Pirates and rebels and terrorists, oh my!

[jwijn]

Throughout history, wherever there has been established order and society there have been those who have represented chaos and barbarism. Whether they are the roving bands that threatened early Mesopatamian civilizations; the pirates that have terrorized every ocean and sea, from raiding Spanish galleons off the coast of Florida to hijacking oil-tankers near Sumatra; and the rebels and paramilitaries that have proved to be the bane of governments in Latin and South America, Africa and Asia.

The problem with the current system of barbarians is that they disappear relatively quickly - once the entire world is under the cultural influence of the various civilizations. However, I propose a new model for barbarians:

Each city would have a corruption value. This is clearly worked into the game, as that is how maintenance costs are worked out, so it would be a simple matter of slightly tweaking the game mechanics to register this value and use it for this barbarian model. However, each unhappy citizen contributes 1 point to this corruption value. When the number of points exceeds, say 15, then the barbarians would be able to spawn within the cultural borders, but outside of the city limits. They would have access to all the technology that is available in the nearest city as well. Furthermore, the presence of barbarians near a city would also increase the maintenance costs of that city.

For example: Let's say that Baghdad is far away from Mecca, and has a corruption value of 6. 9 of its 16 citizens are unhappy, and as a result a barbarian camp appears not too far from Baghdad. Because Baghdad is in the early Industrial age, gunmen mounted on camels begin attacking improvements and roads near Baghdad.

Pirates would also be an easy implementation. If a barbarian camp were to spawn in ocean or sea, then it would simply appear as a "Pirate hideout" and act like a floating goodie hut, spawning Black Frigates to raid passing ships and even able to sack an undefended city (these ships would also have a land attack value, to represent invading a coastal city)

What do you think?

 

[Crayton]

I like it.
What about the absence of 'corruption' in Civ4.
I'd propose a random factor instead of the straight 15 points.
1% chance of barbarians/rebels/terrorists/pirates for each point, calculated before each turn. Baghdad in the previous example would have a 15% chance of contracting paramilitary forces etc. each turn that it's point value is 15. This would also allow the existance of multiple camps/pirate coves for each city.

 

[Thangorodrim]

First, I would like to say that I wholeheartedly support this suggestion. Second, I have a tweak to propose.

Black Frigates? Late Middle Ages, possibly, but any use against a battleship? Maybe the barbs could have ships that capture your ships and use them against you, and the pirate-spawning places capture anything that passes by or over it.

EX: there is a pirate-spawning area two squares off the coastal city Baghdad. An innocent destroyer passes through the area or its "ZOC", and there is a chance it will get caught (15% as of previous posts). Once the destroyer gets caught, it heads for <insert name of previous owner civ>'s nearest city with a harbor and destroys the harbor and itself.

I don't know if I was clear. Feel free to ask for clarification.

 

[jwijn]

Well, as I mentioned above, the barbarians would have the technology of the nearest city. But I like your method better. This way, it is conceivable that if a much more advanced nation were to pass by and have a ship captured then those pirates would terrorize the nearby city with superior firepower.

Crayton, I also like your idea. However, to prevent tons of camps setting up, if there is already a camp nearby then the chance for another to appear is halved.

Furthermore, the whole idea of "aiding the resistance" could be implemented with this system, and possibly even go along with the whole 'new civs forming' idea.

Aiding the resistance: As an espionage action, you could choose to fund the rebels near a particular city for X gold/turn. Funding these rebels would have a random bonus for the rebels. This bonus could be anything from the rebels increasing their firepower one point to the rebels producing units with a special promotion. For example, if the Romans dislike the Chinese, but do not want to get into a full-fledged war with them, then they can choose to fund the rebels outside of Hong Kong for 6 gold per turn. These rebels would have increased firepower, and prove very hard to eradicate for the Chinese government. In fact, the skilled leader would even be able to use this option strategically. If China had oil near Peking, and Rome wanted to cut China's production of tanks, then Rome could fund the rebels near Peking with the hope that they would raid the road leading to oil.

New civilizations/Civil wars: For every time a group of rebels sacks a city successfully, the chance that the sacked city will join the rebels and become a new, rebel civilization will increase by 5%. This would decrease by 1% every turn, but 10% each turn for every soldier stationed in the city. This would force leaders to ensure that their citizens are happy or content (as rebels are more likely to spawn when the citizens are unhappy in a city) as well as protect their cities and eradicate any rebel threats. I feel that this is fairly reflective of history, as well. Che Guevara and his band of revolutionaries were fortified in the Sierra Maestra as they fought Batista's armies before finally claiming victory and capturing the major cities of Cuba. The first battle of the American Revolution was on the strip of road between Lexington and Concord, not a spontaneous change of heart in one of America's cities.

Comments?

 

[Sullla]

I think that units getting spawned out of thin air inside your borders would be problematic on several levels. First of all, according to the proposed model it would be all but unpreventable (and that would be very frustrating). I can see all kinds of balancing problems that don't really need to be elaborated. Secondly, while Civilization is a computer game and not reality, it has to do a credible job of simulating real life; units appearing out of nowhere fails this test of common sense (this is part of the reason why barb camps only appear in the fog of war). Finally, the idea is only being considered from the perspective of "wow, it would be really cool to do this to the AI!" Would it REALLY be a good addition if your own cities were constantly being attacked by barbs from out of nowhere, constantly being funded by rival AI civs? My guess is that it would cause enormous resentment and frustration on the part of players (this is why I have yet to see a model of "civil wars" that I would support).

Some good thinking, but there are many great ideas that would be difficult to translate into a successful game.

 

[jwijn]

Well, first of all, the barbarian camps ARE preventable. So long as you keep your citizens relatively content and curb corruption then you will be fine. True, it will take some tweaking to ensure that barbarian camps don't spring up left and right, but that is the purpose of testing. These units do not appear out of nowhere, either. They come from rebel camps. Take, for example, the large amounts of paramilitaries plaguing Colombia. They are trained in camps deep in the jungle and the mountains, and from their stage attacks on the government or other paramilitaries. Furthermore, if you are funding a rebel group and you are caught, then there would be massive international repercussions. If the country is already angry with you, it could result in war, and it will most definitely result in a huge reputation hit.

 

[Quinzy]

what if you are more powerful or wealthier than the civ funding the rebels? could you counter the offer and make the rebels attack their previous 'employers' for extra gold per turn?

eg. the 'employer' pays rebels 6 gold per turn. the rebels approach your city. you right-click nd go into a diplo-discussion. you offer them 10 gold per turn to attack the previous 'employer'.

i think this would make sense, what do you think???

 

[Quinzy]

or if you build the UN wonder or it has been built, and you are 'caught' paying rebel attacks, you get charged a penalty or something? (100000 gold or 10 cities or disarm nuclear weapons or disarm millitary/navy/air force?

 

[lost_civantares]

In additon perhaps you could have something where you can only employ them once every 3 turns, and also if you stop paying them after, say, 5 consecutive times, the barbs would have a 50% chance of attacking you instead. This would tend to prevent people from too often employing them.

 

[Thangorodrim]

Great ideas everyone!

I got this idea from another thread, and basically it is:
the money you pay to the barbs stays in their camp, and whomever raids it gets the money. This would up the risk of funding rebels. However you should not be able to attack the rebels you are funding unless they turn on you. This would eliminate exploitation (by paying barbs, then raiding them to get your money back).

 

[Thangorodrim]

The thread I mentioned : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=128005

 

[jwijn]

Great ideas everyone!

I got this idea from another thread, and basically it is:
the money you pay to the barbs stays in their camp, and whomever raids it gets the money. This would up the risk of funding rebels. However you should not be able to attack the rebels you are funding unless they turn on you. This would eliminate exploitation (by paying barbs, then raiding them to get your money back).

Or perhaps only a portion of the funding is stored in the barbarian camp. This would represent the rebels using the funding to buy new weapons or upgrades.

 

[Commissar]

The rebels shouldn't necessarily be able to turn on their employers if they stopped receiving funding/received a better offer. The Viet Cong wouldn't have turned on the Soviet Union if they stopped getting weapons, ammunition, and training, they simply would have been much less effective.

Funding rebels should have the effect of increasing the amount and effectiveness of existing rebels, and possibly making them more likely to appear. Let's say, for example, that it's the end of the Industrial age and Germany's only source of oil is near Munich. I'm not going to try to come up with a system to say exactly how much unhappiness and corruption will allow for rebels to appear, but let's say that Munich's citizens are relatively unhappy and the city is suffering enough corruption. A rebel camp has, say, a 5% chance of spawning every turn (that's still pretty high, remember; it works out to a camp every 20 turns) near Munich. When rebels do spawn they'll have, say, a 5% chance of being musketmen, a 30% chance of being riflemen, a 45% chance of being guerillas, a 10% chance of being infantry, and a 10% chance of being cavalry (I'm going under the idea here that offensive unit-quality weaponry is alot harder to get than typical defensive unit-quality weaponry). All rebels will spawn as conscripts.

Noticing this, you decide to fund rebels near Munich. You could choose one of three levels of funding, but the more you fund the rebels the more likely your actions are to be revealed to the world. At a cost of, say, 5 gold per turn, decreasing or increasing depending on the amount of corruption and the happiness of the citizens in the target city, the chance of rebels appearing is increased by 10% per turn. At a cost of 10 gold per turn the chance of rebels appearing is increased by an additional 5% per turn, and rebels will appear as regulars instead of conscripts. At a cost of 15 gold per turn the chance of rebels appearing is increased by another 5%, they'll be regulars, and will now appear as either riflemen (5%), guerillas (20%), infantry (70&), or tanks (5%). Or, if your civilization is more advanced, rebels could appear as a more powerful unit that you've researched. That would represent sending aid in the form of propaganda and supplies (higher chance for rebellion), training (rebels appearing as regulars instead of conscripts), and equipment (rebels appearing as more powerful units).

 

[lost_civantares]

Wouldn't the germans notice that the barbarians were way better than they should be and declare war on you? And also, what defense would the germans have against the barbarians if the barbarians just generated 3 tanks against the 1 rifeman in 10 different spots because they were just payed 25 gold to 10 different barbarian camps just because someone had way too much gold? You need to look at it from the other side too , it would have to be a lot more expensive, if it was 25 gold, then you could do this for ages if you were packing in enough gold, espescially in the modern ages.

 

[Che Guava]

A rebel camp has, say, a 5% chance of spawning every turn (that's still pretty high, remember; it works out to a camp every 20 turns) near Munich.

I like the idea a whole lot! How can you have a proper cold war without being able to fund guerillas abroad? If the rebels take the capital, woudl that be grounds for installing a new leader...?

Just a quick correction: a 5% chance each turn wouldn't necessarily be one every 20 turns. As long as there's no replacement (i.e. the probability won't change) it will just be a 1 in 20 chance each turn (which isn't that bad for what you want to do, actually). It's just like how you can't predict which heads/tails on a coin toss based on the last couple of tosses.

 

[almogaver]

I think that the original idea was good enough.

Instead of having whole cities revolting, as now in the CIVIII, instead we could have barbarian/ rebel camps showing up...representing civil unrest...(e.g. New Orleans citizens)..terrorist groups (IRA, ETA,KKK,...),...or even organized guerrilas.

Being the condition for the camp, high levels of unhappyness in the city and/or the civilization.

Funding guerrillas (that is, increasing or improving the level of the units in the camp) could well be an option of spionage. For example giving your own units to the rebels.

If the guerrillas take control of a city they might keep it and grow as any other civ, but with no ties to however has fund them (remember that Castro was originally trained and fund it by the US,...and now their relationship is not good at all, Bush just refused the 2.000 doctors and tons of food castro just offered for the Katrina...).

5% chance every turn sound about right....and perhaps some place where you could see if you are at risk of having this kins of problems....this way you could reduce the level of unhappiness...or risk it...to have more money or production...

I like it very much. Much better than having terrorist as normal units...which seems what we are going to see in CIV IV....

 

[Commissar]

Wouldn't the germans notice that the barbarians were way better than they should be and declare war on you? And also, what defense would the germans have against the barbarians if the barbarians just generated 3 tanks against the 1 rifeman in 10 different spots because they were just payed 25 gold to 10 different barbarian camps just because someone had way too much gold? You need to look at it from the other side too , it would have to be a lot more expensive, if it was 25 gold, then you could do this for ages if you were packing in enough gold, espescially in the modern ages.

Like I said in my post, the more you spent funding the rebels the more likely you are to get caught and suffer a worldwide reputation hit and a declaration of war from your opponent.

Hopefully the Germans would notice the increase in rebel activity and bolster their defences around the area. If not, then they probably deserve to lose their cities. Besides, in my example the full 25 gold worth of funding simply makes the chances for a *single* rebel unit to appear near each of the funded cities 25% per turn. At a rate of 5%, the chance of seeing a single tank appear in any given turn is very low (I'm not sure where you got the idea that 3 tanks would appear in 10 different spots). Looking back, though, I'm having a hard time thinking of a guerilla group, funded or not, that ever had access to heavy military equipment like tanks, so the chance of offensive units like cavalry or tanks spawning could be removed entirely.

As for the money, I'm nowhere near good enough to play in the higher difficulty levels, and in my games 25 gold per turn is a decent amount...250 gold per turn for ten cities is enough to bankrupt someone pretty quickly. For the higher difficulty levels the amount of gold could be increased, and of course the amount of gold would change based on the size of the city, the corruption and happiness of the city, etc.

 

[lost_civantares]

(I'm not sure where you got the idea that 3 tanks would appear in 10 different spots)

I'm saying you funded them several times in one turn. I guess I thought of the payment as a instant attack by the barbarians, I should probably start going to bed earlier.

Then on the other side of the spectrum the person who paying out that hard-earned cash has the problem that if he carefully pland the whole thing so that the barbs would attack, weaken the town, and then you would ride in and conquer everything, waiting the how many odd turns for the barbarians to show up could be frustrating, and any way, how are you going to know that the barbarians are attacking anyway if it is in your fog of war?

Don't want to seem to down on you, it's a great idea, it's just an idea that has to be hammered out!

 

[Mewtarthio]

Instead of having whole cities revolting, as now in the CIVIII, instead we could have barbarian/ rebel camps showing up...representing civil unrest...(e.g. New Orleans citizens)..terrorist groups (IRA, ETA,KKK,...),...or even organized guerrilas.

"New Orleans Citizens"? I live in Dallas, which is one place the refugees are evacuating to, and I don't see any disgruntled refugees with assault rifles duking it out with the National Guard. Could you explain that a bit more?

 

[Mrdie]

"New Orleans Citizens"? I live in Dallas, which is one place the refugees are evacuating to, and I don't see any disgruntled refugees with assault rifles duking it out with the National Guard. Could you explain that a bit more?

He means IN New Orleans.