Provincial Palaces

[Mojotronica]

Make the Forbidden Palace a City Improvement, available at a cost somewhat cheaper than the Palace (based on the number of cities in the empire.)

Players could opt to build as many Provincial Palaces as they wanted (at a staggering shield cost,) bringing corruption down to zero even in a large sprawling empire.

The downside? Each Provincial Palace city has a % chance to rebel every turn -- they become strong cultural centers unto themselves, and rival the main Palace's authority. The percentage chance is similar to the % chance that a Nuclear plant will cause a radioactive disaster.

If a city with a Provincial Palace rebels, it becomes the core city of a new Civilization, chosen at random from any remaining unplayed Civs. The new Civ has the same tech level as the old one. It should start with at least one defender, maybe more, or based on level of play.

Civs that depend heavily on Provincial Palaces to keep down the corruption may pay a great price for it -- on the other hand that greatly reduced corruption is extremely appealing.

This also allows for event-like spawning of new Civilizations in the game, and makes the game more consistant with history. The American revolution could be explained as a rebellion caused by the Provincial Palace of Philadelphia, for instance, which spawned the Americans from the English Civ.

Rome's division into East and West could be explained as a rebellion caused by the Provincial Palace of Constantinople, spawning Byzantine civilization.

Most importantly it adds the possibility of new Civs being spawned into the game. I miss that from older versions.

This new rule would not require much change in basic game mechanics, but would add a new dimension to play. Players could opt out of the mechanic by avoiding building Provincial Palaces (at a cost in efficiency.)

The rule could also be extended to the capture of enemy Palaces and/or Provincial Palaces -- they become Provincial Palaces in the new empire, unless sold, adding to the cities likelyhood of flipping and simulating tensions that would exist integrating the nations.

 

[Mojotronica]

(This suggestion is one I've been posting here for the past couple of years, first as a desgin mod to Civ3, now as a recomendation for Civ 4. It's not possible to implement under Civ3 rules, as far as I can tell, partly because the Forbidden Palace is hard-coded as a Wonder -- but mostly because there's no mechanism for spawning new Civs in the game post-start...)

 

[Theoden]

I think it sounds too powerful. Why not remove corruption entirely then. With all those palaces there wouldn't be any corruption. I do however like the idea if citys becoming their own civ. I would suggest though that several cities at once could become independent giving the new nation a chance.

 

[Mojotronica]

The % chance of the cities rebellion is a balancing factor -- if they are too powerful, the % can be increased. The AI's % chance can be raised or lowered independent of the human player's to account for it's lack of judgement.

 

[Mojotronica]

And keep in mind they will be very expensive to build. It won't be worth it to build one in every city, one every 8 spaces or so would be about right.

 

[Mojotronica]

Rebellious cities should have a chance to become an independent Civ, so they would begin with tech parity to their parent Civ, possibly more than the std one defensive unit that flipped cities get and maybe begin the game in a Golden Age.

They might also have a higher than normal chance to flip neighboring cities, although it may be enough that they will almost certainly outshine their parent Civ locally.

 

[DogmaDog]

I'd like to see some way to actually get a handle on corruption in conquered lands/other continents. Provincial palaces might be one solution...perhaps the number you could build would depend on map size. Having a city with a PP secede, along with several nearby cities would be really annoying, though!

One Idea that's popped into my head is to reduce corruption with the advent of certain technologies like radio/telegraph, railroad, etc...these things have the effect of reducing the distance between cities, so it would make sense that corruption and waste due to distance from the palace should decrease when these technologies are implemented.

DD

 

[vesuvius_prime]

Having provincial capitals is a good thing. But you should be forbidden to have too many of them. It makes no sense, for example, to turn 100% of your cities into provincial capitals. Thus you'll completely eliminate both corruption and the chance of several cities rebelling at once (because each of them will belong to a separate province).

By the way, I was having a huge grudge against corruption but it doesn't seem nearly as bad in C3C v1.22. Looks like the Firaxis guys have listened and have modified it.

 

[Mojotronica]

I like corruption, but I'd like players to have a means to control it. Early on a lot of players were editing the game to reduce it or adding anti-corruption effects to city improvements, which seemed silly to me. This was my solution to the problem -- I think that it gives players a choice of how to deal with it, with consequences either way -- and that is why it will work as a game mechanic.

Plus it introduces a means of spawning new Civs into the game after the start, which better simulates historical events like the American revolution.

 

[vesuvius_prime]

I like corruption, but I'd like players to have a means to control it. Early on a lot of players were editing the game to reduce it or adding anti-corruption effects to city improvements, which seemed silly to me. This was my solution to the problem -- I think that it gives players a choice of how to deal with it, with consequences either way -- and that is why it will work as a game mechanic.

Plus it introduces a means of spawning new Civs into the game after the start, which better simulates historical events like the American revolution.

I absolutely hated the rampant corruption of the previous versions of Civ3. It made most of my cities completely useless. Now the situation is somewhat better. There's still room for improvement but I would say that corruption shouldn't be eliminated completely. That won't be realistic either. Corruption exists everywhere (some places more than others). Simply the previous model took into account only distance and government type. This virtually crippled each and every non-core city of my Empire. That was terrible. Now they did something. I don't know what exactly was changed but things are improved. Sure, they can be improved much more but at least the game is playable. I hope they will further refine the corruption formula in subsequent patches and perhaps even redesign it in Civ4. All I'm saying is that the game is more playable now than before. And I definitely think that corruption should remain in the game. Modified, yes, but not thrown out completely.

I also support the idea of provinces. I've expressed my approval in two other threads. And I do agree that it would make rebellions more significant and would allow the spawning of new civs. I simply think that it would not make sense to allow each and every city to be a Provincial capital. There should be a lower and upper limit to the number of cities in a province.

The upper limit can be explained like this: A big Empire cannot be controlled by a single man. He should appoint Governors. They may have some "loyalty" attribute, along with some additional skills (economic, social, religious, military, etc.). They may even have their own agenda and they may eventually secede from the main Empire. That will cause a Civil War and may lead to the creation of a new Empire.

The lower limit should also be there to prevent the player from turning each city into a Province. A "city=province" system would introduce too many governors. The system won't work well in real life. This resembles a Confederation of city-states but such cities will most likely be ruled by semi-independent Overlords and that won't be a stable Empire at all. The center will have virtually no control over the other cities. Perhaps such a confederation can exist only while the Overlords have a common enemy and/or while they see more personal gain in staying allied than seceding. Who knows, some people may like such a government type in Civilization: confederation of city-states.

 

[Mojotronica]

My idea uses a high per Provincial Palace cost in addition to the increased potential for rebellion to curb excessive use of the City Improvement. That should prevent a P. Palace per city, except in games where the player dominates early and has resources to build the "perfect empire."

Even then, the rebellion factor will give the builder type some challenges in exchange for the corruption-free empire.

 

[AdHHH]

If there was a limit on the "second" FP would balance it. For example, it must be on a different land mass, and there must be x (say 8-10) minimum cities on that land mass, to build it. Also, as is mentioned, leave open a possibility of rebellion to make the game more interesting. I would leave it as a SW though...

 

[socralynnek]

I think the easiest way to solve it would be giving more corruption fighting city improvements, so after a time you can control corruption, but in newly conquered cities, it takes some time to build the infrastructure to make them useful.
(So there would be no need to change the FP, although I think on huge maps you should be allowed to build more of them)

 

[Dell19]

I like the idea but I would rather that the percentage chance would result in surrounding cities going into disorder for a period of turns rather than spawning new civs which would be similar to culture flipping...

 

[Mojotronica]

I appreciate the input -- thanks!

Overall I see culture flipping as a means of limiting victory by pure conquest, which rings true to me.

This application of culture flipping has the added benefit of providing a means of spawning new Civs in the game after the start, which I see as a good thing. The Provincial Palaces drawback (culture flip/spawn new civ) would be limited by the number of Civs in the game -- if it's maxed out, the penalty is (temporarily) negated.

 

[Melifluous]

This is absolutely brilliant.

I like this degree of risk taking in the game.
The advantages are great but the disadvantages are both a boon and a curse.

The new civilisation would no doubt sell your secrets for protection from neighbours if you are ahead. If you were behind in score, this new civilisation would be an excellent opportunity to fight a war against an inferior and smaller nation.

An Excellent idea Mojo.

:goodjob

Melifluous

 

[hr_oskar]

This is a good idea in principle, I like it

Balancing it with high shield cost is necessary - I think a good way might be to have the shield cost increase by 100 or 200 shields for each existing provincial palace. That way your first 4-5 are buildable while it would be practically impossible to build them in every city.

 

[Cilpot]

Great idea, mojo

I especially like the possibility of a split in the empire! Something I really miss in civ3..

Apart from my idea of a minimap centering on the view in the main map, this is the best idea I have heard

 

[Your.Master]

An alternative way to balance the potential "every city is a province" problem is to make the chance of rebellion cumulative.

Let me take some ridiculous numbers that are easy to work with for an example.

Just say that every turn, there is a 10% chance that a provincial palace will rebel. If you build another, you would expect to have two separate 10% chances. But what if it made a 20% of rebellion (45% one province, 45% the other, 10% both, or something). Then, if you had ten provincial palaces, you would guarantee AT LEAST one rebellion. It could even go up. 1% on the first and second, 2% on the third, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89... (Fibonacci sequence...so I'm a nerd, okay?). Or something that works, anyway. This would make people think twice about making more than one or two provinces...something that is already a hard decision.