On Being a Bad Ruler

[QES]

This thread is designed to talk about the consequences of running your civilization into the ground. (Conquest is NOT the main topic or consequence of this thread)

First a story, on how one runs his civilization into the ground, THEN consequences.

I recently was playing as the Aristocratic Vampires..(Calabim) and enjoying a nice leasiurely exploration of the surouding territory when i was given (by a goodie hut) cartography early in the game.
My Own AI suggested (and i would have forced the issue had it not) that i build the Pact of the Hill Giants, and i did so.

I had discovered the Sidar (and to my delight ONLY the sidar) on my quite sizable continant. The hill giants quickly ended their civilization, and i quadroupled the number of cities i owned in a few turns. (they'd 3 cities to my 1)

After this, my hill giants helped me maintain control of the continant despite a SEVERE horde of barbarians constantly thinking that "it was their land" bah, stupid natives.

Anyway, after establishing my sight radious so that barbarians couldnt appear any longer, i got down to the serious buisness of making wonders and teching up. I decided to forgo for quite some time expansion, instead prefering to build up, and grab the Ashen vale (which wound up being the second relgion in the world). Only then did i start to expand, and EXPAND I did, about 6 cities in 20-30 turns. It was then i noticed my deficit spending habbits, and my massive, if not unfortuante maintenance problems.

Having God king and a few other fairly expensive civics, i turned (in desperate hopes) to city states........a joke of a civic. After doing so, and being informed that i would not be able to switch again for another 8 turns (city states was worse than God King) i slowly watched my units disapear from "being on strike." My hero and Favorite priest even left me. There was no external threat to speak of.....no one knew where i was, though by this time i had ships sailing to meet other people. So as it was, my little empire was crumbling without the necessary influence of other civs....i had ruined myself, all by myself.

Now for the consequences

All i ever lost was units, some pride, and my will to continue playing. Had i not lost my hero, i'd have kept going and delt with it. So the question is, what SHOULD be the consequence of mismanaging one's statly affairs? One natural consequence is conquest by other nations, but I found it enterily admirable that i could ruin myself without the assistance of AI's. But instead of "losing units" and haveing them just randomly disappear, perhaps they might have turned into barbarians? It'd have been a refreshing (if not also very terrifying) occurance to watch my empire split in half, and force me to fight my own troops. Good ol fashioned civil war! In Civ 2 there was a funciton called "Schizm". If one's affairs get so rotten, perhaps we could reintroduce this concept in a limited way? Some cities would ban together and become a new (perhaps minor) civ? Or at least have my units turn barbarian and generally run amok.

I would suggest that HERO's remain loyal, its what a hero does. Still, for my stagnating economy, losing half my cities might have actually helped my economy, and given me a fun activity (or not) of reclaiming them....hopefully with a better war-time economy that could sustain them.

THIS THREAD - Is for suggestions on A) How else might a civ be ruined (without conquest) and B) what other consequences ought to occur for having it happen?

-Qes

 

[BeefontheBone]

"Why is King John like a tape measure with no numbers?"

"Because they're both useless rulers."

 

[QES]

"Why is King John like a tape measure with no numbers?"

"Because they're both useless rulers."

Everyones a comedian.....any thoughts on the subject?
-Qes

 

[Grillick]

Looks like you fell prey to a serious misunderstanding.

City States is designed for a small number of cities that are extremely widely spread. Ideal for, say, Kuriotates.

It decreases maintenance costs from distance, not from number of cities. If you have a whole lot of cities, you don't want to use city states.

That being said, I'd love to see a reintroduction of the old schizm concept from Civ 1 and 2. Perhaps create a minor civ that would represent the 'rebels.'? Or a leader for each civ who would represent the rebellious side of that civ (Armelanchier for the Elves, for instance), who couldn't be selected by players, but could come about through the AI selecting them, or through a revolt within your empire?

 

[QES]

Looks like you fell prey to a serious misunderstanding.

City States is designed for a small number of cities that are extremely widely spread. Ideal for, say, Kuriotates.

It decreases maintenance costs from distance, not from number of cities. If you have a whole lot of cities, you don't want to use city states.

That being said, I'd love to see a reintroduction of the old schizm concept from Civ 1 and 2. Perhaps create a minor civ that would represent the 'rebels.'? Or a leader for each civ who would represent the rebellious side of that civ (Armelanchier for the Elves, for instance), who couldn't be selected by players, but could come about through the AI selecting them, or through a revolt within your empire?

I do like the idea of an identical civ but an opposite leader that emerges as the "rebelious" faction. Is it possible to put the same civ in a game more than once? Through this schism concept, it'd be VERY cool to have two different types of the same civ that are fighting it out.
On this, there should be "other ways" of insighting or creating instability within a civilization. This could/would be cool for two reasons, 1) it would be a viable strategy of rivals to encourage discent and chaos (especially for chaotically aligned civs) within an empire without resorting to war, and 2) because then the personalities of leadership would really come out and show IN GAME the differences between the leaders.

What other ways could there be to create schism, other than my horrible example of self-mismanagement?

On City states.....its a crap civic. Many cities (like the ancicent greeks) should and could also fall into the catagory of "city states" it should not just be a play thing of the boy-king's. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159365&page=6
-Qes

 

[Grillick]

A war going especially badly...Perhaps losing a certain number of cities within a certain number of turns...If your empire's big enough, part of it might split off to go to peace with the enemy.

In original Civ, losing your capital sparked civil war, if your civilization was big enough.

Perhaps, if you're not the Order, having a world-spanning empire could be something that might trigger unrest.

High levels of unhappiness in cities.

High levels of poor health in cities.

Perhaps having your tax rate too high could make it more likely?

Also, I never use City States, not even as Kuriotates. It truly is craptastic.

 

[Sureshot]

I do like the idea of an identical civ but an opposite leader that emerges as the "rebelious" faction. Is it possible to put the same civ in a game more than once?

Yep. Just make a custom game and choose two leaders of the same civ. Sometimes fun to make teams of civs where the teams are all the leaders of a civ.

I checked a thread about this in general I started a while back, and noticed people talked about it more, and provided a link to a mod that allows capital loss causing civ splitting effects and the like:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173685

And the link for the actual civ splitting mod:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171127

 

[QES]

A war going especially badly...Perhaps losing a certain number of cities within a certain number of turns...If your empire's big enough, part of it might split off to go to peace with the enemy.

In original Civ, losing your capital sparked civil war, if your civilization was big enough.

Perhaps, if you're not the Order, having a world-spanning empire could be something that might trigger unrest.

High levels of unhappiness in cities.

High levels of poor health in cities.

Perhaps having your tax rate too high could make it more likely?

Also, I never use City States, not even as Kuriotates. It truly is craptastic.

I like all these ideas but i want to avoid the "war" trigger. Mostly cause people band together in times of war..but if its going very badly, maybe then your "seeking peace makes sense" Perhaps it should couple with what kind of empire you run? Depending on the independance of your civ? Republics and City states might split off, and maybe even aristocracy, but God king and Monarch would be fairly centralized and strong governments.

lol the "tax rate" is what doomed me in this scnario.....so im hoping that crapily managed funds could/would trigger multiple other consequences.
-Qes

 

[QES]

Yep. Just make a custom game and choose two leaders of the same civ. Sometimes fun to make teams of civs where the teams are all the leaders of a civ.

I checked a thread about this in general I started a while back, and noticed people talked about it more, and provided a link to a mod that allows capital loss causing civ splitting effects and the like:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173685

And the link for the actual civ splitting mod:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171127

Id want the design team to look at it since it involves changing the SDK. Not sure how happy they get when anything like that is mentioned. But in principle it sounds pretty good. Civ-spliting would/could be an interesting consequence of multiple issues.

Now, what other consequences could one have other than civ spliting and "workers on strike?"
-Qes

 

[MrUnderhill]

Id want the design team to look at it since it involves changing the SDK. Not sure how happy they get when anything like that is mentioned. But in principle it sounds pretty good. Civ-spliting would/could be an interesting consequence of multiple issues.

Yeah, it'd be better if someone else made it a mod component.
This might have to wait until we can play around with Warlords, but what about deliberately slicing up your empire into vassal states? For example, let's say I'm playing as Arendel Phaedra (Ljosalfar) and I just conquered 3 or 4 barb cities, and built 2 more nearby. I can't manage them as my own cities because of maintenence, so I hand the new cities over to Amelanchier or Thessa to govern them while I continue to manage my cities. What do you guys think?

Now, what other consequences could one have other than civ spliting and "workers on strike?"

How about a dark age effect that could randomly occur if you've been neglecting your research or culture for the past 20 turns?

 

[QES]

Yeah, it'd be better if someone else made it a mod component.
This might have to wait until we can play around with Warlords, but what about deliberately slicing up your empire into vassal states? For example, let's say I'm playing as Arendel Phaedra (Ljosalfar) and I just conquered 3 or 4 barb cities, and built 2 more nearby. I can't manage them as my own cities because of maintenence, so I hand the new cities over to Amelanchier or Thessa to govern them while I continue to manage my cities. What do you guys think?



How about a dark age effect that could randomly occur if you've been neglecting your research or culture for the past 20 turns?

OOO, both ideas deserve exploring.

What would a "dark age" entale?
-Qes

 

[SchpailsMan]

The words 'Dark Age' makes me think... say, what if evil civs could use great people to trigger a 'Dark Age' (as in "the opposite of a Golden Age") when sent into rival realms ? You would move two GP into a rival's territory, and fusion them to start a Dark Age much like you would have started a Golden Age for yourself. This could be limitted to a given civ, be given particular requirements (ex : one of the GP has to be a Great Rebel or something like that, the GPs must reach the capitol of the rival civ, which your must obviously have Open Borders with -- no dark age during war), and would basically simulate having the GPs travelling into the realm and causing multiple incidents, like terrorism or subersion. The Dark Age itself could last for a few turns like Golden Ages do, and for example lead to reduced production and commerce or give cities a base chance to be in disorder for a turn. The target civ could immediately end the Dark Age by sacrificing a Great People (at first glance, I'd say that requiring the sacrifice of the amount of GPs that would be needed for a full Golden Age might be a little too much, besides the AI already has an habit of keeping GPs for later use, so it would be able to resist quite correctly with little modification).

 

[Xuenay]

Golden Ages *were* originally Dark Ages in the Civ3 design, but they were cut since they turned out to be unfun. Players don't like having a DA hit them.

 

[Kael]

This thread is designed to talk about the consequences of running your civilization into the ground. (Conquest is NOT the main topic or consequence of this thread)

First a story, on how one runs his civilization into the ground, THEN consequences.

I recently was playing as the Aristocratic Vampires..(Calabim) and enjoying a nice leasiurely exploration of the surouding territory when i was given (by a goodie hut) cartography early in the game.
My Own AI suggested (and i would have forced the issue had it not) that i build the Pact of the Hill Giants, and i did so.

I had discovered the Sidar (and to my delight ONLY the sidar) on my quite sizable continant. The hill giants quickly ended their civilization, and i quadroupled the number of cities i owned in a few turns. (they'd 3 cities to my 1)

After this, my hill giants helped me maintain control of the continant despite a SEVERE horde of barbarians constantly thinking that "it was their land" bah, stupid natives.

Anyway, after establishing my sight radious so that barbarians couldnt appear any longer, i got down to the serious buisness of making wonders and teching up. I decided to forgo for quite some time expansion, instead prefering to build up, and grab the Ashen vale (which wound up being the second relgion in the world). Only then did i start to expand, and EXPAND I did, about 6 cities in 20-30 turns. It was then i noticed my deficit spending habbits, and my massive, if not unfortuante maintenance problems.

Having God king and a few other fairly expensive civics, i turned (in desperate hopes) to city states........a joke of a civic. After doing so, and being informed that i would not be able to switch again for another 8 turns (city states was worse than God King) i slowly watched my units disapear from "being on strike." My hero and Favorite priest even left me. There was no external threat to speak of.....no one knew where i was, though by this time i had ships sailing to meet other people. So as it was, my little empire was crumbling without the necessary influence of other civs....i had ruined myself, all by myself.

Now for the consequences

All i ever lost was units, some pride, and my will to continue playing. Had i not lost my hero, i'd have kept going and delt with it. So the question is, what SHOULD be the consequence of mismanaging one's statly affairs? One natural consequence is conquest by other nations, but I found it enterily admirable that i could ruin myself without the assistance of AI's. But instead of "losing units" and haveing them just randomly disappear, perhaps they might have turned into barbarians? It'd have been a refreshing (if not also very terrifying) occurance to watch my empire split in half, and force me to fight my own troops. Good ol fashioned civil war! In Civ 2 there was a funciton called "Schizm". If one's affairs get so rotten, perhaps we could reintroduce this concept in a limited way? Some cities would ban together and become a new (perhaps minor) civ? Or at least have my units turn barbarian and generally run amok.

I would suggest that HERO's remain loyal, its what a hero does. Still, for my stagnating economy, losing half my cities might have actually helped my economy, and given me a fun activity (or not) of reclaiming them....hopefully with a better war-time economy that could sustain them.

THIS THREAD - Is for suggestions on A) How else might a civ be ruined (without conquest) and B) what other consequences ought to occur for having it happen?

-Qes

I agree that heroes shouldnt cost maintenance (and therefor not abandon you). I will make that change in 0.15.

I also agree that City States probably needs looked at. Probably by the removal of the negative gold amount entirely, and an increased chance that your cities will culture flip away from you (I will have to think abotu this one).

 

[QES]

The words 'Dark Age' makes me think... say, what if evil civs could use great people to trigger a 'Dark Age' (as in "the opposite of a Golden Age") when sent into rival realms ? You would move two GP into a rival's territory, and fusion them to start a Dark Age much like you would have started a Golden Age for yourself. This could be limitted to a given civ, be given particular requirements (ex : one of the GP has to be a Great Rebel or something like that, the GPs must reach the capitol of the rival civ, which your must obviously have Open Borders with -- no dark age during war), and would basically simulate having the GPs travelling into the realm and causing multiple incidents, like terrorism or subersion. The Dark Age itself could last for a few turns like Golden Ages do, and for example lead to reduced production and commerce or give cities a base chance to be in disorder for a turn. The target civ could immediately end the Dark Age by sacrificing a Great People (at first glance, I'd say that requiring the sacrifice of the amount of GPs that would be needed for a full Golden Age might be a little too much, besides the AI already has an habit of keeping GPs for later use, so it would be able to resist quite correctly with little modification).

While this sounds cool, the idea is that one runs into the ground ONESELF. Not because someone else triggers the effect. I love the idea that the dark age is the opposite of the "golden age" but i do not believe that it should be triggered at all by "great people" great people dont involve themselves in DOOM, they're reflections of good times to be had! So while the "anti-golden age" concept for the "Dark age" seems to me to be a wonderous idea, I think the trigger would have to be Non-civ controled. Or perhaps controled indirectly. (Like if you run your civ into the ground through mismanagement.)

The Dark Age itself, could be 20 turns of crappy gold, research and culture production - but still healthy in building and engineering production. ALSO, maybe "Great people" generation is ********. The advantages of the Dark age, is that perhaps the spread of your state religion DOUBLES! Or at least, all your cities become more likely to get religions? Superstition reigns.

I think this "dark age" idea needs much more investment of thought, because it sounds awesome, but it simply cant be "just the opposite" of a golden age. It's gotta be genuinely unique.
-Qes

EDIT: Perhaps also barbarians are able to spawn in your land (Despite your vision) again? THis would reflect the inability to maintain order in "dark times". Maybe also Dark Ages would be contagious? Other boardering civs (through trade routes) or the like, could suffer if heavily connected to you in some way. Unlike a golden age, it'd be fun/interesting to watch a dark age spread across the world.

 

[QES]

I agree that heroes shouldnt cost maintenance (and therefor not abandon you). I will make that change in 0.15.

I also agree that City States probably needs looked at. Probably by the removal of the negative gold amount entirely, and an increased chance that your cities will culture flip away from you (I will have to think abotu this one).

While you may have already seen it, ill post it here:

CIVICS - City states.

Perhaps change it to this:
-50% city maintentance, +1 Gold per City, +25% trade route yeild, -20% Mililtary Production, -10% Buildings production

{Concept: More independant - maintenance, higher trade rates both internal and international - Gold and yeilds, hard to aims and goals directly - poor production}

EDIT: Or maybe a flat -20% production? City's rebuffing the attempt to control what they do.

 

[Sureshot]

I also agree that City States probably needs looked at. Probably by the removal of the negative gold amount entirely, and an increased chance that your cities will culture flip away from you (I will have to think abotu this one).

For city states you'd think culture would increase if anything (as each city is given free reign), and the whole culture flip thing seems inconsequential (if a city is at the point where it will flip it's usually inevitable anyways).

City states seems like there'd be more corruption, which in civ4 translates to higher maintenance. So maybe it should increase general city maintenance (caused by number of cities) while decreasing distance city maintenance?

 

[Chandrasekhar]

You mean -50% maintenance by distance, right?

 

[QES]

For city states you'd think culture would increase if anything (as each city is given free reign), and the whole culture flip thing seems inconsequential (if a city is at the point where it will flip it's usually inevitable anyways).

City states seems like there'd be more corruption, which in civ4 translates to higher maintenance. So maybe it should increase general city maintenance (caused by number of cities) while decreasing distance city maintenance?

Corruption is not often caused by independance, but instead ill-functioning autocrasies. Monarchy and centralized governments, who are/were unable to actually enforce the rule they claim to have is where corruption comes from.

Having gone to africa not to long ago, i can tell you first hand, that when a country has the freedom and independance of entrepaneurialship(sp?) they tend to have less corruption and more self-regulation. (There are obvious limits on this). But when a society is used to autocratic rules, and centralization of power, everything tends to have that spice of corruption.

In This, cities states, because they function independantly, are more (self-regulating) this would mean a DECREASE of over all corruption, but an increase in the difficulty in getting those cities to do what any centralized governement wants them to do.

City states IMHO, should be a "freeing" of the burden from tax and money woes. At the cost of organization and military power. The culture thing is a good point, but when its generally accepted that the culture is of the whole of the city states (like the ancient greeks) we can see that its no real different than of a nation-state. This leads me to the conclusion that there are no benefits or retardations of culture in city states. The citys that produce a lot of culture...do. The cities that dont, dont, but either way the whole culture benefits. If anything city states encourages specialization. But im not sure how that could be coded or even realized.
-Qes

 

[QES]

You mean -50% maintenance by distance, right?

Not sure. I think it should be -%50 for # AND Distance. Since "capitals" as such arnt really accurate in a "city state" system. There might be a city that "leads the alliance" Like ancient athens or sparta, but it wasnt a "capital" as we think of them today. Same with the Anceint chinese. If anything, city-states should reduce all maintenance.....but have an increase chance of "Schizm" and civil war, and organizational and millitary cohesiveness difficulties.

In a Fantasy mod, i tend to think of teh "free cities" of westeros. They are incredibly effecient, and economically prosperous. But they squabble amungst themselves all the time. Not "unhappiness" mind you, just power struggles.

-Qes