Liberation

[CurtSibling]

Have you guys ever heard the term 'on topic?'

I hoped to see no political jargon outside of the OT forums!

 

[Dachs]

Stupid...off topic stuff...I like the idea of liberation, but, as seal said, I think it's pretty dumb of you to do it unless you're badly losing and want the AI to like you for a diplomacy win. Other than that, there's no real point.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Your comment, I fear, merely highlights the current problem with the game-which is that there is NO in-game reason to do acts of kindness-such as Liberation. As DH-Epic puts it, the game encourages you to be a Napolean or a Caesar, but never an FDR or a Churchill.
If you had a notion of ethics, morality and atrocities within the game, then acts like liberation might in fact be worth something-in and of themselves (ie, a Moral Victory might replace the current flawed Diplomacy Victory.)
In addition, though, such acts of kindness should bring major benefits in terms of trade and diplomacy-as they did in Birth of the Federation.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[sealman]

Your comment, I fear, merely highlights the current problem with the game-which is that there is NO in-game reason to do acts of kindness-such as Liberation. As DH-Epic puts it, the game encourages you to be a Napolean or a Caesar, but never an FDR or a Churchill.
If you had a notion of ethics, morality and atrocities within the game, then acts like liberation might in fact be worth something-in and of themselves (ie, a Moral Victory might replace the current flawed Diplomacy Victory.)
In addition, though, such acts of kindness should bring major benefits in terms of trade and diplomacy-as they did in Birth of the Federation.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

There is an in-game reason to do acts of kindness, and that is to AI's attitude towards you to the gracious side of the slider to help win the UN vote. However, under the current system, those acts of kindness become moot when that civ signs a MA against you at the drop of a hat.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Which is YET another problem with the system, Sealman. There must be GENUINE rewards for decent behaviour within the game-far above and beyond merely whether you win a silly UN vote (which, lets face it, is a VERY DUMB victory condition).
So, I guess my beef is both with a lack of GOOD reasons to be a good-guy, and the fact that the AI civs act in such poor faith even when you DO act as a good guy. Cure these problems, and I feel that Liberation could become a VERY good part of the game (along with 3rd party peace deals etc).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[sealman]

Which is YET another problem with the system, Sealman. There must be GENUINE rewards for decent behaviour within the game-far above and beyond merely whether you win a silly UN vote (which, lets face it, is a VERY DUMB victory condition).
So, I guess my beef is both with a lack of GOOD reasons to be a good-guy, and the fact that the AI civs act in such poor faith even when you DO act as a good guy. Cure these problems, and I feel that Liberation could become a VERY good part of the game (along with 3rd party peace deals etc).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Yep, that is a big problem and I think I have a bunch of rants about it in many different threads.

If there is a vaid ingame reason for liberation, I may by more willing to think about it at some points during my game.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I can see six reasons you could 'create'-in civ4-to make liberation a worthwhile option:

1) If cities are hard to hold on to if they are too distant from your own borders, then you may very much want to give the cities back to their original owner.

2) If a proper Diplomatic/Moral victory is introduced, then liberating cities-rather than keeping them-might put you on the road to this victory (i.e. gradual points accumulation as opposed to a one off VOTE).

3) Liberating cities might create a VERY useful buffer between you and an equally-or more powerful-neighbour, especially when you consider how insanely grateful that liberated nation will be to you.

4) Helping to liberate another nation's cities will, as I said, make them exceedingly grateful to you. This gratitude will often be expressed with VERY lucrative trade deals and mutually beneficial pacts-and possibly even future peaceful amalgamation.

5) If your people hold a high 'morality' level, then they might insist that you liberate a city captured from a third party enemy. Failure to do so might make your people very unhappy-and may lead to revolts.

6) If you liberate cities captured in a non-defensive war, then it may lead to lower overall war weariness back home.

Of course, any one of the above reasons could occur in combination with any of the other 5 reasons, making for a potentially huge range of more SPECIFIC reasons for 'doing the right thing'. Sure, many of them will still be a little cynical, but who says that real life leaders weren't equally as cynical in their 'good deeds'.
Anyway, just some thoughts.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[sealman]

Well, I can see six reasons you could 'create'-in civ4-to make liberation a worthwhile option:

1) If cities are hard to hold on to if they are too distant from your own borders, then you may very much want to give the cities back to their original owner.

I already do this in my games. However, I don't try an delude myself. I give these cities back because they will be hard to hold, not because of any alturistic tendencies.

2) If a proper Diplomatic/Moral victory is introduced, then liberating cities-rather than keeping them-might put you on the road to this victory (i.e. gradual points accumulation as opposed to a one off VOTE).

Like your choice of the word "proper" when talking about diplomatic victory. one may get the idea that you too fond of the current diplmatic victory condition .
This does make some sense and if there was a moral victory condition, it may make liberation more feasable.

3) Liberating cities might create a VERY useful buffer between you and an equally-or more powerful-neighbour, especially when you consider how insanely grateful that liberated nation will be to you.

I am not a big fan of the buffer zone theory of civ playing. As I see it, if I give a city back to anotehr civ to create these zones, then when the bigger civ comes through and takes the city again, it just forces me to re-take in later in the game. So, unless I can't hold the city, I still see it as pointless to give it away. However, if your #2 comes to pass, the moral points may outweight the benifits of keeping the city.

4) Helping to liberate another nation's cities will, as I said, make them exceedingly grateful to you. This gratitude will often be expressed with VERY lucrative trade deals and mutually beneficial pacts-and possibly even future peaceful amalgamation.

Unless some sort of "loyalty" factor is introduced into AI diplomatic equations, Having an AI civ being grateful/gracious to you is meaningless.

5) If your people hold a high 'morality' level, then they might insist that you liberate a city captured from a third party enemy. Failure to do so might make your people very unhappy-and may lead to revolts.

6) If you liberate cities captured in a non-defensive war, then it may lead to lower overall war weariness back home.

Other means to combat war weariness. Interesting.

You make some good points, but I still say that liberation for the sheer sake of being a moral-minded civ'er is pointless. At least under the current game structure. But, that could be because my game style is more geared to conquest.

 

[dh_epic]

I see both Sealman and Aussie's points on this one.

Liberation needs to have its rewards. But unfortunately, if you look at real life, Britain and America had very little reason to give France back to the French (let alone Germany back to the Germans! I'm not about to try to tackle this one for Civ 4). The only selfish reason for giving France back to the French is, well, the French wouldn't have taken kindly to any kind of occupation, and would have made their new rulers lives very very difficult.

The only other selfish reason is, well, getting into the good graces of the French. But if the French are all dead, then who cares? Heck, in Civilization 3, I'd be more likely to join Germany and finish the job than try to earn brownie points with someone who may be conquered by tomorrow.

When you look at reality, WW2 was indeed a moral war. In the mythology of our world's history, it's the one story we point to as strong evidence that "sometimes, in order to preserve freedom and justice, you have to fight". So, if you want to call "love of justice" a selfish reason, then that's the core reason why the Allies gave France back to the French. Selfishly, it gave them great personal satisfaction to do something in the name of justice.

And this all comes back to victory conditions. Think of "victory conditions" as "the meaning of life". In real life, nobody really knows exactly what the meaning of life is, but very few people think world domination is the answer. But just imagine God came down from the heavens and gathered up all the people and said "you guys have it all wrong -- life is a game about world domination. If you conquer 66% of the world, you get a place in heaven." Well, then real life would be more like Civ.

 

[ChuckDizzle]

To me, it looks like a blue boney hand reaching up into the red stary sky trying to whack that red plane out of the air

Back on topic: Liberation is all over rated. When I go to war, it is for three people. Me, myself and I. All three of us are in agreement and my allies are just there to take some of the focus off of me. If I happen to recapture an allied city, great. That is just one more I won't have to take when I go to war against them later on ....

That, of course, should always be an option.

Oh, and the French impact on the Revolutionary War is highly overstated. The American Colonies beat the English with very little actual French military assistance. But, that is a topic for another thread in a different forum.

On the American War for Independence (it was no revolution, and should not be called one): Also, the United States had the support of several european countries, not just France. www.historychannel.com has this to say: "First the French (1778), then the Spanish (1779) and the Dutch (1780) joined the anti-British side, while other powers formed a League of Armed Neutrality. For the first time in more than a century, the British were diplomatically isolated."

 

[Dachs]

Going back to Aussie's #2, sure I'd do it then. It'd be cool to win that way, but kissing up to the AI for the current diplo victory is degrading and boring. Plus, a war of liberation is still a war...and I like wars

 

[Aramda Master]

Liberation would be a nice alternative to conquest when World Wars break out.

Has anyone had an AI oppnent start out from a world power to superpower by conquest in a world war?

AI oppenents should set up puppet governments that were simlar to the cities orginal owner.

 

[Synthshadow]

Hey mastertguy , England is still pissed off because they lost america because of the french, and because France didn't want to go to Irak, Thats why i think France is pretty cool. At least Us Germans and the french are not sucking bush's balls like Tony Blair is doing. He is gonna lose the election, like in Spain. We shouldn't be afraid of America. wellllll lets change the subject now. VIve le France (under german occupation) just kidding guys, i love the french. .

No we lost America because we abused the country in taxes, not too proud to know the facts and the French jumped on the bandwagon because they were beaten badly earlier on and wanted petty revenge but by and large ENGLAND was the cause of the loss of America primarily.

As for Tony Blair... Good riddence not all of us agree with a word or action that man does and I will be glad when hes gone.

German Soldier.... relativly new term isnt it? look what happened the last time Germany had soldiers of its own?.....


Anyway back to topic.... Liberation.... TOP idea! Lets all keep things crossed that it gets there.

 

[German Soldier]

Please , even Americans admit that the German Army was the best in world war 2 , but america had huge resources and, Hitler was stupid enough to fight england, russia and America and the same time, and if it wasn't for your colonies(including america hahaha) you would be a Province of German Europe. But what pisses me off if that now when we are trying to unite and become a NAtion who can be a counterweight to America, Britain is thinking about separating from the EU.( I love americans, is just their government that makes me sick )

 

[lcorinth]

I think it's great. Anything to add complexity and realism to a game. For those who feel skepitcal (or is it "sceptical?"), you could always turn the feature off if it doesn't appeal to you. Same could be said of the place name thing, which some people don't see any reason for.

A lot of the ideas on this forum are great, and I think they should be an option, as it could add to the narrative of the game. People like me play the game not merely to get to the end goal of victory, but to play with the narrative of a fictional history, and whatever adds to the richness of it improves the game.

 

[Synthshadow]

Please , even Americans admit that the German Army was the best in world war 2 , but america had huge resources and, Hitler was stupid enough to fight england, russia and America and the same time, and if it wasn't for your colonies(including america hahaha) you would be a Province of German Europe. But what pisses me off if that now when we are trying to unite and become a NAtion who can be a counterweight to America, Britain is thinking about separating from the EU.( I love americans, is just their government that makes me sick )

Britain would NEVER have been a province of German Europe as incase you've missed bits out of history Germany LOST the battle of Britain, their luftwaffe was decimated, how were they going to get here? Ship? Britain had the biggest Navy in the World bar America.....

As regards uniting as a counterweight against America? America is ONE united country Europe isnt, there are different countries all with different leaders all looking out for their own countries interests (except Britain which puts other countries BEFORE our own...) so who will RUN Europe? Who will have more say in EUROPE? With America you have Bush. Would you want Britain? As it seems you dont like us very much, in fact no country wants another speaking for it. So whats your answer?

 

[Kosez]

England won Battle of Britain only because of Hitler`s stupidity. When Luftwaffe had almost finished RAF off, he ordered bomb raids ower UK cities, so making it possible for RAF to build up its strength.

Liberation: I had a problem of this kind recently. Japan had almost destroyed America, so I signed MPP, conquered all Japanese cities, that they took from Amers, and gave some of them back to America.
This had no effect on my overall reputation (besides amers), war wearines was enormous, ....
There shoul be some positive effects of my generosity.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think that a good way of modelling liberation would be to look at the liberations of WW2 they were done by democracies (War Weary governments) which might not be able to handle the probable German/French Rebellions, wheras the USSR didn't mind suppressing rebellions.

The idea that democracies would be poorly suited for conquest but good for internal stability (of non conquered territory) would make things like NATO, alliances of democracies, some of which had 'made' the others the best form of democratic Domination (essentially a step towards a Diplomatic type win (which should be a type with 'multiple winners'))

 

[island007]

Please , even Americans admit that the German Army was the best in world war 2 , but america had huge resources and, Hitler was stupid enough to fight england, russia and America and the same time, and if it wasn't for your colonies(including america hahaha) you would be a Province of German Europe. But what pisses me off if that now when we are trying to unite and become a NAtion who can be a counterweight to America, Britain is thinking about separating from the EU.( I love americans, is just their government that makes me sick )

It is posts like this that make me regret my country's rebuilding Europe. Hitler tried to unite Europe earlier and lost. What makes you think your new regime will succeed? It sounds like you have sour grapes very similar to the sentiment of some German citizens prior to WWII.

I also love most Germans, I just dislike their government.

 

[Synthshadow]

It is posts like this that make me regret my country's rebuilding Europe. Hitler tried to unite Europe earlier and lost. What makes you think your new regime will succeed? It sounds like you have sour grapes very similar to the sentiment of some German citizens prior to WWII.

I also love most Germans, I just dislike their government.

I also love Germans, I love anyone and everyone,
I just dont like people spouting off about history when they dont really know what they are talking about. I can fully criticise my own country and dont mind when others do WHEN THE FACTS ARE ACCURATE!


However aren't things getting off topic a bit?