Here is something I posted last year at GC about what I would like to see added to Civ 4.
I'll give you a Civ 4 idea. A proposal I call:
Autonomy, Membership and Seceding
Civ 3 brought us the wonderful world of culture, mutual protection pacts, borders and many reasons for dissent, I want to expand on this idea to make it more realistic.
Autonomy
As we all know there are several (read lots) of places in the world where countries are hardly held together. Strong ideology or ethnic groups treaten to tear the country apart if they don't get autonomy or independence. Often autonomy is the first demand for the region. And for those who don't know, autonomy is when you control a region of a country without a lot of federal or national interference. So, applied to Civ 3 this would be a region of 3 or 4 cities that aren't hooked to your main civ....or are colonies, and not as well defended as other areas or maybe the cities aren't improved well, or you keep rushing production or they riot every other turn, and you do not suffecently deal with the problem or war weariness ticks them off or starvation and disease keeps killing them....but pretty much it's cities that are always mad at you because your doing something wrong or at least they think you are. These cities would demand Autonomy from you....as to say they want to control their own city queue and production. Granting autonomy would essentially make these people VERY happy, but by doing so, you lose control of the city production and worker allocation. Now the city is still yours, you still get trade and science and units built are still under your control (except for a small militia maybe a special unit that only autonomous cities can build for defense which changes with the times) but you can not control the city. Cities will not give up autonomy lightly, but if you want you can take it away. This will make a lot of people MAD. However, by this time you may be able to keep them happy, and eventually over time the anger will fade, and they will be just like your core cities. (Perhaps a moral scale would help) But if you still can't keep them happy, and you refuse autonomy after taking it back (only once) then the cities will threaten seceding from you and declare their independence.
Independence and Seceding
Not to be taken lightly, independence will cause a large problem for your empire. If a few cities declare independence, they will become a new civilization and you lose total control of the cities. Civ 3 introduced Culture Conversion. Where a city will change sides because of strong (or weak) culture. (This was also in Civ 1 FYI) The only problem I have with that is that the number of civs never changes. In the real world when America declared independence from Britian, they created their own "civ" and are now not considered Britons at all. But back to Civ 4. You have two choices, to recognize this independence, or declare war on the "rebels". This would create the good old civil war. Ahhhh...civil war. How I miss you from Civ 2. If you win the war you will have reconquered the new cities and they are yours again. They will be mad....but you will treat them just like a conquered city. They will lose their autonomy and their wish for autonomy unless you let it grow up again. If you don't win the war, and sign peace, a new civ will be officially created. Although this doesn't mean anything...as other countries may intervene during the civil war...it would just show that every country in the world recognized the new country. For morale, this civil war would really hurt your civ. It will take time to heal the wounds of open combat with your fellow countrymen.
Membership
Civ 3 also brought us Mutual Protection Pacts. Wonderful little things that can bring two civs closer together. I want to take that a little farther......the opposite of independence, membership would come in two forms. Complete, and partial. Complete membership would involve the complete joining of two civs. The Civ that is joined by another would gain control of all cities, units, and treaties. If two treaties are in conflict...the new civ would have to negotiate with the parties of the treaties. Complete membership would be pretty rare, as is in real life. Usually requires a huge civ and a smaller one, who have the same friends and enemies are probably have a good history of working together and a MPP, and RoP. A partial membership would be one where the smaller or joining civ retains autonomy over his cities. As in still controls production, and worker allocation. Before a queue is about to be emptied, the main civ would be able to suggest what it wants built. The autonomous city could then accept or reject this suggestion. Every 10 turns or so, it would be asked if the civ wishes to seperate, or join completely. If the main civ denies autonomy to the joined cities at any time, they have the option to become independent, but this has a much lower negative effect then if your countrymen do and will not trigger civil war. Over time the cities will convert to your culture and you can take away the autonomy with very little negative effects. But this will take a long time...50+ turns.
Well....this concludes my proposal. What do you think?
Version 1.0 - December 18, 2003 By: CornMaster
I'll give you a Civ 4 idea. A proposal I call:
Autonomy, Membership and Seceding
Civ 3 brought us the wonderful world of culture, mutual protection pacts, borders and many reasons for dissent, I want to expand on this idea to make it more realistic.
Autonomy
As we all know there are several (read lots) of places in the world where countries are hardly held together. Strong ideology or ethnic groups treaten to tear the country apart if they don't get autonomy or independence. Often autonomy is the first demand for the region. And for those who don't know, autonomy is when you control a region of a country without a lot of federal or national interference. So, applied to Civ 3 this would be a region of 3 or 4 cities that aren't hooked to your main civ....or are colonies, and not as well defended as other areas or maybe the cities aren't improved well, or you keep rushing production or they riot every other turn, and you do not suffecently deal with the problem or war weariness ticks them off or starvation and disease keeps killing them....but pretty much it's cities that are always mad at you because your doing something wrong or at least they think you are. These cities would demand Autonomy from you....as to say they want to control their own city queue and production. Granting autonomy would essentially make these people VERY happy, but by doing so, you lose control of the city production and worker allocation. Now the city is still yours, you still get trade and science and units built are still under your control (except for a small militia maybe a special unit that only autonomous cities can build for defense which changes with the times) but you can not control the city. Cities will not give up autonomy lightly, but if you want you can take it away. This will make a lot of people MAD. However, by this time you may be able to keep them happy, and eventually over time the anger will fade, and they will be just like your core cities. (Perhaps a moral scale would help) But if you still can't keep them happy, and you refuse autonomy after taking it back (only once) then the cities will threaten seceding from you and declare their independence.
Independence and Seceding
Not to be taken lightly, independence will cause a large problem for your empire. If a few cities declare independence, they will become a new civilization and you lose total control of the cities. Civ 3 introduced Culture Conversion. Where a city will change sides because of strong (or weak) culture. (This was also in Civ 1 FYI) The only problem I have with that is that the number of civs never changes. In the real world when America declared independence from Britian, they created their own "civ" and are now not considered Britons at all. But back to Civ 4. You have two choices, to recognize this independence, or declare war on the "rebels". This would create the good old civil war. Ahhhh...civil war. How I miss you from Civ 2. If you win the war you will have reconquered the new cities and they are yours again. They will be mad....but you will treat them just like a conquered city. They will lose their autonomy and their wish for autonomy unless you let it grow up again. If you don't win the war, and sign peace, a new civ will be officially created. Although this doesn't mean anything...as other countries may intervene during the civil war...it would just show that every country in the world recognized the new country. For morale, this civil war would really hurt your civ. It will take time to heal the wounds of open combat with your fellow countrymen.
Membership
Civ 3 also brought us Mutual Protection Pacts. Wonderful little things that can bring two civs closer together. I want to take that a little farther......the opposite of independence, membership would come in two forms. Complete, and partial. Complete membership would involve the complete joining of two civs. The Civ that is joined by another would gain control of all cities, units, and treaties. If two treaties are in conflict...the new civ would have to negotiate with the parties of the treaties. Complete membership would be pretty rare, as is in real life. Usually requires a huge civ and a smaller one, who have the same friends and enemies are probably have a good history of working together and a MPP, and RoP. A partial membership would be one where the smaller or joining civ retains autonomy over his cities. As in still controls production, and worker allocation. Before a queue is about to be emptied, the main civ would be able to suggest what it wants built. The autonomous city could then accept or reject this suggestion. Every 10 turns or so, it would be asked if the civ wishes to seperate, or join completely. If the main civ denies autonomy to the joined cities at any time, they have the option to become independent, but this has a much lower negative effect then if your countrymen do and will not trigger civil war. Over time the cities will convert to your culture and you can take away the autonomy with very little negative effects. But this will take a long time...50+ turns.
Well....this concludes my proposal. What do you think?
Version 1.0 - December 18, 2003 By: CornMaster
