Regicide feature ala "Play the world"

[TheLopez]

I'm very interested in this mod, and the more flexible you could make it, the happier I'd be

Well, if you've used some of my bigger components then you know that I tried to expose as much as I can to allow the fine tuning of my mods, but I digress... I will try to make it as configurable and flexible as possible.

Some ways in which I'd like to see it work. Never mind how much AI tweaking all of this would require...

1. Your leader is determined by your Government civic, and the effects of killing/assassinating the leader changes with civic as well. For example, under Hereditary rule, killing the leader causes a succession, with possible rebellion effects.

Well kind of, it depends on if you have the royal bloodlines feature enabled. If the royal bloodlines feature is enabled and there is a noble that is alive in the game then that noble would take the place of the killed leader. To completely finish off a civilization in a game with regicide victory enabled you would have to effectively kill off all of the nobles and the leader.

If no nobles are available then the civilization would automatically go into a state of anarchy for x number of turns. After the x number of turns then a new leader would emerge and the anarchy would be over.

Under Bureaucracy, there may be multiple leaders, and you have to kill all of them to have an effect. Under Universal Suffrage (which is a lame name for a government civic, it's a form of Representation) there may be no leader at all, which is a big advantage.

I disagree that there wouldn't be any leaders for "Universal Suffrage". Instead for both of these civics I see something like "Cabinet Members" or "Ministers". These would work like the nobles but with different titles.

Please note though that I am planning to add a configurable option allowing players to specify that if the leader of a civilization gets killed then the civilization will be destroyed, if nobles/ministers/cabinet members are in the game.

2. In keeping with the theme of "civilization" rather than "rise of nations," I think it should at be an option that killing a leader doesn't destroy a civilization but simply sets it back (e.g. several turns of anarchy, potential city rebellions, loss of culture, etc). China has survived not only the deaths of emperors but the passing of dynasties, each one of which under some of the proposals in this thread would have been considered a game-ending event for China, but in fact were usually just points in the cycle of history.

See my answer in point one.

In fact, I would just expose a new event to Python via the SDK and let the modders decide how to handle turnover.

This is a very good idea. I will absolutely do this.

3. Leaders could have effects a la Forbidden City. In fact, before you proposed this Mod I was thinking of how to program something similar, and thought that a hack could be that the leader auto-builds a Versailles clone, for the sake of calculating upkeep. At the end of the player's turn, the leader is reincarnated in that city (so it can be assassinated), and at the beginning of the turn the building is demolished so the leader can choose a different location or rebuild the building. Obviously a hack, but I presume the AI would understand how to do this.

Hmmm.... I don't know about this. I'll have to flesh this out.

4. I could totally see a specific application of this mod to work like Europa Universalis (or Medeival: Total War). Under Hereditary Rule, there could be 1 King and X number of Princes / Heirs. Perhaps you can work to develop their governing abilities through suggestion #3 or even sending them off to war. Having cities lose culture during successions would be an easy way to model the wavering of loyalty during those periods. (Again, why it'd be great to have this be exposed to Python).

I agree, it would be good to have another event exposed through python for this.

5. If you like idea #1 (tying leaders to civics), some of the other civics may also have special units tied to them, e.g. an Ayatollah/Pope for Theocracy, head economist for State Property. If this leader concept was generalized enough, that would enable anyone to come up with all sorts of custom civics tied to different special units.

Hmmm... interesting.

Thank you for going through and writing down all of these notes Padmewan, you have forced me to think through a lot of my ideas and flesh them out even more

 

[Shqype]

In fact, I would just expose a new event to Python via the SDK and let the modders decide how to handle turnover.

That's what I was asking for... although with the code in place it wouldn't be too difficult for us to make our own changes, it would be better if you had it "ready-made" and easy to use for our convenience

 

[Padmewan]

Well, if you've used some of my bigger components then you know that I tried to expose as much as I can to allow the fine tuning of my mods, but I digress... I will try to make it as configurable and flexible as possible.

I well know this, but it never hurts to add the request (though I should add that I absolutely appreciate what you HAVE done already!)

I disagree that there wouldn't be any leaders for "Universal Suffrage"...

... which I why I feel this civic is inaccurately named. "Universal Suffrage" sounds like "Representation" and then some. Really it sounds like they were trying to get at "Direct Democracy" (esp. because upkeep is medium) in which case there would be no leaders. (In terms of historical accuracy they really flubbed this set of civics... it is ludicrous that George Washington's preferred civic is Universal Suffrage, considering that he owned slaves, and that originally only propertied men could vote in the U.S...)

Anyway, enough history. The biggest question for this mod is how well the AI will handle the leader. Will it protect them adequately? If the leader has combat abilities (e.g. under Despotism or Hereditary Rule -- more appropriately, Feudalism but again I digress) like in the Japan scenario in C3C will the AI calculate its use appropriately? Etc...

 

[TheLopez]

... which I why I feel this civic is inaccurately named. "Universal Suffrage" sounds like "Representation" and then some. Really it sounds like they were trying to get at "Direct Democracy" (esp. because upkeep is medium) in which case there would be no leaders. (In terms of historical accuracy they really flubbed this set of civics... it is ludicrous that George Washington's preferred civic is Universal Suffrage, considering that he owned slaves, and that originally only propertied men could vote in the U.S...)

Again, I disagree that they were trying to go for direct democracy in which case there would be no leaders. Look at their civilopedia entry for Universal Suffrage. Note the part in bold.

Universal suffrage means extending the vote to everyone, regardless of race, creed, or gender. Note however that even the most universal suffrage is usually less than totally universal; in the United States, for example, one must be 18 years of age to vote, and being convicted of certain criminal offenses results in permanent loss of suffrage.

The positive side of universal suffrage is that everyone is allowed an equal say in electing those who will run the country. The negative side is that this includes everyone, regardless of intelligence, honesty, or any other characteristic. As someone once said, "I reject any form of government in which the opinion of the village idiot is given the same weight as the opinion of Aristotle."

So according to the information there are elected leaders in Universal Suffrage.

 

[Portus]

I m happy in have it as simple as change leaders accordding the era.
But if we have the chance of choose the patch of succession and the periods of time, much better. Maybe this is a little off topic but thats what i like to see.
This minimize the problem, having the same leader all the game
the same traits
much more accurate scnarios can be done
well, much more doors will open

Good work