Civil War

[Shyrramar]

In the thread about evacuation there came up an idea of immigrants leaving your cities. I think it would be a great idea to combine this with the ideas presented here. Some resistors would try to overthrow you, others would simply leave to settle another place. This way a whole lot of minor civs would be created throughout the land. It would be really interesting! These small nations would mostly rise and fall, but they could also gather lands and become real powers in the world.

I think this is really something that should be implemented in cIV!

 

[King Aldous XI]

That idea is crucial to a better Civ experience.

 

[Headline]

Shyrramar and judgement,

Good idea!!

I just want to add something
There are 2 possible scenarios for each civil war.

1. Coup - A takeover of leadership. There is internal but not military struggle. This is portrayed in Civ as the peaceful revolution (although in reality it is not). However, since the character we controlled is the most brilliant man of the nation, he/she always win in a coup. Plus, he/she is immortal.

2. Military Coup (civil war) - the rebel cannot takeover internally, so he relies on violent methods, which result in a civil war.

The conclusion of a civil war is either
a. Peaceful coexistence ¡V the rebel gain independence. You signed a peace treaty
b. Overthrown your government ¡V Game over. You lost the entire empire to the rebel
c. You quelled the rebels ¡V you regain the cities you lost. However, beware of your culture and the citizen mood, because the unhappy citizens can turn into resistors.

The culture that would affect the defection probability should NOT be the culture of the city in question, but the culture of other cities near it. Take the culture of the another city and divide it by distance. Being in the trade-network would decrease the possibility of defection significantly. There is no point in the idea that a distant and lone city with 1000 culture points should not break away of your nation - on the contrary: they would be very aware of their own identity.

This is a nice idea. This is what I think should be the case. Defection probability is calculated from the sum of citizen happiness and the average of X% of culture points per distance from each city of the empire per city. (In this case, a city of more culture points can exert the effect of the culture in a longer range). Equation: (Y% of total unhappy citizen + (X% £U (Culture points / distance of each city in the empire) / (number of city)) = Z, where Y= a constant value and X= a constant value. Once Z lowers to a pre-determine value, an unhappy citizen becomes a resistor like what judgement said (also, as Shyrramar said, the Z value should be very low and hard to achieve, and X and Y should be adjusted accordingly). Once that happens, a resistor increases Y constant of the nearby city by some factor (everyone fears terrorists). This increases unhappiness of the nearby cities. Unhappiness + the lack of cultural influences from surrounding cities using the above equation further create more resistors. Each (or a determined turns) turn, one unhappy citizen is converted to a resistor (one happy citizen to a content citizen). When 10% (subject to determination) of total citizens become resistors, civil disobedience can occur (there is not enough people to work on the farm). However, Military presence can prevent or suppress the civil disobedience. However, as the number of resistors increase to 50% of total citizens (you must be ignoring the situation!!!), the amount of military presence you need in order to suppress the resistors become exponential. You won¡¦t have enough military units to prevent the overthrown of your government.

How does one lose the city? I like Shyrramar¡¦s #1, but I also modified it a little bit. When the number of resistor reachs 4 units (subject to determination), and there aren¡¦t enough military presence (like what I just said), all four resistors become rebel conscripts or regular defenders. All of your units that once occupied the city are then kicked out of the city with one or two (elite) Health Points. Your will lose the city. This will significantly decrease the Z value of the cities surrounding it. If the cities don¡¦t have enough points to overcome the minimum Z, these cities will convert more citizens to resistors each turn, and these resistors will eventually rebel and cause a flip. This chain reaction will spread until it is stopped by the boundary cities that have the Z value higher than the requirement. This chain reaction can be stopped if you sign a peace treaty with the rebel. Once you sign the treaty, the rebel states become one new nation.

If you choose to have a war, you can attack the rebel city with the troops that were kicked out. However, since they have low health points, you will be risking the life of these troops. If you want to send in the reinforcements, they will have to cross the border, which will cost at least one turn (more turns if the rebel destroys the roads). You must be fast enough to get back the city or that the cities surrounding the rebel city will be converted (if they are also unhappy and have low cultural influences).

Of course, the details need to be adjusted to fit the gaming.

 

[Geuiwogbil]

Long time reader, first time writer!
I am always frustrated by this feature because of two main conflicts.

1)This feature would either require a completely redone leaderhead system, or an incredible amount of leaderheads,(can anyone name me a leaderhead for Sumerian seperatists?) and,

2)This feature would put a heavy load on the processor, unless there was some way to budget the total amount of Civs in the game, by, perhaps, limiting the total amount of Civs to 31 and only allowing a new seperatist Civ when an old Civ has been crushed.

Just my thoughts.

 

[JazzToucan]

I agree. Although I'm not a programmer, I think some people's imaginations are surpassing technical reality in terms of gameplay.

I stick by my simple suggestion that is only a slight improvement over Civ 1.

If another Civ takes your capitol, your Civ splits to form a non-occupation faction (controlled by you) and an occupation faction (controlled by the conquering Civ).

Although it would be neat if that new faction became an independent Civ, given the potential limit on civs, leaderheads, etc., I think it is unreasonable. Thus, the "occupation" part of your former Civ empire would be controlled by the AI that conquered it and remain in a locked alliance.

You would still be alive as the non-occupation Civ, still being called Rome or Ottomans or whatever Civ you were playing as, but with half or so of your territory as the rest went to the conquering Civ. If you managed to take back your original capitol, you gain back control of the forces, cities, territories you lost.

Again, if you conquer another Civ's capitol, you gain control of half or so of their cities, forces, etc. which you can control.

What this does is puts a little more significance in your capitol and adds a little character to the game.

While the other ideas are creative and would be interesting, I wouldn't want to bog down the gameplay with forty or so city-states running around the map and negotiating deals.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Geuiwogbil
Long time reader, first time writer!
1)This feature would either require a completely redone leaderhead system, or an incredible amount of leaderheads,(can anyone name me a leaderhead for Sumerian seperatists?) and,

Not necessarily. Since Civ is about rewriting history, there's no reason the new civ created by Sumerian rebels has to be a civ that was actually, historically created by Sumerian rebels. Just make it any civ from the same culture group that isn't currently in the game. Everyone's familiar with England giving birth to America, but perhaps in the alternate history of your particular game, Egypt or Babylon could be founded by Sumerian rebels.

As long as the total number of civs exceeds the number in your game, there's no problem. Say there's 32 civs and you play a game with 16: there's 16 others just waiting to be born by revolution. If you play on a super-huge map with every single available civ in the game, then maybe rebellions that produced new civs would just be disabled until a few civs had been eliminated (rebellions that joined an existing civ would of course still be possible). It might make sense to have that be the case no matter how many civs you start with, so that the number you start with is the maximum number for your game. I don't think it would make much difference, since the chances are high that by the time a civ gets big enough to worry about rebellions on its edges, a least one or two civs have probably been eliminated anyway.

2)This feature would put a heavy load on the processor, unless there was some way to budget the total amount of Civs in the game, by, perhaps, limiting the total amount of Civs to 31 and only allowing a new seperatist Civ when an old Civ has been crushed.

Exactly what I'm suggesting- as I said, you could even limit the number of civs to however many you started with.

You could have situations like the following (I'll use a small map with only 5 opponents to keep it shorter). Say you play as Babylon and your rivals start off as, say, China, India, Egypt, Greece, and the Mayans, who are off on a large continent by themselves. Maybe you eliminate Egypt. Then you help support a rebellion in part of the Greek empire and a new Roman civ results, which you ally with and together you eliminate Greece. Meanwhile China eliminates India, but in doing so they overexpand, and on their far side, rebels create a new Japanese civ. And by the time you all make contact with the Mayans, rebels in their empire has created an Incan civ as well. The total is still 6 civs, but now half of them are different ones than at the start of the game: a much more "realistic" alternate history, given that in the real world, many of the ancient age civs are long gone and many of the major modern powers didn't exist in 3000 BC.

Originally posted by JazzToucan
Although I'm not a programmer, I think some people's imaginations are surpassing technical reality in terms of gameplay.

Sure, there are plenty of fertile imaginations here, but as long as the total number of civs in a game is limited, I don't see how this idea poses any significant programming challenge. In Civ 3, its possible for eliminated civs to "respawn" if there is unsettled territory somewhere... why not let them also respawn through revolutions in existing civs that have grown too big (they wouldn't necessarily have to be the same civ as had been eliminated, although they could be, if many citizens of that nationality were present in the rebellious city).

 

[Shyrramar]

Originally posted by Geuiwogbil
Long time reader, first time writer!
I am always frustrated by this feature because of two main conflicts.

1)This feature would either require a completely redone leaderhead system, or an incredible amount of leaderheads,(can anyone name me a leaderhead for Sumerian seperatists?) and,

2)This feature would put a heavy load on the processor, unless there was some way to budget the total amount of Civs in the game, by, perhaps, limiting the total amount of Civs to 31 and only allowing a new seperatist Civ when an old Civ has been crushed.

Nice to see that this interests you enough for you to post comments - and very good ones may I add!

I think it should follow GalCiv's logic: the irrelevant little civs would not have leaderheads, just a sign to represent them. Because they are of a minor role, they needn't be as personal as the real civs - this would also represent the fact that they had nothing to do with winning conditions.

As far as the processor goes, you are probably right to some extent. First of all, this should be made optional. As are the animations (which might have had similar complaints posted back then) currently. Second, someone posted here that cIV should use the same tactic as GalCiv (multithreadding?): most of the AI calculations would be done when you have your turn. The player's turn doesn't eat much of processor-strength. Thirdly: the resulting minor civs would in effect be small. They could also be programmed to spread more slowly. Three cities of one rebel civ is in essence the same thing as three cities of a real civ. As the number of cities on the map would not be any greater (this system would actually result in unused lands, which would be good), the processor would not get under such a burden. Anyhow, this is a good point and should not be taken lightly.

Originally posted by JazzToucan
Although I'm not a programmer, I think some people's imaginations are surpassing technical reality in terms of gameplay.

This might well be the case, but I wouldn't worry. This forum is for ideas. There are thousands of fans out there with thousands of ideas, some wild, some not so wild. The game developers can pick the ideas that are unacceptable, or change them so that they fit into the game. A different money system would of course make many ideas here obsolete, as they depended on that system. That doesn't mean that the original ideas were unnecessary and should not have been posted! And as some ideas are followed to their conclusion, we may just as well make a favor to the game designers: they would see that the idea they were themselves pondering would actually not work. And THAT is even more important than having ideas implemented: it could save the game from a complete disaster.

Originally posted by judgement
Not necessarily. Since Civ is about rewriting history, there's no reason the new civ created by Sumerian rebels has to be a civ that was actually, historically created by Sumerian rebels. Just make it any civ from the same culture group that isn't currently in the game. Everyone's familiar with England giving birth to America, but perhaps in the alternate history of your particular game, Egypt or Babylon could be founded by Sumerian rebels.

I actually liked the earlier idea that the rebellion civs would get named after the city which started the rebellion. So if Tyre was the Persian sity to revolt, the new civ would be called Tyreans or something like that. This would in effect leave all the "real" civs untouched - which would be the best solution IMHO.

@Headline:
Great thinking there!
I would rather not see the three possibilities a-c implemented. The game over solution would be too harsh and a and c would be the same situation with you acting differently. I think the newborn civ should almost immediately seek peace (three independent cities against 20 of your would not be an intelligent struggle), it would be up to you to either grant it and lose the cities or try to retake them. They could also later cause culture flips is your remaining border cities.

I agree with your ideas in general. The calculations are well thought. Perhaps you should think of it even more and post an exact calculation (or few possibilities), so it could perhaps be evaluated better?

 

[EddyG17]

taking about civil wars, what if spain conquered the incas, later those incan cities could rebel wanting independace. they name themselvs Peru or Latin America.

This way if the US sufers a civil war, the rebels could name themselves the Confederates or the English(rewritting history) instead of the Virginians

 

[rcoutme]

This is exactly what I was looking for in my other thread. I love these ideas about more civs. As I suggested in the other thread, break-off countries could be more conducive to alliances against an outside (i.e. previous enemy) civilization. Suppose that you are the Romans. You have a civil war and your empire sort of collapses giving rise to the French, Spanish, and Greeks (as well as your own Roman Itallians). Now the evil Turks (i.e. Ottomans) come invading the Greeks. You don't want the Greeks to fall to the foreign invaders. Neither should the Spanish and French, so an alliance should be easy to get to repel the infidels.

After the war, things go back to everybody (i.e. the AI) doing their own thing. Spain may go to war with you or the French. France may take an established barbarian kingdom named England. Soon, France faces internal struggles and England and France are broken apart (gee, just what were those Itallian merchants doing, giving mounds of gold to the English?).

Now, which culture group you belong to becomes much more important. Incorporating the ideas you guys suggested above. As for the problem for the computers, just make the small places neutral barbarian groups. They would have similar (if not all) techs to the groups they split off from.

In addition, constantly beating up on your neighbors should get a bunch of the smaller (read barbarian or splinter-group) nations to gang up on you and beat you to a pulp so that you calm down your empire-building armies. Then, after the war, the victors demand that you set free some of your cities as new countries (remember the recreation of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Estonia after WWI?) These places are now ripe for the picking, except that, again, nobody wants his rival too big, so picking on the little guys may give you headaches.

Finally, I think that reputation needs to be reevaluated under this type of scenario. If you have gone for a long time without a war, you should not be punished for your past sins. Warmongering should be a temporary hit to negotiations, not an until-the-end-of-the-game experience. This should also go for those nations you have attacked, but the lingering resentment should last longer than when you attack someone else (sort of like the way war weariness is done in Civ3 now).

 

[MattII]

Here are my ideas
-Civil War happens if thy no. of angry citizens is above 50%
-If a city is taken by an enemy (other than civil war) happy citizens become rebels, content citizens become workers and angry citizens stay put.
Not sure yet how military forces would be handled.

 

[slc193]

I would love to see the return of civil wars in civ. But I think that there has to be something to counter it. Possibilities include...


A major reason for rebellions in early reality was lack of communication/understanding of the people by the government. This lack of communication can maybe be "countered" by the advent of the printing press, and later radio/television. Now since these can and have been used by both the rebels and the rebelled-against, maybe have it so that printing and radio help to lower the chances of a rebellion, but if resistors do arise, they are able to spread their word and discontent faster. This will work to represent the good, bad and ugly about mass communication.

 

[EddyG17]

you forgot Nationalism, this tech could split your empire in half or preserve it together.

 

[Ant509y]

When it comes to questions of HOW many cities would rebel, etc., I really think provinces could solve that. Having provinces, or, to be a little more clear, smaller [3-5 cities] suborganization of nations, would allow more complex relationships with your cities, because those situated in provinces would be able to tell you what they want, etc. They would have their own culture from their cities, which while it is part of the whole, is also seperate from each others, they would possibly have relationships with other provinces [like rivalries, for instance] albeit it should be far simpler than the relationships of civs themselves. If the capital and a powerful, rich, culturally adept province of yours on the other side of the continent have any trouble, that influential [due to pop, military, and culture] may just say 'you know what, we don't like being ruled by them anymore. We're just as strong. We're ridding ourselves of you' and take at least several smaller provinces within their vicinity [those within their sphere of influence] with them. That's just part of the civil war aspect of it, which would also include the benefits/problems of changing government forms (if in feudalism, and changing to monarchy, for example, the provinces, which enjoyed greater power to rule their own peoples with feudalism, may resist the change, if they are far away from the capital, and could possibly rebel with the goal of, first, keeping the nation feudal, and if that fails, creating their own nation), and many other things.

 

[pond]

civil wars, i liked them in CIV2
why are they abandoned?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, at the risk of reintroducing an idea I have presented in other threads. I think that the idea of civil war is a good one-and it DOESN'T have to be to complicated to be effective.
In my response to some ideas in the Religion thread, I have presented all of my thoughts on both revolts AND Civil Wars-and how they should work in cIV-see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84950&perpage=20&pagenumber=4

Anyway, I'll try and summarise it hear:

1) Each Civ is broken down into its Demographic Components, i.e. Workers, Military, Intelligentsia (scientists and Educators) etc.

2) Each component (or faction) has its own level of happiness and influence, based on several pre-determined and player-determined factors.

3) If a factions happiness falls below a certain, critical level, then it has a chance of starting a revolt-based on its current influence.

4) The nature of a revolt is dependant on which faction starts it-for instance, a workers revolt might result in a loss of production or even food! A religious revolt would prevent religious improvements from working, etc. There would still be general revolts, which result from a lack of average happiness, which would work much the same as Civ2 and Civ3!

5) Every turn that a revolt goes on, there is a chance for it to turn into civil war-in fact, revolts are one of the possible 'Trigger Events' for Civil War.

6) Other possible 'Trigger Events' are Government/Religion Change, High Crime/Corruption, low culture (compared to neighbouring civs), high war weariness, Capital Loss or low happiness.

7) If one of the trigger conditions are met, then each city must check for its breakaway chance- a chance based on several factors, such as: Distance from Capital; # of Foreign Nationals; # of military Units; Corruption; Happiness; Avg. Social Influence; Culture Ratio (city's culture compared to the civs avaerage); War Weariness level; presence of other breakaway cities-and a few others. If this city breaks away, then it and any other break away cities will form a new nation-possibly with a new government and even new civ characteristics.

8) This new civ can either be dealt with diplomatically or re-integrated through force-depending on the player's (or AI's) choice.

Anyway, that's my contribution to the CW debate !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[akhicks]

What about this as a suggestion. The game could optional start only with ancient civilisations, such as Egyptians, Babylonians etc. During a civil war the ancient state would break up into two or more new states. These states could be either city states or whole new civilisations.

For example, War of Independence - Americans start a new civilization from English

The English themselves came about from a norman invasion etc.

Maybe if each civilization could have a list of city states or civilizations that can break away from them, it may add more realism and fun to the game.

For the English

You could have the following breakaway civilisations

USA
Australia
Canada
etc

City States Gibraltar, Hong Kong..

 

[Philips beard]

Oh yeah!

 

[Shyrramar]

@akhics: and for the Incas you could have the following breakway civilizations...? It would only work for some of the civs, not for all - and as has been said earlier a dozen times, civ should be about re-writing, not re-living history. This would also cause terrible problems in the civlist: you couldn't have USA as a civ then. You could only have all the "original" civs as the maincivs.

 

[Philips beard]

Peru could break out of the Incan thyrrany, and form an independent nation!

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Shyrramar
@akhics: and for the Incas you could have the following breakway civilizations...? It would only work for some of the civs, not for all - and as has been said earlier a dozen times, civ should be about re-writing, not re-living history. This would also cause terrible problems in the civlist: you couldn't have USA as a civ then. You could only have all the "original" civs as the maincivs.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, France could be a breakaway civ from the Incas. Or Japan. Or anyone. As you say, civ is about re-writing history, so it doesn't always have to be America formed out of England, in another version of history, it could be England formed out of America, or America formed out of Babylon, or whatever!

Personally, I'd limit it to civs within the same culture group, though.