Again, Provinces

A long time ago, I posted an idea I had developed for incorporating the concept of provinces into the game. I've given it some thought since then, and reworked it a little bit. Since some of the issues it addresses keep coming up again and again, I thought it might be worthwhile to repost the idea and see if it proves any more popular this time around than it was before. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, which I already know will make most people who come here refuse to read it; unfortunately the idea is too complicated to summarize in a few lines. Please bear with me.

The idea is this:

A new kind of city improvement is introduced: the Provincial Capitol. Building one in a city would make that city the capital of a new province. Once it is built, you choose which cities are a part of that province. Obviously there can be only one Capitol per province.

The borders of the cities must be contiguous; you can't simply choose several random cities from all across your world-bestriding empire and call it one province. The borders of each city much touch the borders of another city in the same province.

The provincial borders would be visible as thinner versions of the national borders, so you could tell at a glance where the provinces are.

You must give a name to the province and its inhabitants (just like the national names) as you create it. Each civ would have its own default names that you could change at your whim. (For example, the English provinces would have names like Essex and Gloucestershire, while the German provinces would have names like Prussia and Saxony, and the Chinese provinces would have names like Gansu and Hebei. You get the idea.)

Once a province is established, the Capitol functions as a mini-Palace which reduces corruption, but only within the province. Geographic proximity makes no difference; only cities within the province (and all cities within the province) are affected. For that reason, there would have to be a limit to how many cities can be in a province--probably based on the size of the map--to prevent people from cheating and designating the entire empire as a province.

You could, if you so choose, give special orders to the provinces. For example, you could have the entire province working on a special build project. You could set different tax rates for each province. That sort of thing.

Provincial affairs would be handled by a new advisor, the Provincial Advisor. From that one screen, you could take care of all your provincial needs.

Once provinces are established, you have a new problem with your citizenry to keep an eye on: Rebel Sentiment. Rebel Sentiment, which would be completely separate from Happiness, would reflect how much that province wishes to separate from your country. Rebel Sentiment would be completely nonexistent in the core of your empire. (The core being defined as 'the province that has the national capital in it'.) Various factors would affect Rebel Sentiment, such as taxation, culture of each province relative to the cultures of nearby other civs, and proximity to the core of the empire. Provinces whose borders do not touch at any point the borders that contain your capital (think overseas colonization here) would have Rebel Sentiment rise even faster.

There would be ways to keep Rebel Sentiment down (lowering taxes, raising culture, etc.), but if it gets too high in any one province, then that province declares its independence. You then have the option of going to war to regain the province, or granting independence.

If a province successfully breaks free, then it is a new civ and thereafter behaves as such. The new civ's name and capital are the same as those of the old provinces, and the name of the ruler is taken from your civ's list of Great Leaders.

(Problems that remain unsolved: What would the new ruler's title be? What would you look at during negotiations with that civ? Should the new civ have traits and a UU, and how would those be chosen? When it starts to expand, how would it choose its city names? Or the names of its own provinces?)

I feel that this idea would add a real flair to the game. It is, in my opinion, a healthy dose of historical realism (name me one real-world nation larger than a city-state that is not divided up for administrative purposes) that could be made to enhance gameplay as well. It would help with that pesky problem of corruption in overseas, or simply distant, cities. It would, by imposing the non-contiguous borders penalty, discourage the AI's policy of turning large landmasses into ugly patchwork quilts (which it does by having each civ plop down cities wherever they can happen to find a spot without giving any regard to whether or not they have any other land nearby). It would create a functional model for including both civil wars and the creation of new civs, which are things people around here ask for again and again. Most of all, I just think it would be fun.

What say all of you?

If every province has its own sliders (taxes, science, ...) it becomes too hard to manage. CIV3 has the problem of timeconsuming. I guess the adding of provinces will increase the amount of micromanagement and thus increase the amount of invested time to play one game. Let's go for ideas that reduce the time needed for one game! I don't want CIV3 to be as realistic as possible. I just wanna conquer the world demographically, scientifically, military or culturally along the gaming rules, whatever they may be, but please keep the time of one game short.

Loaf Warden said:

(Problems that remain unsolved: What would the new ruler's title be? What would you look at during negotiations with that civ? Should the new civ have traits and a UU, and how would those be chosen? When it starts to expand, how would it choose its city names? Or the names of its own provinces?)

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I really like your idea!
My suggestion to the problems:
Random traits (maybe a higher chance of seafaring when an oversea province)
There could be generic leaderheads for the different culture groups. And maybe city and province names can be stored in a pool for the different culture groups.
And the UU can also be generic, take the best defender and add +1HP and +1defense or so (the graphics can be the same and the name is something like: Canadian musketman or so)
And the rulers title : always Freedom Father ( I like Colonization!)

socralynnek said:

There could be generic leaderheads for the different culture groups.

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Some good ideas here, but this one is my favorite. That would do it! Just have a group of generic-looking European leaderheads, and Middle Eastern leaderheads, and Asian leaderheads, and so on. And, not only does that solve the problem of what the new breakaway civ's leader would look like, it would also give us a bigger pool of leaderheads to choose from when making scenarios and modpacks. You could have a 'Civs of Pre-Columbian America' modpack where each ruler looks different, but they all look Native American. Or, say, a Feudal Japanese scenario where all the warlords look like discrete Asian people rather than just flags or a dozen Tokugawa clones. Even without provinces, this would be a good idea.

pond said:

If every province has its own sliders (taxes, science, ...) it becomes too hard to manage. CIV3 has the problem of timeconsuming. I guess the adding of provinces will increase the amount of micromanagement and thus increase the amount of invested time to play one game. Let's go for ideas that reduce the time needed for one game! I don't want CIV3 to be as realistic as possible. I just wanna conquer the world demographically, scientifically, military or culturally along the gaming rules, whatever they may be, but please keep the time of one game short.

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Different people, different tastes. I like longer games. Instead of starting new games very often, I'd rather play an epic long game which would make me feel more involved. Which doesn't mean my taste is better or worse. It's simply different.

And, by the way, the idea about Provinces adds a nice touch to the idea about independence movements and civil wars. If a single city rebels, it would be way too easy for my Imperial troops to crush it and reclaim it. If, however, a whole Province rebels, that may deliver a serious blow to the Empire. Cool! Rebellions would be much more effective this way. And thus, the game balancing will become much more effective.

There may have to be a minimum number of cities for a province, though. That would make the provinces more powerful, the rebellions more significant, and would reduce the micromanagement too.

Some questions came to my mind, only because I find this point really interesting !

Will u allow having some of the cities of ur empire in provinces, while some other cities are just part of your empire, i.e. in no province ?

OK, when u "create" ur first province, u select some adjacent cities to be part of it, say between min 4 and max 8, for example. Will u be able to switch a city from one province to another (if u only have three nearby cities but want to creat another province) ?

Would there be some kind of cultural flips from one province to another one of ur empire ? Between provinces of different civs ? Or big big cultural flip of one entire province (ouch, that hurts) ?

What happens if a rival civ raze or capture one of ur city belonging to a province ?

vesuvius_prime said:

There may have to be a minimum number of cities for a province, though. That would make the provinces more powerful, the rebellions more significant, and would reduce the micromanagement too.

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Good point. It would also prevent people from eliminating corruption by designating every city as its own province, which I hadn't thought of till now, but would also be cheating. Both a minimum and a maximum number of cities per province would be a good idea, I think.

knacki said:

Will u allow having some of the cities of ur empire in provinces, while some other cities are just part of your empire, i.e. in no province ?

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As the idea stands now, that would be possible. Only the cities you'd select for each new province would be included, so any cities you decided not to select would simply not belong to a province. If you have cities you don't want in a province, just don't put them in one.

knacki said:

OK, when u "create" ur first province, u select some adjacent cities to be part of it, say between min 4 and max 8, for example. Will u be able to switch a city from one province to another (if u only have three nearby cities but want to creat another province) ?

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Good question. My first thought was that you could just go into the Provincial Advisor screen and rearrange provinces at will. But it's easy to imagine people using that as an exploit by making dozens of temporary rearrangements throughout the game in order to, say, speed up certain build projects, or to quickly reduce Rebel Sentiment somewhere. But I don't think the provinces should be completely static, either. You should be able to switch a city from one province to another if you want to. Maybe you could, but with some kind of temporary penalty? I'm not really sure.

knacki said:

Would there be some kind of cultural flips from one province to another one of ur empire ? Between provinces of different civs ? Or big big cultural flip of one entire province (ouch, that hurts) ?

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No. Which cities go with which province should be entirely up to the player; there should be no culture flipping between the same civ's provinces. And you should certainly not be able to lose an entire province to another civ all at once that way. I think culture flipping should stay as it is now. You could gain or lose cities with it, one at a time, but never a whole province at once. And in my opinion, provincial capitals should be immune, just like the national capital.

knacki said:

What happens if a rival civ raze or capture one of ur city belonging to a province ?

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Then your province shrinks, just like your empire shrinks when that happens now. If the capture takes you below the minimum number of cities, I think the province shouldn't be destroyed, but rather should simply suffer penalties to province-related actions (never city-specific actions!) until you can get it back up again.

To add to the original idea here... I posted an idea regarding this subject in the wrong area and would now like to expand upon the idea that I had as well as the one suggested here.

Every game starts out with you being the "Dictator", in total control of your Empire (i.e. everything from the production of your cities to the movements of your units.) Once an Empire has researched Monarchy however, a new ability will come into play. The ability to assist the Ruler who may have now switched to a Monarchy. As a Monarch, you will have "Fuedal Lords" to assist you in running the Kingdom. Once Aristocracy is researched, your Capital will be able to produce Aristocrats/Lords who can assist you by taking various governmental jobs, such as the Lord Chancellor, Lord of the Treasury, etc...

Up to this point the "Ministers" that are by default in Civ 1, 2, and 3 are available from the start are not there... its just you as the Dictator, no Minister of Foreign Affairs or of Trade to make recommendations to you. However, once Monarchy is researched, a delegation of people would come to you to ask you to fill the post of "Lord Chancellor" or some equivilent position to the modern day, "Secretary of State" so that your people can be represented abroad. You as the Ruler would have the option of allowing the created unit of "Aristocrat/Lord" of filling that position and would have an additional option of allowing "total control," "your approval required for treaties," or "the position is just a puppet." You get the picture. Once you fill the position, the Noble Lord that you created to put there can either do the job of Foreign Affairs for you, do it partially asking for your approval on treaties with foreign nations, or you still do the job, but have a figure head in the position.

As the game progresses, your people would want the other positions filled as well by a Noble. An additional concept to think about for the Monarchy would be to create more of the Noble Lord units and move them to various "City-States" and create a Barony of a minimum of 2 City States and no more than 3 City States... and a Duchy of at least 3 City States and no more than 5 City States.

The Barons' and the Dukes' job would be to swear feality to the King and provide for him as he sees fit. Simply meaning, they run the Baronies and Duchies to the Kings liking. Again, you would have the option of allowing them to either run the newly created Barony/Duchy with totaly automony or requiring your input for what they must produce. The only time that they would not do so, is if they were near a rival foreign nation with the same type of government or one higher and the foreign nation convenced them to rebel against you. Then its the Kings job to reconquer his former territory and slay the reblious leader.

Futher, each year, all of the Barons and Dukes would meet with the King to get input and to reaffirm their oaths to the King and Country.

This concept would also apply to Republic and Democracy as well... though without the titles of Baron and Duke. In a Republic, a Territory would be created with a minimum of 2 Cities and no more that 4 and a Province would be created with a minimum of 4 Cities and no more than 7. In place of a Noble Lord unit, a Politician unit would be created and a Territorial Governor/Provincial Govenor would be created. Again, all of the same options would apply as to allowing the Govenor control over the Territory/Province.

For a Democracy the term, "Province" would change to "State" and all other info from the Republic would apply. The additional changes to Republic and Democracy would be that once the "Territorial" Capital is created, "State Politicians" can be created and a minimum of one State Politician is sent to the National Capital to represent the wishes of the Province in the National Senate for "Republics" and Congress for "Democracy."

A further suggestion is that once they reach "Province" and/or "State" for whichever government type, Republic or Democracy, the President becomes answerable to the people of his government. For example... I have a Democracy and there are five states created and I just created a new Territory. 3 of the States of 7 City States in each one and have each sent 2 Congressmen from each City to Congress, while the other 2 States only have 4 Cities in each, but their population is double what the other States are and have sent 3 Congressment from each City to Congress. That's 66 voices in the National Congress so far.

The 2 smaller States have a very militaristic view and are constantly creating new military units and have 3 Army Bases within their State, while the 3 larger States are of a more peaceful nature and have built many Tourist attractions and trade features in their states. The new territory is just outside of the 2 smaller states and now has 4 Cities and has potitioned to become a state. (Yes, once another city is created in the area, the Territory would ask to absorb the City and petition for statehood. You as the President could deny it, but you might risk alienating the residents of that particular area.) You grant the request and they start building heavily towards the military aspect and now they send their representatives to congress as well... an additional 8 members. That now gives you a total of 74 members in the National Congress...

You have a problem however with one of your rival nations who's borders are just beyond the newly created State... they keep being pesky and you've grown tiresome and want to declare war. Oops, wait a minute, you have a Congress to answer to! Well, with 42 membes coming from the peaceful faction of your nation and and 32 coming from a more militant aspect you can successfully declare war without Congress vetoing the action, as it would require 2/3 vote against a Presidental Action to veto the action. Your safe so long as you keep the militants happy, but you run the risk of Riots and War-Time demonstrations in the peaceful factions of your Nation.

Another suggestion is to allow construction of a "Baronial/Ducal" Palace for the Baronies/Duchies, which would further help reduce corruption in the Nation and Governor's Mansions in the Territories and Provinces/States. One final suggestion on this aspect deals with the "Legal" aspect of creating State Courts, a National Supreme Court, and/District Courts.

Again, you would creat "Politicians" from the Capital for the National Supreme Court and/or District Courts, but would create them from the State Capitals for State Courts. The Judges, no more than 3 for State Courts, 5 for District Courts, and 9 for Supreme Courts, would review cases brought against the Nation by various individuals in the nation and/or States if they felt that the National Governement had overstepped its bounds.

Just my thoughts on this!

A minimum of cities in a province would cause different problems however. Small island chains(a favorite of maps I make) might make good provinces, except that maybe only a city or two would actually be able to be built. So, maybe there could be

Provinces
4 - 8 cities, provincial capital

as well as:

Territories (areas sharing borders with other provinces, but not large enough)
1-3 cities, with no provincial capital...corruption a problem?

&

Colonies (1-3 cities, not connected to provinces or territories by borders)
1-3 cities, harsh corruption&waste


An idea?

Emperor Kalson said:

To add to the original idea here... I posted an idea regarding this subject in the wrong area and would now like to expand upon the idea that I had as well as the one suggested here.

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The connection between your idea and mine is tenuous at best. Aside from the fact that you mentioned states somewhere, your idea bears no relation to mine and is a completely different topic. Please start a new thread for the discussion of your idea instead of trying to hijack mine.

dylanhatesyou said:

Territories (areas sharing borders with other provinces, but not large enough)
1-3 cities, with no provincial capital...corruption a problem?

&

Colonies (1-3 cities, not connected to provinces or territories by borders)
1-3 cities, harsh corruption&waste

Click to expand...

Definitely an interesting thought. I'm reminded of various parts of the old British Empire. I was going to ask how you would set up, say, a Territory, since there is no capital, but then I realized it would be simple enough to do from the Provincial Advisor screen. I can see the benefits to this; if you have some land that you won't be able to consolidate into a Province for awhile, but you have reason to want to treat it like a Province, you could go into the Provincial Advisor screen and set it up as a Territory. Corruption would still be based on distance from the national capital, so it's not as good as having a true Province, but at least for now you can now give it orders as though it were. (Perhaps with a penalty? Perhaps not?) I like it.

I love this idea. I already divide up large areas of my civ into provinces and just remember where they are. I would love it if I didn't have to remember where each one was.

Great idea! This can be ideal when a Civ is getting to large and powerfull (there's a topic here called "Is Civ an outdated concept") one of his rich provinces or states can revolt and the once mighty Civ is back to square one and sees his luxuries and resources go down the drain.

Loaf Warden said:

As the idea stands now, that would be possible. Only the cities you'd select for each new province would be included, so any cities you decided not to select would simply not belong to a province. If you have cities you don't want in a province, just don't put them in one.

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China's like that. So apparently it already works. Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, are officially part of NO province here whatsoever. They're left out of provincial politics (for good reason.)

What about resources (and pardon me if I missed it already)? Say I have 5 cities in a province. Two are near some decent resources, and they grow quickly while the other three are kind of barren wastelands. I'd like to see those three pull from the other two, to become stronger a bit faster. Sure it'd slow down the other two, but at least the Province in general would be more powerful.

(I said the same thing in the "States" thread, in case this looks familiar.)

EJ

Perhaps it would be wise to make combat more province oriented as well. If you march your troops into a provincial capital, perhaps the rest of the cities in the province will fall, forcing the units in those cities into the nearest friendly provincial capital. It would add a little more strategy to the game, and yet keep someone from running from provincial capital to provincial capital in one turn.

Khift said:

Perhaps it would be wise to make combat more province oriented as well. If you march your troops into a provincial capital, perhaps the rest of the cities in the province will fall, forcing the units in those cities into the nearest friendly provincial capital. It would add a little more strategy to the game, and yet keep someone from running from provincial capital to provincial capital in one turn.

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I kind of like the idea of having an entire province captured when the capital is taken. But I'm not sure whether or not that would be too imbalancing. Using that system, you could conquer entire civs by simply going from capital to capital, and never really having to fight for any other cities. I'm not sure if that would be good, by adding an element of strategy, or bad, by putting too much focus on capital-capturing and throwing off the combat system. I personally like the idea, but I'm still on the fence about it. Anyone else have any thoughts on it?

The last idea has some merit. Most wars were decided by one or two major battles that broke resistance and overwhelmed the opposing army into surrender.

Very good idea. Questions.
1. As time goes by, do the original provinces become more and more alike?
2. Newly conquered/added provinces do they have to go through a process to become assimilated into the new empire?

Loaf Warden, the idea you posted at the beginning of this thread was nearly identical to the proviincial idea I've stated many times. I'm glad someone else has actually agreed with me! Anyway, to give my own thoughts:

From my own ideas, I thought the number of cities in a province should probably be somewhere between 3 and 6, depending of your tastes.

Also, when it comes to the 'capital'. The city with the palace in it would be the capital of both the nation and a 'national province' (which can be a one city thing like Washington D.C., or a regular sized province). This province would be your base of operations, basically. Your core cities, all under the same provincial jurisdiction. Also, any cities made outside the capital province starts out as a colony, which would not have any 'central' authority outside of its own city. They would be like the cities are now, with the same corruption type, as well! However, once you build the provincial capital in a city there, a province is formed to your will, and it continues as you said, Loaf Warden.

The only thing different from what I had thought up was the name of the Rebel Sentiment. I like the name, and it describes exactly what I have said about rebellion feelings. Things that could cause rebel sentiment to rise, as you said, could be periods of civil disorder, distance from the capital, high taxes, being less well taken care of than other provinces, even becoming as great or greater than the capital province could be a thing to possibly cause rebel sentiment.

Someone I think said that each province should have a different tax slider. However, I don't think that should happen. Each province should go by the single slider, though based on its individual situation may react differently.

Also, provinces could allow intranational relations. Each province could have feelings for other provinces, depending on each province's culture, money, units, infrastructure, possibly nationality, etc. This could be significant, though outside of a province not allowing trade with another province, or even border skirmishes over a city or a tile, or not allowing a resource to be traded, I don't know how or if this should be used.

Military units should have a tag saying which province they are from. This would not affect how they are paid for, same as now, but would be significant for things such as civil wars, skirmishes between provinces (it could happen, especially in early empires!) etc. The province, if it rebels, for example, would keep control of all units built in its territory, as they are loyal to that province. If it is a powerful province that rebels (it usually should be) then this will solve the problem of where they get their army. In early parts of the game, also, the provinces may even decline to allow their units to leave their borders without their permission, which they may decline to give from time to time if they don't agree with the war you are fighting, or if they don't like you sending their forces to defend a rival province. Just a thought.

I have more, specifics about governments. Please tell me what you think! I'm glad someone else had the same idea as me.

Verowin said:

1. As time goes by, do the original provinces become more and more alike?

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How do you mean?

2. Newly conquered/added provinces do they have to go through a process to become assimilated into the new empire?

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If there was no 'capture entire province at once' feature, then I assume assimilation would be the same as it is now. If there was, then I would think the whole nationality/assimilation thing would probably be extended to the provincial level.

Ant509y said:

Loaf Warden, the idea you posted at the beginning of this thread was nearly identical to the proviincial idea I've stated many times.

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I apologize for never having seen it. My presence on this board is sporadic at best, and a whole lot goes on here that I simply miss. For my part, this is an idea I came up with over a year ago, and it has become a sort of pet idea of mine. As in, if Firaxis came to me personally and said, "What one new feature would you like us to put into Civ IV?", then this is the one I'd choose, without hesitation. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who likes it so much.

From my own ideas, I thought the number of cities in a province should probably be somewhere between 3 and 6, depending of your tastes.

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I think I like the 3-6 range better than the 4-8 range we were thinking of earlier. It's more reasonable on these maps. Then Territories and Colonies could be 1-2 cities.

even becoming as great or greater than the capital province

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Interesting point. The citizens of a distant province observe that theirs is the most powerful part of the empire. They bring in more money and have a higher population than the core of the empire. So they say to themselves, "Why should we be controlled by that distant ruler when our land is better than his? It's time to throw off his chains and establish sovereignty!" I like it.

Also, provinces could allow intranational relations. Each province could have feelings for other provinces, depending on each province's culture, money, units, infrastructure, possibly nationality, etc. This could be significant, though outside of a province not allowing trade with another province, or even border skirmishes over a city or a tile, or not allowing a resource to be traded, I don't know how or if this should be used.

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I like the idea of having provinces feel differently about different other provinces within the same nation. Suddenly I envision two adjacent provinces who are loyal to each other but despise the rest of the nation joining together in revolt and becoming one new civ. The capital could be based in whichever of the provinces is the more powerful. This opens up loads of possibilities, and definitely warrants more thought. . . .

The province, if it rebels, for example, would keep control of all units built in its territory, as they are loyal to that province.

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Definitely. I hadn't thought about that, but you're absolutely right.

Yes! Actually, it is my pet project also. x.x I've said it in every thread I can. Until they started ignoring me about it, however. >.> oh, well.

I had more thoughts too. When it comes to governments, there's a whole range of possibilities. Especially when combined with things such as provincial control of troops, and so forth. Basically, here's a rough sketch of every government in Civ III when converted to the province system:

Despotism: You have total control, which, in game terms, means that every province you would rule has absolutely no say. Kinda like how it is in Civ III on every government. However, for every province/colony outside the capital province, the Rebel Sentiment would grow at 2X the "normal" amount (maybe more?) regardless of what you do. Provinces could split off easily if you overextend yourself, meaning that you would be hard-pressed to hold onto a vast empire in the ancient world. Also, other stat effects stay as they were in Civ III.

Monarchy: As the king, you have vast power. However, there is a large aristocracy below you, and its power is also great. The provinces are under the despotism of the aristocrats, which means a bit less centralization of power, and less, though still high, corruption. Now that the provinces have representation (to an extent) their say will have greater weight. In game terms, this means that when the provinces say "we want/don't want this!" doing it will have more pronounced effects than it did in despotism. However, in general, rebellion is less common, and is even less than that if you heed the advice of the provinces. Of course, many times they will have conflicting demands, and juggling them will be a rather fun challenge.

However, this shouldn't add much to micromanagement, as the provinces will be telling you the general needs, at a glance, of what they'd need anyway, only now without you having to check the cities themselves as much. (the provincial advisor will be as well used as the foreign and domestic advisors!)

Republic: In a republic, the people get representation. This means that the people themselves, if they are too unhappy with your policies, have a sort of say, through elected officials. Each province has its own local senate, and is more individualistic than under monarchy. In game terms, it means that the actual happy/unhappy citizens will have an effect on your rule. There will be of course a larger set of reasons for unhappiness, so that will affect you. If they don't want a war to continue for too long [war weariness, of course] the province would vote on it, having one citizen from each city (representing the majority opinion) give word(though non-provincial territories get no vote). Every time you do anything major, affecting the province, that happens. This could also mean that the decision is not a majority opinion, such as a size 12 city and a size 5 and a size 3 city all voting, and all 12 in the size 12 oppose the action, but are overruled by the votes of the majority opinion of the other two (4 and 2, respectively). Remember, one vote per city based on the majority opinion in that city. However, unless you let your citizens fall into civil disorder too much, they'll usually go with your decisions. Though if they say no to it.... you may veto it. But this will double the accumulation of Rebel Sentiment for the turn. Also, Rebel Sentiment grows less than in monarchy, though if you do too many things that the provinces do not like, you may get a revolution on your hands.

Feudalism: This I don't know about.

Democracy: This is much like Republic, but wth some differences. For gameplay reasons (not real life) the citizens will each have a vote. That means that if the majority of citizens (that is, citizens in provinces) will all get a say, and if the majority oppose something strongly enough, you cannot do it. War weariness grows more quickly unless you were attacked first, all the benefits of democracy are there as before. And revolutions are very uncommon. when you are opposed, you have no veto, so you cannot go ahead, however. They will rarely rebel unless something DRASTIC happens.

Fascism: This is an extension (in gameplay terms) of Despotism. Greater production ability, and all, but the top (you) is supreme. this is a great late-game conquest government, as the citizens will be happy to let you fight a war on your own terms. And will be very xenophobic, as well. Fewer rebellions, also, but not as few as in democracy. Trade is stifled, as well as culture.

Communism: Everything is centralized and redistributed between the nation. This means that the poor provinces/colonies get the same as the rich provinces/colonies. Every city's extra is added to the whole, which is then redistributed equally. The capital gets no more than the lowliest city. Of course, a province can pool its given resources to build more quickly, also, so it isn't as bad as it could be. However, corruption will decrease a good deal from the total. This government has about as much revolutionary tendancies as a republic. It's just a really different form of government!

Anyway, those are what I thought of so far. That is secondary, of course.. it isnt necessarry at all. But it would allow a change in the influence of provinces in every government. There should also be a city-state government, where the provinces have absolute power in their lands, also. Or maybe not. Anyway, all the functions such as redistribution of trade, and city voting will be done automatically, so it would only add to load times, not micromanagement.

Oh, since the citizens could vote in the representative governments.... propaganda in your own cities! Yay!

Anyway, that's a new bit for you. This could all be a secondary feature, and while the province idea could easily survive without the changes in government, it would be a good addition, not just for provinces power, but also for variety, and more interesting gameplay. I hope you accept it! I have more, as well, about how provinces can effect civil wars. Until tomorrow!