Will of the People

[sir_schwick]

I know many people will consider me a sadist or just plain psycho for suggesting this. Its obvious that from a logical, reasonable standpoint that genocide and repressive purges are just plain stupid. Often though, such actions were taken to appease mob mentality and in general bad public opinion. I would be hard pressed to find someone who would say that humans in large groups usually do not think as rationally as individuals, often being more easily manipulated by emotion. Here is a model that would cause such events and the penalty for trying to stop some of them.

In every political and economic system you have someone who will demand things of you. Of course, since Civ assumes you are the state, you have control over whether you follow those demands. However, you cannot control whether or not they are happy about your actions. The idea is that whoever makes demands of you will make the people unhappy if you do not aquiesce to their request. Differences in government determine how quickly they get angry and the type and frequency of requests. Representative societies like to have a good degree of control of the state, while Authoritative societies usually accept the judgement of the state as more sound.

What kind of things would they request? Naturally they would protest wars that were not profitable for your civ, or kill a lot of the native sons. They might even want to declare war on cultures they have learned to hate. They could demand a tax break, or better facilities, or a larger military. Those are all normal kinds of requests that societies would demand of their patron state. Now all of us can agree that blaming minorities for everyday problems is something most societies have been guilty of. If your poeple aren't happy, your people may demand you take action against these scapegoats. Genocide would never be something out of your control, but refusing to do so and not improving whatever is wrong, could also lead to massive unhappiness and eventually civil disorder. Sounds wrong, but it was a force in history. It could even be used as an excuse in modern times to invade another country, either one that has lots of your nationals, or one that is in general participating in genocide.

Other demands and forces would eventually exists, but htis is just a base model.

 

[Yuri2356]

An interesting concept.

One idea could be that when there are citicens of different nationality in a city, and they (your people) are geared towards hating that nation, they might demand executions/commit hate crimes against these people.

 

[sir_schwick]

I was thinking along the lines of a Rwanda type massacre, entire ehtnic groups hunting the minority ethnic group down. HOrrible tradgedy, but civ completely ignores this kind of irrationale and sometime history changing(WWII) human force. Yeah, in game terms, you declare genocide against a certain ethnicity/nationality, and they start dying in your cities. If population migration is introduced, it might even lead to refugees. Of course the nations whose former ppl your killing will nto be pleased. It also coudl be demanded in representative governments, remember Kristalnacht.

BTW - I am glad someone responded to this thread.

 

[dh_epic]

I'd like to see your people not only act like a force of nature that you learn to compromise with and manipulate (like a driver manipulating and compromising the laws of physics) ... but I'd like to see it possible for your people to be divided against each other. You can either be a uniter and try to keep your people together, or you can crush the opposition and fuel your supporters to do your dirty work for you.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I agree with Sir_Shwick and DH_Epic on this one (no suprise there)! I don't want my citizens to be mindless automatons who go along with everything I say!! I want them to make demands and resist my attempts to change their society if they don't like it!
For instance, if pollution in a city is high, and I plonk yet ANOTHER power station there, then I want the people of that city to say 'NO, put that smoke stack somewhere ELSE!' If you ignore them, then they will get VERY unhappy, and might even emigrate to a different city or country. If you continuously ignore that city, then it might just try and break away from you at a later date!!
In addition, though you can manipulate people to accept your will, I think such manipulations should have a chance of backfiring on you. For instance, to use Sir_Schwicks example. You might want to make it easier to wage wars of aggression-so you bump up your 'Nationalism' levels to 'Xenophobic'. This reduces your overall war weariness but, if you have foreigners in your cities, then those cities will see an explosion of unhappiness and crime! In time, these foreigners may start to disappear as they are either killed or flee from your own people!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Oh and, btw, I don't think there is anything sadistic in wanting this kind of thing!! I think its all about wanting even greater 'immersiveness' in your civ games! I would very much like to see your civ character and demography effecting the governments you form, the diplomatic agreements you forge, the buildings you create and the techs you pursue!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

 

[sir_schwick]

Xenophobism could be used to create wars demanded by the people. Think in terms of offensive Crusades. Your people would demand you to start a crusade. Crusades would actualy make your people happier as they succedded. Heavy losses would quickly reduce zeal until your people abandoned the idea. there would be some kind of limit on how long the zeal lasted, probably around 50-60 turns.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well I would definitely see a combination of High Nationalism and Low Secularism (high religiosity) contributing to a much more bloodthirsty population-happy to go to war with the infidel, if they are of a different religion and/or culture group!
Of course, I also agree that this bloodthirstiness could be fairly quickly tempered by too many successive losses-especially if these were on foreign soil! Defending the homeland, though, could see your peoples zeal last a GREAT deal longer!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.