Internal vs. external threats

[insaneweasel]

In most previous civs, the biggest threats that you faced were external: barbarians, aggressive neighbors, and invasions. In civ 5 specifically, the only internal threats you face are unspecific "unhappiness" and gold deficits.

I think that there should be more internal threats, like social unrest, protests over taxes, corruption etc. As it is right now, all you need to keep your people happy is to build the proper buildings. Historically, many empires collapsed because internal strife allowed external forces to get the better of them.

Should these aspects be patched into Civ 5? Or maybe in civ 6. How would you want them to work?

 

[Raethwyn]

Here are some ideas I came up with that might work either independently or as a package. I'm sure this is the tip of the iceberg and a lot of great ideas will pop up here.

1. You know how your cities demand a certain luxury resource and if you connect that resource you get a We Love the King Day for that city? What if after a certain number of turns, if you haven't connected that luxury then that city would go into revolt (as if you just conquered it) for 1 or more turns? After the revolt is over then they demand a different luxury and the cycle repeats. Of course, if you were able to acquire every luxury in the game then no city would ever revolt again.

2. Another concept involves War Wariness. If you are at war for a certain number of turns then your empire's Unhappy faces increase gradually until you make peace again. Perhaps, if you don't have to offer any sort of concession in the peace deal then your empire experiences a period of extra Happiness for a while, or even a short Golden Age . The reasoning behind that being your people are celebrating your victory.

3. A third idea involves your reputation as a leader. If you break a promise like settling near a neighbor after saying you won't, or lying about your units 'passing through' etc, then your empire will experience extra Unhappiness for a few turns while recovering from their shock at your conduct.

 

[Antonin Dvorak]

Those are a lot of great ideas. Expanding on them could be different types of rebellions for internal threats. I am reminded about Europa Universalis III where you have peasant revolts, nationalist revolts, and more. It would be cool if an enemy city that was just taken could have a chance to spawn nationalist rebel units during revolt, or if there is a gold deficit then there is a certain chance that peasant rebels will spawn, depending on how large the deficit.

 

[KungCheops]

1. How about a casus belli system? When you declare war for no reason, you get a huge unhappiness hit that decreases over a set amount of turns.

2. Stability

3. Revolutions

 

[insaneweasel]

Good ideas so far. I don't know if it's fair to have a turn of anarchy in a city for not getting a resource (especially if it belongs to one CS who hates you and is at war).

I think there should be a tax slider, and all that is not taxed is not collected. Then, some of what is collected is lost to corruption. You would have to make sure the tax slider wasn't too high to avoid unhappiness, and you would need to enact laws to keep corruption down.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I do think some type of Stability would be important.

essentially, taking territory should involve 2 steps
1. Military control
2. Cultural control

Step 1 should be able to happen fast and easily... step 2 should take hundreds of turns. And without step 2, you end up with military problems (rebels) that can reverse step 1.

[of course cultural control can be obtained by genocide (ie razing), to counteract that, population growth should be slower. so that acquiring population by culture is preferable to growing new population]

 

[Fabiano79]

I think was on Call to power that your empire could actually split because of unhappiness.
The game had lots of bugs, but it was very ambicious. Had slavery, corporations, ecoterrorism, televangelists...a whole mess of fun stuff.

 

[cj7loop]

1. How about a casus belli system. When you declare war for no reason, you get a huge unhappiness hit that decreases over a set amount of turns.

2. Stability

3. Revolutions

I like the casus belli system as well. Like in Europa Universalis 3, not having a casus belli for war is a huge stability hit.

 

[pickle]

They have tried to implement a system where internal strife will allow other civs to get the better of you by having the combat penalty for being seriously unhappy. but they killed it by giving the other civs such huge happiness bonuses and making happiness quite easy to manage.

I think that war should have major temporary happiness effects, rewarded for doing well and punished for losing units, territory, getting pillaged etc. couple this with making the rebels that spawn more of a threat and it would get very interesting.

essentially, taking territory should involve 2 steps
1. Military control
2. Cultural control

Step 1 should be able to happen fast and easily... step 2 should take hundreds of turns. And without step 2, you end up with military problems (rebels) that can reverse step 1.

this too

 

[insaneweasel]

I want internal threats because games without DoWs are too easy. I played on freaking immortal as Babylon. Had Egypt and Alex as neighbors and was never attacked. I barely had an army and build so much that I got a science victory before 1850. Immortal should not be a cakewalk.