The Stability Lifeline!

[AnotherPacifist]

OK, so Rhye wants stability to be more punishing for the big empire builders.
How about a lifeline: the ability to inject a boost of x stability (depending on how much gold you have to buy it, the larger the empire, the more costly). This could be imagined as a temporary rally due to "patriotism," stringent measures (such as all-out-mobilization during times of war and granting dictatorship), or just plain good luck.

Rome did it (Cannae was a pretty devastating defeat), Russia did it (during the WWII), and these are historically large empires.

Or, if you don't have enough great people to start a GA, sacrifice half of them to get a stability boost. God knows how many times Chinese dynasties on the wane have been granted an extension due to the efforts of good ministers.

 

[kravixon]

I don't like it. It seems too gamey to just spend money to get a boost, and could probably be used really unrealistically. I do, however, like the idea of spending one great person and getting some kind of benefit. It could be just a stability boost or a mini-golden age. Then again, I usually spend great people on other things rather than make them hang around for GAs.

 

[The Number Pi]

I support this idea; after all, who does not like emerging from a world war, victorious, controlling 2 continents from time to time?

How about a "propaganda" construction building? It would act like building gold, research, or culture, except that it would give stability as long as the player continued to build it. Enough to be able to create a large empire (with enough cities working on it), but not so much that 1 good city will give you "very solid" stability for as long as it is producing the stability. This could come with radio or mass media.

 

[Lone Wolf]

In a Europa Universalis III mod there's a "Drastic Measures" decision, which allows you to boost up your stability for a punishment of half your production, research and taxes for some time. While EU's stability is pretty different from RFC one, if something like that would be implemented, I wouldn't mind at all.

 

[fireclaw722]

I'd rather see a spent GP, as they're harder to get, than spending money(like kravixon said previously).

 

[Cosmos1985]

I think a better solution would be to increase the bonus you get from happy faces - and you can also use this in "emergencies" via the culture slider. Imo the happy faces should count more towards stability; lot of examples in real history of emperors etc. keeping the population happy, and thus the empire stable, be it roman gladiators or whatever else example you may prefer.

 

[Higher Game]

I think it's fine for empires to be punished more, but the appeal of empire building is already questionable. Expanding just makes more enemies and it actually hurts research; costs go up based on city number, but this makes great people less powerful.

Stability should be hard, but expansion should be worth it much more than it already is.

 

[Rhye]

would be a good idea, but what would the implementation be? No idea

 

[Baldyr]

I think there are lots of good ideas here, so let me throw in my own two cents:

To me something like this would only be a temporary fix - a drastic measure to artificially boost stability for a limited time. Sort of like a golden age - once it ends and things go back to normal it can be hard to adjust.

Perhaps some measure that "freezes" stability for some turns? You wouldn't be able to tell what your stability really is during this time, so it might come as a shock once things go back to normal.

Maybe some way of temporarily raising just sone stability category? Like if you get an elevated economy rating due to artificially boosted state spending, the hangover will come once things return to normal and there appears to be a huge drop in the total economy! So you get a stability penalty instead.

 

[frog3]

why does rhye hate empire builders?

 

[Leoreth]

I really like the idea to use GP for this, especially Prophets and Artists, because they often become useless in the late game (should I get one by accident, I always use them as GA complementaries).

The Great Artist could get the ability to make a "patriotic work", Great Prophets could "ignite religious fervor" or some of this sort. Both measures would increase stability for a period of time, just like a cheaper golden age.

 

[Baldyr]

Yeah! Special unit actions for Great People is the way to go, I think. I think it could be a generic "Boost Stability" (or whatever) action that is available to several types of GP.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Baldyr, I'm talking about a lifeline, so I don't want to "freeze" good stability, I want to rescue bad stability. So temporary (?10 turns) boost of stability is good.

 

[Arkaeyn]

You guys are talking about trying to get temporary stability boosts at the cost of something in the game which could otherwise be used for building up the empire.

RFC has that! They're Golden Ages. That's how I use 'em.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Yeah, I'm talking about, um, collapsing when you're in golden age.

 

[Arkaeyn]

That takes some doing. Have you read the stability guide in the wiki? ;-)

 

[NerfCothons]

The mechanic you're discussing already exists within golden ages. Perhaps what you're hoping for is a buff to golden ages?

 

[GreySaber]

I know I don't speak up much, but I always thought about modding a stability modifier into the culture slider.

Given that the culture slider (to me) implies government spending on infrastructure, civic projects, humanitarian issues, etc which make people happy and increase the influence of the country, it seems reasonable to assume that such spending would make the citizens happy and supportive. So why not give this an impact on stability?

My thought would be something like a flat increase. Every 10% on the slider would give say 5% (maybe 2 or 3, would need some testing) bonus to overall base stability.

The nice thing about this is that the flat bonus also scales with the overall stability. The closer you are to neutral stability (zero) the smaller the benefit is, the higher or lower the bigger impact it makes. Which gives a collapsing civ a chance to bring it back together, and gives the more stable civs a chance to stay that way (though min/max stability is still capped).

It might be overpowered. Perhaps to keep players from exploiting this to keep large empires too stable (looking in your direction AP ) it might be set instead to only apply if base stability is less then zero.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

It would be overpowered for any large empire with a collapsing stability (a 800g/turn economy will probably boost the stability slider a lot).
The culture slider is not very good for stability, since it only increases happy faces (which is only part of city stability), while it grows your tile control too much, destroying your stability even more.

 

[GreySaber]

Good points. My thought of balance with the large collapsing empire pumping the slider was that they would take a pretty heavy research penalty (on top of the #/cities), since the size of the economy wouldn't affect it, it would be a straight calculation from the % of the slider. But I guess if you control, say Europe, your main rivals are pretty well taken care of and the tech penalty would easily be worth it.

I hadn't thought about the increased tile control though. That would be another problem.

Seems there is no quick solution for this. Perhaps just override the collapse check during a GA? Quick and messy fix for now. Or do what I did and double the temp stability bonus for a GA to save my poor Egyptian empire for a few more turns.