Colonies and Wars of Independence

[anbeck]

Hi once more,

something I liked about Civ4 BtS was the whole Vassal/Colony thing going on.

This feature does not exist in Civ5, BUT the engine can cope with it: city-states, in a more dynamic way, could be remade into colonies.

I'd like to have colonies, protectorates and vassals back in Civ5. And if there's a lot of unhappiness (instability), they would strive for independence and maybe become city states. Once nationalism is in play, unhappy oversea or conquered cities could declare their independence.

You can either allow independence and they stay friends with you, or you can deny independence and automatically declare war on them. In that case, they will try to find allies (= your enemies) to join the fight against you. Conversely, cities that declared independence from another Civ than your own might ask you for help, and if you grant them help, they will be friends or allies for you.

This would also give a boost to late-game diplomacy, think proxy wars, etc. Maybe a whole world war could ensue about wars of independence. And it could make unhappiness quite complex: granting independence to a city that demands it might keep that city rather friendly towards you, but it will also strengthen the wish for independence within other cities of your empire to become independent as well - it worked for the first one after all, so why shouldn't it for them? If you react by declaring war you might end up with a "lost" city that might even be allied with your worst enemy. However, if you win the war of independence, you keep the city in your empire. But this might create unhappiness in city that is already unhappy - but the likelihood of them declaring independence decreased, just because they fear a war with you. Unless, of course, they think that another big power might support them in their fight for independence...

This would add a lot of strategic choice-making to the game, instead of there being one obvious way of how to deal with it.

Do you think it is technically possible to have cities of empires be converted into city-states?

 

[Spatzimaus]

Do you think it is technically possible to have cities of empires be converted into city-states?

Once we get the DLL SDK, yes.

Before then, basically no. It's not trivial to add new players (which is what these "colony" city-states would be) to a game already in progress. And more importantly, the AI would have absolutely no clue; it'd continue to play the way it does currently, and then, surprise! Your colony just rebelled for no real reason!
You may want to read through the Rhye's Mod thread. I think there was some discussion about this in there.

And don't be discouraged. Nearly every idea people come up with has the same basic answer: once we have the ability to modify the AI and add new functions, then a lot of things become not only possible, but trivial. But with the current framework of XML and Lua functions, many things are either impossible, or possible-but-the-AI-can't-handle-it.
The best you can do for now is read up on what's possible in the current engine (go read the 2kGames Wiki, especially the lists of Lua functions), and try to frame any suggestions within the context of what you know to be already possible.

 

[Gedemon]

we can already set a game with more CS than requested (via custom setup) then "kill" the surplus at first turn and use them later in game when needed (ex create colonies or rebels city)

 

[Spatzimaus]

Yes, except that there's still a limit to the total number of civs. (22 major civs, and something like 40ish total?) On small maps that wouldn't be a problem, but once you start trying to play on a Huge map, it might not work so well. Not insurmountable, but not trivial to deal with.

 

[Gedemon]

22 majors and 41 city-states, and yes that limit could be quickly reach on huge map.

but as a test mod you could limit the map to 12 major civs, 17 CS at start, and reserve 24 CS for colonies, limiting colonies to one type by original civs on each oversea land (but allowing multiples cities by colonies type)

that something that will be included at some point in YnAEMP, working on an earth map could help, you have a better idea of how many colonies you'll have to handle and where they'll be.

 

[He-Who-Hunts]

Would it be possible to have liberated colonies become major civilizations not in play? For example lets say I'm playing a game with no America... however once I decide to let my colonies go interdependent then all the cities i had as colonies would belong to a new major civ... America or any other major civ not in play?