Most empires in the "real world" consisted of provinces.
The idea is to make this happen in Civ4.
As your civilization grows, instead of becoming a large monolith, you'd break your civilization into provinces. Instead of taking over another civilization, they would surrender and become a province of your empire.
Next, hijack the "espionage" control to be your "Imperial Oversight" control. At 0%, you let your provinces do whatever they want. At 100%, you have crushed them and reduced them to puppet states.
The Culture percentage is now your Influence percentage, and covers both Culture and Espionage.
Each of your Provinces would work for you in the following ways:
1> A percentage of the culture they "lay down" would be your culture.
2> When they make units, a percentage of them would spawn a copy that you control
3> A percentage of their commerce is given to your Empire.
A heavier Imperial hand causes your provinces economies to get damaged (unhappiness, less efficiency, and a dislike on the part of the province towards the Empire).
The game would generate punitive penalties (rapidly increasing maintenance costs) for provinces that are too large. The size of "too large" would grow with additional technologies. Existing provinces could be convinced to merge and become super-provinces, if the two sides like each other enough.
Provinces could break free in rebellion, and spread this rebellion to other provinces. A Province could even break free and choose to join a different Empire -- or Provinces from two different Empires could all declare to be part of a new Empire.
Two Empires could merge, and become one Empire, if they find they are being out classed, rather than just fading into the night or being taken out.
...
This allows for things like the British convincing the Indians to become a Province of their Empire, and then the Indians breaking free later on.
If done right, it could also remove lots of the micro-management of Civ4. You won't have direct control over what your Provinces are doing -- instead, your provinces are feeding you commerce and units, and you make do with what you have. The Imperial Province (your capital province, the one you start with) stays a reasonable size.
I think that most everything I listed above is possible in an SDK mod. I suspect it would be ridiculously difficult to finish and polish.
The idea is to make this happen in Civ4.
As your civilization grows, instead of becoming a large monolith, you'd break your civilization into provinces. Instead of taking over another civilization, they would surrender and become a province of your empire.
Next, hijack the "espionage" control to be your "Imperial Oversight" control. At 0%, you let your provinces do whatever they want. At 100%, you have crushed them and reduced them to puppet states.
The Culture percentage is now your Influence percentage, and covers both Culture and Espionage.
Each of your Provinces would work for you in the following ways:
1> A percentage of the culture they "lay down" would be your culture.
2> When they make units, a percentage of them would spawn a copy that you control
3> A percentage of their commerce is given to your Empire.
A heavier Imperial hand causes your provinces economies to get damaged (unhappiness, less efficiency, and a dislike on the part of the province towards the Empire).
The game would generate punitive penalties (rapidly increasing maintenance costs) for provinces that are too large. The size of "too large" would grow with additional technologies. Existing provinces could be convinced to merge and become super-provinces, if the two sides like each other enough.
Provinces could break free in rebellion, and spread this rebellion to other provinces. A Province could even break free and choose to join a different Empire -- or Provinces from two different Empires could all declare to be part of a new Empire.
Two Empires could merge, and become one Empire, if they find they are being out classed, rather than just fading into the night or being taken out.
...
This allows for things like the British convincing the Indians to become a Province of their Empire, and then the Indians breaking free later on.
If done right, it could also remove lots of the micro-management of Civ4. You won't have direct control over what your Provinces are doing -- instead, your provinces are feeding you commerce and units, and you make do with what you have. The Imperial Province (your capital province, the one you start with) stays a reasonable size.
I think that most everything I listed above is possible in an SDK mod. I suspect it would be ridiculously difficult to finish and polish.
