Rebel/Affinity/Unification Mechanic

KrikkitTwo

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Apr 3, 2004
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PThis is an idea that would be better as part of an expansion. (borrowing some other ideas)
What it would do
1. Give Game mechanics reasons for hating other affinities
2. Provide an additional penalty for going past -20 in health
3. Give benefits to culture besides virtues and tiles
4. Give Game mechanics reasons for not declaring war on a long time ally who is winning
5. Have some real interesting differences between puppets and annexed cities (possibly allowing people to rePuppet cities... maybe including their own... of course the 'resistance' time period would apply when reannexing)

The core idea is influence and it has some similarities to religion and ideology in BNW
you also have radicals and rebels

TLDR
factions have influence that spreads between cities based on culture
foreign influence encourages you to be friendly to the other factions.. and causes problems if you are different affinities
foreign influence can cause rebels/easier spying in your cities
if they are willing to suffer some extensive unhealth, for a long time period, two or more empires can unify to share victory.
Puppet cities maintain their own affinity and don't cause any affinity related unhealth.


Influence
Each city has an "influence" score from every faction in the game (many of them will be 0)
Where influence comes from
When an outpost becomes a city, it gets a certain amount of influence from its current owner

Each turn a city will receive influence from other cities
The sources of influence are
1. City Itself
2. The city's trade partners (incoming and outgoing trade routes)
3. All Trade partners of any Station the city trades with
4. If the city is not a puppet, the Capital of its current owner
5. *other: maybe buildings that project influence a certain distance, or (national) wonders that project it around the world

Nonpuppet cities also receive influence directly from every empire the owning empire has a diplomatic agreement with (in either direction)


The type of influence the city receives depends on the dominant influence in the city sending

The amount of influence received depends on the cultural output of the city sending (diplomatic agreements give influence based on the DC cost of the agreement)

The amount is then modified based on Affinity Difference, and Total Culture
*example below

What influence would affect
Foreign influence (as % of total influence in the city*pop of the city)
1. gives unhealth if you are at Sanction/War with that faction (Maybe small health if you have Alliance)
2. makes it easier for that civ to spy on you (tasks become more likely to succeed, even doable at lower levels)
3. builds up 'rebel points' for that faction

Owner influence (as % of total influence in the city)
1. reduces resistance/martial law (when conquering or annexing a puppet)
2. reduces 'rebel points'

Influence from Factions with a different affinity (as % of total influence in a city * pop of that city)
If a city is not a Puppet, then you get unhealth from influence for factions with different affinity levels
Unhealth would depend on your affinity level - that factions affinity level
**examples

Anti-Faction Radicals
If two factions are at war, anti-faction radicals will be generated for the city
If PAC and ARC are at war,
every civ (in the world) with PAC influence will generate anti-ARC radical points
every civ (in the world) with ARC influence will generate anti-PAC radical points
amount of radicals generated is proportional to the influence generating it

Radicals decline if there is diploagreements and Both influences are present
if PAC and ARC have Diplo agreements/Cooperation/Alliance
Then any city with Both ARC and PAC influence will eliminate radicals..proportional to the Smaller of the two influences
can't go below 0

Effect of Radicals
Anti-foreign radicals (as % of influence in the city*population of the city) Give unhealth unless you sanction/war with that set of foreigners

Anti-owner radicals (as % of influence in the city) increase resistance/martial law times and boosts rebel points for all factions

Rebels
Each city also has a 'rebel' score for each faction besides the owner

Each turn it increases based on
Faction influence % + anti-owner radical % + unhealth - owner influence % - 'tolerance'
'tolerance' is lowest in a city in martial law, highest in a puppet city

If rebel score gets high enough, the city has a rebellion (rebel units are generated and the rebel score goes down..based on how many units are generated)

(cities that are being razed spontaneously generate rebel units every turn)

Rebel units
1. are placed randomly within 2 tiles of the city
2. are owned by the faction, but can attack and be attacked without declaring war [assuming this works]
3. are immobile, levitating, ranged units (so they only combat around 'their' city and can be placed in a wide array of tiles...1 tile islands can still rebel)
4. have the "can capture a city if they attack it with 0 hp" ability
5. will increase in strength based on the total affinity level of either the faction or the city owner
6. heal every turn (even if they shoot)


Unification
unification is a mechanic to give you a reason not to backstab the long term ally who is about to win... basically it is a way to get a shared victory

Basically.
Unification is an Expensive process
It takes 50~100 turns to complete
If you complete it and change your mind it takes 50~100 turns to undo (so that someone can't be ready to win and then disconnect all ties)
It requires Alliance first (and duplicates their effects), and requires a per turn investment of Diplomatic Capital (investment is lost neither side gains it)

When complete you get
1. Shared Victory: if one wins, everyone completely unified with them wins (including conquest win, if only those civs are in possession of their capitals)
2. Shared Wonder effects: including 'one time' effects if the Wonder is build After you unify
3. Full Shared vision: examine each others cities
4. Spy/rebel /attack immunity: they can't attack you, spy on you, and their 'rebel' points for you go to 0.

If you start to 'separate' after you complete, these benefits stay until you reach 0% unification

As it completes you get
1. :) Research sharing: if you are 35% unified with them, then you get 35% of their research in the tech they are researching (unless you already have that tech in which case you get nothing)
2. :( Tech cost from their cities: if you are 35% unified with them, then 35% of their # of cities is added to yours for your 'city tech costs modifier'
3. :( Radicals: if you are 35% unified with them, then 65% (+50% if different affinities) of your influence in cities you own will generate anti-owner radicals AND anti-partner radicals in that city (radicals still get the normal decline if both influences are present)
..this is the main 'cost' of unification... but it could also be given a per turn energy cost.. either flat or % based.

Unification can only progress if you maintain the same diplomacy with everyone (ie War/Sanction/Neutral/Cooperation/Alliance with all the same players... including Unifying with the same players)
Otherwise unification % begins to decline.

[AI players would probably have to be coded to follow your lead diplomatically in a unification scenario]


City Affinity
Each city would have its Own affinity levels
This would determine which buildings Work in the city (if a building was built and the city's affinity dropped for some reason the building would be no longer active or charge maintenance...unless the building was 'free' from a wonder)
It would also determine what the city could Build (units in particular)

The rules for determining the individual city affinity would be
for Non-Puppet cities
1. Every time the owner gets a +1 level in an Affinity, so does the city (unless its level in that affinity is higher than the owner)
2. Every x time period all the affinities move up or down 1 to get closer to the owner
3. Every level of Difference between Owner affinity levels and city affinity levels generates unhealth (based on city population)
Virtues/techs/ time can allow you to either
speed up the process (make transition faster)
or
reduce the unhealth caused (make transition easier)

For puppet cities
They change their Affinity levels to match a "Favored Faction" .. the one with the most influence in the city
1. Every x time period the levels greater than the Favored Faction decline by 1
2. every x time period the Levels less than Both "owner level" and "Favored faction level" increase by 1
no unhealth from transition


Thoughts? Questions?

EXAMPLES
*Influence example
Freeland has
150 Polystralia influence
+3 culture per turn
a trade route with Liberty (+2 culture per turn, 200 PAC influence, 100 ARC influence, 150 Slavic influence)

Freeland is owned by Polystralia which has a 3 Diplo Capital Agreement with PAC

Freeland will project 3 points of Polystralia influence
Liberty will project 2 points of PAC influence
The Agreement gives 1.5 points of PAC influence (3/2..diplo capital is less effective than culture)

So Freeland gets
3 points of Polystralia from itself
2 points of PAC from Liberty
3 points of Polystralia from the capital (which happens to be Polystralia)
1.5 points of PAC from Agreements

So 6 points of Polystralia and 3.5 points of PAC

For the Modifiers:
Polystralia has 1000 total accumulated culture* (Culture from Puppet cities that don't follow the owner is not added to this total)
PAC has 600 total accumulated culture
[ARC has the largest total accumulated culture, 2000]
Freeland is 10 Purity, 0, 0
Polystralia is 10 Purity, 0, 0
PAC is 5 Purity, 10 Harmony, 0


so the Polystralia-Freeland modifier is
1000/2000=+50%
Affinity Difference=0%
Total +50% modifier
6 base points->9 Polystralia points to Freeland

PAC-Freeland modifier
600/2000=+30%
Affinity Difference= Purity Difference(10-5) + Harmony Difference(10-0)+ Supremacy (0-0)=15 total difference
Total Affinity=10+10+5=25
Affinity Difference Modifier = Total Difference/(Total Affinity+5)=15/30=-50%
Total -20% modifier
3.5 base points->2.8 PAC points to Freeland



**Affinity unhealth

City with 20 pop, 200 points from 5h.1p.1s faction, 50 from 1h.5p.2s faction, 250 from 0h.6p.10s faction
Has 'desired levels' of
Harmony= 40%*5+10%*1+50%*0=2.1
Purity= 40%*1+10%*5+50%*6=3.6
Supremacy= 40%*1+10%*2+50%*10=5.6
Owned by 1 Harmony, 5 Purity, 2 Supremacy faction gets

Harmony level unhealth= (2.1-1)*20*10%= 2.2 unhealth
Purity level unhealth= (5-3.6)*20*10%= 2.8 unhealth
Supremacy level unhealth= (5.6-2)*20*10%= 7.2 unhealthy

For a Total of 12.2 Unhealth from Affinity from that city (because the Purity owner has a low influence, and it is dominated by Harmony and Supremacy civs)
 
Surprised this has no comments yet. You basically found a way to unite the realism of civ 2 city conquest while turning Brave New World tourism into a war machine that punishes the uncultured and rapid expsnsion its to make tall gameplay more viable.

Sweet ideas. Perhaps a bit too complex overall but I like your vision. Could use this as a way to make quest decisions more impact full as well by forcing players to consider the social implications of eachores decision rather than just hammer vs energy.
 
Yup, that is a lot of ideas. I thought about culture as influence going outward too but thought it might just be a half tourism system and seem like it was tacked on.
Also it somewhat went against my impression of the setting. I pictured the colonies being isolated for a long time and by the time they meet they'd already be mutants, cyborgs or extra human and therefore somewhat immune to being swayed by other possibilities now that they've changed themselves or not changed one way or another. The huge focus on trade really undercuts my image of the colonies and isolationist though. Thus I thought of the effects being more negative to others rather than positive. Like instead outside influence causes your citizens to becoume angry about the mutant stink that's wafting over to our pure colony.
 
I imagine the hybrid stuff in BERT would make this even more complicated but I like the direction this goes. It does seem we need more of the culture game, maybe we will get some kinda pass on something like this in the hypothetical third expac.
 
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