Collapsing Empires Mod

[alms66]

@alms66:
But altogether, I think it's better to focus this mod on setbacks&decline (and some positive things to compensate the slowdown, like cheaper early expansion)

Well, obviously, and that's why I posted, because moving to a tech-spread model would help improve Civ's ability to model setbacks/declines and would help civs that have fallen back to gain a lead in a hurry, with a little strategy and luck.

Setbacks could occur when temples, libraries and other education level enchancing buildings are destroyed through war, rioting, succession (the loss of a major "science" city can be disastrous), etc. This would give another route to having a setback occur, other than the simple on/off Dark Age mechanism, and at a slower rate. Essentially, the more ways you have for setbacks to occur, the more likely they are to happen.

And this quote from myself explains the possibility of a comeback:
Education levels within a zone determine who is the most likely to discover a tech. The key there is "most likely", there are no guarantees - even the least likely of civs could develop gunpowder and turn the tide of the game by conquering faster then the tech could spread.

Anyhow, I understand your reluctance, as a tech-spread mod would be a mod unto itself, with the need for lots of testing and balancing - probably just as much as this mod without it.

 

[NuclearElephant]

Could decline be at least partly modeled as a sort of negative culture? Perhaps under certain civics, certain buildings produce a negative cultural value in addition to their normal effects. To offset this, other buildings produce an increased amount of culture under a given civic. For example, under theocracy, temples of the state religion produce both happy faces and doubled culture. Cities in your empire with other religions and their buildings, however, produce happy faces and a negative cultural value, representing the fact that, on the one hand, the alternative religious cult makes some people happy, but is also generally corrosive to the cohesion of your society as a whole. The good effects could be increased the farther the city is from the capital, or perhaps in this case, the holy city, and the negative effects could be increased as distance to the cult's holy city decreases, and the influence of the cult at large in the world increases. To offset the negative culture, you must construct buildings that promote your own culture (The exact amount contributed also proportional to the influence of your state religion, perhaps). Due to their lack of integration into your culture, cities with zero, or negative culture, could have a chance to spontaneously revolt to a barbarian state in addition to their chance to mutiny to nearby civilizations. Once one of your cities becomes a barbarian state, what was to you negative culture, instantly becomes positive culture to them. Any rebellion adds an increased chance of further rebellions in the near future. Of course, barbarians would probably have to be able to build everything to avoid their own cultural buildings being destroyed on revolt (Or maybe only the positive culture buildings are destroyed), and to give them a chance to build up.

In the end, a large civilization would have to have a really strong culture and well chosen civics to hold itself together.
This kind of system could make things really interesting. I hope this is helpful.

-NE

 

[Junuxx]

Yes, I was thinking about using building that produce either negative or bararian culture. The latter would simplify the process of the city revolting to the barbs, I think.

 

[Crayton]

Overall, Civ4's research model is twice as good as Civ3's. Within the confines of the game as it is, the 'correct' way (as the game designer's may have seen it) of diminishing a civ is with culture; subtracting, adding barabarian, etc....

On the other hand, what you are proposing, and which with I agree with tremedously, is a more dynamic system than culture. There have been some great ideas here. A Science spreading model would be even better than the current one, although I have no idea how to Mod it in.

One suggestion of mine would be a penalty for researching under 50%. For each 10% under 50 you get a point against you. Each time these points = 2, 5, 10, 17, etc... your civilization would lose a technology. Of course, the general research speed may be increased a little.

Another suggestion is to add a penalty each time you enter a new technological age. Each time you research into a new technological era (Renaissance for example), each of your cities has a 50% chance of reverting to a 'Minor' civ. The new civ begins with all technology from the most recently completed technological age (most likely Classical or Medieval in this example). Civ expansion would have to be greatly increased in order for this to work effectively.

OPTIONAL TECH-SPREAD READING:
Well alms66, I'm glad you buy into a new tech-spreading model. I'll offer mine and you can see if you like it. Rather than expanding research pools to include regions; expand the research pool to the entire world yet reduce the effects to individual cities. This is to say that each turn 1 city is chosen based on beaker output to 'earn' a technology. This technology can spread along trade routes and over land (much like a quicker, religion model).

On the next turn another city will have the option and may even pick the same technology which will now spread from two places. This will help create the dichotomy evident in history between Old World civs and New World civs, as Old world civs will be able to go faster through technology and conversely put more effort into research, strangling the New World civs from research oppurtunities. Just my idea, comment if you would like.

 

[MrUnderhill]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I came up with an idea that includes a dark age option. It originally came from Civ3, with the "Mobilize for War" option you got from Nationalism.

Using Civics, it shouldn't be too hard to put in this sort of short-term boost/penalty system. Just throw in an automatic switcher script at the start of each turn, add in the random chance of going to the dark ages, and presto, you've got a "State of the Nation" system.

Normal: The default civic. Automatically switches to this after 20 turns in any other SotN civic (10 if the last civic was Reniassance), and can't be switched from again until another 20 turns have passed (unless the last civic was Dark Age).
No other benefits or drawbacks.

War-Time: Available with Military Tradition (maybe earlier). +50% bonus to unit production, but -50% penalty to non-military buildings. Automatically switches to "Normal" if not at war.

Expansion: Available with Nationalism. 50% bonus to producing Settlers and Recon units, but -2 health in each city.

Reformation: Available with Theology. +50% culture in each city, but -2 happiness in each city. Religion civics have no effect during this time (not sure if this one is possible).

Renaissance: Available with Education. +50% science and Great Scientist birth rate. This civic only lasts for 10 turns instead of 20. Does not increase the chance of a Dark Age.

Dark Age: Available from the start.
-25% production on everything, -50% science rate, and -100% GP birth rate.
Cannot be switched to manually, but can be switched to at the start of each turn randomly. Overuse of other SotN civics increase this chance, as well as low research, low culture, or high maintenence costs.
Resets SotN turn timer when activated (so if you're in War-Time for 15 turns and hit a Dark Age, you have to endure the full 20 turns of the Dark Ages), but on the plus side, you can switch to another SotN civic immediately after getting out of a Dark Age (rather than spending 20 extra turns on "Normal").

 

[suspendinlight]

That's a pretty interesting idea. Although, maybe only a Golden Age and a Dark Age would be needed. Plus this could boost the usefulness of a Golden Age.

 

[alms66]

OPTIONAL TECH-SPREAD READING:
Well alms66, I'm glad you buy into a new tech-spreading model. I'll offer mine and you can see if you like it. Rather than expanding research pools to include regions; expand the research pool to the entire world yet reduce the effects to individual cities. This is to say that each turn 1 city is chosen based on beaker output to 'earn' a technology. This technology can spread along trade routes and over land (much like a quicker, religion model).

On the next turn another city will have the option and may even pick the same technology which will now spread from two places. This will help create the dichotomy evident in history between Old World civs and New World civs, as Old world civs will be able to go faster through technology and conversely put more effort into research, strangling the New World civs from research oppurtunities. Just my idea, comment if you would like.

Ok, now this has the smell of a thread-jack situation here... If you want to start a new thread to discuss a tech-spreading model, feel free, I'll participate. Or if you want to PM me to discuss it, again that's fine. But this should be our last 'off-topic' post on the subject.

Anyhow, regarding your model - it's definately simpler than what I proposed, and it could work well (just a guess, I'd have to play it to say for certain). One thing though, is that you couldn't have techs given every turn unless you redesigned the tech tree to be much larger, as tech research would be far too quick then, I believe.

 

[Harada the Grea]

I like the idea of civil wars and empires breaking apart, can it not have reserved civs for this. it would add another level if these civs could join together in a union or conferdation and become one again

 

[shackleton]

I would like to see the following system.

[N.B. I have no clue how Python works, but learning XML wasn't too taxing, so if no one else would be willing to do this and if anyone knows if/how this would be possible and it's not *too* hard, I might give it a shot]

Non-state religion = chance of barbarian culture bomb (great artist) which flips the city to the barbs.

Non-state religion building = chance of barbarian culture bomb (great artist) which flips the city to the barbs.

So if you have a city with 2 religions, 1 your state religion, not much chance.

But when those religions start piling up, and when your cities are large enough that you need those non-state religion buildings for the happiness, then the risk of culture flip to barbs starts becoming more apparent. And of course, the more cities in your empire, the more "die rolls" will be made so the more likely you are to get a culture flip. And also when you conquor another civ, chances are they have a different religion so chance of culture flip.

Finally, suggest that this chance would be halved under theocracy, and would entirely disappear once you switched to free religion.

I would suggest as chances to flip maybe 0.1% per non state religion, +0.2% for a non-state religion temple, +0.4% for a non state religion cathedral.

Based on the games I play, I generally have ~10 cities, if I wasn't spreading every religion to every city then I guess later in the game I'd have maybe 10 isntances of non-state religion, which would mean if I wasn't building non-state religion temples I'd have a culture flip to barbs every 100 turns. Which is quite a long time, but just breaks the monotomy a bit. You know you get lost in a builder sprint, where you're just piling on the buildings and the research? Would just mix things up a little.

Also note that, although I'm not sure exactly how the culture flips occur, I'm guessing that your older, more prominant cities would be able to withstand a barbarian culture bomb. Their influence would be reduced, but that's not so out of line with the idea of decaying empires.

Oh, and this might make a cultural victory very difficult. But who cares about cultural victory?

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About science spread. It does work very well in Europa Universalis 2 (EU2). It's generally a better mechanism for modelling science as it prevents those unassailable tech leads. But I think it's too difficult to do in Civ4?

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I'd love to see some civil war chances. IMO, it should be a small chance, random event, no way to prevent it (otherwise you'll just prevent it so it never occurs... so what was the point in having it?). It should only be a chance for the top ~3 civs on the scoreboard.