? Off the top of my head I'm thinking revolutions.py in the gameready folder. But How would I even start the function. What would get the computer to ask if there was an armed uprising that had just spawned that turn, and define it as being spawning from that city?

I think writing something as simple as:
Code:
def getpCitylocationRevIdx
 if pCity#Has an armed uprising happened this turn in pCity#
  locationRevIdx = locationRevIdx - 1000
 else
  return = -1
At least that seems like it would work. But I need to know how to code #Has an armed uprising happened this turn in pCity# Before I can even begin to try it. I'll post this in the Python help forum, but since this is your code jdog, I'm thinking you'd have a better grasp then anyone else on what might or might not work. At least I'm hoping, hehe.
 
Hello there, I also really liked this mod, though I have just started playing it a couple of days ago. Well, in fact, I'm playing it merged with another mod pack, so I'm not really sure if it is the most recent version, but anyways... I think Dead Flag gave great suggestions to improve the mod. I just think that revolutions are happening quite too often in my game, and I ended up having to focus a lot more time on keeping my cities away from trouble than actually trying to win the game. I don't know, I just think that the revolutions were happening too easily, I mean, the city couldn't stay a bit unhappy for a couple turns that it already wanted to emancipate. Well, I think it would be more realistic for them to have a tighter tolerance. I mean, sometimes we're not really happy with our government, but it doesn't mean we'll go around breaking everything and want to separate from the rest of our countries because of it.

Other aspect that I think that could be well explored by this mod, like you guys are discussing, is other kinds of revolutions, not necessarily associated with emancipation. Most revolts are about changing the aspects of the government, and I mean, I think the game could end up in a civil war that is not seeking independence, but change of the player's ways. Of course citizens would stay quiet for some time after getting beat up by the military, but they surely wouldn't be conformed about the situation. Well, this is where the interval Dead Flag commented should come in. Well, the player should have the option to govern through fear and oppression or to listen to his population. In my opinion they should only try to seek for independence if the situation is REALLY bad. Of course this doesn't apply to cities which hold different cultures and customs from the rest of your empire, and this mod already represents this aspect really well. But let's remember that religion, culture, and other aspects are a bond to the various parts of an empire. Having a big city with large influence will most likely form some sort of dependence from the smaller cities to the big one, I think it would be less likely for them to seek for independence in such situations, for example. I'm not sure on how this could be included in the mod though.

Other nice aspect, but perhaps hard to implement, is the influence of other cultures and civilizations. Just think on how many other revolts didn't the French Revolution influence? I think that revolts from other civilizations which yours has close contact with (be it by religion, trade, or even cultural borders) should influence your population by increasing its odds of revolting if their situation isn't pleasant. Again, using the French Revolution as an example, just think on how many empires were worried about the impact such a revolution would have on their people, and how they supported Louis XVI and tried to stop the revolution. Also, if a civilization is capable of maintaining its population happy by using a specific civic, your unhappy citizens could think that such civic would make them happier too! The possibilities are uncountable.

Now, something really nice would be random events that could cause revolutions. A decision of the sovereign that unsatisfies the population, or a moment of political/economical crisis would be perfect to trigger a revolution. A corruption scandal perhaps could make the population think again on your government civics, or a economic crisis like the one with liberalism that happened on 1929 could make your citizens seek for a more involving intervention of the state in the economy, as of the totalitarian governments, or even socialism.

Well, I'm not really expecting to see these ideas implemented, I was just imagining something that would - for me - make the game more involving and realistic. Either way, it is a fabulous mod, you've already done a great job so far, keep up the good work! Whatever comes next, I'm sure it'll be good.
 
Top Bottom