wow I just spent 10 minutes writing something out and then accidentally hit the backspace, I sum it up.
Respawns could be linked to techs (such as nationalism in RFC) therefore variable time (techs represent ideas) this would be extremely realistic such as when romanticism influenced the Greek rebellions against the ottomans, or how nationalism allowed for a Prussian unification of Germany
Might be hard to implement, but I think there should be a city surrender event for independents that are heavily under siege, maybe every once in a while an indie will surrender to the opposition if for example there is a large army outside its walls and its in sphere of influence
then again this might make taking down an indie to easy
Different respawn locations at different dates (might be hard) but maybe have the byzantine respawn in Athens later in the game to represent Greek independence, or Germany respawn in Berlin to represent Prussia's rise to power, e.t.c. e.t.c. this of course wouldn't work for many civs but it would be interesting
My main problem with RFCE... Germany
Historically Germany was not a solid unified state for any extended period of time until
Prussia's German unification. for most of history Germany was in reality a collection of independent states, the holy roman empire in itself was a joke in that it only reacted in solidarity for brief periods of time. My solution,
Drastically reduce Germany's stability until the discovery of nationalism, making it nearly impossible for an AI Germany to not succumb to collapse, and then counter that by increasing its respawns, so that u have a German empire popping up every once and a while that becomes a powerhouse for a bit before collapsing itself.
This would create an interesting feature in that, German territories would often be open for short periods of time but the local stability would be extremely high for empire that try to conquer the region.
Alternatively it would be interesting if germany would collapse down into one city every once and a while (if you didnt want it to completely collapse, and at some times rapidly expand through indie Germany (represents HRE under strong rulers/ Prussian unification)
for the human players a UHV could be to not allow Germany to collapse by _____
would be interesting in that you'd really have to work with general instability
Is anyone else who knows the history bothered by a Germany that nearly every game survives from start to finish
Finally maybe some type of royal wedding thing, such as when hapsburgs controlled both Austria and Spain or when (im blanking on the name) had claims to both the English or French throne. this could be represented by maybe a relationship boost when a relative of yours is in power, or if you'd want to go the extreme maybe a country could gain control over an area due to marriage (if a civ collapses other civs with claims to the throne get pieces of the collapsed state)