The Nomad Question

[BuchiTaton]

CIV7 Towns seems to be close to the Villages I have been suggesting for a while that included between others types the Pastoral Villages, these ones are supposed to be potentialized by the Pastorial society specialization (the others being the Agrarian and Maritime) that provide extra warrior pop slots and special units like Horse Archers and Camel Riders, plus the ability to move around these villages (camps in fact) along with their animal resource (horses, camels, cattle, etc.) even use the science queu to create a new breed (new varieties of horses, cattle, etc.)

Since the Pastorial society is supposed to be better for an early militar/expansive gameplay you could better conquer others cities instead of found and grow them by yourselve. Anyway you can still found cities if you want so we can keep the regular mechanics with incentives for a different gameplay. After all "nomad empires" were not just nomadic orders but a mix of these and conquered/tributary sedentary populations that provided a lot of the complementary resources/functions.

 

[stealth_nsk]

But you seem to assume that the question about 'interesting mechanics' Must always start from a City - Improvement model with no deviation. That seems to me to leave out a lot of potential answers to that question without even examining them.

So the historical concept of a civilization built around smaller population centers - camps, Sarais, town-equivalents - and a food source based on herds rather than planted fields should not be examined because it is not City-Improvement based?

If we look historically, nomadic civilizations were quite an exception. Generally only 3 famous cases - the original Indo-European settlements, Huns and Mongols. And 2 of them ended their migration by adopting agriculture and settling. So, if there's a choice which model to use as a base, settled civilization surely have priority.

So, the historical concept of having small settlements is ok, because every civilization started small, and Civ7 towns could be viewed as such. Using animals as food source is ok - either hunted or domesticated. But this has nothing to do with actual nomadic civs (settlements moving around in some form)

This is especially problematic because most of the Pastoral Civs based that way also used Cities, either built by them or acquired/dominated from others, to provide some resources for their people. And the central Asian pastorals were famously a source for mineral Resources which they exploited through what in the game would be defined as 'Improvements' that do not appear to have been tied to 'Cities'.

I think this also fits the concept of small settlements or (in Civ7 terms) towns and have nothing to do with nomads. Or through trade with other civilizations or independent powers living on those territories. But again, I don't see how it has something to do with nomadic civs.

Civ certainly is not anything resembling a historical Simulation - nor should it try to be - but that does not mean writing off an entire set of historical Civs because they don't fit neatly into an arbitrary game model: especially when they could potentially bring some interesting variations in game play to the basic game.

The thing is - game is abstract. You could imagine towns as some camps where your nomadic people stay to gather nearby resources and it's just a question of your fantasy. What is not needed is breaking gameplay to implement some historical features, used by a very limited set of civilizations. And it's hard to imagine any settlement moving mechanics without breaking the game.

 

[RedCourtJester]

If we look historically, nomadic civilizations were quite an exception. Generally only 3 famous cases - the original Indo-European settlements, Huns and Mongols. And 2 of them ended their migration by adopting agriculture and settling. So, if there's a choice which model to use as a base, settled civilization surely have priority.

So, the historical concept of having small settlements is ok, because every civilization started small, and Civ7 towns could be viewed as such. Using animals as food source is ok - either hunted or domesticated. But this has nothing to do with actual nomadic civs (settlements moving around in some form)

I'm having trouble imagining this to be true. I am assuming Indo-European you mean kurgan cultures like Scythia? Is there something definitionally or factually I am missing that excludes cultures like Numidia, Native American tribes like the Lakota? Technically isn't it presumed that a lot of cultures were nomadic before settling, and contrariwise all nomadic cultures ultimately did settle if they weren't destroyed/disappeared like the Huns?

That doesn't change your point of course, I do see what you mean by nomadic "civilization" being quite the exception. But I don't think that discourages civs with a stronger nomadic "heritage" from reflecting that.

And yes, I totally agree that nomadic civs could utilize the settlements mechanic very well. I was kind of hoping for an evolution like that to make its way into civ so that we could start including less "city civilized" cultures like nomadic and pastoral civs in the roster.

 

[stealth_nsk]

And yes, I totally agree that nomadic civs could utilize the settlements mechanic very well. I was kind of hoping for an evolution like that to make its way into civ so that we could start including less "city civilized" cultures like nomadic and pastoral civs in the roster.

In this case I'm just struggle to see what you expect.

Civ 7 has mechanics for towns, which are separate from cities. You could imagine those being the camps. What else do you need to feel the civilization is nomadic?

 

[Krikkit1]

"Random angry gods events . . .tend to favor players" unfortunately works with just about any event. I cannot remember the number of times an AI Civ in Civ VI has lost a City to a Dark Age flip over the years. I never have. These kind of negative events almost always favor the gamer once they have figured out the causes and consequences and how to game them.

Which makes me a little nervous about the Crisis Periods in Civ VII. I strongly suspect that gamers will quickly figure out how to avoid the worst of it and make the best of it, and so will enter each succeeding Age just a little bit better off and stronger overall than the AI opponents. Hopefully, having only 2 such Crisis Periods to manuever through will keep it from becoming a Runaway by the Modern Age, but I will be very (happily) surprised if the Crisis Periods aren't much more of a Crisis for the AI than they are for the human gamer.

The nice thing about that is the intensity of the crisis can be different for each player, so
1. How far “ahead” you are could have a strong effect (barbs hit the biggest, richest civs hardest, plagues spread fastest through well managed interconnected empires, etc.)

2. The difficulty level can specifically alter the AI v human balance…. at Max difficulty level, (and if you are ahead) you should lose at least ~10-20% of your empire if you are playing well….50-70% if you sort of slip up.

 

[RedCourtJester]

In this case I'm just struggle to see what you expect.

Civ 7 has mechanics for towns, which are separate from cities. You could imagine those being the camps. What else do you need to feel the civilization is nomadic?

Oh sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. It was something I had been hoping for in the past, that now seems to have been implemented in some way in VII, and may be expanded upon. I suppose I consider myself satisfied, although obviously we still have much to see about that.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The nice thing about that is the intensity of the crisis can be different for each player, so
1. How far “ahead” you are could have a strong effect (barbs hit the biggest, richest civs hardest, plagues spread fastest through well managed interconnected empires, etc.)

2. The difficulty level can specifically alter the AI v human balance…. at Max difficulty level, (and if you are ahead) you should lose at least ~10-20% of your empire if you are playing well….50-70% if you sort of slip up.

Based on 'actual crisis periods' that have been heavily studied like the Roman Empire 3rd - 6th century CE and the collapse of various Chinese Dynasties like the Han, Tang, and Song, and more 'generic crisis periods' like the Little Ice Age of the 17th century CE, I suspect that the game design team could postulate several different 'Crisis Mechanics":

1. Invasion by coalitions of 'barbarians' and minor States

2. Internal revolt

3. Plague so pervasive that it reduces the population (estimates from the Antonine, Justinian and Cyprian plagues that hit Rome is 15 - 30% total population loss from each plague, and 3 major plagues in less than 250 years may have reduced the Empire's population by 50% overall)

4. Either separate or connected to any of the above, general breakdown of the Overall Authority. This is tricky, because local authority seem to have remained pretty constant, at least from Roman records, with local magistrates and city governments continuing to function even centuries after the central Imperial government had disappeared. This is, however, very convenient for the game, because it allows some cities to keep right on going as cities even after the Civilization as a whole has disappeared, while other cities not so fortunate in their local circumstances suffer from depopulation (not so much from death by violence, but by migration to safer, better-run places) and become Towns.

The first casualty of the breakdown of a central government seems to have been long distance Trade: without a central government to safeguard the trade routes, and with cities devolving and so becoming less lucrative markets, trade over any major distance virtually vanished. They haven't talked about it yet, but bet on your trade routes evaporating during the Crisis Period: if not during, then certainly by the end, with new Trade Routes having to be established at the start of the new Age.

 

[Krikkit1]

Based on 'actual crisis periods' that have been heavily studied like the Roman Empire 3rd - 6th century CE and the collapse of various Chinese Dynasties like the Han, Tang, and Song, and more 'generic crisis periods' like the Little Ice Age of the 17th century CE, I suspect that the game design team could postulate several different 'Crisis Mechanics":

1. Invasion by coalitions of 'barbarians' and minor States

2. Internal revolt

3. Plague so pervasive that it reduces the population (estimates from the Antonine, Justinian and Cyprian plagues that hit Rome is 15 - 30% total population loss from each plague, and 3 major plagues in less than 250 years may have reduced the Empire's population by 50% overall)

4. Either separate or connected to any of the above, general breakdown of the Overall Authority. This is tricky, because local authority seem to have remained pretty constant, at least from Roman records, with local magistrates and city governments continuing to function even centuries after the central Imperial government had disappeared. This is, however, very convenient for the game, because it allows some cities to keep right on going as cities even after the Civilization as a whole has disappeared, while other cities not so fortunate in their local circumstances suffer from depopulation (not so much from death by violence, but by migration to safer, better-run places) and become Towns.

The first casualty of the breakdown of a central government seems to have been long distance Trade: without a central government to safeguard the trade routes, and with cities devolving and so becoming less lucrative markets, trade over any major distance virtually vanished. They haven't talked about it yet, but bet on your trade routes evaporating during the Crisis Period: if not during, then certainly by the end, with new Trade Routes having to be established at the start of the new Age.

Those all make sense, particularly if you can get combos of 1-3.


I would guess trade routes and also any diplomatic agreements get nullified (relationship level probably remains)

1&2 have the advantage of forcing any conquering troops to return home to protect the homeland

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

If we look historically, nomadic civilizations were quite an exception. Generally only 3 famous cases - the original Indo-European settlements, Huns and Mongols. And 2 of them ended their migration by adopting agriculture and settling. So, if there's a choice which model to use as a base, settled civilization surely have priority.

So, the historical concept of having small settlements is ok, because every civilization started small, and Civ7 towns could be viewed as such. Using animals as food source is ok - either hunted or domesticated. But this has nothing to do with actual nomadic civs (settlements moving around in some form)

You have picked up on the wrong term and are using it in a way I never did.

Nomadic, as in moving near constantly, describes every human group at one time or the other: Greeks migrated into Greece, Persians into Persia, Chinese, we now know from DNA studies, migrated in large numbers from central Asia into China. In 4000 BCE, almost none of the Civilizations in the game would start where they settled.

Humankind tried to model this with a nomadic 'Neolithic' Era at the start of game, and as interesting and different as it was, it graphically showed the limitations of the model: very little happened to or within your Civ until you settled down and started researching, planting, and growing in cities. Much as I found the idea interesting, I don't see using the time in game turns in a Civ game when everything that happened in the 'nomadic' phase of a group's existence can be abstracted so the gamer can start playing his Civ and not its nomadic predecessors.

What I am referring to is not nomadic, but pastoral Civs: groups whose economy is based on herding rather than agriculture. These as individual groups may be nomadic (more often they are transhumant, or 'semi-nomadic' moving between very fixed places) but as a Civ they are not: they cover a fixed area which they control as a source of resources and defend as a homeland.

Their settlements do not have to be modeled as moveable. As stated, most of the internal movement was between fixed places: summer and winter ranges and locales, summer and winter Palaces for the kings and government. The same Settlement/Town model used for regular Civs in game can be used for the pastoral Civs, with the following modifications peculiar to the differences between the two:

1. The pastorals take up a much wider range of territory. Think along the lines of the extra radius around Russian cities in Civ VI or the Shoshone in Civ V as an example: they needed more land for the herds throughout the year, and their individuals were generally mounted rather than on foot (the horse was a prerequisite for any pastoral group of any importance) so they could and did control more territory around wherever the yurts and wagons were - and 'yurts and wagons' could describe quite large, city-like concentrations: Batu Sarai, or 'Batu's Camp' on the Volga, the capital of the Golden Horde, was described as almost all tentage and mobile tents on wagons, and it contained at least 20 - 30,000 people at a time when there weren't a dozen cities in all of Europe as large.

2. Pastoral armies come from the general population, who as mounted herders and herd protectors have impressive military skills of horsemanship and mounted archery without needing additional training. That means they can 'build' military Units from each Settlement and field a very fast-moving, very effective Antiquity-early Exploration Age army very quickly without a separate 'military-industrial complex' to equip and support the units..

3. Pastorals in both central Asia and the North American plains acted as traders and 'middle-men' between more settled groups. The Asian 'Silk Road' was largely run and protected by pastoral groups, and the Comanches traded between the Mississippi river area and New Mexican Spanish colonies and north with British, American and other native groups all the way to the Dakotas. In short, their land trade routes were almost as long-ranged as sea trade routes and the pastorals in the middle made a very good thing out of passing goods from one group to the other.

All of which means that by providing that 'pastoral' Settlements have a wider radius than normal Settlements, and can spawn horse-archers and lancers without needing major Production facilities, and the pastorals can have land Trade Routes over longer distances that carry Second Party resources and goods to Third Parties with a 'cut' for the pastorals, and the game can provide a very good model of the pastoral Civs.

And these are some very influential and frequently-requested groups: the Antiquity Age Scythians, Huns, and Xiong-Nu, the Exploration Age Mongols and their successors like the Golden Horde, American groups that could be fitted into either Age like the Lakota, Nez Perce and Comanche.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Those all make sense, particularly if you can get combos of 1-3.


I would guess trade routes and also any diplomatic agreements get nullified (relationship level probably remains)

1&2 have the advantage of forcing any conquering troops to return home to protect the homeland

If they really wanted to mess with the gamer, you could get combinations of All of them: the Roman Empire got hit with major plagues, external threats, internal revolts, and a steady erosion of tax revenue to support the military and government. Something like that, though, presupposes you will end up the way they did: Rome turned into a Town (population dropped from 1,000,000 in 1st - 2nd centuries CE to less than 30,000 in 7th century After the Fall) and most of the old Imperial territory (in the west) under New Management entirely. In game terms, you are playing as the Goths, Franks, Lombards or Vandals whether you want to or not!

 

[AriochIV]

If we look historically, nomadic civilizations were quite an exception. Generally only 3 famous cases - the original Indo-European settlements, Huns and Mongols. And 2 of them ended their migration by adopting agriculture and settling. So, if there's a choice which model to use as a base, settled civilization surely have priority.

History requires writing, which was an invention of the city-dwellers. If you go back before writing, nomadic life was the rule and agriculture was the exception. If you go back even farther, there was no agriculture, and all humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Agriculture goes back around 10,000 years, but human cultures go back more than 200,000 years. City building has been a thing for less than 5% of humanity's past.

Now, there are plenty of reasons why a game like Civilization is based on city-building, but claiming that nomadic life was unusual for humans is just demonstrably false.

 

[stealth_nsk]

History requires writing, which was an invention of the city-dwellers. If you go back before writing, nomadic life was the rule and agriculture was the exception. If you go back even farther, there was no agriculture, and all humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Agriculture goes back around 10,000 years, but human cultures go back more than 200,000 years. City building has been a thing for less than 5% of humanity's past.

Now, there are plenty of reasons why a game like Civilization is based on city-building, but claiming that nomadic life was unusual for humans is just demonstrably false.

Yes, that's good point. But I don't think we could call Neolithic cultures "civilizations"

 

[AriochIV]

Yes, that's good point. But I don't think we could call Neolithic cultures "civilizations"

I would agree, but there are "civilizations" already depicted in the game that are essentially neolithic cultures or were nomadic or otherwise not city-builders. This is where the disconnect comes.

While I think that a nomadic hunter-gatherer pre-history phase would be interesting, I understand that this would be outside the scope of the game. The problem that I run into is when playing a "civilization" like the Scythians that were almost completely nomadic, but I have to play them as regular city builders. Which is a bummer, because this is something that I'm really interested in... I was really excited about the Scythians, but playing them was a letdown (for more reasons that just the lack of nomadic mechanics, but I digress...). It would be nice if they had some special mechanics for the nomadic "civilizations." And it's not just the Eurasian Steppes cultures that could benefit from such a mechanic: you've also got nomadic groups throughout Africa and the Americas that had a significant impact on history.

Now if I had to guess, I don't expect that they'll do it, but I think nomadic mechanics could fit into the Town system they're introducing in Civ7. An obvious problem would be how you Age transition from a nomadic civ to a non-nomadic civ if the former didn't have many cities, or vice-versa.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Now if I had to guess, I don't expect that they'll do it, but I think nomadic mechanics could fit into the Town system they're introducing in Civ7. An obvious problem would be how you Age transition from a nomadic civ to a non-nomadic civ if the former didn't have many cities, or vice-versa.

Agree that we are very unlikely to see any special pastoral Civ representation in Release Civ VII, since there hasn't been the slightest hint of any such thing.

Still think it could be a singular DLC, though.

And transitioning from pastoral to non-pastoral Civ in the Age transition could be part of the uniqueness of the pastoral Civs: you have to plan a little further ahead to have some Sarai or specialized settlement that is eligible to transition from Settlement/Town to City just as other Cities are becoming Towns.

This would be, I think, especially important in the transition from Exploration to Modern Age, since short of some Fantasy inclusion, I just don't see how the pastoral style could be competitive once Industrialization becomes a factor: Sarais and Camps can do a lot of things, but they can't support steel mills or mass the kind of capital required to finance and build railroads. That means even if you played Pastoral in Antiquity (Scythians? Huns?) and Exploration (Mongols? Crimean Tatars?) Ages, you'd have to transition to a'regular' Civ for the Modern Age to stay competitive in the game.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Based on 'actual crisis periods' that have been heavily studied like the Roman Empire 3rd - 6th century CE and the collapse of various Chinese Dynasties like the Han, Tang, and Song, and more 'generic crisis periods' like the Little Ice Age of the 17th century CE, I suspect that the game design team could postulate several different 'Crisis Mechanics":

1. Invasion by coalitions of 'barbarians' and minor States

2. Internal revolt

3. Plague so pervasive that it reduces the population (estimates from the Antonine, Justinian and Cyprian plagues that hit Rome is 15 - 30% total population loss from each plague, and 3 major plagues in less than 250 years may have reduced the Empire's population by 50% overall)

4. Either separate or connected to any of the above, general breakdown of the Overall Authority. This is tricky, because local authority seem to have remained pretty constant, at least from Roman records, with local magistrates and city governments continuing to function even centuries after the central Imperial government had disappeared. This is, however, very convenient for the game, because it allows some cities to keep right on going as cities even after the Civilization as a whole has disappeared, while other cities not so fortunate in their local circumstances suffer from depopulation (not so much from death by violence, but by migration to safer, better-run places) and become Towns.

The first casualty of the breakdown of a central government seems to have been long distance Trade: without a central government to safeguard the trade routes, and with cities devolving and so becoming less lucrative markets, trade over any major distance virtually vanished. They haven't talked about it yet, but bet on your trade routes evaporating during the Crisis Period: if not during, then certainly by the end, with new Trade Routes having to be established at the start of the new Age.

I think plague is just going to be a given. The others seem very likely, too. Also deforestation/unsustainable growth will likely be one, that caused a good number of antiquity civs to wane or disappear.

I also really like your idea of "breakdown of authority." Suggesting that you let your ruling aristocrats get too comfortable and lazy that they stopped properly taking care of the state. That might even just be a facet that is combined into "internal revolt," and I think that would be a fantastic way of representing it.

I think I would roughly peg those four as a good framework that they might build upon, plus a fifth bringing back good old natural disasters (drought, flood, volcano, hurricane) from VI. Wouldn't be surprised if there are more.

* Plague (killed by science -> solution is in tech tree).
* Revolt/breakdown (killed by culture -> solution is in civics tree).
* Overtaken by barbs (killed by militarism -> solution is in tech tree).
* Overdeveloped (killed by economics -> solution is in civics tree).
* Natural disasters (the planet just hates you, better hope you hit enough thresholds in both trees to survive).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

'Deforestation' in all of its manifestations has been much debated in the past few years, and the consensus now is that it falls under Natural Disasters - they have debunked several theories relying on people foolishly cutting down trees as they discover things like the fact that the Maya got hit by a multi-year drought that overwhelmed their water management techniques rather than simple mistakes on the part of them or their leaders.

It does need to be included, though, but as Regional or Global Climactic Variation: the Little Ice Age, the long-term droughts (some caused by volcanic events half a world away) or cold spells that change the growing seasons by disastrous amounts, etc. And even when that alone does not cause Civ-ending Crisis, they add to the problems: volcanic-enduced seversal years of cold weather and crop failure may have so weakened the population from hunger that the Plague of Justinian caused that much higher mortality - hitting a weakened population rather than a healthy one.

And that, of course, could contribute to "breakdown of authority" when the local magistrates are dying off from Plague or quitting their jobs to go scavenge for food, it does not help the Civ deal with the Crisis. In fact, any or all of the factors multiply each other so that a single Crisis should be unlikely: once things start going bad from one cause, other causes will also kick in: population loss due to plague weakens the army recruiting so you cannot fight off the external invaders, lack of trust in the army and government to handle things leads to breakdown of internal order and authority, which makes it harder to distribute the dwindling food supplies, etc.

 

[RedCourtJester]

'Deforestation' in all of its manifestations has been much debated in the past few years, and the consensus now is that it falls under Natural Disasters - they have debunked several theories relying on people foolishly cutting down trees as they discover things like the fact that the Maya got hit by a multi-year drought that overwhelmed their water management techniques rather than simple mistakes on the part of them or their leaders.

It does need to be included, though, but as Regional or Global Climactic Variation: the Little Ice Age, the long-term droughts (some caused by volcanic events half a world away) or cold spells that change the growing seasons by disastrous amounts, etc. And even when that alone does not cause Civ-ending Crisis, they add to the problems: volcanic-enduced seversal years of cold weather and crop failure may have so weakened the population from hunger that the Plague of Justinian caused that much higher mortality - hitting a weakened population rather than a healthy one.

And that, of course, could contribute to "breakdown of authority" when the local magistrates are dying off from Plague or quitting their jobs to go scavenge for food, it does not help the Civ deal with the Crisis. In fact, any or all of the factors multiply each other so that a single Crisis should be unlikely: once things start going bad from one cause, other causes will also kick in: population loss due to plague weakens the army recruiting so you cannot fight off the external invaders, lack of trust in the army and government to handle things leads to breakdown of internal order and authority, which makes it harder to distribute the dwindling food supplies, etc.

Well deforestation is more of a specific example of "overexpansion/overexploitation." It is related to natural disasters in some senses because it often makes the civ very fragile and subject to disruption. But it is also something that is totally within the control of a civ, as opposed to the unpredictability of climate patterns, and I do think resulted in "crises" wholly separate of disasters in some instances. As you noted, however, though, a lot of natural disaster crises in effect were due to unsustainable hubris: Rome could have not settled Pompeii, New Orleans could not have neglected to build better flood barriers, etc. I could see arguments either way of keeping it separate or combining it with natural disasters.

I do like your idea of interactive crises a lot. I'm not sure how it could be implemented mechanically in a way that doesn't result in a lot of samey "hedge all your bets" gameplay, but it does sound like it has a lot of potential worth exploring.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Well deforestation is more of a specific example of "overexpansion/overexploitation." It is related to natural disasters in some senses because it often makes the civ very fragile and subject to disruption. But it is also something that is totally within the control of a civ, as opposed to the unpredictability of climate patterns, and I do think resulted in "crises" wholly separate of disasters in some instances. As you noted, however, though, a lot of natural disaster crises in effect were due to unsustainable hubris: Rome could have not settled Pompeii, New Orleans could not have neglected to build better flood barriers, etc. I could see arguments either way of keeping it separate or combining it with natural disasters.

I do like your idea of interactive crises a lot. I'm not sure how it could be implemented mechanically in a way that doesn't result in a lot of samey "hedge all your bets" gameplay, but it does sound like it has a lot of potential worth exploring.

There were some Generally Prudent practices that could alleviate 'Climate' disaster/crisis consequences.
As an example, with all the world-wide disruption caused by the Little Ice Age of the 17th century, Japan had no crisis at all. That's because, while the generally cooler climate played havoc with growing seasons and harvests everywhere and food shortages caused major unrest (Parker has a long list of monarchs and leaders from Europe to China that were deposed, ran for their lives, or were executed by their own people - dissatisfaction was really serious), the Japanese Shogunate regularly kept several years' supply of rice stockpiled, so they sailed right through the food shortages with no problem.

I suggest the way to make 'cascading crisis' work is to make the alleviating measures mutually exclusive.

So, for example, if the local magistrates are corrupt, the measures taken might include arresting a bunch of them - which makes the rest get nervous and foments internal rebellion.

Use the army to put down internal rebellion, and the frontiers get weak and External invasion threatens.

Increase the size of the army to see off the external threat, and the people revolt from excessive taxation and conscription.

It can be arranged so that everything you do to solve one problem makes another problem worse. That way, no matter how hard the gamer tries, the best they can do is decide which problems will have the worst consequences and which ones have consequences his Civ can better deal with.

And that should depend on the in-game situation when the Crisis Period starts, as well as the factors of the Civ/Leader combination being played.