Several different types of Wars for civ4 (cold war, crusade, etc)

[provoko]

I suggest for civ4 several different types of wars all based on wars in history that we've all wanted to do in civilization, but the system never allowed us. In all the civ's, there’s only been one type of war, domination and only three results from such a war: Either you dominated the entire civ, signed a peace treaty or became dominated. No other options, only different amounts of the same thing. No liberating a civ from a dictator, no reforming a civ's gov't, no crusades, no cold wars, etc. You name it in history, civilization 1 to 3 doesn't have it, all civilization has is 'WAR.'

Each alternate war has it's own advantages/disadvantages and rewards/penalties which I think will add a lot of variety and flavor to the game. The rewards, penalties and bonuses will have to be worked out so that it's worth doing any of them below, throw me some ideas to improve them.

Cold War
-Historical Example: As in the case of Soviet Union and United States. (Keep in mind, there was a victor and loser in this war which you can't do currently in civ3, this idea is meant to make the cold war option a real option in civ)
-A civ may declare cold war after Manhattan project is completed.
War bonuses
-May initiate espionage missions without being brought to war, all failed espionage missions create unhappiness.
-War weariness is reduced by 75%, but grows per nuclear missle built.
Victory Condition
-Must have more military units + techs than opposing civ after 20-40 turns.
Victory Reward
-Victory reward is that you get to change that civ's gov't to yours, better deals when it comes to trading with that civ, and extra happiness.
-Losing penalty is a collapse of gov't where that civ has to spend 10-15 turns in anarchy.
Capturing Cities
-If one civ attacks another, the defending civ may produce nuclear missiles at half cost till peace treaty is signed.

Removal of leader
-Historical Example: As in the case of Germany and Iraq, the removal of Hitler and Hussein respectively.
-In the game you would declare removal of leader from civ instead of war.
War bonuses
-Other Civs will most likely join in the war.
*New -World opinion of you will improve if the civ has attacked anyone.
Victory Condition
-Taking over the capital of the civ.
Victory Reward
-Victory reward is the defending civ can not declare war on you for the rest of the game, *new you may take one resource that civ owns, and better deals when it comes to trading with that civ.
-World opinion increases if the civ has attacked anyone before, opinion decreases if the civ has never attacked anyone.
Capturing Cities
-You capture cities normally, but after a victory or peace treaty is signed all cities go back to the civ and your units return home.


Crusade
-Historical Example: As in the case of European Christians and Muslim land.
-In the game you would declare crusade against a civ instead of war.
War bonuses
*New -May draft civilians as an offensive Military Unit, effects of unhappiness on civilians is doubled.
Victory Condition
-Win by building temples in 30% of the opposing Civ's cities OR build temples + cathedrals in 20% of the opposing Civ's cities.
Victory Reward
-Victory reward is extra culture per turn and you keep the cities captured.
Capturing Cities
-Capture cities normally.

More options in wars:

-Commonwealths. Instead of ridding the planet of a civ, when you capture the very last city of that civ, you get the option to turn that city into a commonwealth. Reward is a new luxury that comes from the commonwealth and you gain the culture the commonwealth produces. The city functions as yours, but the only disadvantage is that you can't tell it what to produce and the further away the city is from your capital, the greater the chance the city will revolt/flip back to the previous civ.

-Liberation. If a civ was completely destroyed you may liberate the remaining people back to the old civilization. *edit As in USSR had a choice when they took Poland from Nazi Germany, either liberate them or take the nation in as their own; in civ4 you should be given the same choice. Rewards may be better trades with that civ, increased popularity with the rest of the civ's on the planet, and a free tech that the liberated civ had.

Well it's basically up to the imagination. I'd just think it would be fun to do some of the things I've read about in history and civilization as a game is the prefect model for such things. Come on, you know you wanna play as the romans and have a cold war with greece. Or be the russians and have a crusade with the indians, haha.

What does everyone think?
Read my reply to what everyone thinks: Click here for post #26.

I'll keep formatting the above as long as everyone keeps providing ideas. =)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I do like the general direction you are coming from. It would be nice to have actual goals in war, aside from capturing as many cities or VP's as possible-though I can't ENTIRELY agree with you that ALL wars in civ only have domination as its goal. Certainly this was true of Civ1 and 2, but the introduction of resources in Civ3 at least made this a goal of war. With semi-quantified resources, which can run out through over-use, then resources may well become an even more vital part of warfare. That said, though, there is room to bring in more viable goals for war, aside from conquest and resources (or, to mask your intent of warring for conquest and resources !)
I think that instead of removing a specific leader, it might work better to have it that, if a civ refuses to change government at your request, then you can declare war under the auspices of a 'regime change'. If you capture the capital and/or 50% of the civs cities, then you will get the chance to choose that nations new government for it (whilst 'liberating' its cities)-or even make it a vassal/protectorate of your own nation (with the government of your choosing). Of course, if the people of that city were happy under the OLD government type, then you could be faced with a massive amount of unrest-and possibly even civil war, especially if they are under YOUR control.
I don't really think you need a seperate Cold War option, but the Cold War style of play DOES need to be made viable-through improved espionage, existance of colonies, protectorates and vassals, as well as the ability to fight wars 'by proxy'-all things which existed in the real Cold War.
A couple of possible options for Holy War (limited only to a sufficiently religious nation) is that you have the ability to declare Holy war if (a) a city which produces more than X Ankhs/turn of religious culture-for your religion-gets conquered/converted by another religion and (b) if any city of yours breaks away from your religion. With (a) it would be easier to recruit allies of the same faith, wheras with (b) it would be mostly an internal affair, but would allow you to do some pretty harsh things (like killing heathens and detroying their religious buildings) without fear of a major rep hit amongst those of your faith.
Last of all, Anyway, as I said before, you're definitely on the right track with these ideas !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

I think the most interesting idea is that you can beat someone in multiple ways, rather than outright conquering them. And if you beat them in these "cheaper" ways, then you get a "cheaper" effect than victory... but still valuable enough to give you an advantage.

Locked alliances are ESPECIALLY neat.

I could see this kind of direction as the foundation of another vision for Civilization 4... although I do disagree with how Cold War worked. If someone had a much bigger army than someone else, then it would have provoked an attack. Part of winning it meant keeping the peace, and as such, the balance of power. But your heart's in the right place.

 

[provoko]

A couple of possible options for Holy War (limited only to a sufficiently religious nation) is that you have the ability to declare Holy war if (a).. (b)..

Sounds good, but your requirements are too complicated and too specific. There shouldn't be any condition for Crusade, crusade whenever you want. Maybe a prior condition for cold war.

I like everything you mentioned about the cold war especially espionage. Obviously right now in civ3 you could have your own cold war, but once your spy is uncovered you go into war war, haha. I don't remember the US declaring war against Soviet Union when they found missiles in Cuba. In civ4 cold war, anything goes, unless you actually attack another nation or move into their boarders and won't go away. How about that?

Cold war:
-May initiate espionage missions without being brought to war, all failed espionage missions create unhappiness.

There should be ONE requirement for cold war, nuclear missiles. So Cold war would be a type of war after the Manhattan project is completed. So:

Cold war:
-A civ may declare cold war after Manhattan project is completed.
-To win you must have more military units + techs than opposing civ after 20-40 turns.
-Victory reward is that you get to change that civ's gov't to yours, better deals when it comes to trading with that civ, and extra happiness.
-Losing penalty is a collapse of gov't where that civ has to spend 3 times longer in anarchy.
-May initiate espionage missions without being brought to war, all failed espionage missions create unhappiness.
-War weariness is reduced by 75%.
-If one civ attacks another, the defending civ may produce nuclear missiles at half cost till peace treaty is signed.

Sounds deadly. =)

This is good, let me hear more ideas from everyone, I'll update my topic soon.

 

[provoko]

I think the most interesting idea is that you can beat someone in multiple ways, rather than outright conquering them. And if you beat them in these "cheaper" ways, then you get a "cheaper" effect than victory... but still valuable enough to give you an advantage.

Definitely. Also it's about the game imitating life. Civilization is a game that tries to imitate our entire history, or actually lets us imitate our history and rewrite the way we want it.

But, you read about WWII overthrowing Hitler, Britain owning Hong Kong, China controlling vassal states, U.S. overthrowing terrorist regimes like Afghanistan... and all we get in civilization is 'I DECLARE WAR,' die or sign a peace treaty. Haha.

Civilization 3 added many ways to win, but war has always been the same, it's either war, or no war. Destroy the entire civilization or live with it. I'd like to overthrow a leader, win a war just by having more military strength than the other civ (cold war), walk into a civ parading my religious ideas, liberate the Aztec or Mayan civilization that was destroyed by those damned Spanish. =)

 

[elementgoo]

I like the way this is going...

 

[dh_epic]

I think that's why your idea is so smart. Because nobody would want these "lesser victories" under most circumstances. Why would you overthrow a leader, or make them a vassal, or liberate them -- when conquering them is the smartest thing you can do?

Your solution is ingenious: you'd settle for less than domination because it's easier to overthrow their leader than conquer them altogether (e.g.: take their capitol). Smaller risk, smaller reward, but still valuable enough that you'd actually want to do it.

(... although truthfully, it's always been easiest to eradicate all human life, let alone easy to conquer. In real life, the hard part is holding the territory and assimilating them. Still, I think for the sake of game play, this is a good embellishment.)

 

[elementgoo]

S
-If one civ attacks another, the defending civ may produce nuclear missiles at half cost till peace treaty is signed.

Haha, thats i great idea for simulating the intenseness of a cold war. Should i invade? If i do i could get nuked?.... thats great

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Definitely need the ability to Liberate cities back to another nation and 'Alliances' based on religion and government-types (something like the Comintern, for instance). Also, the ability to give nations the option to become your vassals, or to offer them protectorate status to fend off a larger power. Also, the ability to topple governments via espionage-especially with minor nations. All of these things will add to a much richer Civ experience-especially as you get into the later ages. DH_Epic is right, though, when he points out that we need a system which adequately rewards these differing attempts to achieve victory.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Albow]

If there was a cold war option, then I'd want to see a 'missle command' type function, where the launch of one nuke is MAD (that is, all nukes then go off) ...

And why is losing the cold war different for the person who declares it to the one it is declared on. If you lose, your govt gets changed to the winners (could be funny if there are two democracies in a cold war) ... seems a bit silly ...

 

[mitsho]

Another option could be making some war useful for other victories. The Commonwealth of Britain or France increased the French respectively British "culture" all over the world (for example language). So, what if you do a 'commonwealth war' (as suggested in post #1), and then turn the conquered civ into a commonwealth state, you would have some benefit in culture (but if a civ secedes again, which would be possible, you'd lose the benefit and you would suffer hard war weariness if you wanted to reconquer them).

just a thought. It doesn't mean that it is good, I see the problem, that we wanted to draw away intention from war, something this idea does not.

mfG mitsho

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

I dont like the remove leader and cold war ideas much, it seems just too easy for a big civ to declare these kinds of war on smaller civs and get lots of benefits without any effort.

I WOULD like to see the crusade type of wars, where nations with one religion get together and declare a holy war on all nations of another religion. The more i think about it the more I like it, religion could be the most common reason to start a war after all, and it has been said that religion will be a factor in civ4.

Could be controversial, though. Especially if Judaism is one of the religions implemented in Civ4, who knows how many lawsuits and so on Firaxis will receive if you can play a German Fascist/Christian civ and lead Christianity in a crusade against the Jews.

 

[sir_schwick]

I would like to be able to think in such strategic terms as colonies, balance of power, and influence. However nice this system sounds, it reeks of treating the symptom rather than the disease. Provoko posted in the first post that '[Civ] was never structured for that.'

Some diseases:

1) Territory is too easily controlled. Domination is the best option because maintaining order in new territory is ridiculously easy compared to real life. This is especially true after the advent of nationalism.

2) Trade is nearly worthless and not a major part of Civ. About the only function of trade in Civ 3 is to get a critical resource, tech, or luxury.

3) Espionage sucks and has no real worth. Also, it is a one-or-nothing deal. The only real foresight required is to collect the unrealistic amount of gold needed.

 

[Che Guava]

I'm not such a fan of the different types of wars idea. I think the ideas presented for different wars are more reasons to go to war than real different wars:

Cold war: No one declares a cold war, it just happens! I think most people that have played civ have experienced a cold war type scenario: two big powers dominate the world, neither declares open war, but they still remain "furious" to each other, don't trade techs and sign embargos against each other. Sounds like a cold war to me....

Removing a leader from power: not a bad idea (nations have been using that as a pretext for war for quite awhile!), but how does that really change the nature of the war? I do agree with parts of idea: I think whenever you manage to capture a nation's capital, there should be an option to institute a new government for the aggressor, as long as the old government doesn't get a chance to 'escape' to another major city. Once you've done that, you can choose the government type, the name of the leader changes (say from Cesar to Nero), and the new government automatically is cordial with you, and easily gives up resources to you for a few turns (much to the dismay of the seething populus). I sitll think they should be able to declare war on you later on if necessary, but will still be reluctant to. In terms of a puppet regime, I think being able to directly contol the actions of another civ is not a bad idea, but should be restricted to 'vassal' or minor civs, as discussed in other forums.

Crusade: I think the introduction of religion (and more specifically, religious differences...) pretty much covers the area of going to war for that. I mean, if diferent religions cause friction between civ's, they're bound to go to war eventually. Maybe if you had a religious 'leader' you could have him declare it a holy war, whip up the people and get some free units (anyone remember the fanatics from CivII?), but otherwise, religion seems to me just a flimsy pretext for conflict, the war on the ground stays pretty much the same

Liberation: There's somethign to be said fo r this idea, although I don't think it calls for a completely different kind of war. Perhaps when you sign a modern M.P.P., you can have a liberation clause added. i.e. if the germans attack the french and the english come to the rescue, any cities formerly belonging to the french automatically revert to back to them once they are captured by English forces.

Commonwealth: I don't much see the point of this one. I mean, if you landed in Canada today, took montreal and then told them they were free to do as they like but were now a commonwealth of the united states, wouldn't they just rejoin Canada? (at least I 'd like to hope so...)

So, in short, I don't think different types of wars would really do much for relgular play in CivIV. Having said that, I WOUDLD love to use these kind of options when building a scenario....

 

[provoko]

Some diseases:

Yea, I totally understand. But I'm not here to balance things out. I'm just presenting new ideas.

You can see the game in many different ways. Play it to win as fast as you can. Once you get chivalry you can beat the game, theres no need to go further, or pick a certain race and you can dominate ancient times. There are so many ridiculously easy options currently theres no point in ever going into future techs.

But thats not the point of the topic. The point is to implement historical wars that aren't in the system.

 

[dh_epic]

But this isn't field of dreams: "if you build if they will come".

Or, in the case of games, "if you implement it they will use it".

When all is said and done, if it makes more sense to just wipe someone out and take their land, people will take that option. If you create multiple choices where one is still the best, you haven't really added anything at all. The choices need to be balanced.

To me, the biggest challenge of this idea would be balancing the options. Making the new mini-victories worth their reward, while still offering an incentive above and beyond outright domination.

 

[sir_schwick]

When all is said and done, if it makes more sense to just wipe someone out and take their land, people will take that option. If you create multiple choices where one is still the best, you haven't really added anything at all. The choices need to be balanced.

A good system would make these things happen rather than be a forced choice. Che Guava was correct when he said that Cold Wars happen. Real nations do what they do because it is what works best according to the rules of real life civlization. Civ players do what works best, dominate everything as early as possible, because it is what works best for the Civ system. So.... the system is what needs to be changed before anything but conquest is the best option every time.

 

[sealman]

I don't really see the need to classify different war types. War is war. The purpose of the war depends on different viewpoints. Case in point - US and Iraq. Did the US go in to remove Saddam or did it go in there to occupy Iraq for "Colonialism reasons" ie: oil. It all depends on you point of view as well as who wins the outcome.

As for a Cold War. Noone declares a cold war, that is just a term to describe the political climate between two oposing parties. In our case the US and USSR. Noone actually wins a cold war since there is no actual war. So why should CIV award victory points or whatever for you having more troops than your opponent??

As for Removal of Leader. We have that with the regicide victory condition enabled.

In regards to liberating. I have discussed this in the liberating thread and at the moment, there is no logical gameplay reason to go to war just to liberate an opponent. It is counter productive to the goal of the game which is to win.

 

[Kosez]

I am sceptical about those different names for wars.
Yes, there should be more different reasons, causes and goals. But if you win you win, there is no need for more rewards and penalties.
But that is just my opinion.

 

[dh_epic]

Well to answer the question of what Civ needs to be like to promote more war options than outright conquering...

... you have to ask yourself -- why didn't Bush napalm the hell out of all of Iraq, kill most of its civilians, occupy it, and declare it the 53rd state? He certainly had the military power to do so.