Fighting the peasants

[Naokaukodem]

It is odd that in civ4 borders change automatically according to the culture inside the cities, considering that in reality borders have always been protected by contracts, and one can easily understand why.

More odd yet, the fact that when declaring war, those borders will remain the same until you kill a more or less far away city. If i suffer no enemy, why shouldn't I be able to take the land?

I believe that Civ2 and Civ1 managed it way more realistically: the first to be here wins, unless a military unit comes. It should have been the same with Civ4, unfortunatelly it grew on the "brand new feature" of culture borders, which was a step backward according to me.

Now Civ5 is coming and it appears borders will be managed more like CivRev; when i think it is better than in Civ4 and Civ3, it could be the same problematic thing when culture starts to grow out of the worked tiles.

Why not, then, to be able to fight the peasants in order to take the land for us? Of course, peasants should be weak in later eras, when they could fight a decent war in earlier eras. It would make sense gameplay wise, as the armies would have the choice to fight them and keep their full strenght, or ignore them and go directly to the aimed army/city.

But then, if peasants can decently defend themselves (more in ancient era where a fork can concur a club), why not attack too, like ambushes?

Then, a city would have one or several "natural defenders" as soon as it is settled, the more with the 1 unit per tile rule of Civ5.

Of course, the strenght of the peasants would not only depend on their equipement, but also of their sense of the battle and organization. It should be often seen that peasants do not have the organization requiered to fight some early army, and/or that they would not be that good in fighting itself.

Then the social policies. Not too far from the starting techs, some tech that allows peasants to be organized militaryly, with the right organization and/or the right training.

Later on, maybe a social policy that allows weapons to be everywhere, like in America, that would strenghten the peasants.

In later eras, with tanks and the fact that specialized weapons differenciates much from the basic equipment of a random peasant (go fight a tank with a tractor! ), peasants should only be weak obstacles, but they could be usefull in reducing the invading armies strenghts, compared to the defender armies untouched ones.

As to using peasants as an offensive mean, i have yet to think more.

 

[Gingi]

Interesting idea. I think if this idea was implemented then the peasants would have the same strength throughout the game, pretty much like having a warrior unit stationed in every improved tile, but then later on in the game if you want to protect your land efficiently you have to actually station trained army units there.

The thing is, in Civ5 I heard you will actually be able to trade land without trading cities, as in trading individual tiles. On a completely unrelated note I also heard you can trade units, while in CivIV you can just gift units.

So in CivIV borders are governed by culture, in Civ5 they are governed by treaties, culture, and annexing tiles (which I think is a lot better structure), but I think it can be even better. You keep this system when two civs share a border and they are at peace, but if they are at war then there is a "dotted line" showing "disputed borders" where the line is drawn where the units are. I think this would make a lot more sense in Civ5 than in CivIV because in Civ5 you can only put 1 unit/tile, trading stacks in for fronts, and then the "disputed border" line will be drawn where the front is. But until the war is over and a treaty is settled drawing a permanent border, the border is just a "dotted line" meaning it is just temporary.

What do you guys think, make temporary borders workable or not? I have mixed feelings, if you make them workable it might make more sense because they are temporarily controlled by you, like how Japan annexed Korea before/during WWI and WWII, but if you do that then temporary borders are just as valid as permanent borders and then it just turns into a big pile of mumbo-jumbo. Which is basically how disputed borders really are.

 

[Camikaze]

Having peasant revolts on every tile that you take over makes the assumption that every single tile has population to begin with, rather than population coming from cities, and spreading out to the surrounding areas. So the whole population system would require a rethink for this idea to realistically function.

I do like the idea of some physical opposition to your expansion though, without a war with another civ, but this is already in the game. Barbarians. This idea could easily be realised by changing the role of barbarians to make them form more often when borders expand.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Having peasant revolts on every tile that you take over makes the assumption that every single tile has population to begin with, rather than population coming from cities, and spreading out to the surrounding areas. So the whole population system would require a rethink for this idea to realistically function.

Peasants would be present only on worked squares.

I do like the idea of some physical opposition to your expansion though, without a war with another civ, but this is already in the game. Barbarians. This idea could easily be realised by changing the role of barbarians to make them form more often when borders expand.

I emitted an idea there's some time where every border expansion was creating barbarian uprisings...

 

[Camikaze]

Peasants would be present only on worked squares.

So they'd appear when the tile begins to be worked? What happens when you switch which tiles you are working? Do the peasants disappear?

I emitted an idea there's some time where every border expansion was creating barbarian uprisings...

IMO, this would be a better way of implementing this type of effect, although still, I prefer it the way it is. Otherwise you'd end up doing nothing but create military units, and would ignore culture due to the penalties it would bring.

 

[Naokaukodem]

So they'd appear when the tile begins to be worked? What happens when you switch which tiles you are working? Do the peasants disappear?

I believe so...

 

[awesome]

i think the civ 4 system works fine, especially with how sometimes the citizens rise up, which is kind of what you're suggesting.

 

[frekk]

Nah. Because then there's going to be an advantage in positioning your army certain ways before a city gets taken, which means, micromanagement to squeeze that advantage.

Aside from that, it just isn't historical. Civilian resistance has been the exception, rather than the norm, of military conquest throughout history. Sure you can come up with dozens of examples, but you have to remember there have been thousands of conquests in history. Imagine Alexander putting down peasant revolts in every city from Greece to India, all before he was 30!! From the time he crossed the Hellespont into Turkey to the time he reached Punjab was just 7 years.

For the most part, up until the 20th century, once the military/warrior class was defeated, that was pretty much it. In the 20th century everything changes. Civilians get much more involved in war than they had ever been before, both as targets and as combatants in the form of irregular forces.

 

[Gingi]

If the peasants go where you work your tiles, it would encourage human players to switch out their worked tiles to a "wall" formation to block out enemy invaders, which now really just seems absurd. I was going to suggest that when an enemy unit comes into your land, how about they just kill the peasants without fighting, meaning that the peasants had no chance to begin with? But then I remembered that if there's an enemy unit on your land, you can't work that tile or the tiles around it, meaning this is already in Civ! Not only that, but you can pillage the improvements, effectively burning the farms and the homes of the peasants so when you clear out they have to rebuild it before coming back to work back in the same spot. Which is kinda like Japan in Manchuria.

So really, this idea already is in the game. Like frekk said, civilian revolts never really stood their own against armies. Plus how would they get weapons in the late game? True, in the US you have the right to bear arms, but it's not like that in nearly every country, plus most civilians don't bear arms. Plus I don't see even the Texans (who actually do all have at least a shotgun per household, for safety reasons) fighting back against an organized army. If Mexico one day invaded Texas (hey, it was theirs to begin with) the army would be there long before some farmers ran to the front and shot at them.

 

[Camikaze]

I believe so...

Could you not then just leave these peasants alone until they start to become too much of a nuisance, and then switch the tiles you are working to make them suddenly (and miraculously) disappear?

 

[Naokaukodem]

Could you not then just leave these peasants alone until they start to become too much of a nuisance, and then switch the tiles you are working to make them suddenly (and miraculously) disappear?

Peasants would not be a threat for their "owners", but for the enemy.

 

[Camikaze]

Oh, my mistake, I was assuming they'd be like partisans from Civ 2 (I'm not just imagining their existence, right?). In that case, couldn't it be seen as abusive the other way, with the player able to randomly switch what tiles they work to suit what direction they are being attacked from?