Stability question

[CIV-fanatic]

So here's the thing: I'm playing Romans on Monarch difficulty. The year is 1880, I'm in control of most of the continental Europe (excluding France, Portugal and Scandinavia), Asia Minor and couple of cities in Northern Africa - around 15 cities in total. I have the highest score, highest GDP, food and goods production, second largest army, one vassal, almost all of the resources and all of the "top 5 cities". As well as two defensive pacts (with other two most powerful nations) and open borders with almost every other nation. I chose Democracy, Emancipation, Free Market, Pacifism and Commonwealth.

However just before my empire collapsed the stability points were:
expansion: one star (even though I had conquered whole Turkey some 15 turns before collapse);
economy: five stars (over +100 points);
foreign: one star;
civics: two stars;

So why did my empire collapse? What did I do wrong? Why did I have so low stability when all the other parameters showed I was doing great? Especially why did I get only two stars for civics? Aren't this civics (apart from Pacifism) in perfect synergy?

edit: Oh yeah I haven't accomplished any of the UHVs, maybe it has to do something with it?

 

[FromasterG]

Part of the problem sounds like you are too stretched out. Although the expansion category deals with recent military conquests, it also entails how much land you own in which areas. From what it sounds like, you had a very large empire that stretched into areas that Rome didn't control in actual history. This scenario causes your empire to be very unstable.

Also, did you have a courthouse/jail/security bureau in every city? Each of those (maybe not the last one) give stability.

Hope that helps some.

 

[Linkman226]

Possible Reasons/ Suggestions:
1) What FromasterG said. Probably the biggest reason for your collapse is overexpansion.
2) Why Commonwealth, seeing as you have a roaring economy? Viceroyalty might have worked better.
3) There's probably several hundred other reasons. The best way of finding out how to fix this problem and the reasons for your collapse is probably to check out this guide: http://rhye.civfanatics.net/wiki/index.php?title=Rhye's_and_Fall_of_Civilization_guide_to_stability

That should help out a lot.

 

[Arkaeyn]

It's also really quite difficult to take civs out of their eras. Other than China and India, the ancient/classical civs aren't necessarily built to last. It's part of the way the game works, and an extra challenge.

 

[blizzrd]

I chose Democracy, Emancipation, Free Market, Pacifism and Commonwealth.

Especially why did I get only two stars for civics? Aren't this civics (apart from Pacifism) in perfect synergy?

Running Pacifism (or Organised Religion or Theology) attracts a penalty for any of the cities in your empire which have a religion that is not your state religion. If you own most of North Africa and Asia Minor, I'd guess that you have several cities with either Islam or Judaism within your empire.

There is no synergy to be had from Commonwealth and anything else. Commonwealth removes penalties for having no foreign trade routes and such but doesn't actually give you anything positive. You could definitely do better by adopting Viceroyalty.

The stability guide explains it best (as linked elsewhere in this thread), but the biggest civic stability bonuses can actually be gained from adopting militant civic combinations than the passive combinations you have adopted. Overall, I find that it is easier to lose some stability due to civics than it is to get a plus from this category. Just keeping more or less even in civics stability category for me is usually a good result.

 

[CIV-fanatic]

Thanks for the replays and the link! With the help of the guide and your suggestions I think I now know what went wrong. Apparently problem started a couple of dozen turns before the actual collapse but was delayed by a Golden Age. Mine main problem was that I was out of my "historical borders" and didn't posses France and whole Iberian peninsula (which I suppose would give me some bonus points). The final blow was period of Great Depression which as I understood occurred because I had excessive production over commerce.

Still I don't understand one thing? Commerce? I had several agreements and imported almost all of the exotic resources along with the open borders with almost every other nation. The problem was that my import/export points were -71 and I was by far the worse civ in that category! That's why I choose Commonwealth, thinking that I would benefit more from it then Viceroyalty. Any ideas why's that?

 

[blizzrd]

Still I don't understand one thing? Commerce? I had several agreements and imported almost all of the exotic resources along with the open borders with almost every other nation. The problem was that my import/export points were -71 and I was by far the worse civ in that category! That's why I choose Commonwealth, thinking that I would benefit more from it then Viceroyalty. Any ideas why's that?

What do you mean "import/export" points?

 

[Deego3]

Two things.
1. Commerce is your base commerce you generate in every city, including research, but excluding merchants and scientists and buildings that increase gold, such as banks.
2. Your import/export points means how much you are making from your exports to other civs. If it is positive you export more than you import, and if it is negative you import more than you export. However, it has no effect on stability.

 

[jmerry]

Running Pacifism (or Organised Religion or Theology) attracts a penalty for any of the cities in your empire which have a religion that is not your state religion.

Actually, no. The penalty is only for OR or Theocracy, so Pacifism is a good way of getting out of it for empires with multiple religions.

 

[Arkaeyn]

Someone here did a mathematical/programming analysis of the way that Great Depressions work and found the mechanism in RFC deeply unsatisfactory. Kind of justified my unwillingness to use Free Market.


EDIT: link here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=344457. May also include a semi-patch, I just skimmed but noticed a download.

 

[CIV-fanatic]

I wasn't quite sure what "commerce" actually meant!? I presumed that it has to do with import/export since it was the only thing (judging by the demographics page) that was really bad and that could be blamed for Great Depression and eventually downfall. Now, thanks to the link Arkaeyn posted, I see others had the same problem... Thanks for replays...

But my question still stands Why I had such bad import to export ratio when the only way I traded resources was by exchanging them for "equivalent" ones (eg. wheat for corn). I even got some resources for free? Or it has to do with the quantity of resources I didn't traded?

 

[dragodon64]

I think import/export ratio is based on trade routes. I've noticed that my big prosperous empires generally are pretty negative here, but its honestly no big deal in terms of stability. Also, I don't think you mentioned Free Speech, but it would be a pretty good choice here. I also doubt an empire that large (heck, almost any empire) could possibly benefit more from free market than state property.