[Suggestion] Stability System to refine mechanisms and add depth

Blasphemous

Blasphemous

Graulich
Joined
Feb 23, 2002
Messages
3,079
Location
Jerusalem, Israel
I've mentioned this idea before but I have now worked on it more extensively and this post is the result.

The Problem:
The problem that spawned this idea is the inconsistency and unfairness in two really cool scripted mechanisms that make this mod what it is: collapse and revolutions. Basically these two very related mechanisms work very differently, and more importantly revolutions are unfairly random and almost unavoidable in many cases. They cause a lot of damage and not really as a result of bad management. This is not realistic and most importantly, unfun.

The Solution (abstract):
The basic idea is that each civ now has a Stability rating. The game stores the numbers invisibly and displays nicknamed levels, just like diplo relationships in the vanilla game. Many many different factors alter your Stability, making this rating reflect a lot about the way you play. Maintaining high Stability means you will not collapse and it will be harder for revolutions to grab your cities. Losing your Stability is a very quick path to death. Stability can be achieved in diametrically opposed ways, as long as you pay attention to it and maintain balance. The system will be designed so that what the AI does by default will usually make the AI relatively stable (but just like in real history, sometimes the AI will screw up and fall.) The Stability system will not actually force any play style, only make you need to account for your actions. Generally, Civics that are made for war maintain high Stability, but wars endanger your stability (especially when you fail to protect your cities.) Generally, Civics that are good in peacetime aren't as awesome for Stability, but typical peacetime activity is very good for your Stability. If you go into a war with Universal Suffrage and Free Speech you are in for some turmoil. These effects are complementary to existing game mechanisms.

What Makes it Better:
My solution to this problem sounds very complicated. It is. But it is more than a solution - it's a new feature that will add a lot of missing depth, imho.

In real international politics a lot of what is done is about stabilizing or destabilizing other nations as suits you. A Stability system that tells the player how stable her enemies are will allow a much more interesting game experience (especially in the somewhat lackluster late game) though nobody will be forced to play this way. Again, the AI will deal with it well (or at least realistically) because the way the system is designed works with default AI behavior.

The Crunch (or, How This is Done)
Spoiler The Crunch. The Long, Long Crunch. You don't have to read this. :

Each civ has a stability rating between -100.0 and +100.0. Every range of ratings has a Stability Level, or nickname, which will be displayed to players. Whenever you go from one level into another, the game will tell you (the same way it tell you when you switch Civics). Rivals' Stability will be displayed on the scoreboard.

There are two things that are "constant" Stability factors, and the rest is events that will make your Stability fluctuate. Fluctuation always remains within the range of +/-100 because the system will not allow anything outside that range.

The first constant factor is your Civics. The effects of Civics are expressed on the Civics screen with a nickname ("Stable", "Affords fragile stability", etc.). Every Civic has a Stability effect of -5 to +20, and every Civic dictates a minimum stability. This way some Civics make it harder to go so far into destabilization that you can't get out. The Civic with the highest minimum Stability rating is the only one that counts for that civ. The highest possible minimum is -20. With such a high minimum you still have a chance to save yourself when you hit rock bottom.

The other constant factor is the diplo deals you have going on. For every thing you are currently getting from another civ (treaties, resources, or gpt), you get +1 Stability. This is extremely important because it makes trade super-important again (in a way that has not been so clear since RoX) and moreover, it makes trade embargoes a potent weapon of destabilization, as they are in real life.

The way your rating affects you is simple. Collapse checks and revolution checks stay as they were, except the only thing they check for is your stability. When a collapse check takes place on a civ, if stability is negative that civ collapses. When a revolution check takes place, you take the number of cities that would leave you in the revolution (N), and compare with your Stability rating (S). The basic equation is that IF 10*N is not greater than S, THEN you don't lose any cities to the revolution. This is done separately for each civ controlling the dead civ's lands, so you can have a revolution take place partially.
The specific situation in the cities that will revolt should be taken into account. Add to the basic number, 10N, 5 for each city starving among the revolting civ's cities (5Xs), another 5 for each city unhappy (5Xu), and another 10 for each city in revolt/unrest (10Xr). One city can be counted as many times as necessary. For every city in WLTKD, subtract 10 (10Xw). So the final equation is: IF 10N+5Xs+5Xu+10Xr-10Xw>S THEN you lose the cities.

Now, what affects Stability, and how?
Here's what I have:
CIVICS
Name: effect/minimum "Nickname" (the five Civics for max stability are marked with an asterisk)
(Any Starting Civic): +1/-100 "Unstable"
-
Hereditary Rule: +15/-50 "Very Stable"
Representation: +10/-80 "Stable"
Police State: +20/-10 "Extremely Stable"*
Universal Suffrage: +3/-90 "Affords fragile stability"
-
Vassalage: +10/-40 "Stable"
Bureaucracy: +15/-80 "Stable"
Nationhood: +20/-30 "Extremely Stable"*
Free Speech: -5/-50 "Unstable"
-
Slavery: -2/-60 "Unstable"
Serfdom: +2/-50 "Barely Stable"
Caste System: +10/-50 "Stable"
Emancipation: +20/-80 "Very Stable"*
-
Mercantilism: +5/-90 "Barely Stable"
Free Market: +5/-70 "Barely Stable"
State Property: +20/-30 "Extremely Stable"*
Environmentalism: +10/-80 "Stable"
-
Organized Religion: +10/-40 "Stable"
Theocracy: +5/-30 "Stable"
Pacifism: +20/-70 "Very Stable"*
Free Religion: -2/-40 "Slightly Unstable"

I decided on many of these arbitrarily. It took a long time, but I think I have a good mix of gameplay and historical-realistic considerations behind these. I'd be glad to discuss any decision I made here, but it would take a while to actually write out in advance what was behind each and every choice. And some decision were synergistic - sometimes I decided on a few Civics at once so they would work together or oppose each other in some way.
You may note these effects will make it so generally the late game is more stable than the early game. This is good for gameplay because it allows more civs to die early on and it somewhat minimizes the chance of losing a huge empire after hundreds of years and right before you win.

And now the list of events. I have generally aimed to make wars slightly destabilizing by nature, and extremely destabilizing when you're losing them. This will allow us to retain the effect that being conquered makes you collapse. Building units adds stability because you lose that stability and more if you lose the units, so you only actually gain from building military units if you play peacefully (or very successfully), on the long run. You also gain stability for a while when you build up for war, but if that war goes badly you lose a lot more than you gained. Take a look at the Nazi Era and World War II with Germany as a case study. Please take into account that many of these values are intended to work together - losing a city hurts, but regaining a city you founded yourself will make up for it and a bit more. Building peaceful units gets you some stability, but losing them is a bigger blow than that (so you should guard them well, duh). Getting a war declared on you is destabilizing, but ending a war is far more stabilizing (which will realistically make it sensible to start a stupid war and end it quickly, to gain stability - you lose none for starting a war yourself.) Still, most of what I wrote is highly debatable. I see it all as working together in one big system, but I can defend any decision I made individually.

Event effect note
  • New tech received in any way +2 So stability increases slowly over time and tech trading helps stabilize you
  • You found a new city +4 so a civ starting the game with its spawned settlers will get some base Stability to play with.
  • You get a city by trade +3
  • You gain a city in any way when you have 10 cities or more already -5 this stacks with whatever other effect gaining that city has. This is so large civs have to work hard to stay stable, as in reality. Notice how so many large empires spread fast and then disappeared almost as quickly. This may finally make that happen in-game (instead of those empires being monoliths that nobody can beat.)
  • You relocate your Palace -10
  • You build a secondary palace (Forbidden Palace, Summer Palace) +5 stacks with World Wonder bonus for the World Wonder one
  • You build any of the following: Courthouse, Barracks, Broadcast Tower, Stables, Airport, Bomb Shelter, Castle +2 these are buildings that were used historically to help control the nation. This way you can improve your cities to regain your people's faith.
  • You lose population to starvation -2 per pop lost
  • Production pop-rushed -2 per pop lost
  • Military unit built +1
  • Unit drafted -2
  • Non-military unit trained +0.5
  • Non-military unit lost -1
  • Military with 5 experience or more lost -1.5 losing stability for every field casualty would be too crippling to warmongers. Still, losing elite units is a major no-no.
  • Great General unit killed -5 Losing national heroes can be pretty bad for a war-time government
  • Great General unit wins a battle +0.5 Having news of successful battles fought by the national heroes has never made a government collapse...
  • You lose any unit defending a city -1 stacks with the elite unit hazard. Being invaded can be the end of a nation even if its lands stay intact at first.
  • You lose any battle in your capital's city radius -2 see two previous notes.
  • An enemy spy successfully performs a mission against you -2 to turn spies into a weapon of destabilization, like in reality.
  • An improvement in your territory is pillaged -0.5 so pillaging the countryside is one way to destabilize your enemy.
  • City lost to another full civ -6
  • City lost to barbarians or a Minor Civ -7
  • Lost city razed on conquest -3 additional
  • Capital lost in any way -15 no matter who conquered it and no matter what they did with it
  • City lost to spawning civ -8 to make it as dangerous to lose the cities as to go to war - spawns are a vicious killer of nations
  • City lost to revolution -7 it's less necessary to reduce Stability here because stable nations will not usually lose to revolutions. But the hit has to be there so you can lose a lot of stability fast if you don't watch yourself.
  • An enemy declares war on you -1
  • You declare war on another civ -5 under Pacifism, -0 under other Religion Civics
  • You sign a peace treaty +10
  • A civ at war with you dies +5 to make winning a war one way to stabilize your country anew
  • A war ally of yours dies -7 so it's dangerous when you side starts losing
  • An enemy capitulates to you +2
  • A rival becomes your vassal peacefully +10, +1 per vassal city
  • A vassal breaks away violently -17
  • A vassal breaks away peacefully -10
  • You become someone's vassal in any way +20, an additional +10 if the master state's Stability is above 50
  • You violently stop being a vassal -35 I'm not sure about this, but it seems to me this is traumatic to a sovereignty's control of its people. This way a vassal breaking away has to fight to stay in one piece.
  • You stop being a vassal, peacefully +5
  • You conquer a city you founded +9
  • You raze an enemy city +2 so the side winning a war doesn't collapse as easily.
  • You conquer and occupy an enemy city +3 see note directly above.
  • You build a World Wonder +10
  • You spawn a Great Person +4
  • You change civics -5 per Civic changed
  • State Religion changed -7
  • First SR adopted +10
  • Your SR spreads to a city under your control +2 so spreading the State Religion is a way to create stability, like in reality.
  • A non-state religion spreads to a city of yours +2 under Free Religion, -2 under the other Religion Civics
  • State Religion Temple, Monastery or Cathedral built +3
  • Non-state religious building built +2 under Free Religion, -2 under the other RCs
  • A city riots -5 keeping your cities happy is essential to stability.
  • A city has WLTKD +1 per turn see note directly above.
And finally, the stability level nicknames that I propose:
<-9: Collapsing
(-9)-0: Disintegrating
1-10: Unstable
11-30: Restless
31-50: Stable
51-70: Very Stable
>70: Rock Solid

Feel free to skip the Crunch, but if you comment on it, please take the time to read all of it and consider it carefully. I have invested a great amount of time in putting it together and I intended it to be presented as a whole and not a random mix of ideas.

Civ on!

EDIT: Here is The Crunch as it was originally. The version above is edited whenever I agree with stuff posted in this thread about changes.
Spoiler The Crunch (archive version) :

Each civ has a stability rating between -100.0 and +100.0. Every range of ratings has a Stability Level, or nickname, which will be displayed to players. Whenever you go from one level into another, the game will tell you (the same way it tell you when you switch Civics). Rivals' Stability will be displayed on the scoreboard.

There are two things that are "constant" Stability factors, and the rest is events that will make your Stability fluctuate. Fluctuation always remains within the range of +/-100 because the system will not allow anything outside that range.

The first constant factor is your Civics. The effects of Civics are expressed on the Civics screen with a nickname ("Stable", "Affords fragile stability", etc.). Every Civic has a Stability effect of -5 to +20, and every Civic dictates a minimum stability. This way some Civics make it harder to go so far into destabilization that you can't get out. The Civic with the highest minimum Stability rating is the only one that counts for that civ. The highest possible minimum is -20. With such a high minimum you still have a chance to save yourself when you hit rock bottom.

The other constant factor is the diplo deals you have going on. For every thing you are currently getting from another civ (treaties, resources, or gpt), you get +1 Stability. This is extremely important because it makes trade super-important again (in a way that has not been so clear since RoX) and moreover, it makes trade embargoes a potent weapon of destabilization, as they are in real life.

The way your rating affects you is simple. Collapse checks and revolution checks stay as they were, except the only thing they check for is your stability. When a collapse check takes place on a civ, if stability is negative that civ collapses. When a revolution check takes place, you take the number of cities that would leave you in the revolution (N), and compare with your Stability rating (S). The basic equation is that IF 10*N is not greater than S, THEN you don't lose any cities to the revolution. This is done separately for each civ controlling the dead civ's lands, so you can have a revolution take place partially.
The specific situation in the cities that will revolt should be taken into account. Add to the basic number, 10N, 5 for each city starving among the revolting civ's cities (5Xs), another 5 for each city unhappy (5Xu), and another 10 for each city in revolt/unrest (10Xr). One city can be counted as many times as necessary. For every city in WLTKD, subtract 10 (10Xw). So the final equation is: IF 10N+5Xs+5Xu+10Xr-10Xw>S THEN you lose the cities.

Now, what affects Stability, and how?
Here's what I have:
CIVICS
Name: effect/minimum "Nickname" (the five Civics for max stability are marked with an asterisk)
(Any Starting Civic): +1/-100 "Unstable"
-
Hereditary Rule: +15/-50 "Very Stable"
Representation: +10/-80 "Stable"
Police State: +20/-10 "Extremely Stable"*
Universal Suffrage: +3/-90 "Affords fragile stability"
-
Vassalage: +10/-40 "Stable"
Bureaucracy: +15/-80 "Stable"
Nationhood: +20/-30 "Extremely Stable"*
Free Speech: -5/-50 "Unstable"
-
Slavery: -2/-60 "Unstable"
Serfdom: +2/-50 "Barely Stable"
Caste System: +10/-50 "Stable"
Emancipation: +20/-80 "Very Stable"*
-
Mercantilism: +5/-90 "Barely Stable"
Free Market: +5/-70 "Barely Stable"
State Property: +20/-30 "Extremely Stable"*
Environmentalism: +10/-80 "Stable"
-
Organized Religion: +10/-40 "Stable"
Theocracy: +5/-30 "Stable"
Pacifism: +20/-70 "Very Stable"*
Free Religion: -2/-40 "Slightly Unstable"

I decided on many of these arbitrarily. It took a long time, but I think I have a good mix of gameplay and historical-realistic considerations behind these. I'd be glad to discuss any decision I made here, but it would take a while to actually write out in advance what was behind each and every choice. And some decision were synergistic - sometimes I decided on a few Civics at once so they would work together or oppose each other in some way.
You may note these effects will make it so generally the late game is more stable than the early game. This is good for gameplay because it allows more civs to die early on and it somewhat minimizes the chance of losing a huge empire after hundreds of years and right before you win.

And now the list of events. I have generally aimed to make wars slightly destabilizing by nature, and extremely destabilizing when you're losing them. This will allow us to retain the effect that being conquered makes you collapse. Building units adds stability because you lose that stability and more if you lose the units, so you only actually gain from building military units if you play peacefully (or very successfully), on the long run. You also gain stability for a while when you build up for war, but if that war goes badly you lose a lot more than you gained. Take a look at the Nazi Era and World War II with Germany as a case study. Please take into account that many of these values are intended to work together - losing a city hurts, but regaining a city you founded yourself will make up for it and a bit more. Building peaceful units gets you some stability, but losing them is a bigger blow than that (so you should guard them well, duh). Getting a war declared on you is destabilizing, but ending a war is far more stabilizing (which will realistically make it sensible to start a stupid war and end it quickly, to gain stability - you lose none for starting a war yourself.) Still, most of what I wrote is highly debatable. I see it all as working together in one big system, but I can defend any decision I made individually.

Event effect note
  • New tech received in any way +2 So stability increases slowly over time and tech trading helps stabilize you
  • You found a new city +4
  • You get a city by trade +3
  • You gain a city in any way when you have 10 cities or more already -5 this stacks with whatever other effect gaining that city has. This is so large civs have to work hard to stay stable, as in reality. Notice how so many large empires spread fast and then disappeared almost as quickly. This may finally make that happen in-game (instead of those empires being monoliths that nobody can beat.)
  • You build any Palace building (National, Secondary, or World Wonder) +5 stacks with World Wonder bonus where applicable
  • You build any of the following: Courthouse, Barracks, Broadcast Tower, Stables, Airport, Bomb Shelter, Castle +2 these are buildings that were used historically to help control the nation. This way you can improve your cities to regain your people's faith.
  • You lose population to starvation -2 per pop lost
  • Production pop-rushed -2 per pop lost
  • Military unit built +1
  • Unit drafted -2
  • Non-military unit trained +0.5
  • Non-military unit lost -1
  • Military unit lvl3 or more lost -1.5 losing stability for every field casualty would be too crippling to warmongers. Still, losing elite units is a major no-no.
  • You lose any unit defending a city -1 stacks with the elite unit hazard. Being invaded can be the end of a nation even if its lands stay intact at first.
  • You lose any battle in your capital's city radius -2 see two previous notes.
  • An enemy spy successfully performs a mission against you -2 to turn spies into a weapon of destabilization, like in reality.
  • An improvement in your territory is pillaged -0.5 so pillaging the countryside is one way to destabilize your enemy.
  • City lost to another full civ -6
  • City lost to barbarians or a Minor Civ -7
  • Lost city razed on conquest -3 additional
  • Capital lost in any way -15 no matter who conquered it and no matter what they did with it
  • City lost to spawning civ -8 to make it as dangerous to lose the cities as to go to war - spawns are a vicious killer of nations
  • City lost to revolution -7 it's less necessary to reduce Stability here because stable nations will not usually lose to revolutions. But the hit has to be there so you can lose a lot of stability fast if you don't watch yourself.
  • An enemy declares war on you -1
  • You sign a peace treaty +10
  • An enemy capitulates to you +2
  • A civ at war with you dies +5 to make winning a war one way to stabilize your country anew
  • You conquer a city you founded +9
  • You raze an enemy city +2 so the side winning a war doesn't collapse as easily.
  • You conquer and occupy an enemy city +3 see note directly above.
  • You build a World Wonder +10
  • You spawn a Great Person +4
  • You become someone's vassal in any way +20, an additional +10 if the master state's Stability is above 50
  • You stop being a vassal, for whatever reason -35 I'm not sure about this, but it seems to me this is traumatic to a sovereignty's control of its people. This way a vassal breaking away has to fight to stay in one piece.
  • You change civics -5 per Civic changed
  • State Religion changed -7
  • First SR adopted +10
  • Your SR spreads to a city under your control +2 so spreading the State Religion is a way to create stability, like in reality.
  • A non-state religion spreads to a city of yours +2 under Free Religion, -2 under the other Religion Civics
  • A city riots -5 keeping your cities happy is essential to stability.
  • A city has WLTKD +1 per turn see note directly above.
And finally, the stability level nicknames that I propose:
<-9: Collapsing
(-9)-0: Disintegrating
1-10: Unstable
11-30: Restless
31-50: Stable
51-70: Very Stable
>70: Rock Solid
 
You said ="Getting a war declared on you is destabilizing, but ending a war is far more stabilizing (which will realistically make it sensible to start a stupid war and end it quickly, to gain stability - you lose none for starting a war yourself.)"

Yes, like Argentinia that start the Falklands war in order to get some stability, whereas the people were on the streets...

I find you're idea quite interesting.
 
garrinchaya, first of all welcome. I'm honored you chose this thread for your first post. :)
Second of all, you're right in pointing out that some wars intended to create stability did the opposite... Before we think of adding that to the Stability system directly, I think we should consider the fact that war unhappiness will lead to lower stability in a roundabout way so maybe we don't even have to account for how "wag the dog" strategies can fail...
 
Sounds good to me, but it will certainly require a good deal of testing to make sure the balance is right.

In case of cities being claimed for the purpose of reintroducing an extinct civ as a new Independent civ, it would be nice if the stability system allowed for various levels of outcomes from the declaration - ranging from automatic Vassal status to automatic state of war. Possibly civics could play a big part in deciding this - liberal democratic civics would make Vassal status more likely and intolerant totalitarian civics would make war more likely.
 
After the 18th I'll start working on this.
It's quite suprising that Blasp wrote exactly what I had in mind.
The only differences were that:

- I wouldn't assign ratings to single civics, but to combinations of them (police state + free speech = very bad) and possibly related to eras
- on the AI the stability would be used to detect an inner collapse only. I've added a function that when triggered makes the civ implode, assigning its cities to a mosaic of indepent and barbarian states. Instead, the collapse caused by other reasons is working well and I wouldn't touch it.
- on the player it would affect independence of border cities, and in the worst case, trigger a civil war, with player exiled!
 
The good ol&#180;Blas is back!! :goodjob:
 
Blasph... that is the single most amazing idea to solve this. And if this is used we it will solve the problem of making revolutions happen. just a couple little details that would be nice if defined.
Blasphemous said:
[*]You become someone's vassal in any way +20, an additional +10 if the master state's Stability is above 50

[*]You stop being a vassal, for whatever reason -35 I'm not sure about this, but it seems to me this is traumatic to a sovereignty's control of its people. This way a vassal breaking away has to fight to stay in one piece.
Click to expand...
As you point out vassals get some nice points but what about the master? The only way I can see the master getting or losing points should be determined by the vassal level. Like you say that vassal get bonuses for a strong master.

And on the stop being a vassal... if you outgrow the parameters of being a vassal I wouldn't give them a such a drastic instability especially if under capitulation and overturned it on your terms. I would think that would be a stability booster because you have reasserted your power in the world.
 
Agreed, I would give civs a smaller penalty for seperating on peaceful terms with their master.

Also, @Rhye. Perhaps individual civics could give stability, AND there could be a special clause that certain combinations of civics create additional stability to represent certain civics working well with each other and some not getting along at all.

Also, I am reproposing this idea for a change to the exile system; Instead of taking over a fledgeling civ (which I consider to be horribly unrealistic) perhaps you get sent to a small border city, the rest of your empire disintigrates, and you are left with very little, perhaps 2 cities at most. I think this would in general simply be better because you have some control over what cities you keep, but you still lose a lot. Also, perhaps whether or not you are exiled could also deal with your stability. If you have a very stable empire you might be secreted away to a new city without losing control of the empire itself. It would also be nice if you would not be exiled if you had built a Summer Palace / The Forbidden Palace.

Also @ Blas:
I have one other critique I think building a Summer Palace / Forbidden Palace / any other possible secondary government centers should raise stability to represent the increased funding towards the government. However I think building a palace should Lower stability to represent the shift in governmental power. This could cause something similar to the Break between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires.

A request for the collapse system in general is that the collapsing civ is not imediately destroyed, but reduced to only controling their capitol and the units in the 8 squares around it. That should be enough to weaken them that they will likely be destroyed, but there is a chance that they survive. Thus we could make the player susceptible to the fall system without introducing a fatal blow system they have no ability to stop once it has started. If you get instable enough to collapse, you will have a single chance to repair, and it will be difficult, but not impossible.
 
Fantastic ideas though I think Rhye's right about combinations of civics rather than individual civics. State Property + Police State could be very stable but it doesn't make sense that it would only be marginally less stable with Free Speech.
 
Also, I am reproposing this idea for a change to the exile system; Instead of taking over a fledgeling civ (which I consider to be horribly unrealistic) perhaps you get sent to a small border city, the rest of your empire disintigrates, and you are left with very little, perhaps 2 cities at most. I think this would in general simply be better because you have some control over what cities you keep, but you still lose a lot. Also, perhaps whether or not you are exiled could also deal with your stability. If you have a very stable empire you might be secreted away to a new city without losing control of the empire itself. It would also be nice if you would not be exiled if you had built a Summer Palace / The Forbidden Palace.
Click to expand...

I agree with this.
 
Rhye said:
After the 18th I'll start working on this.
It's quite suprising that Blasp wrote exactly what I had in mind.
The only differences were that:
Click to expand...
You have no idea how happy I am to hear this. I was afraid this idea would be written off for over-complexity, even though I think this may be one of the rare cases where the complexity is what will make the game that much better.

Rhye said:
- I wouldn't assign ratings to single civics, but to combinations of them (police state + free speech = very bad) and possibly related to eras
Click to expand...
Well, that would be cool, but the idea here was clarity and transparency - with single-Civic effects only, any player can tell immediately what kind of change a revolution will be... With synergistic effects, it's somewhat hidden from the player and complicated for newer players to understand. At the end of the day you get very similar effects with a synergistic system or a simple 1:1 system: going from the super-warlike lategame combo of PS-Na-Em-SP-Th (+85/-20) to just a little less warlike, say switching to Free Speech, would be a huge hit to Stability - just +60/-20 instead of +85. +85 means if nothing really bad happens you're unbreakable. +60 means a few bad turns of a war could be the end of you.
To sum it up, I think combinations giving their own bonuses would be nice, but it's not necessary and the results are similar to the simpler, more transparent system, would be easier on players.
Rhye said:
- on the AI the stability would be used to detect an inner collapse only. I've added a function that when triggered makes the civ implode, assigning its cities to a mosaic of indepent and barbarian states. Instead, the collapse caused by other reasons is working well and I wouldn't touch it.
Click to expand...
That's fine but it just seems a little redundant - the current collapse system is like a super-simplified slimmed-down version of the Stability system, in that it takes into account the most important factors (losing cities, especially the capital). So it seems we'd get a similar effect with the Stability system deciding on collapse, and it's more dynamic and interesting...
Still, the only real reason the old system is actually bad in this respect, is that if you lose a lot of cities you may collapse a bit later even if you've already done things that would in reality stabilize your now-downsized civ.
Crazyshadow8 said:
As you point out vassals get some nice points but what about the master? The only way I can see the master getting or losing points should be determined by the vassal level. Like you say that vassal get bonuses for a strong master.
Click to expand...
I was going to say that maybe getting all the vassals can be destabilizing over time, but then I think it's not a direct effect. Getting a peaceful vassal should be a +15 factor I think... Gathering vassals should be a way to create a monolithic empire that's very hard to break... Losing a vassal should be a -17 factor so if you keep losing vassals you lose stability altogether...
Crazyshadow8 said:
And on the stop being a vassal... if you outgrow the parameters of being a vassal I wouldn't give them a such a drastic instability especially if under capitulation and overturned it on your terms. I would think that would be a stability booster because you have reasserted your power in the world.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I guess you're right there... Still there would be some turmoil so peaceful disconnections should be either -0 or +5, nothing dramatic...
Vishaing said:
I think building a Summer Palace / Forbidden Palace / any other possible secondary government centers should raise stability to represent the increased funding towards the government. However I think building a palace should Lower stability to represent the shift in governmental power. This could cause something similar to the Break between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires.
Click to expand...
Very good point. What was I thinking? ;)
Vishaing said:
A request for the collapse system in general is that the collapsing civ is not imediately destroyed, but reduced to only controling their capitol and the units in the 8 squares around it. That should be enough to weaken them that they will likely be destroyed, but there is a chance that they survive. Thus we could make the player susceptible to the fall system without introducing a fatal blow system they have no ability to stop once it has started. If you get instable enough to collapse, you will have a single chance to repair, and it will be difficult, but not impossible.
Click to expand...
I would agree, except we must keep in mind that an important part of the reasoning behind the collapse system is keeping the number of living civs down... It should be easier to die, not harder. The last-chance scenario should be about restabilizing an empire that's gone down to Disintegrating. Once you collapse, it's Return to Sender. :)

I'm going to update the main post with the changes that I have agree about in this post... I'll keep an archived copy of The Crunch as it was in the OP.
 
I think the combination of Civics is highly important. Certainly later civics should tend to favour other later civics; I'm not sure about the economics ones, though.
 
OK... Wow... This is mindblowing stuff... Can't wait to see how it looks and feels in-game. To work, you bums!!!
 
I would have thought culture might play a role in determining stability -- for example, if many of your cities have a minority of your own culture, you would be less stable.

It does look to me as if this thread is addressing the last feature of this mod that lots of people (including me) complain about. I know that a project like this is never really finished, but you might be getting to the point where you can get your picture taken in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner...
 
archontophoenix said:
I would have thought culture might play a role in determining stability -- for example, if many of your cities have a minority of your own culture, you would be less stable.
Click to expand...

This was something I was thinking about too. But it may be too complex for the beginning.

archontophoenix said:
I know that a project like this is never really finished
Click to expand...

And it would be a great add-in but it would need a more fluid system than the plain numbers we have right now.

But hey you got to start somewhere!
 
I was just wondering...
Lets say I'm Universal suffrage, free speech, Emancipation, Environmentalism, Free religion (all the "I'm the nicest guy in the world" civics). I understand that under any war, this is probably the worst combination for stability. You'll get unrest, protests etc. But with peace, souldn't this combination be more stable than say, Police State and the likes? Simply think about succession. When a president leaves office after an election, there is a mechanism which is approved by everyone to replace him in a fair way. When a dictator dies, it can be more like a small civil war to see who will be in charge next. Also, a democratic civ is likely to be more peaceful in its demonstration. However, when citizens in a police state are brave enough to stand up to the government, it is likely to be in the form of a rebellion.
Other examples : Vassalage --> stable? The middle ages where filled with peasants revolts after their master decided to levy too much taxes/men.

All in all, I wanted to suggest the (added complication) of a peace stability rating and a war stability rating for every civic. In my view, any democratic nation is far more stable than a dictatorship in peace times. Citizens in a democratic country can openly vent off their frustration, do something about the governement, protests against certain issues and are being listened to by their representatives. This results in a population who is unlikely to use extensive violence to attain its goal, since it understands the rule of the majority. Dictatorial country on the other hand, are more likely to face resistance movement, rebellions, military coup and other in peace times as there is mostly nothing else to do for a disillusionned population. Either that or as Rhye said, make some bad combo (police-state plus free speech = -20 stability).
On another issue, I fear the multiplicity of stability bonus/malus will confuse a lot of person as what should be done to higher your stability rating. I don't think it should be simplified (god forbid :lol: ), but maybe add some hints in the Sid tips boxes that appear when your mouse is over a building name. Or add bonus and malus hints when the pop up for conquering/founding a city appears. Even have bonus/malus messages in the event log : "Rome built a courthouse. Roman stability increases a bit" "Russia declares war on Mongolia. Mongolian stability decreases moderatly." and so on. Otherwise, many people will be at a loss when they see their stability rating and ask themselves "Why am I still so unstable after all I did?".
 
Blaphemous,

I think you're onto something here, but you're missing the most historically destabilizing cause - instability. I'm only being a bit ironic here. Historically speaking, revolutions/anarchy/collapse occur around the times of changes in government. In part, it's because the government know it is collapsing and tries to change to fix it. In part it's because massive changes to political and economic systems tend to cause revolutions and instability.

So rather than declare that any particular civic is more or less stable - and historically, they aren't, you have free speech listed as "unstable" when it actually tends to deflect criticism of the government away from revolutionary activity - it makes far more sense to me to have recent turns of anarchy relating to religion/civic changes be destabilizing forces. For example, the Soviet Union's collapse came soon after perestroika. China devolved into civil war shortly after declaring a republic. On the other hand, the USA's "free speech - free religion" combo has proven notably stable. Examples and counterexamples could easily be given here, but I think that historically, as I said, most collapses and revolutions followed drastic changes in "civics."

This would have good gameplay implications, too. It might model the dilemma of the later Russian tsars, who had an extremely unstable, untenable situation. They couldn't change their civics without causing a revolution sooner, but they couldn't not change without causing a revolution later. 1905 led directly to 1917

Also, I think that environmental impact should be a part of this, though I'm not sure exactly how. Have you read Jared Diamond's Collapse? He makes the point that many collapsing civilizations or cultures are at their zenith shortly before their nadir. Teotihuacan, for example, seems to have been the greatest power in mesoamerica roughly a decade before it was destroyed in an orgy of death and fire.

That said, I think you're really onto something. This has good gameplay AND historical implications, especially in foreign policy decisions.
 
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