Since some concept has already been implemented, they should introduce civil war

[Veteranewbie]

If anyone have played the Rise of Rome Scernario, you'll realize that there are some existing civ that you cannot have diplomacy with and you're constantly at war (like a barbarian), though when you destroyed them they've been referred to as a civ that you've destroyed. Furthermore, in some other scernario (which I don't recall which one exactly) we're able to have different civs having the same civ flags with different colours.
In summary, this means that we can have a city that break off and become one of those non-diplomactic civ which is automatically in war with everyone (perhaps except the foreign civ), and their banner can be the existing civ that they broke away from with a different colour.
A foreign civ may not be able to invade that broke away city unless declaring war on the civ as a whole i.e. including the original (your) civ and those broke away civ since you're the only civ that an AI can have diplomacy against
What you guys think?

 

[Tee Kay]

I've been a long-time advocate of civil wars in Civilization. Now this is what I think of your idea:

 

[jimbob27]

I thought the civil wars were a great feature in civ2. I wish they were still there.

 

[Soneji]

Yeah, especially when you capture a capital and their whole empire splits in two! So very handy...

 

[Veteranewbie]

Yeah, capturing their city makes a civ splits~~~
I wish they put civil war in for the next expansion pack
And consider doing some modern age scernario as well i.e. 1600~2000+

 

[cuchulain]

Civil war needs to be in. I know some people are indifferent, but I've never heard anyone who didnt want them.
They would have to make it so more then 1 city breaks away (for most maps) but I think its ridiculous there are no civil wars. The middle ages were in short, a series of civil wars. I have a feeling though, if they were to introduce civil wars, it would be a later age thing. (I hope thats not the case, because having to worry about your cities breaking away would make the ancient/middle age era feel more barbaric.)

 

[AriochIV]

I'm not in favor of any "feature" that takes control away from the player. If you lose half your empire on the higher difficulty levels, the game is pretty much over, and you might as well start over. The combination of civil war and culture might be nightmarish.

I only vaguely remember this feature in Civ2, but what I do remember about it was that it was a pain in the ass. But in today's Civ4, I'm not sure how you'd do this. If Greece splits, which leader takes control of the second part? Same sort of problem with late restarts.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well as dh_epic pounted out with regards to rebellions, for a feature to be good it needs to be

Predictable, Preventable, and Provokable

So Civil Wars need to be something you
1. know the risks of
2. Can, with some mechanism, stop
3. can encourage in other players

Civ2 civil wars were pretty lousy in this regard... Capturing the capital was it.

The key part is giving the player a New thing to control, rather than taling control away.

 

[Veteranewbie]

I'm not in favor of any "feature" that takes control away from the player. If you lose half your empire on the higher difficulty levels, the game is pretty much over, and you might as well start over. The combination of civil war and culture might be nightmarish.

I only vaguely remember this feature in Civ2, but what I do remember about it was that it was a pain in the ass. But in today's Civ4, I'm not sure how you'd do this. If Greece splits, which leader takes control of the second part? Same sort of problem with late restarts.

I reckon this should be a feature like vassal state which allows you to disable it perhaps
A split civ will become a 'barbarian-like' civ which retains everything it has inherited before the split, retains the civ flag (with different colour), have no diplomatic choice (so you can't trade or make peace with it) and automatically at war with the civ that it splits from (and any other 'splited' city from the same civ)
The condition for civil war may vary on difficulty level. Basically something which I can think about include:
1. Lost capital (hence may increase strategic value to invade capital first)
2. Unhappiness
3. Cultural pressure
4. Religion
etc.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

If Greece splits, which leader takes control of the second part?

Good point. I did like it civ 2 (and ctp). But this wouldnt be possible unless every civ had at least 2 leaders. And then what happens when you burn through both leaders?

 

[The Lardossen]

If you keep to your own cities, and keep other culture out, you should never encounter civil wars. Civil wars are things that can erupt while you conquer AI lands and leave to fight elsewhere. This will force you to occupy your newly conquered lands until your culture has taken over for good.

 

[El Koeno]

Well as dh_epic pounted out with regards to rebellions, for a feature to be good it needs to be

Predictable, Preventable, and Provokable

So Civil Wars need to be something you
1. know the risks of
2. Can, with some mechanism, stop
3. can encourage in other players

Civ2 civil wars were pretty lousy in this regard... Capturing the capital was it.

The key part is giving the player a New thing to control, rather than taling control away.

Those are excenllent points. I think civil wars should be in, but only if they're done properly.

 

[dh_epic]

Thanks Krikkitone, for bigging me up

Civil War is definitely a feature I'd love to see. But if you throw it in just for realism's sake, you can end up in all kinds of bad places. That's where all the words of caution come in.

Bad place #1 is where civil war is an automatic and sudden defeat. At least if you lose cities one by one, you have some control. If you can lose half your territory in 2 or 3 political maneuvers, civil war will suck.

Bad place #2 is where civil war becomes this check on reckless playing that it never happens to smart players. If it's caused by unhappiness, the player learns to freeze growth. If it's caused by a lack of troops, the player learns to keep huge stacks of troops. If it really ends up being "freeze growth, increase troops", you might as well just jack up the maintainance costs.

Bad place #3 is where civil war punishes civs who fall behind, leading to huge snowball effects for winning civs. If an empire has the tools to provoke civil war in all their enemies, it's game over.

Bad place #4 is the opposite of #3 -- where civil war punishes civs who are ahead. You end up in dangerous territory if your reward for becoming a big empire is that it falls apart. To me, this requires a fundamental rethinking of the victory conditions.

If I were to add to the three Ps -- preventable, predictable, provokable -- I would also say that you need to be able to RECOVER from civil war, and you need to have a good REWARD to do things that RISK civil war. Maybe there are 3 R's as well

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Actually I think #4 is not such a bad place.... but it would definitely require some rethinking of the Victory Conditions. (it would essentially make Domionation type victories much Harder)

 

[Veteranewbie]

Actually I think #4 is not such a bad place.... but it would definitely require some rethinking of the Victory Conditions. (it would essentially make Domionation type victories much Harder)

Possibly reducing domiation requirement from 60% to 50% of land+pop?

 

[dh_epic]

I don't think #4 is such a bad place either. If you take a look at real life, no empire ever controlled much more than 25-30% of the world's population and territory. The idea of conquering even half the world is pretty ludicrous, let alone all of it.

But the idea of holding enough of the world that you make a permanant mark of history, and you're remembered as one of the greatest of all time? That's exactly what we've experienced in real life.

 

[Commander Bello]

I would see some potential for civil wars - IF some game mechanics would be changed.

First of all, the three P's should be observed - at least to a certain degree.

The preventability might come at a certain cost, thus making it harder and harder to maintain an over-huge empire (which, as far as I see it, would give a more realistic feeling).

Another idea to cause civil wars could be to estimate your doing in relation to the past. Let's say, there would be a certain chance for your empire to split or lose cities if you were a losing a considerable portion of size related to your state 50 turns before (the game mechanics wouldn't be that much different from the ones used for vassal states, as far as I see it).

It could happen that one city breaks away, if it was yet unharmed by war, but your nation already lost 50% of their military (once gain, compared to a certain state x turns before).
On the other hand, this city could be more prone to cultural pressure from your remaining empire, so you would have a chance to get it back easily.

Of course, civil wars tend to start a certain automatic. But, this is realistic, since civil wars always weakened a nation
On the other hand, it won't harm the human player that much, since most players would quit anyway, if they would have lost half of their empire, wouldn't they? If this happens, you will have lost anyway - at least in 95% of all cases.
To prevent this from happening in the early beginning, it could be based on certain civics or technologies known and / or adopted in your country.

At the bottom line: correctly set up, this would be an interesting feature to give some spice particularly to the late game.

 

[Veteranewbie]

I would see some potential for civil wars - IF some game mechanics would be changed.

First of all, the three P's should be observed - at least to a certain degree.

The preventability might come at a certain cost, thus making it harder and harder to maintain an over-huge empire (which, as far as I see it, would give a more realistic feeling).

Another idea to cause civil wars could be to estimate your doing in relation to the past. Let's say, there would be a certain chance for your empire to split or lose cities if you were a losing a considerable portion of size related to your state 50 turns before (the game mechanics wouldn't be that much different from the ones used for vassal states, as far as I see it).

It could happen that one city breaks away, if it was yet unharmed by war, but your nation already lost 50% of their military (once gain, compared to a certain state x turns before).
On the other hand, this city could be more prone to cultural pressure from your remaining empire, so you would have a chance to get it back easily.

Of course, civil wars tend to start a certain automatic. But, this is realistic, since civil wars always weakened a nation
On the other hand, it won't harm the human player that much, since most players would quit anyway, if they would have lost half of their empire, wouldn't they? If this happens, you will have lost anyway - at least in 95% of all cases.
To prevent this from happening in the early beginning, it could be based on certain civics or technologies known and / or adopted in your country.

At the bottom line: correctly set up, this would be an interesting feature to give some spice particularly to the late game.

Agreed, especially late gameplay of Civ 4 is unbearably boring and repetitive, make me always just want to quit and start a new game straight away, yet unwilling to give up a long time work

 

[dh_epic]

As I've thought more and more about it, the 3Ps' are important, but giving the player a REASON to risk civil war is even more important. If the player knows that beyond X size and X unhappiness they'll have X chance of falling into civil war, they'll just learn to calculate those values. They'll figure out what that optimal size is.

You need to dangle a carrot in front of their nose, to make them say "I'm going to risk civil war, because the benefits of expansion have a big payoff".

I think that's where a revamped set of victory conditions come in.

 

[NKVD]

civil wars was the best part of Civ 2. i was greatly sad to see it disappear in civ 3 and 4. aiming the capital was the main plan so the empire splits. now capturing the capital doesnt give much since another pops out instantly. there should at least be anarchy

Guerrilla too was really realistic...i miss them...