Ideas for Terrorism

[RobertHMayfire]

Terrorism is now and forever to be a big part of modern history. Some of my ideas may sound good or bad. Some may hit too close to home to be usable for a Civ game. But, I figured I just throw out some ideas and get some input.

My version of terrorism is a the modern barbarian. But they don't just randomly attack the closest Civization. Terrorists in the real world target things that will bring out the biggest emotional effect upon the world population. That is was in real life Terrorist target Americans more. Not because of our ideas or beliefs. But because we are the biggest man on the block. Make America feel the sting of a punch and everyone will take notice.

So as part of my idea all terrorist units attack the current high powered civilization based on what victory presets that are chosen. Also anyone with special alliances will be targeted as well. So if you have a Right of Passage with Rome and terrorist keep hitting them and you have been doing a poor job on the war against terror Rome might break the aggrement with you. For bringing a serious problem onton Roman soil.

Terrorist units in my idea will target your units and cities. When they attack units they will cause damage to the units or even destroy them. Terrorist units that attack or are attacked and start to lose the battle can break away from combat. Terroist units that are seriously damage can become suicide units. Were they attack and destroy themselves dealing high damage or death to the target unit. Terrorist units attack citties will either destroy a city improvement or kill some of the city population.

Terrorist Units have two advantages. One they have a higher movement rate than regular human units. Two then cannot beseen unless adjactent to a unit or city you control. One way to combat this is to build the minor wonder Homeland Security. Which will make all terrorist units visable within your country's boarders. Also Special Forces Units that can be created after Homeland is built can see Terrorist Units within 3 squares and can move as fast as the terrorist.

One way Terrorist units are spawned is from a Terrorist stronghold. Different from barbarian strongholds they also create Terrorist Leaders. Terrorist Leaders are different since they don't attack anything. They just run around and create new Terrorist Strongholds.

(Optional idea)

Taking the idea of Minor Civilization from the Big Vision. Terroist that attack continueously on a minor civilization can make it turn rogue. A rogue civilization servers all alliances and treaties with other nations and makes terrorist units from its cities. These strongholds are tougher to conquer and can make advanced Terrorist Units. Even the ultimate terrorist. The Nuclear Terrorist.

Well that's my idea. Good or bad I just wanted to get it out into the open. You may judge it kindly or harshly. I won't care.

[Colonel]

1. Good idea but need one bit of modifing, a terrorist would attack the strongest civ in the area. so say you have five civs on one contient it would attack top civ in that area, but terrorists on another contient would attack the top one civ over there, this is to prevent over powering terrorist which knock out the head civ.

2. Perfect, also combined with the minor alteration from one.

3.Perfect

4.Everything good except the "Homeland Security" thing, a better thing would be to have an intelligence slider type thing which you could move up or down, you would get two sliders one for Homeland, and the other for internationial, each slider would put money toward locateing terrorist, you would be able to put so much money toward it, also putting it to 100% on both would not ensure you see every terrorist just most.

5.Perfect

6.Great but another little alteration, A minor civ would not turn rogue if it were under the sphere of infulence of a strong major civ. This is to prevent an example like if in the real world mexico going rogue and trying to blow up america or something which could never happen, but a syria, or Lebanon could happen.

My own ideas,

Embassy bombing could happen in capitals but only against the top two major civs in the game and their allies.

Covert funding of rogue nations by major civs, so you could get a Russia funding Syria.

Minor wonders should be potential targets, aswell as capitals\palaces.

Lastly, createing and funding you own little terrorist group(s), you would create say a minor wonder called Terrorist's Camp(Example) and fund attacks against another civ-any civ major or minor.

My Thought.

[Mewtarthio]

Terrorists are not military. They are completely different. If it were a matter of well-hidden soldiers attacking our military, the War on Terror would be over by now. Terrorists fight using, as the name implies, fear. We aren't worried that al-Qaeda will rush out of Mexico, invade Texas, and build a massive army to attack Washington, DC. We aren't even worried that they'll blow up enough of our troops to leave our Iraq army decimated and weak. There's not a particular country that has a Terrorist government and houses the Terrorist HQ.
We are worried that one lone terrorist will show up in front of the White House and blow himself and the president up. We are worried that a big bomb will irradiate Los Angeles so much that it will become uninhabitable. We are worried that New York will suddenly have an outbreak of smallpox. We aren't trying to fend off terrorist "units" invading us; we're crossing our fingers and praying that one terrorist guy doesn't sneak in and wipe us out.

[CurtSibling]

And in civ terms, the terror fear will be felt by the citizens as they become unhappy!

[sir_schwick]

Also, terrorism of various kinds has existed since the very first civilzations. However most of it has been committed on populations by their own governments. In the case of government sponsored oppression, it has been somewhat effective in the short-term for solving problems. History has taught us that terrorism is an ineffective and losing tactic.

Like most other ideological opponents, Terorrism has been a useful way to simplify the overwhelmingly complex issues involved with nation building, energy markets, geopolitical development, globalization, and a few other complex fields. As in the Cold War, it would be impossible for any one person to understand everything that went behind US and USSR policy. For most people it was easy and accurate enough to define the Cold War as purely Communists vs. Democratists. Of course ideology did have a big part, but so did other factors.

Being able to sponsor terrorists(overtly or covertly) to create temporary(5 turns) of localized unhappiness might be useful. But this puts on emphasis and strategic value on terrorism that is not realistic.

[dh_epic]

State Sponsored Terrorism

For state sponsored terrorism (which is rarely called that -- it's usually called an attack, a bombing, and so on) ... the issue is really just improving the espionage system.

Non-State or Anti-State Terrorism

As for modelling the way that real terrorists behave -- violent extremists who seek to manipulate political events using fear of violence, rather than using violence as an ends in itself -- it's certainly more complicated than a few units. Again, terrorists are not trying to take cities so much as threaten a nation with something so devestating that they'll change course.

There are many different kinds of terrorists, which come back to the motives.

The Israeli suicide bombers who wanted control of the holy land, and the Palestinean suicide bombers who want it back.

Ecoterrorists, who want to get the government to change their stance on animal treatment, energy policy, and so on -- often with the belief that human civilization is headed for disaster.

Neoluddite terrorists, who believe that everything from modern medicine to computers is leading us down a slippery slope towards a "Brave New World", and the only answer is to retreat to a life without technology.

Anarchists, who believe all power is bad, and will bomb their latest target.

Anti-choice terrorists, who have killed judges and doctors because they believe that abortion is the death of a person, rather than mere cells.

... and those are just in the modern age.

The Problem with "Terrorism"

The most telling example are the anti-choice terrorists. They compare killing a doctor with a role in family planning with killing the commander of a Nazi death camp.

In other words, terrorism is highly subjective.

Are they freedom fighters or barbarians? Are they liberators or psychopaths? Are they concerned citizens or subhuman?

What We Really Need

If state sponsored terrorism is really just a more advanced espionage system -- where you can blow up city improvements and poison the water supply...

Then non-state terror is really a model of factions: something I've never been able to articulate very well for Civilization, so I've always dodged it. But I know that Aussie Lurker has had some good ideas about how factions would work. These factions would make demands on your empire. And part of keeping your ship afloat would involve keeping these factions from rocking it too hard! And in extreme cases, if marginalized enough, yes, there could be extremists in these factions who take part in "terrorist" acts.