Active Senate

I was wondering, is there any interest in adding an Active Senate feature like in other mods or in Civ3 for example? I mean, when you declare war, you might be overruled by the senate if you're using Senate as a civic; or you might be forced to sign peace. It looks a pretty easy addition. Opinions?

How would it work exactly?

Noyyau said:

How would it work exactly?

Click to expand...

If you're running senate, there's a check to evaluate reasons to trigger a war and its odds. If you're declaring war without a reason (i.e. no negative modifiers for examples or no bad actions from your enemy) or if there are no border or religious tensions, chances are that the Senate forbids the war. Or if you're losing a war, the Senate may force you to make peace. Kind of the logic AI uses when declaring war or signing peace. Of course it would be partially random anyway. Since this would potentially be a big limitation for Senate, we could beef it up a bit to make it more interesting.

Hmm what about Republic and Democracy then? Should these civics also cause a check for war declarations? Maybe Federation too?

And how should we treat combinations like Despotism/Senate or Monarchy/Senate?

Noyyau said:

Hmm what about Republic and Democracy then? Should these civics also cause a check for war declarations? Maybe Federation too?

And how should we treat combinations like Despotism/Senate or Monarchy/Senate?

Click to expand...

That might look like a problem with our current civic system. In theory, overruling applies when Senate is active regardless of other civics. I don't see a problem with Monarchy/Senate: this combo is like a UK monarchy and I think overruling fits perfectly. It's a bit harder to apply it to Despotism/Senate but I could add a tag for Despotism to remove Senate overruling.
Just brainstorming at the moment anyway, although I like the idea.

Ooooh! I love the idea!

Let me explain how I imagine it:


When you try to declare war and the Senate disagrees you get 3 options to choose from:

• Accept their will: not much to explain.
• Enforce your will: Choosing so you can go to war anyway, but you will be punished (see bellow). Some turns later you would be asked again to stop this war, if you stick to your will, the penalties will get higher.
• Bribe senate: Depending on your empire's size you pay some gold to pass the declaration. Maybe 10/total city size?

Some new xml tags would be needed to reflect the affects in different civics:

• iSenateUnhappy Every time you decide to enforce your will, you get this amount of unhappiness in all your cities as long as you continue the war. Cumulative, so enforcing it 3 times means 3 times bigger penalty.
• iSenateWarWeariness Works same as above but works with War Weariness.
• iSenateRev Every time you choose to enforce your will or bribe the senate, you get a rev.index penalty.
• bSenateStrike Every time choosing to enforce your will makes all your cities to strike for 1 turn.

Now combine it with Government civics:

• Despotism: Low values for iSenateWarWeariness and iSenateRev, and 0 for iSenateUnhappy, so you can easily enforce your will.
• Monarchy: The values are a bit higher than in Despotism, but it is still possible.
• Chiefdom: The values are pretty high.
• Republic: You can only choose between accepting or bribing the senate. iSenateRev would be a higher value.
• Democracy: High penalties for enforcing your will and would also cause your cities to strike for 1 turn.
• Federation: about the same as democracy.

Do you think it is doable? Would that work?

Note: In my Civic Reforms module Federation is no longer in the Government category, so please make it possible to change the senate effects in the xml files.
I also think is should be optional (either game start or bug option).

Sogroon said:

Ooooh! I love the idea!

Let me explain how I imagine it:


When you try to declare war and the Senate disagrees you get 3 options to choose from:

• Accept their will: not much to explain.
• Enforce your will: Choosing so you can go to war anyway, but you will be punished (see bellow). Some turns later you would be asked again to stop this war, if you stick to your will, the penalties will get higher.
• Bribe senate: Depending on your empire's size you pay some gold to pass the declaration. Maybe 10/total city size?

Some new xml tags would be needed to reflect the affects in different civics:

• iSenateUnhappy Every time you decide to enforce your will, you get this amount of unhappiness in all your cities as long as you continue the war. Cumulative, so enforcing it 3 times means 3 times bigger penalty.
• iSenateWarWeariness Works same as above but works with War Weariness.
• iSenateRev Every time you choose to enforce your will or bribe the senate, you get a rev.index penalty.
• bSenateStrike Every time choosing to enforce your will makes all your cities to strike for 1 turn.

Now combine it with Government civics:

• Despotism: Low values for iSenateWarWeariness and iSenateRev, and 0 for iSenateUnhappy, so you can easily enforce your will.
• Monarchy: The values are a bit higher than in Despotism, but it is still possible.
• Chiefdom: The values are pretty high.
• Republic: You can only choose between accepting or bribing the senate. iSenateRev would be a higher value.
• Democracy: High penalties for enforcing your will and would also cause your cities to strike for 1 turn.
• Federation: about the same as democracy.

Do you think it is doable? Would that work?

Note: In my Civic Reforms module Federation is no longer in the Government category, so please make it possible to change the senate effects in the xml files.
I also think is should be optional (either game start or bug option).

Click to expand...

Ok, let's keep it simple for now: I can add active senate forbidding you to go to war and adding an "over-overruling" tag for despotism. But for the kind of changes you're proposing, although not so difficult on their own, there's another problem coming out: coding AI behaviour to let AI know when to accept/defy/bribe. And that's much more complicated. I think I'll start adding the code when I have time and we'll see. Is there anyone strongly opposing this change for any reason?

Edit: maybe Virtual should also have same behaviour as Senate?

45°38'N-13°47'E;14170238 said:

Just brainstorming at the moment anyway, although I like the idea.

Click to expand...

Me too

45°38'N-13°47'E;14172002 said:

Edit: maybe Virtual should also have same behaviour as Senate?

Click to expand...

Yes.

I think this idea will be pretty cool, but I'm still scarred from my democracy opposing my utter conquest of the world in Civ II.

I remember Civ II, if you choose the right war, the senate will back you to the hilt..War on my despotic emperor.

I was thinking about limiting it only to Senate is not a very good idea, since you may avoid this feature in the entire game.

I think these civics should involve voting:

Government

• Republic
• Democracy
• Federal

Power

• Patrician?
• Senate
• Virtual

Society

• Liberal
• Communalism

And these should over-rule voting:

Government

• Despotism

Power

• Junta
• Single Party

Religion

• Divine Rule
• Personality Cult

I think this way players would have lot of opportunities to face war-votes but also enough options to negate it. "Oppressive" civics would be more useful.

Love the idea.

45°38'N-13°47'E;14172002 said:

Is there anyone strongly opposing this change for any reason?

Click to expand...

Me! ;D
Not just so, by a reason. I recently was playing this mod, finished few games in late transhuman era. I really like it. Going to play again a little later, so the future of this mod is not indifferent for me.

1. So, at first place it is negative event obvious. You need to expand, and you get unhappiness in all cities instead. Maybe it should be balanced then with a chance of some positive event, while running Senate? Otherwise we can say that Senate gets nerfed. Not so powerful civic to nerf it though.

2. In this mod (the thing I noticed and really like it) AI actually able to create an empire. Normally they need a time for it, but in the end they really gets strong and challenging (without revolutions).
And this change, possibly, will slow down their expansion, making the world more static. Static world with many weak civs is boring ofcourse.

3. It's just not cool. And not cool changes, obvious, does not make cool mod better. ;d


And, yeah, bribe senate are you serious? Is it Senate or bunch of corrumped bureaucrats? ;D
Anyways, if you able to just throw money into the event, then it's just pointless. Just another event which will pass unnoticed.

1. So, at first place it is negative event obvious. You need to expand, and you get unhappiness in all cities instead. Maybe it should be balanced then with a chance of some positive event, while running Senate? Otherwise we can say that Senate gets nerfed. Not so powerful civic to nerf it though.

Click to expand...

Well, maybe you should get a temporary bonus.

Is it Senate or bunch of corrumped bureaucrats? ;D

Click to expand...

What's the difference
We're talking about politics

Sogroon said:

Well, maybe you should get a temporary bonus.

Click to expand...

Probably yes, but, really, only if all those "Stop the war" will be restricted to senate only.
Because, you see, war is very important element of this mod, a lot of different units with a lot of promotion and different use. Even average city, even on marathon speed, able to produce 1unit a turn, and with multiple production sometimes few units.
Everything is made for a good war, not really understand why war should be restricted at all, honestly.
If you are really going to introduce this change into mod, maybe then it should be something without serious consequence?

Average event of average significance, something like:

1. Agree to stop the war (well, maybe if agree then it generate temporal happiness or something like this).

2. Disagree (generates unhappiness, but not many, maybe 1? ;D, and without additional demands from senate to stop the war in a future).

3. Bribe. Grade importance of the event to zero.

Something without significant impact on game.

But if you will ask me personally, I don't see a reason why it should be in game at all.
Besides, what if your friendly-good-relations-no bad-actions-brother on faith neighbor has more military than you do and running Imperium?