Making Spain the new Roman Empire apparently isn't a good thing

[gash]

This is probably going to turn into a lament rather than anything else, but it seems I underestimated the power of some horrible stability-destroying factor, probably the ability for expansion to hurt. (This and I probably didn't use my civic very wisely. I was afraid of anarchy.) Essentially, my problem is that the Spanish Empire fell apart in 1675 A.D. into about 30 different little barbarian pieces.
Although, I don't know how to make any screenshots, I'll try to describe my situation. Prior to my collapse, I had conquered Rome, Constantinople, Per-Wadget, some barbarian city near Morocco, Aksum, the Egyptian capital, Ciudad de Mexico, an Aztec city just above Ciudad de Mexico, Nueva Orleans, Cayenne (I think it was supposed to represent French Guyana), Tikal, Chitzen Itza, and four Incan cities. I had also gone on a war against France (in order to win UHV) which had lasted about 12 turns. I managed to take Paris, Bordeos, and Marseilles (I forget the Spanish spelling.) I also burned Aix-la-Chappelle and was about to take Palermo from the French (they captured it early on from the Romans). Besides this, I built Montevideo, Caracas, another city right near the end of Brazil, and one final city to the SW of the Egyptian capital. I also controlled four cities in Spain proper.
I'm aware that this is a lot, but I had grown my cities very well. I had built at least a dozen courthouses (perhaps as many as 6 more), a half a dozen jails, the Summer Palace, and two wonders. I developed my cities so that my total population was nearly 30,000,000, and my approval rating was 62%. Three quarters of my cities had populations higher than 10. At least a quarter had a population above 14. I was the most technologically advanced nation in the world, having at least a half dozen techs more than my biggest tech rival. I was even playing the easy difficulty of viceroy.
My civics were universal suffrage (I transitioned from heredity rule more than 15 turns ago), emancipation, decentralization, resettlement, free speech, and free religion. I guess my biggest flaw here was not choosing to go for occupation. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that occupation was a temporary benefit or one only lasting as long as it was enacted. I used resettlement because I assumed that any city gained by any format that was more than 15 tiles away would count.
Anyway, I am kind of disappointed since I'm the kind of guy that spends 3-5 minutes just deciding the perfect spot for a settler. I took three days just to get this far, and I endured three days of nagging from my parents to do my chores. Since I don't think I'll have the time to play this game much longer since I have to prepare for the beginning of the new school year, I at least want this question answered: what was my fatal flaw? My hypothesis is that overexpansion plus poor use of civics did me in.
Edit: Note, I was playing the vanilla version.

 

[kbk]

The wiki has a wonderful article on stability.

http://wikirhye.wikidot.com/stability


The fact is, large empires are unstable. Some civilizations are designed to be larger than others. Further, the penalties for expansion are basically removed if you expand "historically." Another Pacifist's domination challenge thread has a lot of tips on how to maintain a large empire also.

 

[Zdarg]

You haven't provided enough info to answer your question. Did you trade out resources? Had open borders with other countries? How many of your cities were in civic disorder? What was your gold income?
Anyway, 12 (or even 18) courthouses and 6 jails is definitely not enough for empire of 27 cities.

 

[gash]

You haven't provided enough info to answer your question. Did you trade out resources? Had open borders with other countries? How many of your cities were in civic disorder? What was your gold income?
Anyway, 12 (or even 18) courthouses and 6 jails is definitely not enough for empire of 27 cities.

As for trading resources, I had a lot of resources but due to a lack of resources and gold on the part of my rivals, I only traded about one or sometimes two resources to each rival civilization. I think I had about ten-twelve resources being traded in total. On the issue of open borders, I had open borders with about 5-8 civilizations. None of my cities were in civic disorder as far I can tell. (I'm assuming civic disorder means rebelling, right?) My gold income, with a research rate at 70% was about +50. At 0% it could rise to well above 800 or even 900. My economy was five stars. Cities was three stars. Civics was two stars. Expansion was one star. Foreign was three stars. As for the issue of infrastructure, maybe I really didn't have enough.

 

[Lone Wolf]

The stupid stability system considers you overexpanded. At the very least you shouldn't have went to Egypt.

 

[gash]

The stupid stability system considers you overexpanded. At the very least you shouldn't have went to Egypt.

And let the Egyptians go unpunished for their treachery?! I think not! Really though, that may have been a bad idea. Even after the end of Egypt came, I spent many turns fighting off the various barbarian cities that lived on. An entire army of about five conquistadors and three cannons was stuck there for that period. Even after the end of that, I still had to fight an endless line of barbarians from the south. Even worse, none of the cities had any valuable resources, and they were fairly expensive to maintain. Admittedly, Per-Wadget (or whatever the city was called) had a lot of commerce and was actually valuable.

As for the stability system, a little tuning never hurt. Maybe bigger cities and large standing armies (assuming that the treasury isn't empty) should contribute a few points to stability.

 

[Zdarg]

Even worse, none of the cities had any valuable resources, and they were fairly expensive to maintain.

That's enough reason for your collapse. You can't allow having worhless cities, unless you run commonwealth, and even then they are pain.

Maybe bigger cities and large standing armies (assuming that the treasury isn't empty) should contribute a few points to stability.

No. Growing cities contribute to stability, and it's perfectly right.
I suppose armies contribute to stability if garrisoned in cities.

 

[felix86]

And let the Egyptians go unpunished for their treachery?! I think not!

That's what razing cities is for, silly.

 

[Ambassador]

You had too many foreign capitals ! (Paris, Cairo, Mexico City)

 

[AnotherPacifist]

It's all timing. You expanded your empire too quickly, without the benefit of police state/nationhood/communism. And what are you doing in decentralization (bad if you know Economics) in 1650!? Should be at least in mercantilism, but by now it'll probably take you 2 turns to make 2 civic changes.

Resettlement works the turn you found your colony, and its benefits don't go away after you switch to something else. (I.e. feel free to switch to viceroyalty, but by now you're too unstable for any civic changes)

I occupied most of the Americas, much of Europe (including Greece, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome and the Portuguese/Carthaginian lands) without any problems.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6887148&postcount=21

 

[Zdarg]

You had too many foreign capitals ! (Paris, Cairo, Mexico City)

Er, is foreign capital so different from any other foreign city? As Arabian, I usually control Niwt-Rst, Carthage, Deli and Mexico, and it doesn't force me to collapse. Well, my very first Arabian empire collapsed... but only after I took Pleemuth and razed London.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

If you want to salvage your game, go back a few turns and turn your cultural slider up to 20% and increase it until you get more happy cities (3 stars at least)--this assumes you have enough theaters/amphitheaters. And whip more courthouses and jails out ASAP before turning the culture slider back down.

Giving a city to a vassal might help too.

On resettlement, it doesn't work if you didn't found that city, whereas for occupation you gain the extra stability points the turn you conquer the city.

 

[kbk]

Actually, the way I read the wiki, you get more of a stability bonus for acquiring a foreign capitol than a normal foreign city.

Of course, this is offset by the fact that a foreign capitol is smack dab in the middle of another civilization's core area. And having tiles and cities in other civ's core areas is a monster hit to your stability.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The following bmp is good for knowing which areas NOT to occupy (any color other than white or gray is better). I think this was the largest extent of the Hapsburg Empire, not counting the whole of HRE (Amsterdam is not so bad after all).

There's a thread devoted to this, and even though Rhye discounts the importance of these maps, I find them invaluable in choosing which areas to occupy early on before I go conquering more.

 

[kbk]

Yes, Amsterdam shouldn't be bad. After all the Dutch fought for independence from Spain. Do the colors signify anything besides different expansion eras? Is say one color better than another?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I refer you to Jet's excellent work (from which the Spanish map is taken):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=270923

 

[gash]

You had too many foreign capitals ! (Paris, Cairo, Mexico City)

You forgot Cuzco, Rome, and a new city on the ruins of Athens.

It's all timing. You expanded your empire too quickly, without the benefit of police state/nationhood/communism. And what are you doing in decentralization (bad if you know Economics) in 1650!? Should be at least in mercantilism, but by now it'll probably take you 2 turns to make 2 civic changes.

Resettlement works the turn you found your colony, and its benefits don't go away after you switch to something else. (I.e. feel free to switch to viceroyalty, but by now you're too unstable for any civic changes)

Well, I didn't switch to decentralization because of the fact that I was ironically afraid of anarchy causing risk of collapse when I was at the level of shaky. I was trying to minimize anarchy until I got to what I foresaw as some final civic changes.

As for the expansion civics, now I understand for the most part. About viceroyalty, though, are there any requirements for gaining the effects such as having it active all the time for the effects or using it right before capturing a foreign capital? Does it not matter so long as one uses at some point?

By the way, when it comes to natural historical area, are the cultural boundaries as important as where a city is itself, or is the location of a city all that matters? In other words, in an unlikely scenario that some city like London had legendary culture that extended cultural boundaries to almost the middle of France, would there still be a penalty?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

You can run occupation as long as you want, but because it's high maintenance, when I have Cristo Redentor, I switch the same turn right before I capture a city, and I switch back right afterwards when it's out of rebellion. If it's a particularly large city with long rebellion periods, I switch for 1 turn to found a city under resettlement, then I switch back to occupation next turn.

It's only the number of tiles you occupy that matter. I.e. Berlin or Posen doesn't matter as long as you occupy those tiles in Germany. But of course with more cities there's more instability unless you're in police state.

 

[The Q-Meister]

By the way, when it comes to natural historical area, are the cultural boundaries as important as where a city is itself, or is the location of a city all that matters? In other words, in an unlikely scenario that some city like London had legendary culture that extended cultural boundaries to almost the middle of France, would there still be a penalty?

Well bad example there: England did control about a half of France at its zenith during the 100 years war before joan stepped in.

To answer your question though I think cultural tiles from a city where a civ is supposed to settle that go into "bad" areas only have a nominal effect, indeed, I'm sure that happens more often that not...Look at French Guiana for instance, it is always much bigger than it should be.

 

[gash]

Well bad example there: England did control about a half of France at its zenith during the 100 years war before joan stepped in.

To answer your question though I think cultural tiles from a city where a civ is supposed to settle that go into "bad" areas only have a nominal effect, indeed, I'm sure that happens more often that not...Look at French Guiana for instance, it is always much bigger than it should be.

Oops. Forgot about that.

Anyway, about the subject of viceroyalty. When do its effects come into play? Are they permanent like occupation and resettlement, or do they last only while viceroyalty is active?