A call for mechanisms to balance game play

[rcoutme]

Yet more thoughts on the system:

Starting government should be Chieftain. Research would be at 1/2 normal. This should have big-time corruption penalties for cities that are not the capital. From this, two government techs should be able to be researched: despotism--normal research-- and city state--research x2. While in Chieftainism (or whatever it is called) you would be allowed to build as many cities as you like, however, you would get virtually no production from your farthest cities after an OCN, determined by map size, has been reached.

When you switch to the next government, with despotism you get to keep 3 cities (maybe +1 city for each map size increase). With City state, you keep only one city (all the others become individual Civs). As I stated above, if you choose city state, then you get to research Republic and Democracy at half price.

With City State, whenever you go above a certain number of cities (for std size map anything greater than 5) you will have a big chance of having a civil war leaving you with 3 cities (the others will, again form their own civilizations).

Why not go with city states only? Because when you are in despotism, the chance of cities splitting off and forming their own civ will be far less than in city states. Why not go only with despotism? Because a large empire will be regarded as a threat, and the other surrounding civs will be more likely to gang up on you.

After the AA (or near the end of it), the available governments should be:
1. Feudalism (a required tech for Monarchy)--research is x2
2. Monarchy (a required tech for Constitutional Monarchy)--research is x3 or 4
3. Republic (a required tech for Democracy)--research is x4

Note: a civ does not have to participate in the government in order to research the next one, they just have to have the tech.

In the later Middle Ages Constitutional Monarchy and Democracy will become available. CM will have research x8, Democracy will have research x10.

In the Industrial Age other governments could also become available.
1. Communism--research x8
2. Fascism--research for military oriented would be x10, others would be x7
3. Socialism--research for military oriented would be x5 or 6, research for others would be x10

Republics would have large costs for units and high War Weariness (unless they were the ones attacked and then WW would not occur until the counter-attack).

Democracies would have high unit costs and high War Weariness (just like Republic).

Constitutional Monarchy would have lower (but existant) war weariness.

Republics and Democracies would have universal corruption (lower with Democracy). Constitutional Monarchy would have palace oriented corruption but would have the possibility of the Forbidden Palace and a new improvement, Colonial Courthouse, for any city that has >50% corruption. This would cut the amount of corruption loss in half.

 

[Warwind]

What about your military you would have to split it up or face the player just retaking those city's the next turn.

 

[rcoutme]

All military would get split up. Basically, libraries, marketplaces, military units, temples, etc. would get split up. All the units and buildings built would exist in the various new civs. The player would get the benefit of any rounding.

Buildings would remain in their respective cities, so a really good player could skew that part of the break-up by making sure that he got the 'Lion's Share' of buildings. Keep in mind, however, that the split occurs along population lines, not one city = one city, so the player could not concentrate putting buildings in his favorite 6 cities and making all workers and settlers in the other ones. Once the split occurs, the computer would calculate the population of the (former) civ and divide it along population lines. The player would get to choose which cities he wants, but only to the point of getting his share of the population. That means that he could end up with only one or two cities!

Your military would get divided evenly, however, if you were in a war when you split up, and lots of troops were in the enemy territory, then those troops would get split up, but the enemy would be at war with all participants (i.e. any of the splinter civs who had troops in enemy territory). Any of the groups would be allowed to make peace with the enemy on the next turn.

Also: all trade agreements would cease to exist. This would mean that there would be a partial loophole to the trade system in that you would get a 'free' ability to break treaties if your empire breaks up. Note that this only happens if your empire breaks up--not if you lose some cities due to revolution (as in the example of Republic above). This 'loophole' would be necessary as the entity that made the agreement technically would no longer exist. Thus, in theory, you could trade furs for 350 gp and then the next turn switch governments and the fur agreement would be off. Perhaps the AI should have an option to ask each splinter group to honor the agreement and any that did would get a bonus to reputation and AI attitude. In this example, however, if you had not spent the money, it would end up being divided evenly among the splinter civs, so you would only get a portion of the proceeds.

All units that were not in hostile territory and not in cities would be relocated to cities automatically (to simulate that the troops returned home to deal with the turmoil). Workers would be divided equally. Settlers would be added to cities before the division of the empire (unless the owning player were savvy enough to build a city with them before the break-up).

Please ask more questions as I have a pretty good idea of what I mean to convey, but doubt seriously that I have successfully answered all possible questions.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

What about units that number only 1? what about an Army? would the player profit again in the split?
I think a better name for Chieftainism would be tribal council....in order to avoid confusion with difficulty levels...BTW what about difficulty levels? How Deity would be here because I think that the present concept of happy faces/unit support cannot reflect the proposed changes...

 

[hello]

in every real era there has been different powers

therefore i suggest:

- make as many benefits from tech, wonders and so on, valid only for that era as possible

- limit growth in city number by corruption up to civil war and empire division, when world domination and victory are deactivated

- granaries, marketplaces, libraries and all city improvements increasing city output should be affected by corruption

- keep limiting population growing by necessities like sanitation, aqueducts an so on

- make technology stealing easier for techs that aren't to complex (not everybody can build nuclear plants, stealth airplanes, etc. even if so. tells him all details)

- more possibilities for sabotage

- bigger empires should spend more on counter intelligence measures

- i'm sure there are more possibilities

 

[rcoutme]

For units numbering 1, the player would get the unit. Keep in mind that his civ is about to lose a lot of cities and form a bunch of competitors that are very close by (usually). The idea is not to eliminate the player, it is to make the progress forward take a (logical) step in creating more competition.

 

[Talesin]

Love the idea but I also reckon that there should be maybe not so random events that, once the tech is rearched, could change your gov't.

For example: Your Russia your empire spans 1901 Russia. A man comes along, Lenin for names sake, and through espionage and propaganda splits your empire and raises an army. You keep from the urals to Poland and he gets the rest. He would then declare war on you straight away as he wants the rest of yopur empire to become communist. Places such as china may back him and send him supplies and troops for a share of the empire.

The event could be started off by China, for example, sendin a mole to iniatie propaganda and try and change your empire. It could fully work and part of the empire changing to china, weakening the strong russia. It could partly work and break off into a new. OR it oculd fail and the money China spent would be wasted.

 

[Warwind]

If you split your civ based off of population what's to keep someone from just creating cities for population only and no other improvement's. When your civ splits you would keep your 6 real cities , and let them keep those nearly useless one's.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

If you split your civ based off of population what's to keep someone from just creating cities for population only and no other improvement's. When your civ splits you would keep your 6 real cities , and let them keep those nearly useless one's.

rcoutme how do we avoid that? what determines which cities split?

 

[warpstorm]

It would have to be random, otherwise I'd find an easy way to exploit it.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

It would have to be random, otherwise I'd find an easy way to exploit it.

You're probably right but I think you should at least retain the capitol. Think of it it would make for some interesting alterations in the settler factory style openings...

 

[MarkC1]

The AI mindset of "Let's gang up on the leader because he is winning" was intentionally left out of Civ3 (it was in the previous civs). Why? Because so many people complained that real world countries don't go to war with the front runner just because they are bigger, stronger, wealthier. In fact, it is often quite the opposite. They are afraid to be crushed.

In addition to this I am very much against a random factor targetting the front runner and selectively decimating him. Anyone out there play Tropico Mas Mucho? Ever have a Class 5 Hurricane? After I was doing great and the game decided I needed a dose of the RNG I put the game down never to play it again (Sorry, Bill, it's true).

It does happen - Look at Europe uniting to challenge the United States


A Mechanism that I think could work would be like having NATO/WARSAW Pact type agreements between a Large country and several smaller ones.

That could maybe lead to a Cold War and it will be in the larger countries best interests to keep their allies strong so its allies get like 50% off or some discount

thas my crazy idea, please dont rip it to shreds

 

[hello]

to markC1: if you try to keep military alliances against some other nations it's already possible in civ3 as long as you aren't by far the best. otherwise it's still possible, but you will rarely get more than 1/3 on your side and you will have to pay more and more resources, money or technologies every 20 turns until you can't no more, then they will turn immediately against you.

so if you're the best don't share, if you're not try make a war against you very sumptuous for the enemy by being allied to as many nations as possible.

to randomly splitting the empire i say no, it should simply be a quite symmetric, geometric division.

 

[dh_epic]

I see it as a pretty geographic thing myself. Or along cultural divides, if there are indicators (like religion or national origin).

e.g.: America leaves England (geographic)
e.g.: Rome splits (geographic)
e.g.: Quebec leaves Canada (cultural) -- note, fictional
e.g.: the South and North split (geographic)

 

[Khift]

Rcoutme, I have one thing to say to you: BOOOO.

I don't mean to seem rude, (Or, perhaps I do,) but that is NOT a game I would ever want to play. The idea that you just instantly lose half your cities or some such when you change governments, as well as that you're forced to change governments, is completely and utterly aggravating and un-fun. Rule number one with games: NEVER take control away from the player. If there is a limiting or restricting factor, ALWAYS allow the player some way to mitigate or even eliminate this factor. As of right now, I see nothing in your long and overly drawn out idea (Which is a problem in and of itself - how could you describe something that big and confusing to a new player without losing their attention?) that could allow the player to reduce the loss of cities.

Now, personally, I have been thinking about this. And I've got an idea. It's not as simple and polished as I'd like it to be, but I think it's still worth typing down. Maybe it'll get better just by writing it down...

Civil wars. A simple, universal component of empire building. Dictators have lived their entire lives in fear of one. Great empires have sprouted out of them.

A new unit, the Revolutionary, would start these civil wars. This Revolutionary would be like Great Leaders - they have no stats and appear mostly at random, but can have far-reaching effects on your empire. They could appear at any time, although at certain times your empire are more prone to them. They also aren't by any means guaranteed to be successful. One could pop up, and end up doing nothing due to too many loyal citizens.

Two things mainly affect how likely it is for a revolutionary to appear:
1. The amount of unhappy citizens in that particular city. If the city is rioting, it is especially bad.
2. The amount of foreign nationals in that particular city. If the city was recently conquered, it is especially bad.

Other minor factors include how far the city is from the capital, the amount of corruption, and if the city is on a border with a country of a different government type.

Players can reduce the likelyness of revolutionaries appearing through troop garrisons, having happy citizens, and stepping up the police meter. (A new concept, specific to each city, which decides how much gold you spend on police in that city. More police can increase happiness and decrease corruption, too, as crime goes down.)

Revolutionaries can do two things:
1. They can convert citizens and eventually cities, depending on how unhappy and how many foreign nationals there are in those cities.
2. They can convert military units, depending on how new those units are (Conscript, Regular, Veteran, Elite) and the nationality of their original city.

Both of those functions are automatic - that is, all cities and military units within a certain range can be converted. Also, a citizen or military unit can only risk being converted ONCE.

Revolutionaries also have one other unique ability - invisibility. Not pure invisibility, mind you, but a relative one. The more military units within the range of the revolutionary the greater the chance you can see them, as well as police within cities. Additionally, the units and citizens/cities the revolutionary converts are invisible in the same manner as the revolutionaries are. They can be discovered all the same, and once a converted unit or citizen is discovered it is then much easier to find the revolutionary. If the revolutionary is found, the revolution is declared.

When the revolutionary has decided it has enough support OR it is found, it will declare a revolution. When this happens, any city that is more than half converted flips to the revolutionary, (Although the citizens that weren't converted are counted as resisters) and all military units converted flip as well. If there are any squares shared by military units of both the government's and the revolutionary's, they fight, with the revolutionary's counting as the attacker. Also, if a city flips, it counts as a cultural flip so - to - say, that is, all of the government's military units die automatically, leaving only the revolutionary's. Initially, the chance of conversion goes up, with another factor being how close the city or military unit is to a city of the revolutionary's, but after the first turn the chance goes way down, eventually hitting nothing after a couple turns of war. After that, all conquest counts as if the two were separate civilizations.

Revolutionaries will have a nationality. Those of a foreign nationality will simply want to unite all of their nationality under one banner, and most certainly not yours. Chances are that these revolutionaries would join back with their original country, although it might not always be so. Revolutionaries of your nationality will either want to eliminate and replace you, or to simply spawn a new nation and survive the revolution. This will depend mainly on how strong they are.

SO:

1. Revolutionaries appear in cities with low amounts of military units and standard police, high amounts of unhappy and foreign citizens, high amounts of corruption, and proximity to a civilization of a different government.
2. This revolutionary will wander from town to town secretly converting citizens and units to it's cause, with the likelyhood tied to the same factors as above.
3. You can detect when a unit or citizen has been converted through military units and standard police. Each unconverted unit and police has an equal amount of finding them each turn, meaning more units and police have a higher chance than less. Once you have found a unit or citizen that has been converted, it is much easier to find other converted units and citizens as well as the revolutionary itself. You can disband converted military units, and converted citizens count as resisters, disappearing in the same way.
4. Once either the revolutionary has been found or the revolutionary has garnered enough support, civil war is declared. The chance to convert goes up for a bit, then way way down, applying to all units and cities within the nation, although the distance to the nearest city of the revolutionary's is a major (MAJOR) factor.
5. The war is won and lost in the same manner that any other war is, with the only exception being that resistance from conquered cities is slightly less than normal, as people can stand being governed by their own nationality better.

CHANGING GOVERNMENTS

Here's where it gets fun. When you decide to change governments, you actually become a revolutionary. The computer temporarily takes control of your empire, and you get not one, but three revolutionaries to spread the powerful doctrine of your new government. The war should take a couple turns, but with new surrender conditions (Another idea of mine, kinda) and the easier quelling of resisters, it should still be a winnable battle. In the rare occasion of you losing the battle, you are reinstated with your old empire, although the changes caused by the AI and the war are still there. (This is probably the chunkiest and least intuitive of this system, and I won't deny it still needs alot of work.)

Whew. That was alot of typing. But I think it was fun! Hope you guys like it too.

 

[warpstorm]

I like Khift's idea. With a little polish it could be fun. I like the idea of the revolutionaries.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

Khift, I like your idea (I have to agree though with warpstorm, needs lots of polishing), but I dont see a big difference between yours and rcoutme's. Both Ideas remove some control from the player(RULE no 1:when the player is in TOTAL control the game is boring) to a different extend and degree. The mechanism you describe is complex and not easily accessible for an entry level player.Nevertheless the whole concept is very promising and I think it deserves more work...

 

[rcoutme]

Before criticizing the ideas, please read posts 26, 28, and 41!

In there, it specifically outlines that the player would CHOOSE whether or not his civ would change governments. Only if the player made such a choice would there be any possibility of his civ splitering.

The negative feedback loop would occur with the ability to obtain modern technology. If you remain in despotism or feudalism, you get to keep your empire (provided no one takes it from you). The problem you would run into is that trying to research Nationalism would be a nightmare and trying to research replaceable parts would probably be a lesson of "Oh well, I may as well assign the minimum research since it is going to take 50 turns anyways". Researching atom bombs would be virtually impossible because there are not enough turns in the game to get you to the point where you could research that many techs at such a low research level!

Read the posts again! Better governments will have better research rates. Not just a little better...MUCH better! On the order of x2, x3, x5, x8, x10! When your Zulus are researching techs at x10 (with only 6 cities and better corruption control) how far behind are your opponents Hittites going to do with 24 cities, high corruption, and a x2 research bonus? The Hittites are going to fall behind, period!

Look at what happened to one of the most technologically advanced civs of our actual history. China discovered gunpowder and printing presses while Europe was in the Dark Ages! Why did China end up getting bullied by the Europeans 1200 years later? Because they broke up? NO!! Because their tech fell way behind.

The Great Wall was built by the intellectuals in China who opposed the Emperor. What does that tell you about despots and free thought? Give China a huge population and keep them in the same, early government (despotism or feudalism) and what happened over 1200 years? Not much! They could not have researched their way out of a paper bag by 1900. They were totally dominated, tech-wise, by the Europeans.

You don't have to split up your empire in my system, you just have to pay the penalty of not doing so (i.e. your early, primitive, repressive governmental policies stifle free thought and tech is very hard to come by later on). If you want to criticise the plan, at least have the integrity to read the whole thing and then criticise it on its final problems.

 

[rcoutme]

If you split your civ based off of population what's to keep someone from just creating cities for population only and no other improvement's. When your civ splits you would keep your 6 real cities , and let them keep those nearly useless one's.

Answer: Mostly nothing! You could take the plumbs of your civ and make the rest go packing. The problem with creating a bunch of 1 pop cities would be that Population determines the cities you get, so having 6 cities of 8 each and 20 cities of 1 pop each gives you a total population of 68. Such a civ would, probably, be broken into about 4 groups. Each group would get 17 population each, so you would get two of your main six cities and one pop 1 city.

Suppose you only develop a small group of cities and make the rest go to hell? Well, first of all, their should be the chance of Civil War based on unhappiness (having no building improvements in a city means that you have no temples etc.). Secondly, you are taking a big chance by not improving some of your cities, since a neighbor may decide to invade and the lack of those improvements could mean the difference between winning and losing. Thirdly, when you choose your cities, I assumed that you would take the best that you could (of those likely to be near your capital, to prevent too much corruption--at least with earlier gov't types). The idea is not to eliminate the player. It is to provide a negative feedback loop to make it more challenging.

In the example above. Suppose that you make sure that all the pop 1 cities have the best stuff and the size 8 cities have nothing? You could take 17 of the size 1 cities! Yeah, but if you invaded, the rest of the guys would gang up on you! Not only that but the troops are split up evenly. Good luck defending 17 cities against your neighbors who only have one or two!

What happens if you take the only two cities with improvements plus a size 1 city? Well, as I stated above, that may not be the best move in the world anyways. But, assuming that you did this (there could, of course be an automatic system where if there are only a certain # of cities with improvements that the computer assigns them as new capitals, but I'm not certain I would do that), You still only have the three cities and 1/4 of your army. The other, splinter civs have 3/4 of the army, 3/4 of the cash on hand and all the same techs that you have. You, in effect, can not just declare war on one of them since the computer would be programmed to stop such an agression for the first 3 or 4 turns (i.e. all the splinter groups would unite to stop you from reforming your empire immediately).

What if you disbanded the entire army and set up your group to dominate the others by starting over? Well, probably a neighbor would notice. Possibly you have no neighbor to notice, what then? Well, you might just get away with it. Remember, though, that the other civs (the splinter ones) will likely make up for whatever they are missing. In addition, they will also need to be programmed to have different priorities, so they should be researching on at least two different techs (provided their are 3 or more of them). This means that if you start bullying them after the agression period has relaxed, they will possibly be able to trade techs, will probably gang up on you anyways (since you are the big bully of the region), and will already have been building up their military since they have so many close neighbors who are about equally powerful to themselves.

Finally, what if you still mangage to pull it off? You get your empire back. The point of this is a negative feedback loop that slows down the player, not crucifies him. If you come up with ways to defeat this system, well that is the idea anyways! I want you to have a chance to defeat it. But it will take you time and energy to do so, and will give you a much better challenge than you would have in Civ2 and Civ3. You are no longer automatically going to win once you get the lead because UNLESS YOU SWITCH GOVERNMENTS AND TAKE THE CHANCES OF BREAKING UP YOUR EMPIRE, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RESEARCH WELL ENOUGH!

 

[warpstorm]

I'll just wait till the AI switches and tear him a new one (repeatedly). After they are trashed, then I'll switch.

It could work, in concept. In fact, I think it would make a very interesting game against humans. I'm just afraid that the AI will be too easy to exploit and rather than providing more challenge, it will provide less.