Puppeting, Colonies, Nationalism and Espionage

[nathanvjbrown]

Hello, I'm a (long-ish?) time Civ fan, started playing in Civ 4 and I've thoroughly enjoyed each of 4, 5 and 6. One concept I really liked from Civ 5 which is "missing" in Civ 6, for better or worse perhaps, is puppeting. Puppeting was quite fun to me but in some ways rather lacklustre as it was more of a form of damage control than a genuine game mechanic. I'd like to reintroduce it to civ 6 with new features such as colonialism, nationalism and espionage to make it just as (or perhaps more so) comprehensive as religion.

"Regular" Puppeting:
When you capture a city you will have a third option to form a "puppet state".

The puppet state is an autonomous entity with no amenities requirement and additional gold production and will occasionally gift units to the owner. ​

• When you form a puppet state by conquering an enemy city, the first city added to the puppet state becomes its new capital.
• The first building to be built in the city centre is the courthouse which will give all of its amenities to the player.
• The puppet state is autonomous, it will build districts where and when it chooses but the player can choose a focus out of gold, culture, science and faith but cannot provide great person points.
• Amenities can be allocated manually to the puppet state, this will cause it to gift units to the player, including its unique unit.
• The puppet state has its own borders and border colour on the map (a darker shade of your own colours).

The puppet state has a couple of limitations also:

• The number of puppet states you can own is dependent on your non-puppet population.
• The number of cities you can add to one puppet state is dependent on the size of your military.
• You can only add Egyptian cities to a puppet state formed by a city conquered from Egypt.
• All added cities must be within x tiles to the capital or the nearest other city (whichever is closer).
• The puppet state cannot build units, encampments, aerodromes, spaceports, entertainment complexes nor wonders.
  
• Reconquered cities that you founded cannot be added to the puppet state.

The second type is colonies:

Colonies are autonomous cities that function similar to puppet states but with a higher focus on gold but require amenities.

• Colonies must be on a continent other than your starting continent which is separated by ocean/coastal tiles (the continents cannot be connected by land) and will all be added to the same "Colonial [Empire Name]" unlike puppet states.
• Colonies can be founded by your settled cities or by conquering from other civilisations 2 eras behind you.
• Colonies have an additional gpt per each luxury resource, provide additional amenities for each luxury resource (which can be traded) and additional trade route slots.
• Colonies start with a free commercial hub and harbour (if coastal), and the player can choose one more district out of a campus, holy site, theatre square or entertainment complex. These can provide great person points.
• Triangular trade unlocks a feature whereby triangular trade route networks (e.g. between your colony and capital, between your colony and a third party, and between your capital and a third party) provide additional gold.
• If a colony is founded by conquest, all of its districts are razed, and new ones will be set up by the owner (like the Spaniards in Tenochtitlan).
• Colonies cannot build encampments, spaceports, aerodromes, wonders nor military units.
• Colonies can build autonomous builders that can only work tiles owned by that city.
  
• The policy which gives +25% growth in colonies will also provide +2 builder charges to autonomous builders.

Nationalism

With nationalism, puppets and colonies will begin to question with which nation they identify, their former empire or yours? Or perhaps colonies wish to become their own people.

• When you unlock nationalism, a "revolt meter" is added which can increase or decrease over time. Points are added to the meter and when you get to the limit (e.g. 100/100) a revolt will occur.
• If your military strength is below a certain threshold which increases over time proportional to the number and size of puppet/colony cities then points will be added to this meter each turn.
• Each puppet state has its own meter and the colonies have a shared meter
• If your military strength is above this threshold, points will be deducted each turn.
• The number of points added or deducted will have no upper nor lower limit and will be proportional to your military strength (e.g. if you have a military strength 4x the threshold, they will decrease to 0 very fast. If you have no military it will be very fast in the opposite direction, perhaps immediate).
• Once the meter reaches 100/100, 7 units will spawn per city of a rebel faction. Two melee, two ranged, one siege, one support, one cavalry. (light or heavy cav, depending on era).
• The rebels will attempt to liberate their cities but not capture yours, they will however pillage your tiles and districts if given the opportunity to do so.
• Rebels are "hostile" to all civs apart from their former empire (e.g. Egyptian puppet rebels are friendly to Egypt), and can be attacked by all players without a DoW, but will only attack first to the civ which they are rebelling against (think aliens in civ beyond earth). They will never invade the lands of a third party.
• If the rebels hold a city for 5 or more turns, it will rejoin its former empire. If that empire is no longer in the game it will be reinstated.
• Rebel forces spawned by a city disappear if either they liberate that city.
• Failed rebellions reset the revolt meter to zero and decrease future revolt risk.

Espionage

The above two styles of puppet cities pave the way for a new style of espionage. Spies sent to your puppet state by other civs will cause it to seek to revolt and rejoin its original empire (or simply break away and reenter the game if you took all its cities).

• A new spy mission is unlocked with nationalism, called "Spread Propaganda"
• The owner of puppets/colonies can "spread propaganda" in the puppet cities reduce the points added to the revolt meter per turn (and even turn it negative) - the strength of which depends on the number of operatives, their level and their promotions.
• The former empire or a third party can spread propaganda in the opposite direction to add points to the revolt meter, even if the military threshold is met.
• Civs can be paid via trade agreements to spread propaganda for you.

Two new Casus Belli

• Aid Revolt: The former owner of puppet cities can declare war with no warmonger penalties and no war weariness if a revolt is occurring in those cities. Taking cities that aren't your own former cities will result in egregious warmonger penalties.
• Suppress Rebellion: Civs caught spreading propaganda can be DoW'd with reduced warmonger penalties.

Integration

• Nationalism also unlocks integration.
• When the revolt meter is at 0/100 you can integrate cities into your empire (annex them)
• They will lose all special bonuses and limitations of their puppet/colonial predecessors but function like normal cities
• Their former civ loses reconquest casus belli against them and they are no longer vulnerable to spread propaganda
• Integration adds a one-time revolt risk of 33 points out of 100 but reduces the long term revolt risk.
• Each city will require 5 turns of anarchy to integrate, you can integrate more than one at once but beware of the revolt risk.

TL;DR

• Add puppet nations which can be formed from captured cities, which run autonomously (with yield focus options), which have 0 amenities cost, you receive all their amenities and gold, but don't build units although you can manually allocate amenities to receive occasional gifts of units (and unique units). The size is limited by your military strength.
• Add colonies which will also work autonomously on overseas continents but receive free districts of three types (harbour, commercial hub and player chosen out of campus, theatre square, holy site and entertainment complex), produce autonomous builders but cannot build military units, have higher gpt per luxury resource and additional trade routes with a "triangle trade" function.
• Add a nationalism event which allows puppets and colonies to revolt against their owners when the Nationalism civic is unlocked, depending on the owners' military strength
• Add espionage mechanics to "Spread Propaganda" to promote revolts to topple empires or to keep your own citizens in check.
• Integrate your puppet/colonial cities to reduce the long term damage to your empire.

 

[Phrozen]

I would rather have colonies under your control but they are limited. Say just the first ring of tiles and have limited infrastructure available to them like no districts (or maybe limited to harbor) and only some city center buildings. The colonies can become full fledged cities with perhaps a city center project. There should be some downsides to colonies though like they need more amenities to support them and they produce rebels faster than regular cities. OTOH their infrastructure is cheaper both in production and maintenance.

 

[nathanvjbrown]

The colonies would have their own revolt meter and because they are part of one giant "puppet state" entity they would generate revolt at a faster rate making them harder to control in the long term. Also, I'd imagine that controlling many colonies would make you a target for war. Although an empire with many colonies would be making a lot of gold and be very powerful, that power would be extremely fragile and require a lot of skill and resources not to topple over.

War would lead to unit losses which would lead to revolt, meaning that you'd not just be reaping benefits but you'd require a strong military, strong economy and even a strong diplomacy.

However you might be right that an additional downside would be necessary, such as only being able to build up to tier 2 buildings in colonies. So they'd be able to have a market and a bank but not a stock exchange, a library and a university but not a research centre etc.