Civic Idea: Oppression

[WarKirby]

Something a few people have been annoyed at, is unhappy citizens "refuse to work".
Oft lamented, is the lack of an option to make them work, at swordpoint if need be.

So, to remedy this, I propose the Oppression civic

Prereq: Way of the Wicked

Effects:

1. No unhappiness in all cities
2. -20% in all cities
3. -20% in all cities
4. -80% in all cities
5. All cities have a small chance to revolt each turn
6. Allows Suppress Revolt ability
7. Using this civic will modify your alignment by -200

I'll explain each one in detail.
Firstly, the no unhappiness is the core concept. Similar to the Tower of Complacency, it represents an obedient population, not a happy one. A possible better method of doing it, would be to have unhappy citizens work anyway, though that would be more complex.

The penalty. Unhappy workers will slack off as soon as the overseer averts their eyes. And will take every opportunity to slow down or sabotage things, as a passive-aggressive way of getting back at the evil government.

The commerce penalty, represents the economic costs of a lack of personal freedom. Merchants are less willing to open stores, knowing the government may take all they own. Wise men are less likely to lend their knowledge, knowing it will be used for evil purposes. Artists are uninspired by the brutal way of life.

The great person penalty, is a fairly self explanatory one. When people are forced into whatever job is at hand, they are unable to follow their dreams. The potential of people who could be great, is squandered.

Revolts. Because of course, the people don't always just mindlessly obey. All cities in your empire could have a small chance each turn to descend into anarchy, possibly becoming a barbarian city, or joining a neighboring nation. The chance of this happening would be dependant on the size of the city, versus the number of military units the civ has inside it. Large security forces would be needed to keep the people under control.

Which brings me to the next point. A Suppress Revolt ability. Useable by any military unit currently standing in a city in anarchy. It would have several effects.

1. The anarchy would end immediately.
2. All units in the city would take a random amount of damage, relative to the number of them, versus the city's size. From fighting against the rebelling peasants. This damage could cause death. If all units in the city die, the anarchy does not end, and instead continues in the now unguarded city.
3. the city's population drops by a random percentage, from 10-60%, rounded down. Minimum of 1 pop loss. Size 1 cities will be razed.
4. +1 to the Armageddon Counter
5. -20 to the civ's alignment.

What would this civic be used for?
The idea, is for evil civs to not have to worry about happiness, and force their population to churn out military units or wonders, without having to bother about wasting precious time building carnivals and theatres for them. It would also allow them to grow their cities vastly, while other civs are limited naturally by their happiness caps. It would allow the happiness penalties for defying council resolutions, to be harmlessly ignored. Likewise for any event-related penalties. The Suppress revolt ability would give invading armies an easy means to immediately quell rebellion in newly captured cities, without having to go the goody goody Order path, AND ignore the massive "We yearn to join our motherland" happiness penalty

On the downside, you would have to employ a significantly larger defensive military than normal, to keep population under control. Your economy would also be dragged down by the commerce and production penalties.

Does it seem like a balanced concept? too powerful? too weak? Good idea? y/n ?

 

[ICanHasName?]

There definatly needs to be some brutal oppresive way to keep the masses in line (other then being calabaim and eating them )

 

[Niveras]

I kind of like it. Basically the opposite of Social Order. The ability to suppress revolts is thematic, but I feel it might be overpowered when used on the warfront. Perhaps the population loss could be tied to culture, e.g. the more of your culture in the city, the fewer people you need to slaughter. This would mean suppressing revolts in cities you've just captured would almost raze the city, though there would be a hard cap because at some point people would just lose hope.

Alternatively, the suppress revolt could act as simply a reduced revolt time. For instance, if your own city is in revolt for only three turns, it would clear it immediately. If you just captured a 20 pop enemy city that's going to revolt for 15 turns, suppressing it might take only 3. Although, I guess, since you're paying population anyway, being able to pop the revolt immediately is still not as good as using a disciple to do it.

I feel also that while all unit types could serve to prevent revolts, only melee units should be able to suppress them: they're really the only ones suited for urban fighting. Perhaps some sort of bonus with city attack promotions?

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I like the idea in general. The supress revold need a bit of careful design, though, so that it can only be used on cities that have revolted because of the oppression and not other types of revolts. The no-unhappiness needs a bit work, also. The hammers penalty should be a bit more, and - in order to avoid using it with conquest to have food contribution in unit building, it should prevent usage of food to build units.
It should allow for sacrifising population to finish production, IMO.

 

[WarKirby]

I like the idea in general. The supress revold need a bit of careful design, though, so that it can only be used on cities that have revolted because of the oppression and not other types of revolts.

This compromise would defeat the entire purpose, though.

The point of oppression is to crush any and all resistance from the people. They do as you say, regardless of whether they were born under your banner, or you just marched into their town with a few thousand troops.

The distinction between types of revolts, would be silly. Besides, as has already been pointed out, normal disciple units of any religion can stop a revolt, by creating a great work in the city. Why does that work, exactly? It seems strange, to be honest.

In any case, the existance of an already easy method to stop city rebelling, pretty much justifies that ability being available to a civic such as this. To be honest though, I forgot about the disciple thing, and I rather think that devalues this concept somewhat. Not to mention it also makes Unyielding Order near worthless.

I should probably make another thread about that, actually

 

[xartah]

Cities conquered from those using oppression could also have a shorter revolt period since the citizens are happy to be away from those oppressing them. Revolts, especially successful ones could greatly reduce the culture of the owner in the city. Cities on the borders might be more likely to offer to join the neighbour or go barbarian.

 

[Deon]

Yeah, I think it's really overpowered to have no happiness problems in ALL cities so (balance-wise and thematically) there should be huge culture loss, like -50%. When the people are working days and nights without ability to speak free or leave their jobs masses don't really care for arts, music or museums, they just want to rest and sleep a few minutes.
Also it should give big diplomatic "-" with good civs.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

This compromise would defeat the entire purpose, though.

The point of oppression is to crush any and all resistance from the people. They do as you say, regardless of whether they were born under your banner, or you just marched into their town with a few thousand troops.

The distinction between types of revolts, would be silly. Besides, as has already been pointed out, normal disciple units of any religion can stop a revolt, by creating a great work in the city. Why does that work, exactly? It seems strange, to be honest.

In any case, the existance of an already easy method to stop city rebelling, pretty much justifies that ability being available to a civic such as this. To be honest though, I forgot about the disciple thing, and I rather think that devalues this concept somewhat. Not to mention it also makes Unyielding Order near worthless.

I should probably make another thread about that, actually

I cannot see how oppression would be able to crush armed resistance from recently captured cities. Culture demonstration(disciple thing) is a way to do it, that fits well, IMO. But using oppression should be useless, since they have taken arms as a result to your oppressing rule, already.
However, if there would be huge penalties if you take cities from civs with much more cultural value than yours and this could result to an enormus(+20) turns of revolt in the city, I would say it should be balanced.
I also agree that there should be very big culture penalties(I would even suggest -75% or more) under this type of civic, because no unhappiness can be abused very easily.

The - with the Good civs, is assumed, of course, as well as the + with the Evil ones.

 

[Honor]

Too weak compared to social order IMO. Social order does all that without the penalties and the risk of revolts. Remove the production, commerce and GP penalties and it will almost be a viable alternative.

 

[TheJopa]

The way I see it, it's not that citizens refuse to work when they are unhappy, it just means that you have exceeded your ability to control population.


That being said, I always had an idea for Oppression Civic, I even posted it few times and I modded it in for myself few times.

Opression would be a cultural civic available with Way of the Wicked, available to evil civs (in FF, it would make you evil instead) with effects: High upkeep, -50% culture, +1 happy from military unit in city.

Social order would lose happiness from military units, and instead gain -25% or -50% city maintenance.

This system would work far better IMO as it would allow more civs to use military police to suppress unrest. Even more important, it would allow EVIL civs to supress their populations, and as it stands now, it is even more absurd that only good civs can use it.

To compensate, order would get maintenance reduction to help keeping large empires.Possibly also large crime rate reduction.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

So, you would remove the Social order's military police to replace it with an oppressing military police that would make you evil?
I do not think it makes sense. Good civs use military police methods also. Order is an expert on that, as it is shown by the lore.
I would rather propose to make the evil version reduce unhappiness instead of increase happiness. The difference is subtle.
In addition, oppressing people leads to accumulating chances of a revolt. History has proved that no people tolerates oppression for very long periods. They will even betray you and turn to another civilization in order to get rid of your oppression. Before that, they would have revolted quite a few times.

 

[25Hour]

This is a really interesting idea-- I kinda like it. I can see a few main uses for this:
1) Calabim. Duh.
2) Any civ running Sacrifice the Weak, due to happiness being their main restriction on growth. (Of course, they'll still have health problems and their specialist economy wouldn't be as strong.)
3) Any highly militaristic civ willing to run Military State. Get enough granaries and farms up and running, and you've got yourself a fairly decent way of drafting several soldiers per turn-- well worth the commerce/production penalty if you're going for world domination, especially since your newly-conquered cities would be instantly productive.
4) Civs suffering from crippling war weariness, natch, although only as a temporary measure.

Now, I follow those individuals who protested that this would cripple Social Order and Unyielding Order. However, I don't think this'll be too much of a problem-- the upside of UO and SO would end up being that you can do the same thing as this civic in a few cities, but without having to sacrifice your research and production to do it. The advantage of this civic'd be that it comes earlier, and is civilization-wide.

Of course, this'd require a lot of testing for balance... but I think the idea's neat!

 

[WarKirby]

I cannot see how oppression would be able to crush armed resistance from recently captured cities. .

I don't quite understand what you're saying here. Isn't it obvious?

Ok, here's how.

1. Soldiers go in, kill the biggest loudmouth among the peasants.
2. Anyone who speaks up to defend him, kill him too.
3. Rinse and repeat until all peasants stop fighting back, or they're all dead. The only question is having enough soldiers.

This is a really interesting idea-- I kinda like it. I can see a few main uses for this:
1) Calabim. Duh.
2) Any civ running Sacrifice the Weak, due to happiness being their main restriction on growth. (Of course, they'll still have health problems and their specialist economy wouldn't be as strong.)
3) Any highly militaristic civ willing to run Military State. Get enough granaries and farms up and running, and you've got yourself a fairly decent way of drafting several soldiers per turn-- well worth the commerce/production penalty if you're going for world domination, especially since your newly-conquered cities would be instantly productive.
4) Civs suffering from crippling war weariness, natch, although only as a temporary measure.

This is exactly what I intended. All perfectly evil uses of it.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I don't quite understand what you're saying here. Isn't it obvious?

Ok, here's how.

1. Soldiers go in, kill the biggest loudmouth among the peasants.
2. Anyone who speaks up to defend him, kill him too.
3. Rinse and repeat until all peasants stop fighting back, or they're all dead. The only question is having enough soldiers.

I guess you have missed the rest of my post

 

[Humakty]

Oppression always had bitter results, at least in history. It appears like oppressed people won't ever stop revolting. Killing more people only results in bigger revolts.

But maybe you do have an example of an effective oppression system ?

 

[1234567890]

Cool idea - it's like the "SHUT UP AND GO BACK TO WORK" option that I suggested some days ago.

But the -20% is a too big penalty. -50% would be fine. And, maybe you forgot it, but for obvious reasons you should be able to sacrifice population.
Also, the small % chance of revolt should be higher in foreign cities.

Maybe you should add a special ability for military units:

Requisition (can only be cast in cities)
- -1 pop in <City>
- Recieve 10 per pop in the city.
- The unit gains 1 XP
- +10% chance of revolt for 5 turns.

This ability should balance the lack of .

 

[1234567890]

Oppression always had bitter results, at least in history. It appears like oppressed people won't ever stop revolting. Killing more people only results in bigger revolts.

But maybe you do have an example of an effective oppression system ?

- Third Reich
- Roman Empire
- Tibet
- French and English colonial empires.
- etc...

 

[WarKirby]

Oppression always had bitter results, at least in history. It appears like oppressed people won't ever stop revolting. Killing more people only results in bigger revolts.

But maybe you do have an example of an effective oppression system ?

Killing people will make others angry, but if you kill enough people, there will come a point where they value their own lives more than revenge. Human nature is focused first and foremost on survival, and not so many people are willing to give up their lives for a cause. Especially not random peasants who are just trying to eke out a living in a harsh world. Most of them would rather live under an oppressive dictator, than be dead.

The idea here, is that the chance of revolting would depend on the ratio of population to troops stationed in the city. Whether or not people will revolt, is dependant on whether or not they think it can suceed. If you have enough overwhelming force that disobedience means death, revolts are unlikely. If you have a skeleton guard that barely maintains order, revolts are almost a certainty.

Some ideas on revolts.

Base revolt chance per turn would be (population*10)%
this chance is doubled if there are no military units in the city. So if you move the city#s only defender out, for any reason, the people would sieze the opportunity to take control of the town before the guards return.

Each military unit stationed, counts against 0.25 population for every strength point it has. Strength is the average of attack and defence strength, in cases where they differ.



So for example, a size 10 city with one warrior guarding it, would have a 92.5% chance of revolting. Obviously a pretty stupid idea

One Longbowman with Iron weapons (7/9, average 8) would count against 2 population. So with 5 longbowmen in that city, the chance would be reduced to 0.

However, a minimum revolt chance of 4% per turn would remain, unaffected by military units. To reflect that the rebellious spirit can never be truly crushed. So even with those 5 longbowmen, the city would still have a 4% chance of revolts

Casting Suppress Revolt in the city, if sucessful, would guarantee no revolts for 5 turns, and then for the next 20 turns, all revolt chances would be halved (including the 4% base chance). Until the people eventually forget past events and become disobedient again.


Numbers could be tweaked, obviously, but the main idea is that revolts would be somewhat annoyingly frequent, but mostly(not completely) avoidable with enough military investment.

 

[Humakty]

Third reich lasted for,what, ten years ? and their oppression raised many rebellions in the conquered countries. Rather a good example of 'oppression, a sure way to utter failure'

Roman Empire wasn't oppressive, they gave more than they took (building cities, paved roads, aqueducts...), they even gave citizenship to deserving people, even to whole cities ! It's true they sometimes killed revoltees, but it was exceptional. They preferred to let people live and pay taxes .

French and English empire ended with mass revolts, all due to the overly oppressive system of their 'masters'.

So it seems oppresion is rather a short term policy, bringing you temporary benefits, and long term drawbacks. You should play revolution mod, it simulates very well the fate of an oppressive system, which is at best a drawback to any empire, at worse it will spell its end.

The more you oppress, the more you have rebellions.

So, if you plan to use a stick, don't forget the carrot...

 

[1234567890]

- Third Reich
- Roman Empire
- Tibet
- French and English colonial empires.
- etc...

Third reich lasted for,what, ten years ? and their oppression raised many rebellions in the conquered countries. Rather a good example of 'oppression, a sure way to utter failure'

Roman Empire wasn't oppressive, they gave more than they took (building cities, paved roads, aqueducts...), they even gave citizenship to deserving people, even to whole cities ! It's true they sometimes killed revoltees, but it was exceptional. They preferred to let people live and pay taxes .

French and English empire ended with mass revolts, all due to the overly oppressive system of their 'masters'.

So it seems oppresion is rather a short term policy, bringing you temporary benefits, and long term drawbacks. You should play revolution mod, it simulates very well the fate of an oppressive system, which is at best a drawback to any empire, at worse it will spell its end.

The more you oppress, the more you have rebellions.

So, if you plan to use a stick, don't forget the carrot...

You forgot the Tibet. This country is oppressed by China at the moment. And and it's not likely to be independant.