Unit Defection?

[homeyg]

I know military personnel try to defect sometimes, but I still don't know about entire cities defecting. Maybe they could add sometime of unit defection system and remove the city defection. The option of a city defecting is removed with a totalitarian government, but now you are faced with the chance of unit defection. City defection now applies only to 'free' governments. If a unit is produced in a city where 40% percent or more of the people are unhappy, each turn the unit has a chance of defecting. If it defects, 1 foreign population point is added to the nearest city with the most culture (the Civ the city belongs to must not be in the same type of opressive government as you). The chance of defection (the unit has no chances of defecting if less than 40% of the people are unhappy) could be something like 1:10. Chances increase when more than 40% of the people are unhappy in the city and during war. A unit may not have a chance of defection one turn, but may the next due to its 'home' city becoming 40% or more unhappy. A unit will now have to carry the name of the city it came from just so you can keep track of defection-city happiness. This is not bringing back the home city concept as in CivII. The unit leaving the city has no effect on happiness or production.

Any other thoughts?

 

[Peglegasus]

I've been thinking about something silmilar. The culture flip aspect of the game seems a bit extreme. So I have two ideas. 1) Instead of an entire city flipping cultures, half the population leaves and joins the nearest rival cities (of the culture the city would have flipped to of course). If those cities are at max population, then those citizens become workers for that other civ. A culture flip like this can only occur once in say 20 turns or something. 2) Slave workers... why do they just work along happily even far from any "managers"? I think that if you are at war with the nation a captured worker is from and they are more than a certain distance from one of your military units that they will have a chance to defect back to their home civ. Or they could take up arms against you themselves. Say it becomes a warrior or whatever the base defensive unit the enemy civ can build and they begin pillaging improvements in your territory, going for resources and luxuries first.
I know these revolting units probably wouldn't accomplish much before they were killed off, but it would be interesting.

Peglegasus
civ3 newb

 

[homeyg]

Nobody else has any comments on the idea of unit defection instead of city defection?

I would also like to add that city defection is very extreme and possibly damaging to your economy. But, if a unit defects, it would be way easier to replace it than it would to replace that city.

 

[BassDude726]

I thought up some ideas on unit defection:

First of all, I think it would be useful for defecting units to bring with them something valuable, like a technology or map. This precedent has been set in the real world, too. During the Cold War, Russian aviators defecting to the west would land their MiGs in Japan, and give the West valuable technological intelligence. Also, I think the "propaganda" espionage mission should have some effect on defecting units in the area.
On the same idea, if an entire technology seems a bit much for a defector, if your civilization doesn't have the capability of building whatever particular unit defects to your side (and vice versa), then from that point on you'll be able to build it (since you've got one, how hard could it be to copy it?). I don't know if i'd want that to include UUs though.
I also think an interestic trait of defectors might be the possibility of them being spies. If a unit asked to defect, you could have an option of either accepting them (and the risk of having an enemy agent operating in your civ), or turn them away, or even execute them if you're at war with their civ.
That's all i have right now

 

[Mgoering]

First of all, I don't know if you saw it, but as more time is running and bigger the city is, the less chances there are for it to deflect or make it deflect. So, I think this concept should stay.

Unit defection is a good idea. More than just that, you should be able, like in Civ2, to corrupt a unit in order for it to join. Just like you can pay for propaganda to make a city deflect, you should be able to do the same with units and also workers.