Revolution: what's your experience?

[Pongui]

Thanks guys that's good information.

Government center buildings affect the revolution distance penalty for that city only.

That's how it is, but I ask is that how we want it?

(If it's not too difficult) I'd like the "acts like palace" buildings to work on RevIndex same as they work on maintenance. This would really help when you start at the end of a snaky landform, or on an island, etc. Also, it gives players more choice over the ultimate shape of their empires; they needn't be blob-shaped.

 

[Arakhor]

Finally, I fully support devs assuming Revolutions enabled. As with map size and speed assumptions, you can't balance AND2 for every player preference.

Until Revolutions stops making the game easier for players than AI, that would be a faulty assumption.

 

[jeak11]

a bit of feedback.
my current game Im having a major war with another world power. Ive taken most of his cities, and they are revolting/revolution against me. When that happens it spawns tanks, helicopters, mobile sams, etc. I feel like this is a bit inaccurate. Revolutions should only spawn infantry units, unless they are being aided by enemy spies.

another possible fix for revolutions, is somehow making infantry type units more able to stabilize cities and discourage revolutions. So the "patrol" upgrade, should be accessible earlier in the game, and patrol should some effect on discouraging revolutions, not just revolts. and perhaps make it so if you have a barracks in a city, your infantry will spawn with this upgrade.

I also think that spies/agents should be able to infilitrate your own cities and perhaps spend espionage points to stabalize cities/lower risk of revolution, but create a penalty to where if your spy fails then it backfires and increases the chances of revolution, something like this anyway.

thanks.

 

[nionios]

a bit of feedback.
my current game Im having a major war with another world power. Ive taken most of his cities, and they are revolting/revolution against me. When that happens it spawns tanks, helicopters, mobile sams, etc. I feel like this is a bit inaccurate. Revolutions should only spawn infantry units, unless they are being aided by enemy spies.

another possible fix for revolutions, is somehow making infantry type units more able to stabilize cities and discourage revolutions. So the "patrol" upgrade, should be accessible earlier in the game, and patrol should some effect on discouraging revolutions, not just revolts. and perhaps make it so if you have a barracks in a city, your infantry will spawn with this upgrade.

I also think that spies/agents should be able to infilitrate your own cities and perhaps spend espionage points to stabalize cities/lower risk of revolution, but create a penalty to where if your spy fails then it backfires and increases the chances of revolution, something like this anyway.

thanks.

Obviously you're in Modern Era because you're referring to modern units.
Yeah it's an issue I've also notice.The bigger problem is when rebels have got numerous and state of the art units.I believe rebels should based more on quantity than on quality.

 

[<Nexus>]

All true and agree.
I just wonder if the rev. code is ready to handle such situations.
I made a quick search for UNITCLASS_MOBILE_SAM and UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE but found nothing, so I doubt that the code could exclude unitclasses or unitcombattypes without a lot of extra work. But someone more expert in python should deny if I'm wrong.

 

[nionios]

I suspect that the number of spawning rebel units depends on how strong is the rebelious spirit in the city.
In any case, the solution is to guard such cities with as many units as you can.

 

[Vokarya]

The unit types that can spawn due to revolution are based on the units nearby when the revolt triggers; the code is in RevUtils.py. I think it's necessary for a revolt to spawn some offensive units like cavalry or tanks so that the revolt is a threat to the player the revolution is aimed at. Attacking infantry vs. defending fortified infantry is not going to go well for the attackers.

I do want to look into the exact effects of revolt protection promotions on the revolution index change for garrisons. Revolt protection is supposed to increase the effectiveness of a garrison, up to the hard cap in the code. I would love to make the Patrol line of promotions exclusively revolt protection rather than having additional abilities. I am not a big fan of the AND promotions that stack multiple effects on one promotion. I don't want to give the promotion out for free, but making it available earlier with a single focus appeals to me. We just have to pitch it at the right level.

 

[Vokarya]

I looked at the code for garrisons in Revolutions. Unit strength is not a factor in determining the effect of a garrison in reducing the RevIndex. What matters are:

• The number of units present. This uses an exponential function so that it takes more units to get an equal change in the RevIndex.
  
• Whether or not the player has Liberalism tech.
• If the player does NOT have Liberalism, the presence of defensive buildings. The formula takes one jump when total building defense > 25, which effectively means Walls, and another jump when total building defense > 75, which practically means Walls + Castle, although some other combinations such as Star Fort + Watchtower or High Walls + City Gatehouse + Watchtower would also work.
  
• The total of any promotions that reduce city revolt chances. This is calculated as a % increase in the garrison effect. For example, one unit with Loyalty (100% revolt protection) doubles the garrison bonus.

I think this is what will work for redefining the Patrol promotions to make them effective anti-revolution promotions, and allow them to Mounted and Tracked units to serve as a "flying squad".

Patrol I

• No tech requirement.
• -25% chance of city revolt.

Patrol II

• Requires Heraldry tech and Patrol I.
  
• Additional -25% chance of city revolt.

Patrol III

• Requires Fascism tech and Patrol II.
  
• Additional -50% chance of city revolt.

The Patrol promotions then would not have any other abilities. I especially don't want them to have +city defense. I don't want to mix external security and internal security; if you try to do both with one unit, it won't be as effective.

 

[nionios]

I looked at the code for garrisons in Revolutions. Unit strength is not a factor in determining the effect of a garrison in reducing the RevIndex. What matters are:

• The number of units present. This uses an exponential function so that it takes more units to get an equal change in the RevIndex.
  
• Whether or not the player has Liberalism tech.
• If the player does NOT have Liberalism, the presence of defensive buildings. The formula takes one jump when total building defense > 25, which effectively means Walls, and another jump when total building defense > 75, which practically means Walls + Castle, although some other combinations such as Star Fort + Watchtower or High Walls + City Gatehouse + Watchtower would also work.
  
• The total of any promotions that reduce city revolt chances. This is calculated as a % increase in the garrison effect. For example, one unit with Loyalty (100% revolt protection) doubles the garrison bonus.

I think this is what will work for redefining the Patrol promotions to make them effective anti-revolution promotions, and allow them to Mounted and Tracked units to serve as a "flying squad".

Patrol I

• No tech requirement.
• -25% chance of city revolt.

Patrol II

• Requires Heraldry tech and Patrol I.
  
• Additional -25% chance of city revolt.

Patrol III

• Requires Fascism tech and Patrol II.
  
• Additional -50% chance of city revolt.

The Patrol promotions then would not have any other abilities. I especially don't want them to have +city defense. I don't want to mix external security and internal security; if you try to do both with one unit, it won't be as effective.

Vokarya,very useful information for the reduction of revindex.The term 'chance' of revolt does mean that revolution is a bit random?

 

[Vokarya]

Vokarya,very useful information for the reduction of revindex.The term 'chance' of revolt does mean that revolution is a bit random?

In this case, reduction in chance of revolt means the <iRevoltProtection> variable in the XML. The one thing that I can't tell from reading the sources is whether or not this is cumulative when looking at non-Revolutions revolts.

I found this in CvCity.cpp:

Spoiler :

int CvCity::getRevoltTestProbability() const
{
    int iBestModifier = 0;

    CLLNode<IDInfo>* pUnitNode = plot()->headUnitNode();
    while (pUnitNode)
    {
        CvUnit* pLoopUnit = ::getUnit(pUnitNode->m_data);
        pUnitNode = plot()->nextUnitNode(pUnitNode);

        if (pLoopUnit->getRevoltProtection() > iBestModifier)
        {
            iBestModifier = pLoopUnit->getRevoltProtection();
        }
    }
    iBestModifier = range(iBestModifier, 0, 100);

    return ((GC.getDefineINT("REVOLT_TEST_PROB") * (100 - iBestModifier)) / 100);
}

but I can't tell if this only uses the single best unit or all units. I am not a C++ programmer, but I have been learning how to read the source codes.

However, I can handle the Python code, and the Python for Revolutions includes this:

garIdx *= int((100 + (pCity.plot().getRevoltProtection())) / 100)

garIdx is the change in the RevIndex from garrison forces. At this point, it's only based on the number of units present and either having Liberalism or defensive buildings. So the total <iRevoltProtection> in the city gets used as an additional multiplier to the effect of the garrison forces. Two units, each with a "-25% chance of revolt" promotion, would increase the garIdx by 50%.

Changes to the RevIndex are not random, although the Revolution module can trigger random events that can cause additional changes to the RevIndex.

Actual revolutions are random, and I don't think revolt protection affects this, since getRevoltProtection is only called when calculating the revIndex.

 

[Vokarya]

I've been doing some digging through the Revolutions code and I think the Religious Freedom and some other numbers aren't doing what the in-game text says they do.

According to the in-game text, religious freedom <iRevReligiousFreedom>, labor freedom <iRevLaborFreedom>, health and safety <iRevEnvironmentalProtection>, and suffrage <iRevDemocracyLevel> all have a % increase or decrease effect on the national stability number.

I read through the Revolutions code and I found that the Religious Freedom value is only called to do two things: if the religious freedom value changes sign during a civics change, increase the effects of the one-time revolution index changes; and a religious revolt may ask for a change of civics if the current level is less than -5 or the current level is less than 0 and the new level is greater than 5. The religious freedom value is never actually calculated into stability. So it doesn't matter how high the religious freedom numbers actually get, but they shouldn't go worse than -10. The "best religious freedom" calculator assumes a starting point of -11. I actually tried increasing Intolerant from -9 all the way to -1000 and it made no difference to the revolution index.

Here's what I think would be better Religious Freedom numbers:

• Folklore: Leave at 0.
• Prophets: Reduce from +7 to 0.
• Divine Cult: Leave at -5. This corresponds to the placement of Organized Religion in vanilla BTS.
• Intolerant: Increase from -8 to -10. This corresponds to Theocracy in vanilla BTS.
  
• State Church: Change from -3 to 0.
  
• Reformation: Leave at +5.
• Secular: Increase from +8 to +10. I like the nice multiples of 5.
• Personality Cult: Leave at 0.
• Atheist: Change from -7 to 0. Atheist can't trigger religious revolutions, and there is a stability increase when switching to Atheism, which I don't really want to increase.

• Theocracy: Increase to -10. This will also trigger the "Holy" prefix in Dynamic CivNames.

• Change the level checks in Revolution from just less-than to "less than or equal to". This should allow triggering requests to change from Divine Cult to Prophets, DC or Intolerant to State Church, then Reformation and Secular take over.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Quick note, with Theocracy and dynamic civNames, we aren't going to have the 'Holy' Holy Roman empire are we??, any way that should be the "Hari Hari" Roman Empire.

Shouldn't it be the 'Wholly' Holy Roman Empire....or

The 'Whole' Holy Roman Empire... OR The "Hole" Holy Roman empire.

 

[Vokarya]

Quick note, with Theocracy and dynamic civNames, we aren't going to have the 'Holy' Holy Roman empire are we??, any way that should be the "Hari Hari" Roman Empire.

Shouldn't it be the 'Wholly' Holy Roman Empire....or

The 'Whole' Holy Roman Empire... OR The "Hole" Holy Roman empire.

Dynamic Civ Names actually checks for that. It won't add on "Holy" if "Holy" is already in the name, and it won't add "Holy" if the name starts with "Roman" so you don't confuse a "Holy" "Roman Empire" with the "Holy Roman Empire". I think this is actually fairly clever.

 

[<Nexus>]

"The Holy Roman Empire sucks. It is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire."
Voltaire

 

[Arakhor]

I doubt he said the first sentence.

 

[<Nexus>]

Maybe not exactly with those words but he surely meant that

 

[RaTeedus]

Generally my experience with Rev is odd. None of the enemy AI empires can ever grow or get big cause they keep dying constantly. I had a revolution once where when I was playing Atilla I used his Unique Units to absorb and decimate my enemies and then my conquest was halted by revolution. This was nice and a welcome challenge. I like its affects on me but I feel like AIs just struggle with it, and they constantly capitulate and fail to contain the rebels.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Generally my experience with Rev is odd. None of the enemy AI empires can ever grow or get big cause they keep dying constantly. I had a revolution once where when I was playing Atilla I used his Unique Units to absorb and decimate my enemies and then my conquest was halted by revolution. This was nice and a welcome challenge. I like its affects on me but I feel like AIs just struggle with it, and they constantly capitulate and fail to contain the rebels.

Strangely enough I find for myself it's quite the opposite. The AI seems to power through with no care whatsoever to Revolutions or Distance Penalties when settling cities.
I'm finding stability to be inconsistent in my own games. I tuned the Rev difficulty up to 5.0 in RevDCM on one game, and found the effects to be quite harsh, and then I tried another game and there were almost no effects at all - infact up to turn 50 I can't recall any Worsening of local stability at all in a recent game, whereas in that first game I mentioned, my capital was worsening pretty much from Turn 1.

Maybe I should mention this in Bug Reports, but I'm still not entirely sure that if it's a bug or if Revolutions really are meant to be this way. :|

Edit: I tweaked the settings a bit and the problems appear to have gone away. Maybe the game was just glitching or something. :|

Edit 2: Movement Limits aren't working. I think I'll post to Bug Reports.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

With Revolution, I have an empire of 67+ cities.

I have the usual "Our empire is too big", creeping revolution index in all cities, due to empire size.

I'm the strongest by a factor of 2 or 3, so its not military strength. I have 5 Garrison troops per city, maybe I need more, but if I sit an army of 30+ in a city, its no difference. These are border cities at that.

The AI seems to be constantly spawning rebels, who appear, some thrive, some fail.

Biggest problem I have is not enough opposition to my predations. The AI can only seem to maintain 2/3 garrison troops, most of the time 1 only. It seems to invest ALL of its resources into technology, and the constant AI v's AI wars. Which I don't even have to flame.

I declared war on the 2nd top AI in score, and it was just a steam roller conquest of half its empire (Split in two due to settlements) I might have lost 1 trooper in taking 5/6 cities. I lost a few 'pirate' promoted ships, as they are lessor then the Civ attached ships.

To summarise;
1) Revolution index will continue to creep up, even though I build buildings, research technology etc.
2) Empire size is a major consideration.
3) Civics has a smaller impact.
4) The AI can't maintain garrisons, to forestall revolutions.

 

[billw2015]

I really love this mod, still coming back to it over and over. However I still never finish games in it because it is just too easy. I have noted a couple of people mentioning the AI can't handle revolutions, so I am going to try again now with that disabled. But normally I play with variable difficulty and I end up at deity, the AIs are all on settler and still I can easily outscore and conquer them by 500AD or so. Can anybody advise on what settings to get the AI to actually be aggressive in expansion? I have tried ruthless, I have tried setting only the conquest and domination victories, I have made sure to have stack attack off (iirc AI can't deal with it), but still none of them really seem to get rolling through their neighbours. I'm sure at some point in this mods history they could do that and you would get a properly dominant AI in most games and it would be a challenge for the player even at normal difficulties.