small weak cities

[sir_schwick]

It existed in SMAC and added a lot of depth to conventional warfare. You were hesitant in SMAC to destroy enemy infrastructure if you thought they might surrender. Once they surrendered they could be productive allies. That example[jkp1187's] is also why surrendering is useful, it means you have to manipulate events in foreign spheres as well.

 

[dh_epic]

I think it's a good idea, albeit in need of a certain amount of balancing and tweaking. It shouldn't always happen.

 

[sir_schwick]

Maybe regionalism should be a major factor. The Swiss have made it a tradition to be paranoid about their autonomy since the 13th century.

 

[dh_epic]

That's a good tradition

Regionalism could be a factor. I could see the South surrendering to Mexico way back when, but not all of the USA at once. This way you don't get those last individual cities poking around since large chunks of the empire surrender at once, but at the same time you don't get an empire doubling in size over a few turns.

 

[douche_bag]

Nazi Germany had to be conquered to the last city. Hitler was a spiteful man, even declaring his people "unworthy" of his leadership and ordering his own army to turn on them and kill them in a sort of national suicide. Fortunately, few of them listened. Still, the Hitler Youth defended Berlin, boys fighting the way they had been taught.

What this shows is that sometimes a civ SHOULD fight to the bitter end, but I agree it was not the norm and should not be the norm in Civ4.


- Sirian

Good point,but maybe this could depend on thier aggression level to wether theyll give up or not.

 

[Ryth]

I like this idea but it would be really hard to figure out when and how. As a civ the cities could have their choice affected by things like nationalism (duh!), size and general happiness (how does the current leadership take care of me?), and individual cities with the number of military units and city happiness. If Civ A is attacking Civ B, and city 52 was recently conquered from Civ C, then they might be more willing to switch loyalties, too. Of course, generic civ traits would be important as well.

What else would need to be considered to make this a implementable option?

 

[dh_epic]

I think modelling morale would be a great way to extend war weariness. Sometimes people are actually passionate about going to war, even in democratic societies. Not to mention that as morale starts to lower, so does the effectiveness of the troops. And as more troops are lost, morale starts to lower.

Getting your nation up into a fury, under a non democratic government like Fascism, and with your nation mobilized for war ... if you were taking heavy losses and your nation just hadn't mobilized for war, you could see entire provinces (5 cities) taken out after even the third city had been captured. But if you had put a lot into morale -- through mobilization, through your government type, maybe even spending money on propaganda through your intelligence agency, you could see them fight until the last city.

Whoa, a lot of ideas in there:
- troop morale
- citizen morale
- provinces
- intelligence with a greater emphasis on domestic effects
- government factors in morale
- mobilization factors in morale