An idea for an Anarchistic civ

[Grey Fox]

Ok, I'm gonna start by saying that I've never played FF. Yet. I'm waiting for it to be more stable cause I don't really have time to play too many games at once atm.

But I had this idea for a Civilization that would be cool to play.
The whole point with the Civ is that they can't manually build units or control their cities. They can't even control their units most of the time.

At the beginning of the game you start with a city in riot, and a hero unit which is the only unit you get to control in the early game (and is the same character as the only leader for the civ). The city state of this former nation is in an anarchy which doesn't seem to end, and your unit/leader is a former General or something, trying to bring back order of the former nation.

The city will produce stuff and units at random, you cannot reassign citizens and the population is never unhappy.
Every time a unit is born the city gets -1 Population (maybe more on more expensive units) and sometimes these units can be produced at random, even without any hammers invested in them.

All units except Great People start under AI control. And only by using an Ability of your hero unit can you get control of these units. It might cost gold or something else to limit how often he can do it.

Maybe your civics can only be changed during a Golden Age (?).

The hero unit would be able to be upgraded during the game. To various versions of himself, not like an Adventurer. He should probably not have the Hero promotion either.

Ok, that's the idea. Shoot it down or improve upon it, I just thought I should share my craziness before I forget it.

 

[orangelex44]

It's a neat idea, but there are lots of problems with it. How could you possibly compete against giant empires with one city you can't even control? It sounds like you're trying to create a human-AI hybrid country, but why? Plus, the AI sucks too much to accommadate this kind of thing (that's not an insult to the FF guys, because it's really, really, really hard to engineer a decent AI).

I think my first question should've simply been "why"? I could see this being a unique scenario, but impractical or outright impossible for typical random maps.

 

[Tarquelne]

It's a neat idea, but there are lots of problems with it.

It's surprisingly similar to an idea I've had for a "civ". "The Traitors Circle" isn't quite as extreme, though... and there's are lots of problems with it.

 

[Grey Fox]

@Orangelex44: I haven't been too specific, but the civ would get boosts to counter the negatives of it. For example, they wouldnt be stuck with just a city, they could get settlers produced and even free cities pop up within their culture or nearby neutral territory. Their cities would have no unhappy, cost no maintenance, their units would cost no upkeep, etc. And they could randomly get Great People.

Anyways, it's just an idea. If it ever becomes something is not really up to me. Cause I have too much to work on myself anyways.

 

[Brokenbone]

Sounds less like a civ and more like a scenario's territory, like that one Hippus one (Beneath the Heel) where they have a Magnadine-like "hire someone" interface each turn... though of course, they're still the Hippus, building their little horsemen in their one city and whatnot.

 

[orangelex44]

@Orangelex44: I haven't been too specific, but the civ would get boosts to counter the negatives of it. For example, they wouldnt be stuck with just a city, they could get settlers produced and even free cities pop up within their culture or nearby neutral territory. Their cities would have no unhappy, cost no maintenance, their units would cost no upkeep, etc. And they could randomly get Great People.

Anyways, it's just an idea. If it ever becomes something is not really up to me. Cause I have too much to work on myself anyways.

Even with advantages like that, it's just not practical. You'd have to rebalance everything for every difficulty level, every map size, every game length - which, granted, happens to most civs but the only one that even comes close to the necessary AI micromanagement are the Scions, and that's for one unique concept (Ancestor spawn). Imagine trying to do that for every type of unit spawn - and then imagine trying to make the AI play this civ. This would require a lot of playtesting. Not going to happen, unless someone locks themselves into a small, dark room with nothing but a computer and a food slot for a half-dozen years. I doubt anyone here has that kind off time - Civ 5 will be coming, someday.


It would be a neat scenario, though - it's be a twisted little brother of the Momus.

 

[TheJopa]

It seems as a nice idea for Che Guevara revolution mod, with jungles, guerrillas, partisans, communists, and some Kalashnikovs. But for FfH, I don't see it working well.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

im really not a huge fan of this myself. i prefer to... uh... you know... actually CONTROL my civ...

 

[notque]

I was thinking about an Anarchist civ, but not in the narrow way Anarchist is used here. The Actual political ideology of Anarchism.

Kurios fits it somewhat with autonomy via settlements.

 

[VSPavlov]

I was thinking about an Anarchist civ, but not in the narrow way Anarchist is used here. The Actual political ideology of Anarchism.

Kurios fits it somewhat with autonomy via settlements.

It's hard to imagine such an ideology (rather modern one) in a world of ancient dark fantasy realms...

 

[WarKirby]

It's hard to imagine such an ideology (rather modern one) in a world of ancient dark fantasy realms...

Maybe they worship the angel of Chaos.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Anarchism doesn't mean Chaos, it simply means the absence of a central government. it's just that human beings are used to having a leader and so they think things would go chaotic if there's no leader. in reality, it's a system that works quite well under the right circumstances. some forms of organizations simply don't NEED a leader.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The Grigori are about as close as you can get to an enlightened form of anarchy in Erebus. The Doviello are already the more barbaric kind, where everyone tried to dominate everyone else and cause lots of chaos and strife.

 

[Grey Fox]

I wouldn't call Doviello an anarchistic society. They have a despotic government. A powerful leader which the majority follows and obeys.

 

[notque]

It's hard to imagine such an ideology (rather modern one) in a world of ancient dark fantasy realms...

It isn't particularly modern. You can find the train of thought that sprung it as far back as recorded history.

 

[notque]

I envision the Kurios settlements as Anarchist Communes

 

[Anathema]

I see the Doviello (and the Clan, for that matter) as anarchists that just happen to have had a strong leader step up and unite them recently - they could easily revert to barbaric anarchy again if said leader died.

On topic, sounds like an interesting scenario or maybe even game in its own right, but it kinda runs contrary to what Civ4 is all about doesn't it? I mean it'd take away all the city and civilization management that makes up the game, and leave you with controlling a few units - which could be fun in, say an RTS, but is really not Civ4's strength.

Actually it could make a -great- RTS; let your anarchistic "government" (in other words, the AI) collect resources, build bases, train and control units all with a certain degree of randomness, and allow the player to control a few of the units to use as they see fit, defending their chaotic empire in spite of itself or spearheading an attack against an enemy with (hopefully) some sporadic help from the AI-controlled units. Of course the resource gathering/base building aspect would be rather simplified so the AI couldn't screw it up too much, with much more emphasis on tactical small-scale unit combat which is all the player would be doing anyway. You'd still have to protect your anarchy's resource gathering centers so it could keep building fresh troops for you, you just wouldn't have to manage resources personally.

 

[Hawkwood]

I wouldn't call Doviello an anarchistic society. They have a despotic government. A powerful leader which the majority follows and obeys.

But if following a leader because if you don't he will beat isn't anarchism then how can there be a situation where it exist? There will always be someone stronger than others , and some them will always try to enforce their will on others if there isn't someone else there's also strong protecting them (usually some form of government). If there is no one protecting the weaker ones, then some of strong will always try to enforce their will on those weaker.

 

[Iceciro]

You've just found the loophole a lot of us have looked at during the teen years, and seeing everyone marking the A's everywhere.

People gravitate to a leader, and even if they don't, powerful people want to lead. Thus, Anarchism breaks down.

 

[Black Mech]

Anarchy can work with hive minded species though, for instance colonies of ants don't have a leader(the queen just lays eggs and doesn't rule in anyway, its only valuable to the colony for the fact that it is only one in it that can lay eggs) though ant colonies don't do anything too eficiantly, they just wonder about doing their respective roles till they die.... Though if an unlucky insect (or in the case of one species of ant in Africa, anything) wonders into these wondering ants.... now that was a major digressing though maybe an insectoid race might be cool, hey giant spiders survived the age of winter why not sentient bugs.... or is there no room in the lore for intelligent bugs . Any way a pure anarchist race where you don't even have much control over your own cities isn't a very good idea, its like playing civ while only doing what the blue circles and advisers say you do .